Of Truth and Beasts

Time passed quickly while Wynn readied for what came next. Unable to squelch her curiosity about the notorious free port of Drist, she thought of High-Tower’s fuming shock, if and when he learned she’d ignored his warning. Then someone rapped softly upon the cabin door.

“Wynn?” Chane rasped.

She peeked through the porthole and saw that dusk had come, but the dimming light outside wasn’t completely gone. Somehow he’d come early again. Before this trip, he never roused on his own until full darkness.

“Yes, come in.”

He stuck his head in.

“Grab the chest,” Wynn said. “We’ve made port.” 

Not long after night’s first bell, Chane fidgeted anxiously on deck. The harbor was so crowded that the crew had to wait their turn to even dock the ship.

“Ah, dead deities in seven hells,” Wynn muttered under her breath.

Chane frowned at her language, but he could not argue with the sentiment. And he still felt wrong inside. Whatever side effects he suffered from Welstiel’s concoction had faded to lingering, nagging nervousness. At least now that the fluid had been tested, he knew its purpose.

It would keep him from falling dormant.

A fervor of deck activity pulled him from his thoughts. The crew’s demeanor had changed drastically. Half the men strapped on cutlasses, while others began hauling cargo on deck before any signal that the ship could dock. One sailor climbed to the crow’s nest with a large crossbow and a case of quarrels strapped to his back.

Chane grew more uncertain about Wynn’s chosen destination.

By the light of massive pole braziers, six long piers jutted from the port far out into the water. A vessel filled nearly every available space, except for the largest ships, which anchored offshore.

Looking over the piers, Chane could not help his rising trepidation.

Too many people, uncomfortable numbers, filled the port even at nightfall. Dockworkers and sailors clambered everywhere, hauling cargo to and from ships, handling mooring and rigging, and shouting over the general din. A medium-sized schooner pulled away from the nearest dock and finally drifted past, out beyond their ship’s prow.

“Weigh anchor! Gentle to port!” their captain shouted.

Their smaller vessel drifted inward and soon settled in an open slot. Chane, along with his companions, stayed clear as sailors threw mooring lines to dockhands below. Once the ramp was lowered, four armed sailors sprang forward. Two ran down to stand post at the ramp’s bottom, while the other pair took stations at the top, watching all activity below.

Chane looked about and saw similar safeguards on other vessels. He had never seen sailors behave in such a fashion in Calm Seatt or the king’s city of Bela in his country. Perhaps High-Tower’s warning to Wynn had been legitimate. What kind of business did their ship’s captain have in this place?

“I do not like this,” he whispered.

The city loomed before them, couched between dark, high hills cresting above the shore to the north and south. Buildings of mixed sizes and shapes, dingy and worn by coastal weather, were so closely mashed together that only a few vertical roads showed between them. Warehouses lined the shore, and the air was tainted with myriad scents, from fish to oiled wood, salt brine to people and livestock. The stench of burning wood, coal, and oil from the immense braziers tainted all other smells.

“Look at all of them,” Wynn whispered, but she was not looking into the city.

A wild array of people hurried about the docks and milled around the large bay doors of warehouses. Every color and form of attire that Chane could imagine was scattered among them.

Caramel-skinned Sumans in colorful garb led goats harnessed in a line. A group of even darker-skinned people he had never seen, with tightly curled black hair, were dressed in one-piece shifts of cloth, or pantaloons and waist wraps of strong colors with ink black patterns. They tried to navigate a cart of cloth bolts, perhaps silk, around a cluster of garishly armored men. Another band in hides and furs leaped off a thick-hulled vessel with many oars raised upright around its one square sail. This group shoved their way down the dock with shields and broadswords in hand, as if waiting for someone to challenge them. They had to be Northlanders, a people Wynn had mentioned a few times.

The number of Numans was almost overwhelming. Some dressed like vagabonds, while others wore finery beneath voluminous wool cloaks.

“Go ahead,” the captain barked.

Startled to awareness, Chane turned.

The captain waved them forward. “The ramp’s secure.... Off with you all.”