As Iron Falls

by Bryce O'Connor

  The distant crash of swelling waves, lapping against the earth.

  Even Eva and her men looked excited now, and without any explicit order they all picked up the pace, hooves clacking against the hard ground beneath them and the cart rolling loudly along behind. After another ten minutes the wind was picking up the salt spray, peppering them and dampening their clothes even more, but this time no one complained. The roar of the water was near, now, rising all around them in undulating rhythms. They took a last turn in the path, passing beneath an overhang of earth and rock that hung like a ceiling overhead.

  Then they stood in the light of day once again, looking out over a breathtaking sight.

  “By the Sun,” Raz said under his breath.

  It was not the first time he’d been along the coast. Acrosia, after all, was a port city. For this reason it had been a place of verdant life unlike any of the other Southern municipalities, the shoreline dotted with palm trees, the sands thinner and cooler from being churned up over and over again by the surf. It was a place Raz had enjoyed, an image he’d held on to once it had been decided they would be accepting Garht Argoan’s offer of passage. Calm, white-tan beaches dotted with the thin outlines of swaying trees. Slum-children playing in the shallows, or fighting over coconuts they had climbed up to harvest. The water warm, waves lapping against the sand.

  What greeted Raz instead was something far more spectacular.

  They were standing at the edge of a cliff, the world bottoming out before them. The ledge wound infinitely to the north and south, a sheer drop some hundred feet at its lowest point and at least twice that at its highest, its jagged line disappearing off in either direction. Far, far below them, a beach unlike anything Raz had ever imagined stretched from the base of the bluffs. It looked to be made of black pebbles and sea-smoothed stone, and here and there, scattered like the pale bones of long-dead giants, the Sun-bleached trunks of massive trees had washed aground after who-knew-how-long at sea. The tide foamed as it lapped against the dark shore, marking the water’s edge in a white line along the coast.

  And before them, extending away into an endlessness which the mind of man would never quite manage to fathom, was the Dramion itself.

  The water shifted in a hundred shades of grey, green, and blue, so clear Raz could follow the ocean floor until it faded into the depths. It was a calm day, the waves licking at the beach gently, back and forth over the pebbles, and yet despite this it reminded him of the storm they had weathered to reach this place. This sea was powerful, omnipotent to him in a way the Emperor’s Ocean to the west had never seemed. Whether it was something about the water itself, or merely just the fact that he was taking in the Dramion from some two hundred feet up above the rest of the world, Raz suddenly understood why he’d heard of cultures that revered the sea. There was a presence here, as real and heavy on his mind as the beat of the Sun above.

  He wondered, briefly, what god he would be praying to before their journey’s end.

  “Raz.” Eva’s voice interrupted his reverence. “This way.”

  Raz blinked and looked around. The surgeon was indicating a wide path that had been cut into the cliffs to their left, looping back and forth along the ledge below them. Jeck had dismounted and was already leading his gelding down slowly, easing the cart along the descent as Fara and Samet followed close behind, ready to assist. Eva herself was still ahorse, having pulled her animal up to stand by Gale, with Syrah and Nymara cantering up on the other side of her.

  “We’ll take the path down and walk from there,” Eva was telling them both. “Carefully. The horses won’t do well on the beach.” Then she pointed southward, down at the coast to their right. “That’s where Garht should be waiting for us.”

  Raz followed her finger and made out the place she was indicating with some surprise. There, bisecting the beach maybe a quarter-mile down-shore, an inlet ran, a wide line of deep water that shifted and swelled with the waves of the sea. From this angle, Raz couldn’t make out where it led to, but he suspected it didn’t simply crash up against the bluffs and end there.

  Studying the place, Raz nodded. “Lead the way. We’ll follow.”

  Eva pulled her horse back at once, moving around Syrah and heading down the path. Raz and the Priestess locked eyes briefly and—though neither said anything more—he could tell the woman’s excitement and curiosity had bloomed to match his at the sight of the Dramion. For a little while, Raz had no qualms with setting aside his fears and concerns regarding the journey ahead.

  For the moment, he desired only to bask in the wonder of the sea.

  It took them more than twenty minutes to descend the winding path, Jeck and the cart slowing them down significantly at their head. It was apparent, as they moved, that the men who’d carved the track into the stone had likely not been skilled masons. There were portions where the incline was so steep Raz considered dismounting himself, and certain turns were too narrow, to the point where more than once he made out the thud of one of the wagon’s wheels dropping down as Jeck was forced to pivot sharply or risk tumbling off the cliff. By the time they reached the beach, Eva was cursing Garht Argoan, her guards were swearing in the Lifegiver’s name, and Syrah was praying under her breath. Even Raz, bringing up the rear, breathed easier once he felt the stones crunch under Gale’s hooves.

  As one they dismounted and, at Eva’s word, started leading the horses across the shore, toward the channel of water in the distance. At the base of the cliffs the wind was almost nonexistent, blocked by the ledge they were following to their right, but the sea still churned and sprayed, rumbling a greeting as it surged back and forth toward and away from them. Raz had hoped he would be able to make out their destination once they reached the base of the path, but no luck. A twist in the peaks hid the mouth of the channel from view, but as they got closer Raz’s excitement and suspicion grew. It wasn’t until they were almost at the edge of the inlet, the horses grunting as they followed and the cart rumbling along behind them, that he finally made out where they were headed. For the second time, he swore by the Sun

  It was Syrah, though, who put his amazement into words.

  “By the Lifegiver,” she managed to a gasp. “Incredible…”

  All Raz could do was nod numbly.

  The sight before him was like something out of the stories he’d heard around the evening fires as a child. The channel to their left led up to the sheer face of the cliffs, spilling in and out of a massive, oblong opening which had been carved like a crooked mouth out of the rock face by the sea. Beyond it, a cavern gleamed with Sun and firelight, the latter flickering out from a hundred different lamps and torches, the former streaming down from a number of narrow cracks in the roof of the cave. On one side, built high up against the wall of the massive space on spindly timber legs, something like a large tavern sat well clear of the water. A number of other buildings had been constructed along the face of the smooth rock as well, though these were smaller, like individual boarding quarters. A wide walkway of wooden planks, like the wharf of a port, encircled the wall just above where high-tide must have settled, with five jetties cutting out into the main body of the lagoon. Only three were occupied now, but this did nothing to offset the bizarre scene of a longship and two tri-masted frigates anchored beneath a ceiling of stone and earth, swaying ever so slightly as the ocean swells pushed in and out of the cavern.

  “Welcome to Highmast Cove,” Eva said, looking around at Raz and Syrah and chuckling at what could only have been utter astonishment on both their faces. “Now clam those mouths up. You don’t want anyone here thinking you don’t look like you belong in a smuggler’s den.”

  The pair of them did as they were told, though it was still a moment before they managed to stop ogling the cave and follow Eva forward. A minute or so later they passed into the damp shelter of the cove proper, the sound of the Dramion behind them muffling somewhat as the earth encircled them in a massive, lopsided sphere. Without pause Eva led them forward, a
round the lip of the space, until they reached a short set of wooden steps that led up onto the pier.

  “Leave the horses here,” she said, pulling the hood of her traveling cloak back and looking around. “Samet will stay behind and watch them. Jeck and Fara, you’re with me. Raz…” She paused, her features shifting into something between amusement and hesitation. “Try not to kill anyone. It would be bad business for me.”

  Raz wasn’t sure if she was joking or not, so he didn’t respond. Syrah, on the other hand, looked uncertain.

  “You think we might be at risk?” she asked Eva nervously, hurrying forward to walk with the surgeon, the pair of them stepping up onto the wharf together. “I thought you said you trusted this captain.”

  “Garht, I trust,” Raz heard Eva say with a nod after he, Jeck, and Fara fell in behind the two women. “But those ships aren’t all his.”

  Two crews she knows nothing about, Raz thought when he realized what she was trying to say. He glanced out over the lagoon again, studying the boats. The longship was a single-mast, with enough space on the deck to look like it might have boarded some thirty or forty men. The other two, though—the frigates—were larger. He was suddenly aware of the fact that he and Syrah were very much exposed in this place, with nothing more than Eva’s men to watch their backs and the word of a smuggler that they weren’t walking into a trap. He considered hurrying back to Gale to retrieve Ahna from where she was strapped in her habitual spot off his saddle but, glancing up, thought better of it. The dviassegai likely wouldn’t serve him well in a crowded room anyway, and it looked like Eva was leading them right up to the tavern.

  They climbed for several minutes, taking a half-dozen different sets of steps that wound this way and that along narrow platforms and jutting rock ledges on which the smaller rooms and buildings seemed to be perched. Finally, they crested the highest stairs, and Raz made out a sign hanging above the front entrance of the place, swinging gently as Eva pulled the door open to a clamor of laughter and shouting. “The Highest Mast,” it read, and Raz couldn’t help feeling like he was in some bizarre dream. He glanced over his shoulder again. There sat the ships, some fifty feet below, docked in the middle of the cave.

  Shaking his head in wonder, he followed Fara and Jeck into the warmth of the building.

  The Highest Mast was nearly exactly like any other tavern Raz had ever seen. It reminded him acutely, in fact, of the White Sands Inn where he had lived for the last years of his life in Miropa. The same smells greeted him: stale ale, smoking tar, the rich aromas of hot food, and too many bodies in one place, though here these all mixed in with an underlying edge of sea air and fish. Men and women were howling all around them, some in raucous laughter, others in fury as they leapt at one another over rickety old tables that all looked like they had seen too many fights already. The common room itself was massive, much larger that it appeared from the outside, and looked to have been carved right out of the earth judging from the rough-hewn walls. Fire and lamplight flickered joyfully over wood and stone, the torches bracketed to the timber and stone in what looked like large spiraled shells the length of Raz’s arm, the chandeliers hanging from the ceiling crafted out of old ships’ wheels. In the center of the space, the bar had been built like a four-sided island. A group of girls in blush-worthy attire were running the counter, deftly pouring ale while managing to dodge or slap away the innumerable hands that reached out at them drunkenly. At the back of the room, a stairway led up to the second floor, and Raz wondered if that, too, had been carved right out of the rock.

  He didn’t have time to contemplate this for long, however, because almost at once the room started to quiet, all eyes slowly turning in their direction.

  Raz was well-used to public establishments growing suddenly shy when he walked in, the uproar that generally held sway over any swillyard dying away like it was being strangled. He never liked the effect, per se, but he had come to understand it, even appreciate the privacy it brought him and the respect it indicated.

  Now, though, surrounded on three sides by what looked like almost a hundred roughened sailors all staring openly at them, Raz was suddenly feeling very ill-at-ease. Before the hubbub of the common area could die completely, he began to make out the whispers. As the fights quelled and the conversation trailed off, he heard the names carried to him over the silence. Monster. Scourge.

  Dragon.

  Some said the words with fear and reverence, others with something that could only have been greed. No one moved for a time, and Raz watched as dozens of different sets of eyes shifted steadily over their little group, always flicking back to him. Slowly, Raz reached out and took Syrah by the elbow, pulling her back and stepping around her so that his body was between her and the sailors. The woman didn’t argue, and he thought he could feel the air shift about her as she swept the room anxiously, already drawing power into herself in preparation for a fight.

  To their right, a man finally stood, pushing himself to his feet from among a thick knot of ruffians who appeared to have been playing dice on the floor. Unlike most of the group he was stepping out of, this seaman looked sober, his hands steady as they rested on the basket grip of the cutlass he kept on one hip and the hilt of the long knife on the other. He was a thin, wiry fellow, but he looked to have lived a hard life at sea, his skin bronzed and wrinkling around his eyes, his long hair bleached by the Sun and kept at bay under a band of cloth looped over his forehead. His clothes were loose and stained, his leather boots worn and cracked, but he stood with such firm confidence before them that he might as well have been royalty among his kind. For a second, Raz allowed himself to hope that this was Garht Argoan.

  When the man spoke, though, that optimism was dashed away.

  “You, Southerner,” the sailor said, dark eyes dropping to Eva, who still stood at their head. “You the one in charge a’ this lot?”

  “For the time being,” Eva replied distractedly, not looking at the man. “We are expected by the captain of the Sylgid. Is he here?”

  Behind him, Raz felt Syrah stiffen suddenly, and he snuck a look back at her. The Priestess was frowning at Eva, as though something the woman had said had taken her aback.

  “The Sylgid?” he heard her murmur to herself.

  “Argoan?” the man before them asked with distaste, spitting at Eva’s feet. “Why ya’ botherin’ with tha’ whoreson? If it’s passage South yer seeking, my Drake’ll get you there twice as fast.” His eyes lifted to Raz reflexively, then away again. “Better yet, why don’t ya’ consider leaving yer ‘cargo’ ta’ me? I’d be happy to buy it off you at a good price, say… five thousand Southern crowns?”

  Raz smirked at the offer, and in front of him Eva scoffed, finally looking around at the man. “My friend is not for sale, captain,” she said in a warning tone. “I would recommend you take that to heart now, before you rub him the wrong way.”

  Backing her up, Raz allowed his neck crest to rise above his head, a wild, low growl building in his throat. The man—clearly the captain of one of the ships docked outside—paled slightly, but stood his ground.

  “You’d do better ta’ watch yer tone, miss,” the man said, sounding as though his patience were wearing thin. As though to make a point, he brought two fingers to his mouth and gave a shrill whistle, like he was calling a dog to heel.

  At once, forty or so men and women rose to their feet all about the tavern, glaring in their direction. Raz saw the rusted grips of swords and knives tucked into any belt or sash they could fit. Axes and cudgels hung from hips and over shoulders. They were a ratty bunch, a mismatch of fighters and good-for-nothings who looked to have armed themselves with whatever weapons and spare pieces of armor they’d managed to steal or pillage.

  But they were all defiantly staring him down, not even blinking as their commander continued speaking.

  “You walk in here with twenty thousand gold on yer arm—” he stared at Raz, now, though his words were still directed at Eva “—and ya’ do
n’t think we’re going ta’ ask ya’ ta’ share? I’ll say again: five thousand, and you and the other three can walk away.”

  As he said this, though, a female sailor with short-cropped hair sidled over to him, leaning in to whisper something in the man’s ear. He blinked at her in surprise, only looking around again after she nodded in confirmation.

  This time, his eyes fell on Syrah.

  “Seems I’ve been hasty in my offer,” he said, leering excitedly at the Priestess. “I’ll give ya’ six thousand, if yer kind enough to leave the one-eyed one with me as well. Apparently, the scaly ain’t the only one worth a copper or two.”

  Raz felt his patience slip, and he took a step forward between Fara and Jeck. “Try it, little sea man,” he snarled, coming to stand beside Eva and allowing his wings and tail to ripple out behind him. “Your boat won’t be more than a ghost ship by the time we’re through.”