The shops and alehouses became poorer farther west, near the less-traveled piers and the fishing villages, where Golgarn’s poorer sons dragged their living out of the waters that had been the livelihood of their families for time uncounted. The trade in those parts was rougher, the constabulary less in evidence, but still the presence of the maritime soldiers and armed Coast Watch troops was never too far out of sight. Shipping trade invited unsavory sorts, and so Golgarn had one of the best equipped naval forces in the Known World, not to wage war upon the sea, or form armadas to threaten other ports, but to fend off the pirates and other scum of the ocean that preyed upon coastal nations.
As Dranth and Yabrith traveled the wharf in the fading afternoon light, they looked to the skies for a clue to help them find the smithy. Within a short while it became clear that the air about the smokehouses where fish were being cured was different in color from the fumes above businesses dealing in more durable goods, so they moved away from the streets closest to the harbor and deeper in the western district where blackened stone buildings stood with only narrow alleyways between, their shutters and stairways largely broken or rotting from the salt air.
In front of one such building, its storefront open like a yawning maw, was a red banded barrel. Acrid black smoke poured from the wide chimney and out the front of the small building, causing the opening to look even more like a demonic mouth. A harsh, deep clanging issued forth from inside the shop. “This is the last ’un,” Yabrith whispered. Dranth strode to the doorway, waving aside the smoke, and looked inside. A heavyset man with muscular arms and a bulging belly was hammering with an enormous sledge against an anvil, banging a red-hot iron brace into shape. His almost hairless head was crowned with a snowy fringe, the only part of him that appeared the least bit white, so covered was he in soot. His face was red in the heat of the smelting fire, and he grunted with each blow of the sledge. Three scrawny boys were taking turns working an old, shoddy bellows.
Dranth choked back his displeasure and stepped through the smoke. “John Burgett?”
The man at the anvil looked up; he took two more short whacks at the brace, then put down the sledge beside the anvil. “Who’s askin’?”
“I bring you greetings on behalf of my cousin in the hills,” replied Dranth. It was a countersign used only by those familiar with the darkest of guild workings. The heavyset man inhaled deeply, then damped the fire. He turned and yelled over his shoulder.
“Taffy! Get out here an’ tend the anvil! You ’prentices, keep pumpin’ them bellows.”
A thick, black-haired man with a weasel-like countenance appeared from the back. The heavyset man took off his leather apron and tossed it to him, then wiped his hands on his trousers and came over to where Dranth and Yabrith were standing. “Does this cousin of yours have a name?” he asked.
“Yes,” replied Dranth. “Her name is Esten.”
“Hmmm,” said the man. “Then I suppose I’m John Burgett. What do you gents want?”
“I have a business proposition for you,” Dranth said. The man smiled broadly. “Your horse throw a shoe?”
“Yes,” said Dranth acidly. “That’s it.”
The broad man chuckled, nodded to Taffy, then gestured for the two men to follow him. He led them out of the smoke-filled smithy and along the narrow alleyways back toward the wharf without speaking; Dranth and Yabrith were accustomed to such silence. They followed him past ramshackle houses and bait shops, taverns and pubs, until they finally came to the waterfront. The man who had called himself John Burgett whistled merrily as they approached the wharf, heading straight for a long dock at the western end of town, deep within the fishing village.
Night was falling, and no one paid any attention to them; scores of fishermen were heading in, unloading their second catches of the day, emptying the spoils of their clam traps and lobster pots into wagons and horse-drawn carts poised along the docks, then dousing the shellfish with seawater, paying little mind to anything else taking place around them. The flurry of evening activity was electric and covered their passage perfectly. Dranth and Yabrith exchanged a glance as the blacksmith stepped out onto the long pier and began heading for the end of it. Neither man had ever been on the water before; neither had even seen the sea, but Dranth had ice in his veins and Yabrith was afraid enough of Dranth not to be able to refuse him anything, so after a second’s hesitation they both stepped gingerly onto the shaky pier and followed the heavyset man to the end. As they were walking, they watched in alarm as he turned and stepped off into the water, or so it appeared. When they reached the end of the dock they saw he was standing in a small dinghy, tossing a coil of rope out of the way of the rough boards that served as seats. The man looked up at them and grinned.
“Come aboard, gents,” he said, then went back to his work.
“Where are we going?” Dranth demanded, his dark eyes nervously scanning the pier and the water.
The blacksmith shrugged. “I thought you wanted to meet John Burgett,” he said cheerily. “My mistake—never mind. Good day to you both.”
Dranth exhaled sharply and looked farther offshore. In the distance he could make out a cluster of medium-sized boats, moored many yards out but still within the inner harbor. He silently acknowledged that such a place would be a formidable haven for an enterprise such as the Spider’s Clutch, a movable hideout surrounded on all sides by water, where the chance of being overheard was minuscule.
The two desert dwellers steeled their nerves and stepped down into the rowboat; Yabrith stumbled and fell to his knees as the dinghy rocked beneath him, to the great amusement of the blacksmith. He offered Dranth his hand, but the guild scion shook his head and stepped down carefully, only eliciting minor rocking. He took a seat on a slimy board, choking back his disgust and trying not to be overwhelmed by the smell.
The blacksmith sat down heavily in the other end of the small boat, fitted the oars into the oarlocks, and began rowing for the cluster of boats.
All during the passage Dranth and Yabrith struggled to hold on to the contents of their stomachs. Water was a precious and rare commodity in Yarim, so the sight of the endless sea and its accompanying odor and motion was overwhelming. By the time the little dinghy reached the encampment of boats, both men were green, to the obvious amusement of the blacksmith. The man merely continued to row in silence until they reached the outer edge of the cluster, where cabin boats and barnacle-encrusted fishing trawlers bounced gracefully on the waves.
As they grew closer, the blacksmith began to whistle, a cheerful melody that cut through the sound of the splashing waves slapping against the hulls of the boats as the sun began to sink below the rim of the world, splashing the sea with red light that resembled a rippling pool of blood. After a moment, a small round man with a dark blue cap and jacket appeared on the closest boat’s deck and stood, his hands in his pockets, looking down at the dinghy as it approached.
When the rowboat was finally alongside the outer cluster, the blacksmith secured the oars and stood up. He grabbed hold of the rope mooring and tossed it to the round man, who caught it with a movement so quick that Dranth didn’t even see him take his hands from his pockets. The two men of Gol-garn tied the dingy to the mooring irons of the boat, then the blacksmith stepped easily out of it and onto the deck. He turned and beckoned to Dranth and Yabrith to follow.