Red Tide Read Online Free Page B

making my head hurt.” Then, to Eremo, “You said you ain’t from round here. Where’d you get twenty thousand talents from?”
    â€œWe didn’t get twenty thousand talents from anywhere. We got one, and produced copies.”
    â€œBut still made from gold?”
    â€œYes.”
    â€œShow me.”
    Eremo took a huge coin from his pocket and tossed it to Dresk. The warlord missed with his snatch, but the talent landed in his lap. He inspected it by the dim light. “Where are the rest?”
    â€œSomewhere safe. They will be available when you sign the treaty.” The Keeper twittered in Eremo’s ear, and the commander nodded and added, “My friend here has reminded me of something. In our agreement the twenty thousand talents will be expressed as a loan—”
    Dresk scowled.
    â€œBut a loan repayable only after a thousand years.”
    The warlord stared at Eremo as if the stone-skin had started speaking in his native tongue.
    â€œAs I said,” the commander explained, “my people have strange rules when it comes to dealing with other cultures.”
    â€œA thousand years?” Dresk said. “The treaty will have crumbled to dust by then. How will you prove the debt?”
    â€œHow indeed?”
    â€œAnd the interest payable?”
    â€œNothing.”
    Galantas struggled to marshal his thoughts. What game were the Augerans playing? Why call the money a loan if you had no intention of asking for it back? That particular question would have to wait until later, though, for a more prickly concern had occurred to him. “What about the other Rubyholt clans?” he asked Eremo.
    It was Dresk who responded. “What about them?”
    â€œI assume the commander isn’t going to want to pay our kinsmen on top of what he’s paying us.”
    Eremo said, “You assume correctly.”
    â€œBut you expect the other clans to abide by this treaty, correct?”
    â€œI expect you to control your subjects.” The commander swung to Dresk. “Is that a problem?”
    â€œNo problem,” Dresk said, with a look at Galantas that warned him to be silent. As if Eremo wouldn’t already know of the fractured relations between the warlord and the other tribes. As if he wouldn’t know the risk of dealing with Dresk alone. The stone-skins would want to pass through the waters not just of Dresk’s Spears, but of the other clans as well. And the leaders of those tribes would want a cut of the gold in return for not harassing Augeran ships. Somehow Galantas couldn’t see his father sharing, though. How typical of him to see his position as warlord not as responsibility but as opportunity—to expect loyalty from the other clans, yet offer nothing in return.
    Galantas’s gaze slid from his father to Eremo. Could that be the stone-skins’ true purpose here? Widen the rifts between Dresk and the tribes before attacking? After all, when a man like Dresk was floundering, heaping gold on him just served to hasten his journey to the bottom. Hells, the clans had fought over a lot less in their time. Twenty thousand talents, they would say, meant there was plenty to go around, and who could argue with them? Not Galantas, certainly.
    And yet would a conflict between Dresk and the other tribes be a bad thing? If Galantas played his hand right, might there be an opportunity to speed his father’s fall from power?
    â€œWhat if another tribe breaches the treaty?” he asked Eremo.
    â€œThen we hold you accountable, of course.”
    â€œMeaning?”
    Eremo waved the question away. “Details. We can discuss them later. First I need to know if we have an agreement.”
    Dresk tossed the commander’s coin from hand to hand, making a show of considering the offer. “Twenty thousand talents,” he said.
    Eremo nodded.
    â€œFor one base and free passage through the Isles.”
    â€œYes.”
    Dresk