Tagg did not get better. His fever got worse, and he spent more time asleep than awake. Natch at last spoke to the captain, and Vaenuth was invited too. It was decided between the three of them to set in to land—they were sailing around the bend of Var Nordos’s northern coast. They would sail into Raider’s Lake, and harbour in Soros.
Vaenuth had heard of the wealthy city before, but had never been.
Raider’s Lake was a dark red colour; according to Captain Smetter, it was due to the salt and minerals in the water. Historically, the body of water had also been the sight of numerous skirmishes and raids between the Raderans and the Orrene following the fall of the Orrish. The great rock had destroyed the Old Empire or Noress, Smetter recounted, and a long, bloody war had began between the people north and south of the calamity.
As they sailed across the dark waters, Pressip and she leaned over the ship’s rail and watched the red waves lapping the sides of the caravel. “Have you heard of the Bank?” her hunter asked.
“The Bank?” Vaenuth replied. A warm wind was prickling the slick salt on her bare skin.
Pressip smirked. “Wealthiest bank in the world, they say. You run out of money, you sail to Soros to get a loan of sorrows.” The two words sounded distinctly different, the first a curt, accented word, while the more tragic word dragged on longingly. Vaenuth imagined there were no longings like that here, just business dealings.
“Who runs the banks?”
Pressip raised a finger. “Bank, singular. The Bank of Soros is run by Mazaar Gallendris and her siblings. They are the second or third most powerful family on Var Nordos, excluding the Matriarchs in Noress-That-Was.”
“I’ve seen the Matriarchs,” Vaenuth said, shrugging her tattooed shoulders. Her friend blinked. “On my way to Numa’nakres, the first time. We sailed from Starath to Maykren and stopped only in Noress and Hawsi. That is a haunting city, half claimed by the tide…”
“I’ve never been,” Pressip said. “I’ve never even been out of my homeland, in truth. I just listen when people talk about the world.”
“So you haven’t seen this either?” Vaenuth asked, and he shook his head.
They were making their approach to Soros now, drifting across the purple lake with the western wind in their sails. The bulk of the city was built against the lakeshore, an assortment of one and two-storey clay buildings. As Vaenuth looked further up the slope of the landscape, rock replaced the clay more and more. A few districts of the city seemed to branch off from the bulk of the town into smaller wards—ornate towers and castles dotted those areas, raising four or five storey into the horizon.
“Where’s the Bank?” Vaenuth asked.
Pressip smiled, looking at her from the corner of his eyes. “That is the Bank,” he said, cryptically.
When they docked, Tagg was borne above deck on a cloth stretcher. Vaenuth preceded him down the plank to the big stone wharf. Two guards and a bookkeeper awaited the new arrivals, to record their arrival in the city and exact a traveller’s tax.
One of the guards stepped forward, and looked Vaenuth squarely in the face. “Mistress, while your ship holds its own laws, customs in Var Nordos dictate you clothe yourself properly in public.”
Vaenuth barely maintained a straight face. “My friend is in need of medical attention. I’m not going to go—”
“This isn’t the jungle, miss. This is the Empire,” the guard said. He was stern, but not angry. Nor had he taken one improper look at her. When she regarded him with a set jaw and a furrowed brow, he sighed, and reached behind him. With a tug, his dark blue cape came free of his bronze pauldrons. “Don this as a robe, then, until you have time to purchase proper garb.”
Bristling, Vaenuth snatched the blue cloth from him and tied it around herself. She would have put on her blue vest if she had thought it necessary. Their only business today was to find the nearest clinic and get Tagg’s infection a proper caretaker.
As Vaenuth, Pressip and a few of their crew carried Tagg down the wharf, Captain Smetter stepped up to the boat master to negotiate their docking fare. Vaenuth soon realized how true Pressip’s words had been. It should have been called Soros the Bank, not the Bank of Soros. Everything had a fee, or a tax, or a trickle of commerce into the city’s central economy.
And Soros was not afraid to flaunt its wealth. Though there was nothing as gaudy as the Iron Palace of Rema, every intersection had a statue carved of marble or granite, guards were more abundant than rats, and the variety of textiles, foods, and peoples bespoke unparalleled international influence. There were more people of Vaenuth’s ethnicity here than she had seen in a decade; in fact, the dark-skinned Numa and Eldera seemed a minority. Most of the people she passed—including the city’s officials, nobles, and military—were either southerners of pale complexion or Raderans with olive skin.
In the mix of it all, she felt strange—a woman with more tattoos than bare skin, wearing what might have been a dark blue bed sheet.
Pressip noticed Vaenuth staring at the strange swords at most of the guards’ waists. Though the materials were usual, with bronze and tin and leather, the hilts had ornate guards crossing the hilt. Even the ornate blade gifted to Vaenuth’s party from their strange benefactor resembled a machete, with only handle and blade, no guard. “Those are swords in the Orrene fashion,” he explained.
Vaenuth frowned. She was Orrene, being born in Bellasa, and those were the swords of her home city too. Yet another thing stolen from her by her enslaver.
They found a clinic easily enough, after asking only a few citizens for directions. The small, one-storey building was not too crowded, and a healer met with them almost as soon as they arrived. The short man was bald, and had a small grey beard. The wounded mercenary was carried into his infirmary and set upon a sturdy wooden table. The medic looked Tagg over for other wounds, then peeled back the bandages on his shoulder to reveal the pink, swollen puncture wound. “This isn’t good at all,” he muttered. “We’ll need to do a surgery, at once.”
“Will he survive?” Vaenuth asked.
“It’s too soon,” the healer muttered. “I think he might. He looks strong.”
“What will you need to do?”
The healer looked at Pressip and the others. “It is not pleasant, perhaps you’d prefer to wait outside?”
Vaenuth shook her head, her expression blank. “We’ll stay, and we’ll help. Tell us.”
The doctor scratched his beard. “I’ll need to cut that infection out. He’ll lose a good chunk of flesh, I’m afraid. Then, burn it, to cauterize and kill whatever sickness remains. That will be the first test; the pain may harm his heart.”
“And if he survives?” Vaenuth asked, closing her eyes. She would not lose her best fighter—and one of her closest companions—before they even got to their destination.
“It will be a long recovery. If the infection returns, we will not be able to stop the spread again, not like this,” he explained. “Now, will you stay or go?” he asked.
Vaenuth set her sword against the doorframe and turned back to the healer. “Stay.”