A light sea breeze teased her curls into her face, and she gazed out over what she could see of Murk.
The ocean was visible for three-quarters of the horizon, until it was obscured by a tall, chalky bluff to the north. She could discern the barest sketch of some small structures and fences, but not enough to identify their purpose. Dunes swelled back from the shore in flattening waves, crested by shaggy fringes of beach grass.
An old stone fortress wall surrounded most of Murk proper, marching uphill, with the town tucked inside. The Perch wasn’t within its protective encirclement but on a sandy upslope beside the southern road, affording a view over the ramparts.
Outside the walls and nearer to The Perch, long ranks of narrow buildings curved in dwindling arcs toward the beach. Their clapboard sides were bleached pearly gray by sun and salt mist, burnished silver in the late morning light. Uneven boardwalks stitched them together, and old, sparsely cobbled roads wound between, sifted over with sand in places.
Four long piers extended out into the sea, jumbled with crates and rigging. Fishing boats nibbled against the pilings like minnows after bread, while bigger ships plied the waters beyond. A few tiny figures moved on the piers, and their faint calls rebounded across the water.
The whole city seemed half asleep. She doubted it ever woke up.
A sudden, powerful sense of being left behind swamped Viv. Rackam had dumped her in these misbegotten borderlands, and a wild certainty crawled up from her gut that he never planned to come back this way. It was all a convenient excuse to be rid of a troublesome kid.
She gritted her teeth and wrestled that feeling back down into the dark.
As Viv limped out of the shade, the full weight of the sun fell upon her. Not noon yet, but getting close. She closed her eyes and soaked it in for a moment, trying to enjoy the heat on her skin.
Drawing in a huge breath of the sea air, she let it out slow. “Well,” she said to herself. “Let’s get this over with.”
Navigating the cobbles with the crutch was tricky, but she was glad they were there, because sand alone would’ve been far worse. Her progress was glacial, but methodical, and her underarm was already chafing at the unfamiliar crutch. She’d have to wrap it in something until she could get rid of the damned thing entirely.
The slope was downward, but slight, which was a blessing. Gulls startled from the dunes that climbed on either side of the road.
For a wonder, the first person Viv saw was another orc. He tromped stolidly toward her, dragging a wagon behind him with the traces tucked under his arms. His chest and head were bare, and his shoulders crisscrossed with old scars. Bundles of driftwood and split kindling were stacked in the wagon.
“Morning,” she said, offering a joking salute with her unoccupied hand.
He nodded as he passed, his eyes flicking to her sword, and she stopped to watch him go. He didn’t look back, which vexed her for some reason.
The first buildings she reached were a series of shops that led down to the beach, where a network of wooden causeways made the sand more navigable.
Viv maneuvered up onto the boardwalk connecting the shopfronts. Every impact of her crutch on the salt-blasted wood was like a hoofbeat.
Most of the shops were tall and narrow and seemed to be leaning away from the breeze off the ocean. Up close, the clapboard and shingles were shaggy with splinters.
The first few businesses were closed. Permanently, judging by the cracked glass with tarps or paper pinned inside. Then a bookshop of some sort. Through a pair of narrow front windows, she spied chaotic piles of books, charts, and miscellaneous junk. She could almost see the smell of mildew. The door had once been red but was now streaked with nothing but the memory of a color.
A little sign to the left read THISTLEBURR BOOKSELLERS.
Viv shook her head and hobbled on.
A sail-mender’s. Then a junk shop crammed with shells, sand dollars, glass floats, and nautical flotsam and jetsam. Viv couldn’t imagine why anyone would want any of it.
She caught a whiff of baking on the breeze, cutting through the pungent odors of brine and seaweed. Not surprisingly, she was already hungry again. The effort of getting around and the demands of a healing body notwithstanding, Viv burned hot, and her late breakfast was nearly consumed in the furnace of her belly.
At the very end of this strip of shops was the first real sign of life she’d seen, unless you counted the stone-faced orc hauling firewood. Which she didn’t.
This place was at least double the width of the others, with two chimneys puffing away and folks actually coming and going. SEA-SONG BAKERY was stenciled on the glass, and the letters looked tidy and freshly painted. Not that you needed anything more than your nose to figure out what the shop was about.
Woven baskets crammed with big round loaves, buns, and biscuits showed through the window. A bell over the door tinkled as a dwarf with a sailor’s swagger emerged, cramming the last of something into his mouth.
Viv peered inside for a minute, cursing herself again for leaving her wallet in her room. The gigantic, flaky biscuits promised to exceed the lofty expectations the scents had already set. She wiped her lips with the back of her forearm and turned reluctantly away.
Pa had always told her that hunger could be cured with sweat, one way or the other. She began lurching her way determinedly across the sand-washed road. Most of the buildings on the other side seemed to be residences, or maybe lodgings for vacationers. Nobody seemed to be about though.
A long hitching post ran along the road, and that would do well enough for what she wanted.
She’d spent several days on her back, and her body made sure she felt it. Not that she’d be running footraces any time soon, but you could hardly expect to stay alive slinging steel if you didn’t keep your own edges sharp.
Leaning her crutch and saber against one end, she gingerly swung herself under the main beam, gripping it overhand. She stretched her legs out into the street, wincing as pain spiked along her right thigh.
She lowered herself until her elbows nearly locked. Then she pulled herself up, over and over, warmth building in her back, chest, and upper arms. The pain in her leg drifted to the aft of her mind.
When her biceps quivered with the strain and sweat traced her temples, she lowered herself onto her rear, tucking in the heel of her left leg and letting herself breathe heavy and even.
The orc with the wagon of firewood was staring at her, stopped on his way back downhill. His cart was a lot emptier now. A variety of worn tools dangled from hooks along its slatted sides—a maul, a sledge, an axe, a saw.
Viv narrowed her eyes at him. “What’re you looking at?”
He shrugged, and when he responded, his voice was deep but surprisingly mellow. “Back at it awful soon.”
“Did I already meet you when I got here, too?”
He shrugged again. “Not a lot goin’ on most days. Hard not to notice when somethin’ excitin’ happens. It was pretty excitin’。” The shadow of a grin. “You almost strangled Highlark.”
“Highlark?”
“The surgeon.”
“Oh,” she replied with a wince. Well, that wasn’t ideal.
“Pitts,” he said, indicating himself. Then he ducked his head, hitched the traces higher, and tugged the wagon into motion. He didn’t wait for her to offer her own name.