They stood around the deck taking in all of the death and destruction. Bodies and blood covered both the deck of the Pearl Diver and the Sea Hawk. The Hawk’s main mast was damaged beyond repair, the Pearl Diver was mostly intact, and now unmanned. Connor followed Nicholas and Radek onto the Pearl Diver and down into the hold. They found the same devices in the hold of this vessel, but from the inside, they could see the rest of the heavy metal contraptions. Each hatch on the side of the ship had a metal tube perched in front of it, sitting on a heavy wooden frame with solid wheels. They were meant to be pushed out the small doors to belch their fire, then rolled back in after the battle.

“What foul magic is this?” Radek asked, knocking on the solid steel barrel with his knuckles.

“I know not, but it’s a devastating weapon,” Connor said. “Before we continue our mission, we should learn its secrets and add it to our ships.” He turned to Dulcinea, “Can you bring your master here? I think his skills might be helpful with this.”

“I can up on the deck.” She led them to the deck and created a portal to the Mage’s mansion in Chuo. “For my sake, please do not move the ship.”

In less than an hour, she returned with Michael and Ingram.

“Good work, Dulcinea,” Michael said. “I was worried you’d open a portal to the middle of the ocean.” He looked at the ship and took quick stock of the damage. “I can conjure many of the smaller items. We stopped at the boat yards, and I was able to procure a spare main mast. He took out his bag and loosened the rope that tied the opening. The circumference of the bag was nearly four feet in diameter. “Probably better if I open this at the far end of the ship.” He smiled and stood near the bow, holding the bag open. “Could a couple of you please hold this?” he asked. Two large sailors reached into the bag and were struggling to hold onto something heavy and wide. Michael walked backward with his bag open, and as he moved, the mast became exposed. Over a hundred feet of solid pine came from the depths of a haversack not even five feet in length.

“Amazing!” Radek said, admiring Michael’s feat of magic.

“I’m going to take one of those fire devices to a foundry in Lourens. If a couple of you would be so kind as to help me get it into my bag. I will have Dulcinea report to Madam King and get another crew for this pirate craft while you all make repairs.”

“I’ll stay here to help out,” Ingram said. Michael nodded and after taking his souvenir from the hold, was back to dry land, deep in Kronos.

With a fleet of two ships and another two dozen fighting men, they set out in search of the pirate hideaway. Maps of the major continents were well established, and to a degree, the main trade routes across the ocean between Tychon and Kronos were also mapped out. They knew that the pirates had to have an extensive base from which they launched their many attacks on the trading ships. It was agreed that they would sail north, out of the main routes and into relatively uncharted waters.

They sailed for two weeks, encountering neither friend nor foe. The weather this time of year was very temperate and made for smooth sailing. They were equidistant from the island nation of Hava and the eastern coastline of Hadon. This stretch of the ocean was rarely traveled because of the ice flows and had not been fully explored.

“Land ho!” came the call from the crow’s nest. The crew looked up to where the young man was pointing. Ahead and forty degrees starboard there was a spot forming on the horizon.

“Make sure it’s not ice again!” the captain called up to the lad.

“By the gods, it’s land captain!” he replied.

As they drew closer, it became evident that it was more than just a small island, not just a speck in the vast untamed north. It grew and grew till they could see that it might rival Hava in size. They got within a few nautical miles before dropping anchor and sending out landing craft. They had orders to turn back immediately if they saw a ship or any signs of human life. Radek led a dozen men in one boat, standing in the bow and letting his men row them ashore. He took Indrani and Dulcinea with him for added protection. The second boat had Connor, Nicholas, and Ingram, and they helped to row along with a dozen crew members. They made it all the way to shore without any type of greeting. The island had just a sliver of beach before giving way to grassy fields and a line of trees off in the near distance. Combining into one group, Radek’s party marched out towards the tree line with Connor’s group following closely behind.

“I sense much life here,” Ingram said. “This island had plant life, insect life, mammals, reptiles, birds… and thousands of higher life forms.”

“There’s people here?” Nicholas asked.

“No humans, if that’s what you're asking.”

“If there are no humans, what kind of people are living here?”

“I think he means us!” came a voice from above. They all looked up to see a man about a foot tall hovering in the air on long gossamer wings. Behind and above him were two dozen of his kind. There were both males and females, the women wearing light airy dresses of flowing gold, and green, and most had dark, auburn hair. The men wore loose shirts; most wore shorts or soft-looking pants. “You’re not Drow,” he said looking them over till he got to Dulcinea, Indrani, and Charity. “Well, maybe you three are. What manner of creatures are you?”

“We are elves. These others are called humans.” Dulcinea offered. “What pray tell, do you people call yourselves?”

“They are Sprites,” Ingram replied. “My master’s master met your kin across the sea in a deep forest in the heart of Kronos.”

“The bald one’s right,” he laughed.

“My name’s Ingram Jerome. I’m originally from Hadon, several weeks sail west of here.”

“I be Kofi, head man of our extended family. What are you ladies and gentlemen doing in the wonderous land of Tavish? If you don’t mind my asking.”

“We were looking for Pirates, humans like us that have been raiding ships, stealing their cargo, and killing their crews,” Connor said.

“Nothing like that going on here. You're the first that I’ve seen. You,” he said pointing at the elves, “look like Drow, but you are very light-complected compared to them.” He flew down till he was face to face with Connor and Ingram, “And you don’t have their dark nature either. They look like your friends there, but Drow are a cunning, ill-tempered, and occasionally violent lot.”

“Have you ever heard about… Drow elves?” Connor asked Dulcinea.

“I haven’t.” She looked at Indrani and Charity, both of whom shook their heads. “None of us have. Our people were trapped in the underworld for thousands of years. There may be some colony, some offshoot of our people that have settled here. We desperately need to find a new homeland for our population, maybe this island is large enough to accommodate us.”

“I can take you there, but I’d advise to only send one or two of you. We live in peace with them, as do many other of the Fae, but they’ve not ever seen the likes of you.”

“I’ll go, if you don’t mind commander,” she said to Connor. “This might be a task best suited to an elf. I’ll take Indrani for protection.”

“Agreed. We’ll scout out the rest of the island,” Connor said. The two elves trudged off through the woods, following a swarm of sprites. Let's spread out and see if there is anything else of interest on this island before we set sail.” They broke up into four groups, led by Radek, Connor, Nicholas, and Ingram.

Ingram was not an adventurer when he lived among his fellow Doreh in Hadon. In a country of big, strong men and women who lived for a good fight, he was a part-time soldier and full-time gatherer. He would collect roots and mushrooms and when he was lucky, honey or some plant with valuable oils. Since discovering his propensity for magic, his life had changed far beyond what he could have ever conceived. He was now a powerful mage, traveling to all corners of Xoran to help defeat any who would threaten her.

In the direction they went, they came upon a faint trail through the woods. They followed the path for miles, till the sun started to set and it became too dark to see the trail without torches. Eventually, they found themselves surrounding a small, rundown cottage in the deep woods. A collapsed well was at one end of the small clearing, there was a shed where the animals would have been stabled and not more. There were the normal noises that one encounters in a stock of woods; the hooting of an owl far above, the howl of a solitary wolf, the chirping of birds and insects, and the rustling of branches, disturbed by the light but steady wind. A howling cut through the white noise of the forest and chilled them all to the bone.

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Ingram reached out with his perception, trying to locate the source of the mournful sound. His ability to connect with all life forms allowed him to eliminate every creature that he’d ever encountered and yet this time he was stymied. He was frustrated, but the men around him were shaken. He could see the fear beginning to show on their faces.

“Mage, what was that?” One of the fighters said in a shouting whisper.

“There it is!” a man said, pointing at a face in the window. She floated through the walls of the building till she was hovering between the house and the men. “It’s a spirit! An evil spirit!”

The figure was translucent, her ghostly white skin glowed faintly in the nearly suffocating darkness. What looked like skin had been eroded from her in parts, bones showed through her right cheek, her breasts were gone, and in their place, a great empty ribcage. She had pointed ears, and what remained of her face bore the noble lines of an elven countenance. Snow white rags hung from her thin bony limbs, and her fingers reached out for the men with ragged, ripped nails that tried to scratch. A look of horror warped her damaged face, and her mouth formed a bottomless circle from which emitted her wail. The sound was terrible to hear, and each man felt a wave wash over them. Fear. Of the half dozen men with Ingram, half surrendered their manhood and ran like frightened children in any direction that was away from the Banshee.

One of the soldiers threw a dagger at her, but the blade passed through her and embedded in the wood of the cabin behind her. She reacted to the attack by amplifying her deeply vibrating scream. The men felt their bones quiver and as one, they fell to their knees, clutching at their damaged ears. One of the soldiers tried a bow, but the arrow passed harmlessly through the spirit. Another of them attacked with a sword, and when his blade passed through her, he screamed and dropped his weapon. He shook his hand and yelped while holding his arm with his other hand. Ingram thought of a spell, and with authority in his voice, he cried, Ignis!

A gout of flame formed before him, aimed at the howling Banshee. She seemed to be taken aback, she hesitated for just a moment, then she flew at him till they were only feet apart and screamed with even more intensity than before. Her cone of sound was focused, aimed only at Ingram. He felt like his ears were going to explode, the pressure in his head caused him agony. He fell to his knees and pressed his hands over his ears, trying to block out the sonic vibrations. Beyond the mind-numbing pain, he felt a madness coming on him. Thoughts of death and murder raced through his mind, filling him with both dread and fury. His thoughts turned to the knife at his hip, and how he could stop the screaming by plunging the blade deeply into each ear. The rest of the men were beginning to recover, now that their mage was taking the full brunt of the Banshee’s onslaught. They wanted to help but knew of no way to harm or stop the monster.

Ingram was near to losing consciousness when a possible solution came to him. He remembered his training and remembered a spell that he’d never used before but might prove to be his salvation. Looking up at her with blood-red eyes, he uttered the phrase ‘Silentium’. The spell made the subject of the spell mute temporarily. He inhaled deeply, almost stunned by the sudden cessation of pain and madness. He stood and stared at the humbled ghost. She was stunned and furious, but there was nothing that she could do. He’d taken away her most potent weapon, and now, they no longer feared her.

“Let’s be away from this place,” he said to the men who had remained.

Radek had never fought in war, he was too young to have joined his countrymen when they marched against the Lords of Shadow just a few years ago. He’d been training to be a knight his whole life and had taken special training with his brothers and sisters in the Order of Domina, a secret sect that zealously upheld the dictates of the Panist Church. Fighting against the pirates who were threatening to board their ship was his first true test in real battle. That night, he lit a candle, bowed his head to the floor, and prayed to Domina for giving him courage in battle and the strength and skill to defeat his enemies.

For the second time, he was put in charge of a squad of soldiers. The party walked through the forest till it turned into a foul-smelling bog. The soaked ground sucked at their boots, bushes with brittle branches and inch-long thorns ripped at their cloaks. Night had fallen less than an hour ago and only the dim light from their torches held back the suffocating darkness.

“Do you hear something, Sir?” one of the soldiers asked.

Radek held up his fist in a sign for the men behind him to halt. They all held their collective breath and strained to hear. It started as a low howling that they might have attributed to the strong breeze that was blowing, but the sound grew steadily till they were sure that it was unmistakably not natural.

Radek sensed them before they arrived. As his prayers grew in fervor, his passion for the divine increased. It was talked about among the true believers that when a knight obeys the rules of the Order, to the letter, he would be gifted with heavenly gifts. He could feel the evil of the pirates, a sixth sense that left a sour taste in his mouth and a burning sensation in his chest. Those perceptions were magnified a hundredfold, he knew that something truly evil was near.

“Men! Draw your swords!” he commanded.

From every direction came the Banshee. Three of the apparitions closed on the men, and when they were only a dozen feet away, they began wailing. The men crumbled under the fierce attack, some fell to their knees, and many dropped their swords. Radek felt the ringing in his ears, the pain, like a knife to the temples, but he soldiered on.

“Die unholy spirits!” He quietly spoke the blessing on his sword, and it responded by giving off a soft white glow. He waved his sword at the nearest Banshee, and she shuddered, her scream cut off. “Your evil belongs nowhere in this world; I will send you to the hell from which you came!” He hacked again and again at the Banshee, each slash bringing visible pain to her decomposing face. When he’d struck her a half dozen times, she lifted her head in agony and faded from existence.

Looking around he saw that his men had not fared well. Two of his soldiers had blood pouring from their ears as they lay face down on the ground. Some had managed to evade the Banshee and had fled to god's knows where. Four of his troops still stood, in obvious pain but not yielding without a fight. Their swords passed harmlessly through the spirits, only enraging them more. He leaped to aid the closest of his soldiers, and with a prayer on his lips, he cut through the creature, causing it great pain and despair. He now knew in his eternal soul that being a Paladin of the Order of Domina gave him special protections against evil and blessings that gave him the power to fight evil and the undead.

Radek tore into the Banshee that was trying to murder his men. Though made of the finest steel, his sword was an ordinary weapon. The power of the gods flowed through the Paladin, and by extension, through his blade. The Banshee was unsubstantial and could not be harmed by weapons, yet it was ripped apart by the blessing that came from Domina to Radek and through his sword. As the second Banshee was being reduced to vapor, he was already slaying the last of the creatures.

“Milord,” One of the recovering men exclaimed, “It was amazing what you done!”

“The might of the gods is infinite, and their judgment is indisputable. I am but their tool in this world.” He helped a man to his feet, “Compose yourselves, then see if you can find the others. We should get out of this mire and try to strike a camp for the night.”

“As you command, milord,” the men said as one.

Connor and Nicholas led their party out of the woods, and when they came to a plain that stretched out to the horizon, they agreed to follow the edge of the woods. They walked on for hours till sunset and as the last rays of light dipped below the horizon, they were wrapped in a blanket of darkness.

“Boys, I hear something!” Charity said. She pointed in the direction where she thought the sound came from, and they all thought that they could see a pinprick of light off in the woods. “I’m pretty sneaky. I’ll check and see what’s over there.” Connor nodded, and she almost instantly disappeared. They waited several long minutes before they heard her coming back, with no attempt at stealth. On her heels was a Satyr.

“Gentlemen, this is Galleck. It was his fire that caught our attention.” She indicated the Fae creature that was half man, half goat. Where the Mavit Tomar looked to be more goat than man, the Satyr had the face, chest, and arms of a man, with the horns, legs, and tail of a goat. He was five and a half feet tall, counting the horns, and had a finely combed beard and mustache. His smile put the group at ease, even though most of the humans had never met his kind before.

“Good evening, friends,” he said with a wide grin. “The elf says you’re just exploring my homeland. Hope you're not planning to take over or anything like that.”

“No,” replied Connor. “It’s a lovely island that you have here, but I’m fond of where I come from.”

“In that case, I’ll welcome you all to sit at my fire! I was about ready to break open a cask of strong mead, and I have a juicy boar haunch that I was getting ready to tuck into.”

“Food? And drink?” Connor asked. “Lead the way, friend!”

There is something about a forest populated by the Fae. The air had a strange energy, and the smells were sharper and more intoxicating. There were the sounds of far-off night birds, calling to each other, and the rustle of nocturnal animals, searching around for a meal. With the Satyr leading the way, they were shortly sitting on logs around a fire, set in a medium-sized clearing in the woods. The wind had been blowing the other way, but now that they were close, they could smell the roasting pig and the delightful scent of sizzling fat. He didn’t have enough to call it a feast, but each man and woman got a portion and a cup. They laughed and told the bawdy kind of stories that one normally doesn’t tell when meeting someone for the first time.

“This mead is strong, Galleck,” Nicholas slurred. Connor was already napping, and Charity was grinning foolishly over the rim of her cup.

“We Satyrs like our drink strong, perhaps you should mix in a little water.” He laughed at his guests and drank deeply from a horn of mead.

“How are your neighbors, the Drow?” Nicholas asked.

“They’re a prickly bunch, but no one would threaten a Satyr. We drift through life, living for food, drink, and song. I’d play for you, but most of your friends seem to have already fallen asleep. Seems you humans are not good at holding your liquor!” he said with a laugh.

“You think these Drow are dangerous?”

“They don’t bother with us Fae, but they’re no friend to her kind,” he said, pointing at Charity. “If you spend enough time around them, they will tell stories of how much they dislike their distant cousins, the day elves.”

“We sent two of our party out to meet them. They’re elves.”

“That’s not good,” he said soberly.