Sure enough, we found Amaia and Noami there on the river-side beach, Naomi sun-bathing while Amaia swam. They didn’t notice us right away.

  There was a small dividing wall with a little entranceway, which was neither locked nor guarded. Despite that, we saw no one else there, and the walls on three sides gave a certain sense of privacy.

  “Did you know they would be here, sir?” Ikhamon asked.

  “Just a lucky guess,” I said. Then I raised a hand and yelled out to the two - and in doing so dropped the crate, unable to balance it in one hand. I scrambled to pick it back up - it was lucky it didn’t break, lucky that the ground was soft.

  “Miles!” Amaia yelled back, and I thought for a second I must have mistaken her for someone else. But when I looked up again, it was her, and she was waving back at me.

  Naomi only glanced over at me for a moment, and then turned away again. It is needless to say that her swimming outfit was outrageous, and I will not describe it any further, though the image is forever seared in my memory.

  Ikhamon and I shambled up the beach through the sand, which I was surprised to see there at all. I wondered what freak phenomenon had given this section of riverside sand instead of clay.

  While I could somewhat understand swimming since the water of the Blood was warm, I had no idea how Naomi had decided to sunbathe. Good beach weather had probably ended months ago.

  When I was within earshot of both of them, I told them what had happened so far, and asked whether they could take the crates up for me while Ikhamon and I sailed upriver.

  “Like, do it yourself,” Naomi answered - the first words she had spoken thus far. “Can’t you see we’re busy?”

  “I can do it,” Amaia said. She had come up out of the water and stood dripping beside us. “Although this doesn’t exactly qualify as an interesting job. Sailing upriver sounds fun though. Am I allowed to change my mind and come with?”

  “I’d like to say yes,” I said. “But then the whole time-saving thing is out the window. I feel bad making those guys in the warehouse wait any longer, but…”

  “Fiiiiine,” Naomi said. She didn’t even turn to face me when she spoke, and didn’t stand up from where she was lounging. “I’ll take the crates. Just set them there. I’m going to enjoy the sun for awhile longer, y’know?”

  “You sure?” I asked. I expected some sort of catch.

  “I’m feeling gracious,” she said. “It must be the sunbathing or something.”

  “You’re really not cold out here?”

  “It’s about to be winter,” she said. “I’m enjoying the beach while I can. I missed the whole summer, and nothing is going to stop me enjoying what’s left. I’ll be out here everyday until it snows.”

  I shrugged and set the crate down beside her. Ihkamon followed suit. I could see on his face that he was unsure about this course of action, but Naomi was basically his boss, so what could he say? “I don’t think you’re actually going to deliver these?”

  “Well uh, enjoy the sun, I guess.”

  “I will. Like, enjoy your boat ride or whatever.”

  -

  The two men both used wind magic, and their little vessel carried us south against the current. Amaia stood at the bow watching the water break before us. She had changed back into her adventuring clothes before coming with us - there was a little spot beside the beach used for that purpose.

  With the sun high above us and the water red like dull blood, it felt like we were sailing south into some exotic hell. At times the river was so wide that I couldn’t see land at all, but usually I could make out one side or the other.

  To our right - the starboard side, I learned - the trees swallowed up the shoreline again, and I could hardly make out anything besides foliage. To the port side the trees were sparser, as if whatever ill wind infected that land was lethal to both man and plant, and I daydreamed about trees that uprooted themselves from the ground and stalked after unlucky victims, having been turned into monsters by that eastern influence.

  Love this novel? Read it on Royal Road to ensure the author gets credit.

  I could have believed that first monster Cadoc and I fought was such a creature, if I wasn’t already certain it had once been a man. Had the last thing we’d killed been a man once as well?

  If I recorded every time when I thought of Nolan’s death, this account would never end, but I will mention here that he was on my mind again. I wondered if killing a man, even in self-defense, changed a person. I asked Amaia what she thought.

  “Wouldn’t know,” she said.

  “Never killed anyone?”

  “Killed too many to count. And never spent much time with anyone who hadn’t. If there’s a difference, I wouldn’t be one to see it.”

  “Unhelpful and unnerving,” I said, smiling. “You’ll have to tell me sometime how you got so good at giving answers like that.”

  She smiled back, though she kept her eyes ahead. “I’m well trained.”

  I tried to press her on that, but she refused to go into more detail. I supposed a body guard would have to keep her mouth shut, but I wondered if she meant anything more by what she said.

  The boat was not very big — maybe forty feet long, though I’m no good at those kinds of estimates - so privacy was not to be expected. Still, I did not appreciate being listened in on.

  “Makes no difference at all,” the burned man said. “Kill one, kill a million. In the first place, you had to be the kind of person who could kill.”

  “Don’t listen to him,” shouted his companion. It was his shift on propelling the boat, but he shouted at us between thrusts of his palms. “Anyone can kill, so what he’s saying doesn’t make any sense.”

  “You think so?” I shouted back. “Even some old granny?”

  “Sure,” he shouted back. “Put her back against the wall, and she’ll tear your heart out of your chest. And everyone gets backed into a corner once or twice in their life.”

  “You two killers then?” I asked.

  “Not yet,” the burned man said. “But it’s only a matter of time.”

  After the next shift change we broke for lunch. The burned man took to the sail as the other laid out some dried meats they had stored on board.

  “How much longer do you think?” I asked.

  The man looked to his companion first before answering. “Not long now,” he said. “We’re nearly at the outpost.”

  Amaia spoke with food in her mouth. “And that’s where you lost the stuff?”

  The man nodded. “Right, just offshore from it.”

  A few minutes passed of silent eating. I think we were all watching the scenery, mostly.

  “What’s your name, anyway?” I asked.

  “Hoyom,” he said.

  “And your friend?”

  Hoyom laughed. “Friend? That’s Aster. We just work together.”

  “Good work?” I asked.

  He shrugged. “A job is a job.”

  Now I laughed. “Not what you want to do with your life, huh? Never dreamed of being a riverboat sailor?”

  He smiled slightly. “I always wanted to be a chef. Work for some royal somewhere, sneak bits of food while I was at it, live a cushy life.”

  “Why not ask Gad?” I asked. “I’m sure he needs a good cook.”

  Hoyom only shook his head. I looked to Amaia, who shrugged, then to Ikhamon, who had spoken very little.

  “Already has one, sir,” Ikhamon said.

  “Well maybe Hoyom is better!” I said, and turned back to Hoyom. “Hey, cook us something when we get back. Something more than dried meat. If it’s good, I’ll tell Gad to give you a shot. He seems to like me for some reason.”

  Hoyom chuckled. “Alright, sure. You can look forward to it.”

  “I will,” I said. “Amaia will come too.”

  Amaia shrugged. “Why not.”

  “And you?” I asked, shouting to Aster, but he seemed to misunderstand. I was only asking if he was going to join us for a meal, but he answered my previous question instead.

  “I don’t dream of anything anymore,” he said, dropping his hands to his sides for a moment and letting the sails die, windless. Then, just as quickly, he begun his rhythmic movements again, one palm, then the other, like a tuneless dance, a wordless ritual.

  -

  “Here we are!”

  The shout was Hoyom’s. A few shifts had passed, and once again he was on rest. I ran up to join him on the bow, and Amaia was already there. She pointed the spot out for me.

  It wasn’t much. A clay hut about the size of a shed, and a little wooden dock beside it jutting out into the water. The dock looked so small on that wide river. I imagined that, from space, it wouldn’t be visible at all, while the river would stand out red and strange. I mused that I was probably the first person in that dimension to think about how things looked from space. It wasn’t entirely clear that they even recognized outer space as a concept - when the natives talked of “the heavens,” I got the impression they were talking about a physical place far above us, not a different plane of existence or anything of that sort.

  Tom might have thought of it though, I thought. And then I’d be second place, again.

  “Which way did the pirates attack from?” Ikhamon asked from behind us. I hadn’t noticed him approach.

  Hoyom thought a moment before answering. “That way,” he finally said, pointing southeast. Then he turned and shouted, “Is that right, Aster? Which way were we attacked from?”

  “That’s right,” he shouted back. “Exactly as you pointed.”

  “So what,” I said. “We head that direction and hope to bump into them?”

  “They must have some sort of hideout nearby,” Hoyom said. “Their vessel could not have sailed far. It was not sturdy enough, and it couldn’t possibly have held much cargo.”

  Amaia pointed further up the shore. “Then we should follow the beach.”

  “No point,” Aster said, for he had stopped his work while we deliberated our next moves. “There is nothing along the shore here for miles. We would know.”

  “He is right,” Ikhamon said. “As far as I know, at least, sir.”

  “Further inland?” I asked.

  “Couldn’t be,” Hoyom said. “They need some sort of dock, or something.”

  “You seem to have something in mind,” I said. “So just go ahead and tell us what you’re thinking.”

  “Well,” Hoyom said, rubbing his hands together. “No one ever called me a smart man, but I’ve been thinking.

  “Why would these men steal those herbs in the first place? They are used to make the potion that prevents turning, right?”

  “And as a drug,” Ikhamon said. “It lulls to blissful sleep those stupid enough to ingest it.”

  “Right,” Hoyom said. “So my thought is this. Either the thieves are looking to make the potion themselves, or else they are addicts.”

  “No one knows the recipe!” Ikhamon shouted - which was the loudest I’d heard him speak. “It would be foolish of anyone to try to copy the master.”

  “Sure,” Hoyom said. “Fine. Then either they are foolish, or they are stupid. You said it yourself.”

  “And?” I asked. “What’s your point?”

  “If we can agree that they are either foolish or stupid, and we agree that there is no dock along this shore, but we also agree that they must have one somewhere, then I ask you all, where else would a stupid or foolish man set ashore?”

  It was easy enough to follow what he was implying. “You think they live to the east? With the monsters?”

  “No,” he said. “No one could live there. But could someone come ashore there, tie up to some forgotten dock, and then take some other means across? Swim, even, with the crate tied to a line behind him? Such a crew would have every advantage of a swift moving vessel, and yet would never be found on the western beaches.”

  “Until they get killed by monsters,” I said.

  “They just have to be quick,” Hoyom said. “Like we’ll be when we find them.”