no malice or mischief in the squat man’s gaze though, so he took the offering and bit off a big piece. The heat of the pepper crept up on him as he was walking back to his horse. By the time he got there his entire head was glowing red and on fire. Sweat poured down his brow and his mouth felt blistered.
“Ahh!” Hyden yelled. “Wah-er! Wah-er!” He walked, almost sprinting, over to Brady who was unshouldering his canteen. “Whaaat-er!”
“It’ll only make it worse,” Oarly said with a grin, but it was too late.
“AAHHHHH,” Hyden yelled as he guzzled water like a mad man. When it didn’t cool his mouth his eyes grew panicked and desperate. He made a pleading gesture with his hands. “AAHHH! AAHHH!” His eyes were squinted and watering. Water from Brady’s canteen was running down his chin and his head looked as if it might explode.
By that time, even Brady and Phen were laughing.
A few moments later, after he’d cooled off and mastered himself, Hyden Hawk summoned what dignity he had left and climbed back up into his saddle. Without a word, but with plenty of angry looks, he spurred his mount down the road.
“What did High King Mikahl give you to do that?” Brady asked with genuine curiosity in his voice.
“For slipping him the squat weed he gave me this.” Oarly reached his stumpy arm over his shoulder to his back and patted the handle of the wicked looking double-edged axe that was strapped there. “That cinder pepper I just gave him, though,” Oarly chuckled, “now that was me own gag.”
“He’ll get you back, you know,” Phen boasted in Hyden’s defense. “He’ll get you back good!”
“No lad,” the dwarf said with a confident smile on his hairy face. “After that cinder pepper works its way out of him, he’ll know better than to jest with the likes of me. Mark my words.”
From Phen’s shoulder, Talon the hawkling cawed out his sharp disagreement with the dwarf.
Oarly hadn’t lied. True to his word, the effects of the squat weed quickly dissipated. Nevertheless, Hyden kept them trotting a few hundred yards behind the wagons and the escort just in case.
The land around them was green, but rocky. There were very few trees, but many clumps of shrubs and bushes dotted the landscape. They passed several herders whose large flocks of sheep and goats looked fat and healthy. After they took the Old Port branch of the ‘Y’ in the road, they began to see lively farms, and other humble dwellings out along the hills. It appeared that this part of the world hadn’t been touched by Pael’s madness.
As they drew closer to the ocean, Hyden grew excited. He’d never seen the sea. Berda the giantess had told him and the clan folk many a tale about it. The last few nights, at the fire, Hyden and Phen had taken turns reading from a book about tides and the moon’s other effects on the ocean. This only made Hyden want to see the splendor of the sea that much more. Before he could see or hear the water, though, he could taste the salt in the air. As soon as he did, he sent Talon ahead to explore. With his eyes clenched shut, he watched as the world passed below through the hawkling’s razor keen vision.
The road wound its way down among the sloping hills into a long stretched conglomeration of gray topped roofs and crowded, narrow cobbled streets. It extended southward farther than Talon could see at his present height. Hyden sent the hawkling rising in an upward circle, using the warmer air reflected off the rooftops until it was all well below him. Hyden saw through Talon’s eyes that they were starting out onto a finger-like peninsula that extended a good distance into the gray-blue ocean. The road went the length of the finger, with smaller dirt and cobbled lanes cutting across it toward the white rolling shores. Ships, boats, skiffs and trawlers lined the myriad docks that extended from the western side of the formation. To the east, the finger was open and a fat dark gray line separated sea from shore. As Talon swooped lower Hyden saw that it was a crude wall made of granite blocks. Rolling white-capped waves crashed into it, sending up huge explosions of foam and spray. Gray and white gulls were everywhere calling and shrieking and diving on schools of baitfish. They scattered when Talon soared past.
Hyden urged Talon across the finger to the other side. The billowy sails of several gliding ships glowed amber, illuminated by the rays of the setting sun. All along the shadowy docks people swarmed like ants loading and unloading boxes, crates and net-loads of fish. Some of the ships looked like trees-their masts stood proud but empty like limbs that had shed their leaves for winter’s coming. Farther up the docks the buildings started. There the lanes were full of carts and wagons. Swarms of people scrambled among others who were gathered in crowds to buy and sell fresh sea-fare. From above, it all it looked like chaos. Hyden couldn’t wait to get there.
When he called Talon back to him and opened his eyes, he was pleased to find that the group was already a good way out along the peninsula. The bay off to his right sparkled as it reflected the light of the setting sun back at them. The gray tidal wall that ran the length of the other side of the peninsula was almost invisible beyond the buildings to his left. Torches were being lit and lanterns hung along the roads. As the sun left this part of the world behind, wells of wavering light transformed shadowy corners into welcoming points of commerce and congregation. It reminded Hyden of the crowded Ways at the Summer’s Day Festival, especially the calls of the hawkers as they tried to draw attention to their particular wares.
More than a few people stopped to gawk at Oarly the dwarf as the group passed. Only a score of dwarves remained in the realm and all of them lived in or very near Queen Willa’s Xwardian palace. To see one out on the docks was rare. Some of the older tavern songs said that thousands upon thousands of them lived somewhere far below the earth’s surface, but when Queen Willa had blown the magical horn that was supposed to summon them to Xwarda’s aid, none had come.
Oarly made silly faces at the younger spectators, which put smiles on the faces of everyone else. Before long, rumors that the hawk-man wizard who’d saved Xwarda from the dragon was in Old Port caused the crowds to grow. Luckily, Captain Trant, the captain of the Royal Seawander had anticipated as much and paid some men from the docks to block off the mass of people as Hyden’s group gained the entrance to the yard of the Royal Seastone Inn.
“Wow!” said Phen as men came out of the shadows and took their horses away. “You’re a regular hero, Hyden Hawk.”
“Hardly,” Hyden replied with a blush. He was starving and thirsty, but afraid to consume anything. He didn’t know whether to be repulsed or enticed by the warm savory smells that wafted out of the inn’s open doorway.
“Well met, sirs,” a big barrel-chested man with a thick, but well-trimmed ginger beard said to them. He had a cob pipe clenched between his teeth and wore a spiffy gray and green captain’s uniform.
“You must be Captain Trant,” Hyden said with the slightest of nods. Mikahl had instructed him on rank and etiquette over the winter. Mikahl had explained that Hyden’s role as a key defender of the realm in the battle against Pael gave him a status that was beyond rank, yet still of a knightly nature. He was more often than not addressed as Sir Hyden Hawk. Since he was not a kingdom born man and his rightful allegiance was not to any of the realm’s human kingdoms, the slight nodding bow wouldn’t offend anyone. Still, Hyden felt uneasy whenever someone of note was around. If it were up to him, Queen Willa would be just Willa and High King Mikahl would just be Mik, like he used to be, and all the titles could fly out the window. Yet here, the ship’s captain was calling all of them ‘sirs’.
“Hyden of the Skyler clan, I presume,” Trant said as he reached out and shook Hyden’s offered hand.
Hyden was shocked to speechlessness by the fact that the man knew how his clansmen would have addressed him. He was saved from the awkward moment when Oarly approached.
“Ah, Master Oarly,” Trant reached down to shake the dwarf’s hand.
Master Oarly? Hyden thought. Master of what? Already schemes of revenge began plotting themselves out in Hyden’s mind. It’s going to be a sweet kind of revenge, Hyden promised himself. His thoughts were interrupted when he saw Brady starting to go help the other military men of the escort with the unloading. “No, Master Culvert,” Hyden stopped him. “Your sword can’t protect the three of us if you’re off with them.”
“Master?” He rejoined Hyden. The boyish grin on his face showed that he was glad to be included. “I’m no master.”
“You are now the Master of Defense for our exploratory party, Brady.” Hyden informed him. “And any man who can go seven minutes against Mikahl’s blade is a master swordsman in my book.”
“Phenilous, my lad, you’ve grown some since I last saw you at the palace,” Captain Trant was saying as he ruffled the hair on Phen’s head.
“Aye,” Phen replied. “You came up for the Harvest Ball last year. I didn’t realize that it was going to be you steering the boat.” Then to Hyden with excitement growing in his eyes he said, “The Captain has a blue monkey that dances on a leash. It can do flips even.” Then back to Captain Trant with his eyes darting all around the
