He slipped easily into the firmament, spending a few moments listening to the song of creation before focusing his attention on the Reishi Keep. After he appeared before Commander Perry, it took several minutes of convincing to assure the suspicious commander of his legitimacy.
“Very well, Lord Reishi, I accept that this illusion is indeed being projected by you.”
“Thank you, Commander,” Alexander said. “I’d like a report.”
“We’ve completed the wall and begun the process of clearing the Keep,” Commander Perry said. “It’s difficult and dangerous, both because of the creatures living within and the magical defenses that are still active. The wall is holding, though there are still attempts by some of the more aggressive predators to penetrate our defenses. Supplies are beginning to become a concern, so I’ve been sending out hunting parties to augment our food stores.
“The Keep itself is quite large, nothing like Blackstone of course, but it has proven difficult to navigate for some of my men. The lack of lighting is an issue, forcing us to rely on torches and lanterns which sometimes alert the creatures we’re hunting to our presence.”
“What of the mission to the hidden fortress?” Alexander asked.
“They arrived several weeks ago and departed the safety of our position within the hour,” Perry said. “I haven’t heard from them since.”
“Very good, Commander,” Alexander said. “You’ve done well with a difficult situation. I’m going to spend some time scouting the Keep. When I finish, I’d like to speak with your officers.”
Alexander spent an hour or more doing a thorough search of the entire Keep. Much of it was abandoned and empty of everything save debris but there were still several areas occupied by a variety of dangerous creatures, of most concern being the tentacle demon which had taken up residence in the throne room. From the remains scattered around the cavernous chamber it had clearly been hunting some of the lesser creatures living in the Keep.
He came to lament the fact that he hadn’t taken the time to enter the Keep himself and claim control of the ancient fortress. Had he done so, he suspected that many of the magical capabilities of the Keep would be available to him, even at such a distance.
After an exhaustive search, he returned to Commander Perry and spent a few minutes telling him where each of the creatures within the Keep had chosen to make its lair. There were several families of gorledons, a fact Commander Perry and his men were painfully aware of, but Alexander was able to pinpoint the location where each family slept, giving his soldiers a powerful tactical advantage.
In one of the lower chambers lived a snake that was easily fifty feet long, though it seemed content to hunt the catacombs beneath the Keep as none of the soldiers had even seen it.
By far the greatest concern, aside from the tentacle demon, was the pack of five nether wolves living in one of the lower chambers. Perry had reported that something was hunting his men in the night, taking a man every few days or so. Alexander explained how they fought, their aversion to light and their immunity to most forms of attack save decapitation.
Wizard Dinh suggested that he could provide light for the men to corral the nether wolves into an ambush and Commander Perry began formulating an attack plan to eliminate the nether wolves immediately. Alexander bid them good luck and faded out of sight.
Next, he went to Abel on Ithilian and requested a resupply be sent to the expedition at the Reishi Keep. Then he sought out the men tasked with placing one of Kelvin’s explosive weapons in the chamber that held the Nether Gate.
What he found was a scene from a nightmare. The entire force had been killed to a man. They’d reached the fortress, but they’d fought a retreating action for nearly a league while something picked them apart, one man at a time. Broken bodies, some half eaten, lay in a trail leading to the fortress entrance and into the entry chamber. The wizard leading the mission was dead, fallen beside the wagon carrying the weapon. The only consolation Alexander took from the massacre was that whatever had killed these men hadn’t been interested in the weapon at all.
He considered detonating it right now, he had the activation stone with him on Tyr, all he had to do was crush it and the weapon would detonate, even at this distance, sealing off the fortress under tons of stone, but he knew that would only be enough to slow Phane down once the arch mage got around to coming for the Nether Gate.
Alexander faded back into the firmament, saddened by the loss of yet more good men by his order, and returned to his body to consider his options.
***
“Hello, Captain Wyatt,” Alexander said, his projection standing on the deck of an Ithilian warship.
“Lord Reishi, is that really you?” a startled Wyatt asked.
“It is,” Alexander said, then proceeded to name all eleven men that Wyatt had lost in the first battle with the wraithkin at Northport.
“Very well, I believe you, though I don’t comprehend how you’ve come to be here,” Wyatt said.
“Report,” Alexander said, as another man approached with two sailors in tow.
“I’ve commandeered these four warships from the Ithilian Navy in pursuit of Princess Lacy. And although Captain Riggs here,” Wyatt said, motioning to the man who’d just approached, “isn’t entirely convinced of my authority, he has accepted my command for now, mostly because of Knight Kinley.” Wyatt looked up at the wyvern circling overhead.
“Captain Riggs, I’m Alexander Reishi. Consider Captain Wyatt to be the commander of your flotilla. You will assist him in every way possible. Is that understood?”
“Yes, but I’m confused? How did you get aboard?” Captain Riggs asked, looking around for any ships other than his four vessels.
“I’m a projection, Captain,” Alexander said, waving his hand through the foredeck railing, “an illusion.”
“I don’t pretend to understand such wizardry,” Captain Riggs said, “but Lord Abel spoke to every captain in the fleet and told us that if you were to come to us in our dreams, we were to obey your orders as if they’d come from him. I suppose this is enough like a dream to count. I accept Captain Wyatt’s command, my ships are at his disposal.”
“Thank you, Captain,” Alexander said, turning back to Wyatt. “You’re about a day and a half away from the ship carrying Lacy. It’s manned by men dressed like Zuhl’s soldiers but they’re really Regency soldiers.”
Wyatt frowned in puzzlement. “What’s their game?”
“Phane wants the contents of a magical box that Lacy has in her possession and she’s the only one who can open it,” Alexander said. “And I think he’s trying to trick her into doing just that. There are two warships flying the Regency flag a few days out and they’re headed right for Lacy’s ship.”
“Sounds like this ocean is about to get very crowded,” Wyatt said.
“It gets worse,” Alexander said, holding Wyatt’s eyes for a moment. “A dragon named Aedan was sent by Lady Bragador to retrieve Lacy from the ship, but the shade possessed him and then retreated.”
Wyatt blinked a few times and shook his head. “I don’t know what we can do against a dragon,” he said. “There isn’t a single wizard aboard any of these ships and I doubt our weapons will have much effect.”
“Trust me, they won’t,” Alexander said. “If the shade wants to sink you, you’re sunk.”
“Why doesn’t he just take Princess Lacy and the box?” Wyatt asked.
“He can’t open it or he would,” Alexander said. “I think he’s waiting for Phane’s ruse to play out. Besides, Phane already has the other two keystones, so the shade will have to get them from him for his plan to succeed. For now, the shade is playing a waiting game.”
“Very well, what are my orders?” Wyatt asked.
“Use Knight Kinley to scout for the dragon,” Alexander said. “If you have clear skies, I want you to attack, board the ship and retrieve Princess Lacy with all of her personal effects. She’s traveling with one of Phane’s agents, a man named
Drogan, but she isn’t aware of his true purpose. Do not trust him no matter how much the princess vouches for him.”
“Once we have her, then what?” Wyatt asked.
“Ensure she has the box and make haste for Ithilian,” Alexander said. “Abel and the Ithilian wizards will be ready to protect her the moment she makes landfall.”
“And if the dragon is present?” Wyatt asked.
“Hold back and follow at a safe distance,” Alexander said. “In any event, I’ll be keeping an eye on the situation, so I’ll be here to provide further guidance when you need it.”
“Thank you, Lord Reishi,” Wyatt said, saluting, fist to heart.
Alexander returned the salute as he faded out of sight.
Chapter 23
Lacy woke shivering. The single thin blanket wasn’t enough to ward against the chill of the early morning ocean air. The ache of her broken hand had become a constant part of her day, throbbing, sometimes stabbing and sharp, but always hurting … and the cold didn’t help. Drogan was standing at his cell door listening intently. A moment later a crashing noise was followed by shouts and screams.
“Get ready to move,” Drogan said, retrieving a piece of wire from the hem of his blanket.
“Where did you get that?”
He ignored her, going to work on the lock to his cell door. A moment later he was out and picking the lock to her door.
“Why didn’t you do that before?” Lacy asked.
“Where would we have gone?” he asked, not waiting for an answer before he went to the footlocker containing their belongings. Within minutes, they had their weapons and equipment and were moving toward the stairs leading above decks.
Shouts of fighting and the ring of steel filtered through the deck boards. Drogan stuck his head above, then retreated quickly, cursing under his breath.
“What is it?” Lacy asked. “What’s wrong?”
He ignored her, motioning for her to follow quietly. As they hurried through the hatch, Lacy looked around almost frantically at the battle taking place on the main deck. Zuhl’s soldiers were fighting with almost reckless desperation against the well-organized unit of men that had boarded from an adjacent warship. Three more ships surrounded them, preventing escape while the boarding party worked to seize the ship.
Drogan led her to the aft deck, avoiding Zuhl’s men who were surging toward the foredeck and the boarding party. Lacy recognized their uniforms-the boarding party was from the Reishi Protectorate, the soldiers that had been chasing her on Fellenden before she and Drogan escaped aboard the refugee ship.
“There,” Drogan said, pointing off into the distance.
Two more ships were coming toward them.
“Who’s that?” Lacy asked, trying to overcome the tremor of fear rippling in her voice.
“Regency Navy,” Drogan said.
In the back of her mind, Lacy wondered at the timing. How could Drogan know to look for friendly vessels amid such chaos?
Then she saw the dragon. It flew over the ship, the man riding the beast looking down intensely, locking eyes with her for only a moment before banking hard and circling back over the attacking ship, shouting something that she couldn’t make out over the wind.
A man standing on the foredeck of the nearest attacking ship signaled to the dragon and it started to gain altitude, wheeling at the apex of its climb and diving toward her ship, clearly intent on an attack.
What happened next defied reason. A man aboard her ship ran for the railing toward the inbound dragon and leapt off the side of the boat. She stared in disbelief as he transformed into a dragon … a real dragon.
In that moment she knew that the thing headed toward her ship, the creature that she believed was a dragon-was not, could not be a true dragon because the terrible and magnificent creature rising to meet it was easily twice its size and seemed to radiate power.
The man riding the smaller creature pulled hard on his reins, trying to avoid the dragon coming for him, but he was too late-already committed to his attack, he was unable to change course quickly enough. The true dragon flared its wings, bringing its hind legs up and raking the belly of the other creature, flipping it over and casting it into the ocean with a roar that seemed to still the air and freeze in place the men fighting for their lives-alerting everyone that the situation had just changed in a very fundamental way.
The dragon banked hard, breathing fire onto the ship holding anchor at the port side, setting man and timber alike aflame in a whoosh.
The ships holding aft and starboard raised anchors and turned away from the engagement while the boarding ship sounded horns, signaling a retreat … but it was too late. The green dragon circled, calmly and gracefully breathing fire on the aft ship, setting it ablaze in an instant. Men leapt into the ocean to avoid the conflagration, but too few and some too late, dousing their flaming clothes in the ocean.
As Lacy stood mesmerized by the unimaginable battle taking place, two men from the Reishi Protectorate approached with weapons drawn.
“Princess Lacy, please … come with us,” the first said.
“There isn’t much time,” the other said.
Drogan threw a knife, burying it to the hilt in the throat of the first man.
The second man raised his sword and engaged, stabbing into Drogan quickly, but not quickly enough. Drogan shifted his weight, turning his body sideways, just barely avoiding the blade, then grabbed the man by the back of the neck and threw him overboard with one powerful heave.
The dragon set the third of the retreating ships alight as the boarding party scrambled to return to their ship.
Lacy was thrown to the deck when the entire ship rocked violently and then righted itself again. She scrambled to her feet and saw that one of the two Regency Navy ships had rammed them, crushing in the side of Zuhl’s ship and allowing soldiers to pour aboard.
The dragon roared again, drawing her attention away from the new flood of soldiers. She looked up to see another dragon, this one silver and regal, crash into the green dragon and drive him underwater before he could attack the last remaining vessel of the four that had first initiated the attack against Zuhl’s ship.
The barbarians that had strutted about with such overstated confidence were now fighting with desperation against men from the Regency. Drogan guided Lacy toward the soldiers as he shouted at them. A man with the insignia of an officer saw them and directed his troops toward them. A few moments later they were being escorted aboard the ramming ship and then from there to the other vessel that had drawn up alongside.
Lacy watched the entangled ships still fighting while the Regency ship she’d boarded turned away. In the distance, she almost thought she saw the Ithilian flag flying over the ship that had started the fight.
“I’m Commander Arnd of the Regency Navy. Welcome aboard, Princess Lacy.”
“I don’t understand what just happened.”
“We rescued you from Zuhl,” Commander Arnd said.
“But who were those other ships?” Lacy asked.
“Reishi Protectorate,” Drogan said, before Commander Arnd could answer.
“And what about the dragons?” Lacy asked.
Drogan shrugged.
“We have no knowledge of them.” Commander Arnd said. “Might I suggest a meal and a hot bath while we put some distance between us and our enemies?”
“I am hungry, but I still don’t understand what’s going on.” Lacy said.
“I could eat,” Drogan said.
“It’s settled then,” Commander Arnd said. “These men will show you to your quarters.”
“But …” Lacy said.
“Princess,” Drogan said. “Please just let it go for now. We’ll have plenty of time to wonder about the events of this morning after we eat. I would also like the ship’s healer to look at your hand.”
Lacy nodded reluctantly.
***
“There’s another,” shouted a deckhand.
Wyatt and his cr
ew had been fishing men out of the ocean for the better part of an hour. Most were dead, but there were a few survivors. Three of the four ships he’d commandeered were burned and already claimed by the ocean. The other two enemy ships had abruptly stopped fighting and fled once the princess had boarded the Regency ship. Wyatt had the sinking feeling that he’d just made matters worse.
He’d lost most of his company of Rangers, as well as most of Captain Riggs’s sailors. Knight Kinley had reported clear skies, but now he was dead too, along with his wyvern. Wyatt had always been impressed by the capabilities of the Sky Knights, but the dragon that had come out of nowhere had bested Knight Kinley with virtually no effort.
Alexander appeared on the deck of the ship and sighed. “I’m sorry, Captain Wyatt,” he said. “I should have seen this coming.”
“You can’t see everything, Lord Reishi,” Wyatt said. “I just don’t understand where the dragon came from.”
“He was aboard the ship in human form,” Alexander said. “If I had just looked closer, I would have seen it.”
“Captain,” called out a deckhand, “this one’s a woman.”
Alexander flickered out of sight, appearing next to the woman they’d just pulled from the water. She was wounded and unconscious.
“Her name is Tasia and she’s a dragon,” he said, as Wyatt approached.
The deckhand backed away, his colors flaring with fear.
“She won’t hurt you,” Alexander said. “Do everything in your power to care for her. I’ll let Bragador know.”
“But she just burned my flotilla,” Captain Riggs said, his face smeared with soot and grime.
“No, she didn’t,” Alexander said. “She’s the silver dragon who stopped the green dragon from finishing you off.”
Riggs frowned skeptically. “I didn’t see that happen, what with so much going on at the time, but I did wonder where that fiery beast went all of a sudden.”
“I saw her, Captain,” a deckhand said, “bright and silver, shining in the sun she was, just before she crashed into that terrible green dragon and drove it under the waves. They was both gone after that.”
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