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abominably but worst was the itching of the healing injury on her forehead. Why must it always itch the worst when she could not spare a hand to scratch?
She manoeuvred the tiny rowing boat among the immense trunks and spidering roots of the trees that banked the Rain Wild River. Here, beneath the canopy of rainforest, the night sky and its stars were a myth rarely glimpsed; yet a fitful twinkling drew her on through the trunks and branches. The lights of the tree-borne city of Trehaug guided her to warmth, safety, and most of all, rest. Shadows were still thick all around her, yet the calls of birds in the high treetops told her that in the east, dawn was lightening the sky. Sunlight would not pierce the thick canopy until later, and when it came, it would be as shafts of light amidst a watery green mockery of sunshine. Where the river sliced a path through the thick trees, day would glitter silver on the milky water of the wide channel.
The nose of the rowing boat snagged suddenly on top of a hidden root. Again. Malta bit her tongue to keep from screaming her frustration. Making her way through the forested shallows was like threading the craft through a sunken maze. Time and time again, drifts of debris or concealed roots had turned her aside from her intended path. The fading lights ahead seemed little closer than when they had set out. Malta shifted her weight and leaned over the side to probe the offending obstacle with her plank. With a grunt, she pushed the boat free. She dipped her paddle again and the boat moved around the hidden barrier.
‘Why don’t you paddle us over there, where the trees are thinner?’ demanded the Satrap. The erstwhile ruler of all Jamaillia sat in the stern, his knees drawn nearly to his chin, while his Companion Kekki huddled fearfully in the bow. Malta didn’t turn her head. She spoke in a cold voice. ‘When you’re willing to pick up a plank and help with the paddling or steering, you can have a say in where we go. Until then, shut up.’ She was sick of the boy-Satrap’s imperious posturing and total uselessness for any practical task.
‘Any fool can see that there are fewer obstacles there. We could go much faster.’
‘Oh, much faster,’ Malta agreed sarcastically. ‘ Especially if the current catches us and sweeps us out into the main part of the river.’
The Satrap took an exasperated breath. ‘As we are upriver of the city, it seems to me that the current is with us. We could take advantage of it and let it carry us where I want to go, and arrive much more swiftly.’
‘We could also lose control of the boat completely, and shoot right past the city.’
‘Is it much farther?’ Kekki whined pathetically.
‘You can see as well as I can, ’ Malta retorted. A drop of the river water fell on her knee as she shifted the paddle to the other side. It tickled, then itched and stung. She took a moment to dab at it with the ragged hem of her robe. The fabric left grit in its wake. It was filthy from her long struggle through the halls and corridors of the buried Elderling city the previous night. So much had happened since then, it seemed more like a thousand nights. When she tried to recall it, the events jumbled in her mind. She had gone into the tunnels to confront the dragon, to make her leave Reyn in peace. But there had been the earthquake, and then when she had found the dragon… The threads of her recall snarled hopelessly at that point. The cocooned dragon had opened Malta’s mind to all the memories stored in that chamber of the city. She had been inundated in the lives of those who had dwelt there, drowned in their recollections. From that point until the time when she had led the Satrap and his Companion out of the buried labyrinth, all was misty and dreamlike. Only now was she piecing together that the Rain Wild Traders had hid the Satrap and Kekki away for their own protection.
Or had they? Her gaze flicked briefly to Kekki cowering in the bow. Had they been protected guests, or hostages? Perhaps a little of both. She found that her own sympathies were entirely with the Rain Wilders. The sooner she returned Satrap Cosgo and Kekki to their custody, the better. They were valuable commodities, to be employed against the Jamaillian nobles, the New Traders and the Chalcedeans. When she had first met the Satrap at the ball, she had been briefly dazzled by the illusion of his power. Now she knew his elegant garb and aristocratic manners were only a veneer over a useless, venal boy. The sooner she was rid of him, the better.
She focused her eyes on the lights ahead. When she had led the Satrap and his companion out of the buried Elderling city, they had found themselves far from where Malta had originally entered the underground ruins. A large stretch of quagmire and marshy river shallows separated them from the city. Malta had waited for dark and the guiding lights of the city before they set out in their ancient salvaged boat. Now dawn threatened and she still poled towards the beckoning lanterns of Trehaug. She fervently hoped that her ill-conceived adventure was close to an end.
The city of Trehaug was located amongst the branches of the huge-boled trees. Smaller chambers dangled and swung in the uppermost branches, while the grander family halls spanned trunk to trunk. Great staircases wound up the trunks, and their landings provided space for merchants, minstrels and beggars. The earth beneath the city was doubly cursed with marshiness and the instability of this quake-prone region. The few completely dry pieces of land were mostly small islands around the bases of trees.
Steering her little boat amongst the towering trees towards the city was like manoeuvring around the immense columns in a forgotten god’s temple. The boat again fetched up against something and lodged. Water lapped against it. It did not feel like a root. ‘What are we snagged against?’ Malta asked, peering forwards.
Kekki did not even turn to look, but remained hunched over her folded knees. She seemed afraid to put her feet on the boat’s floorboards. Malta sighed. She was beginning to think something was wrong with the Companion’s mind. Either the experiences of the past day had turned her senses, or, Malta reflected wryly, she had always been stupid and it took only adversity to manifest it. Malta set her plank down and, crouching low, moved forwards in the boat. The rocking this created caused both the Satrap and Kekki to cry out in alarm. She ignored them. At close range, she was able to see that the boat had nosed into a dense mat of twigs, branches and other river debris, but in the gloom, it was hard to see the extent of it. She supposed some trick of the current had carried it here and packed it into this floating morass. It was too thick to force the small boat through it. ‘We’ll have to go around it,’ she announced to the others. She bit her lip. That meant venturing closer to the main flow of the river. Well, as the Satrap had said, any current they encountered would carry them downriver to Trehaug, not away from it. It might even make her thankless task easier. She pushed aside her fears. Awkwardly she turned their rowing boat away from the raft of debris and towards the main channel.
‘This is intolerable!’ Satrap Cosgo suddenly exclaimed. ‘I am dirty, bitten by insects, hungry and thirsty. And it is all the fault of these miserable Rain Wild settlers. They pretended that they brought me here to protect me. But since they have had me in their power, I have suffered nothing but abuse. They have affronted my dignity, compromised my health, and endangered my very life. No doubt, they intend to break me, but I shall not give way to their mistreatment of me. The full weight of my wrath will descend upon these Rain Wild Traders. Who, it occurs to me, have settled here with no official recognition of their status at all! They have no legal claims to the treasures they have been digging up and selling. They are no better than the pirates that infest the Inside Passage and should be dealt with accordingly.’
Malta found breath to snort derisively. ‘You are scarcely in a position to bark at anyone. In reality, you are relying on their good will far more than they are relying on yours. How easy it would be for them to sell you off to the highest bidder, regardless of whether the buyer would assassinate you, hold you hostage, or restore you to your throne! As for their claim to these lands, that came directly from the hand of Satrap Esclepius, your ancestor. The original charter for the Bingtown Traders specified only how many leffers of land each settler could claim, not where. The Rain Wild Traders staked their claims here; the Bingtown Traders took theirs by Bingtown Bay. Their claims are both ancient and honourable, and well documented under Jamaillian law. Unlike those of the New Traders you have foisted off on us.’
For a moment, shocked silence greeted her words. Then the Satrap forced a brittle laugh. ‘How amusing to hear you defend them! Such a benighted little bumpkin you are. Look