“And you cry aloud the manner of our deaths, lady, should Kolder come into Sulcarkeep as it did to Gorm.” The Master Trader pushed his heavy-boned mount up level with them.

“We have bested them here, but what if they muster legions of these half-dead to assault our walls? There are only a few men within the keep, for this is the trading season and nine-tenths of our ships are at sea. We needs must spread thinly in the fortress. A man may clip heads with a will, but his arm tires at the business. And if the enemy keeps coming they can overwhelm us by sheer weight of numbers. For they have no fear for themselves and will go forward where one of us might have a second thought, or a third!”

Neither Koris nor the witch had a ready answer for that. Only Simon’s first sight of the trading port, hours later, was in a manner reassuring. Seamen though the Sulcarmen might be by first choice, they were also builders, using every natural advantage of the point they had selected as an asset in the erection of the keep. From the land side it was mainly wall with watch towers and firing slits in plenty. And it was only when Magnis Osberic escorted them within that they saw the full strength of the place.

Two arms of rock curved out to the sea — a crab’s open claws — and between them was the harbor. But each of those claws had been reinforced with blocks of masonry, walls, watch points, miniature forts, connected to the main body with a maze of underground ways. Wherever possible the outer walls ran down straight to the pound of the waves, providing no possible hold for climbers.

“It would seem,” Simon commented, “that this Sulcarkeep was built with the thought of war in mind.”

Magnis Osberic laughed shortly. “Master Tregarth, the Peace of the Highways may hold for our blood within Estcarp, and to a measure within Alizon and Karsten — providing we clink gold in the hearing of the right ears. But elsewhere in the world we show swords along with our trade goods, and this is the heart of our kingdom. Down in those warehouses lies our life blood — for the goods that we barter is the flow of our life. To loot Sulcarkeep is the dream of every lordling and every pirate in this world!