Once upon a dreadful time

bottom.

Even as a line came snaking through the air to splash into the water at Chevell’s side, tears sprang into his eyes, and he managed to croak, “Indeed, Captain, though I find a swim now and again pleasant, I would enjoy the ride.” Armond laughed as Chevell took up the line, and the crew made ready to reel the vicomte in, but then Chevell cried out,

“Wait!” And he paused a moment to retrieve the flag of the Eagle yet attached to the shivered mast. When he had it well in hand, he called out, “Heave ho,” and the crew drew him in and up and onto the deck of the corsair dhow.

Dripping, he clasped Armond’s hand and said, “I thought you gone down with the Hawk.”

“Non, my lord, I and my crew and my complement of marines simply took on this corsair, and though the Hawk sank, still I had a ship to command. I call her the Hawk II.”

“Nicely done, Armond. Indeed, nicely done.”

“My lord, I now turn over the command of this vessel to you.”

“Oh, non, Armond, it is your ship, and I am merely a passenger.”

Armond inclined his head in acknowledgment, and then gave orders to get underway, and the great long sails were haled about to pick up the wind and the dhow began to move.

“What of the battle, Captain?” asked Chevell.

“It yet goes on, my lord, and I plan to rejoin it, for I have taken up more than enough men from the waters to sail into combat again.”

“Indeed, and I am one of those taken up,” said the vicomte.

“Just give me a blade and some dry clothes, and I will be glad to join in.”

. .

They sailed on a course to intercept a corsair fleeing from the fight, and, by subterfuge and acting as would fellow pirates, they drew alongside the dhow, her decks and rigging showing signs of fire, and her crew appearing shorthanded. “Ahoy, la!” called Chevell, using the tongue of the corsairs, for the vicomte had been one of their own long past.

“Quem sao voce?” replied the enemy captain.

“He wants to know who we are,” murmured Chevell, and he called out, “A Lamina Vermelha!”

“What did you tell him?” asked Armond, even as they drew closer to the enemy dhow.

“I said we were the Red Blade, the name of my old ship.” The corsair captain then shouted, “Eu sei de nenhuma Lamina Vermelha.”

“ ‘I know of no Red Blade,’ ” translated Chevell.

By then the Hawk II was close enough, and, at a sharp command from Armond, grappling hooks sailed through the air and thunked into the wales of the corsair, and arrows slashed across the space between, felling foe even as marines haled the two ships hull to hull.

The fight was short, for not only were the corsairs surprised, but they were disheartened as well, for they had suffered great losses ere the Hawk II had come upon them.

They quickly surrendered, did the corsairs, and were taken prisoner.

Then Chevell took command of this ship and flew the flag of the Eagle from the standard at the taffrail.

Half of the crew of the Hawk II stepped onto the deck of the New Eagle, and together they struck a course for the few ships yet engaged in battle on the sunwise horizon. Yet by the time they got there, the enemy had been done in, their ships burning furiously as they went down.

And so, a ragtag group of nine ships, two of them dhows-all with decks aslime with the remains of Changelings, masts and sails showing char and burn-took on survivors picked up by the Tern and the Sandpiper and the Gull and finally set sail for Port Mizon, their holds full of human prisoners, their battle this day done.

And as they cut through the waters, Chevell looked up to see a crow soaring high above, the ebon bird to turn on the wind and fly toward Port Mizon as well. Chevell frowned and wondered just what a crow might be doing this far from land, but soon the bird was out of sight and he questioned it no more.

. .

Nigh sundown, Hradian came flying back to the swamp, and she lit upon the flet of her cote and trembled to tell Orbane the news. Yet she had no choice.

“Well?” he demanded.

Hradian fell to her knees upon the floor and buried her face in her hands and pressed her forehead to the wood. “My lord, the corsair fleet is gone, sunk, and nought is left of it but bits of wreckage floating upon the waters.”

“What?”

“My lord,” mumbled Hradian, “all I saw in addition to the flotsam were a few of King Avelar’s ships escorting two captured dhows and heading toward Port Mizon; all ships were scarred by fire, and their crews were sparse. I deem there was a great battle, and the corsairs and Changelings are no more.” Rage suffused Orbane’s face, and he looked about for someone to punish, and though throngs of Goblins and Bogles and Trolls were camped thither and yon in the great swamp, Hradian was the only being at hand, and so he stepped forward to where she lay trembling. .

. .

In the plains of blue flowers and yellow butterflies, Michelle waited long moments ere speaking, but finally she said, “The needle, it has stopped moving.”

Sieur Emile looked up from his evening ration of jerky and tack. “Stopped, you say? Well and good. What be our new course, Princess?”

“The very same as the old course,” said Michelle, frowning.

“ ’Tis the very same.”

Gathering Storm

As warders watched the silver needle throughout the night, it remained fixed dawnwise. And when the encampment roused in the morn, dawnwise the needle continued to hew. And so, off they set, four thousand strong, riding and tramping toward the just-risen sun. And as they marched, one of the distant outriders assigned to the right flank came galloping toward the vanguard and sounded a horn. Roel spurred his mount forth to meet him, and, following Wolves, Michelle and Galion on point slowed their pace and watched.

And the outrider and Roel met a short distance away from the main body.

“My lord, good news,” said Bayard, pointing back the way he had come, “a force of fifty knights leads an army of two thousand. They follow Sprites, and their leader is a chevalier named Leon, and he says they are from the realm of Chateau Bleu.”

“Ah, Leon. I know him, Bayard.” Roel glanced back along the train. “He is Prince Luc’s steward when Luc is in the Autumnwood. -Come, let us take this good news to Sieur Emile, and then to Prince Luc.”

“There is more good news, my lord,” said the outrider.

“More?”

“Oui. Leon’s Sprites tell me that when we cross the next border, we will be in the realm where lies the swamp we seek.”

. .

“Acolyte!” called Orbane. “Up from your bed. I need you to lend me your power.”

“My power, my lord?” said Hradian, struggling up from her cot, wincing because of her bruises. “But it is so minuscule compared to yours.”