WOT Adv 158

--- The Wheel Turns ---
A spray of surf gusted over the bow of 'The Pelican's Wing', a fine mist of cold salty wetness that settled on Fiznak.

The large boarderlander breathed in the brine-scented air deeply and smiled contentedly as he watched Falme diminish in the distance, even as the sun rose higher in the horizon. The city would fade, but his memories of it and the events that took place around it never would.

The ponderous merchant vessel had pulled anchor and left the large city with its twisting cobble stone streets just as the sun had come up over the eastern horizon. It swung out of the large harbor and turned southward, crashing rising and falling over the swells.

The sails rippled and billowed as they caught the wind that propelled it southward toward Tanchico.

Hardrin, captain of The Pelican's Wing, barked out orders and the sailors leapt to obey, clambering up nets, adjusting the rigging, and doing a myriad of other things that Fiznak couldn't understand.

Fiznak studied the captain. Hardrin was tall and slender, with knotted muscles that spoke of a body used to hard labor. He had pale gray eyes the color of a stormy morning. Due to the hard life and his arrival at the tail end of his middle years, his blond hair was starting to turn gray, and framed a face that showed a nose that had been broken several times.

Fiznak thought the main might have been handsome. Might have been, had he not been a captain of a ship, and had chosen a softer occupation. In addition to the ill-set nose, a large scar slashed down across the man's lips that were set in a thin line.

The ship itself was a huge barge-like vessel with several large sails two score scampering sailors. Below deck was a long narrow passageway with a few private cabins, but mainly one large room with bunks that served as the quarters for the sailors when not above deck. A large storeroom carried their foodstuffs and whatever other cargo Captain Hardrin was carrying. Hardin himself had his own private quarters at the rear of the boat.

Ten days... That was the captains estimate for how long it would take The Pelican's Wing to reach Tanchico. Fiznak wondered for a moment how Maer would do.

The usually impetuous Aiel warrior was definitely not himself. His eyes had grown to the size of dinner plates when the ship actually started moving on the water and ever since then he had quietly closeted himself in the cabin that they shared, refusing to speak to anyone.

Keb, of course, had put in her jibes, and for once Fiznak wasn't worried about Maer donning his viel and sending a spear through her. He either hadn't heard her or simply didn't care.

'If the Aiel could ride a flaming To'Raken,' Fiznak thought with a smile at the memory, 'he could certainly ride a much tamer boat.'

He wished he could say the same for Eliesanna. In the last couple of hours her face had turned to progressively darker shades of green from the jostling rocking motion of the boat. And after she had leaned overboard she too had gone below. This surprised Fiznak; the woman had grown up in a port city after all. Maeslyn and Keb were taking it well, engaged in conversation with captain Hardrin. Discussing the events of Falme that seemed to be spreading like wildfire.

"Ten days." Fiznak said to himself and settled himself on a dry spot of the bow, watching the gulls circling overhead. There was little to do, but sit... sit and think. And play his flute, of course. He grinned and played a lively tune.

...

"By ship and horse the stories pread, by merchant wagon and man on foot, told and retold, changing yet always alike at the heart, to Arad Doman and Tarabon and beyond, of signs and portents in teh sky above Falme. And men proclaimed themselves for the Dragon, and other men struck the down and were struck down in turn.

Other tales spread, of a column that rode from the sinking sun across Almoth Plain, a hudred Bordermen, it was said. No, a thousand. No, a thousand heroes come back from the grave to answer the call of the Horn of Valere. Ten Thousand. They had destroyed a Legion of the Children of the Light entire. They had thrown Arther Hawkwing's returned armies back into the sea. They were Artur Hawkwings armies returned. Toward the mountains the rode, toward the dawn.

Yet one thing every tale had the same. At their head rode a man whose face had been seen in the sky above Falme, and they rode under the banner of the Dragon Reborn."