by Mel Odom
“Looking at it too closely isn’t a good idea,” Harran said. “That will kill whatever appetite you have from just being hungry. You haven’t gone enough days to truly appreciate that kind of hunger.”
Shivering, Wick took his first bite. He was grimly aware of the attention of the nearby dwellers. Their wan faces haunted him. Seeing thin dwellers wasn’t normal. He almost retched at the pasty taste of the gruel, and only the thought that the others watched him allowed him to keep it down. He glanced at the other dwellers still waiting for their gruel and saw the hunger on their faces. How could anyone ever come to like this? He couldn’t help thinking about the meals he’d taken for granted at the Library. He took another bite and coughed to cover his gagging when it hung in the back of his throat.
“Small bites,” Harran cautioned quietly. “The gruel is too dry and has no seasonings. It’s hard to get down at first.” He paused. “And you’re in no hurry, Wick. You have all day to eat it, but if you don’t eat it soon, your mouth will dry from lack of water and the gruel will be even harder to get down.”
Wick rolled the greasy ball in his cupped hands and tried another bite. It wasn’t any better. He ate his first breakfast as a slave slowly and without hope.
“Everyone along the Shattered Coast knows that the goblinkin are starting to unite,” Harran was saying.
Wick lay on his back and stared up at the ceiling above him, listening fearfully to the news that Harran told him. There was nothing else to do. Most of the other dwellers slept, leaving only a few of them awake. Thin sunlight that barely turned the darkness gray slipped in through the hatch.
The sea slapped against the hull somewhere high over his head, reminding him that the compartment the dwellers occupied was well below sea level. If a reef tears the bottom out, if a harbor isn’t as deep as the captain thinks it is, if we accidentally hit another ship in the night, we’ll all drown. The little librarian believed that.
He continued to work at the manacles on his wrists, hoping to slip his hands free. So far, all he’d managed to do was chafe his skin. Still, he couldn’t quit. The tinkling chain links echoed inside the hold.
“You’re going to make sores on your wrists and ankles if you keep that up,” Harran warned.
“I can’t just lay here and do nothing.” Wick didn’t mean to, but he heard some of the frustration in his voice.
“You are doing something,” Harran said. “You’re surviving.”
“Surviving to be a slave,” someone said bitterly. “If you want to do a real service to yourself, you’d die and be done with it.”
“I’ve heard tell,” someone else said, “that there are elven warders in the Forest of Fangs and Shadows that raid Hanged Elf’s Point and free enslaved dwellers.”
“Ha,” the first man said. “That’s just a fairy tale, Queben. Graybeards tell those stories to young men so they’ll have hopes of escape once the goblinkin have captured them. I think it’s cruel. How many people have you seen that have ever escaped from Hanged Elf’s Point?”
There was no answer.
“Not many people have hopes of surviving slavery after they’re caught,” Harran said quietly.
“What do you believe?” Wick asked.
“I believe there has to be a way, and that it is my hope to stay alive long enough to find it.”
“Why are the goblinkin uniting along the Shattered Coast?” Wick asked.
“They follow a new pirate king who has managed to convince them that unity would make them strong enough to take even more than they already had. He’s making believers out of them. From what I hear, more goblinkin are drawn to the Shattered Coast every day. They sign up with the goblinkin navy and with the army.”
“Who is the pirate king?”
“A goblin named Orpho Kadar.”
“What do you know about him?” Wick asked, thinking that if there were elven warders in the Forest of Fangs and Shadows and he got the chance to get away it would be good if he had as much information to carry back to the Vault of All Known Knowledge. He wished he dared write in his journal, afraid that he might forget some of what he was being told.
“Nothing,” Harran replied. “Unless someone else knows of him.”
One of the other dwellers spoke up hesitantly after a moment. “I was told that Orpho Kadar was a descendant of Lord Kharrion.”
“Nonsense,” an old man said. “Lord Kharrion is only a myth. A superstition used to scare small children.”
“Lord Kharrion lived,” Wick said, “and he died.” He has to be dead by now! “It was the Goblin Lord that caused the Shattered Coast to be formed.”
“More hogwash,” the old man argued. “The Shattered Coast has always been shattered. The stories about Teldane’s Bounty are myths as well. Can you even imagine those harsh, blasted islands infested by misshapen monsters and foul creatures that live in the sea as well as the land as being some kind of paradise?”
“No,” someone said, and a number of other voices agreed.
How can they not believe? Wick wondered. They live in the center of what had been one of the greatest magical battles of the Cataclysm. It was beyond him, but he knew from their voices that they were serious.
Nine days later, Wick knew because he kept careful tabulation in his journal during those few times when everyone else was asleep, the little librarian woke in the middle of the night. He was weak with hunger, and this early in the morning, his tongue was thick from the chronic dehydration that set into him.
But even as fatigued and ill-used as he was, he knew from the way the ship moved that something was different. As usual at this time of morning, there was no light in the hold. Snoring filled the hold with noise, but he heard the quiet of the sea as well. The waves didn’t strike Ill Wind as forcefully now, nor did the ship move quite so sprightly. She’d settled on an even keel, riding smooth as glass.
Wick knew it could only mean they were in shallow water. He sat up, his arms and legs shaking with effort from being underfed so many days in a row. His clothes, worn for days without washing, hung loosely on him. The journal remained a solid weight against his chest.
Over the last nine days, he’d trained himself to wake just before dawn. The goblins were never early to feed the slaves and he always managed to get just a few minutes to himself and the journal before anyone else woke. Making up for the missed sleep was easy. In the last nine days, he’d never left the hold.
He listened intently as goblin voices cried out to each other above. Although he couldn’t quite hear the words, he knew the cadence and timber from his days aboard One-Eyed Peggie. Sails above dropped and the slave ship slowed. Excitement and dread filled the little librarian. There was no reason to stop unless they’d reached port.
He reached above him and found Harran’s foot. He shook the foot vigorously. “Harran.”
“Humph?” Harran pulled his foot from Wick’s grasp.
“Harran.”
“What?” Harran asked in the thick, phlegmy voice so many of the slaves had when they first woke. “What is it, Wick?”
“The ship has slowed. I think we’re coming into port.”
A moment of silence followed. The creaking timbers echoed around them, then Wick felt the ship tilt and heard the clank of the great anchor chain being windlassed out. Ill Wind shivered just a moment as her anchor dragged along the sea bottom then held. The ship swung around, bobbing in the crosscurrents as the anchor held it.
“You’re right,” Harran whispered. “We are coming into port.”
Wick waited tensely in the dark, unwilling to speak any more. There was no reason to be excited about reaching portage—since he was only going to be a slave at heavy manual labor till he died—but he was. It was almost the same kind of excitement that used to fill him when Grandmagister Ludaan opened one of the sealed rooms in the Library and gave it over to him for sorting. He’d found so many treasures in those rooms, so many stories.
A long time passed, perhaps even hours.
Finally, just as Wick’s chin kept dropping against his chest, lantern light flared against the hatch.
The locking bolt slid back with a long rasp. Then the hatch flipped up and light invaded the hold. Goblinkin climbed down the narrow stairs and moved among the slaves. They carried small stiff whips and lashed out at the dwellers without mercy.
“Get up!” they roared. “Get up, halfers, afore we feeds ye to the hungry sharks what patrols the harbor waters.”
Wick wrapped his arms over his head, protecting his eyes from the bright lantern light. Even though he was sitting up and obviously awake, he’d learned that the goblinkin didn’t miss a chance to strike a confined slave.
“Wake up, halfers, or we’re a-gonna spit ye, roast ye, an’ eat ye ourselves.”
Plaintive cries and protests punctuated the goblinkin’s threats and heartless blows.
Wick felt the stinging slash of a whip across his neck and shoulders. He cried out in pain. Over the last few days he’d learned that the goblins expected their victims to cry out. If they didn’t, the goblins struck again.
A large goblin that had run mostly to fat used the big key ring he carried to unlatch the metal poles that held the ankle chains secure. Other goblins slid the poles free, then walked among the dwellers and yanked them to their feet.
Yelling curses and flailing with the whips, the goblinkin started the dwellers up the stairs. Wick fell into line with them, receiving two more blows before he could get away.
The dwellers, in spite of their fear, shambled along, exhausted by the cruel conditions they’d been kept under and starvation. Some of the slaves had been kept aboard over a month without seeing the light of day.
By the time he reached Ill Wind’s main deck, Wick was trembling and winded. A city stood on the starboard side of the ship. It had been built among craggy mountains, placed on plateaus that looked as though they’d been chiseled there. There were nine such levels, all of them marked by lanterns and torches. The first six levels, staggered what appeared to be thirty or forty feet apart, held a handful of buildings each. Most of those, Wick felt certain, had at one time been military outposts or guardhouses. The last three levels were larger and were almost vacant except for a few crumbling ruins. They were marketplaces, the little librarian realized.
Above the nine ledges, at least eight hundred feet above sea level, stood the city. The homes and buildings spread out across the steep hills that pushed toward the sea coast far below like the puckered scar of an old puncture wound. The city was far larger than Greydawn Moors, yet—sheathed in darkness as much of it was—appeared unoccupied. Or maybe it’s only because it is so near early morning.
Still the design of the city seemed familiar.
I know this place, Wick realized. He racked his mind, trying to remember where he knew the city from, but couldn’t. The arrangement smacks of something elven, but they would have never named a place Hanged Elf’s Point.
Quickly, Ill Wind’s crew secured a rope bridge to the lowest of the nine levels. Cursing and swinging their whips, the goblins drove the dweller slaves across the swaying rope bridge suspended twenty feet above the white-capped surf pounding the rocky shore below.
Without warning, one of the men ahead of Wick stumbled and fell over the side of the rope bridge. The little librarian reached for the man, barely touched his shirt, then watched helplessly as the man plummeted into the ocean below. He searched the water for the man, certain that he wouldn’t surface again with the manacles on his wrists and ankles.
“There he is!” someone shouted.
Wick spotted the man floating on his back, barely staying above water.
“Get a rope down to him!” a dweller man shouted. “He still has a chance!”
“No, he doesn’t,” a goblin snarled at the front of the line. “Nobody what falls into Hanged Elf Harbor has a chance in them waters.”
Hardly had the words sped from the goblin’s lips than the man below gave a painful shout then vanished, drawn deep into the harbor by something that Wick judged was very large. Light from the torches the goblinkin slavers carried played over the dark water for a moment. A large shark leapt from the water then, arching for the rope bridge stretched high above it—and the dwellers that stood there, frozen with fear.
The shark fell short of the rope bridge, missing the feet of the dwellers standing upon it only by inches, and disappeared back into the depths. But not before eliciting screaming fear and renewed efforts to get across the fragile structure that set it to wobbling.
Wick hurried across with the first of the crowd. His wrist and ankle chains rattled in his haste. He stood on the ledge and waited as the rest of the slaves were forced across the rope bridge at sword point.
“Keep movin’,” the goblins ordered. “Them sharks can’t get ye up here. Why, if’n they could, do ye suppose we’d a-tied a bridge across here?” He laughed at them, then cursed them coarsely as they slowly made their way to the other side.
Is the sea at high tide or low tide? Wick wondered. The water level wouldn’t have to come up much to put the rope bridge in striking distance of the sharks. Perhaps there’s a loading time, or maybe this is high tide and the water just doesn’t get any higher.
Glancing out into the harbor, he spotted a dozen other ships lying at anchorage. Two more vessels slid gracefully across the water, either looking for harbor anchorage or leaving the city. Nearly two dozen small fishing boats were putting out to sea. Wick thought the fishermen were being overly ambitious until he spotted the first reddish rays of dawn breaking over the ocean to the east. Although it looked like the rising sun was coming from the ocean, the little librarian knew that it had to be rising over land somewhere nearby for the red color to show up.
The Ill Wind goblinkin led them to a garrison house that took up half the ledge. The guards carried the torches high, lighting the way across the stone.
Taking short steps so the ankle chains wouldn’t trip him, Wick gazed at the stone beneath him. It has been carved into this shape! The hint of memory niggled at his mind, vanishing like the fog on the Blood-Soaked Sea before he could quite grasp it. Hunger pangs clenched his stomach. Maybe if I could think about this without being crazed by hunger, I could remember what it is I’ve forgotten.
A garrison house blocked the way ahead. The stone wall on both sides of it stretched out to bisect the ledge. Figures moved atop it.
Gazing through the gloom, Wick was barely able to make out the archers that held positions at the top of the stone wall, well protected from hostile foes.
“Halt!” a stern voice rang out. “Who goes there?”
“The crew of Ill Wind,” the goblin leading the slaves replied. “Serving under Cap’n Arghant. We’ve got trading rights here.”
“Let’s see them.” A sturdy door built into the middle of the garrison opened tentatively. A web of iron bars closed off all entry.
The goblin crewmen stepped forward and held out his hand. A gem glowing with cold blue fire nestled in the crewman’s hand. “If’n I weren’t who I said I was an’ had what I said I had, this gem wouldn’t glow.”
“A blue,” the garrison guard replied, obviously surprised. “Ye don’t see many blues. Yer captain must be a favorite of the king’s.”
“Cap’n Arghant is a favorite at many ports,” the crewman said.
“What are you a-carryin’ on the ship? I see slaves, but is that all?”
“No. We got some cargo we’re intendin’ to sell at the marketplaces, too.”
The garrison goblin grinned. “It’s a good time to be a-bringin’ trade goods into the harbor. It’s been a few weeks between markets of late.” He lifted a lantern, shoved it through the bars, and waved it.
Almost immediately, stone grated and a wide door opened on the right. Hoists lifted a massive stone block out of the way to reveal the door.
A brief conversation took place overhead that Wick couldn’t make out. He glanced up and saw that the next ledge’s garrison already ha
d someone waving another lantern to the garrison on the staggered ledge above it.
The goblinkin herded the slaves through the open door at the end of the garrison and up a set of winding stone steps cut into the wall. Wick’s attention was drawn to the stone walls on either side of the steps. Pictographs of great battles and mighty warriors showed in flickering glimpses revealed by the twisting torchlight. Most of them showed goblins victorious over humans, elves, and dwarves. But here and there, always marred in some way by the crude etchings of goblins, were elegant reliefs showing elves, humans, and dwarves at work or in battle.
The goblins rewrote what was on these walls, Wick realized. They attempted to erase the history of this place. So rapt was his attention on the artwork that managed to stay out of his sight so well that he didn’t notice the missing step in front of him. His foot went down, found only emptiness below where he thought a step should be, and he tripped, falling forward into the dwellers in front of him. They went down in a tumble.
“I’m sorry,” Wick cried, pushing himself up weakly, hampered by his chains. “I wasn’t watching where I was going. I apologize.”
The dwellers groaned and tried to get up. Two goblins stepped among them, cursing and lashing out with their whips.
Wick covered his head and shoulders, hunkering down to protect himself. Yet his eyes remained drawn to the images on the stone walls. While the goblins beat him, he could see the images on the walls more clearly. That view lasted only a moment because the goblins quickly beat them into movement again.
Each new level required passing through the garrison there. The Ill Wind crew showed their gleaming blue gem to each garrison chief, then went through the huge stone doors that were winched up by the crews above.
“I’d heard that Hanged Elf’s Point was a fortress,” Harran said quietly to Wick, “but I hadn’t expected this.”
“Goblinkin didn’t make this,” Wick said. “Have you noticed the carvings on the walls underneath the goblin carvings?”
