Chương 11: Chapter 6.5: The Battle Of A Large Ferry And A Small Dock

Harl stood over my cot and watched me take my items, silently. Orven's patched cloak and bedroll went into the bundle first, followed by the sharpening stones, snares, spare shirt and torn gloves. His bone-handled knife stayed at my hip; the axe hung from my belt, the two marker tokens rested beneath my shirt and the broken spear rode across one shoulder. I half expected Harl to reclaim Orven's possessions from the shed, but he said nothing. I could not read him, was he angry or disappointed?

His face held a different expression I could not quite see. Pride? Surely not. The bundle remained small enough to insult the the almost eighteen years of life it contained. Half a life in the yard had produced less than I could carry. I tied the bedroll around everything that might rattle and looked once at the bare mattress Harl could still use. The river crossing had changed while I worked. All day the crossing had been slow, but why was not clear from the yard.

It was the yells I heard as I headed towards the Cataract Inn that told part of the story. Bargemen were shouting across the Greywash, merchants were arguing beside stalled carts, and unfamiliar accents pressing through market lanes usually empty by sunset. The largest platform of the main dock had split from its pilings during the night storm. Two ferries were forcing passengers through smaller landing stages while eastern traffic queued in the water faster than the crossing could unload them.

And then, as they tried to unload a larger ferry onto a smaller dock, there was a crunch that made every yell cease and every eye turn. Like an iceberg against a large ship, the ferry shattered the side of the dock. Ferrymen jumped into the ice cold water after women and children that fell in, and it became chaos for a few moments. When the dust settled a few minutes later, the reality set in. There was no stable dock to the east.

The island of Zhoria, from the Dwarves to the far north, Strathford to the north, to the elves far west, and the swamps south, that dock was the only passage across the Greywash. After many stood around silently and surveyed, those stranded moved towards the Inn for a room. ⚜ ⚜ ⚜ I noticed common elves near the market square because the fine points of their ears showed through rain-dark hair. They looked nothing like the pale, silver-haired figures carved around old temple doors.

An ember-haired woman sat beside a cartwheel drawing a curved skinning knife along a stone, and faint warmth shimmered above her fingers each time the edge passed. Two elf men unloaded woven reedcloth nearby while arguing over ferry costs in clipped western accents, their green-and-gold eyes catching stray lanternlight whenever they turned. Under other circumstances I would have slowed to watch the heat around the blade.

My shoulder already ached beneath the broken spear, and the Cataract reception hall had a queue. The blackpine token knocked against Pell's iron square as I walked, a small wooden reminder that I possessed directions northwest and nowhere to sleep in town. The Cataract stood beside the western dock road, close enough to the river that its lower stones always smelled damp. I had entered twice before while carrying yard messages and remembered a common floor wide enough for a dozen bedrolls.

Warmth struck when I pushed through the door, followed by smoke, wet wool, roasting onion, and the roar of too many stranded people speaking at once. Packs crowded the walls, cloaks dripped beside both hearths and occupied chairs had been pulled close enough to trap anyone trying to cross the room. If you spot this tale on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.

Travellers filled the inn, drivers paid for stable corners and men with better cloaks than mine negotiated over patches of common-room floor. Every room, meal, and dry place had acquired a new price between morning and dusk. I had surrendered a free bunk on the day Dunmere became a crisis zone. The innkeeper saw the bundle and broken spear before he saw my face.

"Common floor is full."

"I need somewhere dry."

"So does everyone who arrived after the dock broke." He glanced towards the door, where another traveller was already trying to enter behind me.

"Private room. Forty-eight iron. Supper and breakfast included." I thought I had misheard him.

"For one night?"

"Rooms were twenty-four yesterday. Yesterday there was a dock that kept my common floors empty." Forty-eight iron exceeded five ordinary days of labour after food. Henrick's offer would have taken nearly two and a half days to replace it, and I was preparing to spend the amount for a key that stopped belonging to me after breakfast. Fingers pressed around the copper pieces beneath my shirt. They felt smooth, cold and too permanent to break apart over sleep. People crowded behind me while the innkeeper waited.

"If you don't want a room, I'll need you to clear the line," He points behind me to a long line of people waiting. Somewhere near the hearth, a merchant argued about stable fees; mugs struck tables and wet boots scraped across boards already slick with mud. I pictured the road outside after dark, my pouch hidden beneath my clothes and Orven's axe visible at my hip. Sleeping beneath an awning would preserve the coin while showing anyone awake exactly how little protection I had.

The man behind me prepares to take my place, and starts to shuffle. The room price was obscene. Losing the pouch would be worse. I untied it and withdrew forty-eight iron. The pieces landed on the innkeeper's bench with a heavier sound than something so small deserved. He watched my counting, and then scooped them into a metal box and handed me a wooden supper token, a wooden breakfast token, and slid a narrow key across the counter. Each returned coin felt smaller after passing through his hand.

PAYMENT SPENT You spent 48 iron pieces on a private room, supper, and breakfast at The Cataract. Your Current Coin is now 2 copper and 46 iron pieces.

"Enjoy your stay," a girl, a similar age to me said, peering from behind the bar with a generous and welcoming smile. It was the first time someone has smiled at me and meant it in days. The third-floor room was barely larger than the loft cot I had left behind. A narrow bed stood against one wall, with a cracked washbasin beneath a shuttered window overlooking the river road, and a small wooden desk. I set the broken spear in the corner, placed the bundle at the foot of the bed and closed the door.

Tavern noise dulled into vibrations beneath the floorboards, and the absence of another person for the first time in my life felt immediately lonely. I was alone. Orphan-alone had meant other people's roofs and rules; forest-alone meant watching the brush and keeping the axe near. This was adult-alone. No yard waited beneath me tomorrow, no meal arrived because a foreman expected my back at dawn and no older man had the right to tell me where to stand.

Every future night indoors now depended on what I could drag back from the forest before hunger, weather, damaged tools, or something with teeth collected first. I sat on the edge of the bed and turned the remaining copper piece between my fingers. The metal seemed smaller than it had that morning. Across the room, everything I owned fitted inside one poorly tied bedroll and the space around it remained mine only until breakfast.

The mattress gave beneath my weight when I lay back, thin and uneven yet softer than the loft cots had ever been. Smoke and river damp clung to the blanket in place of old sweat and wet boots. Outside, stranded travellers filled Dunmere with foreign voices while carts rattled towards a crossing that could no longer carry them fast enough. For the first time in my life, the room around me belonged to no one else. And that was terrifying.