The journey to Covehold was hot, nerve-wracking, and mildly terrifying. Even though we had to sail—drive?—close to shore so that we wouldn't have to face the large ocean waves that could fill the ship with water or possibly even roll us over, having so much water in all directions made everyone a little nervous. The occasional sighting we had of large dillians and other things curiously poking at the ship didn't help.

I did my best to hide my own nervousness and keep a smile on my face, but it wasn't easy. Even though I could swim, there was always something disturbing about water that I couldn't stand in, especially if I couldn't see my feet. Still, I couldn't let the men see that. I had to smile and keep up their morale, and not let them realize how well-founded their unspoken fears were. While the Coldhold was a good river boat, it was only good for calm weather in coastal waters.

No matter what, any Deadspeaker I recruit is going to learn how to help build boats!

But now, we were finally near our destination! The spot of dark color had been growing since yesterday, but today we finally reached it!

In the waters in front of the rising coastal town were dark shapes floating on the waves under the late-morning sunlight. As we had steadily gotten closer, the shapes had resolved themselves into boats. Or at least, peoples' ideas of boats. It wasn't that they were bad ideas. It was just they looked like someone had asked a Deadspeaker to make a giant bowl, then stretch out the ends of the bowl so that they were long ovals instead of circles. A few looked distinctly like leaves in profile, which probably wasn't a bad inspiration for a Deadspeaker. None of the boats were very long—by the scale of the people on them, they were about four paces or so on average—but they were definitely boats, each with one or two outriggers to one side to keep it from tipping over.

I suppose people haven't gotten the hang of weighing the bottom of the boat yet? It was probably a bit counter-intuitive to make a boat heavier at the bottom to make it float better, when people probably wanted it to sink less, not more. Then again, that's probably best done with bigger boats, ones that will remain above the tops of the ocean waves, or else it really was just a bowl waiting to be filled with water.

Many of the boats were throwing up tall plumes of vapor and sometimes smoke as the men on the boat scooped seawater up with long ladles and deposited them into the containers letting out the vapor. Only a few of the boats had sails. Most only had what seemed like notches on the side, and I could see the shapes of long oars messily left lying on their decks, which the men on the boats sometimes had to step over. The boats were all very small compared to the Coldhold, which naturally drew attention as my ship plowed through the waves with neither sails nor oars.

"Small things, aren't they?" Hans commented. The salt barrels were all full from the previous days and as tightly packed as we could get them, so he was helping keep watch from the little cabin's roof, on the lookout for big waves and dillians. Most of the time he and Liggs were the ones kept the evaporator running smoothly, at least when the ship wasn't on the move. "Probably takes them all day to get anywhere with those little oars." Yeah… the time we tried to see how fast we could get the Coldhold moving with oars alone would have been funny if we hadn't been the ones trying to do it.

"They probably go out with the tide in the morning to make it easier on themselves," I said.

Hans blinked. "What's a tide, Lord Rian?"

Ah, right. Hans came from far inland. Most people in both of Lori's demesnes did. "It's when the moons pull the water with them when they move across the sky," I tried to explain as simply as possible. "You know how when we anchor for the night sometimes the water is lower than when we wake up?" Hans nodded uncertainly. "That's the tides doing that. Don't worry, we won't have to bother with it much. We have Binder Lori's driver bound tool to push us around. Even with the tide, they probably still have a lot of rowing to do."

"Huh. Why don't we have that back home?"

"Oh, we probably do, but since it's a river the water is moving all the time, so it doesn't matter," I said.

Many of the people on the boats stopped and pointed at us as we moved along, either because of the Coldhold's size—we were by far the biggest vessel in sight by a wide margin, and could probably fit any of their boats on the deck lengthwise—or the fact we were moving through the water so quickly. I made sure to smile widely enough that it was obvious and wave at the other boats in a manner that I hoped came across as friendly and not taunting. It wouldn't do to seem like I was making fun of how small their boats were, after all.

While the lack of a system of exchange beyond the bartering of favors and goodwill—which were the kinds of debts people were slightly more willing to let pass—had made my ability to consider things in terms of bead value a little rusty, between my experiences with Deadspeakers at the lumberyard I once worked at and the rate Lori worked when she was building something at River's Fork, each of those boats probably represented a couple of days of more of work on the part of both a carpentry workshop and a Deadspeaker. Given they hadn't been around when we'd first visited this demesne, and judging by the plumes of vapor and sometimes smoke, our visit had probably inspired imitators. Back then, the salt gatherers had all been on the shoreline.

I looked in that direction, and sure enough they were still there, wooden building in various states of repair and disrepair. Many were unpainted wood or looked to have been Whispered using nearby stone. Some were simply shacks with roofs made from thin canvas or Deadspoken materials, but a few didn't even have those, looking more like freestanding stones that ranged from simply stone tripods to long troughs. From each arose vapor, or steam and smoke as the salt gatherers used either Whispering or just fire to separate the sea water from the salt and whatever else was in the water that people were collecting from the nearby.

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I suppose the boats were people who decided not to get involved in whatever territorial pecking order had already been established on the shoreline and were trying their luck in the relatively unclaimed open sea? The area of the demesne extended well out into the water, but all the boats seemed to be staying well inside the demesne's boundaries.

Ahead of us was our destination, a wide opening that led into the round, sheltered cove that gave the demesne its name. The cove was wide enough that I suspected all of River's Fork Demesne would be able fit in the circular area protected by the curving arms of stone on either side.

Near the tips of each curling arm were tall stone towers, both looking about five paces high at the least. The slightly swirled pattern to the stone they were made from implied that the tower was built from Whispered rock, but the straight and even shapes of the towers meant that either the person who'd built them was as fanatically obsessed with symmetry as Lori, or that the towers had been further worked on by stonemasons and possibly more Whisperers after the fact. At night the top of each tower glowed to act as a landmark for any incoming ships, a sight I remembered from our last visit. The little house-like structure built into the bottom of each tower implied that each lighthouse was operated by a Whisperer instead of being imbued by the demesne's Dungeon Binder directly. It was probably good work if you could get it.

"Any boats in front of us, Liggs?" I called out.

"No boats in front of us, Lord Rian," was the reply from the lookout. "The way is clear!"

"Clear, got it!" I said as I handled the tiller. "Uh, about that, everyone. Liggs, you stay in front in case someone slow decides to cross in front of us, but can the rest of you get up here for a moment? I need to talk to you all, and I'd rather not raise my voice."

To be fair, 'everyone' wasn't all that far away, sitting on the benches in the cabin on the deck of the ship to take advantage of the ocean breeze while staying shaded from the sun. Only Liggs, who was up front with the hat to shade his head, and Cottsy, down below operating the bound tool's lever, wasn't there, and the latter quickly made his way up after locking the driver controls in place. Everyone else sighed, but were thankfully willing to stand up and get closer, Cottsy climbing up from the driver room below to better hear what I was going to say.

I looked over the crew of the Coldhold. They'd been on the ship since its first journey to Covehold, and had been the ones taking it downriver and coming back with jars full of salt from the bay that the river—which was yet unnamed, but I wouldn't be surprised if a certain someone privately referred to it as Lori's River in their head—drained out to. Despite the ship technically belonging to me, they had more claim to it than I did. They'd spent more hours living in it, sleeping in it, eating in it, and hunting beasts from it than me.

They were all good men, and chosen for the fact they had families back in Lorian whom they loved, with wives and children and even a few siblings and in-laws. That had been to satisfy Lori. But they were also men with generally even tempers, weren't excitable when surprised, and all got along well. That had been for my benefit, because if we were going to be spending days sleeping in the same room together, I'd rather it be with people who didn't make problems.

A cough bought me a little time to hide the nervousness I always felt when speaking to a crowd, especially one that I felt should know me enough to be able to tell it was just making things up. "Ahem. So, first thing that I really should have told you all sooner, but while we're here, don't call me 'lord', all right? I'm just one of us while we're here, so just call me by name. Besides, every time someone found out I was a lord, I got the feeling they added a few beads to their prices." That actually hadn't happened, but it got the laugh I'd hoped for from the men.

"Now, just to be clear, we'll be sleeping aboard the ship again this trip." There were sighs at my announcement, though they were resigned rather than protesting. "I know, I know, but it's cheaper than finding a place to sleep and doesn't risk getting everything stolen. However, it won't be as simple as last time. People have boats now, so if someone really wanted to, they could get to us in the middle of the night and rob us in our sleep, or worse." They all looked uneasy at the thought.

"I don't think it's likely but you all remember what this place is like," I continued. "So we're going to have to sleep in shifts and someone needs to keep a watch while the others rest. I can take the first watch tonight, but someone needs to watch after me until morning. Whoever does gets to sleep until noon once everyone else is awake." The already-tired looks on the men changed to those weighing the difficulties against the benefits of sleeping in versus getting to sleep all day. Everyone surreptitiously glanced towards the front.

"Don't just foist it off on poor Liggs just because he's not here," I said sternly, well familiar with the kind of things people got up to. "You can talk it out while I'm ashore."

That got everyone's attention again.

"You're going alone, Lord—I mean, Rian?" Yhorj said, concerned.

"No, of course not. Two of you are coming with me," I said. "I'm going to be bringing samples, and I'll need two of you to keep me from looking like an easy mark."

"Is two enough? Maybe all of us should go with you," Multaw suggested.

I shook my head. "Any more and it'll be hard to sail the ship." I frowned. "Drive the ship? We don't have a sail, we have a driver…" I shook my head again to banish the random tangent. "Drive. Driving the ship. The ship needs at least three people to drive it safely and a fourth to keep an eye out for waves or other boats who might come up to do who knows what. Two people are the most who can come with me without putting those on the ship in danger."

Everyone glanced over to the other boats on the water. No one had taken out their oars and started rowing toward us, but we were clearly being watched. A few were standing up, trying to get a better look, and were falling over for their efforts. That probably meant there wasn't an actual level deck on those boats…

"Then I'll go with you, Rian," Multaw said, the big man rolling his shoulders like he was loosening them up to start punching. "In case you need anything carried."

I smiled gratefully and nodded. Multaw was, in fact, my first pick to go with me. Tall, muscular men are the kind of people trouble takes one look at then turns around to find someone smaller to bother, even if trouble had a friend or two with him. I turned towards the rest. "Cyuw, can you come too? You know the inventory as well as I do and maybe better." Cyuw, by contrast, wasn't as big as Multaw, but he had the stocky build of someone who carried heavy things. Well, all of us carried heavy things, but he looked it, and he did have a better memory of what we had than I did.

He nodded agreeably. "Got it, Lord Rian," he said. "Ah, I mean, Rian."

This would probably take a while to sink in.

Well, we'd work on it.