Free Foreign Devils by John Hornor Jacobs

was curious to see how this process differed from the Quotidian.
    ‘How much blood?’
    ‘Ah, so you have experience with infernography?’
    ‘A tad,’ I said, holding up my hand and exposing the cut still healing there.
    ‘Not too much. A cupful, possibly,’ he said. ‘But we’ll replenish your sanguine humours with strong drink and companionship!’ Wasler said, beaming. A nice fellow, this Wasler. His sisterwife Winfried, while pleasant enough, was not nearly as ebullient. ‘Please sit.’
    I sat cross-legged on the far side of their small chest while Fisk sat and then leaned back on his hands, his booted feet crossed and stretched out in front of him, watching now as Maskelyne rousted the slaves and made ready for the night’s mooring. Other boats – daemon- driven, equipped with daemonlights – might travel upriver at night, but not this one. A slow boat is faster than none at all and the horses needed rest after crossing the Hardscrabble back from Dvergar Spur.
    After a few barked commands at the slaves, a group disappeared in the hold and then re-emerged, grunting and straining, carrying two large canvas-wrapped objects. They brought them onto the hold’s roof, setting them down on the rough wood, and unfurled them, revealing wooden struts, ropes, and more canvas. Tents. Speaking to each other softly, the last bits of sunlight failing, they set up the tents on the barge’s roof and returned with folding cots while the freemen hung oil lanterns along the perimeter of the boat.
    Maskelyne approached, carrying two lanterns. She handed one to me and then placed one near Wasler and Winfried. ‘Braws, I hope this will make you comfortable. I’d offer statesrooms if I had them but I don’t.’
    ‘This is just fine, ma’am,’ I said, opening the tent flap. ‘Better board than we’d have on the trail.’
    ‘Figured as much,’ she said, nodding her head. I got the feeling it wasn’t us she was addressing, though. Fisk and I are pretty rough and tumble.
    Winfried stood and moved to the lantern, picked it up, and entered the tent. With the lantern inside of it, the light-dun fabric yellowed and brightened, becoming a squat, faintly glowing obelisk in the darkness. She returned shortly without the lantern.
    ‘It will do,’ Winfried said simply.
    ‘It’s all part of the experience!’ Wasler exclaimed in his clipped, precise accent. He glanced at Winfried as if checking a clock or barometer. ‘This is the Hardscrabble Territories!’
    ‘It is that, my canvelet ,’ Maskelyne said, not bothering to explain the unfamiliar phrase. She turned to Fisk and me. ‘Moment or two, one of my boys will be cooking some fish and hoecakes near the paddlewheel, braw.’
    Fisk nodded. My stomach rumbled. It had been a while since my last meal.
    ‘There’ll be guards set, cherkme , but if you hear some sort of alarum – bells, a’whooping and a’hollering – that Hellfire will be needed.’
    ‘Understood,’ Fisk said and I echoed that sentiment.
    Maskelyne, seemingly satisfied, gave a little half-bow and departed.
    ‘She seems especially worried with the guards,’ Winfried said.
    ‘Nope,’ Fisk replied, slowly standing up and stretching out the kinks in his long frame. ‘Like your brother, er, husband …’ He paused, putting both his hands at the small of his back and bending backwards. ‘Like he said, this is the Hardscrabble Territories. Always the chance of stretchers.’
    ‘Are they really as terrifying as the papers say?’ Wasler asked, like a child hearing of the great wyrms for the first time.
    Fisk looked at me. ‘Shoe? I’m gonna go get cozy in the tent.’
    I nodded. If there’s anything Fisk didn’t want hear it was tales spun to greenhorns about vaettir .
    When he was gone, I said, ‘You mentioned something about strong drink?’ Wasler laughed and after a moment of digging in a satchel, handed me a flask.
    ‘Well,’ I said, taking a sip of some sort of burning liquid. Insects –