If you spot any mistakes, trust me they are there, please leave a comment pointing them out, thank you.

I’ve inserted dashed lines when the point of view changes.

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Chapter 13: Just Sit Right Back and You’ll Hear a Tale.

We arrived at Sofia Overgaard’s small dockyard about an hour before dawn. She was busy stocking both of our vessels with supplies. The ladies were all to sail on her sloop, while the men would be in my coble. Both our crafts were quite small, especially mine, and while there are mixed crews nowadays on the larger vessels, to do the same on our small boats would be embarrassing what with our normal biological functions and all.

Sofia’s two adult children had insisted on going along with us. Naja would be sailing with her mother and Gill would be with me. I introduced Sofia to the rest of her crew; Dean Greta Marks, Professor Julia King, Professor Sara Sanchez, and Professor Heather Lee. My crew consisted of Gill, my sergeants, Professor Quentin Black and Professor Montgomery Tanner. I had looted the best of the University’s magical staff for our adventure. We still had to get our little vessels ready but unlike what happened in Ester’s Village so long ago, this time I had competent mages to help me.

We put shield runes on Sofia’s sloop, and then installed the communications boards, lookout tables and long range kraken tubes on both of our boats and it only took a little over an hour to do all of that.

I had another gift for my boat builder. “Sofia, this is a water purifying cask.” I presented her with a small wooden barrel that had a tap in the bottom; the cask was one step in diameter and three steps long. “I use this type of thing in the swamp to purify my own drinking water but it works just fine for salt water too. You just pour dirty water in the top part and the bottom half of the cask fills up with the clean water. It takes about ten minutes for it to fill up completely. Periodically you need to clean out all of the crud that gets left behind in the top half of the cask and of course you’ll need to charge it with magic if you sense its energy is running low.

This other thing I have here, is a pane for a witch sight visor. If you look through it, it’s just as if you were born with witch sight, Dean Marks and Professor King both know all about it and they can explain it to you on the way. It normally goes on a helmet but we don’t have any more of those left, so you’ll have to figure out how to wear it or something. I’ve got another one for my pirogue.”

I had acquired an audience while I was explaining the cask and visor pane to Sofia. Professor Black spoke up, he seemed a little agitated. “James, how long have you been making these visors and casks?”

“The visors are new, but I’ve been making the casks for years. Swamp water is filled with all kinds of nasty stuff and I got tired of boiling water or wasting a potion while purifying only a single barrel of water, so after a little research and experimentation, I came up with these casks, they’re much more convenient.”

Professor Black looked at Dean Marks, who just shook her head and spoke. “I know Quentin but we can talk about this after the mission. It’s not the first time he’s done something like this.”

Sofia’s sloop had at least three times the volume of my little Coble as a result the six ladies were fairly comfortable aboard, that little ship. On the other hand, we six men were crammed into my little boat, along with a kraken tube, spears and all of our other supplies; it was going to be a miserable trip for us. It was even my idea, which made it all the worse since I had no one that I could complain to.

We headed out of the harbor, keeping our speed down, and we passed the rescue fleet along the way. Once we were well on our way, I would send a message to Admiral Taylor explaining what we were doing, that way he wouldn’t be able to yell at me. I still react poorly when people shout at me.

Everything was fine until we left the harbor; I increased the speed of my coble and then I looked to our rear, so as to see how Sofia was doing. Oh Swamp Muck! I could see that her sloop was falling quickly behind and was completely unable to keep up with us. I had expected them to be slower but not by that much. I guess we should have tested things first. Gill spoke, “My mother was wondering what she has to do to make her sloop go as fast as this boat. Is there something she might be doing wrong, or does her vessel maybe need more magic? We took it out yesterday and we could only make it go about half as fast as your boat.”

I looked at him and then I exchanged looks with Professor Black. “Gill, I really wish your mother would have told me about this earlier. The movement runes I have on her sloop are the best that I can make, I can do no better and her boat can’t go any faster, I guess. I was expecting it to be a little slower because her sloop is so much larger than my pirogue but not by that much, I’m sorry.” Professor Tanner was busy at our communications board, probably exchanging messages with Professor Lee about this very problem. “I’ll take you all back to shore. Sofia’s vessel looks to be only a little faster than a regular sailing ship, so she won’t be able to make it in time to help the convoy. But her boat carries two of our three kraken tubes; and we’ll be losing too much of our fighting power with the sloop not with us. So our task becomes a lot more dangerous and I didn’t recruit any of you for a suicide mission, so I’ll drop you all off back at the Overgaard dock.”

Sergeant Russell quickly spoke up. “But you’re still going aren’t you? You’ve never sailed across anything bigger than Kraken Lake, yet you’re going off into the Vestalia Ocean, in something the size of a ship’s pinnace, and by yourself yet. To the blazes with that James, I wanted to be in the Navy all along, I was raised as a fisherman and I know how to navigate too. You didn’t even know that we needed an enchanted chronometer to plot and maintain our course. You’ll never find that convoy on your own.

My father and uncle disappeared at sea years ago, and the bastards we are heading for might have had a hand in it. I’m staying; we can drop the others off.”

Gill spoke next, “Oh hell no, I am not leaving. This is a solid little boat; I think we’ve got at least a fifty percent chance of making it to the convoy alive. I owe those bastards for my siblings and a father that I can’t even remember.”

The other three men on board quickly stated that they weren’t getting off either. I let Gill and Professor Tanner explain things to Sofia and the others. If we make it back alive, I might drop the others off and just return directly to my swamp, it might be safer for me. I really didn’t need to finish my education at the University, I never wanted to be a noble and I can easily forget being a licensed mage; except for a few exceptions they all seem to be jerks.

Professor Montgomery Tanner learned through our communications board of Nelson’s surprising night-time victory and how the convoy was still being followed by at least seven invisible enemy ships. Montgomery told us that news and also informed us about the enemy prisoners that Nelson’s Marines had picked up. Evidently, our invisible foes were from the Kingdom of Fata.

We were three hours into our voyage when the weather started getting rough and my tiny ship was tossed. If not for my courageously stupid crew and stoutness of my vessel, my coble would have been lost.

We went upside down at one point but Professor Black used a spell to set us right side up again. Maybe I should attend his class more often? My boat has two chair style seats by the front windows and two benches behind them. When the waves had first started to grow, Gill had affixed ropes and straps to our seats to hold us in place. He and Sergeant Russell had also secured all of our gear too. It’s a very good thing that they did those things or we all might have been seriously injured.

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Viscountess Delphyne Gamble was disgusted by Landgrave Thorne’s incompetence and her own role forced upon her by Fata’s male dominated society. By all rights she should have inherited her father’s title and be a Countess but instead her rank was reduced only because she was a woman. For years now she had been fighting attempts by the King, his court and the House of Nobles; to marry her off. Only two things had prevented them from succeeding, the first being that her own county was almost completely self-sufficient and the second was that she was amongst the top five most powerful wizards on the Island of Fata. So those powerful men couldn’t bend the laws too much without fearing her revenge. But as a result of all their patriarchal prejudice, Landgrave Thorne was her superior and that was even after she was the one to rediscover the invisibility shields.

The dangerous weather spell that she and her wizards had cast had speeded up her ships by a least a league per hour but even with that, it would be at least thirty-five hours before her force would catch up to Thorne and the Gulf Kingdom Convoy. More worrisome to her, was how the Fata spies in Sweet Port had reported the hurried departure of a modest yet powerful fleet of ten Gulf Kingdom Navy vessels that very morning.

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Admiral Taylor aboard the GKS Frigate, City of Sweet Port, wanted to strangle someone. It had been his intention to keep James Drake far from harm but because of that young man’s willfulness, young Drake was instead sailing straight into harm’s way, in nothing more than an overgrown dingy!

Meanwhile Admiral Taylor had a new unasked for addition to his little fleet, a small sloop that was almost a league faster than any of his ships and that was without the little vessel using any sails at all! The crew of the tiny ship had insisted that they were accompanying his flotilla and there wasn’t a damn thing that he could do about. What was worse to his mind was that he wasn’t sure that he should do anything about it even if he could, not with their speed, two long range kraken tubes and three powerful mages aboard that craft.

Because of his frustrations, Sam wanted to pound his head against the main-mast, the only reason he didn’t was that he feared what kind of impression such an act would leave with the crew of the Sweetie.

Yesterday, he had almost formalized the design for a new light frigate that would be built in place of the brigs. The new ship would be two hundred steps long and of sufficient beam, so that both the port and starboard sides; could each be equipped with seventeen of the long range kraken tubes and with eight more of those tubes in the bow and stern. Making the new vessel significantly more powerful than a brig and only taking two months longer to build, whereas the current GKS heavy frigates took at least fifteen months to construct. Admiral Taylor sadly found himself agreeing with Commodore Nelson about the impracticality of building anymore of the giant War Carracks. They simply cost too much and took too long to build. But the huge stately ships had been magnificent to behold, even if they were at least a full league slower than anything else on the oceans. However, the GKS heavy frigates would still continue to be built. They were simply better able to make long voyages, project power and survive both storms and enemy attack, than anything else that the Gulf Kingdom had or was likely to have. Admiral Taylor just wished that they didn’t take so long to build.

But his careful plans about what ships to build had been put into disarray by James Drake. Because a little ship that could travel at nine leagues per hour and carry one or two long range kraken tubes, could change Naval Warfare. Admiral Taylor’s confusing new task was to figure out how things would change and build his fleet accordingly. The mast started to look more attractive to his forehead.

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It was truly a wonderful thing that I had thought to whip up a sea sickness potion before we left the University early this morning, because four of us had a great need for it.

The storm had ended but we had other worries. The oceans are large, particularly the Vestalia Ocean which we were in, as such there is plenty of room for sea monsters and giant sea creatures. Normally, that is no problem for travelers because warded sailing vessels, travel slowly enough that their wards have time to work at chasing away those huge sea beasts. We on the other hand were traveling much faster than anything else that has ever sailed the oceans and my witch sight was now showing me something very large moving beneath the waves. Whatever it was, it was no more than a four hundred steps away from us.

“Sergeant Sanders,” I called out. Please load our kraken tube with one of the special red spears; we might have a slight problem.”

“Yes sir,” he replied in a panicky tone of voice, he well knew what the red spears were for.

“Gill; please turn the boat to the left please. I need to keep an eye on something.” Professor Black was standing in the open hatch beside me, his eyes were very wide. I think he was giggling a little. I could hear him muttering.

“It’s at least one hundred steps long but what is it; Kraken, giant shark, snake whale, or leviathan? It could be something no one has ever survived seeing before, I wonder if it’s going to swallow us whole?

My professor is such a funny guy and such a fine example for his students. I felt a sudden urge to pee.

We here heading away from the monster but it was following us. I really should have put a standard kraken tube in the back of my pirogue.

“Sergeant Russell please hand me a red spear.” Now my voice sounded panicky. Why wasn’t that beast turning away? Our wards should work against it, unless it is a completely unknown creature. Did we somehow make it angry or is it simply too hungry to veer off?

I was given the spear and I un-wrapped its head. This was the same kind of spear that I had made to kill krakens. It was loaded with the most concentrated venoms that I knew about, the only problem was that I didn’t have a launching tube to make it fly straight. Just what was I going to do?

Suddenly something immense broke the surface behind us. It had a mouth wide enough to easily swallow two boats the size of my pirogue.

Sergeant Russell screamed at Gill to “turn to port!”

Professor Black said “Oh, it’s just a giant shark,” and fainted.

We were practically inside its mouth, so I had no problem launching the spear and hitting it. I think I peed, my pants. The boat turned, and we weren’t eaten. I started to giggle.

It followed us for far too long, as Gill flung our boat about the Ocean, doing his best to prevent us from being eaten. Finally after maybe a minute or two, the shark suddenly stopped and silently sank away. I’m not sure if it died, or if it simply got too far away for my witch sight to work on it, but it was gone. I needed to change my pants and wash what I was wearing.

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Commodore Nelson didn’t know if she should arrest James Drake or kiss him when he arrived. But she doubted that a boat with only one kraken tube, no matter how fast it was (something she still couldn’t quite believe), could be of much help to her flotilla. That is until she saw the first enemy ship, amongst those seven vessels that had still been stalking her, burst into flames.

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Gill Overgaard was wearing the leather witch sight helmet and piloting the coble. He had made the helmet himself using a little of Drake’s glue and some spare leather. Professor Black and Sergeant Russell were keeping a lookout. Sergeant Sanders was prepared to load the kraken tube and James would activate it. Professor Tanner was keeping Admiral Taylor and Commodore Nelson informed about what they were doing.

The kraken tube was on a fixed mount so it was necessary for Gill to aim the entire craft at the enemy. When he thought he had a foe in range and everything was lined up properly he would yell out “Launch” to James. Gill was having the time of his life and he didn’t care, at that moment, that his life might be a very short one.

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It was late afternoon, on the second day after the GKS convoy had been originally attacked. Landgrave Thorne had his seven surviving schooners following the GKS convoy by less than one thousand long steps. He was waiting for Dalphyne’s ships to arrive and he was trying to figure out how he could blame her for this whole fiasco.

Suddenly he looked to the side and slightly behind his vessel, his eyes had been drawn that way by something that had thrown up a large spray of water as it turned in behind his little flotilla.

He could make out what looked like a pinnace but how was it travelling so swiftly? It didn’t even have sails or oars! He could barely see the spear that shot out from the bow of the tiny craft and struck a schooner on the port side of his own vessel. The stern of that ship, the HSMS 24, subsequently exploded into flame. The narrow looking pinnace heeled over and turned away in a startling maneuver. His crew was yelling and his ships were breaking formation.

The pinnace was suddenly coming back but this time towards the schooners on his starboard side. It launched another spear, catching the HSMS 28 amidships, it too caught fire.

Thorne’s fleet scattered in an attempt to flee from the small deadly predator.

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Commodore Nelson seeing two enemy ships on fire and five more fleeing ordered her fleet to slacken their pace as she brought her own ship about, so she could finish off the two stricken schooners as was the plan she had worked out with the crew of the Coble. They were to mark the enemy and she was to sink them.

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Thorne sent off a desperate plea for help to Viscountess Gamble but she was still almost five hours away and there was nothing that she could do. In desperation he was going to cast his own weather magic but it was a difficult spell which usually took an hour or more to cast, as well as a skilled wizard or two; Griffin was not a particularly skilled wizard.

In less than half an hour the Coble had marked all of HSMS vessels by setting them afire and the Gulf’s Pride was coming down upon them to finish them off. In desperation, Thorne had the colors stricken from the HSMS 38, while he and several of his crew waved white flags from the bow. Seeing the 38 strike its colors, so did the HSMS 5 and the 43, it was too late for the other four schooners of the little Fata Navy Flotilla.

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I didn’t know if it was sad or funny that my new pirogue was now being referred to as the “Coble,” Sofia had meant it as a disparaging name for my boat, so I didn’t like it so much, on the other hand who names a pirogue? Sure as heck it’s not me. I own five boats now, my small pirogue, my medium pirogue, my large pirogue, my larger pirogue and now my extra large pirogue. What’s wrong with those names? Though if I went with numbers and just numbered them in the order that I got them that might make much more sense and be simpler too. I could call this boat, Number Five.

It would have been easier on us if those three ships hadn’t surrendered. Commodore Nelson turned her convoy around so they could rendezvous with us and the captured schooners. Taking wizards prisoner is always a tricky business. We had only done it a few times in the Empire; and as a result of my experiences there, I had developed a potion that suppresses magical abilities. Without an antidote it will work for three to five days. When I was making it, I had made sure to develop an antidote at the same time. The scariest two weeks of my life was when I was testing that suppression concoction on myself but animal testing had been extremely successful, so I had decided to risk it last summer while I was home. There aren’t many creatures with an innate magical nature but there are some and I’m not just talking about dragons. The larger spiders, strangle vines, some snakes, and some of the swamp cats all have magic. So I tested my potion on those kinds of creatures. It was scary to find out that those big spiders and strangler vines needed magic in order to live, my concoction ended up killing them but the snakes and cats were fine after a week or even sooner if I gave them the antidote.

A healing potion will also remove the suppression effect but it takes a few hours to work, instead of minutes as with the antidote. Using myself as a frequent test subject allowed me to gain a partial immunity to my suppression concoction, which I maintain by periodically drinking a weak tea made with a small dose of the suppression antidote. The tea while foul tasting, is rather invigorating and with enough honey and lemon, it doesn’t make me gag. I would hate for someone to be able to use my own magical suppression potion against me.

That concoction can be administered orally or painted onto a dart like a spider’s paralytic poison and shot into a target. I had four small jugs of the potion and since a little of it goes a long ways, each jug had enough to dose ten wizards if administered orally, it took less if used on a dart but the suppression effect didn’t last half as long.

Since we were dealing with wizards, at Commodore Nelson’s request, Professor Black and I led the convoy’s Marines when boarding the enemy schooners. We started with the one that surrendered first. Sergeants Russell and Sanders went along with us, while Gill and Professor Tanner remained on Number Five.

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Commodore Nelson watched nervously as the Mages James Drake and Quentin Black led a force of forty of her Marines onto the first schooner. There were another thirty-two Marines standing by to reinforce the first group. The only reason that they had not already boarded the schooner was because they didn’t want to crowd the first five squads of Marines.

Barbara silently cursed because if anything happened to Drake she knew that her career would probably be over but she felt that she had no choice, she didn’t dare send lesser mages to shackle the Fata Island Wizards.

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I was carrying my favorite glaive and my short sword was in its scabbard at my side, but in addition I had bracers on both of my forearms. On the back of each bracer was a collection of twelve tiny tubes, each tube was a big as my index finger and they were stacked three wide and four high. The tubes on my right arm were loaded with darts dipped in paralytic spider venom and the darts on my left arm were coated with my magical suppression potion. The tubes provided the propulsive force but their effective range was only about sixty steps, which was good enough for me.

Professor Black was angry with me. When he saw my bracers and asked for his own set. I was forced to tell him no, I explained to him that I only had the one pair and it was for me since I wasn’t that accomplished of a spell caster like he was. I sure as heck was not going to tell him about the shield buttons on my coat either. I did give him a small enchanted shield which seemed to mollify him a little bit.

We got on the smoldering boat and separated out the magic users from the normal sailors. Some of the normal people actually seemed quite happy to see us, which was strange. As for the wizards, there were two above average ones aboard and five that were below average. The magic users were all forced to drink some of their own ale laced with the suppression potion, they just didn’t know about the potion, yet.

I saw some runes that looked interesting and a peculiar looking chest but we had no time to examine things just yet. We had to get the first load of prisoners over to the Gulf Kingdom ships so we could then board the other two schooners. It is never a wise idea to give a wizard time to plot or cast a major spell. For now, the enemy schooners were targeted by every kraken tube in Nelson’s little fleet, hopefully that would put enough fear into our foes so that they didn’t try anything.

It was dark, and the weather was becoming nasty but we were finally on the third enemy vessel. We had everyone secured, however just as had happened on the other two ships, some of the enemy’s ordinary seamen seemed extraordinarily glad to see us but I couldn’t understand why. They all looked like typical people from Fata with their unusually pale, almost albino like skin. I heard that the Kingdom of Fata worships white pale skin to such a degree that its people use dyes, bleaches and even potions to keep their skin almost a brilliant alabaster white. It is my understanding, that they even classify having a healthy tan as a major personal calamity.

Sergeant Russell had a perplexed look on his face and he seemed to be interested in two of those strangely happy enemy seamen. I walked over beside him, now that we had all three ships secured, I could begin to indulge my own curiosity.

The two men, that Sergeant Russell was peering at, had the most puzzling expressions on their faces. Their facial expressions alternated between looking so happy that they were ready to break out in song, to being in extreme pain as if from an intense headache.

Roy got up right up in the face of one man, staring right into his eyes which were filled with tears.

I spoke, “Sergeant Russell what has you so interested in these two men?”

Before he could answer, the strange man gasped out “my baby boy,” blood suddenly poured from the man’s nostrils and he collapsed at Roy’s feet.

Roy yelled out “Daddy” and fell to his knees holding the enemy seaman. He pulled out one of my healing potions which I had supplied him with earlier and poured it into the man’s mouth. By the color of his skin the man looked nothing like Roy but still somehow Roy thought him to be his father.

I didn’t think I would get any answers from this strange group of happy enemy seamen, so I decided to go to the top and I walked towards the newly shackled wizards.

The language of Fata has things in common with the language of the Gulf Kingdom. Enough so, that the people from both countries can generally make themselves understood, the same is also true with many of the other countries within two thousand leagues of Sweet Port. In addition, Fata shares the same identical language with the Eastern Empire and I am quite familiar with that tongue, from my three years that I spent fighting there. Besides that, many of my original magic books, which are back in my old keep, are in their written language, which is again to some extent similar to the Gulf Kingdom’s written language.

When I arrived in front of the wizards I spoke, sadly half of their number didn’t look very impressed with me. I would have to change that, I began talking to them. “I’ve lost count of the number of wizards that I’ve killed; adding to that unknown total will not bother me in the least even if I have to torture you all to death. Actually I would enjoy it. I consider all of the wizards from the Eastern Empire and the Kingdom of Fata to be poor quality shark food. I need some questions answered or I will start inflicting pain and even death upon you. Those happy prisoners over there; explain them to me and you know what I mean. DO IT NOW YOU SCUM!”

Surprisingly it was one of the braver looking ones that began to speak, probably because the truth didn’t matter and we would soon find out anyways.

“They are slaves; they have been mentally and magically conditioned not to speak about their pasts, if they attempt to do so it causes them intense pain and can sometimes even result in their deaths. I would guess that the one that fell is from your own Kingdom and he probably attempted to reveal as much to you.”

“I heard him speak, he had a Fata Island accent and his skin is so white, explain!”

“It is simple, during their initial conditioning process, to teach them to speak differently, as for their skin and hair color, why we just dip them once a month. It works superbly and since it is a painful experience it serves wonderfully as a reminder about their status in life.”

“Why would you bother to go to such extremes? That is stupid!”

“No you mongrel, you are stupid. Spending months at sea is tiresome and most people don’t like to do it. Besides that an ordinary seaman makes almost three gold coins per month; additionally he will receive a share of the profits if on a merchant vessel and if on a warship he gets a share of the spoils; compare that to the dip, which only costs thirty silvers per slave per month. Our methods make perfect sense and are entirely logical; it is perfect way to use you lesser species.

By making them, look and sound like us, even if they were to temporarily escape their ship, while it was visiting some foreign port, they would not be believed even if they could speak the truth. On more than one occasion even your own Kingdom’s local constabulary has unknowingly returned one of its own enslaved seamen to us. You are all such stupid and ignorant dogs. We’ve been doing this for over thirty years and you’ve given us so much to laugh about, oh well I guess it had to end some time.”

I was amazed at this Wizard’s genius and convinced by his arguments; I decided to reward him. I slammed the butt end of my glaive into his crotch, repeatedly. As he puked on the deck, I spoke to all of the wizards present. “You will all spend every waking moment coming up with a plan to undo the conditioning done to those men. I was raised as slave by a blood witch, she did all kinds of unpleasant things to me and I remember every one of them. I will do things to you from your worst nightmares and I will do them gleefully, if you don’t get me some answers.”

Sergeant Sanders seemed a little stunned by my behavior; on the other hand, I think Professor Black was disgusted by my actions. Oh well, you can’t please everyone. I knew absolutely nothing about magical or mental conditioning and I wasn’t sure that anyone else in the Gulf Kingdom did either, so I would use the only sources of information that I had available.

Just then the Coble pulled alongside the enemy schooner. Professor Tanner who had his body sticking out through the hatch on my little boat, shouted out. “Quentin, there are many small incoming ships on the lookout table. Commodore Nelson believes them to be from the Kingdom of Fata. They should be here in five to ten minutes.”

I looked at Professor Black. “James we’ll never get everyone off of this ship in time. I’ll stay here with the Marines and we’ll fight as best we can, this schooner has kraken tubes and I can use them as well as my own spells to fight. You should fight from the Coble and set fire to as many of those enemy ships as you can.”

A sensible plan, I was moving by the time he finished presenting it to me. Sergeant Sanders followed me, but of course Sergeant Russell stayed behind with his father.

Once on the Number Five, “Sergeant Sanders please brief Professor Tanner about the mind conditioned and disguised slaves, so he can inform Commodore Nelson using the communications board. Gill, the enemy ships have some of our own people on board as slaves. It really infuriates me but we will probably have to send too many of them to the bottom of the Ocean during this coming battle, however I want to try something first which might save some of them. Do you think you can get me within one hundred steps of one of their schooners?”

Gill looked grim at my news, and before he replied he put my boat into a sharp turn. “Heck yes, I can get you that close. You told my all about the shields you invented so they shouldn’t be able to harm the Coble at least for awhile, even if I can’t dodge all of their spears and spells.”

“I thought as much. When we get that close, I’m going to board whichever schooner you pick and take it under control. While I’m doing that you can go and mark another enemy ship or two for Commodore Nelson.

When you see the schooner that I am on, drop its sails, come back and pick me up and then we’ll do the same thing to another of their vessels. Sergeant Sanders, you’ll need to load the kraken tube for Gill. He has enough magic to pilot this boat and activate the tube. Gill, I know it’ll be a strain but do your best.”

He resolutely nodded his head back at me. While I had been talking, I had put on my new harness over my jacket and I had begun filling my coat pockets with the paralytic darts for the tubes that were attached to my bracers. I just wish I had more darts that were prepared with my magic suppression potion. As for the paralytic darts, they were easy to make since they were just dipped in spider venom, I had hundreds of them and I had brought a small box, filled with an uncounted number of the little projectiles, along with me on this trip. I also stuffed my pockets full with potions. It has always been my view that you can’t have too many pockets.

I was standing up with my head and shoulders poking out through the coble’s open overhead hatch; Gill looked up at me with curiosity as we got close to the first enemy schooner. This was going to be painful. I activated my invisibility ward and then the harness. I still hadn’t figured out how to make it comfortable for me to use.

The harness with its movement runes lifted me up and it hurt, but not quite as badly as a kick in the crotch. At that point I didn’t care about the enemy, what with it being dark they shouldn’t be able to see me and when I got close enough, the invisibility ward should trick their eyes. The only thing I wanted to do was to get back on my feet again, so I could relieve the pain between my legs.

I should have set down in the stern of the vessel, but because of my clumsiness I instead landed amidships. I sighed when the pain stopped and I launched paralytic darts at everyone who was nearby. I blamed them for the pain that I had just endured and I was furious.

I was invisible and I had my button shields activated, these swamp leeches were in so much trouble. When we had boarded those other three ships, we always found the “happy to be captured by us” guys locked in a room below decks. I imagine the slaves were only brought out for work when their masters didn’t have to worry about them sabotaging things during a battle. So that’s where I decided to head to, on this ship. Any magic users that I detected received two darts, one of them coated with magic suppressant.

I don’t know how it happened, maybe the wizard just guessed right, but I got hit with a fireball, that my jacket couldn’t quite stop. I smelled burning hair and it was mine. In revenge, I hit him with four darts from each of my bracers and then I drank a dose of healing potion but it would take time for it to work. I even splashed some on my face and hands, which should help speed things up a little.

Being angry, I searched the vessel for anymore wizards. I found two more mediocre ones, shot them and then I went off in search of slaves to free. I vowed to be more careful and to take out all of the enemy wizards as fast as I could from then on. I might need a new jacket because of that vile wizard! It’s a good thing that I have replacements back at the University.

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Commodore Nelson was ready to pull her hair out. She had just learned about the slaves and the fact that James, acting alone, had boarded an enemy vessel. She sent a message to all of her ships, telling them to launch their spears so as to disable the enemy ships whenever possible because of the danger to their enslaved countrymen.

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I unbarred a door below decks and inside were fifteen or more men. I dropped my invisibility. “Hello, I think you are slaves of the Kingdom of Fata. Don’t bother replying, I know how much it hurts. I’ve knocked out most of the crew and I know nothing about sailing; so could you all come up to weather deck and help me out?”

They looked too stunned to move, so I turned to walk back to the top deck, I should be able to lower the sails myself, I thought. Suddenly, I heard the pounding of feet, I turned and I saw that I was being followed by horde of grinning men.

“You will need pull down the colors, drop the sails and start waving white flags. That way the Gulf Kingdom Navy will know that you are friendly. You should also tie up anyone who is an enemy, even if they look like they are sleeping.”

One of the men spoke. “Aye, aye sir, can we ask who you are?”

“Just a man who was once a slave too,” once we were all topside, I looked around, with no one at the ship’s wheel the enemy schooner that had been behind and to our right was now nearby, close enough for my flight harness to be able carry me over to the other vessel. It’s a good thing that I can make regeneration potions or I might never be able to have children. The men were doing as I had asked them to do. I shouted at those that were closest to me. “I’ve got another ship to free; I’ll see you all later.”

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Viscountess Delphyne Gamble saw her battle plan fall apart even before she had a chance to start her attack. An unusually fast magically propelled small boat was launching spears at her vessels from the beyond the range of her own kraken tubes and just now a second ship from her fleet had dropped its sails for some unexplained reason and was failing to respond to her signals.

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The enemy schooners were turning away from the GKS convoy. They were also clustering together for some reason. I had just freed my third ship and I was flying to my next target. I might be walking bow-legged for the rest of my life just from the memory of this pain.

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The Viscountess had, had enough! Over half of her fleet was burning or had dropped their sails and her forces hadn’t even struck a single blow against the Gulf Kingdom Navy. The storm she and her fellow wizards had called to speed them on their way was still close by, using the wizards aboard her own vessel; she called that storm down upon the entire region. If she was going to die or worst yet lose status back on Fata, then everyone was going to suffer.

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Professor Black aboard the captured enemy schooner said “Uh, Oh.”

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I had liberated the slaves on a fifth ship; I thought I could make it possibly to one more when there was a giant crack of lightening and skies opened up with a torrential downpour.

The schooner started to roll violently and in a panic I wrapped myself around the main mast. I looked to the men that I had freed only minutes ago. “What do we do now?”

An old grizzled man laughed at me and then he shouted out, while letting his gaze fall on all of the nearby former slaves. “We’re running before the wind boys! We did it for them bastards and now we’re doing it for ourselves and for freedom!”

Joy filled shouts of “aye, aye,” greeted his words. With great difficulty, they somehow got my fingers to unlatch from about the mast and they got me below and into what I think was the Captain’s cabin. I was truly thankful that I had another sea sickness potion on me.