The Gembound: The Price of Keeping Chapter 38: Volume 2: Chapter 36 — Docks and Pirates

Read chapter 38 of The Gembound: The Price of Keeping by Taliorn on NovelPedia.

Volume 2: Chapter 36 — Docks and Pirates The river widened into a brown mouth where Aramore met its own hunger. Barges lay three deep along the quay; skiffs bumped hulls like nervous fish. Nets hung from poles to dry into ghosts. Sailcloth flapped where roofs should have been. The docks lived by improvisation, patch on patch, rule on rumor. What the quarry lacked, the docks had in options. You could run from a pit; from water, you could vanish. Yara walked down the pier with ten Iron Defenders and two she trusted: Sam to slip, Harry to bite. Marcus covered the right flank. Rolen and Varrek spread out to watch the alleys. She left three Defenders at the quarry to steady Risa’s crews and remind herself to choose restraint over harvest. The docks were families braided around bosses who called themselves captains. You could see it in the way the men stood: their shoulders set, clustered around a shared laugh, knives worn to match. The women held the babies as if they were cargo to be counted. Every rope had three hands on it, and none belonged to the city. Yara stopped at the edge of the old fish market, where the stone table had been scoured smooth by salt and bodies. She mounted it without asking. The Defenders halted with the same single hinge that had made the quarry kneel. “Your smugglers become my pirates, my corsairs.” Yara projected her voice, letting the river carry it. “You’ve been running goods past sleeping guards for years. Good. I want people who can sail without witnesses. I’ll give letters. You’ll raid what doesn’t belong to us and escort what does. You’ll keep a cut. You’ll keep your lives. You’ll keep your names.” A silence rose the way a wave rises and thinks about being more. Then a man made out of knuckles laughed and spat between his boots. “We keep our names," he barked. “You keep your dolls.” “The dolls eat less than you do,” Yara shot back. Offer them blood on a flag , the Gem purred, wicked and eager. But call it a permit. Turn theft into prize; attach a ribbon and a seal, and they’ll kneel to the name that pays. “We’ll make it a job.” Yara leveled her voice. “Not a guessing game. The first crew to sign gets letters, rations, rope, and legal salvage from enemy boats inside the bend. The city stops pretending you don’t exist. You stop pretending that the city leaders and taxes don’t exist.” It should have worked. At the quarry, a woman had listened, and the stone had listened to her listening. But water teaches different lessons. A boy with a line of fish tattooed up his neck spat into the river instead of the dock. He watched the water catch his spit. A woman with the tired posture of someone who’d picked up a life she hadn’t chosen rocked a baby. She did the math. She did not like any of its answers. A boat slid loose from a mid-quay cleat with the practised carelessness of flight. Yara spotted the stern rope snake. “No one leaves.” Her tone cut through the crowd. Two Iron Defenders stepped as one to block the slipway. The boatman blinked at them like he hadn’t expected the world to have hands. He went for a pole anyway, and the pole hit an iron shield, which decided it was a stick. “Bring the boat back,” Yara said. “No one runs during parley.” “Parley?” the knuckle-man jeered. “You climbed a fish table.” Harry’s head cocked. Sam’s fingers twitched once, the small tell he made when he was already moving in his mind and waiting for permission. “Corsair letters.” Yara’s tone was as patient as a wall. “Food for service. A recognised roster. We’re setting a tax as well. Weekly. Count yourselves in groups of five hundred and send a representative. The quarry did it without shouting. Don’t make me shout.” The laugh died on the knuckle-man’s face, not because he’d been convinced, but because the sound behind Yara changed. Ten shields lifted by a breath. Ten spearheads agreed with each other. The crowd’s lungs stuttered. “Five hundred?” a woman asked, incredulous. “There aren’t five hundred of anything down here