“The ship is no longer traveling north,” the air witch relayed with a frown.
Louise Riddel raised an eyebrow and lowered her hand, waiting for the spyglass to be passed to her.
Once the cool brass touched her palm, she lifted it to her eye and discovered that, sure enough, the vessel carrying Tamlin Ashowan, and the wayward Zinferan princess had changed course sometime during the night… And now they were heading in a very straight line to the west.
“They are riding quicker on the wind,” the air witch, a Zinferan woman with milky eyes, that could still see perfectly fine, relayed.
“They will be harder to catch. I suppose with the amount of supplies that would’ve been on board their ship they aren’t afraid of waiting us out.”
“Do we chase them? Or do we patrol these waters?” Another Zinferan witch asked. He was a fire witch with thick lips and a long face.
Louise Riddel lowered the spyglass and squinted after the ship thoughtfully.
Tamlin Ashowan was a soft noble who had had everything handed to him on a silver platter. He most likely thought he could outrun them and wait for his father to catch wind of what was happening to save him.
Letting out a breath of disapproval, Louise lifted her chin. “No. We don’t engage in this childish game of catch-me-if-you-can. This ends today. Let us reach them by this afternoon.”
“But Coven Leader—” A Daxarian water witch stepped forward, their expression tense. “That will use up the majority of every air and water witch’s magic. We still need to be able to restrain the princess, and we aren’t certain what magic Lord Tam carries. We saw his symbol all over the land in Eusa, and the pirates that saw him say he moved around abnormally quickly. They say he seemed to disappear and reappear at will with darkness swallowing him…”
Louise took in a deep breath, working to maintain her calm demeanor. “We have twenty witches aboard this ship. The fire witches and the earth witches will be perfectly fine to help restrain Lord Tam. While we don’t know the exact nature of his magic, we do know that it is more strongly aligned with air, and that he has not been using it much, so he will not be as strong or powerful. So fighting against his anti-elements works in our favor.”
“The princess should not be underestimated either,” the highest ranked Zinferan coven member interjected, stepping forward. A water witch. “Magic aside, she is clever. This is probably a trap.”
That gave Louise pause. She looked out over the sparkling water.
“The devil is also with them, it would not be wise to rush a capture,” the older Zinferan water witch named Ganum pressed gently.
Louise folded her arms over her chest. “They are assuming that we are going to catch up to them in perhaps another day or two. Which gives them more time to plan. I say we cut off any chance of escape or evasion, and simply get within firing range, and set their entire ship ablaze. When they jump out we can simply pluck them up from the water.” She turned toward the Zinferan pirate that was manning the helm. “Hold steady. We are going to be moving much faster.”
“Wait, Coven Leader.” Ganum had remarkable blue eyes with dark flecks and streaks of lighter blue making his eyes appear like magical whirling pools. “What if something happens to the devil when setting the ship ablaze? Her Magnificence will not be pleased.”
Louise rounded back to stare at the man levelly. “I may think the Ashowan’s have too much power for their own good, but I can say with the utmost confidence that they will protect a child. Even if it is the devil.”
“You have said before that this particular Ashowan family member is not quite like the rest of his family,” Ganum recalled.
“Lord Tam still wouldn’t leave a child to die.”
“What if it is Lord Tam that ends up in danger and he cannot save him? This is a very dangerous plan and we should be proceeding more warily.”
Louise pursed her mouth. “There is danger no matter what the choice is. This plan, however, gives us the element of surprise. And we eliminate any means of escape. We will proceed as per my orders.”
The water witch stared at Louise, his blue eyes somber as his disapproval permeated the space between them far more efficiently than any further argument would have.
But he did not try to stop her again.
Louise nodded to the captain, then looked to the nearest witches.
“See it done.”
*
It took nearly the entire day, but at long last, they caught the ship carrying Lord Tamlin, Princess Elisara, Duke Harris, and the devil.
As it turned out, it had not been as simple a feat as they had originally expected. The ship had gone on many impressive detours during the chase. By this point they had almost moved in a full circle, as though trying to come up behind the three ships.
“They must be nervous,” the new pirate captain steering the ship announced with a cold smile.
He had been one of the pirates that had witnessed Captain Woo be slain by Tamlin Ashowan, and the man had more than just a small amount of bloodlust for him.
With another magnificent effort from the air witches and water witches, the ships rounded about to pull their bows up to face the stolen vessel where the Zinferan Princess and Lord Tam were located.
“Alright, are we ready to go aboard?” Eloise called to the witches that had lined up behind her.
The majority of the witches taking part in this phase were fire witches, with only some earth witches who carried satchels of dirt and plants.
There were three mutated witches as well. One with the ability to command their ankle length hair to act as limbs to grab, tie and bind as they wished, another with the magic to make someone suddenly feel as though their body weight had doubled, and the last one with a very odd ability to turn people into chickens. Though it had its limits on how many people she could turn, particularly if she was transforming witches.
“We are ready,” the group chanted back in unison.
Louise nodded to the bedraggled air witch that stood by the rails, who was already sweating from having pushed the ships as quickly as possible, then she looked to the fire witch at his side.
A stream of fire ignited in his hands, and he raised it carefully high above his head, letting the flames spread and surge, until sudden shouts interrupted the process.
“THEY AREN’T TURNING!”
“WHY AREN’T THEY DROPPING ANCHOR? AT THIS RATE WE’LL ALL CRASH! WITCHES, STEER AWAY!”
Louise’s gaze snapped back to the ship that was indeed driving straight for them.
Frowning, she snatched the spyglass she had stowed away in her skirt pocket, and lifted it to her eye.
She tried to find whoever was manning the helm. Most likely it was the machinations of the borderline mental Duke Harris that Louise had always found a headache to speak with…
“What—” Louise felt her blood turn to ice as she squinted, hoping she was imagining things.
“What’re they doing?” Ganum asked softly from behind Louise’s left elbow.
She grappled heroically with her ire.
“I don’t see anyone on deck. There is a… A dummy tied to the wheel.”
And this dummy was a stuffed coat, and a burlap sack packed with some kind of cloth that acted as a head with a hat attached.
The arms of the coat were tied at the halfway point under the spindles, so that the wheel could turn one hundred eighty degrees at most in the direction of the winds.
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“Fire at the ship,” Louise ordered.
If this was a trap to make them go on board so that a fight could break out while Lord Tam, Lord Harris, and the princess fought them all, she wasn’t going to fall for it.
The fire witch that had been holding his hand up in the air, sweat pouring down his face from the heat of his flames, released the stream with the help of the air witch. There was a direct hit to the main sail. But it only sparked, not fully catching thanks to the change of the winds that came as their own captain tried to swing their vessel to the starboard. The nearest ship on their port side, swung port, and the other one on their starboard swung starboard as well to do their best to avoid a collision.
“AGAIN!” Louise roared, her knees buckling against the rocking of the deck beneath her feet.
The fire and air witches both took a moment to steady themselves with the help of the rail, then issued another attack.
Though the more pressing danger came when they realized that the speed they were turning, and the speed the other vessel was moving was not quite the same. Turning ate up time. Time that brought the bow of the stolen pirate ship closer to the bare side of their own vessel.
“WIND WITCHES, BUFFET US AWAY!” Louise barked as the sound of sails snapping in the wind echoed around them and sailors darted to the ropes to help the captain find the winds again.
“We don’t have enough power to completely change course!” A Zinferan wind witch hollered back, the edge in her voice undisguised.
“EVERY FIRE WITCH TO THE RAILS!” Louise rounded on the witches behind her. Dutifully, they obeyed.
In the next few moments, a storm of fire blazed through the sky at the ship. The heat was powerful enough that Louise could feel it sting her cheeks, but it also had the added benefit of generating enough hot air to fill their sails, propelling them out of harm’s way.
“HOLD!”
When the last of the fire witches ceased fire, Louise moved over to the rail to see if they had been successful, and felt a great measure of relief when she discovered they were.
“Excellent work. That succeeded in both slowing them down, and giving them nowhere to run. Now we simply have to watch for when they abandon ship.”
And so they did wait.
Circling the burning vessel as evening descended around them…
At first everyone waited, tensed and ready to attack, but by the time the first twinkling star appeared in the pale sky, and the bow of the ship was producing foaming bubbles as it sank beneath the surface of the Tinoo Ocean, everyone knew something was greatly amiss.
“Either we just killed the son of the house witch, or he isn’t on the boat anymore,” the witch who could turn people into chickens supplied helpfully.
Louise gripped the railing until her knuckles were white.
“I put that together, Henrietta,” she retorted tightly.
One of the water witches stepped forward. “I can see about getting into the water and sensing for any life.”
Louise nodded. “Please do.”
“Erm… Miss Riddel?”
The Coven of Wittica leader was beginning to regret bringing Henrietta the chicken witch along.
“Yes.”
“What’s that over there?”
“Over where?”
The coven leader turned, and found that the captain and majority of the crew was already lining up on the opposite side of the deck.
As she walked, however, a low, terrifying, echoing groan echoed so loudly that the wood of the ship even hummed.
She slowed her steps to listen.
Then the deck beneath her feet rose on a sudden swell of water.
Holding her arms out to steady herself, Louise looked to the captain, about to ask if he could see anything from the helm, but when her sights landed on him, she found that he had turned as white as their sails.
“Captain…? Is that the—” one of the sailors called out uncertainly.
“Ssh!” The captain was looking at the water, his eyes round with fear.
There were similar shouts from the other ships, and Louise desperately wanted to know just what in the world was happening, when the sound of rushing water, akin to a waterfall splashing back into the ocean reached her ears, and a sonorous cry that rumbled up to the heavens made her turn slowly around.
And, as proud and capable a woman as Louise Riddel was, she was not too proud to admit that she screamed in utter shock and terror at what she found looking back at her.
***
“Well?” Tam asked, his back resting against the stone wall.
“It worked. I can’t even see them any more, they must have used the air and water witches to increase their speed,” Harris confirmed with no shortage of relief.
Tam turned to Eli with a beaming smile. “Another wonderful plan that worked. Gods you are amazing.”
Eli blushed, but scoffed. “We got lucky. Now, we better move farther into the mountains. Once they figure out that there’s no one on the ship they will most likely fan out and start plotting out the most strategic paths we could take.”
With a sigh at her usual business-like tone, Tam rose to his feet with a grunt. He hadn’t minded getting to rest after rowing ashore in the middle of the night. He had been pushing himself to the limits quite regularly as of late.
“Luca! Penelope! We’re going to walk until it’s completely dark!”
“Awe! But we just started playing!”
“You can play a little at the camp,” Eli informed Luca who had just been about to embark on a riveting game of hide and seek with Peneleope.
The little girl popped up from behind a very discreet boulder and rounded it dutifully.
Tam eyed the shoes that were far too big for the little girl and hoped they didn’t give her too much trouble. Not that they could do much about it right then and there…
Giving his head a shake, he decided to try and keep morale high. “Alright, everyone, how about we tell stories to pass the time!”
Luca whooped and skipped into the air, while Eli reached over to Penelope and tucked an errant lock of hair behind her ear making the child squawk in irritation.
“I have a fantastic story!” Harris informed them all brightly.
“You always exaggerate your stories. Like how you told everyone I bested the Troivackian king in that duel. I didn’t at all. So is this one real?”
“God son, I was trying to give you more clout when you were surrounded by enemies!” Harris pressed a palm to his chest. “I was only looking out for you.”
Tam sighed and rolled his eyes with a smile.
“Don’t worry, this story is about how I single handedly stopped your sister from assaulting not one, not two, but three esteemed and capable Troivackian men who annoyed her while in depths of labor with the second prince!”
The children turned to look at Harris wide-eyed, then Tam to see if he was telling the truth.
Tam pressed his lips together. “That one might be a little bit true…”
With that, the group proceeded to journey deeper into the mountains, relieved that they managed to evade capture yet again, and hopeful that perhaps things would be a little easier now that they were back on land.