woman asked eagerly. “You mentioned Strongwind Whalebone-he’d be delighted to hear from you, see you. Going hunting, fishing-something like you used to do in the old days! Who knows, the king of the Highlanders might start to look pretty good to you.”
Shaking her head, Moreen laughed again, wryly now. “No… I think you’ll have a mate long before I will,” she said.
Bruni’s shoulders slumped. She turned away, pretending interest in the work on the fields. The chief-woman regretted her remark. She knew that her friend had never attracted the interest of any man. Unlike Moreen, Bruni found the lack of male interest depressing, and lately she had gone through several bouts of melancholy brought on by her loneliness.
“Will you do me a favor if you see Kerrick?” Moreen asked quickly.
“Sure,” said Bruni, with another shrug.
“Tell him I need to talk to him,” Moreen said, before slipping through the trapdoor into the coolness of the tower. Already her mind was ticking through the rest of the list-a dozen, a score, a hundred things needed to be done.
As usual, it seemed as though she had to supervise them all.
Cutter glided past the Signpost, the rocky pillar that stood at the mouth of Brackenrock’s harbor. The elf had already stowed his jib, and the mainsail was tightened to a small portion of its vast surface as Kerrick steered the boat slowly toward one of the sturdy wooden docks that now extended into the placid water.
He could hardly believe how this place had changed in the years since he had first glimpsed it. Six boats, seaworthy if rather round and ungainly, bobbed at anchor. A solid quay with two long piers lined the shoreline that had been jumbled with rocky debris eight years before. To his left was the boatyard, where two new curraghs were nearly ready for launching, skeletal frames complete and awaiting only the cured leather hides that would render them seaworthy Beyond those round, tublike craft, a gleaming hull of wooden planks rested between framing beams. That boat had the sharp prow and deep keel of a true sailboat, somewhat shorter and wider than Cutter but nevertheless a sleek and modern craft.
A lanky young man, his long black hair bound into a long ponytail, stopped planing the hull long enough to wave at the elf.
“How did the wind hold?” asked Mouse, shouting across the rippled water.
“About like you’d expect for the first of spring,” Kerrick replied, cupping his hands around his mouth to help his voice carry across the harbor. “Like I could have made it to Ansalon by tomorrow! Then I had to tack all the way back.”
He turned the tiller and Cutter glided easily up to the longest dock. Several youths hurried to take the line he tossed ashore, and in moments the slender boat was lashed securely to the stout pilings. Knowing he had taken on a good amount of spray, Kerrick promised the boys a gold coin if they’d pump out the bilge, and they gleefully accepted.
“Do you want the sail in the locker?” asked the oldest, swaggering forward with the long experience of one whole summer as a boathand.
“Not yet,” the elf replied, suddenly reluctant to abandon the freedom of the sea. “Who knows? If the weather holds, I might take another run before sunset.” He knew that today’s sunlight would only total seven or eight hours, but he was not willing to relinquish the good spring weather, not just yet.
Mouse had wandered over to say hello, and now he raised his eyebrows. “Another run before dark? Well, you’re the captain.”
“At least, on this boat,” Kerrick said with a laugh, clapping the strapping young man on the shoulder, then gesturing to the nearly completed hull, the sleek boards his friend had been smoothing. Unlike the leather-shelled curraghs, the new boat was similar in shape to Cutter, with a keel, long deck, and single, low cabin.
“It won’t be long until you’ve got Marlin afloat.”
“I know.” Mouse’s face lit up at the mention of his boat. “Once we’ve got a stretch of solid good weather I’ll take one of the tubs across to trade for pitch in Tall Cedar Bay. I’ll get the boys to help-they’re always ready for a ride in a curragh. When I bring that back and caulk Martin’s hull, I’ll be ready to put her in the water. I think I’ll be sailing before the sun sets in fall.”
“I’ll enjoy the sight of another beautiful boat on these seas,” Kerrick suggested. He gestured ruefully to the round shapes moored around them. “You’re right. These curraghs look more like laundry tubs than proper sailing craft.”
Mouse laughed. “They’ve changed the way we live, and that’s the truth. It’s hard to believe that ten years ago no one from my tribe had seen the western shore of the White Bear Sea. Now we have small towns on both sides, and people go back and forth dozens of times in a year!”
“You Arktos are natural sailors,” the elf agreed. “Taking these open boats onto the White Bear Sea is bold work.”
“They’re the best we can do around here, I suppose, with the materials and tools of the Icereach. You know, some day I’d love to see the shipyards of Silvanesti, or Tarsis… all the places you’ve told us about,” the young man said dreamily. “To see the work of those who made Cutter.”
“I don’t doubt that if you had proper oak and mahogany in the Icereach, you’d make a vessel that’s equal to Cutter. You’ve done wonders with the materials you have. Think of Marlin, a pine-board longboat with leather stoppers and but two sails… and she’ll be able to ride the deep ocean as well as any king’s galley. She’ll take you to Tarsis, my friend, or to anywhere else you want to go.”
Mouse nodded, then looked almost guilty as his eyes flicked upward toward the fortress that loomed unseen beyond the mountainside overhead. “Of course, I wouldn’t want to leave Feathertail that long,” he assured the elf.
Kerrick smiled ruefully. “She’s as much a sailor as you are, and don’t think she’d let you leave her behind. As a matter of fact, it’s not exactly common for someone to sail by himself. Don’t get the wrong idea just because I showed up here that way. I was unusual even among Silvanesti sailors.”
“But you had Coraltop Netfisher along, didn’t you?” asked the young man. “You’ve always said so!”
The elf winced, remembering his dream. He had felt a stab of melancholy when he had awakened to find that his old companion was not in fact present on the boat. It was rare for him to think of Coraltop or dream of him these days.
“Maybe. I’m not even sure myself, any more. It’s been so long that I have to wonder if he really existed, or if Moreen is right, that he was a just figment of my imagination, created out of the long months of boredom at sea. Though I did have a dream about him,” he admitted, “just a couple of nights ago.” Kerrick thought of Coral-top’s suggestion that his father might have returned to Silvanesti in his absence. That was impossible, of course, but it was strange how the notion, once planted in his subconscious, kept rising to the surface.
Mouse frowned. “I’ve never heard you say that Coral-top didn’t exist! Didn’t you see him right here in your boat the day we won Brackenrock?”
Kerrick squirmed inwardly. He didn’t like to consider the suggestion that the kender wasn’t real-it sounded far too much like madness-but somehow here, today, he keenly felt the glaring lack of evidence to the contrary.
“That was eight years ago, and I never saw him again. That day no one else saw him, either. No, that kender may as well have been pure fancy. I’m glad to say that I’ve put the past behind me.”
“If you think so, that’s the important thing,” Mouse agreed, though he avoided looking Kerrick in the eye. “Um… how was the run to Bearhearth?”
“Smooth, no problems,” the elf replied, grateful for the change of subject. “Say, do you know why they call it that?”
“No. I never thought about it.”
“The thane told me that, five or six generations ago, there wasn’t a castle there, and the clan was a wandering tribe. Their leader speared a bear high in the mountains and tracked the animal down to the shore and along the beach for ten miles, or maybe more. When he finally caught up to the creature, he found the bear dead, right in the middle of a flat clearing above a sheltered cove. The Highlanders decided that the place was perfect for a stronghold. It turned out that the bear perished right on the spot where they put the fireplace in the great hall.”
“Bears,” Mouse noted. “They play a big role in our folklore, Highlanders and Arktos alike. You’ve heard our
