I threaded my way through the desolation that was Forge. My skin prickled as I crept past sagging doors on splintered frames in half burned buildings. It was a relief to get away from the moldy smell of the empty cottages and to stand on the wharves overlooking the water. The road went right down to the docks and curved along the cove. A shoulder of roughly worked stone had once protected the road from the greedy sea, but a winter of tides and storms without the intervention of man was breaking it down. Stones were working loose, and the sea’s driftwood battering rams, abandoned now by the tide, cluttered the beach below. Once carts of iron ingots had been hauled down this road, to waiting vessels. I walked along the seawall and saw that what had appeared so permanent from the hill above would withstand perhaps one or two more winter seasons without maintenance before the sea reclaimed it.
Overhead, stars shone intermittently through scudding clouds. The evasive moon cloaked and revealed herself as well, occasionally granting me glimpses of the harbor. The shushing of the waves was like the breathing of a drugged giant. It was a night from a dream, and when I looked out over the water, the ghost of a Red-Ship cut across the moonpath as it put into Forge harbor. Her hull was long and sleek, her masts bare of canvas as she came slipping into the harbor. The red of her hull and prow was shiny as fresh spilled blood, as if she cut through runnels of blood instead of salt water. In the dead town behind me, no one raised a shout of warning.
I stood like a fool, limned on the seawall, shivering at the apparition, until the creak of oars and the silver dripping of water off an oar’s edge made the Red-Ship real.
I flung myself flat to the causeway, then slithered off the smooth road surface into the boulders and driftwood cluttered along the seawall. I could not breathe for terror. All my blood was in my head, pounding, and no air was in my lungs. I had to set my head down between my arms and close my eyes to regain control of myself. By then the small sounds even a stealthy vessel must make came faint but distinct across the water to me. A man cleared his throat, an oar rattled in its lock, something heavy thudded to the deck. I waited for a shout or command to betray that I had been seen. But there was nothing. I lifted my head cautiously, peering through the whitened roots of a driftwood log. All was still save the ship coming closer and closer as the rowers brought her into harbor. Her oars rose and fell in near-silent unison.
Soon I could hear them talking in a language like ours, but so harshly spoken I could barely get the meaning of the words. A man sprang over the side with a line and floundered ashore. He made the ship fast no more than two ship lengths away from where I lay hidden among the boulders and logs. Two others sprang out, knives in hands, and scrambled up the seawall. They ran along the road in opposite directions, to take up positions as sentries. One was on the road almost directly above me. I made myself small and still. I held on to Smithy in my mind the way a child grips a beloved toy as protection against nightmares. I had to get home to him, therefore I must not be discovered. The knowledge that I must do the first somehow made the second seem more possible.
Men scrabbled hastily from the ship. Everything about them bespoke familiarity. I could not fathom why they had put in here until I saw them unloading empty water casks. The casks were sent hollowly rolling down the causeway, and I remembered the well I had passed. The part of my mind that belonged to Chade noted how well they knew Forge, to put in almost exactly opposite that well. This was not the first time this ship had stopped here for water. “Poison the well before you leave,” he suggested. But I had no supplies for anything like that, and no courage to do anything except remain hidden.