Freehold: Riven Skies, #2

By A.D. Wynterhawk

The Warders built an offworld refuge for liberated slaves.
The Valkran's black ships followed, bent on wiping the Warders and their charges from the face of creation.
 
Whit Alder's forces were winning skirmishes. And Freehold, the Warder enclave on Alesia, grew stronger with each new victory. But in their fifth year of war, the rebels suffer a devastating setback.

In a surprise attack, Valkrans overrun the Warder base in Myrk Thule, decimating its forces. Whit is taken to the enemy capitol to face execution, and it falls to Arne Grimsen, his lieutenant and friend, to save their rebellion. With a lone ship and a handful of survivors, the bookish young officer battles an empire to decide the fate of two civilizations.

Freehold is the second book in the Riven Skies series, the continuing saga of the characters introduced in The Raidships.

• Language: English
• Publisher: A.D. Wynterhawk
• Release date: Feb 1, 2021
• ISBN: 9781393121749

Book preview

1 The Gallows

A PAIR OF ORANGE-WINGED butterflies fluttered about the base of the gallows, brilliant reminders of spring’s early arrival. From the top of the hangman’s platform, Liv watched them dance on the breeze—and thought how vividly beautiful they were against the scaffold’s weathered timbers. Sheriff Lucan Dunne, or Bear as she had known him since childhood, stood to her right, present as the law required. It was the twenty-third execution she’d presided over as Freehold’s magister. Today was unusual because two men were scheduled to hang.

In the courtyard below, a pair of shackled felons, escorted by a spear-carrying guard, shambled toward the killing platform. The two men were brothers—Noa and Alvet Huskins. They were homely men with sand-colored hair and empty eyes. Liv guessed them to be in their mid-twenties. The brothers were Alesian, born in a village three walking days to the east. Two years ago, they’d drifted into town, claiming to look for work. They’d stayed, shunning honest labor in favor of drink whenever they found a copper in their pocket. Bear had locked them up a half dozen times for minor offenses, but the Huskins were not quick-witted men; the incarcerations taught them nothing. And now they were about to hang.

Their crime was murder. In a bout of drunkenness, the brothers had tried to force themselves on a young girl. She’d resisted, and Noa—the eldest—had flown into a rage and beaten her senseless as Alvet looked on. Thinking her dead, the pair had dragged her into the woods where a hunter had stumbled upon her the following day and discovered she still breathed.

Her name had been Violet Anson. Thirteen, pretty as her namesake, a baker’s daughter. She lived two days after the beating and died in her bed, clutching a patchwork doll. That had been two months ago. Since then, the Huskins had been tried, convicted, and sentenced. Today, they would die for their crimes.

Liv always came to executions. As the elected leader of Freehold, she felt duty-bound to attend. It was the most distasteful responsibility of the magister’s job, but she never shunned her obligations.

Bear motioned for the guards to bring up the condemned men, and once the felons were on the platform, he guided the younger one—Alvet—onto the trapdoor. The leather-masked hangman placed a noose over Alvet’s head and cinched it tight around his neck. After testing the knot, the executioner nodded to the sheriff.

Bear pulled two sheets of paper from his coat, picked the topmost one, then moved to face the prisoner. The lawman held the sheet at arms-length and read aloud. His voice and hands were steady, his words crisp.

Alvet Huskins, you have been tried before a lawful Tribunal and judged guilty of assault and willful murder. For your crimes, you have been sentenced to death by hanging. As the duly appointed Sheriff of Freehold, under authority of law, I now carry out that sentence. The sheriff looked away from his papers and locked eyes with the condemned man. Any last words, son?

The younger Huskins looked down at the knot of onlookers, lower lip trembling, tears spilling onto his cheeks.

I’m sorry that girl died, he said. But I never raised a hand to her. Not once! I never killed nobody, but now you’re killing me. It ain’t right. No way, no how. And you all know it!

Alvet glared at the gathered crowd, his expression bitter with accusation. Some watchers averted their gaze or turned away. Others jeered, and a few cursed. Huskins turned from the crowd to the sheriff, then drew himself up to his full height and squared his shoulders. Go ahead, Sheriff. Let’s get it done. Alvet drew a deep breath and closed his eyes.

The sheriff folded the execution order, slipped it inside his coat, then nodded to the executioner. The leather-masked townsman stepped forward and tugged a white linen sack over Huskin’s head, securing its drawstring. Then he moved to the trapdoor release lever, took it in his hands, and waited for Bear’s signal. The sheriff nodded.

Liv heard the click of a releasing latch, then the squeak of hinges as the door swung downward. She saw the floor open beneath Huskins, expecting him to vanish—but he lingered, inexplicably floating for an instant above the gallows’ well before it swallowed him. Then he was gone. There was a muffled crack, followed by a collective murmur from the gathered onlookers. The murmur died, and the square fell silent except for the creaking of the hangman’s rope as it swung in lazy arcs above the gallows’ pit.

Liv knew she should have felt something. Sadness? Satisfaction? But, in truth, she felt nothing. Alvet Huskin’s passage was unremarkable, just one among many in the five years since Freehold’s founding. And those years had taught her a compelling truth—power was not a prize to be won but a burden to be borne. Sometimes, she wondered how much longer she could bear it. The magister turned her attention from the rope and fixed it on the second prisoner, Alvet’s brother Noa.

The elder Huskins seemed to sense her gaze and turned to meet it with a serpent’s eyes—flat, cold, and unblinking. They were black and empty, betraying no anguish or outrage at his brother’s fate. Liv felt a shiver radiate upward from the base of her spine—Noa Huskins was a broken being, a body without a soul. He raised the corner of his mouth in a malevolent sneer, then spat at her. The glob arced short, vanishing through the opening in the gallows floor.

Bear knelt beside the scaffold’s well and peered down at the hanged man. The sheriff raised his right hand and the executioner released the knot securing the killing rope. There was a thump beneath the platform as Alvet’s body dropped to the cobbles. Liv heard movement—footsteps and wooden wheels—as two of the town’s deputies worked below them to remove the corpse. When the noises subsided, the deputies appeared from the platform’s shadows with Alvet’s body. One of the lawmen flung the retrieved rope up to the hangman, who caught with one hand then retied it. Now the noose swung in the breeze again, gyrating in silence, waiting to be filled.

When Noa’s turn came and he stood on the trapdoor, Bear repeated the ritual he’d performed with Alvet. When the sheriff asked the condemned man if he had last words, the prisoner spat in reply. The big lawman looked down at the drips of spittle across the brown of his coat and then back at Noa’s smirk. Bear cocked his head, seeming to study the remaining Huskins. Then he reached out, grasped the noose behind Noa’s neck, and lifted.

Huskins’s boots floated from the platform, his body rising as the man he’d spat on extended his arm higher. The prisoner’s feet churned wildly in a footrace to nowhere, his toes inches above the raw planks of the gallows floor. His face was level with the sheriff’s now, contorting as he struggled against the noose. Bear watched, expressionless as the murderer’s complexion went from ashen to crimson. He held Noa aloft until the man’s twitching trailed into stillness, then released the noose. Huskins collapsed to his knees, held there by the hangman’s rope.

Bear walked to the executioner and pulled the hood intended for Huskins from the man’s belt, then used it to wipe the spittle from his coat. When he was done, he waved the deputies with the body-cart forward, then pointed to Noa’s body. In the square, the onlookers began to break up and drift away.

Liv pulled her cloak tighter around her shoulders. The wind was picking up and the clouds were grayer now. It would rain soon. She walked across the platform to where Bear was counting out coins to the hangman.

Walk me home? she asked.

Bear nodded, and when he was done, the two filed down the narrow steps and onto Freehold’s main square. She looked back over her shoulder at the gallows. Must that cursed thing be in the center of town?

Her companion shrugged. Freehold’s full of ex-slaves and drifters. Some need the reminder.

She sighed. I know. But it sends a bad message to newcomers. This town’s supposed to be a place where people can live free and make a good life. That scaffold looks like we’re back in Valkra. We need to find a better way.

You want to kill people in secret, find someone else to do it.

I’m not suggesting that! But must we execute our felons in the town commons? Maybe we could move the gallows behind the jail. Build a courtyard there, allow some limited public access. That seems more civilized than creating a spectacle in the main square. And if anyone needs the scaffold as a reminder, it’s the jail’s prisoners.

It would cost, Bear grumbled.

That’s fine. It’s been a good year for the rebellion. We’ve had four ships from Whit, and we have more silver in the town coffers than we have projects. She squeezed his arm. Can you arrange it? Please?

The sheriff sighed in defeat. I’ll see to it.

They exited the gates of Freehold proper and walked the half-mile to Liv’s cottage. It was a single story, clapboard-sided with a peaked roof and three rooms. Inside, she made a quick supper of fried potatoes, bread, and smoked sausage. When her meal was done, she cleaned up, mulled a cup of wine, then carried it to a blackwood writing-table near the fireplace. On most days, she used the hours after supper to catch up with unfinished work. Running a town, especially one growing like Freehold, devoured her waking hours. There was time for little else.

When they’d arrived on Alesia, with the Hawk’s hold full of liberated slaves, Freehold had been just a dream. But with the silver the Warders had plundered from Valkran estates back on Thelos, they’d purchased land—thousands of acres of pasture and forest in the foothills of the Serana mountains, almost sixty miles from the nearest Alesian town.

They’d chosen to remain isolated, hoping to prevent friction with the locals. Some of Freehold’s freed slaves were Valkran, and looked it, with their fair hair and ice-colored eyes. Despised by the local population, they were apt to be attacked on sight. To avoid trouble, she and Whit had built Freehold apart, hoping distance would ensure peace. But there had been violence anyway.

That first year, as they built the town, it seemed there was a hanging a month. Feuds erupted, and murders were common. Liv had appointed Bear sheriff and empowered him to recruit deputies. After an initial rash of executions, Freehold’s malcontents began drifting to other towns, finding relocation preferable to a noose. In time, order returned, and those that remained spent their energy building rather than fighting.

At the first year’s end, the town wasn’t much: a few rough log shelters inside a rickety palisade. But the following spring brought new homes and farms. And more settlers. The Hawk continued to ferry liberated slaves from Thelos, and Alesians from distant villages began trickling in, drawn by offers of free land.

In the second year, she had ordered the palisade be expanded and strengthened. Inside it, they’d erected the first public buildings—a jail and an armory. The walled town soon sprouted a bank and a town hall. Businesses followed.

When there was no more space inside the walls, they broke ground for more houses and shops half a mile from the town proper. More people came, and the new settlement sprawled outward. Now, nearly two thousand souls called Freehold home.

Liv was proud of her people and her town. Today, the walled stronghold was the settlement’s beating heart, surrounded by the blood and sinew of thriving farms and small businesses. Soon, if all worked to plan, they would break ground on a library. And in time, there would be a university. She was proud of what she’d accomplished, and that pride offset the long hours and never-ending work.

Her table was filled with that work now. Sighing, she put aside her reminiscence, dipped her pen, and attacked the waiting stacks of documents. She worked until her eyes grew weary from reading and her fingers cramped from writing. When she could work no more, she snuffed the candle on her writing-table and made her way into the house’s single bedroom. She undressed, hanging her leggings and tunic over the back of a chair, then burrowed under her quilts. Within moments, she was asleep.

When Liv arrived at her workroom in the town hall the following morning, she unlocked the door and built a fire. The building’s title was much grander than the actual structure. The hall possessed just two rooms. The front room was where she worked. It contained a few document cabinets and a dozen wooden chairs to accommodate meetings. A stout oak door connected the front room to a second chamber whose walls were lined with shelves. The shelves contained leather-bound volumes of the town’s legal documents: deeds, birth records, tax rolls, legal proceedings, and the town’s charter. The hall was Liv’s seat of power. From it, she ruled Freehold.

She hung a teakettle over the fire and laid out her work for the day in neat stacks on a polished worktable. When the tea was ready, she carried a cup to the table and attacked the paper mountains. The work was a tonic; it took her mind off the executions. She managed to work for the better part of an hour before the day’s first interruption.

There was a rap on the front door, and it opened to reveal Freehold’s banker, Theron Beck. Beck was a few years her senior, successful but unassuming. He wore no beard and his hair was cut short, clinging close to his skull in tight black curls. His eyes were light-brown, wide, and engaging. Beck was the kind of man who laughed easily and listened more than he spoke. As the manager of the town’s accounts, he was a regular visitor. This morning he seemed in fine spirits, more animated than usual.

The banker crossed the room and laid a small, cloth-wrapped package on her worktable. A nose-pleasing aroma of apples and cinnamon surrounded it like a cloud. Liv reached out and folded back the white muslin to reveal a triangular pastry, flaky and golden. She favored Beck with a smile.

From Alis Bantry’s shop? she asked.

Fresh from the fry pot. I believe it’s still warm.

Liv raised the sweet and bit off one of the corners. The tastes of apple, honey, and cinnamon flooded her mouth. She shut her eyes and savored the crisp fusion of spice and fruit. Theron launched into a one-sided conversation while she chewed.

I heard you hung the Huskin brothers yesterday. Long overdue, in my opinion. There have never been two men more worthy of the noose. Beck paused and steepled his fingers, his features becoming more serious. Hanging’s a gloomy business though, so I thought you could use a little cheer. And I can think of nothing more cheery than one of Alis’s apple pastries. The banker leaned across the worktable and broke off a bite of the sweet for himself, then popped it into his mouth. He shut his eyes, sighing as he chewed. After he swallowed, he brushed his mouth with the back of his hand and smacked his lips in comic exaggeration. Liv couldn’t help but smile.

Theron moved to the wall and picked up one of the spare chairs lined against it. He planted it in front of her table, its back toward her. Then he straddled it, facing her with his arms across its top rail, his chin resting on his forearm. He eyed her as she worked at the pastry.

You should escape this dreary room for a while. You work entirely too hard, and yesterday was dreadful. So, I’ve come to rescue you. He offered her his most disarming smile. I suggest we fill a sack with fresh bread, cheese, and wine, then ride out to Tobin’s Pond. It’s going to be a glorious day and I promise to be delightful company. The banker paused here and placed a hand over his heart. And I further promise the town will still be standing when we return.

His invitation was the latest of many. She had declined each one, but the banker was never deterred, always hopeful her mind might change. There was nothing for it except to respond as she always did: she declined as gently as possible. It sounds lovely Theron, but I can’t. You know why, she said.

Alder? Again? The banker’s tone shifted from light-hearted to disappointed. The man’s abandoned you, Liv. How often does he see you? Once a year? Less? He seems far more interested in his war than in you. Beck reached out and took her hand. You deserve better.

Liv gently extricated her hand. Theron, I adore you— you know that. You’re my best friend, and I don’t know what I’d do without you. But there are other women in Freehold—women who aren’t spoken for. She tried to keep her tone light and smiled to blunt the sting of her words.

Beck shook his head in bewilderment.

It’s beyond understanding, he said. I know you care for me, and you know there’s not another man alive who’d treasure you as I do. Yet you pine for a man who holds you second in his affections. Surely, you can see the folly in that?

She groped for the right words to turn the conversation, soft words that might save his feelings. He took her momentary silence as an answer. Frustrated, the banker rose and pushed back his chair. His movements were abrupt, his irritation evident.

Wait, Theron. Just for a moment?

Beck paused, bracing his palms on the back of his chair. He looked at her, waiting.

You’re a good man, Theron. And, if it weren’t for Whit, things might be different. But they’re not. I’m bound to him and he to me. Pain flashed in the banker’s eyes, but she plowed ahead, knowing she must finish. "Whit and I make sacrifices, painful sacrifices, to serve a greater good. But we choose to make them, understanding the cost. Sometimes I wish it weren’t so, but that’s the way of it."

Silence filled the space between them and Liv saw the pain in Beck’s eyes change to anger. He looked at her as though about to speak, but in the end, said nothing. Instead, he turned on his heel and strode from the room, banging the door behind him with enough force to rattle its frame.

She moved to the window and watched him as he walked away. He looked neither right nor left and ignored the greetings of passersby. She’d never seen him this angry, and she feared she’d lost his friendship. The thought stung more deeply than she could have imagined. Liv pushed the curtains closed and returned to her chair, staring blankly at the work on her table, too distracted to resume it.

It had been two awful days and the emotions she usually kept at bay came calling. There was sadness and there was anger, but surprisingly, more powerful than either, there was loneliness. Theron’s reminders of Whit’s absence had found their mark.

Six years past, Whit had rescued her from imprisonment on Thelos. It had been the start of their relationship and the beginning of an uprising. His cause had become hers and they’d worked hand in hand since. Freehold was their shared dream, a refuge where former slaves were given a chance to pursue new lives.

To achieve the dream, Whit had remained on Thelos to fight, and she had come to Alesia to build. Since then, four times a year, the airship Hawk had ferried liberated slaves from the rebel stronghold at Sigius Station to Freehold. The ship unloaded new settlers, then returned to Thelos with supplies for the rebels. Three times, Whit had arrived with the Hawk.

Three visits in six years... Was it any wonder that she was lonely? She worked hard at not thinking about it, distracting herself with the never-ending needs of her town. Most days, she succeeded. But today was different. The truth in Theron’s words had stung as only the truth can. Liv brushed her cheek with her sleeve.

Am I suddenly a child? Liv Grimsen was not a woman given to self-pity; she was a woman who faced life squarely and dealt with its problems head-on. Irritated by her moment of weakness, she ran her fingers through her hair to arrange it then retrieved her cloak from its peg by the door. She draped it across her shoulders, lifted her chin, then left the hall and locked the door behind her.

It was a short walk to the town’s jail. When she arrived, Bear was there, cocked back in his chair, feet crossed on his worktable. The sheriff was reading from a stack of papers in his lap, a blackwood pipe clenched in his teeth. A thin blue curl of tabak smoke snaked upward from its bowl. Behind him, a fire burned cheerily on the hearth. The jail’s three iron-doored cells were empty.

Bear, she said, You’re about to be promoted.

The sheriff didn’t look up. That so?

"Yes, it’s so. The Hawk should be arriving sometime in the next few weeks, and I’m going to be aboard when she leaves. I plan to be gone for a while and I need someone to run things until I return. The town charter says you’re the someone."

Bear tilted his chin back and exhaled a plume of smoke. He watched it until it broke against the ceiling, his expression unchanged. Aye, he said, then went back to his reading.

Liv walked behind him, bent down, wrapped her arms around his shoulders, and squeezed. He didn’t react, but when she stood, his face was flushed behind the thicket of beard that hid his jawline. She laughed and her spirits rose.

If Whit couldn’t come to her, she’d go to him. His war and her town had come too often between them, and she meant to remedy that. It was time to balance the scales.

There were preparations to make before she left, but there was time. As she retraced her steps back toward the town hall, the sun was bright, the sky a bowl of blue crystal. A crisp spring breeze worked at drying the last vestiges of the previous night’s rain. Soon, she was behind her worktable, curtains open, attacking its sheaves of paper.

Liv’s concentration was broken only once. There was a peculiar tap-tap-tap on her window. Startled, she’d looked up to see a gray sparrow perched on the outside sill, its head cocked to one side. Behind it, the clapboard facades of Freehold’s buildings and the irregular cobbles of its main street dripped golden in post-morning sun.

Theron had been right about the day. It was glorious. She watched the sparrow for a moment more, then smiled and went back to work.

Three weeks later, the Hawk breached the sky above Freehold then touched down on jets of blue flame. Forty-one new settlers, every one an ex-slave, emerged from the ship. Liv and Bear came out to meet them and she gave them her customary welcome speech. She explained that, over the coming days, each would be interviewed, assigned a land plot, then given chits to purchase seeds and tools. She described how the town would provide a single-room cabin on their new property at no cost. Along with the cabin, there would be a monthly stipend for the first year to help them become self-sufficient.

When the explanations were done, Bear led the new arrivals away to temporary housing and Freehold’s magister went home to pack.

Seven days later, the Hawk readied for departure. Liv arrived early with Bear in tow. The sheriff pulled a two-wheeled cart filled with her things, which he transferred into the ship’s hold. She ambushed him with a farewell hug as he made his way down the Hawk’s exit ramp. He gave her shoulder an awkward pat which, for Bear, was an effusive send-off.

Liv made her way to the pilot’s cabin and informed the helmsman she was ready to depart. He invited her to sit in the navigator’s chair, assuring her it would remain empty otherwise. Grateful for the courtesy, she strapped in, adjusting the seat upward so she had a clear view through the forward glass.

Bear stood watching from the road into town, a safe distance away. Half a mile behind him, Freehold’s nascent skyline poked above the rolling fields and pocket-forests that surrounded its walls. She waved, knowing Bear couldn’t see her.

The pilot leaned forward, and his fingers danced over a panel bright with multi-colored lights and switches. Outside, the engines whined to life and the seat vibrated beneath her as the Hawk rose slowly, gaining altitude. The helmsman retracted the landing legs, then rotated the nose of the ship skyward until the horizon vanished. He pulled at a row of sliding handles mounted on his seat’s arm and the engines’ whine became a wail. The ship leapt upward and crushed Liv against the padding of her chair.

Beyond the Hawk’s nose, the sky did a slow-fade from blue to black, then filled with stars. On one of those bright points of light, Whit and her brother Arne waged their never-ending crusade. Soon, she’d be there alongside them.

2 Al Laheen

WHIT WAS IRRITATED. IT was hot and damp, Bandu was a grinning idiot, and supplies were missing from his order. He slapped the rolled invoice against his palm in irritation and glared at the merchant.

Bandu, you’re missing our tea and medicines. And you’ve brought just half the fruit we agreed on. You realize this, yes?

The islander nodded his head, his perpetual smile brilliant against his coppery skin. Yes. It is regrettable.

We’ve already established that it’s regrettable, but I don’t care about ‘regrettable’. I care about supplies—the supplies you promised but aren’t here. He was struggling to keep his voice in check, frustrated to the breaking point by the trader’s relentless smile. The Warder commander tried once more through clenched teeth to get a straight answer. What are you going to do about my missing supplies, Bandu?

The rotund trader shrugged, his smile undiminished. I have no magic. I cannot make fruit appear from the air. There is nothing to be done. Next time, it will be fine. You’ll see.

Whit idly wondered if punching Bandu in the smile would help get his supplies. The Warder sighed. Probably not. He tried a different approach.

I am sad, Bandu. Sad because I think you’ve sold my goods to someone else. And sad because, now, I must ask Queen Oda for justice. The trader was an intermediary. The Warders’ supply arrangements were with Sabiq Oda, the Queen of the Shadowmen. Known for her ruthlessness, the queen controlled a criminal organization whose fingers were in every purse in the Isles. Whit had expected the trader’s smile to vanish at the invocation of her name. Oddly, it had the reverse effect. Bandu bobbed his head up and down in enthusiastic agreement, and his smile grew even broader.

Yes. Yes. Queen Oda! We shall go to see her now?

Whit considered his options. He could waste another hour in pointless conversation here, or ask Sabiq to sort it out. But either way, he needed to get it resolved. Going back to the rebel stronghold at Sigius Station without tea would incite a riot.

"Alright, Bandu. My men will load what you’ve brought aboard the Wasp. You and I shall go to Al Laheen."

Bandu inflected at the waist, his palms up. Whit wasn’t much for bowing, so he gave a polite nod and walked toward the Wasp’s rear ramp.

Inside the ship, half a dozen Warders in brown longcoats were securing crates and barrels. Whit paused to let his eyes adjust to the compartment’s shadows, then tracked down the sergeant in charge, a thick-armed Alesian with a braided moustache.

Sergeant, there’s been a cock-up with the supplies; the merchant and I have to go into Al Laheen and get it sorted. I should be back by sunset.

Aye, Captain.

Whit cringed at the title, reminding himself once more it was a necessary evil. After the rebel uprising at Arnfell Castle, he’d convinced the Warders they’d need to reshape themselves into a military force. They’d agreed and anointed him their commander, offering a general’s rank. He had pointed out that General was a rather grandiose title when he had half-a-dozen men to command, so they had compromised on Captain. Thus, Whit had become the Warder’s leader and the first officer of their order.

Keep a guard posted, he reminded the sergeant. If anything happens before I return, get this bucket airborne and head for Sigius. Do not wait for me.

You don’t want us to send a squad to Al Laheen?

Absolutely not. Do your job. Deliver the supplies.

The sergeant looked as though he were about to object. Whit cut him off. If I don’t make it back tonight, return to this spot seven days from now. Circle at dawn. If I’m not here, I’m probably dead. In that case, return home and report to Arne.

The moustachioed Warder nodded. Whit clapped him on the shoulder and walked off the ship and into the clearing. Bandu was waiting, holding the reins of two horses. The Warder commander swung himself into the saddle of the largest and waited for the merchant to mount the second. They set off at a walk, riding to the northeast corner of the clearing where a narrow path pierced the tree line. In an hour, they’d be in Al Laheen.

Sabiq Oda’s city was carved into a limestone cliff and looked out onto a sea of jade-green tamarinds. Whit had been here many times before, but every time he rode into Al Laheen, he marveled at it.

At the vertical city’s base, a cluster of conventional buildings ringed a stone-paved clearing hewn from the surrounding forest. At the end of the clearing, where it pressed against the cliff’s foundation, a series of carved steps zigzagged up the limestone face from the forest floor. The stairway followed the natural contours of the stone, switching back and forth as it ascended, connecting to walkways