TNL 32 – Pirates Part One
Seven days later, Raidon, Brandon and Morris sit down together. Brandon has been recalled from Fort Alpha especially for this meeting.
"The province is now largely safe as far as bandits are concerned," Raidon begins, "but we are still dealing with pirate raids. It's time for us to take a look at that as well. Does anyone have any ideas?"
"Not really." Morris is the first to answer. "Since hardly anyone ever goes out on the ocean, we know very little about this. No one except pirates uses the ocean. All I know is that the water is wet!" At that last remark, he has to laugh himself.
"Wait!" shouts Brandon. "There are people who use the ocean. The fishermen! This city has a port for a reason."
"You're right," Raidon’s conclusion is. "I don't think anyone else has bigger ships than the fishing boats. But they may know what action we can best take to reduce the raids. Of course, they go out on the water with their boats every day."
Raidon follows his own advice that same day and takes a squad of soldiers to the port. When he and his men march into the harbor he lets his soldiers spread out.
"Try to find fishermen who have the time and the will to help us. Preferably not young men, because the older ones will probably have a lot more experience."
A little later, the soldiers have found three men who might help.
"Sergeant, these are the only fishermen in the port at the moment. All the others have sailed out and will not be back until tonight," one soldier reports.
Raidon looks at the three fishermen. One of them is walking on crutches and has clearly not sailed because he is injured. In addition, this man is about thirty years old. Another one is still almost a boy.
He won’t even be twenty yet, Raidon thinks.
The third man is exactly the person he is looking for. It is an old man between fifty and sixty, heavily wrinkled with dark gray hair. However, he still looks strong. He will probably have twenty to thirty years of experience with the ocean, Raidon suspects.
He points out the old man.
"You are the one we need. The other two can go again."
The old man is not too happy about this. "What do you want from me? Can't an old man enjoy his old age instead of being dragged away by a bunch of brutal soldiers?"
Raidon realizes that the soldiers may not have been too subtle, but he still needs the man.
"Dear man, I understand that this might be an imposition. My men and I were wondering if you might have any knowledge about the ocean?"
"Well yes, of course I have. What else do you expect when you drag a retired fisherman over here!" Sarcasm is apparently the old man's favorite way of talking.
"Beautiful! Then you are the one we need. We need your help. You will of course be paid for that."
"What do you need?"
"We’d like to know more about the ocean and how we can take out the pirates."
The old fisherman is stunned. "You want to fight the pirates? How?"
"Well, we need you for that. We know absolutely nothing about the ocean, apart from the things that everyone knows, such as that fish swim in it."
The old fisherman, shaking his head, decides to go along. He has nothing better to do since he gave up fishing.
Raidon takes the old fisherman back to the garrison. Once in the office, he picks up his maps.
"These are our maps. On this map I have marked the places with red where the various raids were committed. Firstly, I would like you to look at them and give your opinion. Then I would like to know what else you can tell me."
The old fisherman mumbles for a moment:
"You don’t have to be too formal with me.”
Then he pulls the maps to himself and looks at them. A little later he looks up.
"These maps are not correct. The coast is completely different in different places."
He points out a place where a peninsula juts into the sea.
"This point doesn't even exist. I think that peninsula fell into the sea when I was about twelve years old. Furthermore, I don't even see the lost island on here and even the pirate islands are missing."
Raidon looks stunned at him. "Lost island? Pirate Islands? What are you talking about?"
The old fisherman laughs. "You really don't know anything, do you? How do you think to deal with the pirates when you know so little? Can you send someone to my house for my own maps? My daughter knows which one I mean. They are in my old chest at the bottom. In the meantime, I'll tell you a thing or two."
Raidon immediately sends two soldiers on their way to get the maps.
The old fisherman begins to tell.
"A few days sailing from here is a huge island. That's the lost island. Don't ask me why it's called that, but for as long as my grandparents' grandparents could remember, it's been called that. That island is off-limits. No one who goes there survives. All we know about it is the coast, because a fisherman once sailed around it when he was blown far off course in a storm. He ended up in the north on the open ocean and when he saw land, he sailed further south until he could recognize something. Only when he came to the end of the island, he saw that he was sailing near the lost island. As was his custom, he took notes of everything he saw. With his maps and his notes we were able to fill in the coast of the island."
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The old fisherman has to cough for a while and Raidon offers him something to drink. After drinking, the old fisherman wants to continue, but at that moment there is a knock on the door. The soldiers who come in have the maps of the old fisherman with them. The old fisherman immediately grabs them.
"Look, here you see the lost island. We have not been able to map everything, but what we do not know for sure, we have been able to fill in on the basis of what we already had. Here further to the southeast you can see a lot of small islands. These are the pirate islands. The people who live there sail their ships all over the coast and commit raids everywhere. They are also one of the reasons that there is never any trade via the ocean. The traders who tried that have all been caught by the pirates."
Raidon takes a look at the maps and then notes:
"But those islands are pretty far away. If that lost island takes a few days of sailing, then those pirate islands must be much further out. How can they commit so many raids here?"
"I'll tell you that, boy," the old fisherman replies. "The pirates must have a base somewhere in the province from where they commit their raids. Otherwise, they could never take all their loot back to the islands. This must be somewhere in the wilderness, because otherwise everyone knew about it. The only other place would be the lost island and no one can survive there..."
Raidon knows enough for now. After thanking the old fisherman and getting him to lend Raidon the maps for a few days, he has his soldiers take the fisherman back home. But not before the man has received a pouch with coins.
From the maps from the old fisherman, Raidon draws the coast on his own maps. The fisherman's comments continue to play through Raidon's head. If the pirates have a base somewhere in the province, they might be able to attack it to stop the raids!
Raidon immediately sends a message to Brandon in Fort Alpha. His patrols have to patrol the coast, in order to find the base of the pirates. Brandon immediately sends back a message that he is going to investigate and will let Raidon know if he has found something.
Brandon does his best, but he and his patrols are unable to find the base. It takes them almost three weeks to comb out the wilderness and although they have looked at almost every spot on the coast, they cannot find the base. That's why Brandon sends a message to Raidon that the base is not in the wilderness.
Despite the old sailor's doubts, Raidon is now convinced that that pirate base must be on the lost island. That most people that came close could have many reasons. The pirates can also be the cause that those people have disappeared.
That's why Raidon decides to rent a boat to send a group of scouts to the island. This group consists of Morris, with two instructors and some of his new cavalrymen.
"Morris, this mission could be very dangerous. I am fully convinced that there is nothing special about that island and that those people have been caught by the pirates. Still, I want you to be very careful. At the first indication that something is not right, I want you to come back."
"No problem. Me and my men know what we're doing. And even my recruits already know a thing or two."
Renting a boat is not that easy. With great difficulty Raidon manages to convince a captain to sail out to island for a hefty fee. But then it turns out that the boat is not big enough for the entire group he wants to send.
A few days later Raidon finds a second captain who wants to sail along to send the other men. He eventually wants to help, but wants to be paid almost double the amount that the first captain wanted. This way, the costs increase a lot! Nevertheless, Raidon decides to accept the fee. He has no choice.
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It takes ten long days of anxious waiting for Morris and his men to return. When they return, all the men look disheveled. The journey was tough, but they have succeeded.
Immediately upon arrival, Morris gets straight to the point:
"The base is on the island!" Raidon, however, first sends him to the barracks to freshen up.
"We will have a meeting in an hour and then I want to hear your report. Now go and get freshened up. You look exhausted!"
According to Morris, there is indeed a fairly large pirate base on the island. The pirates who live there take care of all the raids in the province and also some further north. Even the bandits are brought ashore from here and picked up again.
"We've even seen a few arriving and departing pirate ships," he says.
Halfway between the landing site and the pirate base, Morris and his scouts have found the ruins of a tower.
"The architecture is a bit like that of Fort Alpha. So maybe they're from the old legions," Morris says. "Possibly the ruins of the old legions on the lost island are better preserved because hardly anyone comes there."
From the tower they explored the area and found the base in a bay on the southern side of the island.
"The settlement has a wooden palisade with a single gate. As far as we could see, they only have lookout towers on the side of the harbor. So there probably will be something to close the harbor with," Morris tells Raidon.
"Then we'll go to the island to pay them a visit," Raidon replies.
One of the wounded bandits has already indicated during the interrogation that the raids from the country are actually only a small part of a much larger organization. That's the only thing he let go. For Raidon, this is a good indication that he can possibly stop the remaining raids in the province by driving the pirates off the island.
Raidon asks the old fisherman to come back to the barracks. Together with Morris and Brandon, they will figure out how to tackle the pirates.
"What we could see from a distance is that the pirates are using larger ships than we have seen in the port here. Fairly elongated ships with a lot of rowers," Morris explains.
"That could be possible," the old fisherman agrees. "Those pirates almost live on the ocean. They will need those larger ships to get to and from their islands if they commit a raid. They are away for much longer than we fishermen."
"The New Legion consists of two platoons and one separate squad. Unfortunately, we recently lost two men. So at the moment we still have a hundred and eight soldiers. The instructors are added to that and there are three of them who will go along." Raidon looks at the old fisherman.
"How many men can we transport on the fishing boats? We need space for a hundred and eleven men and enough supplies for them."
"Well, that depends on which captains want to offer their services."
"Don't offer anything. As commander of the province, I will instruct them to cooperate. You tell me their names and we make sure they make their boats available."
The old fisherman looks rather dubious at this statement. "Well, if it has to come to that. Then I think that with eight boats for the soldiers and two for the supplies, we should have enough. With a little bit of trouble, up to fifteen passengers might be transported by a ship in calm weather."
"Raidon," Brandon begins.
"Yes?"
"I don't think we need that much. We can't take everyone with us."
"Why not?"
"Some people have to stay behind to take care of the city and Fort Alpha. If we leave everything here unprotected, the remaining bandits or others could cause a lot of chaos."
"He's right, boy," Morris says. "I understand that you want to take as many people as possible for the attack, but we should not neglect our responsibilities either. Then we’ll get into trouble with the generals."
Raidon sighs. "You're right. But even then, I want to take most of our people with me." He looks at Morris. "You can stay here to take command. The men are used to that by now. You can have squad leader Lenn with the rest of his squad. Take four men yourself and give him the other four for Fort Alpha. Both of you can also have ten cavalry recruits. Your colleague can stay with Lenn to guide the recruits. It will not be enough for patrols, but enough to hold the posts. Close the gates and wait until you hear from us. If you don't have a message after two weeks, send a messenger to the next garrison for reinforcements. You’ll also report to the Empress if we don’t come back."
While Morris nods with a dissatisfied look, Raidon looks at the old fisherman.
"Furthermore, I want you to keep one of the boats at the landing site to send a message for when we need to be picked up again."
The old fisherman also nods.
"Nice, now let's get to work," Raidon concludes the meeting.