Leviathan's Blood by Ben Peek Page B

open, scattering fruit, bread, and water across the ground. It had been the meat that had given
them pause. It was a square, cured, and as the cartographer picked it up, Bueralan said, ‘I don’t think we should eat that.’ Despite having not eaten for two days, he felt
repulsed by the shape of it. ‘No telling what it is. Could be human.’
    ‘Smells like pig,’ Orlan said.
    They had left it there without further conversation.
    It had been the only time that the two of them had agreed on anything. Since then, they had niggled at each other, prodded and probed. Bueralan’s anger had been the source of his
antagonism. Orlan’s was guilt, he assumed. The old man had not apologized for what he had done – not that it would have meant much if he had. Orlan hadn’t given much away, either.
He hadn’t explained why the child had called him god-touched. Why she had not killed him. Or why, in his words, she was not quite a god yet.

7.
    Kal Essa was a man easily remembered. In the final days of Qaaina, in the days when the Oolian Queens were burning not just lives, but an entire nation, a heavy, spiked mace
had struck Essa across the left side of his head, tearing open his skin. It had been a glancing blow and the skin had been stitched back together in the field, but as often with such makeshift
work, it left scars. In the Captain of the Brotherhood’s case, it left a series of heavy, spider-webbed lines that ran from eye to ear in white scar tissue.
    ‘By the time the paperwork was done, two men were waiting for me outside the office,’ Essa said, after Heast had stepped through the back door of the building he had bought. The
expanse of empty floor waited to be filled with produce, with blankets, with whatever Heast could buy to fill it. ‘They followed me across Neela and into Maala. It was nearly a whole
day’s ride in those carriages. They’ve set up a rotation outside the hostel we rented – about eight of them – but they’re easy enough to lose and find again when we
need them.’
    ‘I had two following me before I came here, as well.’ At the far end of the room were two people, a man and a woman, who were doing a lap of the emptiness. ‘Did any follow
those two?’
    ‘No.’ Essa turned to Heast. ‘I told them to be careful with Gaerl, though.’
    ‘But they ignored you,’ he said.
    ‘They shrugged it off.’ The mercenary spat on the floor. ‘They don’t know him the way we do, Captain.’
    Faise and Zineer drew closer. They carried leather satchels full of paper, full of orders and statements and purchasing plans. Already, in the week since the two had met Muriel on the mountain,
they had begun to set up a series of false names and long paper trails to hide the details of the majority of what they bought. They had helped Essa with his purchase and, Heast knew, it had been
reported to Benan Le’ta, but the act, much like the purchase of the factory they stood in, was one of misdirection. He wanted the merchant to be watching Essa and him. That way, the majority
of what Faise and Zineer would soon be buying would be kept from view, the paper trail lost while the Mireeans gained their leverage over the Traders’ Union.
    ‘We’ll start buying farmland next week,’ Faise said, after they had greeted Heast and then crossed the stone floor to stand next to him and Essa. ‘We’re going to
start on the northern side, on farms that are near to Mireea. Some of that is already owned by Muriel Wagan, and the loss of Mireea will make the sellers a little easier to shift.’
    Heast took the map she handed him. She had circled the lots of land. ‘Who do you plan to use as a buyer?’ he asked.
    ‘A Zoum banker,’ Zineer said. ‘A lot of the world’s coin routes through there and the bankers are often used to represent buyers. We were lucky that one was in Yeflam
when we needed her.’
    ‘How long until it becomes public, do you think?’ He passed the map back to Faise. ‘Before