Chapter 30: Entering the Fray

As I gazed out at Port A'maine through the porthole of the wooden ship, I couldn't help noticing the pall of smoke that hung over the town. The slight offshore breeze suddenly wafted a sample of the miasma, created by bad hygiene practices, past my nose.

I shuddered in disgust as the reality of a primitive city was brought home to me. I could hear S'alor's sardonic comments about humans who 'messed where they lived' as a subliminal refrain in the back of my head.

If it hadn't been for the bad smell, I would have thought the sight of the sprawling harbour town to be quite beautiful. The buildings shone in the late afternoon sunlight. It was the first time on War World that I had seen any evidence of buildings not created by the 'Elves', and if I had been watching a documentary, I would have thought that it was a recreation of a small European port from a millennium in the past.

The warehouses on the waterfront were prosaic enough, and the houses and other buildings that sprawled up the gentle slope of the hills surrounding the harbour were pretty much as I had imagined they might be. The one glaring omission, however, was any form of church or temple. There didn't seem to be any evidence of religious buildings, and I decided that I would try to find out about religious practices as soon as I could.

Brooding over the town, at the summit of one hill, was a large building that I tagged in my mind as 'feudal castle'. From a distance, I could already see that there were a number of differences from the many castle remains I had seen in Europe, the most glaring of which was the glacis and ramparts which had been designed to resist attacks from cannons. Their lack told me that projectile weapons were definitely not a part of this world.

While I had been woolgathering, the ship had been moored to the dock and the sailors now extended a gangplank.

"In your Fingers and Hands, disembark," came the call. My first thought was to keep my Finger together, and S'Alor was part of the finger in my opinion, so I called everyone else in the finger together and we made our way up the ladders to the main deck.

Once there, I looked around for S'Alor and spotted him on the starboard gunwale, near the gangway. We moved over to join him, pushing cross-stream through the rest of the Fingers.

I felt a sense of relief to be back in physical contact with S'Alor, a feeling that he mirrored, as there had been a low-lying anxiety that the sailor's fear of him might transform into an attempt to harm him where I wouldn't be able to jump in to assist in his defence.

We waited about ten minutes before our turn to disembark arrived, and I used the time to discuss what I had observed so far of the harbour town with the rest of my Finger. All of them agreed that the less time spent in a town, the better, if the terrible stench was any indication of the normal state of affairs.

As we walked down the gangway, I was momentarily worried that it would break under S'Alor's weight, but he sent me a quiet reassurance, which set my mind at ease.

We disembarked onto a pier that extended about four hundred meters out into the harbour, and I was very interested to see the different ships moored there as we walked past. It seemed to me that they were primarily cargo vessels, although it was difficult to make out what they might have carried. My nose was no help in this situation, having gone on strike for better working conditions, and my mental map was a bit confused with the large number of people in this new place.

As we left the pier, Hand Evans was waiting with directions for each Finger Leader. When I looked at the piece of paper he handed me, I saw that our accommodation was fairly nearby.

I followed the directions, noticing as we walked that the streets were practically deserted. I only saw three people the crossed our path in the whole time.

I finally spotted the sign of the Inn, a stylised wing, which matched the name I had been given: 'The Dragon's Wing'. A little apprehensively, as I had no idea what to expect, I pushed open the door and stepped inside.