“The what?”
“The Tintarian dragons. Those black rocks are what’s left of their bones.”
To me, they just appeared as colossal spearheads protruding amidst the waves.
Ahead of us, a gap in the bluffs held in its gaping maw, a manmade port where behemoth warships as well as lines of sleek fishing boats were moored. I could barely see the other side of the port, but I could make it out and also saw the continuation of strongholds built into the bluff rock and the continuation of city streets below. The bluff path headed down a long slope that interrupted the flow of buildings built into the bluff. It led all the way to the city, built over the rocky ground. It took us nearly an hour. It was slow going and the path was steep. At the bottom, on a plateau of sorts, just above where the city began from against the bluff buildings, was an impressive stable with hundreds of stalls. Dozens of soldiers in Tintarian black met our party, greeting Alric at the head and staring at the mounts bearing us women.
“Do not cuff them,” said Alric. “They have nowhere to go.”
The four draft horses and Nash’s mount were herded by Tristan and Luka into the stables, leaving the rest of the soldiers outside.
“Dismount,” ordered Tristan and we did. “Wait here,” he continued.
The two young men dismounted, stabled our horses while we huddled in a circle and then left the building, back on their horses.
“What’s going to happen?” whined Eefa.
“We need to stay calm,” I said. “Speculation will drive us mad before we even know what is going to—”
“Why are you always in charge?” the girl snapped.
Before I could answer, guards, also in the Tintarian black, but foreign to us, marched purposefully into the stables. There were two of them to each of us. I searched for a familiar face among them, for one of the Procurers, as Alric had referred to his men. I saw none.
“Come,” called one of the guards.
We fell in line with them, one on either side of us. I had to release Helena’s hand from mine as I followed formation. We were in the sun outside, passing the still-mounted Procurers, all nineteen of them watching us as we were led away from them to a high-arched tunnel entrance that appeared to bore into the bluff and lead to both the left and right, either direction disappearing into the rock.
Before we entered inside, I looked over my shoulder, straight back at the captain. To what had he condemned us?
19. Keep
We had made a sharp right inside the black stone tunnel. Taken to a holding cell with wooden benches along one wall and a short row of four cots, we were told to enter and were subsequently locked in. The strange guards had not been rough with us, just efficient.
As soon as the iron grate was shut, Eefa began to cry, Bronwyn holding her.
I sensed that we all may have felt this way but we were holding on, trying to stay calm. Catrin and Maureen sat on the bench on either side of Helena, who was in a weakened position, I could tell. The paste must have been inducing her courses and she would bleed soon. Quinn and River sat on Maureen’s side, Bronwyn and Eefa following.
Mischa and I stood standing next to the grate, quiet, contemplative. I had never been able to sleep without a window in the room. This cell, while clean and with bedding, was nowhere for me to sleep, not without a night sky to see.
We were there all night. They slept on the cots in shifts, except for Helena, who tried to sleep on one through the night, the pain of her courses coming on strong. Our undergarments were nothing but shreds now and our dresses too coarse for the purpose, but she should have changed her strips out for fresh ones in the morning. Or what we guessed was morning, as they left us with a stump of a candle that had guttered out short hours after our being locked away.
Guards came for us and took us on a long journey down the stone tunnel, which more and more appeared to us as an even-walled corridor, flickering sconce flames lighting the way, to a long room that looked like a dormitory with beds and again, we were locked inside.
We did not have to wait long before a key sounded in the lock and an older woman dressed in black with a leather half-apron came through the door. The apron was secured by a belt from which loops of keys hung. She was flanked by three other women in black with leather half-aprons.
“Good morning,” she said, not unkindly. “My name is Zinnia. I am the keep’s chatelaine. You are in the Shark’s Keep, in the hall of the Shark King, his highness, Hinnom the First. I am going to prepare you to meet your new king.”
We stared at her.
Zinnia continued, her tone, neither welcoming nor unsympathetic. “First we will bathe you. Then we will provide you clean undergarments. Your current dresses do not appear to be that in need of laundering. You will eat, have a moment to gather yourselves and then you will face his highness. In his throne room. He is eager to meet the priestesses of Eccleston.”
“Agnes preserve us,” muttered Mischa.
It was then we were introduced to the baths of Tintar. Tintarians may be often called primitives, savages who worship their gods with blood, superstitious to the core and ruthless in battle, but this fortress of bluffscontained hot bathing water. Zinnia, patient and likely trying to distract us, explained that the Shark’s Keep, temples and other holdings built into the bluff used the influx of seawater, flowing into caves and channels below, stoppered with small, manmade milldams and heated by furnaces under some of the raised floors of the lowest level of each building. The steam was funneled through small chambers under the floors and in the walls, allowing for whole rooms of water to be heated. The baths’ water was let out regularly by the milldams’ removal during low tides and refilled by the next high tide, held in by the milldams until it was let back out into the sea. The majority of the brine was released into the air by the heat.
We were taken into such a room, twice the size of an Eccleston university lecture hall. Stone benches and steps bordered the room, leading down into the steamy waters. Shelves full of cakes of soap lined every wall. There were hooks on which to hang the clothes of the bathers. Various sections of the pool were cordoned off with blocks of stone to allow for the semblance of privacy, but the heads of the women using them could be seen over the edges. At least fifty women were naked, lounging in the warmth, or scrubbing hastily, apparently preparing to go about their days.
We could see through the mostly clear water down to a mosaic of green shells that lined the floor of the pool. None of the women seemed to pay us any attention.
