HIGH MERCHANT (Wyrms of Pasandir #5)



​Fifteen-year-old Shaw is already at the head of a fast-growing transnational business. With the acquisition of the great WyDir airlines company, she became a power in the lands of the Weal, and now she is ready to expand.

She manages to get an airship concession from the king of Hizmyr, a large and rich country to the north. This brings her into conflict with the local guilds, who have a monopoly on all businesses in that kingdom.

The Guilds of Hizmyr are ruthless and go to any length to maintain their hold over the king. Soon, Shaw finds herself embroiled in a battle demanding all her grit and ingenuity to win. 

Meanwhile the populace, fed up with their poverty, is on the brink of rebellion. To save her plans, Shaw must not only defeat the guilds, she must prevent a civil war as well! 

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High Merchant, Wyrms of Pasandir #5
Author: Paul E. Horsman
For Ages 13+
Cover Design: Deranged Doctor Design
Publisher: Red Rune Books (2018)
Published as: print book, e-book
Pages: ca. 279
Price: $ 11.90 (print), $ 4.99 (e-book)


​CHAPTER 1 – NOT THE KOKKACIR

Shaw emerged from the Old Wharf dormitory house rubbing her eyes and yawning. On the threshold she stopped abruptly. The sun smiled at her; from the warehouse, the happy voices of the worker kids greeted her, and the honeysuckle on the nearby city walls did its best to bewitch her with its smell.
‘Darn!’ she cried, chagrined. ‘I overslept!’ She always got up at daybreak; there was so much to do, and now...
‘You needed your booty-sleep,’ Haai-Bo said in her head.
‘Booty?’ Shaw said. ‘Not beauty?’
‘Wyrm girls have beauty, humans don’t,’ her wyrmling said blithely. ‘You have won much money and want more, so booty.’
Shaw couldn’t suppress a chuckle. ‘You’re wide-awake, aren’t you?’
Haai-Bo cackled. ‘Wyrmlings no sleepyheads. Go get some food, girl. No mice on the menu, but good porridge today.’
Shaw pulled a face. Many of the other orphan kids swore by porridge, but to her it was a memory of home and her late parents. Well, there would be other things as well; bread, jam, eggs, and more. She patted her pockets and got out the eye patch and monocle. Her lazy eye was getting slowly better, but the eyeglass had become part of her image, and a great tool in handling pretentious opponents. Then she strode into the warehouse.
‘Morning,’ she said to the portal mage in his little office below the stairs. ‘What time is it?’
Kier looked up from the newspaper he was reading and grinned. ‘Nearly ten o’clock. What did you do yesterday; made a night of it?’
Darn again; she couldn’t even be decently angry. ‘Business,’ she said haughtily. ‘Important business.’
Kier held up the paper. ‘Catching saboteurs. It’s all in the Gazette.’
‘Already?’ she said, giving up being mad. ‘I’ll read it later. Is Nate around?’
‘Up with the birds. He told us you weren’t to be disturbed for any reason. Lady Ruth is in the office. Why don’t you go and have some breakfast first?’
Shaw sighed. ‘You’re the second one to say that. Do I look starved?’
‘No,’ Kier said earnestly. ‘But we know you tend to forget those little details.’
‘True.’ She touched her eye patch and hurried up the stairs. At the cantina door she nearly collided with Ruth, who stepped aside and caught her as she stumbled.
‘Good morning,’ Ruth said. ‘Up and raring to go, gal?’
‘Sorry,’ Shaw said. ‘I was thinking.’
Before Ruth could reply, a raucous blare outside made them jump.
‘What the heck was that?’ Shaw cried and hurried down again.
‘Signal from Mariner Tower.’ One of squad leader Yens’ young guards came running, trying to keep his sword from tripping him up as he went. ‘We found a real signal horn to warn people.’
She stared at the boy. ‘Warn of what?’
‘A ship,’ he said. ‘We don’t want no more pirates surprising us, do we?’
‘No, of course not,’ Shaw said hastily. Only last month they had stopped a bunch of pirates and a jinni burgling one of their houses. Old Wharf was within Seatome’s city borders, but in such an out-of-the-way corner they could as well have been on an island.
Both Squad Leader Yens and Stationmaster Varan were already at the pier and Shaw joined them. There lay a fog over the sea that hid everything below a frigate’s topmasts. Only the tower guard would have spied anything coming.
‘What’s that about a ship?’ she said.
‘We don’t know yet,’ Yens said. ‘The lookout on Mariner Tower has orders to blow that horn when he spies any vessel coming for our bit of the harbor.’
Shaw cursed her bad eye as she tried to focus it. A ship; would that be Kokkacir? Captain Tamyas’ former pirate vessel had sailed from their Smalkand base days ago, and Shaw had been expecting her for some time already.
Then she saw a dark shape coming through the sea mist. It was an impossible ship, without masts or smokestack; not much larger than a brig, but very different, and fast. Too fast.
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