Sunset laced the waves with bloody light as Araam, Son of Olaan Bane of the Dirters, Chief of the Raen, First Tribe of the Ocean Rovers, scoured the already silken gunwale of his raiding ship with a handful of the finest sand from the Glittering Shoals.

He’d built Haelbringr with his bare hands from wood harvested from the Singing Glades, daubed her with the thickest pitch from the tar beds of Jicara Inlet, and hung her with sheets of dark canvas woven by the most skilled hands ever to grace a woman.

The young Ocean Rover was impatient to take Haelbringr out on her maiden raid. The first that he would lead as raed commander, it would bring his new name, give him a new status within the tribe, and prove the manhood he had been honing these sixteen years.

Araam did not look up when he heard the thud of feet on his deck. He recognized the rhythm of the boarder’s tread, the slight hitch in the gait from old wounds, the confidence of the stride.

Though the chief did not slow once in his approach, Araam knew the old man’s sharp gray-green eyes were searching Haelbringr stem to stern for the smallest defect.

There were no more defects. The few there had been eleven days ago were now perfected.

There might, however, still be elements of her bearing that Araam could improve.

If there were more improvements to be made, he would have to swallow his impatience and continue with the work. Already he had been turned down eleven nights in a row. Yielding to the wisdom of his elders was as much a test of his manhood as the raid would be of his strength, bravery, and command.

The footfalls came to a stop at his side.

Finally pausing in his work, Araam tossed the pearlescent sand back into the bucket, dusted off his hands, and rose to face the greatest Ocean Rover to stand on a deck since the Lost Tribe had still been among the Twelve.

Olaan, Bane of the Dirters, Chief of the Raen, First Tribe of the Ocean Rovers, stood an inch or two shorter than Araam, but the chief’s proud bearing made him appear to tower like a mainmast. His shoulders listed slightly right, pulled by an old battle scar, and his ears shimmered with rings of skillful goldwork—symbols of his significance, strength, and honor.

“Raed Commander,” Olaan greeted him.

High seas battered the walls of Araam’s chest. A maelstrom howled in his veins.

He allowed no emotion to show on his face. Only children displayed their volatile passions for the world to see. Araam was nearly a man, and a man was steady, unchanging.

Simply being addressed as the raed commander did not mean he or his ship were ready.

But it was the first time his father had addressed him as such. It meant something.

Araam stood at attention. “Haelbringr awaits your assessment, Chief Olaan.”

That great man of the seas stroked his graying beard as he gave the sleek, beautiful raed ship a token glance, then turned toward the Raen’s tribal greatship anchored nearby. A slender, silk-wrapped form stood at the hulking vessel’s bow.

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Araam’s mother nodded. She believed his raed ship ready to carry its first treasure.

Araam fought back the storm swell in his chest. It was a good sign, likely much discussed by his parents before his father boarded, but he would not get his hopes up before the Chief of the Raen gave his word.

Olaan turned back to his son. “She is worthy of the ocean, Raed Commander. Gather your boarding party and depart at once.”

As if no joyous peals of thunder shook him from the inside, Araam replied with the cool composure of a man who would soon be fully proven.

“Yes, Chief.”

“May the God Who Owns the Waves on a Thousand Seas watch over you this night, Araam, Son of Olaan.” Though his father’s face was an ice sheet, the changeless stern expression of a man among men, Araam saw the glimmer of delight in the old raedr’s eyes. “Now go and steal a bride worthy of a fleet of greatships.”

***

Haelbringr’s sharp hull cut the dark water with hardly a hiss. She was even nimbler and faster than Araam had dreamed when he designed her. She moved on a breath of air, tacked with a thought.

Ahead, the sleeping bulk of the Hael’s tribal greatship drifted at night anchor. The vibrant colors she sported were muted in the cloud-covered night, her portholes and glass dark, except for a single yellow light in her stern castle. The soft glow of a whale oil stormlamp.

Using the Ocean Rovers’ silent language of hand signals, Araam sent down the order to his crew, Bring her leeward.

The watchmen of his prey would be on peerless alert. This was raiding season, and though it was rare these days for one tribe to attack another, the Hael greatship carried such a treasure that her chief would have certainly doubled her guard.

That was why Araam had opted for the darkest wood, the blackest pitch, and sheets of alaan, the darkest color known, the color of the ocean in the deepest part of the Deep Chasm on a moonless night. From the lookout on the greatship’s masthead, Haelbringr would be less than a shadow against the waves.

It was an oft-repeated joke that the men of the Hael tribe were as concerned with their appearance as their women were, but their fighting skill was no laughing matter. Their chief, Troanr Leviathan-Killer, was a legend who in his youth had slain one of those great beasts with nothing more than a sword. If Araam and Haelbringr carried the night against him, their future raids against the pathetic vessels of the dirters would be certain victories.

Below, Araam’s raedrs raced to obey the silent order. The usual daytime clank and groan of a vessel was muffled by layers of sealskin and cloth.

Uelaat, Araam’s best friend and chosen marshal, stalked the planks, watching for any who might give them away with carelessness.

No man aboard had missed the signals, and none raised a noise in their work. Araam had chosen his crew carefully months ago, before beginning Haelbringr’s build. Some were grizzled raedrs with multiple notches in their cutlasses. Others were closer to his age or younger, getting their first few raids under their belts in the hopes that they would soon be voted worthy of their own proving.

Each man had been chosen for a purpose. Ruell climbed like a spider and swam like a barracuda. Put a pair of cutlasses in Otaar’s hands and he was a school of sharks unto himself. Ceolr had a war howl that shook the ocean to its depths.

Uelaat had been chosen for his power, monstrous size, and vicious appearance. Without that intimidating physique, friend or not, he would have been left on the Raen’s greatship, as he was fast neither in water nor out of it, and his mental prowess extended only far enough to obey orders and repeat them to others. Uelaat was a man who would never command his own crew, but he was content with that. He often said he wanted only the means to provide for the wife and dozen children he would someday fill Cryst’holm with.

All that remained was to see whether Araam was the raed commander to provide Uelaat with those means.

Haelbringr slowed to a crawl. Araam left the helm, signaling the raedrs he had chosen for the attack. A skeleton crew would remain behind, ready to sail when they had taken their plunder.

He slipped his swordbreaker into his teeth and checked the belting on his cutlass. Then he stole over the rail and into the black waves.