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The Emberrun Ferry & the Saltmeads

Below Emberford the Emberrun runs too wide and deep to ford, and the only way across is the ferry scow Patience — a scheduled boat with a captain, a bell, and no concern for haste. On the far bank waits the east bank country: the Wrackline, the Saltmeads, and the Tidewife's Grotto — a level 5–9 hunting ladder that bridges the gap between the Reedmarsh (tops out at 7) and the Ore Road (starts at 8).

Getting there: GO LANDING at Emberford's Fishmarket Wharf, then GO FERRY when the boat is alongside.

Riding the Patience

The ferry runs an endless round trip on her own clock:

  1. Docked (~2½ minutes). The gangplank is down — GO FERRY to board, GO GANGPLANK to step off. LOOK BOAT at either landing always tells you whether she's alongside or out on the water.
  2. Two bells. Half a minute before cast-off, the mate rings twice at the deck and the landing. Last call.
  3. The crossing (~3 minutes). Lines come in, the current takes her, and the gangplank is locked until the far bank. Mid-river there is nowhere to go, which is the point. The ride plays out in prose: poles and current, cat-ice on the hull in winter, the far bank by feel in the dark, and the deck is open sky — weather reaches it, and so, sometimes, does the dragon.
  4. Arrival. Fenders groan, the plank runs out with a bang, and the far landing is yours.

Miss the boat and you wait as everyone has waited for four hundred years; the west landing's slate says it best: SHE COMES WHEN SHE COMES.

Captain Brack works the sweep — a half-skorl of Brinemoot stock whose grandmother swore the Salt Peace on the river ice. He is silent to Morvach at each cast-off and talkative the rest of the crossing; his river yarns are worth the fare, which is nothing (the Ford Compact subsidizes the crossing, and always has).

The East Landing

The far side is a plank landing with a salt-greened bell and a turf waiting-shelter kept by the oldest law on the river — whoever waits, tends the fire. The hollow is a recovery node: warmth wells up here the way it does at the hearthsprings, so the wait home doubles as a mend. It is the only mercy on that bank. One step east, the tended world ends.

The hunting ladder

Ground Level What lives there
The Wrackline (shingle, driftwood tangle, old reaver mooring stones) 5 Brine boars — barrel-sized, salt-crusted, and firmly of the opinion that the bank is theirs. Skinnable.
The Saltmeads (salt-grass, eider hummocks, salt pans) 6 Mead-lynxes — gray as the light and exactly as quiet; you see the one that lets you. Prized pelts.
The Drowned Fence & the Cut 7 Wrack-shamblers — fence-rail and bladder-wrack knotted into a walking opinion. The marsh-folk say the Lady of Reeds makes them to walk her fencelines. Their heartwood knots sell well.
The Tidewife's Grotto (down the tidal creek) 9 The Tidewife — the grotto's housekeeper, shaped of river-water and patience, shelving four centuries of the river's takings. She is the bank's principal fight, carries substantial loot, and her luminous tide-pearl is the richest skin on the bank.

All four are Registry bounty targets at Emberford (BOUNTY at the taskmaster), and the skins sell at the Furrier's Hall. The old mooring stones and the creek-side offerings are Reaver Tides history, in place.

Notes for the crossing-wise

  • The east bank has no gate to run for. The landing shelter is a node, not a sanctuary — the ferry is your retreat, on her schedule, not yours. Time your withdrawal by the bells.
  • The salt pans announce every step you take on the crust; the lynxes know this better than you do.
  • The creek-side offerings (glass, tin, knotted grass) are the marsh-folk's rent to the grotto's landlady. Nothing enforces the custom. Everyone keeps it.

See also