Red Tide Read Online Free Page A

What happens when you disappear back across the ocean, leaving us to pick up the tab?”
    Some of the krels banged their fists on the table again. Eremo waited for the noise to die down, then said, “We will not lose.”
    Galantas pursed his lips, unimpressed. The words had been spoken with an unshakable assurance, but when did an invader ever embark on a campaign thinking it would fail?
    Eremo swung his gaze to Dresk. “In addition to a base, we would need free passage through your waters, reliable charts—”
    Dresk’s snort interrupted him. “Charts?” He looked at his krels. “Hear that? The man wants charts!”
    Laughter greeted his words.
    Eremo’s expression was wary. “I suspect your cartographers lack the skill of ours. We have collected more than a dozen different charts of the Isles, yet no two are alike in anything but the most cursory details.”
    More chuckling.
    Galantas came to the stone-skin’s rescue. “Those discrepancies are deliberate, Commander. Years ago, a neighbor used one of our charts to mount an invasion. Afterward the decision was taken to flood the market with false charts—so outsiders couldn’t tell the real from the fake. Even if you did find an accurate chart, it would be covered in symbols you wouldn’t understand, showing which waterways are passable and which are not.”
    Eremo’s glance over his shoulder suggested whichever of his companions was responsible for intelligence would be enduring a testing half-bell when this was over. “Then you will have to explain them to us,” he said to Galantas. “We will also need navigators to guide us through the waterways—until we know our way round.”
    â€œAt which point we will cease to be of use to you.”
    Eremo ignored the comment. “Of course,” he said to Dresk, “we don’t expect you to give this help for free. Does the sum of fifteen thousand talents seem fair to you?”
    Galantas’s heart skipped a beat.
    Dresk stared at the commander. The hall had gone still.
    â€œTwenty thousand, then,” Eremo said, a glint in his eye.
    Galantas let his breath out slowly. Twenty thousand talents. More than a hundred million sovereigns. It was an outlandish sum. Absurd, even. With that money Dresk could buy all the ships in the Sabian League, and crews to man them besides. An awed muttering started up among the krels. Eremo was trying to dazzle Dresk with wealth, and Galantas was struggling to see past the glare himself.
    Easy giving something away, though, when you intended to take it back straight after.
    â€œThis base you mentioned,” he said to the commander. “Where would you put it?”
    â€œThat’s something we’ll need to reconsider, since you tell me the charts we’ve been working from are likely fakes.”
    â€œHow long?”
    â€œYou mean how long would we need the base? Until we have established a presence on … the mainland.”
    That hesitation was telling. If he’d been about to say “the Sabian League,” why not just say it? And why spend twenty thousand talents to sail through the Isles to the League when you could sail around them for free, with only a few bells lost? No, the more Galantas thought about it, the more he suspected the stone-skins’ real target here was Erin Elal with its vulnerable eastern seaboard. “And then the base would be decommissioned?”
    â€œOf course. It won’t be much use to us afterward.”
    â€œEnough!” Dresk said to Galantas, but Galantas pressed on.
    â€œHow many of your ships would enter our waters?”
    The commander cocked his head. “Surely you don’t expect us to reveal the size of our fleet.”
    â€œWhy not? You said you couldn’t lose this war. Are we supposed to just take you at your word?”
    â€œEnough!” Dresk said again to Galantas. “Your whining is