Katryn gave Jace the go-ahead to hop down, wade ashore, and start exploring before she’d decided where to put the Chaser.
This was not a trivial question… the atoll had no harbor. The water was shallow immediately past the ill-defined border between land and sea, but the drop-off was steep and sudden. There was no comfortable medium area where the ship could remain at anchor… while Loki could hold the vessel more steady and still than any mortal vehicle, he wouldn’t appreciate spending the entire duration of the stay keeping the hull from scraping against the bottom.
At the same time, while Kat was a strong swimmer, she wasn’t a natural at it on the same order as Jace, and she didn’t think that Sheiral could swim at all. She also didn’t relish trying to get a book or parchment from ship to shore, if it came to that.
So, after a careful study of the northern shore, she picked the shallowest approach she could find and beached the tiny ship. Loki groaned and protested the decision, but she knew the enchanted timbers could take a little scraping.
She had kept one eye on the boy even as she dealt with the problem of location. She didn’t think the atoll harbored any large or dangerous beasts, but she couldn’t be sure… she’d seen some manner of goats and large rabbit-like rodents that she had assumed were the legacies of past sailors, but if the island could support them, it could support things that hunted them, too.
She had visited the Fingernails before during “rim-runs” done to avoid pursuit, but she’d never put in for an extended spell at them. Alone, she was more comfortable staying on the ship at night, and she’d never had need to go back into the trees when she could get kindling and fruit from the edges of the small wood.
“The boy’s not my worry,” she said to herself as she watched him slipping in and out of sight around tree trunks. “If he gets himself eaten by snakes, that’s his own lookout… on the other hand, he has been a bit of a good luck charm for me, hasn’t he? But then, how lucky can he be if he gets eaten by snakes?”
She became aware of a looming presence just behind her left shoulder. She turned to see Loki there, looking past her at Jace.
“Do you have something to say?” she asked.
“No, no, I think you’re doing a good enough job on your own,” he said. “In fact, I’m in danger of feeling superfluous… although I would point out that you do have a stake in whether the boy lives or dies. If he lives, he’s going to want to share in your prize.”
“So? I think I’ll be able to afford to let a runaway slave boy walk away with enough gold to satisfy his wildest dreams,” Katryn said. “I think the money I gave him for paper was probably more tetrae than he’d ever clapped eyes on before.”
“As a slave,” Loki said. “What if he gets it into his head that he’s entitled to more? What if he wants half? What if he wants it all?”
“Then we’ll have a problem,” Kat said. “But a small one… not one worth worrying about now.”
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