The salt-laden wind howled through the skeletal remains of Port Varenya's collapsed gantry cranes, making the rusted metal groan like dying beasts.
Arthur Osborn stood at the edge of Dock 17, his custom-made shoes crunching on decades of accumulated corrosion flakes as he studied the graveyard of sunken freighters visible just beneath the oil-slicked waves.
"Goodness," Ethan muttered beside him, wrinkling his nose at the stench of rotting seaweed and diesel. "Smells like a refinery hooked up with a landfill."
Arthur didn't flinch. "You should've smelled it last month before the bioremediation teams started."
He kicked a chunk of concrete into the water, watching the splash ripple outward. "This dock alone had three mass graves from the siege of '38."
Suddenly, a distant blast from a ship's horn cut through the heavy air.
Ethan shielded his eyes against the glare as twenty massive freighters emerged from the morning haze like steel islands.
