Oops, I made a mistake in the final editing of Chapter Two. I was tired at the time and for some dumb reason I arbitrarily decided to change the value of a silver coin from fifty coppers to twenty. This is wrong and I’ve changed it back, so one silver is now worth fifty copper pieces. Sorry for the error. I hope you are enjoying the story.

Now about my screwy writing style, I change between first person and third person points of view. When writing about the main character, James, it is almost always in first person. But when writing about someone else it is ALWAYS in third person. So if you see an “I” you know it’s about James.

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Chapter 4: Drake’s Landing

“James, I’m Colonel Ellen Rivers, commander of the Fifth Regiment. I understand that you have a way to cross Drake’s Swamp?”

“I can go across the swamp but I’m not saying it’s a safe journey. I never saw that kraken the Lieutenant and Sergeant saw, but it still scared me and there are probably more of them in that lake plus other dangerous creatures.”

“But you can make wards that will work against them?”

“Wards are not effective all of the time and I’ve never tested my kraken ward. With a croc you can still get away but with a kraken, I don’t think so.”

“How much will it cost for you to take me over to the other side?”

“Oh, I’ll do it for free. Lately, I’ve been talking a lot more to people in this village and they’ve explained to me how this war and the blockade, during the past fifteen years; has really hurt them and the Gulf Kingdom. So if I can help a little, I will. I just want you to know that we might not be coming back.”

We talked some more and she and her party agreed to stay in the inn in town while they took the potions, I required them to take. Smith and Simms should be okay but I gave them another dose of the health potion, just to be sure. I would be back in eight days to take the four of them across. The fourth person in their group was Captain Nancy Carter.

I took Bethany home with me and she proved to be a fantastic cook who was absolutely brilliant at making rhubarb pies. She told me that little Gloria was doing fine and barely had a scar on her leg. Eight days later I returned her to the village with her full pay and bonus. It wasn’t her fault that I would be gone for longer than a week. If I got back in time she would return and finish working the remainder of the month.

For some reason Colonel Rivers seemed fascinated by my home and liked to poke into everything. She pestered me with questions about what I could do and what I couldn’t do. I had made an anti kraken weapon but I had no idea if it would work or work quickly enough. It consisted of a short spear which I had Marcus the blacksmith make for me. There were holes in the spear head that were loaded with jellies made from some of the most potent venoms and poisons that I knew about. I had further concentrated those toxic substances. The short spear had a rune on it that would propel it through the air for at least a thousand long steps in my tests. I had to glue on large feathers, to act like fletching to get it to fly reasonably straight. The spear was loaded into a wooden tube to protect people, namely me, from being poisoned by it. I could launch the spear by aiming the tube and invoking the rune. I had made four of them and I prayed that I wouldn’t have to use them.

My new bigger boat held all five of us comfortably but without magic it would have been difficult for me to propel by myself. I found out that the Colonel was squeamish and refused to eat frog legs. When I offered her snake she just gave me a look that promised a painful death.

“James, what is your last name?”

“I don’t know. The Swamp Witch bought me. I never knew her last name and I don’t know the name of my birth family. For that matter I don’t even know if James is my real name. I think the Witch just pulled it out of the air one day.”

This seemed to upset her quite a bit. “You must have a last name. I’ll need something to use in my report to the King.”

Sergeant Simms spoke up. “Colonel, most of the villagers call him Swamp Boy. Since this is Drake’s Swamp. Why don’t we just call him James Drake?”

This suggestion seemed to please the Colonel and she adopted it immediately. I guess I had a last name now, I could think of worse names and in fact I rather liked it.

“James, I noticed your home was made of large stone blocks. Do you have any idea how they got there?”

“Well Colonel, originally I thought that the place was built before the swamp formed here. Lately I’ve come up with another idea. I think someone turned regular swamp soil into those stones and I’ve almost got it figured out how they did it or how I could do something similar. It takes both a potion and a spell but I’ve almost got it working. I plan to build a wall around my home for better protection and maybe a stone boat house and a dock too. To make the stones, first you need to build a form to hold the dirt, then you pour on a bucket or two of a diluted potion and finally you use the spell. I’m confident that I’ve got the potion right and it’s an easy one to make but the spell is tricky and my books hint at another version, of the one that I’m attempting to use, which might be better.”

“For a boy who was raised by an old witch in a swamp you seem to speak very well. Can you explain that to me?”

“I speak the way I heard the Witch talk. From notes that I’ve found in my home, she was brought to this swamp by a real Sorceress. But Lauren was lazy and the Sorceress suddenly died somehow. I think that the Witch originally came from a wealthy family and only chose to serve as the apprentice of a true Sorceress because it was Lauren’s last chance of becoming one herself. But I could be wrong. My reading still isn’t the best and I’m guessing at a lot of things based on a few scratches on some old parchments.”

We camped out just before the great lake and the next morning we set off across it. We went slowly to give the wards plenty of time to work. The new kraken ward did seem to repel some of the larger creatures that I sensed in the depths but not all of them. Those that failed to move, I steered around. I reported as much to my passengers. Two days later we landed and they departed my boat, I retreated back into the swamp to watch the shore.

Colonel Rivers and Lieutenant Smith returned the next day. The other two showed up two days later, I had been teaching the Colonel how to fish in the meantime. She absolutely refused to eat snake, turtle, frogs or crawfish. Poor girl doesn’t know what she’s missing.

We returned to my keep, where the four of them started making fanciful plans to invade the Eastern Empire via the swamp. I had fun burning down their ideas until finally they came up with something that might work if they were lucky. Though far too much of their plan depended on my cooperation.

I returned them to the village and they had me introduce them to Michelle, my favorite boat maker. They made Michelle a very happy woman. I think their nuts. The Colonel placed a big order with me for potions, I wasn’t sure if I was going to even try and fill it. I would probably never be paid and it was a lot of work.

For her invasion plan to be a success she needed at least four potion makers, two ward makers, ten magic using boat pilots and some magic users who know construction. From the way they talked all they had was me.

I hired some people to help me prepare potion ingredients and keep my house clean. That winter and early spring sucked as I worked my ass off.

An army came marching into town, early the following spring. I met again with the Colonel.

“Colonel I’ve prepared five thousand doses of fever potion and the same number of health potions. But I’ve only had time to make a thousand doses of each of the six main venoms or poisons that might be encountered in this swamp. You’ll have to decide what you are going to do with the available potions. You probably don’t have it now but if you can ever pay me, that amount of potions will cost you eighty gold pieces.”

She seemed to be shocked at that figure, just like I expected. I held out little hope of ever being paid.

Later the Colonel talked with Major Annette Williams about the cost for the concoctions. “I can’t believe it Ann, he not only made sixteen thousand doses of potion during the last six months but he’s only charging me eighty gold coins. He has absolutely no idea, how much that many potions would cost us in Sweet Port!”

“You’re right Colonel; I estimate that it would be at least four hundred gold coins that is, if we could even get such a large order filled.”

“Yes, but most of the time the problem with potions is getting the ingredients. At least, that’s according to the excuses I’ve always heard at the magic shops and from potion makers. Young Drake gets all of his ingredients from this swamp and he’s been living in it for years, so he knows where to find exactly what he needs.”

I next had to start engraving wards into all of the boats that Michelle had made and was still making. I had a month to get them done. Oh my poor aching hands and back. Michelle had recruited every carpenter and boat builder that she knew about and had accomplished a small miracle in producing over sixty large flat bottom boats that could hold from fourteen to eighteen people each. But that was only half of the number of pirogues that the Colonel needed. While I was engraving the boats, three hundred soldiers were being taught how to live in the swamp by the some of the local people. Frank, Simon and Diane, who had all helped me out at my place, helped teach the soldiers. Those three hundred soldiers had all been given the anti-venom potions and they would all soon be grateful for that protection.

“Colonel, I need more help. There are too many wards that your soldiers require. There are boats to be guided across that lake and the fort you want to have constructed. I can’t do this all by myself.” I was being run ragged and so far, I had only received a token payment from the Colonel; though it had been more than enough to pay the people that I had hired, to help prepare the potion ingredients for me.

“James I’m sorry. All of the Kingdom’s available mages are being used to defend our coast or helping my brother with his assault, which is taking place over the mountains north of here, or they are involved with private concerns that they absolutely cannot be taken away from.”

Ellen was worried, James looked exhausted. She well knew how hard she was working him but she felt she had no choice. Her father was only giving her minimal backing with her plan, while giving her older brother all he could ask for and even more. She was tired of living in the shadows of her less intelligent brothers. So much so that she was willing to gamble with this plan here. It offered a real chance at finally striking a telling blow against their enemy. She had been authorized to recruit her own regiment and because of certain prejudices and interference by her brothers, sixty percent of her soldiers were women with little experience and most of the men had no experience at all. She had tried to correct things with a brutal training regimen but her soldiers were still mostly untested.

“James, originally we were supposed to start moving our forces across the swamp, a month after our arrival here and we estimated that it would take a slightly longer than thirty days to transport my entire regiment using the system that we’ve worked out. I’ve decided to postpone things for two more months. Which gives you time to make more wards and my soldiers more time to train and get adapted to the swamp. It also gives Michelle more time to make the boats which I so desperately need. Okay?”

I wearily nodded my head and left her room in the inn which she had turned into an office.

Ellen was extremely angry; she had a real chance of pulling this off despite the lack of support that her father was giving her in terms of troops, finances and magic. The fact that this area was such a backwater and everything was so inexpensive, such as food, was the only thing saving her plans from utter ruin.

When we set off after the two month delay, each group of forty men had a full set of wards to use when camping at night. I led off the first group of fifteen boats. It took us three days to get to the lake. The soldiers had to pole their pirogues through the swamp; I used the rune to move mine. Major Williams was riding with me. The trail behind us was being marked with colorful banners. Each boat held fourteen soldiers, with six propelling their pirogues and the others resting. The Colonel wanted all of her forces transferred in thirty days. I think she was dreaming.

When we got to the lake, I put a long tow bar across the back of my boat. The fifteen boats attached themselves to the tow bar in three lines of five, using wooden poles rigidly connected between their pirogues. It was a strain on me but by using that connection, I could invoke and power the movement runes on their boats and propel them across the lake. Using my witch sight, I guided the boats across the vast lake steering around all the large creatures that wouldn’t move out of our way. I was worn out when we finally made it across that large body of water and promptly fell asleep. Maybe I should only be moving twelve boats, but then the Colonel would yell at me. I don’t do well when people yell at me. I should have told her no when all this stuff first started but I had stupidly agreed to do it. At the time I had been foolishly impressed with dealing with an actual princess.

It took another three days before we made it to some islands that were close to the area, where the Colonel wanted to build her fort. The soldiers would hide on the islands until all of her forces were brought from Ester’s Village and then the entire Fifth Regiment would all be landed in a single day. Many of the soldiers had been trained to find food in the swamps, each trooper had a week’s worth of emergency rations, and in addition every boat carried two hundred pounds of supplies.

Primarily because of bad weather we missed the Colonel’s deadline. It took us an extra ten days but we didn’t lose a single soldier during the crossing which I thought to be impossible.

We landed and started building the fort that our commander wanted. Marker stakes had long since been pounded into the ground, by an advance party, laying out the design for the new fortress. It could be plainly seen that there used to be a town located here on our planned building site but it had withered away long ago. Forms had already been pre-built to make the stones for the fort. I had teams helping me to mix the needed concoctions. It was a good thing they were so easy to make. Each form was eight steps long, four wide and three high. When it was filled with dirt, two buckets of potion would be poured on top. I would wait a quarter candle mark and then cast the first spell.

I had found that the best way to make these blocks was to use a potion and two spells. The first spell turned it into something like stone and the second made it permanent. Two hours after the first spell I would cast the second. Five thousand soldiers with wheelbarrows can move a lot of dirt but I could only cast spells for twenty blocks and two batches of stone locking pegs per day, before I got too tired to work. We needed another magic user!

Thirty days later, the outline of the fort was done and the Colonel was tired of waiting. She sent out four thousand soldiers. Three thousand were to attack a port on the coast. The other thousand were to attack nearby villages and towns getting needed supplies for the fort; mostly wagons, horses, mules and oxen.

Ellen had cautiously led her soldiers to the coastal town of Boxer. It wasn’t a big port but it did have some of the Imperial Navy stationed there. She was going to return the favor they had given the Gulf Kingdom and teach them about surprise attacks. James had made some twin potions for her regiment, when the potion flasks were broken the concoctions would mix and burst into flames. She hoped to burn some of the Imperial Ships that night. Scouts had gotten close to the town but not so close that they were spotted by the Imperial Secret Police. She knew that her forces had to have been seen by at least some of locals, because they were simply far too large a group not to have been seen. But to her relief, the Fifth had only come up against the occasional civilian patrol and not anyone from the Imperial Military. She just couldn’t understand her luck but she would play this hand for as long as she could.

Admiral Corn, Baron of Lock, was hearing again those idiotic tall tales about an army marching from the north. It was pure nonsense! He was a navy man and he knew damn good and well that his navy had been keeping the Gulf Kingdom fenced in for years.

Ellen had divided her regiment of five thousand soldiers into battalions of a thousand each. Those battalions were commanded by majors. The battalions were then divided evenly into a ten companies, each with a hundred troopers. The companies were made up by four platoons, each consisting of twenty-five soldiers. It wasn’t exactly the way the rest of the army did things but people instinctively understood those sort of numbers and it made logistics and planning sessions far easier. So until she saw a reason to change, the Princess would continue using those unit sizes for the Fifth Regiment.

Two battalions were ordered to the harbor with instructions to destroy anything of military value, especially ships. The other battalion was sent into the town and told to raise some hell but they were instructed to be careful and were ordered not to separate into anything less than company in strength. All of the soldiers were informed about the need to acquire supplies. They were also told to avoid unnecessary loss of civilian life.

The soldiers started walking for the town at a quick pace and they had been told to only charge when ordered to. The Royal Officers were expecting to be spotted and then challenged but that never happened. Poorly trained Imperial troops didn’t believe their eyes when they saw the approaching Royal Army. They delayed so long that they realized it would mean their deaths if they then confronted the rapidly approaching soldiers. Some of the Imperial soldiers ran off, some were quietly disarmed and a few died because they behaved stupidly.

The Royal forces didn’t have to run until they were within a quarter mile of the harbor and by then it was far too late. Admiral Corn awoke to see his harbor and all of his ships in it, a sea of flame. The civilians in the town were all fleeing to the east in panic. Wagons, carts, horses, mules and oxen were being seized by the Fifth Regiment. There had been casualties but they were few, four dead and thirty-five wounded. It had gone so well that Ellen had decided to march on another port, which lay further to the east, in the morning. First and second battalions were ordered to get some rest immediately. Third battalion was to provide security and continue scavenging for supplies.

According to reports they had successfully destroyed seven large vessels of the Imperial Navy and six smaller ships.

The next morning four hundred mounted soldiers, leading remounts, started off for the Harbor of Sven. Their orders were to infiltrate the town in force that night and to burn as many ships as they could. They were told that the rest of the First and Second Battalions would be following at their best speed but not to expect them until late the following day.

Captain Carter was leading the mounted forces and she wanted a little payback for what the Empire had been doing to the Gulf Kingdom for the past fifteen years. They arrived that night and scouts found the best way to approach. While the town seemed to be at higher level of alert their fast pace had beaten the majority of the refugees fleeing from Boxer.

When Ellen arrived the following afternoon she saw smoke rising from the city. Captain Carter was holed up in a walled estate west of the town center. She had been wounded. Of the four hundred soldiers, forty-two were dead and almost two hundred had been wounded. But they had faced superior numbers of the Imperial Marines who were widely feared in the Gulf Kingdom because of their numerous raids on the Kingdom’s coastal towns.

Carter’s forces had successfully set fire to at least four major warships and eight lesser vessels, perhaps more. Colonel Rivers sent in her forces to finish the job. While the Imperial forces had more marines than Captain Carter had soldiers, they didn’t have more combatants than Ellen had with her. The Royal Army crushed the Marines and destroyed several more ships.

While the Colonel would have liked to have attacked another port, she decided that it would be pushing her luck far too far. The Princess ordered her troops to head north and make a half loop through the enemy lands, eventually making their way back her new fortress, which for some reason her soldiers were calling Drake’s Landing.

She didn’t take common Imperial Soldiers as prisoners, the Regiment didn’t have the resources to handle them but she didn’t have them killed either. If the enemy combatants were unwounded she had one leg and one arm broken. Yes, it was a cruel but it was better than death and she needed to keep those Imperial Marines and Soldiers out of the line of battle for as long as was possible. But officers, nobility and the wealthy were taken prisoner.

It took three months for the fort at Drake’s Landing, to be as ready as Ellen wanted it to be. Small scouting patrols from the Imperial Forces had been seen but there had been no attacks. The Princess had sent out four of her five battalions in numerous raids and attacks in the meantime. She had sent off several letters to her father and older brother telling them of her success but as of yet she had heard nothing back in reply which was worrisome, since more than enough time had passed, especially in her brother’s case who was far closer, to answer her.

Once a month I went back to Ester’s Village for supplies and news but so far no news and no pay chests either. It’s a good thing that the Regiment had been able to loot so many wealthy buildings. The Colonel had enough coin to pay her soldiers and she had already given them a share of what was looted. I had time to make some potions for Mack and while on my visits to the village I would refresh the wards there. Michelle was still churning out pirogues; the Colonel wanted at least two hundred and fifty of the boats.

It was almost spring and still Ellen had no word from her father; in desperation she sent off Major Williams, a hundred soldiers, their prisoners and a quarter of the looted valuables, back to Sweet Port.

Two months later the King was confronted with the truth. He had been convinced by his advisors to ignore the letters from his daughter who had always been perceived by others, as being a bit headstrong. They thought she had been lying in an attempt to get further support for her insane plan to invade across Drake’s Swamp, especially since she was relying on the magic from a self taught twelve year old boy. The chest of gold and silver coins and the long line of prisoners made the King look like a fool. Major Williams was livid with anger at some of the things that she had heard from some of those in attendance that day in the King’s Throne Room. She had to wonder who in the hell she had been fighting and bleeding for.

King Richard Rivers called a conference in his private chambers after the revelations in his throne room. “We know now that my daughter has not been lying to us, it is to my everlasting shame that I failed to believe her and did not at least send someone there to verify her words to me. General Ames you will immediately dispatch all available forces to Ester’s Village to reinforce her. You will transfer at least half of Prince Edward’s army to her. Since we failed to adequately make use of her success I am promoting her to General and she will command all forces that come into the Eastern Empire through the bridgehead that she has established. I know that it is tight but I want at least a regiment to arrive in Ester’s Village in six weeks. We must get her more soldiers as quickly as possible, according to Major Williams my daughter will be under heavy attack within a month.”

General Ames spoke. “My King, it may already be too late to reinforce her. We will have better luck in continuing with our plan to force our way over the mountains.”

“General, I remember long and well who suggested to me that I not support my daughter and that she was only a young and foolish woman! When I requested you to send an inspection party to verify her letters, you dissuaded me! You had better pray that it is not too late to reinforce her. If you can’t do your job, I’ll find someone who can. Those forces you send her had better include at least a third of the mages assigned to the Royal Army too.”

General Ames left the room white faced in anger but also worried. He had been supporting the Royal Heir, Prince Edward, for years and now that might have come back to bite him on the ass. The King had many years left in him, more than enough to make sure that Ames regretted his mistakes.

During the winter months James had built a second wall around the fort on Drake’s Landing, the new outer wall gave their animals a sheltered area to graze in. Then too, he had carved runes into the shields of many of the Colonel’s soldiers. Those runes had proven to be lifesaving device when the Imperial Wizards had finally attacked. The wizards had sent in a fog full of poison that would have killed any other army but the entire Fifth Regiment had by this time all been dosed with various anti-poison potions and they simply shrugged off the choking fog. Then a plague of biting insects was sent in to drive them insane but James’s wards quickly chased off the bugs. His tall and stout walls of stone shrugged off the fireballs launched by the enemy magic users. In response to the enemy attacks, Ellen launched massive stones and flaming balls of fire using large trebuchets that she had previously had constructed.

Potions were keeping the Soldiers healthy and James was even making healing potions every couple of days now. It wasn’t a miracle cure because it didn’t instantly put a soldier back on their feet but a person who should have been dead would instead be back in action within two weeks or less.

I seem to have invented my own healing potion. It isn’t as good as a real healing potion but it’s easier to make and it doesn’t need as many rare ingredients. It was the wastage that had frustrated me in making the other potion. I had discovered my new potion by experimenting with a concoction that included some of the ingredients from a healing potion in one of my book and the components from two different health potions from two other books. My witch sight had informed me that it should work and it shouldn’t be fatal to the recipient but I had been worried. Sergeant Simms had been my first test subject but she had known the dangers and with burns over most of her body, she had immediately accepted the risk. She was now completely healthy but for some reason her hair had changed color. I wish I had time to make more of those potions but I’m kept so very busy. I also need to make potions for any reinforcements that might arrive; they will need them in order to survive crossing Drake’s Swamp.

The outlook was bleak and Ellen was considering a retreat into the swamp. Now facing her fortress were fifteen thousand Imperial Marines backed up by an estimated fifty thousand conscripts from the Imperial Army. The enemy also had a great deal of magical support. The other day in desperation, she had used the kraken tubes on them. These weapons had been made by her soldiers and James had engraved them with his runes. The difficulty with them was that they worked best when fired on the level and not when pointing down from the walls of her fortress. Captain Carter had led out four hundred soldiers with two hundred tubes. The spears launched from the tubes were brutal weapons that could pass through two, three and even four of the enemy at five hundred steps. But they did have their limitations. You had to use the weapon within eight days or the magic had to be recast. But it had put fear into even the much vaunted Imperial Marines.

“James we are down to less than three thousand soldiers, many of those are wounded and would be dead if not for you. I don’t know if we can hold out but I will send you back to the village once more with a full load of our most severely injured. If necessary we will retreat back in to the swamp and wait for your return.”

I left the room feeling saddened, the Colonel seemed almost broken, she had lost too many of her soldiers in this fight.

I used my magic to propel eight pirogues through the swamp. I couldn’t handle any more boats in this tricky place. When I came to the lake I doubled the boats up and shortened the chain for the voyage home. Lieutenant Smith was keeping me company; he was missing an arm and two legs now. I promised to research and develop a regeneration potion for him.