A Day Earlier
The heavy timber gates of the lower basin stood wide as the morning frost gave way to pale sunlight.
Along the granite ridge leading toward the harbor, hundreds of giant civilians gathered in silence. At the head of the procession stood Elder Jarul, flanked by the council and the remaining warriors of the northern watch. The old giant held no weapon today; his hands rested atop his ironwood staff, his long beard brushed clean of ash.
As Giovanni walked down the stone path, his right sleeve pinned where bandages bound his shoulder, Jarul stepped into the road. The old giant inclined his head.
"The council's judgment was flawed, human," Jarul said, his voice carrying over the ridge. "We named you murderer before looking at the blood upon our dead. You answered with restraint, and you brought down the beast in our woods. By the high hearth, your place as an honored guest is restored. The debt of blood and iron stands acknowledged."
Jarul reached into his belt and drew out a carved medallion. A disk of dark Adam wood, inlaid with runic silver. He offered it down.
"This is the Seal of the Hearth," Jarul said. "No gate of Elbaf closes against you while you carry it."
Giovanni took the token, feeling the rough grain against his palm, and slipped it into his coat.
"Set a better guard at your vaults next time," Giovanni said.
Jarul's mouth twitched into a faint smile. "A wise instruction."
Down in the pens below the path, pine logs crashed into the mud. Prince Loki stood up to his knees in slush, wearing a sweat-stained linen tunic and mud-caked trousers. His bare hands were bound in linen wraps as he hoisted a support beam into place under Ida's gaze.
Beside him, two giant children carried buckets of water to a calf, while Gerd tended to its splinted leg.
As Hiyori passed the perimeter fence, Loki dropped his timber beam. He wiped dark grease across his brow and stepped to the railing, his breath coming in white plumes. He looked down at the child, his chest heaving.
"Human girl," Loki said, his voice raspy and unpracticed. "You will not be endangered by my hand again. I swear it upon the roots of the tree."
Hiyori stopped, looking up at the prince with wide brown eyes. She did not laugh or answer. She simply nodded once, solemn and quiet.
Giovanni kept walking, his eyes fixed on the harbor ahead. "Lift the beam, Loki. The post is still crooked."
Loki's jaw clamped shut. He glared down at Giovanni, his bandaged hands clenching against the rail, before turning back to the mud.
"Keep your eyes on the timber, Prince!" Ida's voice barked from behind him, her wooden ladle raised.
Loki grunted an oath into his beard and hauled the beam into the slush.
Near the edge of the rocky pier, where the tide slapped against basalt pillars, a small, black wooden vessel drifted on the water. It carried a single sail shaped like a raven's wing, lit by two green lanterns burning at the gunwales.
Dracule Mihawk stood in the center of his coffin boat, his yellow eyes tracking Scopper Gaban. The old pirate leaned against a mooring post, a carved pipe between his teeth.
"Leaving without a horn of mead, Hawkeye?" Gaban asked, blowing a thin ring of smoke.
"The mead here is sour," Mihawk replied, his hand resting on the cross-pommel of Yoru. "And my business on this island is done."
Gaban chuckled, a low rumble in his chest. "You gave the kid a harsh lesson out there."
"He lived," Mihawk said, his voice flat. "His instincts are sharp, but his sword is still heavy. He relies on anger to force the edge."
"And?" Gaban asked, his eyes narrowing behind his spectacles. "What will you tell Shanks?"
Mihawk untied the mooring line with a single flick of his wrist. The black boat glided out into the harbor currents.
"I will tell him the boy has become interesting," Mihawk said, looking back at the ridge. "Nothing more."
Gaban watched the black sail cut through the mist, disappearing into the open ocean. He let out a slow breath, his smile fading. "Interesting is more than enough to get a man killed in these waters, Hawkeye."
At the main dock, the boat carved from the wood of the Adam Tree lay riding the heavy harbor swells. Its canvas sails were drawn tight, its iron-reinforced prow shaped like a sea dragon.
Hiyori stood near the foot of the gangplank, tears in her eyes as Gerd knelt in the slush to wrap a woven woolen scarf around the girl's neck.
"Keep warm, little one," Gerd murmured, her fingers gently tucking the cloth beneath Hiyori's chin. "Do not let the cold wind take your breath."
Hiyori threw her arms around Gerd's thumb, burying her face against the giantess's hand as she sobbed softly. "I'll come back, Gerd!"
"Just come back alive," Gerd said softly, offering a quiet nod as she stepped back.
Beside them, Kozuki Toki stood at the edge of the boarding ramp. She turned her head, her hair catching the wind, and looked back at the soaring peaks of Elbaf. Her hand tightened over her woolen shawl. She drew a deep breath and stepped up onto the deck of the boat.
Giovanni stood by the heavy oak helm, his hands resting on the iron-studded spokes as the crew cast off the mooring hawsers. The boat caught the offshore wind, its heavy Adam-wood hull carving through the freezing swells of the fjord. The cliffs of Elbaf began to recede, dissolving into the grey mist behind them.
For two days, the boat charted a steady course south toward the border reefs of Sphinx Island, cutting through the turbulent weather of the New World.
On the morning of the third day, a thick fog rolled over the sea, deadening the sound of the waves and swallowing the sun.
Giovanni stood on the forward deck, his golden eyes scanning the grey wall ahead. Beside him, Toki held Hiyori close to her side as the temperature dropped.
The water beneath their hull began to churn. A deep, vibrating hum echoed through the ocean floor, rattling the brass fittings of the deck.
Out of the dense fog, a gargantuan shadow materialized.
The mist parted, revealing a white-hulled warship whose figurehead was carved in the sweeping shape of a breaching blue whale. Its vast rigging towered into the clouds, throwing an immense shadow over the Elbaf boat.
Standing high upon the central bowsprit, framed against the grey sky, was the silhouette of an old giant of a man. His coat billowed around his shoulders, his crescent-shaped white mustache gleamed in the pale light, and his giant bisento was planted into the wooden deck.
The Moby Dick had arrived.
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