“Can’t hurt to make a good first impression,” Tavi agreed. He shook his head slowly. “Can you imagine, Magnus, what would have happened if those hotheaded idiots in the Senate had gotten their way and funded a full-scale retaliation upon the Canim homeland?”

Magnus shook his head in silence.

“With numbers like this,” Tavi continued, “they could have wiped us out. Furycrafting or no, they could have destroyed us at will.”

Magnus’s face turned grim. “So it would seem.”

Tavi looked up at him. “So why didn’t they?”

The old Cursor shook his head again. “I don’t know.”

Tavi studied the map for a time, examining the various territories. “Then Varg, I take it, is a member of only one of these territories?”

“Yes,” Magnus said. “Narash. It’s the only territory that has actually made contact with Alera.”

The territory of Narash, Tavi noted, was also home to the port of Marshag. “Then I suppose the next question we need to ask ourselves is—”

Outside the cabin, the ship’s bell began to ring frantically. Demos began bellowing orders. A few moments later, the captain himself knocked, then opened the cabin door.

“Magnus,” he said, nodding to the old Cursor. “My lord,” he said, nodding to Tavi. “The old sea dog was right. There’s a storm coming up on us from the south.”

Tavi winced, but nodded. “How can we help you, Captain?”

“Tie down anything that isn’t bolted to the floor,” Demos said, “including yourselves. It’s going to be a bad one.”

CHAPTER 2

Valiar Marcus debated the proper way to inform the proud young Canim officer that there was, in fact, a considerable distinction between telling an Aleran that he had a poor sense of smell and informing him that he smelled bad.

The young Cane, Marcus knew, was anxious to make a good showing in his language lessons in front of no less personages than both Varg, the undisputed commander of the Canim fleet, and his son and second-in-command, Nasaug. If Marcus made the young officer look foolish, it would be an insult that the Cane would carry stubbornly to his grave—and given the enormous life span of the wolf-folk, it meant that Marcus’s actions could cause repercussions, good or ill, for generations yet unborn.

“While your statement is doubtless accurate,” Marcus replied, in careful, slow, clearly pronounced Aleran, “you may find that many of my countrymen will respond awkwardly to such remarks. Our own sense of smell is, as you note, a great deal less developed than your own, and as such the use of language that bears upon it will carry a different degree of significance than it might amongst your own folk.”

Varg growled under his breath, and muttered, “Few, Aleran or Canim, care to be informed that their odor is unwelcome.”

Marcus turned his head to the grizzled old leader of the Canim and inclined his head, in the Aleran fashion. “As you say, sir.”