The Boar’s Bane

You wake to the cutter’s dull thud against the dock, gulls keening like loose coins, and the smell of salt blown in with a wind that tastes of home. The line between foreign and familiar is thin, but when the hull grinds the quay you recognize the cadence of your own land: the scrape of rope on timber, the distant cry of a harbor bell, the ordered chaos of men unloading cargo. For all that the hills you once called yours lie far inland, the shore feels like the first page of a map you know by touch.

A Quiet Moment and the Slate

Before you join the bustle you steal time alone at the head of the cutter. The slate is warm in your hand—Heyshem’s message waiting, curt and clear. He has arranged with the head of the Seafarers’ clan that only one inn will take a group of your size; the fewer the places to shelter, the easier it will be to watch who comes and who goes. He has also set a meeting: the Seafarer‑head will receive you there, discreet, and bring news of ships, captains, and any odd cargoes crossing the coastal lanes.

You note the detail that matters: the meeting is private, and the inn is effectively a single point of safe exchange established by the clan. Heyshem’s hand reaches through the slate in the kind of thing that saves lives—one roof, one clock, one chance to collect faces without drawing the House’s net across them.

Plans on the Quay

You call your captains and lay out the plan. Keep most of the company aboard until the meeting is set; a handful—your two squad captains and a trusted runner—will go ashore with you under the guise of settling the merchant’s business. Reva, Bram, and one steady hand are to remain with the cutter to secure the ship and watch for House signals. Your brothers will shadow from the crowd at a distance; they will not enter the inn unless called.

You instruct your men in small signals: a shorn tuft on the rightmost mooring post means the Seafarer‑head is delayed; a loop of red yarn tied to the inn’s latch means all is safe and the talk can be had; a single bell from the quay will mean the House’s watchers are present and you must withdraw. These are simple things, but in a house where eyes are many, simple things keep men alive.

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The Walk In

You step from the cutter into the quay’s clamor. Merchants haggle; sailors rant about tides; a boy runs past with a string of fish, his toes splashed in the morning. You keep your face neutral—merchant’s ease with a Huntsman’s watch. At the inn’s door the landlord tips his cap, only slightly surprised by the presence of the lord’s sigil; the House’s watchers have already made the fact of you public enough to keep the landlord’s curiosity in check.

Inside the chosen room the Seafarer‑head waits, older than his chart and with a hairline as white as rope. He greets you not as an envoy but as a man who knows what a coastline can keep secret. His voice is gravel and tide. “Heyshem sent word,” he says. “He wanted few ears. I have watched the cutters by night; I have men on the sheds who count crates when captains think no one watches. What do you seek to know?”

You answer plainly—names of captains, odd cargos, any men who run cold at the mention of the eastern isles—and you watch his face for which pieces settle easily and which he lifts and hides. He tells you what he knows: a small broker who moved two crates of iron bowls last month; a crew that will sail with a false manifest; a shore where men moved in the fog and buried something that smelled of ash. Each scrap you gather is a new stitch in a ledger you do not yet fully see.

A Quiet Warning and an Open Door

Before you leave the inn the Seafarer‑head leans close and offers a small, honest thing: rumors that a rider moved inland with a seal that matched a scholar’s hand. He does not know if it means a scion or simply a clever clerk, but the hint is enough. You promise to send a slate to Elara and Theron at once, and you slip the trader a small gift—an embroidered band for a wrist—so that he can show it as proof to his watchers if need be.

Back on the quay you breathe in the familiar and the dangerous at once. You have a list now: names to follow, a place where iron hides under salted fish, and a gloved whisper that someone moved inland with scholarly seals. Heyshem’s plan is working—one inn, one meeting, but now the task broadens. You must warn, collect, and bind evidence: shepherd scions if found, feed Elara what you find, and keep the lord’s impatience from becoming a blade that cuts the clans before they are ready.

You return to the cutter with the weight of new names in your pocket and the slate hot with messages. The shore has given you a start; the road inland will ask for more—quiet hours, careful words, and the kind of patient listening that turns rumor into verdict.