I cursed under my breath, only allowing myself a single moment to lament my bad luck.

  Why, oh why, could I not catch a break?

  Still, this was something we had planned for. Without wasting another moment, I spun in place to stare at my fellow Captains of the expedition.

  And more importantly, Bleddyn.

  The man was the leader of the massive slave revolt currently taking place within Velancia, after all. He might not broadcast his name and Clan affiliation while he was out freeing slaves and burning plantations, but his description? That was apparently common knowledge among the military of the Principality.

  With very firm kill on sight orders.

  The hidden werewolf grimaced under my gaze, but didn’t protest. He just nodded and loped away for the under-decks of the Astray, while I conferred with the rest of the leadership.

  “As agreed earlier, then?” I said shortly, peripherally aware of the watchman from the crow’s nest spider-monkeying down the rigging towards us.

  Nyx nodded grimly at my words, a sentiment echoed by Marcel. Gustave was trying to hide it, but I could tell the youngest Captain among us was distressingly eager for what might just be coming.

  In contrast, all of the anxiety and wariness seemed to have drained out of Bella. The woman looked suddenly aware and sharp, in a way that I was very familiar with. One hand rested almost idly on the hilt of her cutlass, while the other was hidden within her coat pocket.

  I knew what was in there.

  It was both comforting and frustrating at the same time, just how much I knew I could rely on Bella for this, at the very least.

  “Aye,” She said, a hint of a smirk on her thin lips. “As agreed.”

  We didn’t get the chance to converse any longer before the crewman swung down from the rigging to stagger in place before us. The young man, someone who I think was one of my junior Polaris members, saluted briefly to us once he’d found his feet. Thankfully, he didn’t waste any more time.

  “Three ships, sir!” He said, almost vibrating in place. “Blue and yellow sails, bearing a kraken!”

  Nyx cursed lightly under her breath. “Venier, then. It was too much to hope we’d run into Florens forces.”

  “Not this far west,” Marcel said lowly, narrowing his eyes in thought. “The Venier control the western waters. If we’d gone east, though…”

  I fought down a frown at his words, hearing a refrain from the older Gnoll that was extremely common. Marcel had advocated from the start for the expedition to travel through the eastern seas, instead of the western path that we’d taken. His argument had ultimately been that on the eastern half of the Principality, we were more likely to encounter allies among the combined forces of the Unchained, the Florens, and the Orsini. And while that was true, our goal hadn’t been to intervene in the soon-to-start Dwarven Civil War. It had been to slay the Mad God. He’d been outvoted, and thus we had taken the shorter path up along the coast from Blutstein, instead of swinging around the southern tip of the continent to take the eastern route. Marcel had taken the decision with initial good grace, but had never spared a moment to make remarks about how much simpler it would have been to go his route.

  It deeply irritated me that he might have ended up being correct, with how our target was now protected by a continent-spanning, literally divine ward scheme.

  I put it out of my mind, focusing back on the crewman. “Were you able to see what kind of ships they were?”

  The boy opened his mouth to answer, but he didn’t need to.

  Bella did it for him.

  “Armored galleys,” She said confidently. “Can’t be nothin’ else, this side o’ the sea. The Venier don’t use anythin’ else for patrol. Big bastards, ye’d think they were nothin’ but lumberin’ beasts. But they’re fast. If we see them, they’ve seen us. They’ll be on us in oh, thirty, forty-five minutes? I’d signal the fleet to fall into defensive formation, if I was you, N-Cap’n Hart.”

  I frowned briefly at her, but nodded sharply.

  For all of her personal faults…Bella knew her way around the sea. It was good advice.

  I turned back to the crewman waiting patiently. “Back to your post,” I said shortly. “Keep an eye out for further developments.” I barely acknowledged his salute before addressing my Captains. “You should do the same. Return to your ships and get them into tight formation with the Astray. Inform your crews to ready for battle.”

  “We might just be fighting the Venier.”

  ………………………….

  Thirty minutes later, I was watching three massive Dwarven galleys pull to a stop before our formation. It was hard to even consider them galleys, honestly, considering the sheer size of them. That wasn’t even mentioning the iron-armed panels covering their above-water hull. Frankly, I didn’t know how they were still floating with all that extra weight.

  The answer was probably Magic.

  Still…I wasn’t feeling too optimistic about these guys, for several reasons. The first was because of the way they’d approached us initially. The three Dwarven vessels had been in a very loose formation on approach, spread out in a way that indicated that they were going to try and encircle us.

  That didn’t happen. They seemed to abandon that idea quickly once they got a better look at our flotilla. For as large as their galley’s were, they didn’t hold a candle to massive sea beasts like the White Gull and the Ashen Bride. All five of our ships were arranged in a line with their broadsides oriented towards the armored galleys, and each vessel had its own armaments primed and ready. As much as I wished we had cannons, ballistae were the choice of long-range weapon for modern Veredenese ship-to-ship combat. Catapults were just too unwieldy in comparison.

  However…both were unwieldy in the face of the true power known to everyone on this planet.

  Classers.

  Modern naval combat doctrine was an almost inverse of what I would have expected it to be. Range was not a virtue when you had superhuman warriors that were more likely to shrug off an arrow than keel over from it. The same couldn’t be said for ballista bolts, but those were more used against the ship itself. And considering the disparity in power in defensive enchantments versus offensive enchantments when it came to naval combat…

  Ballista had problems damaging hulls. Fire was about the only universal thing that still worked, and that was something best done by an invading force. My understanding was that flaming arrows were hit and miss when it came to ship to ship combat, in an age where sails were treated with alchemical solutions meant to stymy that flame. You needed more potent flames to ignite modern vessels, either from Skill, Spell, Art, or strong alchemical solutions. Not only that, but it was possible to completely block arrow volleys with the right people, trained in the appropriate Spells and Arts.

  The narrative has been illicitly obtained; should you discover it on Amazon, report the violation.

  Thankfully, we had those. Not so thankfully, we couldn’t be sure the enemy didn’t as well.

  No, if this came down to a fight with the Venier, they’d try and board us first. And then it would turn into slaughter on the open sea.

  There was…another reason I was unhappy with this development, though. You see, I recognized the lead ship bearing down on us. I’d seen it earlier this year, just shortly after I had received the Astray in the first place. Back then, it had been a lone patrol vessel, flagging us down for possible links to the very slave revolt whose leader I now carried in my cabins.

  That was the Lancia del Mare, and if I recognized them, they recognized me.

  This was a problem, because we’d duped them at the time by Azarus pretending to be a noble in good standing. This time, we had no Dwarven nobility aboard any of the five vessels of the expedition. Hell, there were only a handful of actual Dwarves among the various ships. It wasn’t helping matters that there were visible Herztalian flags being flown by a few of the ships in the flotilla.

  I had very small hopes, now, about getting out of this without blood being shed.

  I took a deep breath, standing at the port side railing of my ship, surrounded by the soldiers and warriors of the expedition. Everyone had been ordered to arm themselves for potential combat, and that order had been followed to the letter. Swords and daggers and spears bristled from the armor of the various Polaris members that dominated my vessel. I was no different, though I'd already been lightly armed and armored. These days, I never went anywhere without Terractus at my side and my daggers at the small of my back. Still, in the few minutes before the Dwarves arrived, I'd run back into my cabin to retrieve my staff, which I now held proudly in my right hand. All of that, combined with my heavily enchanted coat, would be more than enough for any battle.

  The Astray possessed two ballista, and they were likewise being manned by marksman I trusted. A small line of archers hugged the starboard railing, bows held at the ready next to lit braziers, with Renauld at my back in full Healer regalia, blatantly using me as a shield while still remaining at hand in case he was needed, and I didn’t blame him for that. It was standard procedure for a Healer, really. Maria stood to my right, dressed in a way I hadn’t seen her since the Construct War. It was strangely nostalgic to see an altered form of the armor once worn by members of the Nocturne Division. Only this time, she didn’t bear the heraldry of the Eclipsed Dawn.

  No, like me, she bore the blue and red compass star of the Polaris Reach.

  Fade, meanwhile, had finally exited the Captain’s cabin and joined us on deck now that the situation had grown more tense. My Familiar sat patiently to my left, a small space formed around him as crewmen did their best to avoid his impressive rack of antlers. His lupine eyes were trained unerringly on the ships across from us, and I liked to think the Dwarves were just a little unnerved by the Spirit Wolf.

  Across the waters from us, the Venier ships had given up on trying to encircle our position. Instead, they were mimicking our formation, showing their broadsides to us, and I could see dozens and dozens of armored Dwarfs tightly packed on all three decks.

  They, too, had ballista and bowmen trained on us.

  Silence filled the span between our two formations, and tension filled it instead. The only thing audible was the crash of waves against hulls, and the creak of armor as soldiers shifted in place.

  I chose to break it first.

  Casting a familiar Spell to enhance my voice, I raised it, directing my words at the central armored Dwarf standing opposite my position over the waters. Though he bore a full face-concealing helmet, I knew who he had to be. “Is that you, Captain Giancarlo Bronzle?” I called, my voice echoing over the deep blue. “It’s been some time since our last encounter. I hope you’re doing well in these trying times!”

  Thanks to my Perception, I was able to see it as the head Dwarf inflated his lungs before responding, his own voice magnified in a similar manner. “It has indeed been many months, Captain Nathaniel Hart! As always, the Principality endures!” He called back, his rough voice nonetheless carrying a note of tension. I couldn’t help but notice that he not so subtly dodged my prodding about the Skyfall. “I see that you managed to reach Blutstein as you intended. And yet, here you are, once more in waters belonging to the Principality of Velancia. I must ask, are you once more transporting one of our most esteemed nobility?”

  I gave an exaggerated shake of my head in response. “No, Captain! Instead, I come on official business, by leave of the Regent Lord of Herztal, Lord Wenzel von Steinmark, as well as the High Assembly of Herztal! We seek an end to the phenomenon that even now poisons our world, and have reason to believe the source can be found within the Barren Forest! Does the Principality of Velancia intend to stand in the way of such a thing?”

  To my side, I could almost physically feel Maria’s disapproval at my words, but she didn’t gainsay me. And I understood why. Even giving up that much information was anathema to someone who had spent so much time in intelligence.

  When I, my officers, and the Captains of the expedition had sat down to define our goals, I think I’d surprised everyone with my plans. I was in support of a limited amount of transparency when it inevitably came time to encounter the Principality's forces. While I wasn’t willing to even hint at Bleddyn’s presence among us, I felt that it was important to extend the slightest amount of willingness to cooperate with them. The Skyfall was a phenomenon affecting the whole of the planet, and the Dwarves, for all of their vile adherence to slavery, were still part of Vereden. They deserved the chance, a chance, mind you, to join hands with us in putting an end to this nightmare.

  To those who knew me, and my history under the Dwarven yoke, I think this surprised them. But I had my reasons.

  Unfortunately…

  It looked like the Dwarves weren’t interested in cooperating.

  It wasn’t hard to tell when the tension among the Dwarven marines skyrocketed. Even across the distance, I could see bows being raised, weapons unsheathed, and stances being firmed. Captain Bronzle lowered his helmet slightly, as if he were a bull about to charge. “By the authority invested in me by the Principal Convocation, and the Admiralty of Velancia, I hearby order you and your escorts to immediately vacate all waters owned by the Principality!” He called to us. “Failure to comply with this order shall result in immediate punitive actions! You have five minutes to turn your vessels around and depart!”

  I sighed, closing my eyes as I did so. Slowly, I shook my head, and as I did, I raised my left hand.

  My forces knew what that meant.

  Bows were primed, blades were barred, and my forces readied themselves for battle. Not just on the Astray, but across all of the expedition flotilla.

  Meanwhile, I took a deep breath, opened my eyes, and fixed them on the grim figure of Captain Giancarlo Bronzle across the bay from us. “I’m afraid I can’t do that, Captain,” I said quietly, my low tone nonetheless carried by my Spell.

  Their response was immediate.

  Captain Bronzle raised one armored arm and slashed it down in our direction. In response, every bowman across all three Dwarven armored galleys immediately loosed their missiles in our direction. The scream of their arrows filled the air as they flew high up into the sky, and at their summit, arced down to fall towards my forces.

  Unfortunately for them…

  None of it mattered.

  I let a small sneer fall on my lips as I reached out with a custom Abjuration Spell of my own making, raising my staff as high into the air as I did so. You see, Abjurers were actually a very common position among modern-day military warships. They were specialists in defensive magic, after all, and one of the most common forms of Abjuration spells was the simple stationary shield. Normally, it conjured into being a flat plane of Mana capable of blocking an arrow, often large enough to protect an entire squad. Normally, however, you weren’t able to protect entire ships from arrow volleys, unless you were very high level.

  However…

  Most Abjurers didn’t have access to highly specialized, powerful ward stones on ships like I did.

  My Spell briefly hijacked the ward field of the Astray protecting the entire flotilla, and the invisible shield suddenly flared into the physical spectrum.

  The entire volley of several hundred screaming arrows…

  Plinked onto the dome now protecting the entire flotilla, falling into the sea below with hundreds of tiny splashes.

  Silence filled the air as the Dwarven marines reacted with shock. I could even understand why. This was something you would only see from the serious powers on Vereden. Not some random border-violating Captain like me.

  I tried not to let the sudden drain I felt from my Mana reserves show on my face. Blocking that many arrows all at once was not easy, even with the custom framework of that Spell. Instead, I smirked at the Dwarves, projecting an easy confidence, before I filled my lungs…

  And shouted.

  “PREPARE GRAPPELS!"