The master of the royal grain carrack Gilded Falcon had spent forty years sailing the Great Southern Ocean. He considered himself a man of steady nerves.
He had survived two typhoons, a mutiny off the Salt Islands, and an audit by the High Judge of Maras.
He wasn’t, however, prepared for what happened as his ship entered Port Haven Harbor at second bell.
The wind had died fully inside the sheltered basin behind the tetrapod breakwater.
The carrack’s heavy square sails hung limp against the spars. The sluggish ebbing tide was drifting the three-masted, twelve-hundred-ton hull sideways toward the stone riprap of Berth Six.
“Drop the larboard bower anchor,” the captain screamed from the quarterdeck, throwing his hat onto the deck planks.
“Get the sweep oars out. We’re going on the rocks.”
Before the anchor could clear the cathead, a low, bubbling surge rose alongside the vessel’s port quarter.
