Brock Talenz climbed out of the carriage and squinted into the wind-driven snow. The bite of it was refreshing – a reminder that he was very much alive. Cinching his grey wool cloak into his fist to block the wind, Brock turned toward his longtime friend, Cassius DeSanus, who was seated in the carriage.
The king of Torinland was a shell of what he had once been. Before his tenure as king, Cassius had carved a legendary career as a captain in the Holy Army. Now nearing sixty, Cassius’ hair had gone gray and the lines on his face had deepened. But, the years were not the cause of the man’s condition.
A foiled assassination attempt had robbed Cassius of his strength, leaving him barely able to stand. The citadel minister had acted with urgency, using her skill with Order to save the man’s life within seconds of his attack, but blackbane was extremely lethal. A drop of the poison could kill in less than a minute. Although the poison had run through his veins only a short time, his nervous system suffered permanent damage and left him unable to walk without a cane, his hand now rarely able to hold steady. Still, Brock respected the man for his mind and integrity. Not even poison could sap those resources.
“Issal willing,” Brock said, “I’ll see you in the spring.”
Cassius, nodded. “Until then, my friend, be well.”
When the carriage door closed, the driver snapped the reins, and the horses lurched into motion bringing King Cassius back to the Nor Torin citadel.
Brock turned toward his son, Broland. “Let us board so we can escape this wind.”
Twenty Torinland soldiers marched behind Brock and his son as they headed toward the nearest pier. Flakes continued to drift down from the grey clouds overhead, leaving a blanket of white over the city of Nor Torin. Despite the winter storm, the docks were busy, filled with dockworkers loading ships.
Four ships hugged this particular pier, two on either side, each vessel rocking as the water roiled. When he reached the Razor, Brock led Broland up the plank and onto the ship’s deck. Half of the guards followed while the remainder continued to the next vessel.
A pair of sailors unhooked the mooring lines, ran up the plank, and pulled it on board while others scurried about the ship under the direction of Captain Tenzi Thanes. When Tenzi spotted Brock and his son, she turned toward one of her trusted crewmembers, gave the man instructions, and descended to the main deck, walking purposefully toward Brock and Broland.
“Welcome aboard Razor, your Majesty,” Tenzi said as she bowed.
“Thank you, Captain.” Brock said firmly before stepping close and lowering his voice. “I’m sorry we could not depart sooner, Tenzi. I know you are eager to free Parker and Dalwin, but…I must consider the bigger picture. There are far more than two lives at stake.”
The frustration on Tenzi’s face was apparent. “I just hope they are still...”
Brock put his hand on her shoulder. “As do I. Both men are my friends, but my crown does not allow me to place a higher value on their lives than on those of thousands of subjects.”
She turned away. “I know. I just feel so…helpless.”
“We will recapture Wayport. And when we do, Chadwick and Illiri will pay for their betrayal.”
“Oh, they will pay. If I have my way,” she drew a knife and ran her finger along the blade. “It will be a very drawn out payment, one that might take days or weeks to complete.”
“Tenzi…I cannot condone torture.” Brock’s tone was harder than steel.
“Fine,” Tenzi sighed. She sheathed her dagger as a gust of wind struck, forcing her to grip the brim of her black hat. “I have a ship to sail. Why don’t you two rest in my cabin? It is warm in there now that I finally got the hole repaired. At least that came out of sitting here for eight days.”
“Very well,” Brock said.
Tenzi turned and climbed the stairs to the quarterdeck while Brock and Broland ducked into her cabin.
Dim light seeped through the window along the outer wall, joined by the pale blue glow of a lamp on a wall sconce – both light sources fighting to keep the shadows at bay. While Broland crossed the room and sat on the bed, Brock grabbed a chair beside the small round table and withdrew a map from his coat. Unfolding the map, he spread it across the tabletop and considered his plan.
“How long will it take to sail to Wayport?” Broland asked.
Brock looked up at him, blinking in thought. “Remember, we have stops to make at Port Choya and Sunbleth. Even then, it depends on the weather. All things considered, I expect to land in Wayport ten days from now.”
Seemingly satisfied, Broland fell silent. Shifting his focus back to the map, Brock withdrew a pen from the inside pocket of his leather coat. Not just any pen, this one was a gift from Pherran Nindlerod – a memento from the day Brock first met the kind old engineering master. Unlike others, this pen contained an internal inkwell. As Brock stared at it, a smile crossed his face – a rarity over the previous five weeks.
The assassination attempt against him and his family left Brock brooding. A desire for vengeance gnawed at him, something he repeatedly pushed aside. Varius and the Empire had made the war personal with that attack, which made it difficult for him to remain pragmatic when planning his response.
He closed his eyes and sought his center, sinking into the peace he found within his own source of Order. I must remember the goodness in this world and not allow this war to harden me. Brock thought. Well, not too hard, at least.
The ship rocked, the motion causing Brock to open his eyes and slip from his meditation.
“We hit the breakers,” he said to Broland. “This might be an unpleasant journey with the storm over us.”
Razor was now beyond the relatively smooth harbor waters, and the waves had grown tenfold. Everything tilted as the ship rocked. Clanking and banging of hanging cookware came from the galley next door.
“I don’t feel well.” Broland’s face had gone pale, his hand pressed against his stomach.
“Seasickness.” Brock nodded, knowingly. “This is only your second voyage, and the last was quite tame. I suggest you go back outside and watch the shoreline until your stomach settles. It helps.”
Without another word, Broland stumbled toward the door, opened it to the howling wind, and slammed it shut. Alone, Brock studied the map and considered his plan. An armada of eight ships had just departed Nor Torin, each vessel loaded with ten Torinland warriors and ten civilians in addition to the crew. Those civilians were special – his secret weapon.
With the help of Cassius, Brock had collected almost every arcanist in Torinland, from Millings to Flynn’s Corner, from Selbin to Nor Torin. Among those civilians were people he had freed from imprisonment a lifetime ago. They had fought a war for him once. He swore he wouldn’t ask them to do it again.
While it is a wound against my integrity, these people may be the difference between freedom and death. Regardless of their participation, their lives are as much at risk as mine should we lose.
With stops planned for Port Choya and Sunbleth, Brock hoped to double the size of his force, including troops and magic users, by the time they reached Wayport. He would need them once he retook the city, a thought that brought up another problem.
Recapturing Wayport would be easier if collateral damage were not a risk. I must find a way to remove Chadwick and those most loyal to him with as little violence as possible. The soldiers and citizens of Wayport were his subjects. He needed to protect them, not kill them. More selfishly, he would need them for the struggle to follow. With that goal, he set his mind to the task. Chaos is assuredly the answer, but how to best leverage it? How large of a force will be required? He closed his eyes and imagined Wayport, considering his options.
The ship continued to rock from side to side, the motion beginning to affect Brock as nausea set in. He opened his eyes, folded the map, and slipped it into his pocket as he made for the door.
Stepping outside, he found the sails filled with the gusting wind and the snow changed to a steady drizzle. Two ships ran even with the Razor while the other five in the armada trailed behind. To the port side, Brock then noticed another fleet nestled in a protected bay.
Brock turned and climbed the quarterdeck as sailors scurried about the distant narrow-bodied longships. “Ri Star? What are they doing down here?”
The Ri Starian crafts raised anchor, the oars at their sides moving the longships toward deeper water as the Razor and the trailing armada sailed past. Tenzi called for another sailor to take the helm while she dug out a tube with glass on each end. She aimed the tube toward the ships, looking through it as the Ri Starian vessels unfurled their sails.
With shock, she gasped. “Flash cannons! They plan to attack!”
Considering what he knew of Ri Star, Brock recalled his previous interactions with Queen Olvaria. In his two decades as King of Kantaria, he had only met Olvaria three times. Despite her polite exterior, Brock had always sensed a hard edge to the woman. She often argued that her queendom was small and lacked resources. If not for their diamond mines, Ri Star had little bargaining power when it came to trade.
With Ri Star consisting of nothing but Ilsands nestled in dangerous waters, they had naturally developed Issalia’s premier navy. Manned by tough, experienced sailors and a crew of oarsmen below deck, Ri Starian longships were the fastest in the world. Having those vessels armed with flash cannons was a frightening prospect.
A flash of green fire and a puff of smoke billowed from the lead Ri Starian ship. A boom followed, and a projectile hit the trailing vessel of the Torin armada, sending a blast of splinters into the air.
“This is bad.” Brock’s tone was grim. “Queen Olvaria has thrown her lot in with the Empire.”
Another longship fired, also striking the trailing Torin ship, this time near the waterline. The wounded vessel rocked, tilted to one side, and turned toward shore, but it was too late. The ship was sinking while sailors and passengers scrambled for the lifeboat.
“We have to stop them!” Brock put his hand on Tenzi’s shoulder. “Slow down so the rest of the armada can pass us.”
She turned back toward the enemy fleet. “Once we are in range, they are going to fire at us.”
“I know, but I don’t have a choice. Just trust me.”
“Fine.” With her face in a scowl, Tenzi bellowed out orders, sending sailors up the masts to lower the upper sails.
Brock leaped down to the main deck where he spotted Stein. The man stood at the rail watching the trailing ships, his attention shifting toward Brock as he drew close.
“Stein! I need you to run below deck and instruct the other arcanists to begin applying Reduce Gravity augmentations to the deck. I want a large rune drawn near the bow, one in the middle, and one near the quarterdeck. Have them stack augmentations.”
“Stack them? You know what will happen.” Stein’s expression revealed his doubt.
“Just do it.”
As Stein ran to the stairs and disappeared below deck, Brock darted back to Tenzi’s cabin. He burst in and searched the room, his gaze falling on the small, round table bolted to the floor. With his boot heel against it, he gave it a shove but it didn’t move. He then picked up the chair and swung hard. The chair smashed into the table, scattering broken wood pieces onto the bed and across the floor. Brock gripped the tilted tabletop and lifted, tearing it off the base with a loud crack. He then set the tabletop on the floor and began to carve a symbol into the wood with the tip of his dagger. Once finished, he picked up the tabletop and ran back outside.
The drizzling rain continued, driven by the wind and leaving the deck slick. Razor had fallen behind most of the fleet, and the last remaining vessel was nearly upon them. Stein and the nine other arcanists were on deck with a group at the bow, a group in the center, and a group right beside Brock, near the stern. A man in the nearest group hurriedly traced a symbol with a chunk of coal. The diameter of the rune was half the width of the ship.
“Be sure to get the symbol exact!” Brock warned. “A misdrawn rune will kill us all!”
Still clutching the three-foot diameter table, Brock scrambled up the stairs to find the Ri Starian fleet less than a quarter-mile behind them.
“Tenzi!” he hollered. “Raise the sails the moment you see this rune activate!”
Without waiting, he closed his eyes and embraced the anxiety of the moment. The raw and angry energy of Chaos surrounded him, and he drew it in as easily as drawing a breath. Within seconds, a raging torrent of raw power surged throughout his body, threatening to tear him apart. Brock opened his eyes and gazed upon the rune he had etched into the table. It flared to life with a fiery glow, and Tenzi commanded her crew to raise the sails.
Brock ran across the quarterdeck and, with a grunt, threw the tabletop toward the Ri Starian fleet. It spun like a disc, the charged rune etched in the wood pulsing and fading as the tabletop struck the water.
A boom and a blast of green flame burst from a cannon on the bow of the nearest enemy vessel, launching a metal ball toward Razor. The projectile hit just below the quarterdeck with a massive crack that sent Brock, Broland, and Tenzi stumbling. It smashed through the rear of the captain’s cabin and emerged out the other side, destroying the quarterdeck stairs in a burst of splintered wood.
“No! Not again!” Tenzi roared in frustration.
The floating tabletop then turned pure white and the churning ocean around it began to freeze. A thunderous crack came from the ice and it expanded in a roar of pops and snaps. The air over the center turned the drizzle to snow that thickened into a swirling localized blizzard.
Razor rocked and began to rise out of the water, sending those on board stumbling as the craft lifted upward. Brock leaned against the rearmost rail and watched the expanding ring of ice race toward them, far faster than the ship sailed. He glanced backward to see the Reduce Gravity runes on the deck, again pulsing with the next augmentation about to take hold.
“Come on. Just a little more lift,” he urged, nervous that the ice would reach them too soon.
The ship lurched and rose up higher, tilting as the hull came out of the water and the wind pushed against the sails. Broland fell into Brock, both of them rolling across the quarterdeck until they wedged against the port side rail. Tenzi held tight to the wheel. The sailors and arcanists toppled to the deck, many sliding across it before slamming into the rail. A sailor on the main mast slipped, spun, and dangled by a rope briefly before falling into the ocean.
Brock pulled himself up and peeked over the rail. The ice ring had expanded beyond their position, the ocean now a white, choppy, uneven surface of frozen waves. The trailing fleet crashed into the ice in a massive collision, damaging hulls and launching crew members overboard. The sailors who landed on the ice did not move.
As the Razor floated away, tilted at a hard angle a hundred feet above the ocean, the ice continued to expand. In the distance. Brock spotted a lifeboat from the sinking Torin vessel, fighting the churning waves as it headed toward land. Between him and the ship, the sea had become an Island of ice, two miles in diameter. Ten Ri Starian longships were locked in the ice and would remain there until the augmentation expired. Even then, Brock suspected that most of those vessels were too damaged to make it to shore. Those ships will no longer be a problem.
“That was too close,” Broland said.
“I can’t steer!” Tenzi spun the wheel with no response. “The rudder is useless! We are drifting toward the cliffs!” She cupped her hands to her mouth and bellowed, “Lower the sails!”
Tenzi leapt off the quarterdeck and ran toward the main mast, which was unmanned. The sailors in the other two masts worked frantically to lower the sails while Tenzi scaled the main mast. Brock climbed his way up the angled deck to the starboard rail and looked down. They had passed most of the fleet with only the lead ship still ahead of them.
“Broland, follow me.” Brock leapt over the broken stairs and landed on the main deck, almost falling on the slippery, tilted surface.
With Broland following, Brock bolted to the closet beside the galley and opened the door to reveal three ballistae, three-foot long bolts, and long coils of rope. As the sails came down, the deck began to level, making it easier to stand.
Joely appeared beside the door. “What can I do?”
“Both of you, help me with this,” Brock said as he lifted one of the heavy ballistae.
Once the weapon was out the door, Brock returned to the closet, grabbed two coils of heavy rope, and threw one over each shoulder before scooping up a ballista bolt with a grappling hook on the end.
“Broland, Joely, Stein,” Brock said as he moved past them. ”Carry the ballista to the bow.”
As the trio scrambled to pick up the ballista, Brock looked up to find only the lowest sails still unfurled. The ship had slowed and leveled but was still headed toward the cliffs.
With Broland, Joely, and Stein in tow, Brock led them to the prow. The Razor was now even with the leading ship – the craft a few hundred feet to the starboard side and a hundred feet below them. Kneeling, Brock tied the two coils of rope together and then tied one end to a massive cleat normally used when docking. As he secured the other end to the eyelet on the ballista bolt, he issued instructions.
“Rest the ballista on the rail and hold tight.” He turned to Joely. “You know this weapon. We only get one shot. Make it count.”
Joely nodded, eyeing his target while Brock cranked the launch mechanism back, inserted the bolt into the ballista, and held on tight.
Joely tilted the ballista upward and moved it slightly to the right. He pulled the release trigger, and the bolt launched, the recoil sending Brock, Broland, and Stein stumbling to the deck. The coil of rope rapidly unwound as it slid over the rail, chasing the projectile.
Brock scrambled to his feet and watched the bolt fly toward the other ship. It hit a sail, tearing it. Reaching the end of the rope, the grappling hook recoiled and leaped backward, spinning around the main mast before latching on. The rope drew tight and the Razor lurched, causing everyone on board to stagger.
Razor’s prow dipped and tilted toward the ship towing them. Their direction altered slightly, but the cliffside was approaching fast. The cliff drew close…too close to avoid. A deep grinding sound came from the hull. Razor lurched and shook as it scraped across the cliff face. Moments later, the sound ceased and the ship slipped free.
A glance over the rail provided a wave of relief. They had cleared the obstruction and were now heading toward open waters. Brock wiped his brow and turned to find Tenzi glaring at him, her fists on her hips.
“What’s wrong?” he asked.
“I have a hole in my ship, thanks to you.” She gestured back at her cabin and the broken stairs.
Looking through the opening, Brock was able to see the cliffs behind them, slipping into the distance. “Yes. I’m sorry about that.”
Tenzi crossed her arms and stared north, toward the trapped longships, now appearing as dark specs in a field of white. After a moment, she sighed. “I know you did your best. I just wish they would stop firing flash cannons at my ship.”
Brock moved closer and put his hand on her shoulder. “I’m sorry, Tenzi. However, look around you. We are a hundred feet above the water. You may have a hole in your cabin, but I am willing to bet that Razor is also the first flying ship. Ever. It should make a great story next time you’re having drinks with other sailors.”