The Dark Sea Beyond

by Rye Sobo

  I politely nodded and made my way to the bar to pour out the nearly frozen bilge-coffee.

  The high elf returned the nod and rejoined his companions who were still chattering about the armor.

  Behind the bar, I looked up at Max. “I know,” I said. “I just—”

  BWONG. A thunderous gong rang out across the harbor outside.

  “They’re here,” Max said as his look of concern disappeared. The excited child returned.

  CHAPTER SIX

  Iran to the doorway and squinted out into the bright sunlight of the harbor. A second gong hit reverberated out from the Harbor Master’s Tower. This time the low bellow of a war horn from some place deep inside the citadel followed.

  Centuries ago, the sailors of the city devised this means of signaling the Watch of an incoming warship. The gong would sound to alert the citizens, to rally men to arms. If the soldiers in Fort Hydrus expected the ships, the horn signaled the Harbor Master to grant the vessels entry. If the gong sounded and no horns, it was an unmistakable warning to every resident that the city was being invaded.

  At least, that’s the intention. It’s more of a formality, a part of the ceremony of the returning fleet. The Harbor Master’s apprentice had devoted the last span practicing the run to the top of the tower, removing the large mallet from an ornate wooden box inlaid with gold, and striking the muffled gong as hard as he could. The striking of the gong to welcome the fleet for the first time would be a monumental day in his young career. As long as the gong has been in the tower, no one has struck it without the accompanying horn. No nation has ever tried to invade the city, at least not since the Forteans first landed in a tiny fishing village over two thousand years ago.

  My attention, along with most everyone in Drakkas Port, shot from the tower to the Hydra’s Mouth. Despite having seen the fleet return dozens of times before, I always felt the surge of excitement at seeing the great warships decorated with flags and shields gliding into the harbor, one after another.

  I watched the gap in the colossal wall and held my breath in anticipation. Cheers erupted from near the Harbor Master’s Tower as they first glimpsed the returning warship. Soon enough, an immense golden dragon head pierced through the breach in the wall. It was the figurehead of the Fortune, the flagship of the Commonwealth’s navy. On board, officers dressed in their finest uniforms, donned solely for celebrations such as this, and stood triumphant on the decks of the ship.

  From this distance I could only make out the plumage of the officers’ helmets. It was a glorious procession of peacocks perched atop a golden dragon.

  Crowds of people spilled from the city onto the central and western docks. The roar grew louder as the masts of the man-of-war passed the great stone walls. Enterprising merchants went up and down the seawall, hawking sausages and meats-on-sticks and crimson and gold flags.

  Everyone made money when the fleet returned home.

  The flock of peacocks veered toward the east as the Fortune found its berth in the center of the docks, near the gates to Fort Hydrus. The crowd cheered again as the next flock entered the harbor.

  Ship after ship, the parade of military vessels entered the port as longshoremen scurried across the harbor like ants swarming a dropped pastry. The ships packed tight into the harbor, the largest ships closest to the fortress and the smaller ships around the outside.

  Soon there were fewer peacocks and the red tunics of the army were most prominent on the decks.

  The exuberant cries of the crowds when the Fortune arrived turned into a rising and falling din as the novelty wore off.

  Max stood beside me, a flag in one hand and meat-on-a-stick in the other. He still cheered as each smaller ship entered the harbor.

  “Who’s taking care of the Sextant?”

  “Herus.”

  “Can he even see straight?”

  “Not sure he ever could.”

  “And the adventurers?”

  “Drank yer supply, I’m not so worried ‘bout’em,” Max said. “What’re they gonna take?”

  I shrugged.

  The ships on the western side came to life once more as the merchant ships, held up by the processional, could disembark.

  The sun dropped behind the outer stone walls. The crowd dispersed back up into the city. The usual wharf rats and prostitutes replaced the families on the docks.

  Here and there a red tunic appeared along the seawall. Then a few more. The steady stream of red ran down the dock from Fort Hydrus and across the capital.

  I headed back to the Sextant to find a few of the tables filling up. Behind the bar where Max was filling ceramic tankards with cheap ale, I pulled my pathetic excuse for an oud from the corner. I had learned to play while attending the University and had become proficient in the few decades I was there.

  The oud in the Sextant, however, was far from the instrument I had played in school, finely-crafted and made of warm Barno wood. Two of the eleven strings on this instrument were missing, their tensioners broken off by an earlier musician. There was a split up the neck where Max had thrown a drunkard against the wall and the oud had cushioned the impact.

  In all honesty, I hadn’t tuned the thing in at least two spans and it produced a hideous noise. Given the option between this thing and a pair of rusty spoons, any musician worth two iron pins would consider the benefits of tetanus.

  Which is how it happened to be in my possession, the last owner died of lockjaw.

  I did little more than strum a harsh chord to get a song started or draw the attention of the crowd before launching into a story, so I cared little what sound it produced, so long as it produced one.

  I clambered on top of the bar, drew the oud up in front of me, and struck the remaining strings with a THWANG. The sour note elicited an explosion of laughter from the room. Good, they were already in high spirits. I patted the oud as though it were a shamed pet and slipped it behind my back. I stomped on the bar and started a rousing first verse of Sweet Drakkan Ladies. By the time I arrived at the chorus, the crowd joined in.

  It’s going to be a good night.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  The Sextant was far down the western side of the harbor which meant it was well into the evening before the red tunics of the soldiers filtered into the tavern. On any other night I would have played a few songs and departed with a few half-knots to find something better to invest my time on than work. With the return of the fleet the coin was flowing. I had already made a month’s earnings before I told tales of the daring exploits of Ferrin the Great. At the Sextant, this passed as comedy.

  In all recorded history, there had never been a single gnomish soldier—too small for the arms and armor. A gnome had never explored an ancient temple, other than a research trip. In fact, the most excitement a gnome had ever encountered was when Zori smuggled nobles out of the city a hundred years ago. But despite my lack of aptitude for adventure, I could craft the most exciting tales of heroism out of the parts of failed adventures.

  Yes, I, Ferrin Alsahar, ripped off the accounts of every traveler to pass through the Sextant and wove myself into the starring role. That night, I had a fresh story of would-be adventure.

  THWANG.

  Sisters of Erista four, allow me to tell of Ferrin’s lore: The mighty hero, adventuring gnome, trav’ling the wilds of Auster his home. For the enjoyment of all who join in this roar.

  The crowd was already in an intoxicated frenzy when I started my second set with a classic invocation to the goddess of arts and her sisters the muses. Cheers broke out as I went into my usual bawdy tales.

  Deep in the dark woods of the Forbidden Forest, beyond the lake where the night hag lies, there is a temple all but forgotten, to Muscan, dark god of the flies. Within the temple there is said to be a massive golden horde amassed by Varenax, an ancient Fortean lord known for being wealthy, and cruel, and wise.

  But this is not a tale of Varenax, no this is a story that starts with this ember and grows into the inferno of
an epic of how Ferrin the Great defeated a gang of bandits with his obscenely large member. With a wash basin on his chest and sauce pan for a helm upon his head, he was truly a force to reckon with, filling his foes with a dread. Listen close to what I say, it is something you’ll want to remember.

  The fated five who traveled from a faraway shore sought riches and gold and the love of a Drakkan whore. But barely a day from the Great Gate they had ridden when they were set upon by a band of thieves laying silently hidden behind the boulders and rocks that dotted the moor.

  This party was new, not adventurers yet. A banker, a butcher, a scholar there too, a mercer and tanner completed the set. Outfitted in the finest they could never afford; their armor was held together with twine and with cord. None trusted the other, they had only just met.

  From a distant rise Ferrin watched the approach, stunned to see adventurers out riding in a coach. To bandits this must have appeared a wonderful thing, a morning ride of some baron or king. But these travelers were pinless, without so much as a half knot to poach.

  So, from far afield Ferrin now flew, the gnome racing with a speed hardly any knew. For the smallest of all men are the fastest as well, though preferring comfort you never could tell that the secret to their speed is that they are running on three legs, not two.

  The gnome was too fast for the brigands to block; as Ferrin drew close, the thieves he did mock. Clashing of armor as the ruffians fell, a flurry of blows too fast to tell what had happened to the bandits until the leader dropped too, bludgeoned to death by the gnome’s mighty cock.

  The crowd exploded in cheers and laughter at the punchline of the story. The Rusted Sextant was a rough bar, packed with old salts, whores, soldiers, and drunks. They were the type of characters that never grew tired of my stories, which often included bludgeoning evildoers with my impractically over-sized member.

  As the great Fortean playwright Alonzo Pyrell once said, a stereotype that flatters should always be perpetuated for poetic purposes.

  ***

  The door of the Sextant flew open with a crash. Three men in glistening armor pushed their way into the cramped common room.

  “Alright, nobody moves,” roared the lead man as more of his comrades pushed into the tavern.

  At the order, several patrons near the bar turned and bolted for the back door, not wanting a run-in with the Watch.

  “We’re searching for the pirate captain Gustavo Blanco. We know he’s here, so surrender him at once,” said the soldier at the front of the phalanx formed in the heart of the pub.

  “Seven men to capture one gnome,” I said with a smirk. “You’d think the Watch would at least make it a fair fight!”

  Nervous laughter rippled through the crowd, as they braced to see a bloody brawl. From my vantage point, I could see a few men pull daggers from their boots. Most of the patrons of the Sextant were far too inebriated to realize that these intruders had the red tunics of the army under their armor, not the grey tunics of the Watch.

  That bastard thinks he’s got the upper hand. He thinks he can saunter into my bar and shout orders.

  I reached down and unfastened the top button of my breeches and slid out the massive, cured sausage I had pilfered earlier in the day. Agnes, one of the regular barmaids at the Sextant, howled in encouragement and a roar of laughter again erupted from the Sextant.

  “Howdafuck duziwalk with that,” Old Herus mumbled from his chair at the bar, awestruck by what he was certain he witnessed.

  The line of soldiers broke and from behind them an officer doubled over in laughter. “Erista be damned, Ferrin! Put that thing away,” he shouted.

  Dem pulled off his shining plumed helmet and set it on the bar revealing his reddened face with tears streaming down his cheeks. His olive complexion had darkened from a year in the sun and his soot black hair was cropped short in the fashion popular with the soldiers.

  Turning to his men, still laughing, Dem tossed a small purse to the door-kicker. “First round is on me, boys, good work.”

  The soldiers all cheered, removed their helmets, and pressed toward Max at the bar.

  Realizing they would not get the fight they had expected, the denizens of the Rusted Sextant returned to the laughter and debates over who thought my prop was real.

  “What the hell did you do to that poor goose, Dem?” I asked, pointing to the gleaming steel helmet on the bar with a cluster of golden feathers protruding from the pointed crown.

  “That’s Commander to you, sir,” he said, as he puffed up his chest and stuck out his chin.

  “Were they drunk?” I asked.

  Dem sneered at me.

  “Max, a bottle of the good stuff for the Commander.” I let the word hang in the air. I had known Dem for my entire life. We were best mates growing up. The first person to agree to whatever insane idea I had dreamed up. I was there the day he enlisted, almost ten years earlier. He would always tell me the stories of his campaigns around Laetia and the Outer Islands. Now he was a commander, and I was still telling cock jokes in a seedy tavern.

  “An Alsahar spending coin? That’s a first!” Dem said with mock astonishment. “Better make it two, Max. I don’t know when I’ll get the opportunity again!”

  Max set two bottles of Stormreach Whiskey on the bar and two glasses. I set a silver palm on the counter next to the bottles, the outstretched hands on the coin reaching out pleading. Max slid the coin across the bar, smiled, and tucked it into his pocket, “Welcome home, Commander.”

  With a well-practiced nod, Dem took up the bottles and glasses and looked down with a warm smile, “So are you still working, or do you have time for a drink?”

  “After the stunt you pulled? I can’t follow that. There’s a table back here that opened by the back door when you barged in.”

  We pushed our way through the crowded room to the back of the hall. A half-broken table with one good chair and an empty crate was abandoned by the door. Dem grabbed the chair and slid it around so his back was against the wall. I hopped up on the wooden crate and poured healthy servings of dwarven whiskey.

  “So how are the widows of Drakkas Port?” Dem asked with a smirk on his face. “Well comforted, I hope.”

  “I was nearly gutted in the Central Market this morning,” I said. “Some beautiful young orphan I was comforting all last night forgot to mention she was on her way to be married today. Her betrothed and his brother didn’t take too kindly to the substantial philanthropy I had provided.

  Dem roared with laughter.

  “But seriously, how did you swing commander?” I slid a glass with four gnome-fingers of whiskey across the half-table. “When I last saw you, you were a sergeant. Now you have a half a duck stuck to your head.”

  “Luck, mostly…misfortune? I don’t know what to call it,” Dem said as he sipped on the smooth, oaky drink, staring off through the table in the way he always did when he came back from a deployment. “Captain Marcellus developed a fever during the voyage to Laetia. By the time we reached Fortis, Lady Nex keep him, he was gone. General Aurellis appointed me Captain.”

  “By her frozen hands,” I said, regretting I had brought up the subject. “I—I’m sorry.”

  “It happens,” he said in a nonchalant tone. “The sea is dangerous. We all know it. Sometimes we win, sometimes it does. That’s how it goes.”

  He looked me square in my eyes. There was an intensity I rarely saw in Dem, “We all know the price.”

  “So, what happened once you got to Laetia?” I asked. He was holding something back. A part of me didn’t want to know. But a much larger part was bouncing up and down.

  I always got my best material from Dem.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  “We deployed to northern Laetia, a request from the Fortean Council to aid with an incursion,” Dem said, as his focus shifted from me to the table and through the table to somewhere far off.

  “The Forteans said they were being invaded, a force of perhaps a hundred thousand, from across
the Narrows from Nivalis. A movement of troops on that scale hadn’t occurred since the Collapse.

  Fifty thousand strong and five dragons, we were to reinforce the garrison at Callum Heights, an old Fortean fortress atop a seventy-foot cliff that overlooked the Narrows. If the Nivs were coming over the Narrows, we would make them pay to do it.”

  “That doesn’t make sense,” I said. “Why would the Commonwealth send troops to defend Fortis from an invasion? Why not let the Forteans defend their own land?”

  “Because Fortis is one of the largest nations in the world, and our best trading partner,” Dem said. “And because less than three generations ago, WE were Forteans.”

  “Human generations,” I corrected. “Ma and Pa survived the Collapse, Duk too.”

  “You’re just proving my point, Ferrin. Zori and Ignis, Dukhan, many gnomes and elves alive today were born Forteans. You can’t just turn your back on them,” Dem said, “especially if what the Forteans were saying was true. If the Nivs really were invading.”

  “Were they?”

  “Did I interrupt your story?”

  “Actually,” I said with a wave around the common room filled with soldiers.

  “So anyway,” Dem continued, ignoring my gesticulations. “We arrived in Callum Heights in early Cienta last year after over seven spans on the ships. And there’s nothing there. We had expected an army encampment, a fleet off the coast, something. But there was nothing—a quiet fishing village and the old Fortean fortress with a garrison of a thousand soldiers.

  “General Aurellis stormed up to the gates of the fortress with half the officer corps in tow. He pounded his fists on the gates as if he was the war god Cassis himself. He demanded entry, said he would ‘sunder the whole damned rock pile,’ if he didn’t get answers.