Beyond strange. There was nothing up there: no roads, nor even footpaths; no villages; no food; no water. Yet there they were, a little line of men, black against the sunrise.They came nine days after the big red ship had foundered, but Kaida knew immediately that they had come for the ship. Outlanders didn’t come to Ama-machi. There was nothing for them here—nothing, unless Ryujin’s Claw seized some treasure of theirs. That was why Kaida had been sneaking out every morning to dive on the wreck.She was treading water over the skeletal hulk when she first spied the strangers. The sun had not yet risen high enough for its light to reach Ama-machi, so the village was still asleep. That meant Kaida was the only one to have spotted the strangers. If only she had already found what they’d come for, she could have delivered it to them before anyone else was even awake. Whatever the outlanders were looking for, Kaida could use it to buy her way out of Ama-machi forever. It did not matter where the outlanders took her, whether they took her back to their home or simply dumped her off as soon as they tired of her.
