“Make new friends, but keep the old; Those are silver, these are gold.”

Joseph Parry

New POV

This was the back end of beyond. He honestly didn’t know why he had decided to travel so far. He certainly would have never even considered it if it had not been for Lady Acacia’s request and their history. Crossing the southern cardinal kingdom of Ostro had been easy enough, something he had done many times before, but the ordinal kingdom of Libeccio was challenging for all the wrong reasons; he couldn’t right the world’s wrongs. It never ended well, and he was only one beastkin; without a tribe, army or nation, there was only so much he could do, especially as he was simply passing through. It had not gotten any easier once he had to start travelling by sea to head out to the Ponentian Archipelago. It had taken him months. His destination was the furthest isle west of the compass kingdoms. If he had gone any further, he would have sailed off the edge of the map into the unknown. Not that he could sail at all, forced to rely on whatever vessels would consent to take him further west.

That had been the main problem. Beastkin and water rarely mixed. Especially when you had his particular heritage, he had to search hard for a vessel to take him so far, and the one he had found was hardly the most reputable. Still, the journey was almost over. The trip had better be worth it. It was a favour owed but, at the same time, a promising pupil from what she had been able to reveal to him. He looked up at the imposing cliffs. It would be good to stretch his legs once he was finally off the boat. The boat was too small to move at all. He could cross its width and length in a single leap, and he had no desire to leap any further and end up in the water.

He wrinkled his nose in disgust as he caught another whiff of the crew. Or rather, the slaves that silently worked the ship. Superior senses, while essential for tracking, fighting and daily life among the beastkin tribes of Ostro are not always pleasant to have when trapped on a boat with such foul-smelling humans. Slavery was a sad fact for many in the Southern Kingdoms of the Compass Continent. But the true evil in his mind was the stench they lived in and inflicted on those unfortunate enough to travel with them. Intellectually, he knew it was not their fault, but the fact that this was the only vessel that he had been able to convince to travel this far out from the pirate-cursed Libeccian waters did not appease the beast within that was almost tempted to damn the water, jump in and swim to shore.

In retrospect, he wondered whether it had been worth the time saved sailing directly northwest rather than travelling further up the coast to the Ponentian capital before travelling west through the archipelago to reach the Western Isles. He really should have requested Lady Acacia’s guidance for his travel plans. But he was used to making his way in the world, his pride in his abilities large enough to stub his toe on. In the end, it did not matter. He had finally made it as the ship slid into the harbour at the base of the cliffs. He was ever eager to disembark. The sooner, the better.

“This is Wester Ponente?” He checked a final time with the ship’s captain.

“Aye, Namir.” The captain answered. “As I have said, it’s the last known isle west of the world. The western horizon of humanity, if you will.” The captain looked more pirate than a merchant, two daggers tattooed into his forearms, a compass on his palm, while a cat o nine tails adorned his left bicep. Finally, a rope and grapple wrapped around his torso, although his shirt covered them. The fine clothing was worn for today when he would be making his first impression on the town and a possible attempt to look more merchant than a pirate with Libeccian sailors. Sometimes there was little difference, and often only depended on the harbour you sailed from. “Is your friend expecting you?” he asked.

“I’m long overdue, so expecting might be the wrong word, but she knows I’m coming.” He answered. “Maybe I will see you in town. Farewell.” He said as he leapt to the dock without needing a plank or for the boat to stop rocking with the tide as it made its final approach. He travelled light with one hand on the railing and the other holding his travelling bag. He landed at the base of the stairs and, without looking back, started to quickly make his way up them at a pace that would have had the merchant sprinting but, to him, looked like a light jog despite the nearly vertical ladder of stairs that climbed the cliffs.

He finally relaxed as he left the odoriferous vessel that had been his berth for far too long.

. . . .

New Captain’s POV

“Load up the trade chests.” The captain shouted once his dangerous passenger had finally left. The man had been relatively relaxed compared to the horror tales he had heard of some solitary beastkin from the tribes of Ostro. Still, he was glad to finally relax a little after a lengthy trip at sea where he was no longer the strongest on board. Tiptoeing around the man’s perceived sensibilities had been tiring, and he was looking forward to redefining the discipline on board now that he had left.

He watched intently as his insufferably slow slaves carried the silk, spices, gold, salt, ivory, beads, ceramics and feathers onto the shore. It was tempting to crack the whip, but he was still unsure whether Namir had left earshot. He could no longer see him as he disappeared up the stairs but that did not mean much to beastkin with those kinds of stats. Namir’s first and only warning on the matter still stuck with him, although the puncture marks left by his claws and long since disappeared. He had regretted only discovering his passenger’s morality after they had left sight of the shore. He was surprised the beast in man form had made it through Libeccio to the coast in one piece. He would have been quick to tip him overboard with any other passenger, but the beastkin had quickly, without trying, shown why that would have been a bad idea. He was even going as far as to prevent them from returning to the continent without dropping him off at the destination as they had agreed upon. He might not have been able to sail, but that did not mean he couldn’t read the stars or the sun, and he had stayed stubbornly abreast of their direction, speed and heading. A man’s word was his bond; it certainly would not have been worth breaking it if it had seen him dead.

As he had for the last month, he was limited to shouting at the slaves as they quickened their pace to fulfil his harshly high expectations. The chests were soon unloaded, and it was time to head for this Wester Town. He had never visited before, and he hoped to make a significant profit from his goods. People this far out would pay good money for products they could not buy elsewhere, although he had two concerns. Firstly, they might need more wealth to make it worth selling to them. He could hardly profit if they couldn’t afford what he was selling. Secondly, they would have nothing worth buying, although he hoped that would not be the case. As they had made their way west, he had heard of deep-sea pearls and was keen to pick up as many as possible. They would fetch an acceptable price with Libeccian crafters, and if he could sell them down in Ostro, he expected to receive even higher returns for the greater distance he would be transporting them.

“Square everything away and have everything ready for departure for when I get back. We have spent long enough on this venture.” Namir had paid exceptionally well for passage in spices and gold, but “Time is money, and I expect us to be ready to go the moment I return.” he growled out loud to the first mate before stepping off the boat himself and passed the crates stationed in a line in the middle of the dock. Each chest was ready to be carried by two of his sailors.

“Off we go!” he shouted once more now that the chests had been unloaded. Without waiting to see if his slaves were ready or even following, he set off up the steep staircase, knowing that all of his goods, both material and human, would be following in his footsteps up the fold in the cliff if they knew what was good for them. “Time to make some money.” He muttered to himself as he made his way up. “Time to buy and sell some souls.” He glanced back at the slaves bowed under the weights they carried and wondered whether he would need the extra cash from selling them for his purchases. The benefit to enslaving people was that they were walking, talking resources ready to be converted into the local currency at a moment’s notice. He smiled at the thought of the profit he would make as he pushed his worries to the back of his mind.

. . .

Oddly enough, the guards' first challenge in their new jobs was not a monster or related to the Lodestone depths. Not that they knew it at the time.

“What’s that?” The first guardsman nudged his partner as they stood to watch on the eastern gate, pointing up to the cliff line in the far distance. They were the younger guards because they believed that if there were a surge and breakout from the depths, they would reach the southern or even the northern gates before they reached the eastern.

“Just a sailor . . .” he paused as the silhouette started bounding its way down the path from the cliffs, rapidly making its way closer. They might not have panicked if the shape had not dropped to all fours as it bounded down the slope to the bottom of the caldera, where the town sat on the lake's edge.

“That ain’t any sailor I’ve ever seen. Quick close the gate and ring the bell.” They rushed inside and pushed the gates shut before running up to the top of the wall to see if they could see what they feared to be a rapidly approaching monster.

“Oi, what’s going on?” shouted Aaron Silverkin as he hustled his family in through the side gate. The family had insisted on having a key when the town emphasised that the main entrances would be closed in case of any monsters. One day the wall would extend to include their houses, but for now, the focus was on building a new western border in the lake's shallows to protect the west side of the town.

“That’s what we would like to know?” Shouted the man leading the extra four guards who were slightly out of breath from running to the eastern gate. The remaining reserve rushed to guard the northern and southern entrances to the town.

“There’s . . . something coming fast from the east.” The panicked guard shouted down. At the same time, his slightly calmer compatriot added. “We aren’t sure what is coming. The silhouette on the skyline looked human when we first saw it, but then it dropped to all fours and is running down the slope towards us.” On hearing this, the guards rushed up to handle the walls retrieving bows and arrows alongside spears to hopefully repel the approaching threat without allowing it to enter the town and cause havoc and harm.

“Children to your grandpa’s.” Aaron Silverkin shouted, sending them off before joining the guards on the wall.

“Where is it then?” he asked when reaching the top.

“We don’t know. We lost sight of it when we closed the gates and ran to the top of the wall.” The young men confessed guiltily.

“You’re sure you're not just seeing things.” The reinforcements' leader asked critically and sceptically, as nothing could be seen on the slope up to the cliff tops.

“No! We both saw it. It must have reached the eastern coppices and stopped there.” He argued vehemently, denying the accusation that they had made this up.

“You expect us to believe that it made it to the coppice from the clifftop in the same time it took us to cross half the town.” He raised an eyebrow disbelievingly at the thought.

“It was moving incredibly quickly.” The other eastern gate guard backed up his younger compatriot.

“Then we will see it soon enough.” Aaron intervened between the younger eastern guard gates and the older reinforcements though everyone was new to their jobs. They waited with bated breath anxiously for their foe to finally reveal themselves. It would be good to know the truth of what they would have to face rather than relying on vague earlier sightings that implied a beast that had crawled out of the depths of the sea and climbed the cliffs that protected them from most denizens of the depths.

With anticlimactic relief, they saw a man leave the eastern coppice on the path that led to the cliffs and the docks at the base of them. He was taller than average, and his features were hidden under a hood, but he was not the rampaging monster they had feared they would be facing.

“That’s your monster?” the leader of the reinforcements was not impressed at being dragged across town and the frantic fear they had all faced at the idea of a break from the Lodestone depths.

“ . . . ” The two eastern gate guards were forced into silence by their embarrassment but were also stuck for words to explain what they had seen.

“Seeing as we are all here now, we can at least give our new arrival a warm welcome,” Aaron added, defusing the tension between the two sets of guards as the man made his final approach to the town.

Raising his open palm in greeting, “Straight bearings to you, I seek the Silverseas.” Namir shouted up to them as he pushed back his hood, revealing his features.