Chapter nine
In which Seg hires on paktunsThe boat drew into the wooden piers of the wharfside in Nalvinlad. Many craft dotted the brown water, paddles flashed and the shouts of stentors as they guided their vessels joined in the clamor of birds above the fish quays. The slaves from Obolya’s Schinkitree were herded out, chained two and two, and taken off to the slave barracks for the night.
The city was not overlarge, girded with a stout wooden palisade strengthened with mudbrick. Here and there, particularly at the river gates and the few gates facing inland, the defenses were strengthened with blocks of masonry. Crowds surged about the business of a city, yet as he went ashore Seg noticed that same apathy that afflicted all the folk of the river since the disappearance of their king.
