Sipping her first ration of fresh water for the day, the deck of the great wallowing tub of a greater barque that was the Kestrel slowly swayed under her feet, Kette had been ready for today's chores. As with every day for the preceding month, once she had made it from her bunk to her duty station (and various important points in between) she had spent the first few minutes in the ship’s galley chopping vegetables, and measuring out flour.

She would mutter spells to herself as she chopped vegetables, using the natural link from the one she was cutting to the others of that same kind in her basket. Whatever vegetable she was cutting would prompt all of the others of its ilk to likewise fall asunder. It was cheating, but it got the jobs done here in the galley faster. And this far out to sea, the open water of the ocean itself would block the scrying of any master who tried to find “Four” as she worked the arcane magics.

She then grabbed the bin of flour she had measured out, added several handfuls of lard, salt, and (inwardly cringing- it was so slimy! But Hoggart had insisted she learn to measure by hand… so, by hand it was to be) pulled out a double handful of the yeast starter to add into the dough as her will set it to turning over, and twisting ever back in upon itself. She modeled the motion of the dough ingredients upon the churning waters of the Kestrel’s wake, and pushed a bit of her willpower into the mass to make its motion match the water twisting of the currents trailing behind. Within two minutes, the dough was perfectly mixed, and she quickly tore the giant mass of it into lumps to rise.

The oven was a thick walled ceramic monstrosity that was purpose built for this galley, on board this particular ship. It held the heat it generated well, though Kette spent some willpower and a singsong muttering of spell work every day evening out the heat, and maintaining an optimal temperature. In the first week she was on board, she had burned one too many pans of buns, and now cheated with magic to maintain her oven and stove top. Weaving the flows of natural force generated by the ship as they languidly curled through the galley to improve the oven was minimal effort, at least when she compared it to the magic she had been trained to use these last few years. And here, nobody would die horribly from her incantations.

It was a wonderful feeling to be able to use her Talent in ways that made life better for people. Her crew… She was now a part of the crew, and she would work to keep them fed, and healthy. And with luck would never have to bend the energies of the world around her to kill. Kette smiled.

She knew, after a month of routine, that Hoggart, the unfortunately named, would come in from the jakes and wash his hands before telling Kette what they were going to do that day.

It had never changed.

But, he had to tell her. That was part of the routine. It was part of The Dynamic of their relationship. He was the Master, she the lowly Mate. And he had yet to find fault with her execution of her duties. (Some days she did almost as much magic onboard the ship as she had ever done as an apprentice, though of such a different sort of magic than she had done as an apprentice in her Pride, it was the difference between hauling stones all day, and petting a cat on her lap all day. Both required her arms and hands, one would make her sore and sweaty very quickly.)

What they did every day was fire up the clay oven. Dice vegetables for a lunch stew. Mix fat with flour in a hot pan to make thickener for the stew. Make rolls. While the rolls rose in a proofing cabinet by the clay hearth, Kette would be sent to pull in the night lines astern for any fish that had been caught, clean the catch, re-bait the lines with the scraps from the cleaning of the catch,(which she added a charm to, to ensure passing fish would bite…she had had to tone down the charm when the first day at sea, they had pulled in three sharks, a small sea serpent, and a large octopus) then add some of the catch to the stew, salt some of the catch for later, and add the last of the catch to half of the dough balls that had risen as she had been about the cleaning of the catch.

Hoggart, hallowed-be his unfortunate naming, would inspect the inventory, make notes of anything that required the First Mate’s attention, send a list to the ship’s Purser, a tall hooknosed woman name Harkey, who the crew called “Harpy,” and then set-to serving the last of last night’s dinner as breakfast to those men coming off of nightwatch on deck.

Finally, washing up the pots and pans he had just emptied in serving those men coming off watch. Once breakfast had been served to the morning crew, Hoggart then directed Kette in what was needed for the morning chores, before he would retreat to his bunk to nap until lunch had been readied by Kette.

Being the the Galley Master meant all the hours of his day was split into several naps fit in amongst the cooking, the cleaning, and keeping track of inventory and the ship’s stores. While Mate Kette worked from just before sun up to almost sundown, Master Hoggart was available around the clock, day and night. Responsibility had its rewards, as well as its punishments.

It had been Kette’s job, once she had spent a week proving she could do it, to be in charge of the Kestrel’s galley while Master Hoggart either slept, or was busy with other work. And Kette loved every moment of it.

While she had been shy of calling anyone “master” after her mad dash from the front lines of Hamuria’s war with its neighbors, Master Hoggart had been as professional a master and teacher as any she could have hoped for, and completely lacked the petty villainies and near constant scorn her previous Masters’ had held towards the Apprentices. She knew she had been exceedingly lucky to get a berth on the Kestrel.

It had pulled into port the morning after she had arrived in the town of Port Shocer herself, and while it had spent a week and a half in the harbor as it was taking on cargo, the First Mate had put up a notice in the dock yard that they would be looking for mates to fill positions onboard for this next season.

Some ships kept the same crew for years, never changing up members save for what replacements they needed due to deaths, and post abandonments. Other ships kept the command, but rotated the lower deck crew seasonally, offering only seasonal contracts to crewmates, and basing bonuses and offers to continue with the ship for the next season on performance. Some seamen just wanted a berth to the next port of call, to see what life was like in other parts of the world. When she had seen the posting that the Kestrel had four berths open, she had thought it an amusing omen, and ran to the desk that had been set up by the first Mate of the Kestrel outside of the office of the harbor master.

She had signed on as crew, taking the offered signing bonus of 5 silver clips. Grabbing her pack from the small inn she had rented a room at the night before, she threw her silver clips into the hidden pocket of her pack with her cut of the other money they had stolen from the quartermasters’ tent before leaving the army, and had run back to the dock to catch the next boat headed out to her new berth aboard the Kestrel.

The Kestrel was Greater Barque. Almost twice the size of any other ship calling itself a barque, and had twice the number of masts, staggered across the broad expanse of her deck. A slow ship, by most comparisons, she carried bulk cargo, like grain shipments, for commodity traders between coastal cities and countries bordering the Southern Sea.

The Kestrel’s captain was Captain Nahvi, she later learned. Kette had been aboard the ship for at least three days before having ever seen the man. First Mate Aboud was watching her string fishing lines when the Captain found them, and Aboud introduced her. Kette had bowed slightly, as she had been taught, and the Captain inclined his head gracefully to her, before turning slightly from her to address the First Mate about organizing a cleaning detail. The captain had wanted a full scrub down of the forward hold done before new cargo was to be loaded the next day. First Mate Aboud looked at her with a grin, saying “You're lucky you work for Master Hoggart, no scrubbing of the holds for you. Only an infinite number of pots! HA!” Kette laughed along. It felt good.

Under full sail, so the sailors had proudly proclaimed, the Kestrel would glide into the teeth of the worst gods-sent storm as if it had been a warm breeze out of Makab. Kette had been beside herself in anticipation waiting to get to the open ocean as soon as she could. She had been made to wait a week. A week while most of the crew and officers would be on liberty, and a week where Hoggart would be both training and testing her abilities to follow orders, as well as to be observed working unsupervised.

Kestrel even had her own complement of soldiers.

Kette had seen the detachment of private soldiers aboard, both in the galley and training on deck; pirates rarely went after such hard to carry cargo as grain shipments, but it was better to have soldiers at hand than to risk it. Many of the soldiers took on extra duties while the Kestrel was at sail, choosing to earn a little more money in their down time from drilling and guard rotations. Kette didn’t blame them. The idea of just sitting around onboard a ship while it was under way, and doing nothing would have felt like a prison sentence to her.

Kette, back when she had been called Four, and her siblings had spent every waking moment studying, training, doing chores, or killing for the glory of His Royal Majesty. For her, it always came back to the killing. Magic had been the single most amazing thing Four could have ever imagined having a talent for; but then when she had been given over to the Masters to be trained, the war with Velspe came. And the miracles she had been learning had quickly been harnessed to nightmares. Some nights Kette would awaken in the cold and dampness of fear sweat covering her in her bunk, absolutely knowing that she was still a part of her Pride, and in the morning would be required to kill again. Leveling hundreds of soldiers, raining fire, lightning, and hideous illusions down upon the heads of the enemies of Hamuria and its boy king.

Five had told them all of how the King had engineered the attacks that had led to the Kingdom of Hamuria going to war with Velspe to “defend” itself. Five had been the smartest of their Pride. Any Circle of wizards would inevitably have one member who was the smartest, and their Pride of apprentices was much the same.

Five was that apprentice, the smartest, his ability to reason was only matched by his ability to keep track of the natures of the myriad magics they used. Six was the best at the actual work, once he understood a spell there would be no way to perform the spell better, nor faster, than Six; though, they all knew he lacked any real confidence in his power. Some of the Masters looked at the power SIx could harness with awe, envy, and in at least one case, open fear.

Four, now calling herself Kette and starting a new life, had been the apprentice most punished by the Masters.

Three...

Three had been the quiet one. As lovely a young man as she had ever seen in her life, and likely ever would, Three only spoke the words of spells that were needed, and “Yes Master” and “No Master,” when required of him. To anyone else, he just nodded silently, or slowly shook his head. Something had broken her dear, sweet Three before they had, any of them, met at the Maegesters’ Temple beneath the Golden Towers in the capital city of Aurell.

Two had been the most incapable, which was a shame, because he tested well above the most of others, and even higher than some of the Masters. But he had been unable to produce any magical effects outside of his own body. It was truly a puzzle. Two had to charm, enchant, and bespell his own flesh to make himself into an engine of destruction on the battlefield. Like the slaves sold to the Royal Army by the Kingdom of Salmet, poor souls whose bodies had been enchanted with extra strength, resistance to magic and other damage, and sometimes even added speed.

The slaves made up a rare legion in the army of “soldiers” who did not fear, question, or even talk; they marched, and they ran, and when told to, they attacked. The enchantments on their flesh made them immune to further enchantment. And brute attacks by fire, or lightning would only slow them down as they moved forward, unable to feel pain even as enemy magics tore at their physical forms.

They lived short, harsh lives. Their minds gone from the processes that created them, they were a horrifying foe to face on the battlefield.

One had been the oldest of the apprentices, and she had been angry as seven cats in a crate to find herself thrown in with a new Pride when all the members of her old Pride had been given the Bands of Mastery without her. One hadn’t actually remembered her former Pride, but she knew she had been in one, and that she was now in a new one, still an apprentice, made her furious. She had been called Ten in her old Pride, Kette had learned, but in their newly formed Pride, she had become One.

Even when Five had uncovered their intended fates at the hands of the Masters, Three had just nodded, his face beautiful in sadness and acceptance. One, however, had screeched like a wounded cat, and it had taken a full hour of Five’s most persuasive arguing to convince her of their intended fate. Six had been confused. Then he looked betrayed. Finally he nodded, and his face cleared of all tension as he accepted the truth. Six was, for all his power and facility with the Talent, oddly ill at ease with other people, and didn’t always react to the actions of others as one would expect. It was as if Six was just not good at dealing with people. He didn’t understand how other people went through their days, and he would often make a minor disagreement grow bigger through his lack of understanding. He had been in more duels in the Golden Tower than any other Pride member Kette had ever heard of. She missed him, and his simple, honest face.

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The rolls, now perfuming the galley’s air with the warm smell of yeast, had finished proofing in the cabinet, just as Kette had finished washing the midmorning pots. The first twenty went onto a tray and into the oven.

Kette flicked water from a cup over each roll once it was on the tray, to ensure a hard, crunchy, crust. Then another tray… and another, and another. 17 trays, in all.

While that first tray was in the oven, she readied more ingredients for the lunch stew. The fish would be added last, so as to not become completely mushy in texture as the hour crept closer to the noon day bell. Fish paste was not appealing to the crew, and she would do what she could to not give them cause to complain.

And she repeated the process of laying out the rolls onto trays, flicking water droplets over them, and changing the oven tray out for a fresh tray five times, finally coming to the rolls that had been stuffed with fish, beans, and spices. These would go to the Officers, and the soldiers.

There are always perks to being in change, and sometimes it even balanced out the inherently crap-filled nature of the responsibilities that followed. Today, that perk included spicy fish and bean rolls with your stew. Kette would have preferred to use lentils, but they only had blackbeans in the ship’s stores. Hoggart told her they may be able to pick up lentils in Makab, but to get used to cooking with both black beans, and pig beans, as those were the crew favorites.

Kette knew Hoggart was spouting nonsense. They might like black beans, but no one, no matter how poor their sense of taste, actually liked pig beans. The noxious little legumes made everything they were cooked with smell of old mushrooms. But, they were notoriously good at rounding out a poor diet, could be stored dried for years, and would keep certain illnesses at bay. The healthier a thing was, the worse it tended to taste, she knew.

Hoggart came trundling back into the galley from his room. The heavy old sailor was impressively clear eyed as he surveyed the galley for problems that he may need to chastise Kette for having made. Or for problems she had failed to fix. Had she just taken a nap in the midmorning, and managed to rise when she needed to, the former apprentice mage knew it would have taken magic to make her as cogent as Hoggart appeared.

He had just opened his mouth to begin, Kette was certain, to tell her to see to the setting out of the baskets of rolls for the crew when a bell rang in a panic, and a voice from one of the top mast platforms rang out “To Starboard! To Starboard! ALL HANDS!! BLUE FLAGS!! THREE POINTS TO STARBOARD!!!” It repeated twice.

The voice was joined by another, and then by the cacophony of a hundred and thirty feet running from various points within the ship to positions up on the main deck. Murmurs of “...blues...blue flags...blues…flags…blue flags…” could be heard over the scuffling and shuffling of bare feet and booted alike as they gathered.

Hoggart walked to the other door in the galley, the third door, one that didn’t go to the provisions pantry, nor the door to his own room, and unlocked the ship’s stores of bows, arrows, axes, short swords, and held a floor to ceiling set of shelves where sat ceramic balls, each in a woven rope net leading to a length of rope as long as an average man’s arm. The heavy, fist sized casks of Hardfire.

They were every sailor's nightmare.

They were every sailor’s hope in the worst of times.

The door to the main deck opened, and both the First Mate Aboud, and Major Rahl walked in. She knew almost everything that one could know about the First Mate, both from direct interaction with the man, and by doing some minor delving in the odd moments she had passed in the last month. Sir Aboud was a serious, and devoted officer to both the Kestrel and her Captain. Sir Aboud was a coiled rope of a man; lean, purposeful, and useful in almost every situation you might encounter on shipboard. He wore his green and gold livery with pride, and his uniform was alway perfect, sharp, crisp lines, and always clean.

Major Rahl, however, was a hammer next to Aboud’s clean, sharp dagger-like lines. He was a massively built man, who looked to Kette like his ship’s livery was just something he wore because someone had explained to him that it was polite to not go about naked. When she first saw the soldier, she had been certain he had been kicked out of the regular military just for looking like he would gladly kill anyone around him for little to no reason. But, she had learned, looks weren't everything, and Rahl had been a mercenary in Makab, working for merchant families as a caravan guard before he had been hired, along with his two sergeants, as shipboard guards.

Kette had played cards with the man twice, and he was as calm, and level headed a person as she had ever met. While his face had the appeal of a cracked stone wall, his deep, resonant voice and placid demeanor was the calm of a drowsing lion.

The Major and the First Mate walked toward the door that Master Hoggart held open, and after a brief mumbling of words, Rahl turned back to the door they had entered through, and whistled sharply. A voice out on the deck sang back in counterpoint as twenty men filed in and lined up, each receiving a bow, and a sheaf of arrows in a waxed leather quiver. Once they strapped on the quiver, and shouldered the bow, the line of men then smartly turned and marched back out to the deck.

Five other soldiers then entered, and each was given a heavy canvas shoulder bag, and a four foot long staff with a curved end at the top. These men didn’t have the swagger of the men who just left with bows. They had the hardened looks of men who knew their lives may have just ended, but were going to eat candy with the gods for their work today, regardless of how it went, and they loved candy.

As they passed her, Kette saw that each bag held at least three of the Hardfire pots, in their rope webs. She shuddered.

Kette had seen what hardfire did on the battlefield. It was ugly. And she knew she could do worse with her own talents, but the damage she could do was limited by someone with her skills, and her training, being present. Two armies of five hundred soldiers each meet on the field, and the worst case scenario is one thousand dead soldiers. Adding in mages, wizards, Prides, and Circles… local maps may need to be rewritten after a battle with too many talented people involved. Local geology may even be completely rewritten.

Unlike creating a rain of fire magically, as she and her siblings had been trained to do, the chemical slurry that created hardfire was usable to any soldier who could throw farther than they could run in five heartbeats, give or take. The woven rope bags, and the poles, would allow the soldiers to throw the pots a full one to two hundred paces.

The pots would break, and where they hit would catch fire, even stone it landed on would burn, followed by the flame compressing into a sold glaze of whatever the flame had burned, mixed with whatever the flame surrounded. All compressed and frozen into a shining mass of compressed, twisted, tortured matter.

She, and her Pride, had seen it used. By both sides on the battlefield.

It was pretty. The gemlike gleam of the solidified flames and melted victims. It was horrifying.

Maestra Harpin had demonstrated the properties to their Pride years ago, and Kette still had nightmares about it. Maestra Harpin had shown the class how it treated wood, stone… and, finally, how it treated flesh.

The lecture and demonstration had been meant to instill disdain in the Pride for such a crude weapon. While Hardfire was a marvel of the alchemical arts, next to a trained wizard, it was a blunted pastry knife when a surgeon’s scalpel was in your grasp. It could only be thrown, by soldiers or siege engines, or dropped, and could not be further directed without a wizard, or a Circle of Wizards, to make the destructive slime crawl and lurch across more area, more victims. And once the meager amount of incendiary slurry had been spread as far as it could be spread, the flames did their job; and then the thermal properties of the chemical mess would invert themselves, and condense, compress, and freeze it’s victim into a crystalline parody of its former self.

The Apprentices had been, indeed, disgusted with the Hardfire demonstration. But not for the reasons the Maestra had probably intended. From that point, through the rest of the week the Apprentices had been led through their first lessons in using magic to call down fire onto the battlefield.

Kette looked to Master Hoggart, who looked back at her, handing her a large knife and a hatchet, and gestured to her to proceed him through the door to the main deck. She slipped the knife into her belt.

They stood on deck, with the ship’s crew, watching as three sets of sails on smaller, faster vessels raced along in a northern parallel to their westerly course, between the Kestrel and the southern edge of Hamuria. Slowly, as the hour slid by, she could see that the smaller vessels were leaving the safety of shallower waters to slowly close the distance between themselves and the Kestrel.

From his position on the forecastle, the captain ordered all possible sail be raised.

Kette felt it wouldn't make a difference. The crew jumped to obey. The captain and two other officers she had not met yet stood at the port railing of the forecastle, using scope devices to watch the other ships. The Captain was the tallest of the three, Lieutenant Chanim, the Second Mate was a short, broad, bearded man in a plain, if spotless uniform stood beside a stately woman, almost as tall as the Captain. The ship’s Purser, Harkey. Her hair was pulled back into a severe black braid, which went to emphasize her long, hooked nose, and severe cheekbones.

Both of them stood by the Captain’s side, looking for all the ocean’s might like they were having a pleasant conversation with Captain Nahvi. The shorter man, she could see now his hair was clipped and trimmed as short as his grizzled beard, glanced back at where she and Hoggart stood.

Captain Nahvi then turned to Master Hoggart, and almost sang in a more melodic voice than Kette had thought he could muster, which carried to all crew present, “Master Hoggart! Please see that my crew is fed, and each given a daily ration of horb!”

This order made the crew cheer. Kette had seen the tactic before, when the commanders thought their troops needed a boost in spirits. Some of the crews’ eyes showed they too knew it was a cheap manipulation. They didn’t object, but they knew.

But, as she and Hoggart turned back to the galley, her to serve stew and baked buns, he to measure out the sugary, invigorating alcohol, she realized it didn't matter to the crew, they didn’t care. This might be their last chance to eat, drink, and swap jokes with their crewmates before they were all sent to the bottom of the Southern Sea, just another looted ship sunk for what it carried. Or worse, the ship taken, and the crew sold as slaves.

As she bustled about the galley to gather the food, a very sharp headache started between her eyes, one she knew from her training. Someone was doing magic near her. Strong magic. Strong, but awkward. There was something wrong with how the magic flowed. It was as if the mages were trying to pour a full cask of wine into a small wooden cup, expecting the cup to not only take all the wine in, but to not move on the table as they did so.

At first Kette thought the pirates might have magicians of some sort, but the feeling was too close. It was someone aboard the Kestrel.

Kette wasn’t as sensitive as some of her siblings, and Delving the ship and its screw would wear her out completely. The magic she could sense was nearby. It was a constant throbbing sensation in her head, and while nowhere near as strong as what she had been used to both dealing out, and defending from on the front lines, this was constant. It was a relentless rhythm being played in the back of her head on the harshest sounding instruments she could conceive of.

Kette checked on the nearness of the three ships to the Kestrel whenever she could. To her untrained eyes, the three small, fast sloops looked like they were gaining, but then the next time she checked, they had lost distance in their race to Kestrel. She would also steal glances at all of the people on deck, looking to see who was casting. None of the crew looked talented. Not at all.

The longer her head pounded in rhythmic pain, the more she worried the pirates might be coming with wizards; but dismissed the idea, because the three sleek ships in the distance were too far away for any casting ripples to reach across open water to her all the way in the Kestrel’s galley.

Another hour, food and horb served, and Kette was cleaning the galley. Hoggart had told her to do it, expecting her to argue. Instead she had immediately said, “Yes, Sir. I won't have the energy to do it later. Best to get it done now.“ And she had attacked the dirty pots and pans of the galley with vigor. Throughout the day, the pain in her head never grew worse. But, neither did it abate. For hours. Kette hoped the activity would hide her sweat and jitters, all of her nervous body language. Hoggart occasionally glanced her way, but no more than that.

There was a commotion on the main deck that sent Kette and Hoggart out to see.

The sails, now much closer than she had anticipated, were turning back toward land.

Kette breathed a sigh of relief as the three vessels turned to port, and ran for shore.

Evening would descend soon enough, and the crew would want dinner, and a third of them would try to get back to their bunks and hammocks to see if they could make up for some of the sleep they had missed out on during today’s possible attack.

Master Hoggart opined, along with other officers as they returned weapons to the ship’s stores, that possibly the pirates wanted to overtake the Kestrel before dark, and they just didn't have the speed to do it. Other officers thought they might have gotten just close enough to recognise Kestrel, and knew her for a grain hauler.

Captain Nahvi walked in, and had a brief, quiet word with Rahl, Aboud, and Hoggart. As he turned to leave, Kette offered him a short bow, and when her head bobbed back up, she saw his eyes were red from top to bottom. Bloodshot through and through, and they contrasted with the prominent, pulsing veins around his eyes and on his forehead. His skin had gone as pale as a native of Velspe, far to the East, and his right hand shook where it rested at his belt.

She knew the signs of asalogee. The fatigue that struck wizards who had pushed themselves beyond their abilities. It was something that could kill, though that rarely happened to anyone with enough training to survive to adulthood. Most people who fell prey to asalogee died the first time they used magic, and they burned themselves out like lighting a fire with a candle, and then throwing the candle into the fire. If she were right, the captain was a magician of some sort, and had just spent all afternoon pushing against his personal limits.

She quickly looked back down to the task she had been engaged in, preparing the bread for evening meals, and for the crew who would be coming on duty overnight. The room had become deathly quiet, and she slowly looked up to see the Captain had stopped in front of the counter where she was kneading the dough.

“Mate Kette,” His voice was tired, ragged, and low, as though he were about to fall asleep where he stood. “Your work with Master Hoggart is greatly appreciated. The fish buns are almost as spicy as my own mother’s were, themselves.” He smiled down at her, and she could feel the blush creeping up her neck and cheeks. She had rarely received praise that didn't involve a numbered accounting of soldiers she had killed.

“Sir.” She said, the smile fighting it’s way onto her traitorous lips, and almost painfully displacing her cheeks.

His smile slid from his mouth, and his face, though pale and sweating, hardened, as his reddened eyes narrowed. “But, ...”