Abarak 3

As dawn arose, every trace of the night's terror was gone. The sailors began to fix the tattered ship the best they could. The captain gave them a permission to use the white wood they were shipping with them, but hadn't been seen since. He was locked into his cabin with the boy and the pale man, letting them rely to themselves of the horrors they had seen. By time they would mix together, grow out of proportions and turn unrecognisable - only another sailor legend of beasts and heroes, just one among thousands.

The city of Brethage was a massive structure housing thousands of people and thousands of elves. It had been born as a port town, a simple fishing hamlet by the sea, and grown and spread from there on, to a harbour to ship goods from the east to west and west to east, necessities of the poor and the exotic goods of the rich. As it grew it begun to degenerate, becoming the filthy, fat beast it was today, only working to support itself. Summer had already begun to fade, but some rare days the sun still forced itself upon the boiling city. The duke sat in his carriage and let that view drift by.
He knew he was on the route of the more affluent areas, but the stench of the city still reached into his nose. He cracked the joints of his fingers knowing the duchess despised the sound. He kept his eyes to the window, but he felt her frigid blue eyes burning two holes in him. In their ten years, they had hardly learnt to tolerate each other, not to speak of loving.
Their union should be an example for the lower castes, how to marry in love and procreate, but as well arranged their union had been, how much it had benefit both parties, they had silently agreed no children would be had. The views drifted by in stern silence. Shopkeepers, horse holders, craftworkers, servants, slaves and beggars, whose stench forced itself into their carriage.

Eila leaned against the wall of a shop as the carriage rattled past. The sun had dried the mud of the streets into dust that now covered her feet and pushed into her lungs. The duke riding through the city meant one thing. Winter was coming. She should get herself shoes.
"Who goes by?", asked the voice of Runo, who had appeared beside her, no longer bothering trying to sneak up and startle her. "The duke", she answered with a proud grin. The little boy pondered a bit, gave up, and asked. "How you know?" She pointed towards the entourage.
"Two horses at the front, two horses pulling acarriage, another two horses. There's a lot of big horse wagons, but there's not a lot who can have six horses just to ride through town." Runo huffed, like he did when there was something he did not quite understand, but that he thought he really, really should. "Can't it be just anyone that rich? Why the duke?" She chuckled. "Nobody else that damn rich has to ride through Brethage. Eila heard the boy's jaw drop, he was too easy to awe. "Really, you're a witch."
"I'm a seer." She smiled to him with her dim eyes, that had never seen a thing.

Aiden was awake, but did not move. A single candle's light flickered on his eyelids. He was in the captain's cabin, he knew that much, and his uncle and Harom sat by the bed. His leg stung. From the knee down, his left leg suddenly hurt so much he wondered how he had been able to sleep to begin with. His uncle was carving something.
"I think he's awake", the younger man said. He sounded tired. Aiden somehow knew the captain shook his head. Immerse pain took over his head again, the red light that loomed through his eyelids blackened, and faded again. "What was in the bags?" He heard Harom ask. "Sodium. We use it for gunpowder."
"You meant to blow the beast up?"
"I wanted it dead."
In the silence that ensued, Aiden heard the captain's knife slide over the carved wood once more. "It's finished", he muttered. Aiden opened his eyes to see his uncle sit beside the bed. He looked even more tired, even more disappointed than he had sounded. In his right hand he had his trusted carving knife, and in the left, he was holding a wooden leg.