“Looters or the military?”
She shrugged.
“A mix of them both, unfortunately, along with some bad luck.”
She straightened and folded her arms.
“However, I look at this as not so much an end as a beginning. Where there is chaos and desperation, there is always an opportunity. Father still has some resources and inventory. What we need to do is build on that; to find a market for the things we have left. But father only knows of finance and trade, whereas you and I know M’Dahz; the real M’Dahz, not the one that rich traders know. I know that between the three of us we can turn a small store into a large profit.”
Ghassan smiled.
“So you need our help? You’ll have it, of course.”
Samir nodded emphatically, but Asima shook her head, smiling.
“My father will not understand such a thing, but employees he understands. I am here on his behalf to offer you a job. The three of us will work for father.”
She sighed.
“Of course, at the moment, he cannot afford to pay you. You would have to wait until we are successful for a wage, but I truly believe we can do this.”
Samir shook his head.
“I have no need of your father’s money. You both need it more than us.”
Their friend gave a short, light laugh.
“That’s not exactly true, is it Samir? Since your uncle left, most of the money has gone once again from this house. Come now, accept the deal.”
Ghassan nodded and proffered his hand, Samir following suit.
“You speak a lot of sense, Asima. What is the first step then?”
“We need to go and visit father. He is drawing up a full inventory of what we have. Once that is complete, we will go out into M’Dahz and find buyers for everything.”
Samir grinned.
“We shall crack M’Dahz like an oyster and collect the pearl from inside.”
In which tidings are brought
The town of M’Dahz languished hopelessly for the next few months, eking out an existence from the few desert traders desperate enough to sell their wares that they would brave coming this close to the troubled border, and from the occasional Calphorian merchant willing to face the possibility of pirates and Pelasian patrols for the high prices they could charge in the region.
It was far from a comfortable life, but it was a life, when all was said and done. After an initially hopeful start, when the seaborne section of the militia impounded two vessels and brought the navy’s strength up to eight ships, they soon encountered violent resistance from both pirates and a few Pelasian vessels that felt confident there would be no reprisals. Now, after four months of campaigning, the militia had achieved a few small victories, but were back down to a strength of four vessels and were beginning to lose heart.
The defences of the town had been bolstered by the land militia. The new walls were poor and badly- constructed when compared to the heavy fortifications from the height of Imperial power, but they enclosed the nervous population and were well-patrolled by armed militia. M’Dahz endures, the people said. It was the only positive thing anyone could really find to say, these days, and so the people said it often.
Asima and her two partners stood on the jetty waiting for the fleet of small two-man fishing boats to return. The flotilla speckled the water near the horizon and would reach the dock in ten or fifteen minutes, at which point the three children would fill the baskets in their cart with fish and take them back to the secure warehouse.
The past four months had seen an almost spectacular revival of her father’s trading interests. After a slow start, business had picked up rapidly for them and Asima had even talked of employing others, though had finally decided that the business should be kept between them. The girl was shrewd and, with the addition of Samir and Ghassan’s quick minds, her father was astounded at how rapidly his stores replenished and his coffers refilled.
Samir and Ghassan, as the months went by, were repeatedly taken aback by just how vicious and cutthroat Asima was capable of being in business deals. She showed no sign of sympathy or compromise in her dealings, despite the fact that the people they were trading with were often old acquaintances of her father and most were in a similar financial state to themselves, desperately trying to survive in the impoverished town.
Still, it was Samir and Ghassan’s knowledge of the city and their intuitive ideas, combined with Asima’s strength and wily approach to business, that had turned her father’s meagre surviving assets into a going concern once more. They may not like having to be hard on people with whom they sympathised, but it was doing so that was pushing them into a more comfortable position themselves.
And tonight their fish stock would go into storage so that tomorrow it could be distributed among the market traders and fill the ever-hungry bellies of M’Dahz.
Samir frowned and held his hand to his brow, shading his eyes from the late afternoon sun. Something was wrong.
“Ghassan?”
“Hmm?”
His brother turned from the warehouse wall at which he had been idly staring, counting the bricks.
“Ghassan,” his brother repeated, “look at the flotilla. What do you see?”
Ghassan, they had discovered, had the sharpest eyes of the three of them and was probably the most observant. He had spotted the bad dates they had been about to purchase last week, and a month ago had spotted a pirate vessel on the horizon in plenty of time to get word to the Calphorian captain with whom they had been dealing to bring his boat back in to dock.
Ghassan peered out into the bright light, trying to make out the many small shapes amid the glittering, sparkling waves, muttering under his breath. Finally, he removed his hand from his brow and shrugged.
“Twenty eight small fishing boats, all very heavily laden. Bodes well for us, brother.”
Samir shook his head tensely.
“I’m not so sure, Ghassan. Twenty eight, you say? And you’re sure?”
“I could count them again, but there are twenty eight. Why? Are some missing?”
Samir’s jaw hardened.
“Quite the opposite. There are only twenty three fishing boats in M’Dahz.”
Ghassan blinked.
“I know these things,” Samir shrugged. “I pay attention.”
He turned to find Asima, who was standing a few feet away from them by their cart, involved in yet more dealings with one of the dock workers.
“I think we may have trouble” he called to her.
Asima waved away the worker and joined Samir, who explained the discrepancy as Ghassan once more shaded his eyes and stared out across the water. Definitely twenty eight. And heavily laden. There must be so much fish…”
He bit his lip as he scanned across the boats once more.
They were far too heavily laden.
The flotilla was getting closer now and more detail was visible. Twenty eight boats, but not twenty eight fishing boats. Samir had been right. Twenty three fishing boats, for sure. And five lifeboats. Ghassan suddenly found that his heart was racing. He knew what was weighing the boats down now, even before he could confirm it with his eyes. He turned to the smaller brother, his mouth dry.
“Samir… they’re lifeboats.”
Samir stood still and silent as his eyes drifted from Ghassan and back to the bay, where they slid across the open water to the collection of small vessels rowing their way to land; rowing their way to safety?
Ghassan turned his own gaze back to the flotilla and nodded wordlessly as he confirmed with horror what he
