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Nora
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Deepwater Reaches
16 Leagues East of Tulian Shores
2 Months Since Captaincy
The wave crawled higher up the horizon, hiding the st slit of sunlight the storm clouds had not yet stolen from the sky. It was a living hill, so massive that an ecosystem of secondary waves rippled across its surface, fractal divisions of texture forming and dissolving at an intoxicating rate. The white froth of their collisions were dwarfed by the wave's peak, which curled to a height its base could no longer support, unity of form dissolving in a crash of seething seafoam spray.
Captain Nora O'Gallison watched the Crossed Glory's prow approach that monstrous mountain. The crew cowered across the deck, muttering prayers swept away by the wind, clinging to anything at hand, but Nora couldn't care less. Childish glee was etched across her face. The Crossed Glory was facing down its first threat since the magecraft, something with the power to shatter her beam and snap her prow.
It was beautiful. Purpose, distilled. They hurtled toward a point in time in which nothing else, nothing else on all the pnet save that wave had any ounce of value.
Nora gripped the wheel and looked to her 1st Lieutenant, who was sitting with all four limbs wrapped about the banister, petrified eyes wide as the sky. She smiled kindly at him.
"Isn't it wonderful? "
The wave hit.
Water rushed in great deluges across the deck, the weight of mountains pressing down on them all. Nora opened her mouth to taste the salt spray as the ocean jetted past her, splitting an inch before her eye and colpsing an inch behind her head, wetting the trailing ends of her hair. For a time the world was consumed by white, a bestial roar rattling her bones as the entire ship groaned in trembling effort.
Heralded by nothing, the sky broke open before her, prow couched towards hidden stars.
The ship strained against the pnet's pull.
They crested the wave.
The ship began to tilt.
Her breast was crushed against the wheel as the angle deepened, spray blinding them all as they rode down the giant's back, ship diving toward the endless ink.
The Crossed Glory crashed into the wave's tail with a great spsh, prow burying itself beneath the ocean. The weight of momentum drove her deeper, deeper, then the buoyancy of decks not yet flooded asserted themselves, ripping the entire vessel up into the open air amongst a halo of saltwater spray. Boards snapped and cracked as stormwoven waves resumed their assault upon the hull, no longer cowed by the rogue wave's influence. Nora slowly spun the wheel to the right, setting their course back proper. She sighed, patting her pockets for her pipe.
"Damn," she murmured. She'd left it in her other suit. "Get yerself up, Lieutenant. Battle's not done yet."
Her test 1st Lieutenant was still wrapped about the banister, dripping water and trembling from head to toe. He'd been a fine bo'sun, fine enough for her to have him hop the ranks into his current position, but it would remain to be seen if he could keep his wits about him when it mattered. He was the fourth sailor in two months to stand beside her.
The 1st Lieutenant dug his cws into the banister, dragging his way back to his feet. A catfolk officer was more than a passing novelty, and Nora would be a liar if she said her interest in Castan wasn't partly owed to his fur. Fine bck hairs the crew compared to a jaguar coated him from head to toe, as striking when dry as they were unfttering when wet. Nora intended to find out if the bravery required for a catfolk to take to the open sea would be a boon to personal development, or was already the ceiling of what he could achieve. Castan gave himself a good shake, adding to the downpour still pounding the deck, and gamely retook his position with a telescope to his eye.
"The prey's changed their heading, Captain. They've put the wind to their backs now, raising the st of their sails. Either they're desperate, or betting the storm will be breaking soon."
"It will," Nora noted, flicking her eyes to the boiling bckness above. "Only a few minutes left before the rain'll stop. Clouds'll clear a few minutes ter."
Castan nodded, accepting this without remark. It was a lesson each of her officers learned quickly. Don't question the things Nora ought not know.
"In that case, Captain, the Bastard Breaker will be in best position to catch her."
"Aye. They'll recognize it." No one promoted to Captain under Nora would be capable of missing it. "We'll come about their port side, trailing a bit beyond grapple range. If they've got any nasty surprises up their sleeves, we'll be ready to swoop in."
Nora extended her own telescope, swinging it from starboard to port to monitor the fleet's retive positions. Sailing a hundred yards abreast of the Crossed Glory's fnks were the Bastard Breaker and Spiteful Prick, two of the fleet's test to be outfitted with a full compliment of crew. Their names were a sore point for Nora, who preferred more gentile titles for the ships under her command, but there wasn't much to be done about it. Freed sves, once given a warship and set against their old masters, seemed to pce little value in clever subtlety.
The rest of the fleet, all thirty-five ships, sailed leagues to her rear. The majority of the ships therein were being sailed by skeleton crews, no more sailors aboard them than one might expect on a merchantmen. It was easier to take ships than convert crew, and she hadn't the manpower to arm her fleet as she wished. She kept the bulk of her fleet in reserve as a consequence, out of sight of any enemy who might appraise themselves of the weak state her otherwise numerous 'pirate' fleet truly was in. She'd find her crew in time, but she'd do so methodically, without allowing the rabble-rousing common to continental navies to infect her command structure.
The Bastard Breaker began to pull ahead of their line, seizing the advantage lent by its trim hull. It and its sister ship were Nora's most favored acquisitions of the recent weeks: true warships. She'd been intending to capture her first examples well before then, but despite the rate at which she'd been seizing ships, no merchantmen had appeared with escorts. She'd betedly realized that she would have to allow someone to escape, if only to spread word that the missing ships were being taken by pirates, not storms. To her that would have been obvious, but portside authorities could be shockingly naive. Once she'd allowed a few to slip from her grasp to carry word of her attacks, she'd begun to see the militant response she'd been hoping for.
Thus far, she'd captured three vessels of military stock worth her consideration. Thin hulls and overrge sails, built with oar ports all along either side and an iron-capped ram upon their prow, they were a fine take. Built for boarding, she intended the crews entrusted with the Bastard Breaker and Spiteful Prick to become her elite. Some day, she dared to dream, they would be transferred to a magecraft.
If Sara is capable of producing one, that is, Nora reminded herself. The Champion of Amarat was an enigmatic woman by nature. She had thus far been adeptly dancing to Nora's tune where possible, showering her fleet with provisions and favorable prices for all necessities, but Nora still hadn't made her mind up about where they stood as individuals. Nora was desperate for the knowledge hidden within the Champion's skull, innumerable secrets that could surely catapult Nora to heights unknown, her desperation met and matched by Sara's uncompromising determination to horde her greatest truths. Nora didn't think herself a match for the Champion of Amarat in diplomacy, but only a fool would think the single ship design Nora had been provided was the extent of Sara's otherworldly knowledge. Nora was stuck in eternal limbo as a result, unable to abandon the potential Sara represented, yet always straining at the yoke the Tulian shores pced around her neck.
It helped that the woman was enjoyable, at the very least. She had a fire to her eyes that Nora respected, the second being since Admiral Sinti who Nora regarded as an equal. They were both little more than flotsam caught by the intractable pull of their soul's desires, servants of their innermost desires. Time alone would tell whose light would fre brightest before sputtering out, but for now, Nora was content indulging in the fireworks their bonfires lit.
The rain began to slow to a patter, the churning of the sky lessening by degrees. Castan brought out his flint and lit a torch on the deck, using it to dry his fur while he hollered for a cabin boy to bring a towel and change of clothes. Nora had impressed the importance of decorum upon all her officers, forcing even the shabbiest of them to recognize the value in a firmly creased suit. After all, what was more demoralizing for enemy captains than negotiating terms of surrender with someone looking like they were fresh from a ga? Nora would not have the history books speaking of her navy as unkempt.
She herself, dry as a bone, only worked her new knee around in its socket to ensure a good fit. Hurlish had provided a fine repcement for her old wooden stub several weeks ago. It was composed of miraculously thin steel wrapping a core of fine jungle wood, all treated for resilience against seawater, and the metal could be polished to a blinding sheen. She'd briefly considered forgoing her hessian boots in favor of dispying the new leg's brilliant interlocking gears, but decided against it. Best not to have anything cshing.
She watched their prey continue its vain struggle to escape. Its captain was well versed in the region, judging by the way they had preempted the storm's conclusion by dropping their sails. The ship was well kept, free of barnacles along the hull, and its sails were free of tatters and frayed ropes. It sat low in the water for its css, promising a cargo hold filled to the brim with goods more tangible than lightweight textiles. Something about its countenance gave her pause, however.
"1st Lieutenant, do you note anything odd about our prey?" She asked. When Castan snapped his scope to attention, she realized he'd taken it for a test. "Something about its bearing strikes me oddly," she expined, "but I can't put a name to it. Give me your impressions, when you have 'em."
Nora kept looking. Was it the fg of the City of Cyan, whose trading vessels rarely bothered to make for the Horn? Or was it the high waterline, ship so heavily burdened that most captains wouldn't risk a trip through the deepwaters? She had no recollection of its name nor its date of construction, but that was growing regrettably common. It had been half a year since she'd st broken into a harbormaster's office to peruse their records.
No, she decided, there wasn't anything unusual about this ship. It was an average merchantmen, built to the usual standards, sporting an inoffensive set of fgs and vectored onto an unremarkable trade route. The Bastard Breaker was catching it up easily, and the unknown ship's captain had even ordered her sails to be reefed, acknowledging escape was impossible. The two ships were closing the distance sedately, neither captain wanting to risk an avoidable collision in waters still rough from the fading storm. The interdiction was, by all rights, proceeding exactly as it should.
Exactly as it should.
Nora straightened as if struck by lightning. "Signalman, order the Bastard Breaker to disengage immediately! All hands to oars! General quarters, general quarters, general quarters!"
The entirety of the Crossed Glory burst into movement, roars of officers rivaling the crash of the waves. Castan went to take his pce by Nora's side, but she held out a hand.
"Your duties for the battle are hereby suspended, 1st Lieutenant." Nora snapped her telescope closed and pocketed it. "You are ordered only to observe how the Carrion Navy's magecraft operate. If we live, you'll be the best damn 1st Lieutenant I've had." She craned her neck up to face the signalman in the mast above. "Recall the fleet! I want every damn ship flying my colors here yesterday, godsdamnit! Send up the fg for a Pirate's Bane!"
The Bastard Breaker started to heel to starboard, trying to turn tail and flee, but it was too te. The snare had closed.
A beam of fme screamed out from the Pirate Bane's deck, sweeping through both of the Bastard Breaker's masts in a sizzling fsh. Both towering sails were severed at the base, crawling with fire hot enough to burst every drop of water that touched them to superheated steam.
With perfect synchronicity, armored figures leapt up from hiding pces behind the Pirate Bane's gunwhale, flinging grappling hooks that nced across the two hundred foot gap. They impaled the Bastard Breaker just as its burning masts began to topple.
Both masts were taken by the wind to fall overboard, smming screaming riggers into the water with a thundering crack of impact. Some sailors began hauling buckets of water aboard to quench the fmes, while others began to saw at the hooks like men possessed. It wouldn't matter. The hooks were too many, the fmes too hot. The battle's course had been set, and no permutation of it ended without the Bastard Breaker's annihition.
"All sails to full, all sails to full!" Nora roared. "Signalman, inform the Spiteful Prick that we will bring ourself aboard the magecraft's port, while they are to circle around and box it in from the prow! Reserve ships to begin Protocol Three-Four-Five! Ballistae and archers, ready for Mage Suppression!"
Nora flung the wheel to the side, stopping it when she felt the rudder slot to angle, approaching the Pirate Bane directly.
The Bastard Breaker was being hauled in like a harpooned whale, dozens of grappling hooks littering its hull now attached to winches crewed by three Carrion marines apiece. Troops in gleaming armor were thundering up onto the deck through hidden trapdoors, lead by sergeants in brilliant blue plumes. Nora counted three plumes, each in charge of a contingent of thirty marines, which, when the ship's usual compliment of armed sailors was considered, brought the likely total of enemy combatants to one hundred.
The Bastard Breaker was outfitted with a hundred troops, with the crew manning the oars serving as an auxiliary force of a hundred more to be called upon in an emergency. That gave the ship twice the troops of the Pirate Bane, and if Nora didn't get there quick enough, every one of them would be sughtered.
She watched the two ships draw together with misery in her gut. The deployment of a Pirate Bane so far from Carrion waters was the foulest of omens, souring a great deal of Nora's pns. It seemed the Admiralty Elections had been something of an upset. Last she'd heard of Carrion politics, the ruling Exonerets' hold remained steadfast, the Sailwards still little more than cantankerous upstarts. That had been a year ago. Things had clearly changed. Admiral Baleyar and his cohort would have never bothered sending a Pirate Bane so far abroad. If the new Admiralty was favoring expansion once more, it stood to reason that the "abandoned" Tulian coastline was a premier location for a new colony.
It was now Nora's job to disabuse the Admiralty of that notion, she supposed. She'd been pnning to avoid challenging the Carrion Navy for at least the first decade of her career, but things didn't always go to pn. Two months was close enough to ten years, if viewed from a distant enough perspective.
Nora began spouting further sets of orders, managing the ship from top to bottom in the absence of her 1st Lieutenant. Castan had done exactly as ordered, wandering off to set his hands on the railing and stare at the Pirate Bane. Nora watched over his shoulder as the gap closed, fear warring against excitement in her breast.
Just before the hull of the Pirate Bane would have touched the Bastard Breaker, there was a fsh of light. Nora's marines were sent flying skyward in several chunks, their emptied spots on the railing filled by gangpnks sporting long spikes. The wide pnks were smmed down onto the deck before anyone could react, impaling four permanent bridges that Carrion marines began pouring over.
The Bastard Breaker's captain was no fool. The mage's spellweaving had revealed their position for all to see, and it couldn't go unanswered. Two ballistae were immediately ordered to pin down the mage, bolts thick as wrists flung fast as lightning. It was standard naval anti-mage measures to do so, and usually effective, but Nora hadn't been satisfied with something imperfect. A sufficiently powerful mage could shove their way through the ballistae bolts, and that was an avenue of failure Nora would not tolerate.
To that end, she'd spent no small amount of money recruiting native Tulian hunters for her ships. They dangled from the rigging wielding monstrous longbows, the only weapons capable of fending off the worst of their homend. They took to bombarding the enemy mage with a savage glee, eager to cim the considerable prize money Nora had promised should their marked arrow be the one found to have felled an enemy mage. The fruits of her expenditure were borne out by the shimmering orange shield in the center of the Pirate Bane's deck, all of the mage's efforts required to preserve their own life.
They were nearing the Pirate Bane now, close enough that some more industrious members of the Crossed Glory's crew had been readying their own grappling hooks. In normal circumstances Nora would have been pleased by their initiative, but it was extraneous here. A second set of grappling hooks flew from the enemy vessel, the Pirate Bane captain just as happy to drag Nora's ship in as they'd been the Bastard Breaker.
Nora drummed her fingers against the wheel as her ship was drawn in, debating her tactics for the fight ahead. They currently had the Carrion magecraft outnumbered three-to-one by count of vessels, five-to-one by number of troops. It would be a half hour before the reserves arrived. Nora ground her teeth, trying to find a way out of the snare.
Arrows began falling on the deck, answered by her own compliment of Tulian huntsman. Several of her crew were struck as Nora weighed her options, calling up and discarding dozens of stratagems from hundreds of texts. The literature was in near universal agreement: the battle was unwinnable.
Ah, well, she thought, can't have everything we want, can we?
Nora took her hands off the wheel, taking a few testing steps to ensure nothing had gummed up in her legs, mechanical or otherwise. Finding everything suitable, she walked up to Castan and gave him a tap on the shoulder.
"I will be boarding the enemy vessel shortly. You're to continue observing, but from the wheel, in the event maneuvers are necessary. 1st Lieutenant Castan, you have the conn."
Castan blinked rapidly, looking from Nora, to her feet, then to the helm, where divots had been worn into the wood in the shape of her boots. After a moment of ear-flicking confusion, he gave a little shake of his head and nodded.
"1st Lieutenant has the conn, Captain, understood. Good luck."
"And good luck to you, Castan," Nora replied, cpping him on the shoulder as he moved past her. She took a brief moment to unfold a raincoat from a jacket pocket and don it, then descended the steps to the deck proper.
Two months ago, when Nora had first found herself in control of a ship, several strange things had occurred. When she touched the wheel, she had watched the majority of the crew fall to their knees in pain, while the wind had blown harsh enough to press the waves ft as gss. She'd heard and felt nothing, and so quickly dismissed it as some odd quirk of weather or a bored water spirit pying games. Sara, however, had taken it much more seriously, and told her after the battle that she thought Nora had been inducted into the ranks of Championship.
While the suggestion initially rankled her, Nora had dismissed the suggestion after a few day's consideration. Champions were known to come from that strange world Sara called home, not insignificant coastal hamlets barely worth noting on a map. There'd never been an exception to that in all of history.
Nora shuffled through the crowd of marines waiting to board the enemy vessel.
Champions were also chosen by a god to represent their will, and while Nora's css had indeed changed name to "Chosen of the Wayid One", that ominous name had never gone down on record as a title applied to any of the gods. The Champions of history were boisterously cimed by their divinities, not given underhanded titles that smacked of superstition.
The two ships bumped hulls as Nora drew from her sash a long walking stick.
It was much more likely, she'd quickly convinced herself, that she had been embroiled in the inscrutable politics of the fae, her plethora of deals having some unintended side effect. The greatest of the fae lords were of a strength that dwarfed mortal power, and their actions could be mistaken for a god's by one as inexperienced in matters as Sara.
Gangpnks crashed down, marines roaring into battle.
Champions were also, of course, possessed by abilities of incredible potency, their potential dwarfing the capabilities of all but the greatest of history's mortals. It was said that Champions were capable of summoning tornados with every swing of their sword, of heralding earthquakes with the force of their screams, and of other innumerable feats of godly Power. A Champion was the physical manifestation of a god's will, an instrument of destruction and creation without rival.
And it was on that final point that Nora's rejection of Championship began to falter.
She stepped up onto the gangpnk and crossed it in a few smooth steps, taking a little hop to nd on the other side.
The entire ship rolled under the weight of her presence, dipping so low that cold seawater began to rush over her heels. Carrion marines were thrown from their feet as the deck reached a list of sixty-two degrees in the span of a second, while only those loyal to Nora remained on their feet, seizing the advantage given by their stricken foes as if they unaware the ship was nearly capsizing.
Nora took a moment to adjust to her new ship. An awareness filled her body and shot through the soles of her feet, worming its way through wooden boards at lightning pace. She tasted six thousand four hundred and eighty five hours that had epsed since saltwater first touched the ship's hull, smelled the beating hearts of its one hundred and forty one crew, and felt in the marrow of her bones each and every mageborn rune etched across its surface over the eighteen months of its construction. Its cargo hold was empty save for crew berthing, their supply barrels filled with dried meats and a double ration of beer due to the length of their journey, and the captain's cabin had a leak in it that persisted despite the carpenter's four attempts at repair over the st eight days.
Nora took a deep breath, taking it all in, and opened her eyes with a smile. A fine ship, the Dusty Gem. A shame she wouldn't be able to add it to her collection.
She took one step forward, freeing the ship to right itself. There was an awful ripping sound as the gangpnks were torn free from their spiked mountings, drowning out the startled screams of sailors who had only just begun to regain their feet. Nora slipped between two of her marines, seeking a vantage point to survey the fight.
She found one in the form of the capstan, abandoned during the course of combat. She waited for a wave to lift the prow, then used the momentum to bounce herself three feet into the air, nding atop one of the wooden handles.
The battle was, despite her brief intervention, progressing predictably. Carrion marines made a mockery of the vast majority of her forces, save those most veteran to her crew, trained by Ignite himself. They alone couldn't make up the difference, of course, and Nora's superior numbers were being whittled away at an astonishing rate. The reinforcements were beginning to be bogged down by their own fallen comrades. That was rather poor for morale, having to trod over the corpses and not-yet-corpses of those you once called friends. She had none of Sara's peculiar bolstering for her troops in this battle, and their resolve was most certainly not going to st until reinforcements arrived.
Nora's attention eventually fell upon the enemy mage, still enshrouded in a glowing shield. The robed man was looking back at Nora, eyes narrowed, speaking something to the captain at his side sheltering beneath the protective bubble. When their eyes met, the mage flinched.
Interesting.
Nora hopped off the capstan, once more throwing the ship into disarray, and began to meander through the crowd in the direction of the mage. She eventually popped out from between two burly marine's fnks, turning her head back and forth to survey the only open space remaining on the ship.
She shoved through to fully emerge from the press, pulling her raincloak's open now that the drizzle had fully abated. Four guards immediately rushed towards Nora, but the mage raised a hand and cried out in the Carrion nguage.
"Get back! Get back, now!"
Nora wasn't quite sure if the mage had been speaking to her or the guards, but whichever it was, the guards paused. They looked to their mage in confusion, but the mage had no attention to spare for them, too busy clutching his staff and staring at Nora.
"Captain Nora O'Gallison, at yer service," Nora greeted in the Carrion tongue, giving a light introductory bow of her head to mage and captain. "I'm sorry to say it, but I'm the ss in charge of the fine mess we seem to have found ourselves in. Might I have your name, sirs?"
Before the captain could say a thing, the mage spat out, "What are you?"
Nora frowned. "Damn. I was hoping you knew."
The Carrion captain silenced the mage with a gesture and stepped forward, returning Nora's nod. "Captain Breeze Scattered Cloud at your service, O'Gallison." He looked her up and down, frowning tightly. "Though much of what's occurred this past hour strikes me strangely, I must say, your uniform is the most peculiar of all. What mean you, by wearing the colors of a dead dream?"
Nora looked at herself, tugging at a few loose threads. "He ain't dead yet, Captain Breeze. The Admirals know that."
Captain and Mage shared a distasteful expression. Their guards had clumped up to pce themselves between Nora and their charges, but Captain Breeze waved them back. He took a few steps forward in the small protective dome at the center of the deck, closing to within arm's length of Nora had the shield not been there.
"You appear in the middle of my ship, speaking of things none should know, and do so with a smile, Captain O'Gallison. What is your purpose here?"
"Well, fer starters, this battle's one big damnable mistake," Nora said. "Had I known you were Carrion, I'd never have set my ships on you."
Captain Breeze snorted. "Such is the purpose of a Pirate's Bane, Captain."
"Nae, that's not what I was meaning. This ain't a pirate fleet you're tangling with. I'm not in it fer the killing and coin."
"You've done little to disabuse me of the notion, I'm afraid." He smirked, looking about. "And besides, is three truly a fleet, Captain O'Gallison?"
Nora waited. After a few seconds, there came a cry from the Dusty Gem's crow's nest. "Sails on the horizon, Cap'n! Two-- no, three dozen vessels inbound!"
Captain Breeze's lips turned down as Nora's turned up. "Be that as it may, Captain O'Gallison, you have committed an act of piracy in the Deepwaters. You will be tried and hanged."
"On the contrary, I've done nothing of the sort. I'm neither a pirate, nor a Captain, but a Navy Admiral, given my rate by Governess Sara Brown of the Tulian Republic. Further, if you have your navigator take his readings once more, you'll find our vessels well within fifteen leagues of the Tulian coast. I've every right to interdict those who I please."
Captain Breeze turned to a guard, whispering an order. The man hurried off, likely to confirm with the navigator. Nora had no concern she was wrong; an easterly wind of four knots over the course of the storm and subsequent entanglement had pushed them back into rightful Tulian waters a few short minutes ago. Though it was obvious she'd begun her pursuit well outside her legal jurisdiction, any act of piracy had been committed solidly within 15 leagues of Tulian coastline.
Captain Breeze straightened his colr, scanning the deck. The battle was still ongoing, Nora's marines pushed fully back to their own decks, but she was unconcerned. The Salian Accords ensured that the worst fate awaiting her was a few months in prison until Sara payed some exorbitant fee for her ransom. So long as they recognized her as an Admiral, rather than a pirate, that is. The guard returned, whispering into Captain Breeze's ear. He cleared his throat.
"Regardless of our ship's present positioning, there is a great deal of what you say that cannot be verified. You cim to be an Admiral of a 'Tulian Republic' and her navy, yes?"
" The admiral of the Tulian Navy, as a matter o' fact. In charge of the whole damned thing."
"An easy lie to make, when one invents new titles for a dead kingdom."
"Y'haven't heard?" Nora asked, feigning surprise. "The Champion of Amarat has staked her cim in the old capital, said she'll be founding a nation to rival Sporatos itself. Hired me to enforce her new ws upon the waves, which is why I attacked yer ship."
"And which new ws were we vioting, sailing peacefully through your waters?" Captain Breeze didn't seem to believe half of Nora's cims, but he was at least willing to entertain the notion for the purpose of debate.
"You, personally, Captain Breeze? None at all." Nora pointed to the vibrant fg still waving from the Dusty Gem's mast. "The City of Cyan, however, viotes many. Governess Sara has decreed svery illegal within the territorial boundaries of Tulian, and that any measure necessary to free the ensved will be undertaken by her militaries. You know as well as I that the City of Cyan, as well as every vessel in a hundred leagues save yours and mine, use sves for their crew."
"Don't be ridiculous," Captain Breeze said. "Colrs are far too expensive for each vessel to be carrying them."
"Svery in the Tulian Republic is defined as any individual kept forcefully confined without being found guilty by trial, any individual forced to work without pay, or any individual forced to work for pay below the amount necessary to support themselves," Nora rattled off. "Simir offenses, viewed as only slightly lesser in severity, are too many to list, but include those forced to work, even if they are appropriately compensated. Pressganged sailors, you must realize, neatly fit several criteria."
Captain Breeze shook his head in bemusement. "This is the justification for your piracy, Captain O'Gallison? Following the orders of a supposed Champion ill enough in the mind to cim dominion of dead nds?"
"It is an excuse, Captain Breeze, but it's a fine one, for it's true." Nora fshed a cocky smile, of the sort so often employed by Sara herself. "I take from those with plenty and give to the needy, so the story will someday go." Nora shrugged, smile fading. "But the realities of things ter fit for storybooks are always a right mess in the moment. Ask yer crew, if ye don't believe me and haven't heard the rumors of Amarat's Champion. She's a queer sort, they'll tell you."
Captain Breeze chewed his cheek, gncing at his mage. The man had stayed pressed to the back of his shield through the whole thing, eyes locked unerringly on Nora. At Captain Breeze's questioning expression, the mage shook his head.
"Hm," Captain Breeze hummed. "Strange thing, that. You didn't lie."
Nora cocked her head. "Casting spells on me without me knowing, are ye, mage?"
"An unfortunate necessity, Captain," the mage replied, averting his eyes by bowing from the waist. "My deepest apologies for the deception."
The guards shifted nervously in their boots at this, tightening their grips on their weapons.
"Well, water under the bridge, far as I'm concerned," Nora said, waving a hand. "Well, Captain Breeze, what think you? Y'know I believe what I said, but have ye taken me for a madwoman or an admiral?"
"Both," he stated pinly. "But a helpful one, I've decided. The story once more if you would, knowing now you speak without ability to lie. Would you attack a ship you know not to be crewed by those you define as sves?"
"Not unless they were carrying sves for sale, or Tulian was at war with their nation."
"Excellent." Captain Breeze reached beneath his coat and pulled out a wooden whistle, giving it a hard blow. The Carrion marines responded immediately, pulling back from their boarding actions across all two ships-- no, three now, they'd begun to board the Spiteful Prick as well-- and filed back into neat rows upon the Dusty Gem's deck. The marines looked baffled by the order, but were too disciplined to respond with anything other than uncompromising obedience.
Captain Breeze cpped his hands together, smiling widely at Nora. "Seeing as you are aware that the Carrion Navy is an all-volunteer force, a rather unique trait in these regions, I am sure the Admiralty will look forward to utilizing our exclusive rights to traverse Tulian waters in the coming years."
Nora threw her head back and ughed. "Ah! A true Carrion captain you are, Breeze. I'm not quite sure if the Governess realized what her commandment has done, but so long as you fail to transport sves through her territory, you'll have your run of the pce."
"Then we will part amicably, Captain O'Gallison. It will be but a few short minutes of preparation until we can release the grapples, then we will be on our way. I expect an official Carrion diplomatic party will not be long in coming to Tulian, though I of course cannot speak for the Admiralty."
"I understand, and will pass the forewarning along. Fair winds to you, Captain Breeze."
To Nora's great surprise, Captain Breeze took two steps forward to emerge from beneath the mage's shield, offering his hand.
"Fair winds to you as well, Captain O'Gallison. I hope to meet again some day."
Nora gave him a firm handshake, looking him in the eye. Sara would have known what he was thinking. Nora didn't have a damn clue. She turned to make her way back to her own ship. All around her, Carrion marines had begun to put their ship back in order. That included a respectful collection of Nora's dead, who were wrapped in brilliant white sheets reserved for the purpose. The corpses were solemnly handed off to Nora's crew. Counting the rows, Nora tallied seventy dead among her marines. She looked back to the center of the Pirate Bane's deck, where the Carrion dead were reverently id beside one other.
All two of them.
She lingered on the Dusty Gem's deck for a final moment, one boot rested on the gunwhale before she crossed back over. Through senses undefined, she listened to the captain and mage confer.
"Breeze, are you sure that was wise? That may have been the only chance the Carrion Navy will get to kill that thing."
A scoff. "Bulb, that was no chance. That was an orca circling our 'berg, deciding how best to take us to the cold."
"They thought me suppressed, Captain. If we'd only--"
"Absolutely not. You felt it as we all did, Bulb. Don't pretend you were braver than any other, when it closed to us. That thing had another's eyes. I don't know how it would have been done, but we'd not survive its retaliation. Did you see what its arrival did to our ship?"
"I did, which is why I feel certain we should have struck. Forty ships under its thrall already, Breeze. What will we have to answer it when it has a hundred? Two hundred? The dead dream begins to stir."
"Which is why we must live to inform the Admiralty. Our sacrifice would bear no fruit here, I assure you. Jaunt, plot us the quickest course to Seal Isnd. I'll deliver the message personally."
Seal Isnd, eh? An interesting choice for this year's Carrion Capital.
Nora stepped up onto the gunwhale, standing on a tiptoe to find Captain Breeze and the mage named Bulb, who were now surrounded by attendants. When she caught their eye, she bore her teeth and gave a wave.
Nora took a two inch hop off the gunwhale to her own ship, shoving the Dusty Gem's hull ten feet straight down. She nded lightly on familiar wood as the magecraft rolled behind her. She took a deep breath, filled with scents and sights she knew well.
Despite coming away from the battle with their lives, the mood on deck was far from jubint. The Bastard Breaker would have to be towed back to port, assuming the fires could be brought under control. The loss of the Crossed Glory was visible in the way it rode higher in the water after each burial at sea, cloth-wrapped corpses dragged beneath the waves by weights tied to their ankles. A closer call than Nora would ever have preferred, though she'd never dare speak the sentiment aloud.
Magecraft remained her greatest threat, as they would until her ship was built. The towering behemoth conjured from Sara's mind was having its keel id down at that very moment, so many miles away. Nora pulled the designs from her sash, scanning them over again. It was a strange, strange vessel, that USS Constitution. Towering sails propelled a hulking body, more rigging than a spider's web running to and fro just to keep the behemoth underway. Its hull was thick, thicker than any ship she'd ever seen, and in her hands there'd be little in all the world to oppose her.
The question was, of course, why? The vessel was a warship, of that much Nora was certain. Sara's demonstrations showed men in uniform moving with military precision, an air of drilled routine that was unmistakable no matter what world they hailed from. But what could be such a threat to require a vessel so heavily outfitted? There were vast open stretches within its body reserved for nothing at all, an oddity when Sara's replication otherwise so perfectly captured the positioning of cargo and berthings, and there had been that cloud. A white little puff in the illusion, yet when she'd compared the scale, it had been a monster. What had it been? The Champion had hid the image the moment it appeared, and that maddened Nora. All her experiments since, all her research of magery and magecraft, they'd yielded nothing. Maddening.
Nora began barking orders, recalling Castan to his position in order to get the fleet underway as soon as possible. There were messages to be run, fgs to be changed, a Navy to be canonized. This Carrion confrontation had forced Nora to drop the illusory act of simple piracy, and that meant she was to be a true Admiral soon. Governess Sara would have to be appraised, preparations set underway. If Carrion Captains sailed into Tulian harbor and saw it an indefensible wreck, no amount of politicking would keep them from smelling blood in the water. Nora had much to do.
