Eight days. A trip that ordinarily would have taken nearly two and a half weeks was instead a short eight days.
Some of the worst eight days of my life.
I’d experienced a lot in my relatively short life, but I had never experienced sailing the deep sea. Perhaps had my first experience upon the deep sea been in a proper ship, it wouldn’t have been nearly the nightmare it turned into. However, that was a luxury for those who weren’t sailing to conquer the unconquerable.
So, I instead spent most of the eight days hanging over the side of the ship, puking my guts out. The waves were unlike anything I’d ever experienced, each large enough it could have swallowed us whole if not for the expertise of Alice and Rorak, who perfectly led us through the worst of it.
And don’t get me started on the weather. We could only move with such haste due to the wind and tides aiding us, like living beasts we were stuck clinging to for our lives. They ferried us with incredible speed, but in return, we were subject to withstand the worst of their vicious temperaments.
It first began the day after I recovered from my mana overexertion. We were seated in various states, mostly just lazing about as the warm sun beat down on us. There was nothing more to do than occasionally alter course when Alice suddenly shot up, alarmed.
“We need to pull in the sails.”
“Huh?” I remember asking at the time.
“She’s right,” Rorak added as he pulled himself from where he was napping with a wide-brim hat covering his head. “She’s about to get rather feisty.”
“Who?” Ilya asked.
“The sea.” Alice pointed at the gently lapping waves.
“Really?” I questioned, not sure whether they were messing with us. I could see Rorak being the kind to do as much, but Alice had been straight-laced the last few days.
“Sailor’s intuition,” Alice said, the limit of her explanation. “Now, unless you’d prefer dying at sea, let’s reel in these sails some.”
While I didn’t understand why, I complied, helping as much as possible. It was wise that we listened, as within minutes of beginning to make efforts to prepare, the sea began to turn choppier as the sky started to darken and the winds began to growl.
Within an hour, we were clinging on for our lives as the longship was absolutely battered by the waves, Alice at the helm with Rorak scrambling about to take care of this or that while the rest of us were handed buckets with instructions to ‘Keep the shop as dry as a desert.’
Easier said than done, the rain slashing down like endless tiny daggers. With but a spoken word, I shielded myself from the worst of the shower, which bounced off me like it were allergic to my very presence, but the same couldn’t be said for the rest of the crew. Within seconds, they were soaked through, shivering as they worked.
“C-c-can’t you share?” Ilya pointed at me, the only dampness upon me from the sweat of exertion.
“I could, but it would only remain in effect while within arm’s reach.”
She had grunted, nothing more to be said as she returned to scooping water from the bottom of the longship.
If I thought myself lucky for my affinity, it wouldn’t be long until any belief of my ‘luck’ would vanish as the waves rolling finally began to take hold of my stomach. Every few minutes, I’d switch between tossing water aside the ship to heaving my insides out over the rail.
And that was the story of Eight. Straight. Days.
Had it not been for my magical constitution, something I could thank my identity as a Sage for, there was a genuine chance I would have died during that trip.
The great Rook Baster, the first Sage in over a thousand years, died of dehydration from seasickness. I could think of few ways that could have been worse to go.
Of course, I didn’t die. Instead, I survived perpetual torment, merely wishing I was dead but unable to pass, my body capable of withstanding far more severe levels of abuse than an average human.
The only reprieve I was offered was when the storms would break for a few hours at a time, during which we’d all cast ourselves to the floor of the ship and catch whatever sleep we could, with either Rorak or Alice left on watch duty to wake us once signs of the next sea storm was about to hit.
I wasn’t even sure when we passed the God Pennisula until after the fact, during one of the few reprieves when I’d finally bothered to ask.
“How long until we pass the tip of the peninsula?” I’d asked, gulping down a mouthful of water to replenish what I’d lost in the last storm.
“Oh, we passed that a day ago.” Rorak had said without a hint of surprise. “Probably didn’t notice, given the storm wall hiding it.”
“No, I didn’t,” I muttered.
“Well, that’s the longest portion of the trip over.” Rorak had smiled as if the constant storms were as refreshing as a nice evening walk. “Only a few days out from here.”
And that was the extent of the conversation on the matter, Alice warning of the next storm approaching. It took another three days after that before I’d heard the blessed words from Alice.
“Based on the position of the stars from the last few days, we should make landfall sometime today. Probably around late afternoon to early evening, will we be within range to spot the coast.”
Those words gave me the strength to survive those final days; mana funneled through my eyes for hours as I prayed to spot my savior.
It came almost precisely when Alice said it would, shortly after the afternoon and the last storm began to part, that I managed to spot something many leagues away, farther than any of the crew could have seen.
“Land,” I whispered with near reverence before increasing in volume. “Land!”
“Where?” Ilya questioned; she’d been nearly as green as me during the voyage.
“It’s too far for you all to see.” I waved off toward the horizon. “But it’s definitely there.”
“How do you know?” Dirk questioned, more curious than doubtful of my capabilities.
“Mana vision.” I pointed at my eyes. “I use a tiny bit of mana to enhance my sight many times over.”
“You can do that?” Ilya asked this time, her eyebrows turning up in surprise. “That seems impossible to manipulate mana so delicately through your body like that.”
Right. I forgot.
Around my students, it had been easy to wave off their lack of knowledge about mana applications as nothing more than their young age and inexperience, but surrounded by accomplished mages, I was reminded that it was me who was an outlier in my relationship with mana, forced to understand it with a deliberateness that those with a mana core would never understand.
“Years of practice,” I answered. “Deliberate practice with how I manipulated mana.”
“Huh.” Ilya frowned in response. “Seems… pointless? Or perhaps excessive is a better word?”
For you, sure.
It would seem that way to those with functioning mana cores, their mana cores responsible for automatically manipulating mana when they used magic. For me, it was the only way magic was possible in the first place.
“I was a strange kid.” Was all I said on the matter, getting a little too close to the nature of my magic than was comfortable.
“Regardless, how long until we are likely to see anything?” Danai questioned.
“Half an hour, maybe?” I said, uncertain. “Guess it depends on how good your eyesight is.”
“Half an hour.” Alice nodded to herself as if that seemed about right. “The encampment should be easy enough to spot, not as if they’re so close that they need to hide their presence from Theronhold.”
“Half an hour then.” Dirk leaned against the ship siding, sighing. “Just between us all, since there are no ‘greens’ around, I’ve always found the waiting portion the worst. ‘Ship out and wait’ is what some of my men like to say.”
“Hah, and just how much action do you folk see? Not like there’s been any active fighting recently.” Rorak snorted in response.
“Doesn’t change the training we’ve gone through. And you know I was a member of the crown forces at one point, right?” Dirk said with a frown.
“Stop dick measuring,” Garus grumbled, the response earning a look from everyone aboard the small ship.
I sometimes forget he’s here.
Ilya broke the stunned silence, a quick peel of laughter escaping her.
“Ilya, need I remind you I’m your direct superior?” Dirk said rather unconvincingly.
“Not on this mission, you aren’t, you heard Commander Greyheart. There’s no stringent command structure during this. The only one with any stated authority is Baster there.”
“I’m just here to bring down walls that can’t be brought down,” I said with a shrug.
“And there you have it, Sir,” Ilya chirped.
“Yes, well, be that the case when we’re back within our regular stations, do remember to act your station.”
“Yes, yes,” Ilya said flippantly. “Just let a girl have fun where she can.”
I felt a smile beginning to tug at my face before I banished it with a thought.
No.
I’d taken this responsibility and would see it through to the end. I wouldn’t lull myself into a fake sense of contentment. I could not, would not allow myself that pleasure.
Not until I’ve seen this through.
Resolute, I remained quiet, my eyes locked into the distant land.
I’ve got a job to do.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
“Land ho!” Rorak shouted, much to the annoyance of the gathered crew.
“You realize we can all see it just fine, right?” Ilya rolled her eyes at the man. “Not exactly like you’re watching from a crow’s nest after all.”
“Habit.” Rorak chuckled without a hint of remorse. “Alice, I must say your navigational skills are no inflated jargon. How’d you bring us in within degrees of exactly where our allies are?”
“Intuition,” Alice said without missing a beat.
“Hmm, well, if only the rest of the fleet navigators had that same intuition. We could circle around the crown without them ever catching a whiff of us.”
“If there were any else as good as I, then I reckon I wouldn’t be the one on this little mission of ours,” Alice added.
This content has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.
“Hmm, fair point.” Rorak conceded. “I was just-”
“What was that?” Ilya asked as the man cut off, but he only shook his head.
“Baster, would you mind looking at the shore again?”
“Why, you can all see it?” I questioned.
“Yes, but only barely. But I think I see something off.” He was frowning as he spoke; for the jovial man to frown like that had my heart hammering.
That’s probably not good.
Doing as he requested, I enhanced my sight, eyes tracking the coast until it spotted the encampment. By simple sight, it had been little more than a few tents, barely visible. It was a testament to Rorak’s keen eyesight that he had even spotted a hint of what I was now seeing.
“There’s a battle going on,” I said flatly.
“A battle? How?” Ilya questioned. “We’re still too far south for any of the main northern forces to have made it here.
“No.” Dirk shook his head, scratching his chin. “We’re too far south for their main forces, sure, but not advance vanguards.”
“They knew,” Danai added.
“Aye,” Dirk confirmed. “They somehow caught wind of our plan to move an advance force northward and made to catch them first, crush them before they could arrive. They may not know the specifics of our plan, but they at least knew that troops moving northward was likely a sign of something that they wanted to avoid.”
“What do we do then?” I questioned, out of the loop of military doctrine.
“For now?” Dirk shook his head. “Nothing. We can’t do anything until we make landfall.”
“On it.” Rorak and Alice said in tandem, already racing to their posts.
“We can row in,” Danai said.
“Bad idea.” Garus quietly dismissed the idea. “Exhaustion is death.”
“Damnit, I don’t like it, but he’s right,” Dirk growled. “If we enter the fray exhausted from rowing in, we’re as likely to end up with a spear in the gut as we are to make any difference.”
“I’ve got an idea,” I said, raising my hand.
“If you plan to do the rowing yourself again, that’s an instant veto from me,” Dirk said. “Valiant, but foolish to put it all on you.”
“No, I’m not going for the heroics play,” I said with a shake of my head. “But I can ease the ship’s ability to slip through the waves. Essentially, the opposite of the spell I used on the oars. It may not make us much faster, but it should get us there that much quicker, and it should be light enough on mana that I’ll be fine to fight.”
That was technically a white lie. I wasn’t worried about it draining my mana at all. The spell wasn’t a demanding work of magic, and ever since achieving my latest Sage ring, my latent mana regeneration had increased enough that I could maintain a spell like that for hours if need be. I couldn’t tell them that, though. Mana didn’t regenerate naturally for those with a mana core. It took direct and active effort to replenish their reserves. To admit that the spell would have effectively no effect on me would be suspicious, a bit too suspicious after the entire questioning of why I was skilled with such a usually useless practice as direct mana manipulation.
“Fine, if you don’t think it will affect your ability to fight too much, do it,” Dirk said with a sigh. “Denai?”
“Agreed.” The woman said. “Without any idea of what our allies are up against, we can’t afford to waste time, not when our arrival could spell the difference between victory and defeat, and without them, our mission is defunct.”
On the same page, I took a deep breath as I mentally structured the spell, imagining exactly how it would work before I spoke.
“Aulous.”
Instantly, I felt a tug in my gut as the effort took hold of me. I was off on my estimate by some, the drain of the spell more pronounced than I had anticipated, but not so much that my initial statement of being capable of maintaining the magic would prove incorrect.
Why is that? We should be sluicing through without a hitch.
It was a topic of research for a later date. My understanding of how the sea operated was clearly missing some key components. Still, it was of little regard for now. As my spell took hold, we began to pick up speed, not a tremendous amount, but a noticeable difference, noticeable enough that I felt some of the tension ease from the shoulders of the crew.
“As long as our allies hold for fifteen minutes, we’ll make it,” Rorak said as he tested the speed at which we were sailing with a single raised finger.
“Weapons,” Garus grunted.
“Indeed.” Danai grabbed at a tarp cast over a nook of the ship, revealing an oversized crate. With a whispered word, the box popped open, revealing the contents.
Weapons and armor, all polished and ready for wear.
Handing them out efficiently that only trained soldiers would have had, the crew began dressing themselves, pulling on hauberks and vambraces, helmets, and shields before strapping on the finishing touches. Within seconds, the group had been transformed from a motley crew into a hardened unit of soldiers.
Except for me, who had watched them with curiosity.
“You not putting anything on?” Dirk questioned with a raised eyebrow.
“No, I will,” I said. “I just wanted to watch. Never seen soldiers getting prepared in person before.”
“Surely, as an adventurer, you’ve done this much?”
“Meh, we didn’t dress for war. We dressed for the occasion. Don’t want to wear a metal helmet when facing down a magma turtle or an izheruk, for example.”
“Fair.”
Discussion withering as the crew went silent, mentally preparing for the fight to come; I was left to prepare. With much less speed and dexterity, I began pulling on the equipment I’d claimed from the armory back at headquarters. First was an ordinary-looking chainmail directly over my shirt. Next, I pulled on a pair of metal and leather vambraces. After that, I belted on a leather and chain fauld around my waist, greaves, and other lower body pieces of modular gear. While they weren’t as comprehensive as standard plate legs, they had the advantage of greater mobility. It was far more fitting for someone unused to wearing full armor like myself.
Speaking of style.
I glanced at my blade. Over the years, I’d found my preferred swords were tied between the blades of the north I’d grown up around, classical bastard swords, and the oxtail sabres of the central region with their flared head and gently curving single-edged blades.
The sword I held now was neither such type. It was shorter and stouter, meant to be used alongside a spear and shield. The weapon of soldiers fighting shoulder to shoulder with their peers in pitched combat.
The gladius was very much not my preferred weapon of choice, therefore.
Still can’t really get a feel for it.
It was easy enough to wield, but that was part of the problem. It was just so… simple. Like all the elegance, the skill of a sword had been stripped bare to the most fundamental purpose of slashing and stabbing.
Which I suppose makes sense.
As alien as the gladius felt to me, the spear and shield I picked up felt even more alien. Sure, as an adventurer, I’d occasionally used both, but only when using a sword would have been asking for misfortune to befall me.
“Not quite used to ‘em, eh?” Garus, of all people, asked me, his gruff voice taking me by surprise.
“No, not quite,” I answered after a moment.
“Takes time. Training.” He answered, giving his own gladius a quick swipe through the air as if to demonstrate.
“Which I have neither of,” I said.
“Hmm. S’okay.” He shrugged. “Not ‘Green.”
“Green?” I questioned.
“New,” Danai answered me. “It’s what trainees and newbies are called. Green. You may not have training as a soldier, but you’re definitely not green.”
“All you need to know is when the fighting gets going, you join the line and keep this forward.” Danaia raised her shield before her. “And you stab out with this.” She thrust forward once with the spear. “The sword is only for when you need it.”
“Not that we want you fighting like a common soldier if we can help it, though,” Dirk said with a snort. “Would be a waste of your talent. That’s not to say it’s a bad idea to know how to pitch in if you ever need to hold a position.”
“It’s not the technique that trips up ‘Greens.” Danai continued after Dirk had said his piece. “It’s the physicality and mentality. Most simply aren’t in fighting shape to start. They collapse after only a few minutes. Second, most haven’t had the misfortune to take a life before, which can be a big hurdle to cross if you haven’t been whipped into shape. But…”
She went silent, her gaze lingering on me in such a way as if to say, ‘You’ve already crossed that bridge long ago.’
“Heads up,” Alice spoke up. “Landfall imminent.”
We were only minutes from the shore, quickly nearing as we all fell silent, retreating inward.
Fighting monsters or magical beasts was one thing. You could joke and banter even mid-battle, though I’d seen such carelessness get several less experienced adventures wounded or killed.
Humans were an entirely different thing. Soon, we’d be forced to take the lives of people who had their own hopes, dreams, and aspirations.
Let me tell you this: no matter how I’ve grown or how many years have passed. Taking a life never gets easier. There is no ‘honor,’ only death. Sure, it gets easier to block out the thoughts during a battle, but never do the faces leave you. And for those that such a thing does get easier, well, those men and women go on to become worse than animals, butchers of the innocent.
“Thirty seconds,” Alice announced. We could hear the battle as clear as day now, steel clinging on steel, grunts and shouts accompanying them.
The encampment was being sieged, and as nothing more than a simple camp, it wasn’t as if it was defended by proper walls. It was closer to a thicket of hastily constructed pickets, soldiers behind the pickets thrusting out with spears as they repelled an encircling force. Most of the enemy forces were concentrated on a singular section, a break in the pickets, pushing against the mass of our allies who stood against them, shields locked together.
Had it been a direct contest of two sides against one another, it would have been a closer battle, but forced to repel enemy forces from breaching the picket line ‘border,’ they were facing an uneven match, a quick glance revealing that our troops were outnumbered nearly two to one.
How did they stealthily move several thousand troops to catch us by surprise?
It didn’t matter, not for the moment, at least. All that mattered was that there were likely only minutes until, at some point along our defenses, our forces would break, allowing our enemies to trap our troops between their superior numbers.
“Garus, Ilya, Rorak. You find the weakest points of our positioning and reinforce them.”
“Cleared to use magic?”
“Cleared, unless an enemy mage should appear, at which point your duty will be to contend with them.”
“Roger.” Rorak saluted, simply jumping over the side and sloshing on ahead of us through the shallow beach waves. Garus and Ilya followed only a second later, repeating the action as they charged out after, splitting into different directions as they assessed where they were most needed.
“Danai, how do you and I taking a visit to the front sound?”
“Sounds like a plan.” The woman flashed a brief, hard smile, more teeth than mirth.
“Alice-”
“This close, I can keep us in touch, so I’ll watch from the center.”
“Perfect.”
“And me?” I questioned.
“You?” Danai snorted. “You’re the one who’s fully responsible for your own actions. Where do you think you’d be best suited?”
My earlier thought came back around: how it seemed odd that such a large force had snuck up on us.
“There is a skilled mage nearby,” I answered. “So I should deal with them.”
My only response was a single agreeing smile from Dirk before he and Danai jumped ship, wading forward through the waves crashing against the beach.
Leaving me alone with Alice.
“Question.” I turned to look at Alice. “You said you can keep in contact with us all. How?”
“Kin magic.” She waved a hand upward, and what looked like a halo flickered into existence around her head. “Two main effects. One, I can take and process far more sensory information. It’s part of what makes me the preeminent navigator of the fleet.”
“And second?”
“Depending on the time I’ve spent near others, I can directly touch their minds.”
“Mind magic. Tends to make people nervous.”
“That’s why I don’t explain it as magic that can affect a person’s mind. Figured with your history, you wouldn’t care.”
“Correct.” I nodded. “Which brings me to what I want from you.”
“Oh?” She questioned, eyebrow raised.
“If they’ve got a mage with them, I doubt they’re right at the front line.”
“You want me to see if I can detect anybody behind enemy lines nearby, but close enough that they’re unlikely to be some removed command structure.”
“Bingo.”
“Hmmm.” She frowned, the halo glowing more intensely as she closed her eyes. Seconds passed like that before they snapped open as she flashed me a brief smile. “West of here, there appears to be something hiding in a thicket overwatching here. Either it’s a small bear or-”
“Or their mage. Got it.”
Without another word, I hopped from the small ship, instantly veering west. Marching with purpose, I broke free of the sea before picking up speed, all but sprinting at the defending line of our makeshift defenses. The clash of battle rang loud, but I couldn’t afford to partake, not when there were bigger fish to fry. Nearing the front, I tapped into flow, sprinting and leaping over the wall of bodies crashing into one another.
Not for now.
Sprinting past, I ran into the thick forest undergrowth surrounding the beachfront. I continued my run through the forest as it began to slope upward until I slowed as I neared the hill where the enemy mage would be hiding. Masking my mana signature, I started creeping up the thick forest hill. I felt the seconds pass by agonizingly slow; each second wasted was a second lost, but it couldn’t be helped. I didn’t want to give them the chance to escape or take me by surprise. I continued my slow ascent, carefully reaching out with my mana sense until I found them. There, in a tree only a short distance away, invisible to the naked eye, was my opponent.
No slouch.
Even watching where they should have been, I could make no visual distinction between where the person began and the leaves of the tree overhead continued.
Stealth magic of some sort?
The simplest explanation was that it was magic that bent light, but that wouldn’t explain how it had concealed the noise of the enemy troops advancing on our allies’ position.
Wait, no. I’ve seen this magic before.
I had been a teenager, still accompanied by Imako, when I’d seen something capable of tricking the mind, ignoring sensory cues right before you. It was magic used by a bartender of some shady inn. At the time, she had mentioned that her kin magic allowed her to hide the obvious.
And kin magic wasn’t unique to a person but to a family.
What are the chances?
As if understanding what I was seeing was enough, the veil lifted, and suddenly, a man was watching the battle play out from above. Luckily, our arrival point had been obscured by trees, so he’d had no way to know of our joining the fray.
Perfect.
I mimed pulling back the string of a bow, imagining the movement I’d seen from Imako as I whispered under my breath.
“Aulous.”
Instantly, I felt the tension as a bow of flowing water appeared. I wasn’t used to using my water magic in this fashion, but my usual lances of pressurized water didn’t have the range to reach the man from his position across the patch of forest and hidden in a tree. On the other hand, an arrow was just the magic to take a target down from range without having to utilize any overly taxing spell.
Still holding the bow, I concentrated as the water began to solidify, manipulating the nebulous bonds of mana to strengthen as the water arrow morphed into warm ice.
Good.
With one last steady breath, I released the arrow as it whisked through the air, fast as, well, an arrow. My aim held true, in part guided by the magic, and with only a quiet thump of noise, it struck the man through the front of his throat, his eyes widening before he crashed from the tree, already dead by the time he hit the ground.
Easier than expected.
Magic was, is, far from infallible. Often, the magic we are best practiced at leaves the most glaring holes. For example, a mage who could manipulate the brain’s abilities to detect things would often fail to pay attention to their surroundings or magical defenses, too used to remaining undetected when they wish it.
Ashes to ashes, rust born of rust, another bites the dust.
With their mage dead, it was time to return to the encampment, the battle still raging even without their mage alive to oversee it. I began a slow jog down the hill, thinking as I passed through the trees.
Now, where can I prove most useful?
The corner of my mouth twitched upward, refusing to touch upon a smile as the answer came.
Where it will cause the most chaos.