Chapter 12: The Invisible Attack

Two days later a meeting was held. The King, Princess Ellen, Treasury Minister Walter Cooper, Intelligence Minister Brenda Green, Admiral Samuel Taylor and General Paul Howard were in attendance. Princess Ellen was speaking.

“James has expressed an interest in purchasing a portion of Cone Island. There are only a few people that have any remaining claim to any of the land there. My recommendation is that we buy them out and give James the entirety of the island, except for its connecting isthmus. He’s always had difficulty with testing his devices within the confines of this city. By giving him that island we give him both a local home which might encourage him to stay close by and a large plot of land on which he can perform his experiments. I know there are security risks but I think that they can be overcome and that it is far better if he is on Cone Island rather than in that cursed swamp.”

Admiral Taylor replied. “Cone Island is a windswept piece of land that is little better than an overgrown sandbar. At one time, before the Imperials destroyed its breakwaters and seawalls, it had some value but now it’s practically worthless. However while saying that, we only have the one lighthouse presently, if we were to rebuild the Eastern Point Lighthouse or better yet, construct a third lighthouse on the eastern end of Cone Island too then the safety of our sailing vessels would be dramatically increased.”

The King then spoke, “We have too much building and rebuilding going on right now to construct another lighthouse or worse yet two. We’ve won the war but we may lose the peace with how hard we are working our people. We have construction projects going on all over our newly expanded kingdom. The only ones not working are the old and the lame.”

General Howard joined the conversation. “Princess, for years the Imperials attacked our coasts at will. I know now that they were so successful because of their blasted spies but it’s still the truth. I am not as confident as you are that we would be able to protect James Drake on Cone Island; that is if our enemies make a serious attempt against him.”

“I have to concur with Paul, Princess Ellen;” said Admiral Taylor. “You want us to protect James but you also insist that we do it in secret, even keeping it from him. We would need a significant troop presence on that island in order to dissuade any of our foes from staging a kidnapping or an assassination.”

Ellen felt her hopes being shredded by those in the meeting; however with the aid of her quick mind she rallied another argument for her proposal. “With the assistance of his magical potions, James helped build the fort at Drake’s Landing in a little over four months time. Then during the winter months he added a second wall to that fortress. If he’s given some help, I’m sure that he can build the lighthouses that you want Admiral Taylor. Once they are built, you can then staff them with Marines and equip the towers with kraken tubes. I imagine that you’ll also want to put enchanted lookout tables in the lighthouses as well. I can tell James that for the price of him assisting us in the construction of those two lighthouses we’ll give him the rest of the island. I don’t know how fast he is now at making those giant stone blocks but he certainly picked up speed in the Empire as he gained proficiency with the potion and those two spells that he used. So it would be within my expectations that he’ll have those two towers done so fast that it will positively shock you, that is so long as we can get him enough people to make the necessary wooden forms and haul sand.”

It was General Howard that replied to Princess Ellen’s proposal. “Your Highness when James built your fortress and those other fortifications in the Empire, he had the aid of the Fifth Regiment and later on the additional soldiers that we sent you. Our forces are stretched thin patrolling the newly expanded Gulf Kingdom. The platoon that was sent with young Drake the other day served multiple purposes on that journey besides just guarding him. The small fort we have on Cone Island is only staffed with a single squad and they are only there to alert us in case of an enemy attack.

The Soldiers, Sailors and Marines that we have at this present time, have been pushed to their very limits and they desire nothing more than to return home to their families now that the conflict is apparently over. No matter how much I like you or James, I cannot in good conscience assign any military personnel to help build those lighthouses. While this Kingdom’s soldiers would certainly see the building of fortifications in the new territories as part of their job; I don’t think that they would view the construction of a lighthouse just outside of Sweet Port as being a task that the military should engage in. On the other hand, they and I would view James’s security as being something of great import. So if somehow you convince him to build two lighthouses on Cone Island then I will assign two squads to him, during the construction process, to act as his bodyguards; but that would include the squad that is already on that island.”

“I would also assign at least two squads of Marines to help protect young Drake, an assignment so close to Sweet Port would not be seen as a hardship posting by my Marines,” offered Admiral Taylor.

The King and the Treasury Minister enthusiastically joined in the conversation, envisioning how the Kingdom would soon have two new lighthouses without any kind of financial outlay.

Ellen got angry. “I CANNOT BELIEVE YOU PEOPLE! James has done so much for us, and he has received scant payment in return. Oh sure, we’re promising to give him a part or all of Drake’s Swamp but that place is worthless to anyone else but him. Not only has he done wonderful things for this Kingdom, but he continues to present us with marvelous new inventions! I know for a fact that he is close to a breakthrough in giving normal people witch sight and such a thing will be an invaluable tool for our scouts and lookouts. I tried giving him an almost worthless tiny little island so that we could keep him nearby and now you want him to build two gigantic structures without any aid at all. Come this summer James will be done with school and unless we give him a reason to stick around here, he’ll be gone. And I can’t say that I can blame him with the way that he’s been treated and so penuriously rewarded for his remarkable accomplishments.

The King timidly spoke up. “I plan on making him a Count, shouldn’t that make him happy?”

“Father would you be happy to be the Count of a swamp where the only income that it generates comes from the sweat of your own brow, a swamp with no other inhabitants? Besides that I don’t really think that James cares one whit about being a noble. He has been impressed by so few of us. He’s given us gifts that would have emptied half the treasury if the Guild had invented them. Those Mages would have insisted that we reward them properly with both lands and gold, yet you won’t give James a windswept sandbar tinier than any of the Kingdom’s baronies and less than half the size of most of the holdings of our landed knights.”

“What would you have me do my daughter?”

“The Mage Guild has been refusing to make and use of James’s stone potions and spells. They say it’s because mere construction work is beneath them. In truth I think that their excuse is only partially true. It is my believe that they are unable to make the potion as easy and efficiently as James can, so as an excuse they say that Drake’s stone potion is beneath them. The Royal Spire Lighthouse took six years to build and cost this Kingdom over 135,000 gold pieces. I propose that in compensation we offer my friend, one sixth of that amount to build a lighthouse half the size of the Spire. If he builds us two lighthouses, then that amount would double which then make it approximately forty-five thousand gold coins that we would owe him, in addition to that we would also gift him with the remainder of Cone Island as well. Knowing his abilities, it should take him only a year or two those structures, that is if he can acquire enough laborers.”

The King turned to look at Baron Cooper, the Minister of the Treasury, who nodded his head back at the King. Seeing his nod, His Royal Majesty responded. “You have my agreement and support so long as James agrees to it. General Howard, Admiral Taylor and Countess Green, I expect you three to figure out the security arrangements for our Mister Drake. I don’t want him coming to any harm.”

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Commodore Barbara Nelson was almost at the half way point in her voyage to the Kingdom of Fata. She was commanding a convoy of eight vessels, four Navy ships and four merchant vessels loaded with magically preserved citrus fruits, olive, grapes, wine and olive oil. The cold clime on the Great Island of Fata was not suited to growing such things. Livestock, wheat and potatoes were their main staples.

The Kingdom of Fata hadn’t been paying a fair price for the Gulf’s produce for almost two decades; it was past time for that to end, thought Commodore Nelson. Recently, the Gulf merchants had for the first time ever, refused the visiting buyers from Fata. Forcing a new deal to be struck; the Fata buyers would instead pay a much more agreeable price upon the delivery of the goods to their own country, instead of the paltry sums that they had been paying in Sweet Port.

But there was a problem. No one trusted the Kingdom of Fata, at least no one in the Gulf Kingdom. So with the King’s backing, a ridiculously strong escort force had been sent along to protect the merchant ships. Barbara recalled the night her frigate was attacked by two invisible ships. While the Eastern Empire was the primary suspect, the Kingdom of Fata was a close second on the list.

Commodore Nelson had four Gulf Kingdom Ships; her own Gulf’s Pride, the brig Nemesis and the brigantines Challenger and Sprint. They were escorting four barques, which were laden with almost two thousand tons of cargo.

Before the war, the height of naval power had been the giant carracks; and engagements had been primarily fought as boarding actions between ships once the combatants’ mages had exhausted themselves. Barbara thought of her first posting, on the original Gulf’s Pride. A huge vessel that towered over other craft which made it easy for the ship’s archers, mages and ballista crews to launch attacks down upon enemy ships. She had been a midshipwoman aboard the Pride, one of only a few females to actually achieve such an assignment. The Gulf Kingdom had been much more patriarchal during those days. The war had subsequently forced dramatic changes upon the Navy and the Army.

The first Gulf’s Pride had burned to the water line just off the coast of Sweet Port and Barbara had nearly gone down with it. Since then, every attempt that the Kingdom had made to build more of those giant war carracks had ended in failure either because of an enemy attack or by sabotage. The Gulf Navy had been forced to rely on smaller easier to build ships; such as sloops, schooners, brigantines and brigs. They hadn’t even been able to build anything as large as a frigate until recently. Now the Kingdom’s complete lack of large warships might turn out to be a good thing. The invention of the kraken tube and ship based magical shields had changed the definition of a good warship. Barbara now saw the great value of a fleet based on fast brigantines, brigs, and frigates; and she had to wonder if the costly and hard to produce giant warships of old had any value at all in this new modern era. She well knew that her own Gulf’s Pride cost less than a tenth of the original and it had taken less than a quarter of the time to build too. As for brigs they could be built in less than six months and that was with a covered kraken tube deck, their only downside being that their narrow beam did not permit them to carry the new long range kraken tubes as part of their broadside, as a frigate could easily do.

Commodore Nelson broke off her revery and returned her eyes to the ocean, she was worried and she wouldn’t be content until her flotilla was safely back at home. Barbara had the kraken tube crews on all of her ships training with the watchmen on the lookout tables. There was only one mage, in her entire convoy, that had even a modicum of talent with his witch sight ability and the Commodore definitely felt irritated with that lack of capability amongst her forces. The Gulf Kingdom only had 158 mages available for military service and many of those were inferior to the five hundred or so, stay at home members of the mage guild. While the Navy had recently recruited some more “mages” those were people who only had enough magic to recharge and operate the new kraken tubes, spears and shields; some of those wondrous devices they couldn’t even recharge, the “mages” could only activate them. Not a one of the new mages had the witch sight ability.

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The following morning, Ellen joined James for breakfast. “I spoke with my father last night about Cone Island. The Crown is offering to pay you forty-five thousand gold pieces and gift you with almost the entire island, if you’ll construct two lighthouses for the Kingdom, one at the eastern terminus of Cone Island and the other at the western end. You’ll be responsible for the design, materials and manpower; and the towers have to be at least half the height of the Royal Spire. What do you think?”

I looked back at Princess Ellen and said the first thing that came to mind. “If you’re going to pay me forty-five thousand gold pieces for two lighthouses, then I was really undercharging you and the Kingdom all during that bloody war!”

Ellen at least had the grace to look embarrassed. “I’m sorry James back then I didn’t have a lot of power to reward you properly, now I do. If you do accept this job, you should know that your greatest problem will probably be finding enough able bodied workers. The Kingdom has too many jobs and not enough people right now to do them. You might also have some difficulty acquiring lumber, steel, copper, brass, tin and iron.”

I slowly ate my meal as I pondered Ellen’s offer and the limited support that I would have. My thinking was sluggish because I was a little tired from working late last night on a new set of buttons for myself. The other day, when riding around in my new boat, I had a sudden inspiration strike me, the kind of thing where I thought, why didn’t I think of creating such a magical device before? It had sounded so tremendous that I had to get to work on it right away because it was such an obvious idea that I didn’t want to risk someone else coming up with it first. The test results had been extremely good for a first attempt and I couldn’t wait to get back to work on my project. I had to solve two problems, one with the control and the other with comfort.

As for Ellen’s offer, frankly the gold didn’t interest me all that much but the thought of building two giant lighthouses excited me. But where would I find the construction crews and the materials? I couldn’t build everything by myself or out of stone.

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“Commodore, the lookout table has multiple magical dots just coming in from the edge. Estimated range is less than half a league,” shouted the table watchwoman.

“Communications board, send a signal to the rest of the convoy alerting them and calling them to full combat readiness. Then send a message back to the Admiralty reporting to them our magical contacts and my actions,” ordered Commodore Nelson, she turned to her first officer.

“Commander Bell, please check with our visual lookouts since it isn’t even dusk yet, they should have long since seen something and reported it. We can only assume that we have incoming enemy invisible ships, unless our lookouts are all asleep at their posts.” The Commander did as ordered checking with each lookout and taking the opportunity to verify things with her own eyes, which is what she knew her superior really wanted her to do in the first place.

“Communications board, please verify that all escorts are taking station between the enemy and the merchant ship that they are designated to protect. Also verify that they know to activate their shields when the enemy gets within an estimated 800 long steps.”

The merchant ships had communication boards but they were being operated by Navy personnel in secure rooms within the cargo vessels. The civilian sailors knew that messages came in and out of those rooms but they had no idea how it was all being done.

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“Admiral,” Count Samuel Taylor looked up as his aide rushed into his office. “Commodore Nelson’s flotilla is being approached by numerous invisible ships.”

The Admiral rushed out of his office and to the Admiralty’s brand new Communications Room. The boards had only recently been created and Nelson’s ships were among only a handful of vessels that had already received the new magical devices. He once more thanked the heavens for James Drake; if Nelson was defeated the Kingdom would have never known what had really happened to her without the new boards.

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Out on the ocean, with the lowering of the Sun, it was getting harder to see. Commodore Nelson fully expected the invisible ships to rush in as soon full dark fell upon them.

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Landgrave Griffin Thorne cursed when he saw the GKS vessels maneuvering to protect their charges. The invisibility magic that his people had recently rediscovered in the tomes of a famous deceased mad wizard was proof against those mages who possessed even marginal witch sight. Unfortunately, those magic users with superior talents could see through the invisibility shields. But according to the Landgrave’s sources; his foes had no more than one or two gifted mages aboard the Gulf Kingdom ships. Thorne decided to delay his attack and await for true midnight, until then his men could rest and conserve their strength, while their Gulf Kingdom adversaries would be forced to keep alert at their posts all the while, and all the time dreading what they knew was coming their way. Thorne grinned malevolently and chuckled, he reveled in his believe that his actions were causing the Gulf Kingdom sailors to quake in fear.

Griffin Thorne was greedy for new slaves and the cargo in the holds of the Gulf Kingdom ships. While they might not be carrying gold, the exotic produce that the ships did carry would bring plenty of gold coin, once it arrived on Fata. He would teach those ill bred mongrel Gulfies to never rise above themselves again! The damn arrogance of such people, to refuse to sell to his Kingdom’s merchants! Little did those Gulfy degenerate, scum realize that even with the failure of the Eastern Empire, which was practically a secret client state of Fata, they were doomed. In no more than a year or two, the entirety of the Gulf Kingdom would be under the yoke of the Kingdom of Fata.

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Commodore Nelson was frustrated; the enemy vessels were simply keeping pace, with her ships. Her invisible foes were just waiting out there in the darkness, a little more than a thousand long steps away. She knew that the unseen Commander of those ships was just biding his time and waiting for her own forces to grow tired. She just wished that the one mage that she had, who possessed witch sight, was actually able to see something with it. If Barbara didn’t have such faith in James Drake she would almost believe nothing was out there, but all of his devices had always worked and the red health potion that he had given her, had certainly put a spring back into her step.

The Commodore had given orders for her communication people to send regular reports back to the Admiralty even if nothing was happening and when something did happen to report that as well and not wait for her to draft a formal message. There was a possibility that her forces would be quickly defeated and the Admiralty would need to know as much as possible, as soon as possible.

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Admiral Samuel Taylor had ordered Commodore Nelson’s convoy to turn around after learning that her most powerful mage couldn’t see a blasted thing. He was organizing a rescue force and he was busy acquiring the most powerful mages that he could lay his hands on, except for James Drake that is, he was simply too valuable to risk. Admiral Taylor had two problems, he didn’t have nearly enough ships and some of the mages were proving reluctant to accompany his rescue flotilla. As far as ships went, the Navy had less than a third of what they were authorized to have by the Crown and too many of those vessels were sloops and schooners, thankfully the kraken tubes and magical shields had proved to be a heck of an equalizer.

Sam had finally managed to put together a patch work force of ten ships, consisting of the sister ship of the Gulf’s Pride, two brigs, three brigantines and four schooners. He suddenly recalled Princess Ellen saying that James had almost cracked the witch sight problem. He wrote off a hurried message sending for the young magical genius.

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I was working on my new harness when Sergeant Roy Russell came running into my workshop. Good thing that it wasn’t a minute earlier, it would have been embarrassing.

“James, a Naval Convoy is under attack by a fleet of invisible ships. Admiral Taylor is requesting that you bring whatever witch sight devices you have, to the Admiralty.”

Well no rest for the wicked. I gathered up my six completed helms and we walked outside to find my carriage already waiting for me, maybe I could sleep on the way.

Upon arriving at the Admiralty, I learned about the current situation and I showed the Admiral the magical visors. “I don’t know how long they will last Sam. I think it should be at least a couple of months but sunlight will make them fail faster.”

He tried one of the ungainly looking things on. They were pretty uncomfortable. He seemed to be mesmerized by all the new things that he could suddenly see. There were lines and collections of magic all about us and in us. He walked into a darkened room and navigated through it perfectly.

“James this is wonderful. When can the Mage Guild start production of them?”

“That’s the problem, this device requires a potion and so far, I’m the only one that can make it. Both Dean Marks and Professor Julia King have tried and failed. I seriously doubt that there is anyone better in the Mage Guild than those two. But both ladies have promised to keep on trying.”

“James we’ve got to have more of these devices, even if we weren’t suddenly facing invisible ships. The ability to see at night alone would make them invaluable to us.”

I sighed; I knew this was going to happen. “Okay, I’ll make more of them but I’m not promising how many I’ll create every day. I’ll just send you the glass bottles,” I tapped the glass visor, “and you can figure out how to mount them onto something. If Paul wants some of them, I’ll give you each half of whatever I do make but I’m going to charge you for them since I hate making the concoctions and I want you to appreciate these devices. So each one will cost you twenty gold coins and I will probably raise my prices whenever I feel like it. When you’re not using them, keep them in a box so no light can reach the glass visors, that way they will last longer.”

“No problem James, the Navy really does appreciate what you have already done for us. By the way, how has your work been going in the development of those magic seeking kraken spears?”

Today just got even worse, I hadn’t wanted to talk about that particular failure but I guess I had to. “Sam that was one of the dumbest ideas that I ever had for two reasons. I could make a kraken spear detect magic; the problem was that the spears own runes of movement are fairly powerful when activated, so the only thing that my experimental kraken spear was able to detect was itself. But even if I figured out that problem, I would still have to find a way for the kraken spear’s detection magic to somehow control the movement runes and steer the spear towards a target. When I seriously looked at that last problem, I discovered something, it’s BLOODY IMPOSSIBLE AND I’M AN IDIOT! So please don’t bring it up again or I might be forced to kill you.”

Admiral Taylor didn’t know what to make of an obviously upset James Drake. So he did the only thing that he could think of, he decided to pretend that he had never asked that last question and he moved on to other things. “Thank you again James for these new visors, whatever the Navy can do for you just let me know.” With that he let his aid escort an agitated young Drake from the building and the Admiral went back to planning for tomorrow’s departure.

I walked back to my carriage. Rich looked at me, “ready to get back to your suite?”

“Nope, DRIVER,” I called out in a loud voice. “You’ve been to my shipwright’s place; we need to go there now, please.”

“Yes sir, I’ll have you there in short order.”

I leaned back in my seat and started making plans. I wonder who I could drag into this. I looked at my two sergeants and grinned evilly at them.

Sofia was not happy when I woke her up by pounding on her door.

“What in the blazes do you want Drake?”

“How would you like me to put military grade enchantments on your sloop, and equip it with long range kraken tubes, so we can all go off and rescue a convoy of Gulf Kingdom ships which are four hundred leagues from here, in the open ocean?”

She looked hungrily at me. “Who are we going to kill, maybe some Imperial snakes?”

“We’re not sure yet, it could be them or it might be some people from Fata.”

“That’s where the snakes first came from; I guess that makes them snakes too. What do I need to do?” We spoke for over an hour making our plans. After which, I was once more back in my coach and heading home to the University but not to sleep. I needed to wake up my new crew; they were so new that they didn’t even know that they were crew yet. There was no way that I could stand around while the Gulf’s Pride was being threatened, that ship held far too many of my red longevity potion test subjects!

My servants were busy in my quarters, packing up the things that were thought necessary for my trip, such as food, bedding and clothing. I was in my workshop preparing what I needed for a pleasant ocean excursion. Currently, I was selecting the best of my thin bottle rejects, in which I’ll pour the last two of my witch sight potions. Some of the bottles weren’t thin enough or weren’t clear enough but I was sure that I would find something useable.

My sergeants finally returned with my invited guests, they all looked a little grouchy.

“Hello Dean Marks and Professors, I am sorry to disturb your slumber but I need your help. I am prepared to appeal to your patriotism or pay you, whichever works is fine with me. Right now, there is a Gulf Kingdom convoy that is being attacked by invisible enemy ships. The Admiralty is sending off a rescue fleet with powerful mages on board but I don’t think that they will make it in time. I on the other hand, know of two small fast vessels; that can rendezvous with that besieged convoy in less than half the Navy’s best estimated transit time. The problem is that I need some help, your help to be exact. So do any of you want to go on an ocean cruise, meet some nasty magical enemies and kill them?”

Professor Heather Lee, my composition teacher, was the first one to speak. “But I’m just a language teacher, why could you possibly want me to go with you?”

“I need you and Professor Tanner because you both worked on the military’s new codes. We have two boats and I need one of you on each of the craft to operate their communication boards. Professor Tanner is also knowledgeable when it comes to the lookout tables.”

It took some private conversations, some begging and a few minor bribes but after two hours of talking, I had my crew. They left to pack small bags and to make arrangements for their absence from the University.

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Landgrave Thorne was leading a force of nineteen schooners. None of the ships were over eighty-four steps in length and crew sizes varied from seventy to one hundred men. Courtesy of the recently deceased and possibly still screaming Lord Bartholomew Thomas, all of the ships were equipped with kraken spears. Thorne, using his ship’s message caster, sent a series of carefully timed pulses to his fleet, ordering them to begin the attack.

He sent five vessels each against the frigate and the brig; as for the brigantines, each of them had four ships seeking to kill them. Griffin planned on staying out of the battle for now, so that he could better control things.

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Commodore Nelson watched the lookout table as the enemy ships approached her flotilla. She had earlier ordered her Captains to activate their shields when the enemy closed to eight hundred long steps and that they were to start shooting when their foes were three hundred and twenty long steps away from their own vessels. Her ship with her long range tubes would start shooting as soon as one of her other vessels launched their spears. Since the kraken tubes were silent she would have to play close attention to any visual clues the spears left. Hopefully those clues would be enemy ships exploding into flames.

The Captain of the GKS Sprint, a brigantine measuring 132 steps in length, was keeping his eyes glued to the lookout table. It looked like his ship was to be the one opening the battle and launching the first spears. Three hundred and twenty long steps was the maximum range of his vessel’s broadside. The Sprint did have four of the long range tubes but they were only in the bow and stern. Captain Simms watched closely as the three enemy ships crossed a line on the table and he yelled out the order for the assigned tubes to “Shoot!”

His tube crews had been kept constantly informed about their approaching enemy’s location and course. The tube crews had also been given the appropriate assignments so that they would target the most suitable enemy vessel for their kraken tube. All spears were carrying the flame concoctions and the crews had been told to space their shots since their foes were invisible.

The first broadside was launched and astonishingly tubes one and three actually hit the same enemy ship. But perhaps it wasn’t so astonishing, since the enemy had been maintaining a constant speed and course; perhaps they had been too overly confident because of their invisibility and the darkness. They had been certain that the convoy didn’t have enough gifted witch sight users that could pierce their veils of invisibility. Sadly, those were the only successes from the Sprint’s first broadside but kraken tubes were very quick to reload.

The Kingdom of Fata didn’t name the schooners destined to be used in their invisible fleet, simply because they planned on constructing vast numbers of the cheap and easy to build vessels, and as a result all such schooners merely bore a number. It was the “His Supreme Majesty’s Ship” 23 that took the first two blows. The twin flame potions started fires in both the bow and stern of that vessel, destroying its invisibility and leaving it an easy target.

Landgrave Thorne was shocked when he saw one of his schooners burst into flame. How was that happening he asked himself? The Gulf Ships were launching attacks from beyond the range of both kraken tubes and most mage’s attack spells. The Fata Island Wizards might be able to attack a stationary target from further away but certainly not a moving ship, purely because those types of long range spells took far too long to cast.

The tube crews on the Gulf’s Pride were very well trained, experienced at fighting invisible ships and while their tubes were loaded with old model kraken spears, those spears were loaded into long range kraken tubes which gave them an effective range of 480 long steps. The Pride being the largest ship of Nelson’s “fleet” had a broadside of twenty-four tubes.

Of the five schooners attacking the Gulf’s Pride; HSMS 33, 7, and 21, were all hit once and lightly damaged. Ship 8 was severely damaged and only the HSMS 18 escaped unharmed from the Pride’s initial salvo.

Commodore Nelson and her crew screamed with joy at their startling success. They had all wanted some payback for what had happened earlier that year. The wounded and now visible enemy vessels were easy meat for the Gulf’s Pride jubilant crew.

The Fata Fleet was beginning to panic. Landgrave Thorne ordered a messaged sent off, requesting immediate reinforcements. He knew that there was a fleet of twenty HSMS vessels, no more than one hundred leagues southeast of his current position.

It was the GKS Challenger’s turn next. Sadly it only struck one blow against a single enemy craft but it succeeded in badly damaging the HSMS 12.

Captain William Wong of the Nemesis was looking to get into the action too, and after an agonizing wait the enemy finally got within the range of his tubes. The thirteen spears, launched by the GKS Nemesis had three successes. One spear hit the HSMS 17, severely damaging it and two more struck the HSMS 42, turning it into a blazing inferno.

The GKS Sprint launched its second salvo but it only succeeded in killing the ship that it had already wounded. It failed to hit any of the other three ships that had attempted to attack it. Those three HSMS vessels were all now frantically trying to safely withdraw from the area.

Commodore Nelson’s ship launched its second broadside. The Pride put two spears into each of the vessels it had earlier damaged, turning them into blazing hulks. The wizards on board those schooners futilely fought the flames, trying desperately to save their ships. But once again James Drake’s flame bottles showed their superiority to wizard launched fireballs, with their sheer persistence. As for the HSMS 18 that had been trying so frantically to escape, it was struck four times and it didn’t need any more follow up shots in order to kill it, it was already a blazing mass of flames, from stem to stern.

The Challenger only succeeded in destroying the first ship it had struck, the other three enemy vessels were able to safely withdraw.

Captain Wong’s ship had almost as great a success as the much larger Gulf’s Pride. Its follow up salvo of thirteen tubes destroyed the already revealed vessels 17 and 42 while further damaging the HSMS 3. But the Nemesis also struck blows against the HSMS 37, three times and the HSMS 48, twice. Captain Wong grinned viciously at his burning foes. His father had been the old Gulf’s Pride Captain and whenever William Wong fought and destroyed an enemy of the Gulf Kingdom, he thought of it as getting back at those who had taken his father from him.

Off the nineteen ships in the Landgrave’s flotilla, ten were a mass of flames and two more were on fire and had been revealed. This was a catastrophe for the Kingdom of Fata; it was too soon for the Gulfies to learn what nation commanded the invisible ships. Thorne cursed long and loud, his spies had been deceived! He reasoned that the damn mongrel bastards must have snuck two or even three highly skilled mages onto each of their ships, that being the only way that they could have seen through the invisibility shields, or at least the only way that he could think of. He still hadn’t figured out how they had managed to shoot their kraken spears so far, but he had confidence that his own nation’s wizards would soon figure out that particular trick.

Commodore Nelson seeing the enemy ships withdrawing, on the lookout table, ordered her ships’ longboats to be lowered so that they might look for survivors. She wanted answers and she was determined to get them.

The second HSMS fleet, responding to an urgent message from Landgrave Thorne, decided to risk casting a dangerous weather spell in order to increase their speed.

The Gulf Kingdom Marines, manning the longboats, were careful when picking up the few enemy survivors, chances were that at least one of them was a wizard, so the Marines blindfolded and bound them all. Once that was done, they forced strong drink down their prisoners’ throats in order to scramble their senses. The Marines were also prepared to cosh them on the head if necessary. All of the prisoners were brought to the Gulf’s Pride since it was the largest ship.

Admiral Taylor was overjoyed to learn of Nelson’s success but he didn’t pause in readying the rescue fleet, he knew how quickly fortunes could turn.

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The GKS fleet wasn’t supposed to win! I like to do things randomly so that I’m surprised too. The battle was rolled with a random number generator and what happened wasn’t what I had been expecting; especially what the Nemesis did, since it’s only a little larger than a brigantine warship.

My warships classes are not how things were exactly done in our own past.

The following list is based on size and sail plan/rig.

Sloop: 21 to 50 steps long, single mast

Ketch: 50 to 126 steps long, two masts

Schooner: 50 to 154 steps long, two masts

GKS Brigantine: 132 steps long, two masts, all of its tubes are on the weather deck, twenty standard kraken tubes on the sides and four long range tubes in the bow and stern. Build time one to two months.

GKS Brig: 165 steps long, two masts, dedicated tube deck, twenty-six standard kraken tubes on the sides and four long range tubes in the bow and stern. Build time four to six months.

GKS Frigate (heavy): 304 steps long, three masts, dedicated tube deck, forty-eight tubes on the sides and eight tubes in the bow and stern, all tubes are the long range version. Build time fifteen to eighteen months.

Gulf Kingdom Cargo Ship Sizes

Ketch: 50 to 126 steps long, two masts.

Schooner: 50 to 154 steps long, two masts.

Barque: 143 steps long, three masts, 430 tons of cargo.

Barque: 188 steps long, three masts, 500 tons of cargo.

Nothing bigger at this time, they were destroyed.

Ships are measured from stern to the tip of the bowsprit, and bowsprits can be as much as a third of the vessel’s total length. Wiki is a wonderful source of information and that is where I got most of mine from.

Remember that kraken tubes are not cannons. Tubes are built of wood and therefore they are much lighter than heavy iron, brass and steel cannons. So the GKS warships are built a little differently than our own sailing warships.

I hoped you enjoyed this chapter, if you see any flaws please leave a comment.