Chapter nine

THE VOYAGE OF DAWN'S LIGHT

EVELYN

Meeting with the captains of The Stormbreaker and Kraken's Bane was nothing like I'd imagined. I was surprised to find they were both classers but I suppose I shouldn't have been. Captain Isolde of Kraken's Bane was a level nineteen Swashbuckler, and Captain Arabella of Stormbreaker was a level eighteen Corsair. The latter of the two gave me some concern because I was pretty sure a Corsair was a pirate, and she definitely dressed the part. Both ladies appeared to be in their late twenties to early thirties. Captain Isolde wore a uniform that spoke of professionalism, her dark brown hair in a bun under a beret. Every bit of her appearance was squared away, from her perfectly pressed uniform to her reflectively shined boots. In contrast, Captain Arabella was dressed as outrageously as a bard who fancied themselves a flashy gypsy pirate. Her clothes looked straight out of a pirate romance novel, and she was covered in many brightly colored sashes and ribbons everywhere. She completed the look with her short black hair in such a perfect roguish tousle that I couldn't help but blush a little. The woman even winked at me when she noticed my look! It was just a stark reminder that I was working with professional monster hunters, not a professional navy. For my part, I settled any questions about who we were and what we were doing here by adjusting my title to display Lady of Siren's Reach before our introductions had even begun.

As we all stood around the charts, Arabella moved to stand far closer to me than necessary, and Mirage seemed to appear from thin air to join us. I grinned at everyone's startled reactions and introduced her before letting Commander Aric lay out our plan. Once we were past the broad strokes, everyone had something to contribute to the execution. Given their knowledge of the local waterways, Isolde and Arabella had a lot of input on the route back and where the attack should come from. Once we began planning the attack, I got so frustrated with everyone calling the ships "Brig on the West," "Man-o-war," and "Brig on the East" that I declared their new designations to be "Patch" on the West, "Hook" on the east, and the man-o-war was henceforth "Zarina." Amélie approved, and that was all that I needed. There were a few concerns, such as being able to find Patch before breaking out of the fog and ensuring they escaped before Zarina and Hook could pounce. Mirage was quick to provide a solution, volunteering to travel with Kraken's Bane to provide magical aid for guidance and combat, and once I explained that we had two mages on board with the ability to control the wind, everyone was much more at ease. The captains returned to their vessels shortly after to begin preparations for battle, and soon enough, we were underway.

I was very busy most of the trip. With my [Control Weather] spell at level sixty now, I was much more adept at it than I'd been in my past misadventures. More than that, though, with all of my training in the kitsune clan's grove, I understood much more about the spell and how to commune with the spirits involved. They were intelligent after a fashion but far more ethereal and ephemeral in ways that were hard to describe. They were an essential part of the magic, however, and interacting with them was a complex dance. You never stopped in a complicated weave of negotiating, soothing, inspiring, coaxing, playing, and harmonizing with them. In comparison, keeping the spell going in the background was child's play, especially since their willful cooperation made everything infinitely easier and more mana-efficient. Using the spell without communing with the spirits was possible, but doing so would be like pushing them around, and they were a vengeful lot. I was only fortunate that as flittering as their existence seemed, they were also eternal and wise in their own way. They'd known in my past forays that I was essentially a child taking her first tentative steps into their world, pleading for help. They'd responded to my blind call, and though they reprimanded me for my presumptions, they'd not been angry nor held a grudge. After all, I'd managed to help them each time as well. Now that I understood what I was doing and had even leveled my racial skill, [Spiritual Communion], to fourteen, they were excited when I'd reach out to them. They loved this game, and I had to admit, I kind of did too.

I kept this up for the entire four-hour trip back to Siren's Reach and only risked opening my eyes at a gentle touch on my shoulder by Amélie. I looked around from my position on the prow to see the cove and harbor below. This was my first time seeing Siren's Reach, and I couldn't help the small gasp I took looking down at it. Even in the gloom of the storm, it was beautiful. I knew what the place was on paper: an estate in a mountain valley along the coast. There was farmland, a town on the shoreline with some fishing and trade industry, some vineyards, and a lot of horses. Seeing it in person was very different. The valley ended in a long peninsula, the land along the ocean abruptly cut off in a cliff face at least thirty feet high with nothing but broken rocks and crashing waves below. Every inch of the land was full of life. Near the southern end, The town of Siren's Reach sat on top of that cliff above a cove that looked as if someone had just reached down with a giant ice cream scoop and dug out a perfectly circular chunk of the land. The town wrapped around the northern half of that cliffside in a semicircle and just filled in going further inland. Every building looked in good shape, and the cobblestone streets were lined with what I could only assume were cherry blossom trees. Part of the cliffside where the cranes and switchbacks down to the docks were located had a few warehouses, but the space was dominated by a market that was still doing business even with everything else going on. Away from the commercial district, the houses all had small fenced-in yards and gardens, each being more spread out as the town grew further inland. The manor house overlooked the cliffside just slightly outside the town itself.

The cove below the city was a perfect place to protect its seaborne industry. The only way in by sea was a break in the cliff face at the cove's south end, nearly a quarter mile wide. The cove itself was near a mile across at its widest point, and had a short beach varying between thirty and sixty feet or so before coming up against the cliff face. At the widest point of the beach along the north side was the town's harbor, protected by a sea wall loaded with fortifications. Several ships were moored at the docks, but I could tell only two were armed to fight monsters, and the rest looked more for fishing or trade. I wished I had time to study the town further, but first, we needed to take care of the unwelcome guests.

Just as expected, the three pirate ships were still in their positions near the mouth of the cove, and they'd even dropped anchor in a boon for us. I watched as the fog washed up to the boundary of the cove and suddenly stopped in a wall of white that only grew thicker the longer I looked. We had come to a near halt, only slowly descending to prepare for our attack run.

"It's almost time, Evie," Amélie told me somberly.

I slowly nodded as I gently coaxed the spirits. "I am ready." Haunt whined from where he lay nearby, but I shook my head at him, "Not this time, boy. I'm sorry, I need you to stay here and guard the ship." He only let his tongue lull out in response.

I sighed, but it wasn't realistic to take him with me to board an enemy ship. It would be incredibly difficult to bring him back if something went wrong. Focusing on the task at hand, I still needed to change the direction of the storm winds one last time, but everything else was in place. The wall of fog should last long enough for our ships to slip away and prepare their second attack run, and I was wearing a spare gambeson and cuirass from the armory. I'd equipped my sabers, and I'd even taken the time to prepare a few scrolls in a case on my belt, but I'd be bringing my bag just in case. It had been some time since I'd done anything like this, and my bag felt an awful lot like a security blanket.

"There they are!" Amélie said beside me, pointing to a spot in the fog billowing away as our ships broke through. Kraken's Bane and The Stormbreaker were spread out enough to avoid friendly fire while passing on either side of their target, slightly staggered but moving at pace with each other. At first, nothing happened, and it was nearly ten full seconds before we heard an alarm bell ring out – but it was from Zarina. Patch, the ship they were actually targeting, seemed oblivious to the danger. The delay as their crew stopped to look for the threat instead of reacting to the alarm was telling. They might be professional sailors of a sort, but they certainly were no military. Motion on the shoreline caught my attention as the defenders of Siren's Reach responded much faster, the sea wall quickly filling with the town guard and the two remaining monster-hunting ships flooding with activity as their crews prepared to cast off. They had no orders to help, which was intentional – this was a trap, after all, not a standing battle, but the reaction to a warning bell was ingrained. That was a good thing, though. As they prepared their ships for combat, it gave the illusion of a pincher attack and added urgency to the blockade. They would need to quickly move to defeat one force before the other could reinforce it.

Patch's crew were buzzing around like an angry wasp nest, cranking their ballista, raising their anchor, and setting sails, but I could see the confusion and disorganization from the surprise. People were slowly filtering into their roles, and they really didn't have any time. Before they were even close to being ready to defend themselves, a succession of deep, resonating thrums filled the air as the ballistae of our ships began to fire. It was only seconds before they were accompanied by the sharp snaps of dozens of longbows firing in volley, every arrow trailing a ribbon of fire. The crew on Patch heard it, too, and nearly every one of them froze to look at the coming doom. With the ship motionless in the water, their attackers couldn't miss. Every shot carried an alchemical load, and as the ballista bolts hammered home, each shot slammed into its target with devastating force. Glass and clay pots on the ammunition shattered with the impact, spilling acid, poison, and accelerants across the decks and crew, and the deck once again exploded into movement. Anyone hit with the chemicals began to scream, and the acids immediately began to eat away at the wood, rope, and metal of the ship and its weapons. Smoke began to fill the air, and several crew members even leapt overboard before the rain of arrows began to land. Loaded with smaller vials of accelerant, they burned no matter where they landed, and the deck was soon awash in flames. All pretense of an organized response by the ship was over, and the second volley of arrows hadn't even been fired yet. Just as planned, I began to immediately change the direction of the wind, working to ensure that our ships had the weather gauge for their second attack and could continue to use the rearward wind to escape back into the fog.

The crew of Zarina and Hook both reacted with less panic. Neither ship was ready to move yet, but their decks seemed far more organized without the threat of an immediate attack. As our ships below lined up for their next pass, the sails of Hook fell into place, and the ship began its pursuit. Soon after, Zarina followed suit and slowly started moving on a path that would cause us to intercept them. I felt the flutter in my stomach as we began to descend again and took a deep breath. I really hoped that Aric was right about them surrendering. I talked a big game about going first and fighting my way below decks, but I was not eager to be killing people again. It was a stupid thing to think, too. If I didn't go down there and kill these pirates, they would be killed at range, and any slaves on board would die. If I went down there and they surrendered, then what? They'd be executed. That was the only punishment for piracy here, and from what everyone told me, it was always deserved. And if they didn't surrender, they'd die in battle, and I'd be the one doing it again. I hated that we had to be in this position. It felt horribly unfair, and yet, if I didn't deal with it, someone else would have to. No matter how much I wished there was another way, there just wasn't. So, I watched the ships sail, and over the next few minutes, Storm Breaker and Kraken's Bane successfully made it back into the fog. Less expected was when, the moment they disappeared, Hook changed course and began to turn back toward Zarina. The lumbering man-o-war was crossing directly below us, and as Hook turned, it was obvious that we were low enough for them to spot us. We'd be impossible to miss at this point, more than twice the length of even the massive warship below us. The flurry of activity on Hook's deck and immediate warning signal flags were still far too late. Our ballistae began their harsh thrumming and whirring staccato.

The ballistae of Dawn's Light were all artifact weapons, magically created machines designed and built by the Last Hero himself. We only had six, but the bolts they fired were twice the size of the shots fired by the heavy ballista on the ships below, and we could fire them at a rate of one shot every second for up to twenty seconds. Reloading their magazine was faster than reloading a standard ballista, but that wasn't going to matter. I pointed toward Zarina's helm and cast a "[Sun Ray]" at the man who looked the most likely to be the captain. To my surprise, he didn't die or even collapse, but right when he staggered around to look up at us, the first ballista bolts landed. In rapid succession, each shot walked further up the deck from aft to bow, detonating with concussive blasts. He only had an instant to glimpse us before being hurled overboard. I hadn't known what to expect from the blasts, this being the first time we'd used them in combat, but it was far more effective than I'd thought. The crew on the decks were tossed around like ragdolls. Deck boards cracked, lines snapped, and many of the top deck's weapons were smashed to uselessness in only a moment. I heard a rapid clatter of chains as both of the main bow anchors plummeted into the water, their heavily damaged capstans spinning themselves apart. Only three volleys were fired, and I didn't see anyone left on the deck that seemed alive. I raised a hand to call off the attack, but I heard the booming voices of Commander Aric and Master Gunner Thrain Stonefist bellowing out, "Cease Fire!"

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I knew it was likely that there were plenty of crew members below decks, but with the damage on the main deck, I didn't think Zarina would go anywhere any time soon. Just as I was planning to jump down, there was a sharp groaning and snapping from the ship. The bow seemed to dip slightly, and its forward momentum was sharply transformed. The fallen anchors caught on the sea bed, and the ship began a harsh, involuntary turn as its stern began to quickly yaw around to the side. More rigging snapped as the ship listed to the side, and moments later, the main mast let out a horrible series of deafening cracks as it splintered apart near the deck, falling into the water and being dragged behind the ship. The sharp cracking and groaning continued as the ship listed further and dragged more sails in the water before, in a moment that seemed like slow motion, it completely capsized.

"… no.." I breathed out in terror. The entire point was to take the ship to save anyone trapped inside! As I watched, I could see the water flooding through the weapons ports on its sides. I had no idea how long the ship would stay afloat, but I moved forward to jump down anyway. Amélie grabbed my arm, bringing me to a halt, and I looked back to her.

"No, Evie! Don't!"

A wave of incomprehension washed through me until I noticed her eyes, seeing the spiritual energy flowing through them. I followed her lead, pushing into my spiritual senses, and looked below. She was right. There were a lot of auras in that ship, but not one stood out in any of the colors we could associate with an innocent. While I watched, I was surprised to see dozens more auras joining them and hundreds more closing in. They were all a sickly, malicious blue-green that made my skin crawl. The sea was so thick with them that it almost looked like a tide flowing in under the water, and as it reached the ship, they began to converge on it. I couldn't see what it was through the violently churning water, but as my eyes swept the area, I finally caught sight of something. A small green form moving through one of the weapon ports. It was like a very short green fish man. As I stared, more began using the same method of entry all along the ship. The auras inside the ship began to mingle, and then, they began to wink out.

"Amélie, whatever those things are, they're killing the crew!"

"Yeah. Wow. Karma goblins?" she asked, sounding almost amused.

I didn't reply right away, unsure how I felt about it, but I knew we needed to warn the others. I stood back and began to walk back toward the quarterdeck when I heard more screaming from below and looked over to where Hook was sailing. The ship had turned away, back toward the fog to escape. As I watched, Kraken's Bane and Stormbreaker came back out of the fog, initially heading toward Hook before quickly changing course. I didn't understand at first, but a moment later, I spotted the same thing they apparently had. Hook wasn't moving. It was stationary in the water and swaying from side to side despite being at full sail. They seemed to be stuck on something, but all I could see around them was kelp dancing in the waves. The crew was panicking, grabbing spears and other long weapons as they tried to stay away from the rails.

"What are they doing?" I asked in complete confusion, but Amélie gasped.

"What is that thing?!" she asked, and I just looked between her and the water.

"The kelp? Uh. Isn't it just like giant seaweed or something? I don't know!"

Amélie pointed at it, "That is not kelp! It is the aura of something!"

I raised an eyebrow and looked again, seeing the large bed of kelp swaying in the water – or maybe even above the water. She was right! "That … is not good," I said, sprinting for the quarterdeck, Amélie quick on my heels. "Reload all weapons! Half explosive, half incendiary!" I yelled as I made my way through the busy crew. I remembered that combination being necessary for large sea creatures.

I looked over the side several times as I moved, and what I saw had me nearly stumble to a halt, only able to walk forward at a stunned pace. As I watched, tentacles of every shape, color, and size began to creep their way over the side of the captured ship. Those small green creatures were riding along them, carefully clinging to the rubbery, sucker-free side, and were quick to jump onto the ship before the slow-moving tentacles could get on deck. They were too far to use insight, but I heard someone mention a sea goblin as I passed. The goblins were working together to separate crew members as they rushed in a group but never actually attacked. They used threatening charges and withdraws, trying to avoid real combat while forcing the disorganized sailors to scatter. As soon as someone was split off, a group of them would rush the person, mobbing them and carrying them over the side of the ship. They were disturbingly fast and well-practiced at this and managed to grab nearly a dozen crew members in the short time they had to work at it.

I focused back on the sea monster. At first, I thought it was some sort of Kraken, covered in bright, vibrant colors and ring patterns, but I soon realized it was nothing of the sort. As I watched, I saw that it wasn't just many different tentacles overtaking the ship. As big as they were, they were just protrusions of the giant limbs coming up to grab the captured prey. The things were thicker than the warship and hundreds of feet long. Their tops were a colorful, rubbery material, with their underside covered in a combination of many smaller tentacles that swayed in anticipation and thinner tubular protrusions that seemed to stick and search like feelers. Every one of the appendages had suckers on one side except the feeler appendages, which just ended in a singular large cup. Three of the monster's giant main arms finally wrapped around the sides of the ship, covering nearly the entirety of it and pulling it further into the monster's grasp. Another rush of the goblins had several of the sailors backing away toward the rail, and the first crew member was snatched up. Several of the feelers poked him, their mucus-covered suckers sticking fast to his back and leg, and he was almost gingerly lifted from his feet and pulled away. The man tried to fight free, but the creature didn't seem to do anything but pull him farther into the mass of sucker-feelers, where he continued to struggle until he was completely immobilized in the tangle. The moment he was thoroughly trapped, the creature began an excruciatingly slow, ponderous task of dragging him down through the forest of feelers toward its central body. As the creature began to envelop the ship, the goblins all ran for the only place left to escape and leapt overboard. A few of them were captured in the feelers as well, but none of them stopped to help their companions. When we made it to the quarterdeck, Aric was giving out rapid commands as we moved toward the sea monster.

"Aric, what is that thing?!" I asked, my unease clear in my voice.

"Abyssal Star. They almost never come to the shallow sea. It cannot get up to the town, but it will destroy the harbor and eat everyone and everything there if we don't destroy it. The ammunition change was a good call. Once it finishes that ship, it will move to the man-o-war and then the harbor, most likely. We need to begin our attack where the water is shallower for the most effect and with the least chance of it escaping."

"What about.." I started to ask but looked to the water to see our ships heading toward the port, but at an angle, as they fought against the wind, and I nearly facepalmed. I wasn't supposed to do that anymore, though. I was a princess. Instead, I started casting and working to change the direction of the wind.

"How do we kill it?" Amélie asked.

"It's not a fast creature, and it is quite large. Once it moves toward the shore, it will expose the top layers of its central disk. We will wait until it has a hard time retreating, and then we will begin blasting away its thick outer skin with explosive alchemical shots and follow with detonating incendiary weapons in its vulnerable internals. It will take some time, but with the assistance from the town's defenses, we will be able to get it."

We began to circle around the monster to get a good look at it from the safety of the sky, curving around and heading back toward the town. I looked back down as we moved away, and I could see all the screaming trapped crew, most of them now caught up by the monster. The rest were trying to crawl up rigging to escape, but the Abyssal Star was beginning to pull the entire ship underwater. The swimming figures of the sea goblins seemed to be waiting just far enough away to capture anyone else who managed to get free of the star's grasp. I felt terrible for them. They knew they were only delaying the inevitable. I understood what kind of people they were, but that was a horrible way to die. The thing didn't even bother to kill them quickly, just keeping them trapped, knowing that eventually they'd be pulled down to drown without any hope. It was still a few minutes before it was over, and by the time the star sank below the waves again with its prize, we were nearly above the harbor, our plans and messages already exchanged with the defenders.

"This is the biggest star I've seen," Penelope said from just beside me.

I didn't release my grip on the bulwark as I looked over to our tactical officer, "Have you seen many?"

She gave a small half-shrug, "More than most. This is my fourth. I can't imagine why it would come so far inside the sea. I've heard stories, but there is so little for them to eat here."

I watched the abyssal star moving under the water, faster than I'd expected but slower than a ship would sail. The thing had been wider than the entrance to the cove from tip to tip, and as expected, it was moving directly for the quickly sinking Zarina.

"Do you think the goblins somehow managed to herd it toward the cove?" I asked, and she looked at me as if I were crazy.

She quickly tried to hide the expression behind a polite explanation. "No, captain. Sea Goblins cannot survive far from the coast. It is more likely they saw an opportunity and swam with it, looking for chances to kill and capture the people on the ship and in the town."

Amélie shuddered beside me and asked with great reluctance, "What do the goblins want with the people? They looked very determined to capture them alive."

Penelope glanced at Amélie before looking out over the water and eventually spotting what she was looking for. "See over there, just near the mouth of the cove?"

We followed her pointing hand to where goblins were congregating on the beach. They were plenty far away, but it didn't take us long to figure out they were pulling bodies out of the water. As we watched, we were quickly able to see that some of them were still struggling weakly.

When we both nodded, she continued, "Sea goblins are just like any other goblin. They just have an advantage in water to weaken their prey. Those poor bastards are half-drowned and too weak to do anything, but they'll still scream while the goblins eat them. That's all they want. They target intelligent prey because they show the most terror as they die. They're malicious, evil things."

"Ouf! Thank goodness! You know, there are some really creepy stories out there about goblins! Oh, not that I mean that I think this is a good thing, but they could be much worse!"

I had no idea what she was talking about, and I was about to ask how exactly, but I was distracted by the snap of wood as the star finally reached Zarina. The ship was barely above the waves when one of the things giant arms gripped on, breaking the hull enough for the ship to plunge to the seabed. The monster didn't hesitate to roll right over the ship but stopped in place shortly after, managing to envelop the entire hull.

Penelope nodded as if this were expected and said, "We will probably have an hour or two before it begins to move again. It cannot carry anymore, so it will fully consume everything it has captured before it presses on."

I scrunched up my face, "It's going to eat the entire ship? But it's mostly wood. Starfish are supposed to be carnivorous."

Penelope raised an amused eyebrow at me, "Other than its vague shape, it has little in common with a starfish. An abyssal star can eat almost anything organic, metallic, or magical that it comes across. It is a powerful predator, that is true, but it is a monster. Its needs are far different than its more mundane namesake."

"The goblins are going to attack when that thing begins to move again, aren't they?" I asked, glancing back toward the sea wall. It seemed even more guards were showing up to protect the harbor.

Following my gaze, Penelope nodded slowly, "Yes, most likely. It seems that they expect it as well. The town must be well versed in fighting off tribes of sea goblins, though this one does appear abnormally large."

I knew I could find a way to be a small amount of help up here, but I also knew that bombarding the abyssal star didn't really need anything from me. It was mostly siege work from a safe distance. But I might be able to do some good on the wall. I looked at Amélie, but she only nodded. She had been thinking the same thing. I turned to face Aric across the quarterdeck.

"Aric, I believe that I will go down to the sea wall and offer aid to Valoranthe Septimia. I can do a lot more good down there than up here. I don't think you'll need much help in bombarding that thing."

He'd turned to me when I'd called his name and nodded to my words, "I understand. There is little you could learn from this encounter that we could not replicate somewhere else. Do you intend to take anyone with you? The marines could be ready in a few minutes."

"No, that won't be necessary," I told him, catching Lilith's approach in the corner of my eye. I looked her way and said, "Lilith, are you all willing to join us on the wall?"

Just reaching the top of the stairs, Lilith grinned, "I was just coming up here to offer to do that. The rest of the team is ready to go. We'd rather be doing some good than watching the gunners have all the fun up here."

Looking past her, I saw Derik, Jeremiah, and Ailmer on the main deck below, all adjusting their gear in preparation. "Perfect! Let's get some baskets ready and drop down." Before I could call, Haunt bumped into me from the side, and I rubbed his giant fluffy head. "Yeah, you too. I know you've got cabin fever up here!"

With our plan set, we gathered our gear, and soon, everyone was ready to descend to the fortification.