The wind at Fang Gorge carried the briny tang of seawater as it rushed through the gap, making their robes flap.
The Swordtooth Mountains stretched south from Forest Sea Province and ended here.
The mountains plunged straight into the sea, leaving an almost vertical cliff.
Holes and fissures riddled the dark gray cliff face, with only a few stubborn clumps of shrubs growing there.
Below, the waves of the Grey Sea battered the foot of the cliff, churning up foam, but there was little tidal flat.
Veylin and his companions stood at the cliff's edge.
"My lord, are you sure this is the place?" Barrett tugged at his collar, surveying the barren landscape. "There's nothing here but seabird droppings. Ships can't even approach, let alone unload."
"By the battleaxe!" Ola ground his boot against the loose stones at the cliff's edge. A few tumbled into the surging waves below, without so much as a visible splash.
"My Dwarf blood tells me that if we start work here, we won't finish in less than ten or twenty years!"
Veylin ignored the ground beneath his feet, directing his gaze toward the enormous cliff face instead.
The cliff stood almost perpendicular to the sea.
"We'll carve straight into this mountain."
"We'll cut out platforms, one level after another, like steps, all the way down to the sea."
"Each platform will be a city district."
Everyone fell silent.
Without waiting for their questions, Veylin continued.
"Don't worry about the excavation. We have Worker Mantises. They're the finest miners imaginable. Digging through rock is as easy for them as digging up potatoes is for us."
"Then we'll plant stone-skinned soft vines, just like in Newborn Town."
Finally, he looked down at the sea.
"We'll dump the waste rock the Worker Mantises excavate straight into the