A month had passed since the channels were done. There were meetings with the nobles, who I had finally learned the names of and small side projects. I was given to believe that the lands were prospering under my rule... not that I ruled that much. I spent time in the libraries as much as I could now and speaking with the various races mages and shamans. Most of my experiments were not the greatest successes, but I learned from them as I could. Twould seem my greatest failing was at limiting my mana. I remember the growth spell I was taught by one of the local elves. It worked quite well. The tree grew so fast that it exploded. They tried to teach me how to guide the growth, but I found I was to learn better control before I could even attempt such subtlety.

  I had left the library and was making my way to the Dragons Head when I felt the summoning from Calalistos. Wondering at it, I made my way to my pad and shifted. Twas the work of minutes to take flight and port to the city, making sure this time to stay over land and not flood the place. Once I turned to fly to the dock, I was greeted by a very disturbing sight. It looked as if the harbor was in flames. I quickly flew to it and found three boats that were burning brightly and another that was smoking as it made it’s way in from the sea. I shifted my vision, as it was getting dark, and saw it being chased by a fleet of ships with black sails.

  As I passed over the smoking ship, I saw the sailors on board fighting to put out small fires. It was a moment and I was over them heading towards the black sailed ships. I was about to kite my wings, when a light on one of the lead ships grew bright and then was launched in an arc towards the fleeing merchantman. I jogged to the left and caught it. It was a sticky mass that seemed to burn quite hotly, so I figured it must be valuable and tossed it back to the ship that had lost it. Several of the other ships then noticed me and fired more of the sticky burning things at me. I ignored them and turned my attention to the fleet. There were thirty or more ships and it seemed to me that they were on less than a social call.

  I flew up over them as they kept shooting, wondering if they had a clue that I bathed in lava and the balls they threw were barely warm to me. Since none seemed to feel like talking, I took a deep breath when I was centered over them. My flame blasted down on one in the middle and the flames splashed outward across the water in an ever expanding circle. The ships blew up as they were engulfed and the water steamed. I turned in the air and took out the lead ships with fireballs and started to work my way around to the back. I left one ship alone. It seemed more than happy to leave after having a taste of their own medicine. The steam and fog now covered the water where my flames had boiled it and what remained of the ships cast tiny flickering lights in the mist as what was left that could burn, did.

  I was sure that the surviving ship would relay the unspoken message that I sent. I made my way back to my pad and landed, turning to look out at the four ships. Or what was left of them. The one that I had saved looked to be in the best shape, the others had almost finished burning to the water line. I found myself less than pleased.

“Ho, Michael. Grim day it is.”

“Greetings Cornal. What happened here?”

“The first merchant came in almost completely aflame about half an hour past. The survivors jumped ship in the harbor and swam to shore. Two others followed. Tween the three, there were less than a handful of survivors. They told the tale of coming upon that fleet and being chased. Only one was making it’s way here, but they knew of this port and tried to reach it. I suppose the rest you know. Thankee for coming as fast as you did, we didn’t know what we were facing till they told us of the fleet and we called as soon as we knew.”

“Mayhaps I should have saved more than the one ship and brought one back with me. I am curious if this was an attack on this port or just a chance meeting, though those weapons they used seem to speak otherwise.”

“You let one go?”

“Yes, I thought to send a message that it wasn’t in their best interest to return.”

“How many were there? The sailors said more than a dozen.”

“More than thirty by my count. Having just one return may make them a little more cautious about attacking innocents next time.”

“We can hope. But thirty ships? Sounds to me like it were an invasion fleet.”

I looked out over the water and sighed. Then I shifted. “Lets go grab a drink. I need to think on this.”

  We made our way to the pub in silence. A few of the locals waved as we passed and I smiled and greeted them. We were seated no more than a minute when Haladoria entered with one of the nobles.

“Greetings Lady Haladoria.”

“Greetings Michael.” She said quietly. Tension showed in her posture and her speech.

“Michael? Are you well?” The comment at least brought a smile to her grim countenance.

“Lord Michael, would you tell of what you found?” The noble spoke.

“Thirty plus ships all having black sails.”

Haladoria glanced towards the docks nervously.

I gave her a sad smile. “You need not worry, I left one to return home with the tale. It was the work of a moment to take out the rest of them.”

The nobles eyes grew wide as his face paled. He whispered. “Thirty plus?”

I looked up at him. “Yes. They had something that threw flaming balls of some sticky stuff that burned. Rather hotly as I actually could feel the heat through my scales.”

“I will have a watch on the sea now. There is no other harbor along this coast for many miles and that would make them heading towards our harbor.” Haladoria said.

“You have the stone. As long as they do not make landfall here, they do not stand a chance.”

She cast a sad smile. “Still it is worrisome.”

“Thirty ships is a high cost for no gain. To lose them all in a matter of minutes would give any sane man pause.”

“Some are less than sane, Michael.”

“Then next time, I will find out from where they came and see if I can encourage sanity.”

  We talked into the night. The mood never lightened. No one knew of ships that ran black sails, so no one knew of where they were from. Of course the black sails might have just been so they wouldn’t be spotted until they were almost in the harbor. I suggested patrol ships that could spot them and flee. A small ship that was fast and agile would be able to return with news.

Then it came to me. “I have an idea.” I said as I stood.

“What?” Haladoria asked.

“The tool I made for surveying the lands.”

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  The group looked at me with mild confusion. We needed to get back to Dragonhaven. Thinking for a minute, I opened a portal to the building and stepped through into the audience chamber. The others hesitated, but followed me. Upon arrival, I went back and activated the crystal and the land came to life in the middle of the floor. Using my planar sight, I brought the view closer and moved it over the sea where the encounter had occurred. I remembered the heading the ship was on as it turned away from where the rest of it’s fleet met their end, so I started to move the view in that direction. It took about an hour, the sea is a big place, to find the ship. Pulling back, I used the bearing to see it’s possible landfall. The most likely being a large island continent. I zoomed my sight in on it’s coast and discovered a very large seaport on it’s southmost side.

Haladoria drew a deep breath. “Torgos.”

I turned to her. “What does that mean?”

She glanced up at me. “We call it scavenger island. There is a strange looking group of people there. They look almost like my people but they have stunted ears, almost like apes.”

  I snorted, remembering Arienach’s thoughts on scavengers. Still he did seem rather surprised when I knew technology. From history I knew that mankind was often not kind. Twould be ironic to wind up fighting my own kind it this, but in the end, it really didn’t matter. They were starting trouble. I was going to end it.

  The ship in the projection made a bee line for the seaport, so I took the view in closer. There were a little over a dozen of it’s brothers sitting at anchor and about half a dozen in various stages of construction at the dry dock. The construction make me curious so I zoom in a little farther.

“Oh shit.” Haladoria looked puzzled till I pointed at the ship building.

“Oh gods. They are using slaves.” She said in a half whisper.

“That complicates things a bit.” I said with a frown.

“Why?”

“I can’t just blast that place if they are holding slaves hostage.”

  I pulled the view back far enough to survey the island. The city by the seaport was the largest, but there was one just to the north set back in the hills plus a few more scattered around the island. All in all, it didn’t look that populated considering the size. I focused on the one north of the seaport and slowly worked my way through it. Mostly scavenger, human, but with other races mixed in as well. A close look a a few had them well fed and moving without restraint, so I assumed that not all of the people there were slaves. The city looked clean for the most part. There was a large villa overlooking the town and just down from there was courthouse looking building. I wondered if that was the seat of power.   

  A quick trip back to the port, I found our survivor off loading and one of the crew making haste towards the town. Now I should at least have a direction. I was disappointed for a few minutes when it stopped in at a building just off the piers. Harbor master, probably. The crewman left after a few minutes and started heading north. I followed him through town and watched as he continued northward. I smiled to myself. He passed through the gates and kept going. I noticed that there were quite a few guards, both at the gate and on the walls. I had a pretty good idea where he was going, so I went back to the docks again. I started looking for and found many, many guards. I figured I still had time so I started searching the town.

  Just to the sunward side, I found the base, nestled in the trees. I took my time and looked it over carefully. My eyes widened when I found the slave pens at the far side of the base, set up against a cliff.

“If I could just get into that base and hold it, they would bring the rest of the slaves to me.” I muttered to myself.

“How many would you need to hold it?” Cornal asked.

I jerked my head up, surprised. “I was just thinking out loud.”

“Think louder lad. How many would you need?”

I stared for a minute. “Only a few. It would be more to keep anyone from slipping away and giving warning, than to hold the place. I would need enough to pose as guards when the slaves were brought in from their work. The problem would be getting them out to safety.”

“What if we put a boat in right here?” Haladoria pointed to the south were there were several inlets along that stretch of coast.

“It might work, but it would take several trips that way.” I replied. “You would be exposed and I would need to get back to the shipyard to take care of it.”

“What if we had air cover?” Cornal asked with a half cocked smile.

“What are you thinking?”

“We do have a couple of dragons other than you, you know.”

“If they would be willing.” I replied.

“So if we sent about two dozen of the watch and then a contingent of the dwarves, the base would be ours and we could free them.” Haladoria observed as she rubbed her chin.

“Take that as a possible action. We need to do a lot more digging here to avoid surprises.”

Cornal chuckled. “That would be wise, I be thinkin.”

  I moved back to the port town and surveyed it carefully. I saw no other base, but there were what looked like guard barracks. I noted their location carefully. I checked up on our wayward crewman and he was still a few miles out from the gates of the northern hold. So I took a look at a few of the other towns as well. It looked like there was a presence there but no real bases. Which was strange, unless this was just the one location who was causing problems.

  I got back just in time to follow the crewman up to the court. Seems I was right. A few moments after he entered, a runner took off up the hill. I smiled to myself. He was greeted by a couple of guards and went inside. After several minutes, a human on a horse left by the side and came around to the front. Checking where he had exited, there was a good sized stable there that could hold about a dozen horses. I looked the place over carefully and discovered that the detached building in the back was a small barracks as well.

  Since there was no way to know what was going on in the court, I went back to studying the towns as well as the land around them. My surprise came at the northmost town. It was a walled town with a castle. It was manned by elves and they looked to be on high alert. Curious. They had a small port as well with a few ships.

“I have not seen those ships before.” Haladoria commented.

  Where most ships he had seen on this world reminded him of merchant galleys, these looked to be more in kin with Viking long ships. Long and narrow with very smooth lines, but triple masted. Low to the water line, they did not look like merchant ships.

“Passing strange.” I replied.

  I pulled the sight out and noticed a speck off to the sunward side. Zooming in, there were at least two dozen of the black sails rounding the island and I could guess where they were heading. I focused on the ships and started when I saw that each had a catapult mounted on a swivel on the fore-deck of each. Closer inspection showed they were all human. Scavengers. I suddenly wondered if scavenger was another word for pirate.

“What to do, what to do... Should I intervene here?” I mused.

“It would be an opportunity, methinks.” Cornal said as he stoked his beard.

  The ships were moving at a good clip and the sun would be behind them as they got to their target. But what if they were allied? It wouldn’t matter. It would be a force reduction for them.

“If they are enemies of each other, it is a good show of faith. If they are not, it is a good warning. I see no harm in this.”

“Aye, ya be thinkin right.” Dorvus said.

I looked up at him. “When did you get here?”

“Oh, its been a while.” He said as he walked out of the shadows of the hall. “You be thinkin an plannin instead of just reactin. That be good in my book. I saw no reason to interfere.”

I chuckled. “Feel like doing some work then?”

“What did ye have in mind?”

“Come here and pick a spot on the map and think about getting closer to it.”

He looked puzzled, but came over anyway. After a few seconds the map responded. He looked up to me with a grin.

“If you want to move out farther just think of moving away. Focus on anything you wish to see and you can get a closer look.”

“Aye. What be I lookin for?”

“Troops, bases or anything that tells us what we are looking at here. It seems there may be two power bases here, but the southern one is better organized. See if you can figure anything else out about them. Meanwhile, I think I will go visiting over on the sea around Torgos.”

“That be a good plan methinks. We will get to work on it.”

As I turned to leave I heard Haladoria. “Michael, be careful.”

"I will, milady.” I smiled.

  It was strange that the little elf would worry about a dragon, well, at least to me it was. Maybe it was because we had grown to become friends? I thought about it, then realized that more and more I was starting to look at things from a dragon’s perspective. The thought of close friends was strange.

“I fear you are becoming more like us every day. But the human side of you still guides you. I may be a bad influence on you.” He said with chuckle.

“I haven’t heard from you in a while, spirit.”

“I haven’t needed to speak. There is little now that I need teach and it would seem our thoughts are merging. While this is good in some ways, in others it may influence your way of thinking for the worse.”

“We have done fairly well so far.”

“Yes, but you reacted to the ships, and twas a stroke of luck you let the one survive. The human side of you let it go and then used our sight to track it.”

“So a dragon would have just destroyed, then flew back home and went about the day.”

Arienach laughed in my thoughts. “That pretty much sums it up. I would withdraw a bit, I think.”

“No.”

“No?”

“No, you see, I need your perspective in this. I think we must see a balance. Humans think too short termed and dragons tend to just wipe things out. We need to find a harmony because either of us alone is weaker.”

Arienach chuckled. “Food for thought. Your perspective has not led us wrong yet.”