Sons of Ironstorm - Book 4: Griffon's Stand

Hunted in the Rain

Mram'met joined the silent quartet of humans in watching Baranest and escort march out of sight. Then he was pulling an oiled skin map from a pouch, unrolling it with a quick snap of his hand.

"Ba'adin," he named the lozenge shape to the side of a much larger triangular shape, which the muraan captain named shortly afterwards, tapping on the shape to make sure the humans knew to which he was referring.

"Isile'ahkanak." The gauntleted finger, perforated to allow Mram'met to unsheathe a claw through the fabric if needed, slid along the triangle's far side to a dark cluster near the rearward tip. "And the main harbor. Here is where we will find the harbor master."

Lawrence nodded after a quick look at his companions, each of them already hooded against the longshoremen's prying eyes. He smiled in satisfaction when he found them all grimly purposeful.

"Lead on then, captain," he said in a low voice, reaching into a pouch to pull out a dark colored handkerchief, which he then tied about his face to hide his features, leaving only a slit for his eyes. The other humans quickly followed suit.

"We're right behind you," he finished a moment later, his voice slightly muffled by the heavy cloth over his mouth.

The big guard captain gave the rude disguises a quick once over. And he nearly grimaced; they wouldn't hold long under close scrutiny. That certainly wasn't a muraan muzzle hidden behind those masks. But they would have to do. Hopefully the rain and the gloom would hide what nature could not. Nodding in satisfaction, he turned to his warriors and made a brief gesture with his hand.

The muraan led the way down the gangplank, Mram'met at their head, pausing only slightly at its foot to let the humans join them. Together they then stepped along the path Baranest pioneered, striding along the dock's rough sanded wooden deck towards the stairs at the end leading up and into the town proper. Moving with purpose and determination, it didn't take them long to traverse the dock's wide length and up the stairs, swiftly disappearing at the short climb's peak into the jumble of stone and wooden buildings beyond.

Concentrated mainly about the artificial harbor Ba'adin's builders hacked from the clay and mud making up the delta island's foundation, the town was an untidy cluster of two-story buildings and winding, almost aimless roads. As a primary provider of foodstuffs for the capital, however, Ba'adin required through puts to carry fish and other items into the city. 

A number of main roads existed for that very purpose, many running along the small island's southern shore to heavy bridges that arched over the relatively narrow strait separating the main island from the smaller. The largest of these bridges would be the one Baranest would cross to enter the capital city proper, the massive Bridge of a Thousand Tears, built to commemorate the misery of the exodus beyond the Rift and into the Westlands following the fall of the Cadremoor Alliance.

To avoid any affiliation of what would soon be known as the Ru'un Embassy to Isile'vorudun, the small company of would-be adventurers would press past the Bridge of a Thousand Tears to the Bridge of Blades, closer to the western tip of Ba'adin Island. Here the company would cross into the capital city and, using a more detailed map, they hoped to pass swiftly through the teeming metropolis and southwest to the main harbour.

Finding themselves at the beginning of one of the broad avenues that ran along the southern coast as soon as they passed through the warehouses, mercantile establishments and guildhalls that rode hard on the harbor edge, the company took advantage of their good fortune and struck off into the rain at a light run. 

Thankfully the heavy downpour not only provided cover, but drove even the most hardy of Ba'adin's citizenry from the streets as well, letting the company pass through in relative anonymity and without curious eyes espying their path. The unfortunate side effect was that the town passed by them behind a grey curtain, beyond the humans' ability to examine up close. Intensely curious themselves after their brief encounter with muraan architecture and culture in Ru'un'fa'gek, they had been looking forward to seeing more of it in Isile'vorudun.