Wrath of Lions by David Dalglish, Robert J. Duperre Page A

by the display.
    The night was cool as they stood atop the bobbing pier in Port Lancaster. Beside them was the dinghy set to carry Rachida and her husband to Matthew’s galley, the
Free Catherine
, which waited out in the harbor, her sails withdrawn, her forty oars raised. Peytr Gemcroft stood by on the dinghy, tapping his foot impatiently while the women said their good-byes.
    “Let’s go, Rachida,” said Peytr. “It’s getting cold, and I don’t wish to linger.”
    Rachida glared at her husband, her lips drawn down in a frown, and then brought her eyes back to Moira.
    “Take care of yourself,” she said.
    Moira touched the pregnant woman’s stomach. “I will. Don’t worry about me. Our child will not grow up without his second mother.”
    “Enough,” said Peytr. “The galley awaits.”
    Rachida placed one final kiss on Moira’s forehead, paused to give Matthew a curtsey, and then Peytr helped her climb down from the pier and into the awaiting boat. Her back was to them as the high merchant rowed out into the gradually undulating water of Port Lancaster’s inlet.
    Matthew stepped to the edge of the pier, and Moira sidled in close as the dinghy became small and then smaller in the distance.
    “Will they be all right?” she asked, her voice quiet, the question asked as if no answer were truly wanted.
    “They’ll be fine,” said Matthew. “So far as I know—and I know much—the
Free Catherine
is the only fighting ship in all Dezrel. The deck is equipped with nine spitfires, and I assigned twenty of my most loyal men to the crew. They’re all experts with a sword as well. Should they find trouble once they make landfall on the Isles of Gold, your friends will be in good hands.”
    “It’s not trouble on land that worries me.…”
    “Pshaw,” said Matthew, throwing out his arm as if presenting the sea to her as a gift. “I
own
these waters. The
Free Catherine
is the finest ship you’ll ever lay eyes on. My father laid waste to any brigands who looted our clippers, and I’ve carried on that legacy. If there’s a sailor on this sea who’s worth his salt, it’s because I trained him. Karak has no army on these waters. Rachida and Peytr will be safe, I promise you. Only the Quellan elves possess ships that come close to ours, and the pointy-ears have no horse in this race.”
    Moira stared after the fading ship, a frown on her face.
    “I wouldn’t be so sure about that.”
    Matthew laughed.
    “By Karak, you are pessimistic.”
    She passed him a spiteful glance.
    “Fuck Karak,” she said.
    Mist rolled in over the water, swallowing dinghy and galley alike. Moonlight turned the mist into a solid wall of glowing white.
    “Well, show’s over,” Matthew said, ignoring Moira’s blasphemous words as he steered her away from the ocean and led her down the pier to join his entourage. Six hard men escorted them through the quayside and into the heart of Port Lancaster proper.
    Port Lancaster was the third-oldest settlement in all of Neldar, founded in the fourteenth year of man by Matthew’s great-grandfather, Lancaster Brennan. It had begun as a quaint township, a mere thirty men and women Lancaster’s age who had scoffed at the authority of the Wardens and struck out on their own. Leaving Erznia, they had settled far south along the shores of the Thulon Ocean. It was said that Lancaster had only felt comfortable when he could hear the crash of waves or feel the sting of the salty breeze on his cheeks.
    Though the settlement had humble beginnings, a short eighty years later, it had become a bustling city, the most advanced in all of Neldar. Matthew; his father, Elbert; his grandfather Ansel—and, of course, Lancaster before him—had used the great wealth and resources they’d collected over the decades to create a shipping empire. The ocean and rivers of Neldar were Matthew’s domain, and no consignment could be sent across the waters without using his ships. He was the highest of merchants,