The corbita reached the docks well after the sun had set, and long into the darkness of the night. The harbor was still and, according to a talkative, Sprunish rowing slave, too difficult to navigate (for the fat passenger ship) by oar. No towboats nor customs agents came to meet them. Some of the sailors dove into the harbor, preferring the cold water to spending one more moment with the accursed foreigners. Some of the others curled up in their mean blankets and slept beneath the starry, charcoal sky.

It was maddening. The dark shadows of the dock, cast by the moon rather than any firelight from the city, couldn’t have been a hundred and fifty yards away. A hundred and fifty cold, wet yards--Mierel shivered. He really didn’t want to spend one more night on the water--but he certainly didn’t want to spend the night in the water. He sat, a clumsy movement in which his elbows knocked hard against the deck. Then, grunting often, he worked his numb, sea-raw fingers to fish out his pipe, pack the bowl, and spark up a healthy enough flame to light it.

Ayricalt, meanwhile, was growing impatient. He leaned impetuously against the mast, staring dully out over the harbor. He didn’t get impatient often. He was perfectly predisposed to sitting under a tree, for hours on end, with nothing to do. He could make a whole day out of fluting, smoking, and watching the monotonous trials of beetles. Even when he did get impatient: first of all, it was almost exclusively on Mierel’s account; and secondly, he seldom ever did anything about it. Indeed, he was perfectly predisposed to sulking under a tree, for hours on end, rather than taking action.

So when Ayricalt pulled up a bucket of sea water, knelt in front of it and dipped his hands in the hard, cold water, Mierel instantly stood up and shook the distilled patches of salt from the seat of his robe. It was time for action. Time for Ayricalt to get to work…time for Mierel to gird his loins and hope for the best.

He watched the ritual incuriously, if alertly. Ayricalt removed his hands from the salt-caked, sodden, and warped wooden bucket. They didn’t drip--in fact, they held the water better than its previous vessel. The surface glare veiled his hands like moonlit gloves.

He watched with only the barest hint of wonder (and even then, only a vaguely lustful type) as Ayricalt strode back to the rails, grabbed the tether of the ship’s anchor, and heaved it effortlessly from the seafloor.

Not so pretty in practice, Mierel snickered. Those shimmering gloves gave Ayricalt grip like an arbor wolf’s. Maybe like an arbor wolf’s bone-cracking jaw. It was on a similarly star-streaked and moon-bright night that Mierel had first noticed them.

“What do you call those…fancy hands?” he’d asked, trying drunkenly to flirt.

“There’s no name for it,” Ayricalt had explained, thoughtlessly. “It’s like…it’s as natural to a Karafin sailor as breathing.”

“Yes,” Mierel had replied, affecting something like amused patience, “but there’s a name for breathing.”

If that had given Ayricalt some cause for reflection, he had not shown it.

“What’s gotten into you?” Mierel spat through the pipeless corner of his mouth.

“Mierel,” Ayricalt said, as if just noticing him. He dropped the anchor resoundingly at his companion’s feet; it tilted, falling heavily onto Mierel’s left clog. “Take some weight off this, would you?”

Mierel grimaced, biting firmly on the pipe stem, and perched down where the anchor lay. He brought it into his lap and tenderly stroked it, testing its rusted topography. “Hm,” he said, and then knocked his knuckles against the anchor’s shaft. “Hmmm…”

“Mierel.”

“Alright, prince,” Mierel snapped. “Just give me a second to catch the grain” He dug his fingers into the central iron shaft, and scratched. A ribbon of dimly lustrous iron glimmered through the corrosion.

“Soft as curdled cream,” he snickered, clicking his teeth. He continued rubbing down with his thumb, kneading, like he was trying to ply wet clay off a rock. Iron filings fell in heaps upon the deck, and the smell of hot metal hung in the night air. Mierel’s fingertips stained black against the diminishing shaft. It didn’t take long before he had fully hollowed the center of it--though the rhythm of Ayricalt’s clog heels tapping on the deck, punctuated by many a breathy sigh, made the time drag reluctantly by.

Finally, reaching through the gap, Mierel hefted the anchor up over the deck with a frown.

“That feel alright?”

Ayricalt reached down and took it from him. He did not answer, but took up his old familiar battle stance.

“Like he knows anything about whittling iron,” Mierel muttered loudly to himself.

Ayricalt tested swinging it around. It didn’t look like he’d bother asking for adjustments, however it felt. He took a moment to feed one end of a coiled rope through the gap, and with one hand’s dizzying sleight he knotted it off.

Those sailor’s hands, thought Mierel wistfully. Then he winced, remembering all the barnacle rough calluses of sailors he’d known before.

“Heads up,” muttered Ayricalt, and he twisted back like a bowstring, launching the anchor landward with a wide, overhead toss. It was hard to trace the oblong projectile as it spun through the darkness, but a dull, audible thunk revealed its aim to be true.

“What the hell was that?” Baramethi grumbled, rising from an uncomfortable dose under the weight of his still winded king. He looked out toward the distant harbor, rubbing his neck into compliance. The dock was still well more than a hundred yards out, but getting closer.

Mierel caught his eyes. He was still hunched near the metal filings, a long clay pipe in his mouth and indolence in his eyes. “Ayricalt’s taking us to shore,” he muttered through the pipestem.

Sure enough, the boat was warping. It tilted against the water pressure, spinning toward its hydrodynamic bow. Ayricalt tugged at the tether like a long, fruitless fishing line--throwing it behind him by the foot, by the yard. He paced to the fore, following the line, and up to the bow. He brought his bucket of water, stopping at intervals to wet his drying hands or the soles of his clogs.

The submerged hull scraped loudly on rocks. A chorus of risen and irate sailors went ignored--and equally drowned out by the reverberations of battered and tearing wood screaming through the still night.

“You planning on docking, or landing, Ayry?” Even if the human winch could hear him, Mierel knew better than to expect a response. After all, it was not for his forethought that Ayricalt had gained an audience with the Lord of the Storm, nor was it by the efficacy of his machinations that he’d been elected general of Sacrianos. There was no plan--never had been.

They continued picking up speed, even as the corbita slouched into the water. Ayricalt had one foot on the railing, keeping himself steady as freshly dislodged timbers in the keel caught on rocks, tipping the ship violently on each catch and break. Mierel had one arm around the mast and one on the deck. The pipestem crunched under his bite, a fitting solo for the concert of mutilated wood.

Slaves crawled up shivering from the hold, naked skin covered in droplets and faces hollow with shock.

We can’t be far yet, Mierel thought, though he could hardly keep his bearings through each deep nod of the bow and reflex of the stern. Upon reflection, he found himself more hoping than thinking. Thinking, after all, held little sway in the Court of the Karafin Prince.

Still, there was no denying that a current of providence guided Ayircalt, that his life seemed to follow a charted course--even as the corbita broke violently against the dock, ripping Mierel’s arm from the mast and sending him sprawling face forward, scraping against the salty-puddled deck.

‘Providence,’ indeed…but, Mierel had to concede, it’s gotten us this far.

The dock lay not in ruins, but simply more beneath the water line than it probably ought to have. That Ayricalt had not simply torn the planks from their seaboard housing was, to Mierel’s mind, frankly miraculous. Though he still swore it was swaying with the gentle, harbor tide--it certainly didn’t look like it could take much cargo on a ramp--but Ayricalt assured him that it was just his sea legs swerving on the steady ground. Anyways, what crew was left had hobbled off along the submerged path essentially without incident.

This narrative has been purloined without the author's approval. Report any appearances on Amazon.

“Suppose we ought to find somewhere to stay the night,” suggested Mierel, leaning against a high post and spitting at intervals into the seafoam.

“Somewhere close,” muttered Baramethi flatly. His sovereign was sitting now, reclined against an abandoned crate. The old prince’s eyes were trembling slits of white, strobing phosphorescence in the starry dark of night. His skin was pale, and his muscular figure lacked that vascularity which had once animated it. His wheezing breath was audible.

To Mierel, it looked like he’d be dead by morning.

But everyone murmured in apparent agreement. The only thing left was to decide how to carry their incapacitated comrade. After an awkward quibble about Baramethi’s distrust of Mierel, the Tushikans’ characteristic reticence, and the relative heights of those assembled, it was decided that Oberoto and Ayricalt would take the casualty on their shoulders. Mierel stood behind them, to the left side of Baramethi, watching the dragging toes of the prince’s sandals with something between disdain and horror.

They’ll be bloody stumps, he thought with a shiver, with big lugs like that dragging him around. The grating scrape of leather splinters, and the clunk of limp feet knocking against the uneven boards of the dock, dug claws into Mierel’s ears. They progressed slowly.

“Good gods,” said Baramethi, beside him, wincing. “That sound!”

“It’ll be better on the dirt,” Mierel assured, “though I suppose if the leather gets hot, this old sand bag might get a burn on his princely toes.”

“What?” spat the youngster, “I’m talking about the insufferable knocking of your ridiculous…” and he pointed at Mierel’s feet.

“What, clogs?” Mierel snarled silently. “Well I’d suggest you get over that. These clogs have saved my life more than your prince over there has saved anybody’s.” He grinned. “Plus, they make me look taller.”

“You don’t need ‘clogs’ to run away, Sprunishman,” grunted the crabby, young Litherian. “I daresay you could do that barefoot.”

Mierel firmly smacked the back of Baramethi’s golden curled head. He squealed, and swung his right arm in a wide, thoughtless arc. Mierel backed away from it, cackling, and threw up another quick hand to slap Baramethi’s huffing face.

A bearlike growl grew into a seething, unintelligible shout before them. Oberoto’s fierce demand was, nonetheless, perfectly clear--and difficult to ignore. They fell back into silence, and Mierel noticed, more presently, the sound of his own footsteps.

Who doesn’t like the sound of clog blocks on wood? Alas, they were soon onto the dirt roads of the somnolent town, and the scattered scraping of Kordos’ sandal toes dominated the speechless wandering.

Mierel distracted himself with the Galite king’s shrouded back, and tried to recall the impossible edges of the man’s sheep-like beard.

Oberoto turned his head, a broad, patronizing frown meeting Mierel’s curious gaze. Mierel smirked, his blood loosening at the sight of that broad, square patch of darkness. Then Oberoto grunted something Mierel couldn’t understand.

“Stop staring at him, Sprunishman,” muttered Baramethi.

“What’s wrong with looking?” Mierel snapped back incredulously.

“He called you a ‘lecherous cougar,’” Baramethi explained humorously, “if that answers your question.”

It did not. What on the Horselord’s wide road is a ‘cougar?’

Mierel shrugged. “Then he can turn around, I’ll just have a better view of his beard.” Then he made an unusually rude gesture around his chin, and Baramethi scowled.

“You have no shame, barbarian.”

“You think I’m a barbarian? You should see our barbarians.” Baramethi shrugged. “They delve into the shadows of the arcane,” Mierel continued, his voice falling to a low, familiar softness. “Bold, mysterious enchantments. Cursed things--evil things. Have you ever seen a field of men split in half by lightning? The sky grayed with the ash of your comrades? Have you ever seen rabid arbor wolves on the front lines, fighting with the intelligence of a man?”

Baramethi scoffed, shaking his head.

“You know they sacrifice babies? Just as the teeth are coming in.”

“That’s a bedtime story,” said Baramethi, but his laugh was slightly hollow.

“It is not.” Mierel replied severely, but he said nothing else. It was an effort to hide his smile, but one he was well practiced at. All part of the performance. Ferment the audience’s curiosity--they’ll be thirsty for you. You’ll have them drinking you up before the wine bowls have shallowed…

Like luring in fishes.

Just then Ayricalt turned his head, and raised his chin to make his mouth seen over his shoulder.

“Eyes to the road, Ayry,” Mierel commanded, and the big man’s head turned lugubriously back. “No sense of drama,” he whined.

“You’re lying to me,” Baramethi decided. “You really are shameful.”

“I’m not lying to you,” Mierel sighed, deciding he was too tired for the angling. They trudged further along without comment. Then Baramethi gasped.

“You were at Sacrianos, at the Field of the Mendicants,” he murmured, fairly awestruck.

Mierel sucked his teeth. “Ayricalt, what did you tell him?” Ayricalt said nothing. “Well, whatever he told you, I can promise that it was much more heroic than he made it sound--”

“If I’ve offended you, Mierel of the Sote,” Baramethi blurted out, stammering, “I ask for your forgiveness. You were there, with my people, at the Winter Mass.” He bowed his head with due respect.

Mierel nodded sympathetically. It really had been a gruesome couple of days. “I heard a confederation from Lither came back in the spring to…clean up. You and the prince have anything to do with that?”

“Yes. Kordos fought…stunningly. He slew the war priest called Gakinthurt.”

“The Winter Wind…” Mierel hadn't faced him on the battlefield, but he remembered the names: Gakinthurt; Forthient the Cobbler; and the ringleader, Queen Kernet the Crag--he would never forget her, never forget how she raised her terrible sword and roasted the whole field, thousands of men, in one extended moment of blinding flashes. He would never forget the scorched heap of her melting into the sooted ground of the ridge on which she’d stood; the way the hilt of that shattered sword had fused to the late queen’s skeleton grip…

Gruesome days…

“King Kordos inhaled that blizzard, and threw a spear which cracked the frozen air. He pierced the old savage,” Baramethi motioned over his heart, “clean through his breastplate.”

“Glad to hear it,” Mierel replied. “On the day they came, they brought the mountain snows behind them. All the blue seas of Uxr have never seen such a storm. It’s not just arsory-- they’ve got strange gods up there in the mountains. Terrible gods.”

Baramethi did not disagree, and for a long while they focused on their slow progress, a chorus of insect sounds playing the only counterpoint to the hissing of Kordos’ sandals against the dusty road.

“You’re welcome.” Ayricalt’s voice. It seemed to come from the space between Mierel’s ears, like a conscience--the conscience of a lunatic.

“For what?” snapped Mierel. Baramethi grunted in confusion. He was ignored.

“He’s…how do you say it--’eating out of your hands?’”

Mierel rolled his eyes, reluctantly considering the nuances of “audience.”

“How does he do that?” asked the young Litherian, after a time, pulling up close to Mierel and whispering..

Mierel frowned, retreating. “He’s a big strong lad.”

“No, I mean his voice. The way he speaks right into your head.”

“Oh,” he waved dismissively, “that’s just a fool’s trick. Throwing his voice. Plug your ears and you won’t have to listen to it.” Baramethi didn’t look fully convinced.

“Speaking of, how do you suppose the king here can tell when I’m looking at him?”

Oberoto grumbled something off in his rough, nasal Litherian.

“Same way he can tell when you’re speaking about him, he says.”

“Interesting,” Mierel smirked. He’d grown up with arsorists, seen dozens of arsories--scores, even--used on the battlefields and farmlands from Iyisrinor to the North. He never thought he’d seen them all, nor indeed that he ever would, but each new example still inspired a certain sense of wonder. And a kind of indescribable challenge.

“Everyone can tell when they’re being looked at from behind,” said Baramethi matter-of- factly. “It’s instinct.”

Mierel shrugged. He’d also seen enough ambushes--from either side of them--to know this wasn’t true.

They finally reached what the Tushikans insisted was an inn, but the door had already long since been barred. Mierel got to work dissolving through the iron door handle while Baramethi, furious with the indignity of it all, threatened frequently to knock the thing straight from its hinges.

“A man of royal blood is dying!” he’d cry.

Ayricalt, shaking his head, kept a heavy hand on the shoulder of the little Litherian.

Now undisturbed, Mierel finished removing the handle, its bolts, and the plate to which they’d fixed it. He set about combining the metal shafts of the bolts and winnowing them down into a single sliver of a dowel with a slight crook at the end. Then he worked that into the lower bolt holes, bringing his arms out against the long lever end of his makeshift pick. He licked his lips frequently. Eventually satisfied, he pulled the lever down, simultaneously pushing it further into the door, which rather smoothly gave way at his approach.

The adventurers examined the dark interior through squinted eyes.

“Ignoble talents,” grunted Baramethi.

“The best suited for a common man,” Mierel sardonically replied. “Lucky for your royal-blooded…” Corpse, he’d wanted to say, but decided to let it rest. Rest, he decided, would be nice.

Then they were all silent, fumbling about the dark rows of benches to find enough open floor to lay on. Ayricalt and Oberoto set the Litherian prince down gingerly on his back, and though Mierel could not see the face of young Baramethi, he could fairly imagine the look of reluctant horror which must have met this humiliating circumstance.

They fell asleep quickly, besides Mierel. His head was too full of the day’s action, carnal desires, and a need for some stiff drink. He stared at the ceiling, pondering the proper rhythm of the voyage’s nascent story. A mischievous smirk crept onto his face as he embellished, and often invented, devices to bolster the suspense, and gauged the reactions of his virtual audience.

The room grew brighter in the darkness, until he could soundly find his way to the bar counter--where he procured himself a jar of wine to share with the memories.

There, reclined against a shelf of stacked stone bowls, he slept off his lonely revelry.