She bared her teeth like a snarling wolf when she saw them. They didn't belong here, among the true citizens of the Pang Xa'Omathra coastal territories, among the grim folk who lived in the shadow of the micro-moon known as The Ke'Tareveel.
The Ureeon Dockyard at the naval port was bustling with activity as the Aerieakon air schooner sailed into its assigned berth. The seven building naval port was a crumbling and time-worn technological sprawl set into a narrow basin within a walled collar between the Dockyard's towering pair of mech-aerocranes atop the slumbering volcanic cinder cone called Terash Munyatt, more commonly known as "The Night-Widow's Crown". The Night-Widow's Crown was at the southeastern end of the Sinaudruim mountain range on the island of Ometh Nastreq, an island five and half nautical leagues wide by eleven leagues long, which sat in behind a horseshoe-shaped reef in trans-boundary harbor waters, some eighteen chancks beyond Peravendath's territorial sea borders. The trapezoid-shaped pilothouses of the cranes for the drydock loomed far overhead, sitting atop thick mechanized elevator necks studded with crisscrossing, interweaving external pipes and conduits dotted with clockwork dials and circular joint-casings. The cranes had massive, lengthy tubular projections that ended in hooked flex-tentacles that connected to docking gears universal in both aerial skycraft and sea vessels alike. Ureeon Dockyard was a neutral zone, where both Peravendathian Federated Navy and Ometh Nastreqian Sea Marshal vessels, along with their crews, could utilize the harbor territory's remaining Emperium naval technology from days gone by. Ureeon drydock was a kind of sanctuary away from the heated military antagonism between the dueling sea-going societies.
There were, however, major concerns and restrictions for all other types of incoming vessels, especially those of the mercenary privateers and sell-swords commonly called "Jagveneers", inasmuch both the Federated Navy and the Sea Marshals were stubbornly paranoid about the secrets of their military technology, such as it was, in these later days following the slow collapse of the mighty Emperium.
Rae'vynn Wyyng and her Aerieakon ship's crew were not Jagveneers, though. They were outcast brigands, masterless former naval military conscriptees. There was no name easily describing their status. Wyyng's crew were considered only as roving corsairs serving "the Blade Banished", Outlaw of Kohra'andum, former Assault Commander of Ke'Tareveel's Sea and Air Command, and daughter of Emmizzuhm Serundi, who was himself the Warhound Knight-Prince and son of Mahrkath Serundi. Rae'vynn held a special status amongst the motley denizens of those who traversed the harbor out to the Pnahrryian Sea, since she was considered a soldier of no small renown and a former naval hero.
She felt the heat of her simmering anger suffuse her cheeks and she struggled to contain the urge to launch herself at them as they passed, smiling mockingly at her. The cadre of nine bounty-hunting Xar'queyeks that strolled by her on the arcade piazza were hardened and amoral foes with whom she had traded violent unpleasantries only a few solar heliars past. She drew in a deep breath and held it as their leader, Infantry Commander Layvis Kroule, former Gunnery -Centurion for the Emperium's Extraterritorial Suppression Brigades, passed by, acknowledging her with a smirk and a nod.
What in Nubium's Seven Hellpits was that murdering bastard doing here?
The persistent clamor from the cranes' giant engines was still ringing in her ears, louder even than the roar from the massive whirlpool that sat on the nearby horizon, when she heard Durkka-jan's gruff voice from over her shoulder. She turned to face the gnomish, muscular, golden skinned freebooter as he waved towards the direction from which the Xar'queyeks had come.
"We lost four good men," he said without preamble, his gruff frankness masking the frustration and anger she knew he must have felt. Durkka-jan was very protective of the crew over which he administrated, probably due to the fact he had hand-picked the majority of them and felt like he was their mentor even more so than their leader. "And we have precious little to show for their sacrifice."
"Yes, it is a tragic circumstance, but be at ease," she said to the air schooner Battle-captain and First Mate. "Life aboard a Combat Aerieakon is a precarious thing at best. Those crewmen died living a life they chose willingly. They weren't slaves or bonded chattel and they weren't pawns of the Emperium. Each of us aboard the schooner will eventually fall into the final embrace of the Cold Gray Vicar, but we'll do so without the chains of servitude. It's the best we who are not born of nobility can hope for."
The stout and burly Battle-captain pursed his lips and reluctantly allowed himself to accept Rae'vynn's rough philosophical musing as a balm for his anger and grief.
"I take it you noticed the emergence of the Blood-Haunters from their ship?" he said.
"The Xar'queyeks? Yes, I noticed."
"That ship," Durkka-jan said, "See their ship? The markings? That has the look of an old Niyyadourian air skiff, probably from Warlord Kolag Y'phree's militia fleet. Looks like the damn Blood Haunters have entered into some kind of an arrangement with that territorial powerhouse and maybe they are moving ordinance up here for an outside party, like perhaps for the exiled Prophet-King of Pnahrryagos, of the Kingdom of the Underlands."
"Arms for the Tammoom? No, no, I can't see that. Vyngreak Norrin has a well-earned reputation for being incautious, but even he wouldn't be so bold as to openly run illegal weapons past the eastern outposts of the Vorgianis Territories and into Pang Xa'Omathra," Rae'vynn said. "The Tammoom cannot afford to further antagonize Tomanus Grethvian, the Ymperatur of Peravendath. Allying himself with the criminal activities of Layvis Kroule and his gang of killers runs, at least to my mind, very contrary to the Tammoom's philosophy of Post-Emperium ecumenical political cooperation. And any association with a warlord like Kolag Y'phree of The City , no matter through how many faceless intermediaries, would be very dangerous, indeed."
"True, but, only a few moments ago, I saw Qe'rithda, Sword of the Tammoom and Senator-Prime of the United Tribes, speaking directly with Layvis Kroule," Durkka-jan said. "Something tells me our prophet-firebrand is getting impatient dealing with the famously stubborn, not to mention reactionary, council of Tomanus Grethvian. I think he may be considering more direct means of confrontation."
"I hope not," Rae'vynn said. "I truly hope not. The Ymperatur of Peravendath still has strong ties to the World-Father, His Imperialness Draggyn Han'Khainus-Galorketh. Grethvian's executive advisor, the mutant-wizard Vashnur Xhant, was formerly one of the World-Father's Extraplanetary Territorial Spatial Expanse's Corp of Questors, back before the Great Revocation. None of us can afford the forces of the Emperium to come marching back into the region, forcibly retaking the lands they once controlled, enslaving the people under the banner of their benevolent brand of dictatorship. We can't fight that fight. We haven't any hope of winning against the armies, monsters and pirated alien technologies of the Emperium."
"It doesn't matter. It's not our fight," Durkka-jan said.
"Actually, yes it is."
"Faugh!" Durkka-jan exclaimed contemptuously. "Let them fight one another. They've never done anything of any worth for us and our kind except involve us in one war after another for nearly half a millennium, senselessly battling for control over the Pnahrryian Sea. I say let them go for each other's throats and afterwards we'll be there to put down whichever one of those mad dogs remains standing."
"And you're willing to let that much innocent blood be spilled?" Rae'vynn asked sharply.
Durkka-jan closed his eyes, his broad face wrinkling into a pained expression, and he tilted his head back to face the gray clouds above in frustration.
"Please let this not be another one of your crusades," he said tiredly.
"We were all once soldiers. Don't you agree that, no matter what slanderous names they have used to labelled us, we're not criminals," she insisted.
"Of course we're not criminals," he agreed. "But we've all done things beyond the law, way beyond. Yourself included."
"I know. But we have a duty. Keeping what little peace exists in this region is our responsibility. No one else is willing to do it, so it is up to us. That means we need to know exactly what Layvis Kroule is doing here and what he brought with him," Rae'vynn concluded. "But we need to exercise extreme caution during our inquiries."
"As you command, Kappin," Durkka-jan sighed. "I'll put the twins, Pnoom-Ogg and Pnoom-Aig, on it. No one will be especially suspicious of their political allegiances since they are renegade gene-bots. Being ambulatory thinking machines and all, Synthetics have a reputation for not being terribly concerned with the contentious power struggles of normal humankind..."
"As long as it is only 'normal humankind' involved," Rae'vynn said. "There might be far more to this than what we expect or what we fear."
* * *
The interior Central Promenade of the Ureeon Dockyard was a massive four tiered open thoroughfare that was thrice the length of a destroyer-class carrier, off of which were ten tall doorways leading to assorted suites and command chambers, an Infirmary, a Mineral Assayer's office, a Mechanics Guild Hall, a Technical Fabricator's machine shop, a Maritime Banking Center and, naturally, the Security Operations Office and Armory. As wide and as spacious as the interior of the drydock base was, it felt claustrophobic and smelled of old oil, salt brine corrosion, burnt metal and chlorine. The place was littered with the detritus from half a dozen food vendor carts and its multitude of electronic display bulletin boards were smeared with grease and handprints. There were faded paint patterns on the walls that were the remains of attempts by maintenance staff to clean away graffiti. Three or four dozen people wandered singly and in groups down the Promenade's pathways while a gargantuan, canted, north facing bay window, each of its forty panels three times as tall and as broad as a man, looked out on the turbulent waters of the harbor and onto Guarfaghn, the massive, spinning, watery maelstrom caused by the gravitational effects of The Ke'Tareveel.
Having left Durkka-jan out at the exterior mezzanine where the ships were berthed, Rae'vynn headed for the Dockmaster's Systems Management Offices. Ureeon Dockyard was run as an independent merchant facility by a former Peravendathian Naval Baron and Oceanic Sciences Officer named Traytheq Farhoon, who became Dockmaster after salvaging the majority of the tekk-equipment from the wreckages of old Emperium sea vessels and abandoned, land-based drydocks up and down the Pnahrryian coast. It had taken Farhoon nine seasons to finish construction of the facility and another three seasons before he could get the local coastal governments and military authorities to draft and adopt legally-ratified treaties allowing it to operate for the use of all sea-going entities. For all intents and purposes, Ureeon was its own independent city-state. And as such, it possessed its own police force and militia, comprised of tough, morally fluid lawmen and soldiers who'd defected from both the Ometh Nastreqian and Peravendethian naval forces for the reward of higher pay in Baron Farhoon's employ.
In times long past, Farhoon had aggressively sought to press Rae'vynn Wyyng into his service, seeking to recruit her from Commander Shrai'Lagmendo's Naval and Air forces when she had been Assault Commander of Ke'Tareveel's Sea and Air Command. Rae'vynn had rebuffed his offers, though, based on the erroneous assumption she was in service to a moral and just patriot in the protection of their city-state. She had never been more wrong in all her life. Sharai'Legmendo had betrayed her, enslaved her, and then made her his personal assassin and henchwoman, dispatching her and her team to perform the most heinous of crimes against the very population she'd once sworn to protect. But that was a different woman then from the woman she was currently. Thinking back on those dark days, she wondered how much different her life would have been in the service of Traytheq Farhoon who, for all his faults and reputed meanness, had never once terrorized the innocent peoples of the Peravendathian coastal region.
No matter. What was done, was done. It was all water run past the bow, just shadows from the past.
The pneumatic portal into Baron Farhoon's private conference chamber within the Dockmaster's Systems Management Offices hissed and slid to her right and she stepped into a brightly lit, antiseptically-clean rectangular room with polished chrome and brass mechanistic furnishings. It was apparent that the fastidious, but hard-edged Baron did not allow the slow creep of deterioration and decay stray into his own world.
"Captain Wyyng, how nice of you to come and visit." The way Farhoon greeted her let her know that her presence was anything but pleasing to the ramrod straight, angular nobleman. Dressed in black leather jacket and vest over a chainmail tunic, his lean and muscular legs encased in segmented and jointed prosthetic metal over which he wore gray riding chaps, the bearded and tattooed Baron was nothing like the usual dandified aristocrats that one usually confronted when encountering royalty and near-royalty. He looked like a bandit and a blackguard. "I heard about your unfortunate encounter with the Saurotetramorph dartwings while your ship was above the Maunja'hral Groves. It would seem, not so surprisingly, that the Kohvto-Beine armored cavalry weren't quite up to the task of taking responsibility for containing yet another one of their raiding incursions..."
"The damn dartwing lizards were all over the skies, in full assault armor, and the totally unprepared Kohvto-Beine armored cavalry were pissing all over themselves," she groused curtly. "My ship and my crew are NOT their reinforcement and rescue fallback. It just so happens that every once in a while we have our own dealings with the Scalefaces, some of them pretty lucrative, and I'm not willing to risk the loss of future income for those bumbling, ungrateful toy soldiers."
Farhoon nodded in agreement. "Can't fault you for that. So what brings you here, to see me?"
"Layvis Kroule."
"He has just as much right to dock at Ureeon as you do, regardless any past history you have with him and his Xar'queyeks, and I know you're not going to be stupid enough to demand I answer any questions about what his business may be here. His business is his business. Yours is yours. Those are the rules," Farhoon said.
Rae'vynn sighed. She'd expected that to be Farhoon's response. "Fine. I won't ask. But I WILL ask about what the presence of Qe'rithda, the Sword of the Tammoom, means aboard a facility widely known for its active efforts to maintain political neutrality in this region. You know full well that both the Ymperatur of Peravendath, Tomanus Grethvian, and the Warhound-General of Ke'Tareveel, Mahrkath Serundi, would immediately level criminal charges against you, personally, and censure all operations at this base if they knew you were dealing with the Tammoom or allowing him to conduct insurrectionist activities through here. You're on dangerous territory here. Things could potentially get lethal very, very quickly."
The Baron's face morphed into a mask of antipathy. "Thank you for the lecture. I haven't had to experience one in a while and I'd forgotten how much I do not miss them. By the way, and I'm not admitting to anything one way or another, I'm still waiting to hear how any of this specifically concerns you."
"Perhaps I don't want myself or my crew to be caught in the middle of a war when the killing inevitably starts."
"Or maybe you're planning on finding out what you can to see how to successfully, and profitably, play one side against the other to your own benefit," he countered. "I allow you a lot of leeway I do not extend towards others, Rae'vynn. Sympathy towards an ex-soldier treated badly, the respect given from one comrade-at-arms to another, for old times' sake. Don't make me regret that."
"I need to know, Baron."
He shook his head. "No, actually you don't. Just fix your ship's damage, maybe load up on a few supplies, perhaps even partake of a few games of chance at the Gaming Den, and then be on your way. None of this, whatever it may or may not be, concerns you. Old allegiances to bad people and bad ideals can still get you killed, Captain. Let them go."
Rae'vynn reached out her arms and spread her hands as she reluctantly continued to plead with the nobleman. "If there's something odd, something dangerous, going on here, this could be a bad thing for us all. This is still the Withered Land, Traytheq Farhoon, and we are all living under The Wound. Nothing is as it should be. We cannot trust the land we stand upon, we cannot trust the skies or the weather under which we live, and neither can we trust Time Itself. Our civilization is self-destructing and our planet is dying. It would be foolish of me not to want to know what is happening around me. More than ever, knowledge is survival."
Farhoon raised an eyebrow and solemnly regarded Rae'vynn much less dismissively. "You surprise me. I had not considered how you could interpret things. Let me say this only because I, too, would want to know more were I in your circumstances."
He paused, frowning, and then finally said, "Zhe'kae-Chah, the Protector Imperious of the reptile-folks' House of Zhe'tsan, sits atop the Kei-Qwah, the high throne of the Saurotetramorphs. The Dragon has awakened. And none among us is ready for what that means."
Just that suddenly all the air went out from Rae'vynn, as if she'd been punched hard in the stomach. She knew what it meant for The Dragon to again show himself and become involved in the affairs of humankind...
Blood would flow. The ugly specter of War was again showing its vile face.
* * *