They arrived on Opaline Island after a long, unpleasant sail. The forces of Decim hadn't followed them this far but knew where to find them. Everyone disembarked and saw the chief waiting for them. He'd been pulled out of bed and now stood there in a fancy feathered outfit, with a smile that didn't match his haunted eyes. "My friends, welcome home! And you have my son, and the honored wanderer. How wonderful! Come, eat, and tell the tale before you rest."

Arlen wobbled and flopped onto a seat in the chief's little palace. He mostly let the others do the talking. But while he was starting to nod off, someone spoke his name, and all eyes turned to him. The chief said, "Can you help defend us, with your metal-flinging weapon?"

Arlen stood up shakily. "You still have that?"

The doctor presented it to him. Arlen nodded and took it. He checked the cylinder and held out a cartridge. "It can strike three more times, and then it's likely useless forever."

Someone murmured, "Like Thoko's three Black Arrows."

"Is that all?" said the chief. He looked to his other advisers. "You said he had more, much more."

"There are some things I can teach you. Will Thoko send an army here tomorrow?"

"A what?"

"A large raiding party."

"I don't know. I gambled he would not. Spirits..." He looked up toward his throne platform and private quarters, where his wife fussed over their returned son.

It was possible that the chief's gamble had put the entire population in danger of immediate, overwhelming retaliation. Had he thought that far ahead? Arlen's anger helped keep him awake. By rescuing the kid, let alone Arlen himself, had the man just set off a civil war?

If there was blame to be had for what was about to happen, Arlen shared it. He said, "I'll tell you what I can about defending yourselves. But you know more about how you fight than I do, and there's no way I can radically change things overnight while I'm half asleep."

The room went quiet. The chief said, "I shouldn't expect you to work miracles. But if morning comes with war canoes, will you stand with us?"

"Yes."

"And if we get through the day, will you teach us then?"

"That, too. What about the other islands?"

"Their children live in Thoko's clutches, too. They don't dare help us." The chief laughed hollowly. "Everyone, we have our freedom to act, now, and we have the outsider to guide us. Thoko won't dare strike us yet and that delay will be his undoing. Let us rest for now and make plans tomorrow."

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Arlen had collected what writing-slates and bits of papyrus-equivalent he could get, and took notes. His first record was for himself, making a chart of the entire domain. It said:

Echoing Isles, an island chain. Population vaguely over 10,000. Surrounded by the Roaring Storm. Impenetrable and big and loud! 7 islands.

Catacomb: Giant Builder ruin, good fishing. Most of the island off-limits due to golems.

Decim: The capital. Big, early ironworking. Hostages. Cave for concacting spirits and getting magic.

Gull Crater: Old capital. Toxic soil, volcano with direct spirit contact. Lost their heroes when Thoko was the only survivor versus a monster.

The Mire: Swamp full of raiders. Can't be invaded. Iron ore (natural bog iron). Mutated?

Newshore AKA Death: Camp of exiles forced to kill ghosts to survive. Slowly pushing the ghosts back with iron weapons.

Opaline: Where I arrived. In rebellion. Raided by the Mire; dangerous critters. Cliffs with valuable crystals.

Stormhowl: Close to the storm. Good with sturdy boats and houses. Bad weather.

Various tiny islands besides these seven.

Stormhowl was the one he'd heard the least about and which was the most isolated. As for the crystals of Opaline, he'd heard very little so far. In a meeting the next morning, the chief and his council showed them off: milky structures like quartz or aquamarine, useful for magic. Only about a third of the islanders had any magic ability at all, and of these the spirits had chosen, half had no more than modest ability such as speeding a boat. Arlen had been judged as potentially powerful but not amazing.

Arlen yawned and paced. The good news was that Thoko hadn't immediately sent in his marines. Nor did he have any idea what those were. "The first thing I can explain, then, isn't some new weapon or magic trick. It's about the difference between warriors and soldiers. You're brave and strong, but you need to learn to fight as a team. I've never seen your men do that."

He sketched what he meant, by words and drawings. The chief was interested enough to get several dozen spearmen to be Arlen's students. Arlen had them stand in a close line, stabbing together, moving forward and back together. The moment he had them turn together they whacked each other and several men tripped. "Good hustle," Arlen said, wishing he had a coach whistle to blow.

They didn't understand the point. He drilled them and explained further that having a bunch of guys run screaming into battle, each trying to prove his manhood, each trying to land a blow or steal something and then run off, was lousy fighting. An effective force was of a whole different quality, more than the sum of its parts. "With even these basic methods you can beat a larger raiding party."

They still didn't see how, but they wanted to believe his methods were a ritual of invincibility. So when he had them march with shields, unnaturally close together, and choose officers for groups of five, he got them to cooperate. When things really began to click was when he had ten traditional screaming teenage yahoos charge at a shield wall of ten. The impact thud made Arlen wince. When the old-school fighters tried to tear their way into the formation by yanking shields aside and slamming through, the brawl got more realistic than Arlen wanted but the defenders at least won. The yahoos lay there groaning and in some cases bleeding on the sand.

"Halt!" Arlen said. "Let's heal people up. That's a good start."

He was no soldier either, but the islanders weren't exactly up for advanced tactics anyway. He hoped to get them to master the basic shield wall and the notion of organized retreat... and fortifications.