An Aimless War (Greatest Thief 2)

Chapter Six

As I followed Tannix and the knight along the main street, I inspected the city around me. The port area was fairly flat, before the land sloped up to reach the height of the rest of the island. West Draulin's fortress loomed above us, reminding me a little of the Cliffs of Loth. The main street took us right to the base of one of the tall walls, before following the wall up towards the gates to the fortress. Dark marks stained the stone. There were a few burned ruins in Zianna's lower city, so I knew what I was looking at.

Tannix and his knight were behaving very informally towards each other, which made me feel it was acceptable enough to interrupt their conversation. "Tannix?"

They were a few steps ahead. Tannix stopped and turned around. "Yes?"

I nodded towards the scorch marks. "Was West Draulin attacked?"

He followed my gaze. "Oh, no. That's from the Great Port Fire. Great referencing its size, of course. It happened when I was..." he paused, and glanced at Acen. "It was in 411? I would have been seven. I was in the fortress the whole time, of course, but I remember the smoke filling the air so thickly it was hard to see the ocean. My uncles were both in West Draulin at the time, so they were involved in containing it."

"Mine was, as well," Acen said.

"Was he a knight, too?" I asked. Acen seemed friendly enough.

He nodded. "Serving the Tandrans is a bit of a family tradition at this point."

I looked at the burned stones again. It must have been a huge fire. "Were a lot of people hurt?"

"Unfortunately, yes. But miraculously there weren't many deaths. It happened at night, so the majority of the ships and boats weren't fully crewed. The ones that were fully crewed mostly set out before the fire reached them. And the alarm was called quickly enough to get most people to safety. There was a lot of damage, but my father and uncles used Tandran money to pay everyone for what they had lost."

I couldn't even wrap my head around how much money that must have been. Tannix's family was so rich it was hard to understand. Most of the money was probably wrapped up in running their city and paying their soldiers and navy, but the amount they apparently had access to was still staggering.

Tannix and Acen started walked again, but instead of trailing behind them I rushed to catch up. They were talking about people I didn't know, but I liked listening anyway.

When we finally reached the gates to the fortress, we were met by a large portcullis flanked by guards. One of them stepped forward slightly. He nodded at Acen, then bowed to Tannix.

"Lord Tandrix, welcome home."

"Thank you," Tannix said, as the second guard called through the portcullis to the men by the wheels. Tannix spoke with the guards while we waited, and soon we were walking under the heavy metal grate.

I almost stopped short in awe. The fortress was huge. There were a cluster of buildings in front of us, including what I recognized as a Teltish church. To our right, another gate opened into a busy courtyard swarming with soldiers—probably the barracks. On the left, past some gardens, stood the castle.

It looked nothing like the castle in Zianna. Instead of turrets and battlements, the roof was fairly flat. The whole building was wide, with six rows of windows. It was slightly taller than the walls around the fortress, although the multiple guard towers still rose high above it. The view of the ocean, and the sunset, must have been amazing from those towers.

Between greeting various people who walked past us, Tannix answered questions I hadn't even asked yet. "Originally the fortress was supposed to be able to contain the entire population of West Draulin in case of attack. The city's grown a lot since then, so even if everyone fit we wouldn't be able to sustain them for long. We've got our own gardens," he gestured to them. "And along the far wall there's housing for important people. Advisors, foreign dignitaries, some of the higher-ranking knights. That tower—" he pointed at the thickest and tallest of the guard towards, along what he had just called the far wall. "—is the cannon tower."