We missed the best tide to depart but the Isa was ready to go by the mid tide, so our planned departure day wasn’t thrown off yet again. Captain Darius had planned to address the crew that morning but had decided to wait until after we were at sea to make sure we met our time objective.
While the crew rushed about getting the very last of the last things ready, I had the distinct displeasure of doing nothing.
Abso-bloody-lutely nothing!
Never had I set sail and not been involved in some manner. Not even when I was a tyke on my first voyage had I been useless. But here, under the infinite wisdom of his majesty’s navy, I found myself staring aft, listening idly to the helmsman and Captain as they did real sailor work.
I could try helping, but the Isa was fully staffed – even if it was with the dregs. Experience had taught me that trying to give directions didn’t sit well with the men, even ignoring Lockwood’s games. Or perhaps because of them. Not everyone was inside the second mates’ circle of influence, but those outside it had no intention of crossing him.
My eyes were drawn to a barge we passed. They had boxed crates, ropes and stones for cargo, and were using various lengths of rope to connect the stones to the crates before gently lowering them over the side to sink to the bottom. Curious, I pulled out a spyglass to get a better look but couldn’t ascertain any more details than what was perfectly clear at first glance.
“Marvelous, aren’t they?” Captain Darius called to me. I lowered my spyglass and quirked a questioning eyebrow at him. He left the helmsman for a moment to join me, gesturing at the barge and its cargo. “The brainchild of our runesmiths and enchanters, though the college will get the credit in the end. I feel proud to have even indirectly influenced their design.”
“What are they?”
“A safety measure.” Darius explained. “Domenic Seaborn travels beneath the waves and can attack ships from below. It is a strategic asset that has no equal – if we had one ship in the fleet capable of such things we would rule the world! We tried various countermeasures against him but it was thought that none were truly effective and all were non-standard, cumbersome methods.”
“I thought the navy had Seaborn on the run?” It felt weird to refer to myself in the third person.
“Sure – we chased him across the Broken Isles, from one burned ship or town to the next.” Darius face darkened. “The one opportunity we really had to pin him down he managed to sabotage my ship and slip away. It was the only time the task force came close.”
Oh, father. If you only knew how your pursuit harried me.
“We found out later through the Voice of the Crew that our strikes had …”
“Voice of the Crew?” I asked. I knew that term – it was one of the status effects of my ship – but why was Darius referencing it?
“Yeah, those letters and journals that Seaborn let the crew ship off. Some were very well written, and the best of those made reference to the ‘Voice of the Crew’ that the blasted ship has. A scholar picked out the name and slapped it on the cover of the book they made by compiling the best letters. ‘Voice of the Crew’ has become the term for those letters and journals. Have you read any of them?”
“No,” I said. “I’ve only heard of it.”
He leaned into me conspiratorially. “If it was more widely known that the primary letter that inspired the name and started the whole thing was written by an elf, I guarantee it wouldn’t have the kind of support it does.”
An elf … oh, Rhistel. Of course you would be the one capable of putting everything into words.
“It has support?” I asked, anxious to hear the perspective of a man who’d been fighting the opposite side.
“More than it deserves, and that’s all I care to say at the moment.” He pointed at the barge as it slipped further away. “We were talking about how we’re evening the battlefield. The Death’s Consort isn’t an immortal ship, it just can’t be sunk conventionally. It has to be destroyed. It’s difficult to do that when it can move three dimensionally. The goal of those boxes is to either force Seaborn to fight on the surface or blow holes in his ship if he insists on staying below. We call them naval mines.”
“Naval mines,” I said quietly. I’d long wondered how military ingenuity would counter my advantage. These hardly made a level playing field, but they were a solid defensive measure. I couldn’t sail the Death’s Consort straight up to the docks and ship cradles and lay waste to them. The mines were far enough out that only Sadeo could have hit his targets if we stayed outside of them. If we surfaced to enter the ring, we entered a pen. Any retaliating forces would be able to strike at us as we surfaced when we hopped back out again.
An imperfect defense, but a solid plan. An annoying plan. I’d have preferred my enemies let me have my overwhelming advantage – as overwhelming as a carrack could be, anyway.
“They must be expensive to manufacture,” I said. “How many can be put out?”
“Your tutelage doesn’t seem to have touched on artificers. They were a difficult design to research; blending sensitivity and power with stability and longevity. However, once the blueprints were created refinements were quickly made – are still being made! Many of the king’s artisans dedicated to making ship weaponry and runes were repurposed – but this is just to create more applicable weapons for this day and age. These can be made by the dozens and are being implemented at sensitive naval sites. With a few thousand the Broken Isles will have protected shipping lanes once more!”
Thousands … now that was a scary thought. Still, if those thousand were made using similar cost-effective measures like they were using here, I could already think of a way to turn them to my advantage.
“I can see you appreciate the strategic importance. Join me in my cabin this evening, I’ll tell you more about how they were produced.”
“Yes sir,” I said, recognizing in the offer both the incredible opportunity to learn more about naval tactics from an expert and the dangerous game of my father subconsciously sounding out my reliability and motives.
Darius returned to the helmsman’s side. While we navigated out and around the shoal waters, he was the consummate Captain, even to my dedicated observation. He was commanding: firm but with an easy manner. His tailored naval uniform looked sharp on him with its austerity. He forewent the tricorne hat, and yet through some magic his hair wasn’t swept into a wind tossed mess. He was noble, implacable.
It wasn’t until I turned my gaze to others that I saw cracks.
If Darius was as inspiring as he appeared to be, why did Billings still have downcast eyes? His uniform had several large medals, yet the ensemble looked like he’d rolled out of bed in it. Surely the first mate would have a bit more pep in his step, with his Captain on board? Or at least the terror of authority ought to have convinced him to make an effort?
If Darius was such a firm yet gentle hand, why did Lockwood appear to be biding his time? The second mate had a uniform that contrasted with the firsts’ like day did to night, yet the glances he gave the Captain and significant nods he gave to his toughs made me think of a prowler waiting for his chance.
It made me think of Burdette. Up until that moment, Lockwood had been an annoying bully. My grievances against him had been on behalf of Gerald. Once I tied his face to my memories of my traitorous first mate, however, Lockwood earned himself a fraction of the hatred I held towards Burdette.
The men did their work, and a few put their hearts into it with the Captain on deck. More just went through the motions. With them, I was less inclined to fault any flaw in leadership and instead blame the kind of men who’d been reassigned to the Isa. Still, with every mistake I noticed, I found myself watching to see which of the officers noticed as well, and whether they did anything.
Billings was predictable; he did nothing. Lockwood would give correction: the form of it varied based on whether that person had his favor. Those that didn’t received verbal abuse that I wouldn’t have discouraged by itself – I had a foul mouth of my own sometimes and have seen my share of mishaps at sea – but the way he was blatantly playing favorites bred anger. A crew could bond if they all received the rough side of someone’s tongue. These men wouldn’t.
It was only when observing all this that Captain Darius’ flaws began to show. The men he appointed under him were steadily undermining him and he surprised me by doing the same as his first mate: nothing. He stood on the quarterdeck looking noble and statuesque alright, but if he didn’t get out of his own head and do something with the skills he had his crew wouldn’t wind up any better than mine had!
Okay, that was an exaggeration. My crew had gotten it bad, and I wasn’t in a position to judge. At least, not as a Captain. As a lost son, I claimed full rights to judge my father.
Once again, I found myself hoping that he would fix everything. I wanted to see that he knew what he was doing, that he could inspire his men and lead them to gloriousness. Why did I want that? Was it as simple as wanting one of the Captains who’d pursued me to be the very best, so I could feel better about my lost men and narrow escapes? Was I hoping that somehow, he would inspire me?
Was I wanting him to be the perfect Captain, so I could demand to know why he’d been such an abysmal father?
Once safely at sea a good distance from any potential obstacles or hazards, Darius cast a communication spell to someone on the mainland, where he let them know his course and position. Then he had the crew muster on deck in ranks and addressed them.
“Men, I am proud to serve on board the Isa alongside such fine and proven men as you. You have all displayed your loyalty and devotion to the crown and your fellows, and earned the right to be here.”
I dubiously looked around, and I wasn’t the only one. It sounded like the Captain had repurposed the speech he must have given to the Athair’s crew, because these weren’t those men. Perhaps this was a method of speaking to their potential?
“I will keep this brief; the Isa is not a normal ship, and we will not have a normal mission. I’m sure you all saw the orc that was brought on board. That orc is a prisoner of war. Our own enchanters lack the numbers and skill to meet the needs of wartime production. The orc is one of many that have been captured for the purpose of making weapons to turn against their own kind! We set sail with only a few enchanted munitions for our own defense, but with a hold full of potential. By the time we rendezvous with our first fleet, we will be stocked full of munitions to resupply our allies!”
That got a cheer, ragged because of the few immediate and bloodthirsty shouts followed by those who realized they ought to cheer a second too late.
“The Isa is too valuable to be risked on the skirmish lines of our naval battles, but she will go down in history as the ship that pushed the tide of war forward! Rally to the cause, men! We sail!”
That speech ending was clear enough that the men knew they were to cheer, and they did. Darius turned to Billings and told him to dismiss the men and resume operations. Billings saluted, and as the Captain went to his cabin the first mate turned to Lockwood and ordered him to take charge. Lockwood saluted and yelled out orders.
I didn’t pay much attention to their silliness. While Captain Darius’ speech sounded like it should be inspiring, I’d seen how it had seemed to break him down rather than bolster him. He’d hit all the right notes, said all the right words – no doubt leaning on his leadership skill levels – yet he didn’t believe them. The noble Captain left his podium a noble disgraced.
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And because I was watching, just before his cabin door swung closed I saw the bottle of liquor he pulled out to deal with his problems.
That evening, Darius hosted the officers’ mess – which was to say the special dining the officers of the ship did away from the enlisted men. I knew it was a thing mostly because I knew Gerald put extra work into the food that went to these men. I hadn’t participated much aboard the Carpathia, both because of the hours I kept swapping duties with Frederick and the fact that Captain Graves hadn’t hosted a regular nightly mess.
I’d heard the arguments for it, but personally thought it looked like an unnecessary show of elitism. Again, I reminded myself I hadn’t a leg to stand on when it came to critiquing such things and tried to learn from the naval tradition that surely meant something to still be in practice.
The mess was a gentleman’s affair: that is to say, it was session of subtle politicking and backstabbing masked by smiles and fine manners while hosted by Darius. The Captain did not seem to either discourage or participate in the game itself, but instead watched it all like an impartial judge of each match.
Lockwood was, of course, the winning participant. Billings scarcely defended himself, though he did come out of his shell to say more words than I’d yet heard from him. Bosun was the one who gave Lockwood the most sport, though he tried too hard for being out of his depth.
The single occasion Lockwood tried to bait me was blessedly short.
“So, our esteemed second mage, I hear you have a fondness for steel weapons?”
Having seen how Lockwood maneuvered, I suspected he was going to pull me apart as a weak mage for focusing on martial prowess then ask after my fighting levels and tsk at whatever they were as well.
“I like one handed weapons,” I said as I ignored proper manners and used my fork and knife sensibly to tear my meal apart like the utter barbarian I was. “It leaves my other hand free for rude gestures.” I even gave him a demonstration.
There were guffaws around the table, and if the Captain didn’t call out my rude table manners the others weren’t going to do any worse than look down their noses at me.
When the meal ended each officer asked Darius for permission to be excused for one task or another until it was only me left behind. My father looked at me sideways.
“You’re not going to excuse yourself?”
“I don’t have any pretense of better things to be doing, and you did invite me to spend time with you this evening.”
He snorted. “The last junior officers in the navy with such manners had the starch wrung out of them. Come on. Let’s let the scullery lads clear the table.”
We moved from the dining room to the Captain’s quarters, which were adjacent. There he unbuttoned his coat, set it on the back of chair, and pulled out a half-empty bottle of liquor and two glasses.
“Those bloody insufferable men can get on the nerves, sometimes.”
Maybe he was trying to push my sympathy, as I had obviously thought the others were bloody insufferable. Rather than agree with him, I asked “Why didn’t you stop it?”
“You see Dom, it’s like a game with them.” He explained while relaxing with his drink. “Give them an outlet to play, and they can compete in a setting I choose. Let them run wild, and they’ll be making issues in their attempts to curry my favor.”
“Aren’t they running wild?” I asked. “Do you see the kinds of things they’re doing?”
Darius – my father – gave me a very dark look. “Go on – do tell me all about what my own officers are doing.”
His tone said that under no circumstances was I to say another word on it. I didn’t.
“Tell me of the team you led while an adventurer,” he said suddenly, his voice lighter.
“I wouldn’t say I was a team lead.” I replied.
“Oh, but I can see you hunting for that edge – that thing that sets a true leader apart. You’re not a natural leader – at least not the charismatic kind. You’re more of a teacher – the friendly mentor, am I right?”
I reluctantly nodded.
“Yes, I noticed that. But during some circumstance you found yourself trying to fill the position of a charismatic leader and you don’t feel you did a good job, so you’re looking for some trick that you can learn to change everything. Tell me if I’m getting warm?”
I chewed my cheek as I looked away. I couldn’t make up a blatant lie on the fly without getting caught in it eventually, but it was easy enough to couch a deception in truth. I’d done it to Hali on our last encounter, and she was a trained spy.
“I wasn’t put in charge of an adventurer team. It was actually before my adventuring days. But yes – I found myself in a leadership position, and in the end I found myself … wanting.”
“Just you, or your men too?”
“I wouldn’t say that they were satisfied.”
He shrugged. “That rules out the easy answer. If your men were happy and you were successful, it’s easy to address concerns about being a leader.” He threw back the rest of his drink, the honey-colored liquid disappearing down his throat. He sighed in appreciation. “A short time ago I might have even tried to work through an answer with you. I thought I knew it all. Turns out,” he poured himself another glass. “That even a lifetime of success can’t balance out a single mistake, and two mistakes will find you relegated to a dump to spend the rest of your life staying out of trouble.”
Oh.
Oh.
This could explain a lot …
I covered my thoughts with a mock toast of my own glass. “Here’s to obscure dumps and staying out of trouble.”
He snorted. Stars, I wouldn’t have thought we could have a similar mannerism without even having seen each other before yesterday.
“I suppose I could drink to that. Dom, if I had to give you any advice, I’d say try not to lose out on that desire to know more – the push to move forward. Can’t claim it worked out for me in the end, but I gave that advice to a lot of junior officers and a good number of them turned out alright.”
“I’d settle for turning out alright,” I said, sipping my drink and thanking the stars Darius didn’t go in for grog or any of that other nasty stuff. If you were going to have a drink, liquor like this was the way to go.
There was no way I picked up that kind of thinking from him, so was it genetics or chance that aligned our drinking tastes?
“Have the others told you the stories of my previous assignments?”
I deliberated on my answer for a moment. “I’ve heard that you were on a prestigious assignment. I heard something went wrong.”
“And that’s all you heard?” he asked sharply.
“I doubt you wish to dive into rumors and I wouldn’t have any tact to repeat them when the person who really knows what happened is right here.”
He accepted that. “I’d be amazed if anyone knew the whole story. I haven’t even shared the whole thing with anyone, yet. I’ll give you an overview.
“A few months ago I was at court when the quest about Seaborn was given to the king. I was brought into the council deliberating how the quest should be handled, and then given command of a ship with a special assignment. I don’t know what you’ve heard about Seaborn, but even though he is Davy Jones’ lieutenant his power comes from a curse Jones placed on him. That curse gave Jones power over him, but also allowed him to enable Seaborn to create his dreaded ship.
“The thing about curses, it’s just another form of magic. Harder to deal with than the basic magics, much more nebulous and risky, but there are cures and countermeasures for it. Someone a long time ago had theorized of a method to constrain Davy Jones, and our experts theorized it could work for Seaborn. My ship was tasked with transporting a ritualist capable of trying.”
“You were on the task force hunting Seaborn.”
“That’s right. Whenever he used the power he got from Jones, he threw up a beacon at his location. It took our experts only a short time to realize that he was off the coast of Andros, and we theorized he was near Tulisang.
“The thing was, we were scared of how much magic he was using. Some people postulated that he was raising a fleet of his own from the sunken ships there, and was going to conquer the ocean starting in the southeast quadrant. The confederacy wasn’t fully established in those days, but if Seaborn had done that it would have destroyed any hope of the primary nations assisting each other. In a way, Seaborn galvanized the Confederacy together.”
“One man,” I asked, having to clear my throat. “One man forced the war to escalate like that?”
“I wouldn’t say that. The war was doomed to escalate. The question was whether it would be between a dozen vying nations or two powerful blocs. Seaborn just simplified things for the humans.”
“I see.” I needed another glass.
“We coordinated with Oorkom to staff and repurpose the Emerald from monster hunting and she formed the backbone of our task force. My ship sailed with her to Tulisang. It wasn’t known at the time that Seaborn could walk on land, he only chooses to plague the sea. He escaped our net. The ship he escaped on eventually became the cursed Death’s Consort. None of that matters, though.” My father took a stiff drink. “While I was in Tulisang I received a suspicious quest notification. Being a loyal Captain, I reported it to my superiors. That quest ruined my life.”
“Ruined your life?” I said, feigning ignorance. I knew he must have gotten the same Sins of the Father, Sins of the Son quest that I had that day. “How?”
“That doesn’t matter,” he said. “It dredged up some unpleasant business at court. My career as a naval Captain has been distinguished and honorable, but as a much younger man I made a mistake. The quest dredged it up to haunt me again.”
My blood spiked. Yes, his one mistake. A lusty teenager paying for a farm girl forced into prostitution. Then leaving her behind in the gutter pregnant, a young boy soon to come into the world. Surely no one could fault him for that one, teeny little thing!
Do I haunt you now, father? The specter of your absence haunted me and mother for years!
“That … that’s too bad.”
He huffed at my lame understatement. “It certainly was. At the time, I thought I could own up to it and volunteered to rectify my mistake.”
“Rectify it?”
“I’m not going to share the details of my personal quest with you, Dom. Suffice to say my mistake was a blight on both the kingdom and my honor and I swore to remove it.”
Cold, father. Your son embarrasses you so killing him would make it all go away?
“My honesty about the quest and oath to pursue its completion convinced his majesty to have me remain on the task force. I followed Seaborn around the sea before we finally, finally pinned him down in the Broken Isles. I thought that was it. The ritualist on my ship knew what she was doing, and as long as we stayed close enough to Seaborn we could force him to stay on the surface, force him to take his damage like a man!”
Darius wrung his glass in his hands like he was imagining wringing Seaborn’s neck. My neck. “Our task force was prestigious, yes. But we were also only a small collection of ships in a major war effort. The elves and the Madu, the orcs … they all demanded ships and supplies be allocated elsewhere. If only my ship had been better staffed, I could have dealt with him! I could have! But he sabotaged me. Fouled my rudder and a team of his ambushed my men as they tried to fix it. My ritualist did the best she could, but Seaborn was able to get enough distance that he could submerge.
“The Emerald had staffing issues to – they tried to make up the difference with a necromancer and his minions, but that failed. Was Admiral Michaels punished for his failure? No! But because I had this bloody quest hanging over me, it meant that I was compromised and unable to fulfill my duty. I was relieved of my command. Relieved of it! So that part of the rumors you’ve heard is true, at least.
“They knew they couldn’t just sideline me, however. They need Captains with my abilities too badly. So, I was given this command. The Isa … pushing the tide of war forward.” He snorted and offered me the last finger of alcohol in the bottle, which I declined. He polished it off himself. “On paper, the assignment is prestigious enough they were able to couch my commission in flowery terms, but I’m being punished just like you. Just like Billings and Lockwood and most of the other sods on this ship. It’s true that the orc can produce enchanted goods – he can do it better than any human enchanter I’ve met. But the Isa is a stopgap measure in a logistics problem. A loyal enchanter would never be put into harm’s way like this.”
“But you’re doing some good to the war effort.”
“Some good … Dom, I was in line for an admiralship if I stayed at sea. If I decided to spend more time at court, I’d have been welcomed as a hero. This war was to be my moment to break through the threshold! Now … I’m doing ‘some good’. Would you be satisfied with that?”
“Maybe,” I said. “I think … that’s always what I’ve tried to do. I’ve never had the head for long-term strategy, but I’ve tried to improve what’s around me.”
“A tactician’s nightmare,” Darius joked. “Men doing good things rather than what they need to be doing. Tell me how that’s worked out for you? No, better yet – wait until you’ve got some gray in your hair and tell me how many have died because you wanted to do some good.”
I set my glass on his desk. “There’s already a body count, sir.” I stood. “Captain, if I may be excused, I need to see to my duties as second mage.”
He eyed me and the glass I’d set down, but eventually waved me away. I left him alone to his self-misery and the next bottle I was sure he would find.
Rather than unpack all the emotions my father had unknowingly churned up, I found myself heading below decks to the improvised prison Jorgagu was held in. The huge, tusked enchanter had a handful of ballistae bolts in his lap when I entered.
“Jorgagu,” I greeted him.
He looked at me, sniffed, rumbled out a growl and went back to focusing on his bolts.
“I’m interested in talking. I’m interested in hearing your story.”
He looked up at me and said a stream of words in a growling, guttural language.
“So yeah, I’ve heard all about how you are this one-person production line for enchanted weapons. There isn’t any way that they’d let you make just anything you wanted. They have to communicate with you. So, I know you understand me.”
He heaved a big sigh before looking up at me. “Stubborn.” He said. His voice was just as powerful in my tongue as in his. “Speak of weapons. Speak of enchanting. Speak of different things, and you must speak orcish.”
“I … you want me to learn orcish?” He looked at me and smirked. “O…kay. That’s fair. Do you know if humans even can, though? What you said earlier sounds like it’d rip my throat apart.”
He might not have understood everything I said, but he understood what I meant. It was easier to recognize and interpret words than it was to come up with the words yourself. He laughed at my nervousness. “Humans speak orcish when humans want it enough!”
I shrugged and crossed my legs to sit with him. “Well, I’ll put the work into learning if you teach me.”
He looked at me strangely, like I was a goblin that had suddenly sprouted tusks longer than his. I realized that no one had ever agreed to learn his language in order to speak with him. The human tongue was the standard one on the seas, so I’d only ever picked up a few phrases of different languages (primarily their curse words) in my life, but I didn’t object to trying to learn.
I was also very, very interested in what it meant to be an enchanter, this orc’s story, and what his opinions on Domenic Seaborn were …