holed below the waterline, only for others to just as quickly take their place. Silus had never witnessed naval battle before, but he had always imagined it would be more graceful than this; neatly regimented fleets dancing around each other as they exchanged fire, each side taking their turn as though playing some civilised game of strategy. This was as bloody and chaotic as any land war; perhaps more so, for out on the open water there was nowhere one could retreat to. Once battle was joined, it was all or nothing.
In the confusion, it was difficult to tell who was fighting whom. The combatants appeared to be human, though one side was unnaturally tall — lithe, pale figures who moved with a graceful sure-footedness — while the other was stockier and shorter. It was these latter who appeared to have the upper hand. What they lacked in martial skills and finesse, their ships more than made up for with payloads of heavy munitions. Their cannon balls were barely slowed by the hulls of the enemy vessels, but punched straight through ship after ship before finally falling into the sea. On some of their ships were mounted vast crossbows, their projectiles, when fired, skewering men horribly, their points opening up as they punched into flesh so that the victims could be reeled quickly in and brutally dispatched. Seeing this, Silus couldn’t help but be reminded of the stories he’d heard concerning the whalers of the Sarcrean islands.
A stain was spreading from the waters of the battle, lapping up against the rowboat in oily red waves. Two men were swimming towards them, shouting for help as they floundered. Ignacio rose and held out his hand. One of the men grasped it, babbling his thanks as he tried to gain purchase on the slippery boards, only for Ignacio to lean in close and open up his throat with a dagger. The other man, seeing the fate of his comrade, began to back- paddle, but he was tiring swiftly and the second time his head bobbed beneath the surface, it failed to re- emerge.
“You… you… Ignacio, how could you?” Katya said, her voice quavering. “Zac saw that.”
“And he’s seen worse,” Ignacio said. “Katya, we don’t exactly have a lot of room to move around on this useless dinghy. If we take on any more people, we’ll sink. Someone has to think of these practicalities.”
“Kelos, why did you even bring Ignacio and his new friends with us?” Katya said, exasperated.
“Trust me, Katya, it was as much an accident as me landing us in the middle of a war!”
Ignacio looked back at the handful of Swords who had made it through the time rift with them, but his comrades had nothing to say. They looked just as stunned as everybody else; their righteous ire quashed by everything they had seen.
“That man you just killed,” Kelos said. “Was it just me, or didn’t he look a bit like a… well… an elf?”
“And those short chaps with the deadly cannons…?” Dunsany said.
“Gods, I’ve sent us back to Twilight alright, but we’re in completely the wrong era. This must be the last great war between the elves and the dwarves. I’ve read of the fierce naval battles they engaged in. The dwarves came to naval combat late, but they quickly took to it.”
The boat began to pitch wildly as something beneath them pushed its way to the surface.
For a moment Silus thought that it was a deep-water leviathan, come to find the source of the detritus that was raining down into its territory. But as dark water rolled from the back of the huge barrel-like body, it revealed not flesh, but wood.
“What in the name of Kerberos is that?” Silus said.
The craft was three times the length of the rowboat. From its tail rose a steel fin that swung back and forth with a squeal of metal bearings as the vessel turned to face the conflict. The nose of the craft was a bubble of thick glass that magnified the squat, shirtless man sitting within, sweating profusely as he yanked at levers and twirled the small brass wheels housed between his feet.
“Is that…?” Silus said.
“A dwarf? Yes,” Kelos replied.
The dwarf — looking up briefly from his controls — seemed equally as surprised to see them, but then the vessel was past, the corkscrew propeller at its rear kicking up a crimson spray. It came to a halt about five yards from the battle and a hatch opened up in its back. Steam wafted from the opening as the dwarf climbed onto the roof of his ship, pulling a golden robe around himself. He faced the battle and threw up his arms. As he did so, a dozen ships disappeared, sucked swiftly under by the whirlpools that now raged at the heart of the conflict. The dwarf gestured again and lightning lanced down from the cloudless sky. The stench of cooking flesh drifted towards them, as those who still floundered in the raging waters were cooked in an instant.
“That’s nothing,” said Kelos. “I could do that, with enough practice.”
The dwarf gestured again and the gold thread of his robe unravelled, spinning itself around him in a shimmering cocoon.
“That, I admit, I would have trouble with.”
However, the dwarf’s magical protection proved to be for naught. One of the elven ships swung about and there was the report of a single cannon. A few heartbeats later, the dwarf and his fantastical vessel were reduced to a shower of gore and splinters.
“That was way too close for comfort,” Katya said, as the rowboat bobbed alarmingly on the swell.
Silus looked around for signs of further dwarven submersibles, but the craft they had seen appeared to have been unique.
“Such a shame,” Kelos said. “I’d have loved to be able to examine that wondrous device.”
Despite having taken such heavy losses from the mage’s assault, the elves battled on, throwing themselves at the dwarves even as their ships burned or fell to bits around them. Silus saw an elf woman climbing the rigging of a ship as the sea slowly claimed it. Gaining the crow’s nest, she turned to face in their direction. When she sang, her voice cut through the roar of the battle, the delicate and complex song finding its own place at the heart of the maelstrom. For a moment, Silus thought that the song was just for him, that the elf had recognised in him a kindred soul, but then a comment from Emuel made him turn.
“Lord of All, there’s a whole fleet of them!”
The ships sailing towards them now far outclassed any of those currently engaged in the conflict. Silus counted at least twenty vessels, with more shimmering into existence beyond them, wreathed in the flames of sorcery. The sails of the ships billowed silently with a wind that had nothing to do with the weather, the sail cloth shining with a rainbow sheen like oil moving on water. The figurehead at the prow of each vessel had been sculpted into the likeness of an elf maiden, and the mouths of these wooden women sang a harmony to complete the song calling to them.
“Song ships,” Emuel said. “The ancestors of the Llothriall.”
Tears were rolling down Emuel’s face as he answered with a song of his own, the tattoos on his body writhing as they responded to the magic.
The fleet began to move past them. The ships were far larger than any they had so far seen, yet left no wake.
The dwarves had spotted the newly-arrived elf fleet and let loose with a barrage of cannon fire. But though their aim was true, their missiles turned to dust the moment they closed on the ships. Silus expected to see decks bristling with soldiers, readying themselves for boarding actions, but on the deck of each song ship stood only a single figure. The elf fleet closed swiftly around the enemy ships, encircling them. The dwarf ships, in a final act of desperation, exhausted their magazines in a deafening salvo that lit up the sea for miles around and obscured both the fleets in a stinking fog. But when the mists cleared, the elf ships were still there, their hulls unmarked and the song unbroken.
Figures began to plunge into the sea, as dwarves threw themselves overboard, clearly deciding that attempting to swim for it was preferable to what the elves had in store. Silus wondered how a magic so beautiful — this sorcery written in song — could be so feared, but then the melody changed and the cadence grew more frantic and he discovered exactly what the dwarves so dreaded.
Emuel had closed his eyes to be better able to focus on the song, opening himself up to its ethereal power. This was beyond anything he had heard before, beyond even the song of the Stone Seers which had once so filled him with awe. It was a song of protection: a nurturing, calming melody that enfolded him like a mother’s arms. Within it, he knew no harm would come to him. But then, something changed. The transition was so subtle that Emuel didn’t realise the true nature of this new song even as he began to mouth the words. There was a sense of mild irritation, an annoyance that spread through him, swiftly turning into rage; he opened his eyes to see the tattoos that covered every inch of his body tearing at each other like savage beasts. A creature moved through the
