Dawn came bright and hot, and echoed to the sounds of groans, cracks, and booms.

The groans came from the crew, almost all of whom suffered at least slightly from a rum-induced hangover. Harper O’Breen prescribed everyone two drops from a glass bottle labeled Distilled Tyncture of the Bark of the Willowe. To Caleb’s amazement, the stuff worked as well as a dose of aspirin.

The cracks came from rifle and pistol fire. Caleb had set up a shooting range measured off in paces to lines drawn in the sand. Crude targets made up of the spare wood left from last night’s cookout had been nailed to trees at the edge of the beach.

He had Rory, the eldest of the Murray brothers, run the exercises as the impromptu range master. Despite a hangover and a bruised shin from falling over the rum barrel, the young man seemed to take to the job naturally. Caleb left him with instructions to drill at least two dozen of the Arrenmar in both time and accuracy.

The intermittent booms came from the sloop’s midship cannon on the larboard side. Ideally, the Spitfire had a crew of more than sixty sailors to man both sails and cannon. Caleb’s crew was thirty percent understaffed, but even those numbers were overly optimistic.

Aside from the wounded, several men and women were over or under their prime years. This forced Sienna to add more personnel to perform a single task. Yet she’d still managed to scrape together enough able-bodied people to create a single gun crew.

The gun captain turned out to be a whippet-thin young man with jug ears and a blaze of red hair. Luckily, he’d been paired with several sturdier men and women to handle the gun. He made his salute and spoke crisply as Caleb and Sienna walked up to them.

“Jaime Quinton, at your service, Captain Ledger.”

“And thank you for that service, Mister Quinton,” Caleb replied. “Not that I’m questioning my Quartermaster’s judgement, but what makes you qualified to run the gun crew?”

“I used to help the Keeper of the Books as the hedge warden whenever the town required it.”

Caleb looked to Sienna. “I know I use terms that puzzle you from time to time. Now it’s my turn to be confused.”

“A hedge warden measures and notes property boundaries for a town,” Sienna explained. “So I felt Jaime here could be a natural when using the cannon.”

Caleb considered. Fair enough. Anyone who’s skilled at estimating elevations or distance should do fine here.

“All right,” he said aloud, before pointing to a large stone outcropping that jutted out from the semi-submerged rocks beyond the whitewater. “That’s your target for the day. You’ve got two goals I want you to meet.”

“Name ‘em, sir!”

“First, see if you can hit that rock out there. Second, see if you can drill your crew to get off a shot every five minutes.” Caleb took a tiny hourglass out of his jacket pocket and handed it to the young man. “This is a five-minute timer I found in the former captain’s desk. See if you can get your crew to match it.”

He got a Yezzir from the entire gun crew as he and Sienna continued forward along the deck. She went through the remaining items on an ever-present scrap of paper with extra intensity. Caleb wasn’t sure if it was from her trying to account for multiple teams or avoiding asking him what happened after they’d gotten back to the ship.

“...after which Noack’s group will finish replacing the timbers damaged in the whitewater crossing,” she continued. “Harper O’Breen has four gammers with her to collect medicinal herbs, she says that only the elder women have the knack for picking posies over poison. Oh, and I have a dozen people busy filling water barrels from a freshwater spring we found just inland.”

“What about Grimshaw?”

“He’s aloft.” Caleb looked up and spotted the drake as a fuzzy orange splotch high overhead. “Grimshaw should let us know if he sees any ship approaching within twenty miles or so. Lir be praised, he said he found some rising air about that peak which will allow him to keep circling for most of the day.”

Looks like our griffin friend found some thermals to ride. Good. That’ll preserve his strength if we need him.

“Excellent news,” Caleb said. “I’m still worried about the Myrkur showing up.”

“You think so? The crew’s inclined to rest up here for a full week if possible. I told them I’d run the idea by you.”

“Fine. You can tell them that’s a terrible idea. We cut the crew of the Taipan loose about three day’s sail from Irongrasp. However, they’ll get picked up before then. Ravencrow and Delacroix are still looking for us, so I’m betting that they’ll run into a ship searching for the Spitfire before then.”

Sienna nodded. “And they’ll be telling the leaders of the Myrkur what happened as quickly as possible.”

“Campion and those Sea Vipers we released will be able to give a location and course bearing, for a start. I’m guessing that we’ll have two, maybe three days at most before the Myrkur come sniffing around. I want us out of here before then, especially if our speed’s been cut in half.”

“You don’t think that’s a wee bit...I don’t know, paranoid?”

Caleb thought back to his yacht. He thought of Alejandro Ugalde as the man sneered at him from the Second Chance’s couch. Of the dead woman with the DEA AGENT jacket. Of the men hunting for him with pistols and shotguns.

The ones he’d tried to escape by diving into the ocean.

The ones who’d killed him.

“It’s only paranoia if everyone isn’t out to get you,” he finally said. “I’ve spent a lot of my life being one of the hunted, Sienna. You learn to think like one of the hunters if you want to stay one step ahead of them.”

“Well, speaking of hunters...” Sienna gestured towards the three crew members waiting for them by the ship’s forward steerboard quarter. “I’ve put together that team you asked for to go explore that wreck Shaw spotted.”

Donal, who’d been freshly kitted out with new pants, shirt, and a foraging bag, grinned back at him. Tavia, looking ethereally golden as ever, merely bobbed her horn. And he got a quick salute and bow from the youngest, but sturdiest looking of the Murray brothers.

“Good to have you with us, Regan,” Caleb said. “But I asked for two of Sienna’s rifle squad. You’re big, but not that big.”

“Aye, but Ronan’s arm is still givin’ him a twinge now and then,” Regan said. “And Rory’s drilling the rest of the pistoleers for you.”

“So he’s your first man, and I’m your second,” Sienna finished for him. “Technically, since it’s my rifle squad, I count as a member.”

“I thought you’d be running everything here,” Caleb protested.

“It’s already running. My being here isn’t going to speed things up. And besides...” she held up the note-scribbled paper. “I already assigned every other person on board to do something. So, I’m the only one left.”

“Yeah. That’s convenient.” He shook his head. “I can’t have my second and third in command on the same assignment. It’s too risky.”

Tavia let out an equine snort. “If you think this expedition is risky, then technically the Captain should be staying on board.”

Caleb coughed uncomfortably at that. He paused and finally looked at the entries that had popped up in his Quest Window.

Adventurer's-Level Quest: Attempt to re-provision food and water at a location that is uninhabited or one that lacks any sort of port facilities. STATUS: IN PROGRESS Adventurer's-Level Quest: Attempt to make moderate repairs to ship at a location that is uninhabited or one that lacks any sort of port facilities. STATUS: IN PROGRESS. Adventurer's-Level Quest: Drill at least 20% of the crew in how to handle gunpowder weapons. STATUS: IN PROGRESS. Adventurer's-Level Quest: Drill at least one team in naval gunnery. STATUS: IN PROGRESS. New Adventurer’s-Level Quest: Investigate the mysterious wreck located on the island. Note: Bonus Difficulty % is still to be calculated, based on what if anything is found there.

Yeah, if anything is ‘found’. At least it didn’t say, ‘what if anything is lurking there’.

“Point taken,” Caleb finally said. “All right, let’s go before anyone else comes up with an excuse to keep me here.”

The ship’s longboat bobbed in the water below, where it had been secured to the Spitfire’s steerboard side. Regan slung the rifle over his shoulder and led the way down the short rope ladder. Sienna, Caleb, and Donal followed.

Tavia let out a disdainful snort and simply made a running leap from the ship’s side into the water. She landed with a delicate (for an equine) splash at a far enough distance from the longboat not to swamp it.

“I shall meet you on the beach,” Tavia called.

The unicorn then swam the remaining distance through the crystal-clear water and emerged on the beach. She shook herself, making a short-lived little rainbow as the drops flew off from her mane and body. Then she trotted back and forth upon the sand, turning to soak up the sun and finish drying off.

“Praise be,” Donal said. “How does that mare make everything she does look so graceful?”

“Don’t know,” Regan agreed. “It must be part of her being a magical creature, maybe?”

Sienna nudged Donal in the side. “You and Regan Murray can stop staring at her like a couple of ripe cabbages. She’s just a horse, you know.”

Caleb cleared his throat. “I think it just comes from being a unicorn. It’s a little less graceful watching her get back on the ship.”

He thought back to the last time they’d performed the procedure. Tavia had swam out to the ship and bitten into a heavy line they’d thrown over the side for her. Once she had a firm grasp with her teeth, several crew members would haul her up while she did her best to climb up the side of the hull with her hooves.

A few pulls of the oars later, they beached the boat and tied it to a post they’d sunk into the sand. Then they walked carefully around the busy firing range and headed towards the western end of the crescent-shaped strand of stand. The air on the beach itself was filled with shouted commands, volleyed cracks, and the tingling scent of burnt gunpowder.

The small party headed out into the forest with Regan in the lead. The young man swung his cutlass back and forth to carve a path through the underbrush as necessary. Caleb, Sienna, and Donal followed, with Tavia bringing up the rear.

“We might find the wreck occupied,” Caleb said casually, though this one statement brought everyone to a halt. He explained what he’d seen late last night.

Tavia canted her horn at him. “By any chance, did you think to cast Dancing Lights?”

“I did, but I ran into a few problems,” Caleb listed them off on his fingers. “First, that spell is a lot more difficult to control at long distance. Second, it casts a lot less light. And third, whatever was looking back at me vanished in the blink of an eye.”

“So we don’t know what might be out there,” Donal sighed. “Lir be praised.”

“Oh, whatever it was couldn’t be that big,” Regan said encouragingly. “A raised fighting top platform is like an open-topped box, one that maybe fits two people. I’m sure we can handle whatever it is.”

Sienna hushed the young man with a hiss. “That’s fit to throw the jinx on us! Salt up!”

All three Arrenmar plucked a pinch of phantom salt from before them and made a motion as if to throw it over their shoulder. Tavia looked on, amused. Caleb smiled but kept silent.

They continued on for almost an hour, moving in a gentle curve around the island’s shore. While they were never far enough away from the ocean to stop hearing breakers, Donal and then Caleb had to take over hacking out the path. They continued their way through the tangle of vines and leafy shrubs, the smell of moss and freshly cut greenery ever-present in the air.

A screech from a flock of green and red parrots echoed in the trees as they pushed their way through one last tangled barrier of thorny vines. Caleb lowered his sword and rubbed his sore arm as he walked out into the clearing ahead. He let out a low whistle as the others joined him.

A short white strip of sand lay beyond. It lead to a cove so narrow that the mass of the ship shoved inside blocked most of the light. Her bow had been jammed into a cluster of rocks high on the beach, while her stern section lay moldering out in the water.

The ship’s lower timbers had collapsed along most of the vessel’s length. The bowsprit, which would normally sit three levels above the sand, sat at the bottom of a steep ramp of fallen deck planks. The two masts still sat miraculously upright, but even they had been knocked askew. Scraps of sailcloth and banners still hung from them, fluttering half-heartedly in the breeze.

“That’s a merchantman schooner,” Donal breathed. “A big one, so more than an island hopper. Probably been here a year, maybe two. Otherwise that sailcloth would be long gone.”

“She still flew the Myrkur flag,” Sienna said, looking up at the remnants of the flag atop the forward mast. “She had to have run up here by mistake.”

Suddenly, a low hiss came from up above.

Instantly, Caleb brought his sword up. Tavia took a step back, her horn raised and ready. In a flash, Regan’s rifle was in his hands.

“There’s something up there,” Caleb said, pointing towards the rickety box of the fighting platform. “In fact, I can see it moving.”

A flash of black, white and orange as something scampered down the mast towards them.

Regan brought the rifle to his shoulder in one smooth motion. He squinted and squeezed the trigger–

–and Caleb knocked the barrel up with a swing of his cutlass.

A bang! as the rifle fired. The ball whistled harmlessly off into the distance.

“By Lir’s beard and Myr’s damnation!” Regan cursed. “What in blazes are you doing?”

But then young man’s eyes went wide as he watched what his Captain did next.