here for gold, Rabbit,’ Ox said sourly, ‘not for fun.’
‘Gold and fun don’t always go in different directions, Ox,’ Rabbit said with a grin.
‘Just go on back to the Cap’n’s cabin, Rabbit,’ Ox said a bit wearily. ‘If you want to have fun, do it on your own time.’
The cabin at the stern of the Seagull was a bit crowded, but they all managed to squeeze themselves in.
Zelana’s grey-bearded big brother looked around. ‘I guess that’s everybody,’ he said. ‘Captain Hook-Beak wants to know a few things about the people of my Domain, and I thought that maybe it’d save time in the long run if you were all here. I’ll give you a sort of general idea about my people and the layout of the country up there, and then I’ll answer any questions you might have.’ He paused, looking around at them. ‘When we get to the north of Zelana’s Domain, we’ll go ashore in the Tonthakan Nation. There are three significantly different cultures in my Domain – the Tonthakans, who are very much like the people of sister Zelana’s Domain, the Matans, who dwell on the grassy plain in the center, and the Atazakans. The Tonthakans are primarily hunters, the northern Matans have vast grain fields, and the Atazakans are totally worthless.’
‘Are we likely to hit bad weather?’ Sorgan asked.
‘Not immediately,’ Dahlaine replied. ‘There’s a warm current that comes up the west coast in the autumn that sort of holds winter back. When winter finally does arrive, it’s fairly brutal. We get snow-storms that last for weeks. Fortunately, the whirlwind season is almost over for this year.’
‘We come across those out at sea sometimes,’ Torl said. ‘We call them “water-spouts”. We use some other terms as well, but I don’t think we should repeat those words in the presence of Lady Zelana.’
‘I appreciate that, Torl,’ Zelana said.
‘Are there mountains of any kind standing between your part of the Land of Dhrall and the Wasteland?’ Sorgan asked.
Dahlaine nodded. ‘If the creatures of the Wasteland come north, I don’t think they’ll enjoy it very much. The mountains of Zelana’s Domain and Veltan’s are gently rolling hills by comparison, and with winter coming, things are likely to get very unpleasant in those mountains without much in the way of a warning of any kind.’
The wind held steady for the next several days, and Sorgan’s fleet moved briskly on up the west coast of the Land of Dhrall. It was about mid-morning of an autumn day when Rabbit was busy forging more bronze arrowheads for the natives of the Tonthakan region of Dahlaine’s territory when Longbow joined him. ‘How’s your supply of bronze holding out?’ he asked.
‘I’ve still got enough to keep me going for another week or so,’ Rabbit replied. ‘The smiths on board the other ships are supposed to be working, too, but I couldn’t swear to it that they are.’
‘There’s something I’ve been meaning to ask you,’ Longbow said. ‘I’ve heard about what you did to that Regulator called Konag. When did you decide to take up archery? I thought your job was to make arrows, not to shoot them.’
‘It just sort of popped into my head one day,’ Rabbit replied. ‘I’d been spending days and weeks making arrows, and then one day I realized that I’d never pulled a bow even once in my whole life. The more I thought about it, the more I wanted to give it a try.’
‘I was busy someplace else when you killed Regulator Konag, but from what I’ve heard, you did a very good job.’
‘All I really did was follow your instructions, Longbow. It seemed like every time I turned around, you were talking about “unification”. After I’d trimmed and shaped my bow and got the bow-string in place, I took a few arrows and went out into the woods to make sure that my bow – or the bow-string – wouldn’t break the first time I tried to shoot an arrow. There was a patch of moss on a tree a ways away from where I was standing, and I looked at it for a while, and then I shot an arrow at it. Somehow I knew
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