Fishing and the Sea Harvest
Poena is the word for all fish, from the smallest freshwater kind to the largest creature of the open sea. Salted, smoked, dried, or fresh, Poena is the cheapest protein in any coastal city and the only reliable one in some. Most native fish carry a line of small bone plates along the lateral line, more pronounced in deep-water kinds than river kinds — the most common sight on a fishmonger's slab, and one nobody discusses.
- Haerl
- The staple fish of the northern seas: heavy-bodied and blunt-headed, about three Paelm (a foot and a half) long, mottled olive above and pale beneath. Taken in huge numbers by net and line, it salts and dries so well it keeps for years, and it travels on every ship and in barrels down the Brass Road to cities that have never seen the sea. A northern household that has run out of Haerl truly has nothing left.
- Taedh
- The river fish of Forgegate's waters — coppery, deep-bodied, slow, and content in warm murky water that would kill most things. Netted in the rivers and kept in ponds because it breeds so easily and needs so little; every settlement on the Guild Road keeps ponds of it against a poor harvest. An ornamental line is bred for display in garden ponds.
- Zhoena
- The reef fish of Eldershore's warm shallows — bright red, gold, and banded, deep-bodied and heavy-jawed, from palm-sized to a Streid long. It does not keep, so it is eaten fresh in abundance in Eldershore and nowhere else; every attempt to make it keep has failed. The markets are full of it in the morning and empty by night, and northerners remark on its abundance and on the fact that none of it can go home with them.
- Volka
- The great swift fish of the open ocean, six to ten Streid long, torpedo-shaped, steel blue above and silver below, built for nothing but speed. It runs offshore in schools and boats take it only after days of following; a single one is a week's food for a crew, which draws boats into waters they would never otherwise enter. Its flesh is dark, rich, and precious, and reaches the northern cities packed in salt at prices that put it only on tables that can afford to show it off.