The Embankment is the jumping-off point and home base for all trade along the navigable waterways, some of which reach a thousand miles beyond Karenta's borders, a thousand miles into the heart of the continent. The south-side waterfront is the jumping-off point for what seems to me far more exotic destinations along the ocean coasts and overseas.
"What is that smell?" Singe asked.
"The sweet aroma of uncured animal hides." I was able to answer that one because of my intermittent association with the family Tate. "You won't believe this but there are men crazy enough to hunt thunder lizards and mammoths and saber-tithed toogers in the plains and mountains and forests back in places so far away they don't even have dwarves or elves there yet. Flatboats bring hides and teeth and horns and bones and ivory and fur and, sometimes, even meat down to TunFaire. And sometimes gold or silver or gemstones, or lumber or untaxed whiskey. It all gets unloaded right here on the Embankment." Where several of the bigger warehouses belong to the Contague family and store none of the mentioned goods except whiskey.
A broad range of herbs and spices grows wild in the interior, too.
But hunting is the thing.
A bold enough hunter, responding to the appropriate commercial demand, can set himself up for life by making a handful of the right kills. I expect a lot of bold veterans will toss the dice out there before long. And have enough success that the market for animal by-products will get shaky.
Perhaps the Crown ought to encourage homesteading. That would bleed off a lot of extra people.
Generally speaking, the quickest way to get dwarves to give up their silver and gold is to take it away, over their dead bodies. But if you can bring them the head of the right kind of thunder lizard—which they won't hunt themselves, no matter what—they'll throw gold dust at you like the bags are filled with sand. But that head has to come off an adult specimen of one of the major carnivores. Or off a three-horn or the rarer five-horn, because an infusion of powdered horn will scare impotence into the next continent.
I've never heard why dwarves covet the teeth of the great meat eaters, but who better than a lady dwarf to know, intimately, the meaning of rock hard?
Singe told me, "We must pass through this place that smells of old death."
"Huh?'
"The area where they make leather from those uncured animal hides."
"The tannery district." There were places which processed tallow and bone, too, though little of that would be imported. None of those places lacked their enthusiastic odors. "Why?"
"Someone is using ratman trackers to follow us. There can be no other explanation for their success. Yet few of my people have the courage to visit the fastnesses of death. Even if they forget that not many generations have passed since our own kind were killed and flayed to provide fashionable trousers for young dandies, the stench will overwhelm anything as subtle as traces left by you and me. Without leaving it obvious that we were trying to distort our backtrail."
"Ah, my friend, you continue to amaze me."
"A year from now you will be working for me."
There was a thought to rattle me.
Singe jumped up and down and clapped her paws. "I did it! I did it! You should see the look on your face."
"I believe I've created a monster."
Ratpeople aren't built to laugh but Singe sure did try. And she kept her mind on business while she was having fun. She led the way along a path a ratman tracker ought not to find suspicious, yet one that would overload any tracker's nose.
Singe was too naive to understand that anything not going his way would be suspicious to Director Relway.
I may have remained a little naive myself.
Not till after we had begun taking advantage of the district's natural odiferous cover did it occur to me that having Relway's fanatics on my backtrail might be a lesser evil.
78
Singe and I were on a holiday stroll, giddy because we had shaken free. Singe more so than I because she had a better appreciation of what she had accomplished—and of its cost. Her own olfactory abilities had been dampened hugely.
A sudden whir. The pixie Shakespear materialized above my right shoulder. He told me, "You must hide quickly. They will be here in a minute."
Another whirr as Shakespear went away. I glimpsed a second pixie, hovering, pointing in the direction of the threat. I heard the wings of several more.
Singe pulled me toward the nearest doorway. It was open. Beyond lay the noisome vats of a small tannery. I wondered how the flies stood the smell. I whispered, "Did you know that the wee folk were with us?"
"You did not know? You missed the sound of their wings?"
"You have better ears than I do. And you're starting to make me feel old. I should've been more aware of what was happening around me." Maybe my friends are right. Maybe I am getting too tied up inside my own head.
There wasn't anything in the tannery. There was no tanning going on, thought the place was still in business. It gave the impression that the entire workforce had slipped out just minutes before we arrived. Curious. It wasn't a major holy day that I knew of, though possibly the place employed only members of some lesser cult.
Still, there ought to be somebody around to keep opportunists from finders-keeping all those squirrel hides.
"Here."
Singe had located a low opening in the outer wall, placed so air could waft in and rise to roof vents, so the tannery could share its chief wonder with the city. The opening lay behind a heap of pelts from small animals. The majority had come off rodents but some were scaly. The odor off the pile guaranteed that no ratman tracker would find us here.
Singe had both paws clamped to her muzzle.
Gagging, I whispered, "Could you pick me out of this?"
Singe shook her head slightly, took a paw away from her muzzle long enough to tap her ear, reminding me that her people also had exceptional hearing. Then she dropped down so she could watch the street between bars that kept dogs, cats, and other sizable vermin from getting to the delicacies. They would have to stroll all the way down to the unlocked and open door if they wanted to compete with the bugs.
Singe beckoned me. I went for the fresh air.
I got down on the dirt floor, amongst the crud and the hair and the fleas off the pelts, and observed. And learned.
The first few hunters weren't unusual. They were just thugs. But they were extremely nervous, very alert thugs. They were thugs whose main task was to protect a brace of extremely unhappy ratmen. The trackers kept glancing over their shoulders. I didn't recognize anybody but wasn't surprised. I didn't know many members of the Guard. And Relway was enlisting fellow fanatics like harvesting dragons' teeth.
Then I saw white boots. With platform soles and cracked, fake jewels. Bic Gonlit was up on top of them. The real Bic Gonlit. And Bic wasn't alone. Nor was he in charge. His companion wore black as tattered as Bic's white but was a lot more intimidating. He looked like he was about nine feet tall. He wore a mask. Arcane symbols in gold and silver spattered something like a monk's hooded robe. An extremely threadbare robe. This particular stormwarden wasn't enjoying a great deal of prosperity.
That would make him especially dangerous.
Singe was even more careful than I was about not attracting attention by breathing. Her people have nurtured that skill since their creation.
I didn't recognize anybody but Bic.
My first inclination was to drop everything and head for home. Let Bic and the big boy play the game. Which is exactly what most people do and what all the big boys expect us to do. They count on that, up there on the Hill. They don't know how to react when ordinary folks refuse to fold and fade.