The Banished of Muirwood (Covenant of Muirwood, #1)(87)
Her stomach churned with worry as her ears detected the sound of movement on the lower floor. Boot falls thudded and tromped. Voices murmured. Maia hurriedly stuffed her spare gown into her pack and flung it closed. She swung it around her shoulders and then took the makeshift rope to the window and tossed it down. After testing the strength of the knots, she climbed up onto the window sill and quickly climbed down to the street below.
The air was chill—the alley still full of shade. She started down the cobbled road toward the place where she had seen the scaffolding. As the highest structure in the vicinity, it would give her a good view of the city. She pulled her cloak hood over her head and folded her arms, walking briskly. The alley was empty.
She realized she had more than one problem. She could not speak Hautlander, and she did not know where she was. Opening her mouth to others would quickly reveal her as a foreigner. She knew that all the kingdoms were perpetually at war with each other, and if her identity was discovered, she would be a ransom target. If they discovered her brand, she would be dead.
At the end of the street, she turned and walked through several more twisting alleys before she reached the scaffolding. There was something familiar about the place. She had never been to Hautland before, but it felt as if she had dreamed of it. The scaffolding surrounded the construction of an abbey, that was plain enough. Maia stared up at the progress, the stone blocks seated on top of each other. There were large wooden cranes and ropes and pulleys, and huge barrels and crates were strapped down nearby. She could hear the lowing of oxen, but they were fixed in pens nearby and all the manure had been swept and brushed away. What a clean city.
The abbey was long and very skinny and tall, jutting up above the houses like a giant spike. Maia walked around the grounds, amazed at the construction. Even though it was not finished, she could see the finished abbey in her mind’s eye, with a huge spike-like steeple that was high enough to pierce the clouds. It was a different design than she had seen in any of the other kingdoms she had visited. It was bold and sharp, like a sword thrusting up through the heart of the city.
Maia thought it would help get her bearings if she had a better view, so she walked over to the nearest portion of scaffolding and started to climb. She ascended platform after platform, rising up until she was higher than the lowest rooftops. Then she went higher still, climbing up above the larger mansions. The wind teased the edges of her cloak, but the movement helped keep her warm. From above, it was a strange and interesting city; with so many steep-roofed buildings crammed together she could hardly see the streets. The roofs were so steep in pitch, she could only see the edges like blades of grass.
Turning around and gripping the scaffolding poles, she opened her mouth in wonder as she continued to survey the city beneath her. Three more abbeys were under construction, each one with the same spike-like steeple. She quickly got her bearings and, by turning around, realized that she was on an island, surrounded by a river. It was roughly a circle, though lopsided, and every part of it was covered and paved. The ground was relatively flat, not at all like the island abbey of Dochte. But she could tell that the Hautlanders were hastily building a city to rival that of the ancient Dahomeyjan abbey. Towering walls surrounded the island, and huge wedge-shaped battlements had been built on the other side of the river, with an enormous jagged moat carved into the ground. The city was protected by two channels of water, she realized—the river, meandering north among green hills spotted with trees and, not too far distant, the sea. She was on the northern coast of Hautland. It amazed her.
Rostick.
She stared at the intricate design of the fortifications, the newness of the construction. It seemed as if the entire kingdom had gathered together in this one bend of the river to raise an edifice that would fulfill a defensive purpose while also serving as an outpost for trade. There were the docks! Though the walls separated the docks from the city, she could see the masts of ships down below. And beyond the bridges and battlements, manors and halls, she could see at least seven towers and a fortress that overlooked the mouth of the river at the north edge of the city. And there were more ships by that fortress—hundreds of them. It was an armada. She had not realized so many ships could even exist, let alone be anchored together in a single massive harbor.
She stared at the docks, the bridges, the abbeys, trying to puzzle the pieces together. It was all new construction, not broken remnants from the past. There were shipyards everywhere. Why so many? What would these ships be used for?
The answer came to her—clear and undeniable. Invasion. These were warships, not fishing vessels. They intended to wage war. Her heart panged with dread. These were new. They would be sailing for Comoros to humble her father for expelling the Dochte Mandar from his realm. Her mind filled with the possibility of every kingdom attacking Comoros, just as Comoros had humbled Pry-Ree in the distant past.
She squeezed the pole of the scaffold, wishing she could somehow warn her father. Wishing there were a way she could prevent it.
“Ach stounzen! Bick trot lam! Ach stouzen!”
Someone was shouting at her from below. She looked down to see that a small work crew had slowly been assembling in the courtyard below. One of the men had noticed her and was pointing up at her and shouting.
She knew where the harbor was, and though it would be near impossible to find a single Dahomeyjan ship amidst such madness, she was convinced that she was in Rostick, where she had heard the Myriad One inside her order the man to take her. It still troubled her that the being clearly approved of the decisions she was making, but she dared not stray from her path—not when it was her only chance to be free. She needed to find the Argiver, the ship Collier had sent.