Drumwe Isles

chapter sixteen

"Wait, wait, stop."

Cael looked at Kieran, tiredly.

"You beat your brother half to death in an alleyway and then left him there?"

Cael shrugged. Kieran was lost.

"For what? For hurting one woman?"

Cael shook his head, taking a swig of his waterskin pouch.

Even Enid was paying attention now, as she tucked her long braid into the hood of her fur coat. As they stepped into the city of Taudor, she'd thought it best to conceal more of herself. Taudor was different from Dillac in some pretty vast ways. Women weren't viewed the same way. In Dillac, a warrior was a warrior was a warrior. This was not true of Taudor and the trio was well aware.

"You have to understand, the relationship between my brother and I had been getting more and more strained over the years. Niall had the capacity to do very bad things and feel no remorse for having done them. The ends justify the means, and whatnot. We just didn't look at things the same way, and on that day, I realised I couldn't be around my brother anymore without wanting to harm him."

Kieran nodded. In a way, that made sense of Cael. He wasn't very quick to anger, but it could be hellish when he'd gotten to that point.

"What'd you do after that? Did you go back and help him?"

"No. I went to our rooftop, packed my things, and left Taudor."

Kieran was aghast now. They were moving through streams of shops and cobblestone streets in the city. Taudor was a very colourful place. The buildings were made of all manners of clay or bricks, and it seemed to dye these clays was a common occurrence.

"So why on Drumwe would Niall give us a discount?"

Enid was now weary of their journey. If her brother had beaten her half to death, she wasn't sure how quick she'd be to do him a favour, brother or not.

"Because Niall isn't the type to hold a grudge."

Kieran looked unsure; Enid was petulant by now.

They got to Cael's old rooftop and found it to be occupied by two boys. When Cael noticed them to be one small and one older boy, he figured they could be Niall's.

"Do you know where we can find Niall? Silverpelt?"

The boys eyed them suspiciously.

"Who the hell are you?"

"I'm a friend."

"Niall doesn't make friends easy."

Cael chuckled, they had a point there.

"I'm his brother."

The older one looked at him and shrugged. The resemblance was a bit hard to miss.

"He's got an estate on the north side now, though he's probably in his ship at the docks."

Cael was a tad bit surprised. He'd always figured Niall was going somewhere, being business minded and an opportunist, but he didn't think he'd see the day.

"Alright then, thank you."

Cael set five galleons down on a crate for the boys and led his friends down to the docks. Enid and Kieran were looking around interestedly as they followed along. They'd never been this deep into Taudor before and everything about it was new to them.

When they got to the docks Cael grew a bit anxious. How was he to find his brother without ever seeing him? Being a coastal city, there were anywhere from fifty to a hundred ships along the docks in a day. He began scanning boats and tried to think on what sort of boat Niall would pick had he the money to get whatever sort he wanted.