anymore. There’s a war on, spreading like disease up and down the eastern kingdoms. Even Silvers are not immune to it. Fewer of them run, but the ones who do run the same as the rest of us. I find that comforting, somehow.
Most Rivermen are Reds. The few Silvers among us live farther south, on the Tiraxean border or in the few established cities on the Great River. They don’t bother this far north. Not worth their time or the risk of facing their kin. They’re self-obsessed cowards no matter who they pledge allegiance to, only willing to fight what they know they can defeat.
And many Red Rivermen won’t take Silvers on the boats. Most of us hate them, hate their abilities, hate who they are. They aren’t worth the trouble or the headache, no matter how well they pay.
Not me. There are no colors on a rat day. No Red or Silver. All that matters on my boat is coin.
I count quickly in my head, scanning the docks. I could book passage for six—they would fit even with the cargo I took on upriver at the border. Better if a few were small—young children. A family is best. One destination, more likely to work together, keep one another in check. Less chance of trouble. Easy job, easy river. My father’s old words rise like a Lakelander prayer, floating above the shouts across the water.
I lean against the rigging of my keelboat, eyes narrowed against the dawn slanting through the trees on the Lakelander bank. I venture at least two hundred souls hope for passage, ratting on the docks. With only three boats waiting, my own included, most will find their hopes unanswered.
This isn’t even one of the busy points of crossing, like the Geminas city port, the Memphia islands, the Gates of Mizostium, or the major confluences along the Great River. But this part of the Ohius has the closest public docks to the Rift border, a region now in open revolt against Norta. Red refugees and Silver deserters have flooded downriver over the last few months, like leaves on the current. Things must be going poorly in the east—because my business has never been better.
I prefer honest smuggling to passenger work if given the choice. Cargo doesn’t talk back. Right now half my shallow boat is packed with crates, some stamped with the Nortan crown, others the blue flower of the Lakelander king and queen. I don’t ask what I transport, but I can guess. Grain from the Lakelands, slum-made batteries fresh from the Nortan factories. Oil fuel, bottles of alcohol. All stolen, to be handed off downriver south or upriver west. I wager I’ll replace them with crates stamped with the Montfort mountain for the return journey. Guns and ammunition come down the Ark River to the Great on seemingly every boat, bound for the rebels fighting in the northeast. The gun runs pay best, but they carry the most risk. Most Crownland patrols will let Rivermen pass for a bribe, but not if you’re carrying weaponry. That’ll earn you a bullet if you’re lucky, or Silver torture if the patrols are feeling bored.
No guns on my boat today, except for the ones my small crew and I carry. The Freelands are no place to travel unarmed.
The other two keelboats, shallow as my own, built to ride strong currents and ford the changing depths of rivers and streams, wait off the starboard side. I know their captains, and they know me. Old Toby waves from the prow of her boat, a red patchwork scarf tied around her neck despite the humidity of early summer. She’s taken up with the Scarlet Guard and works almost exclusively for them now. She must have an arrangement waiting to board her boat. Guard operatives or the like, catching transport to river knows where.
I shake my head. Not worth the trouble, those Guard folk. They’ll get you killed quicker than a gun run.
“You want to pick your rats first, Ashe?” the other captain, Hallow, calls to me from his deck. He’s my age and lanky as a scarecrow, taller than I am, but I don’t mind. I prefer muscle to height. Hallow is fair where I am dark, brown all over from my hair to my eyes to the river-worn, scarred, tanned hands in my pockets. Our fathers worked together downriver at the Gates. They died together too.
I shake my head. “It’s your turn,” I reply, grinning at him. I always give