like a peaceful settlement. It’s not a martial force, and the Raelechs are there helping them.”
“I think you’ve delved to the roots, ben Kor,” I said, privately noting that since the Hathrim existence was now indisputable, he had immediately thought of how to cast them as harmless. Later he would insinuate that I was worrying about nothing. I needed to get at least Tip Fet ben Lot to agree that such a group on our border was dangerous. “How will we report this to the Canopy? An invasion or an illegal occupation?”
“I think those are both inflammatory characterizations, ben Sah,” he said.
“What would you say, then? Surely this is more than a family camping trip.”
“Don’t be ridiculous.”
“Can you think of any legal reason for a force this size to be here?”
He didn’t answer the legal question but focused instead on my word choice. “I think calling it a force is stretching the meaning of the word.”
“Pick your own noun for that very large number of Hathrim, then, and tell me if you think they have legal standing to be building walls and canals and what looks like docks in Ghurana Nent. Have you or ben Lot perhaps heard through diplomatic channels that the Nentian king has authorized the Hathrim to build a new city here?”
“No, I haven’t,” Pak said. Tip shook his head to indicate he had heard nothing either, and Pak continued. “If they are here illegally, the Black Jaguars shall certainly support action against them.”
“So you believe there might be legal justification for their presence?”
“I’m not saying either way, ben Sah. I’m saying we have no grounds for pursuing punitive action until we know more.”
“Let’s review what we do know,” I said, “just to make sure we’re all agreed on the facts. I saw fires on the ocean pass by my post the night after Mount Thayil erupted. They were headed north. Here, to the north of my post, we find a very large group of Hathrim and a fleet of glass boats docked on the coast of Ghurana Nent. We know that Harthrad had a fleet of glass boats for many years. We are therefore most likely looking at the survivors of Mount Thayil’s eruption. Yes?”
“Most likely,” Tip Fet ben Lot said.
My clansmen agreed, and ben Kor grudgingly said, “Agreed that it is most likely, but by no means certain.”
“I would agree that confirmation is necessary, ben Kor. But should this prove to be the citizens of Harthrad, there can be no justification for them landing here. They should have sailed to one of the other Hathrim isles or else to the main continent of Hathrir. Unless they negotiated a secret treaty with Ghurana Nent that we don’t know about that gave them permission to land here, this is a breach of Nentian borders. An invasion, in other words. Wouldn’t you agree?”
“Burrs and weeds!” he exploded. “You can’t throw around words like invasion so casually! It’s that kind of talk that starts wars!”
“It should start vigorous diplomacy first,” I said. “And I think this situation requires plenty of vigor. We don’t want a population of lavaborn with this much fuel for fire so close to the Canopy.”
“No. No, we don’t,” Tip Fet ben Lot said, and I was glad that he at least appeared to be thinking of the Canopy first now. He’d support my view of things in the sway should it come to that.
“Let’s just confirm who these Hathrim are and what they want before we start assigning them motives from a distance,” ben Kor said. “That’s all I ask.”
“Uh, I think we’ve been spotted,” Pen said, her finger pointing ahead of us and to the left. We’d all been looking down to the right, where the settlement was, and therefore hadn’t seen the movement.
Three houndsmen emerged from the trees perhaps a hundred lengths away, fully armored and wielding the long-handled axes that they liked to swing down at the tiny heads of people like us.
For a few seconds, all was still. The houndsmen halted when they spied our party, and the horses froze as if they hoped the hounds wouldn’t see them. It was the first time I had seen the Hathrim hounds in person, and they were nothing short of terrifying. A cold shudder shook my limbs, and my jaw dropped. Such monsters should not walk in the world. I had seen kherns once, great horned beasts twelve feet tall at the shoulder and deadly on the run but ultimately herbivores and not