Elam (Book 2 of the Carmine Series)

Chapter 12

A life became exchangeable with the mechanics of labor once the productions of biometry and seermetry surpassed dreams and wishes. 

It was now a commodity. Traded. Bought. Sold. 

~ From The First Three Thousand Years of Greatness, written by Ada Dahly.

Janilla groaned in exasperation at the shocking news, while Valor only growled at it. Armed forces were going to the Baska border. 

Valor and Five would have turned their horses around if Carmine did not force them to keep on their course.

She reasoned this had her mother's scheming all over it because the southern sages that killed Waldron's friend must have told their Shyia comrades back in the Baska capital. 

In this case, the Erot faithful that Baska's backstabbers worshipped to appease King Johnson of the Eathen Republic sent their volley. 

S'Mores and his men streamed around Janilla on their horses. Ulyessia and her Erridon retainers carried the cooling gear to aid with food preservation since the ship's old one stopped working according to the empaths.

They went through the swirling city of Vale, a place famed for its sweet cold air. The sandstone-walled buildings and the pine wood shelves positioned at each corner with wares for sale on this sun-blessed day kept them awe-struck.

Dogs ran across their paths as they rode in leisure. Many men naked down to the waist were either arguing down prices or carrying around wooden carts of food on their backs. 

Women walked in cloths wrapped in intermittent curves spanned around their torsos down to their knees. An animal skin belt with jewels clutched it to their slender bodies.

Janilla saw the dock within sight whereas their horses took them the short distance from the camp to the moist rock of the dock. There they saw the Black Heart formerly named, Warrior's Heart. Red paint covered the Warrior's and allowed them to write the Black in curvaceous letters.

Blackened wood, blood-red sails connected to huge masts, a symbolic image of a mermaid hung off the bow and long lines along the starboard revealed the glow of candlelight within the core brightened this behemoth of a ship.

This was the full-rigged ship Carmine and Sandream stole, so as long as Diynoa didn't run into the Federal Ship Company, everything should be fine.

There was a mass of wooden cartons and foilage-wrapped packages on the outstretched gangplank and stone-tiled dock.

"Family!" Diynoa grabbed his huge hat with its showy feather. 

He was the captain of the ship and was at heart a pirate even if he didn't look the part. Clean-shaven, bald as a soldier, his buttoned-up jerkin and tucked undershirt made this man so unsealike to her. 

They slowed their horses and jumped off as Diynoa approached them. 

Diynoa hugged Five, Janilla, S'Mores, Ulyessia, his men, and Valor.

Valor muttered a curse to be squeezed by that man so tightly.

Janilla smiled. Diynoa raised his arms when he stepped back. "What bringeth you here?"

Ulyessia walked around them and went toward the goods the men laid out for her.

Valor made uncertain glances at S'Mores and Five. "Orders. We're coming with you."

Diynoa gestured exaggeratively as if expecting something. 

Valor gave a stilted tilt of his head. "There might be people gunning for your head. We're going to be guarding you for a while."