Read Blood and Steel (The Cor Chronicles Volume I) Page 4
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“Boy, tomorrow we will port in Hichima. I assume you have never seen a city beyond Aquis?” Captain Naran asked. They stood upon the deck late in the evening, the night well lit by the moon and stars. Despite being late summer, the ocean breezes always kept the air cool.
“No sir.”
“Tigol is different from your West boy.” The Shet rarely used Cor’s name, though he had grown rather fond of him. “Tigol has few kingdoms; every city is its own state and has its own laws. However, there are few of those, and a foreign lad such as you could easily disappear against your will. Does that frighten you?”
“No,” Cor said, and the captain fixed him with a long hard look before laughing uproariously and giving the boy a hard slap to his back.
“You are a bad liar boy, but I approve of the brave face! I enjoy you among my crew and expect you to be with me for some time. I need you to stay with me or aboard ship while we’re here. I know you want to see the city, but for now it is not safe. The cities we visit will come to know you are under my protection.”
They slipped into a bay in the early morning hours, the sun just breaking the horizon appearing to emerge from the sea itself. As they left the open waters for the bay and approached the city itself, the water changed from a blue so deep as to be nearly black to a brackish brown. From the smell and color, it was plainly obvious that the city’s inhabitants disposed of their waste directly into the bay that seagoing vessels passed through to gain access to Hichima. Captain Naran swore with disgust.
Cor could see little of the city itself beyond the docks and the warehouses immediately adjoining them. Two distinctly different docking areas existed, the closest of which was made of quarried stone, and Tigolean ships were lined up bow to stern so close as to nearly touch. The second set of docks had been clearly added much later; off to one side, they were made of wood and extended well into the bay. The graceless, fat boats of Western design moored here.
Cor had visited only two cities in his short life. Martherus, the second largest city in Aquis and the West, was one of course; his father sold his annual harvest there. The other was the small port city at which he joined Naran’s crew, and he didn’t even know its name. But both these cities had a castle with towers and a fortress that could be seen in the distance. Hichima seemed to have no such things.
As they slid closer to the great stone dock, the captain ordered all three sails closed, and the men simply folded them into a large upright mast and bound them closed with heavy leather straps. A dozen of the men then went below decks to man oars, slowing the vessel substantially, but allowing the captain to pilot the ship with extreme precision. The ship pulled parallel to a perfectly sized empty point in the dock, and the oarsmen reversed the direction of their rowing to bring it to a gentle stop. Men on the dock threw four great ropes to the men upon deck who secured them to the ship. Cor’s eyes followed the ropes and found each of them affixed to spoked steel wheels set into the stone dock so that only half of them could be seen. A Tigolean on the dock pulled a level also set into the dock, and the wheels began to slowly turn. They reeled in Naran’s ship like the daily catch. The dockworker pulled the level back into its original position when the ship was less than two feet from the dock, and the wheels stopped.
“Boy, I must meet the Dockmaster and attend to business. Do your duties and stay aboard ship until I return,” Captain Naran said and crossed a newly affixed gangplank.
The entire area was awash in short statured, thin Tigoleans moving cargo from ship to warehouse and the reverse or conducting all sorts of business. Cor saw no other Shet, making Naran the center of much attention, though there were a number of Westerners in the vicinity as well. He turned from the dock to do as he was told.