The smell of rotting fish and plankton rankled at Ethry’s nostrils as he scrambled over the wet planks, dodging between the lumbering dockworkers. A couple men shouted angrily as the urchin ran between their tree trunk legs, but Ethry was always gone by the time they could try and make a grab at him.

All around him, he heard the buzz of commerce, of industry at work. Crates were in constant motion; some descended down gangplanks and were lowered by cranes onto the ships, ready to go to the far corners of the Empire. Other crates came off the ships, hauled by cranes or on the shoulders of burly dockworkers, deposited in stacks on the wharf and smelling of exotic locations that Ethry could only imagine.

Up ahead of him, a heavy-set man with a large beard cursed in half a dozen languages as his foot caught at a raised plank in the dock. He tripped, and the crate on his shoulder sent oval, pink fruits scattering across the salt-warped boards.

Ethry didn’t pause to help pick up the fruits. His good deed, he knew, would at best be rewarded with a grunt of thanks, and nothing more. More likely, he’d earn himself a kick or a cuff about the ear, along with some more curse words to add to his vocabulary.

Instead, he hurried by without pausing. Only after he’d ducked down into a narrow alley between two buildings, away from the scene, did he grin and remove the two pink fruits from his jacket that he’d snagged off the ground as he passed. Continue reading →