And now in the gloom Camille sat on the dock, her songs at the Red Lantern done, and she waited, her hopes all crashed down, but still she sat waiting, waiting for a ship, waiting for the Nordavind, waiting for the North Wind to come.
Camille’s spirits were as black as the night, for it was the dark of the moon. Yet the docks themselves were lit by lanterns scattered here and there and by the stars shining down from above. Off to one side and lurking in the shadows stood a large man: Big Jack yet on guard.
“Oh, Scruff,” said Camille to the sparrow asleep in her pocket, “do you remember what the old woman said back in the very last village on our way to Raseri’s lair? When we asked if any knew where lay a place east of the sun and west of the moon, she said, ‘Only the North Wind would know.’ I do pray that she is right. And I pray to Mithras that the North Wind will come. Yet I have little hope, for the last blossom even now-”
“Make ready to tow!” came a distant call.
Camille stood to see whence came the cry.
At a dock afar she could see the Elvenship alight with lanterns, and a bustle of activity aboard.
She walked down to see what was afoot.
Captain Andolin stood on the stern, issuing orders, Elves haling on halyards and climbing ratlines. Towing ropes had been affixed to bow and stern, and rowing gigs awater and manned stood ready to haul the ship away from the slip.
When Andolin fell silent, Camille called, “Are you and the West Wind leaving, Captain?”
He looked down at her. “Aye, my lady, we are.” He glanced over his shoulder out toward the night sea. Then he turned back and asked, “Can you not feel it?”
“Feel what, Captain?”
“The ever-worsening twist in the aethyr, the growing warp and bend.” He pressed a hand to his forehead as if in distress.
“No, Captain, I cannot. I don’t even know what you mean when you say ‘aethyr,’ and I certainly do not feel any twisting or warping or bending.-Are you in pain?”
“I would not name it pain, my lady, though it is much like an ache.”
“What is amiss, Captain, and is there aught I can do to aid?”
“Only distance will help, Lady Camille, and we are making ready to put such distance ’tween us and Leport as swiftly as we can.” Andolin then called down to two Human dockworkers, “Cast off fore! Cast off aft!” Hawsers were uncoiled from ’round mooring posts and thrown into the water. Even as Elves drew the hawsers in, Andolin called out, “Rowers, row!”
Slowly the great Elvenship Aniar Gaoth drew away from the dock, the men in the towing gigs rowing to pull her away.
“But, Captain, I still do not know what is the matter,” called Camille.
Andolin looked down at her and grimly said, “Iron is coming.”
Then to her he said no more, instead turning and calling out to his Elven crew, the captain totally consumed in swiftly getting his ship under way.
Camille watched a bit longer, then she sighed and walked back toward her place of vigil, a large shadow following.
Iron is coming.
Nigh mid of night, even as the Aniar Gaoth, silhouetted against the stars as she was, slid beyond the harbor mouth to vanish from view, Camille heard the dip and pull of many oars, and a guttural voice calling out: “Roers, gjore i stand!”
In the starlight and the light from the lanterns adock, Camille could make out a long, low craft gliding across the water, many oars stroking, and it appeared the ship was heading for a nearby slip. Camille stood and watched, and oars dipped and dipped, and the voice called out, “Mindre!.. Mindre!..”
The craft slowed, and slid toward the slip.
“Ares pa!” came the cry, and all the oars were shipped aboard. Then the long boat slid into the slip and broad-shouldered, short men leapt out to-Nay! Not men. But Dwarves instead, like those she had seen in Les Iles.
And in the lanternlight on the dock, Camille could make out runes on the bow of the ship, runes she could read, and they named the ship Nordavind.
The North Wind had come at last!
And even as the Dwarven crew moored the vessel to the dock, the very last blossom disappeared from Camille’s split and splintered stave.
32
Even as Camille approached, she recognized the craft for what it was: a raider ship… or so Fra Galanni had said in response to Camille’s inquiry about a picture in one of his books. “A terrible raider ship from the North, bearing tall, flaxen-haired, blue-eyed men, and you would think them sent from Mithras Himself, they with their proud ways. Yet they are not from Mithras, girl, but instead from one they call Woden, and a grim god is He. For His followers come in their longboats, their Dragonships, girl, with their axes and their shields and murderous ways to pillage and rape and despoil. You’d best never see one, Camille, yet if you do, run away as fast as you can.” Or so Fra Galanni had said.
Yet now Camille was hastening toward the craft, rather than running away, for this was the Nordavind — the North Wind — and she would speak with the captain of the Dragonship.
As to the ship itself, it was long and low and open-hulled, and Dwarven war shields were arranged along her sides. Her hull was klinker-built-long overlapping oaken strakes running fore to aft-and even though she had ribs and crossbeams thwartwise for bracing, still her hull had a serpentine flexibility that caused the craft to cleave sharply through the water, yielding a nimbleness beyond that which her narrow keelboard alone would bestow. And she was swift, for her length was a full fifty paces, yet her width was but barely five. She could mount as many as four masts, each with a square-rigged sail angled by a beitass pole to make the most of the wind. She also carried thirty-five pairs of narrow-bladed, spruce oars, trimmed to length so that all could strike the water simultaneously in short, choppy strokes, the oars now resting amidships on three pairs of trestles. A steerboard rudder was mounted at the starboard rear to guide her on her journeys.
As the Dwarves unladed the craft, Camille stopped one bearing a keg on one of his broad shoulders and said, “Your captain, sieur. I would have a word with your captain.” Yet even as she spoke she noted that not only was this Dwarf wearing an iron or steel chain mail shirt, so were they all.
Iron is coming, said Andolin, and this must be what he meant.
The dark-eyed, dark-haired, dark-bearded Dwarf, a half a head shorter than Camille, said, “Captain Kolor is the one you want, lass.” He turned and called out, “Kolor, en pike til se du!”
“En pike?” The response came from a Dwarf standing at the far end of the ship.
The keg bearer pointed at Camille and called back, “Pike, ja!”
Kolor gestured for Camille to come to him, and she said to the keg bearer, “Merci, sieur,” then began wending her way through the bustle of iron-clad Dwarves as they unladed their cargo.
And as she walked toward Kolor, Camille noted that the Dwarves’ axes and war hammers and maces and dirks and crossbows and quarrels and shields were all of iron and steel.
Ah, and did not Captain Anwar speak of the iron-bearing Dwarves? And Alain’s brother Borel said, “A few who sail the seas carry weapons of iron, of steel. It protects them from some of the monsters of the deep. They seldom bring it onshore, however, and then but in direst need.” No doubt, these are some of those mariners Borel had been speaking of.
Finally, Camille reached the captain, a Dwarf who could have stood no more than four-foot-one. He had honey-blond hair and a honey-blond beard and his eyes were pale blue.
He cocked an eyebrow as she stopped before him.