Invading an island of witches was a terrifying prospect and yet here Esra Durain was, helping row a longboat toward just such a place. It was said that the witches that dwelled in the Ward Isles could see a single lumen-draught lamp five miles out to sea, although seeing anything at that distance was supposed to be physically impossible. The talk among the sailors was that no one could truly sneak up on the witches. Of course, they kept those discussions away from the commanders’ ears. A few of the more imaginative sailors believed that the witches had magical weapons that would sink a ship in mere seconds at three miles out. No lev-gun, not even a cannon, had that absurd kind of range, so those sailors’ ideas were easily dismissed. The more superstitious sailors believed that the witches would simply weave some sort of spell to sink their boats. That is, if they were seen or heard. And no one was taking any chances with that. Indeed, the way each sailor clenched their oars and the way the commander toyed with his pocket telescope were plain evidence of the tension in the boat.
It was well after midnight when the commander finally gave the signal to the crew to cease their rowing. Just a quick and soft tap-tap-tap of the tip of his boot on the longboat’s bow, where he knelt. The sailors all pulled in their oars and sat silently, waiting in anxiousness for the next signal to complete their journey to the island.
As the commander expanded the telescope to check the horizon yet again, Esra wondered what he was hoping to see with it. This night was specifically chosen because it was a new moon. There were some thin clouds that blurred the stars and there was very little wind. The calm waters looked like spilled ink under the scattered starlight. The admiral could not have chosen a better night to begin the Caradon Empire’s assault on the Ward Isles.
Their longboat had set off from their massive capital ship, the Spear’s Head, along with nineteen other identical boats and one supplies whaler about an hour ago. There had been no lamps to light the boats’ departure from the ship. There surely wouldn’t be any light now. They were supposed to be nearly invisible as well as silent.
Similar to the other invaders, Esra wore close-fitting thick black shirt and pants, with a black head-wrapping, hiding the red hair that was characteristic of his easterner race. The sailors didn’t necessarily need the black clothing to stay out of sight at night. Eastern Imperials like Esra had very dark skin, but they were outfitted in this way to keep them warm in these cold northern waters, while maintaining their invisibility. In addition, each one of them had a lev-pistol at the hip, a large pouch of ammunition on the belt, and a sword on their back. They carried what they needed for the invasion within blackened pouches and packs strapped to their persons. These held dried meats and fruits wrapped in waxed paper, a canteen, and plenty of ammunition. They had all the trappings of a lightly armed, highly mobile, unseen unit.
Despite his nineteen years of service in the Imperial Navy, this was Esra’s first military operation. Ironically, it was not going to be a sea battle. Tonight, he and the other sailors in the boats would be a small invasion unit intended to establish a foothold on one of these witches’ islands to make way for a larger strike force. The details of their orders were unusually vague. It was either that the leadership did not trust the sailors enough or it was because there had been no advance reconnaissance of the island. It was possible that even their leaders didn’t fully know what to expect. All that they knew was that they were supposed to secure a guardhouse and an important tower that was purportedly on the coast of their target island. The hope was to catch the Islanders and their witches completely unawares. It would be harder to repel the imminent invasion if the Empire already held a secret key defensible structure like this tower and its guardhouse. They were told that the larger fleet would be close behind them. They would not have to hold the tower without additional support for long. But for now, they stayed at their holding point, waiting for the signal to begin their speedy rowing to shore and the start of their land assault.
As they sat in their boat, waiting for the invasion signal, Esra contemplated his place in this operation. Nestled inside one of his pouches was a letter he had received from his beloved, Senator Sefina Michell, the same day he had received his summons to report for duty. In her letter she described some events within the Imperial government that caused him to question the logic and morals of this military endeavor. Sefina had been there when Imperial Admiral Bern Xarranta had given a fiery speech to the Imperial Senate, laying bare his plan for an unprovoked attack on the Ward Isles. Sefina’s letter also illustrated how Esra’s cousin, the great Emperor Fabricht Durain, endorsed the admiral’s plan with glowing praise. They had dressed up their motives with supposed injustices of trade and violations of the Empire’s rights, but Sefina knew that was just a front for what they really wanted.
The Ward Isles were the only known source of levitation-stones or lev-stones as they were commonly called, in the entire world. These stones were likely created by the witches of the Isles enchanting the rocks and stones plentiful in their lands. The value of lev-stones was incalculable. They were what made overland transportation and trade possible at the scale to which the world had become accustomed. They were what made lev-guns work and the various other creations of the mechanists. They could even be used as lev-lamps for lighting homes with their dull green glow, although they were not as bright as the torches that burned lumen-draught. The only thing lev-stones were not good for was for travel over water. For some reason, lev-stones did not react with water.
The Islanders had the world in their grip as the sole source of this invaluable lev-stone commodity. Of course, governments had long grumbled about having to come to them to obtain their supply of these stones. No one to date had dared a seizure of lev-ore mines by military means as Sefina’s letter had intimated they were doing so now. The audacity of this attack was further enhanced by the fact that the Islanders sold lev-stones equally to all and never raised their prices. The only strange thing was that all trade with them occurred via a single trading outpost. Every other place in their islands was strictly forbidden to interact with the outside world. Violation of that policy could spell the end of your trade agreements. The admiral must have been very confident to risk this invasion, knowing that a failure could spell the end for their lev-stone import opportunities. And here I am, thought Esra, just waiting to see if I am part of one of the biggest blunders in military and economic history.
At the end of her letter, Sefina described how exhausted she felt. She was worried about him. She had been plagued by recurring nightmares about him being lost at sea and being chased by dragons with glowing red eyes and a woman on fire. Esra wasn’t sure what to think about this revelation. He knew her dreams were sometimes eerily prophetic, although not always in a literal sense. Other times though, they were just dreams. Was she just worried about him? he wondered. Or were these things that she saw symbols of dangers ahead for him and if so, what did they represent? Hopefully, this little military exercise would work itself out quickly and he could make it back to his home in Sternguard and then on to her estates just south of the city. Maybe then she could rest a little easier, knowing he wasn’t lost at sea and with no dragons in pursuit.
As the boat gently rocked side to side in agonizingly silent waiting, he wondered if it had been a bad choice to come. Sure, he would have endured a court-martial to refuse service, possibly expulsion from the navy altogether. Maybe that wouldn’t have been so bad. Maybe he could have finally married Sefina. They had talked about it for many years, but their paths of duty just always seemed to come first, her as a senator and he as a career navy man.
While they waited, Esra considered the other members of his boat. There was the commander in the bow, the scout from the Imperial Army in the stern, and eight sailors at the oars. He had served with a few of the sailors for years.
He had spent the longest tenure sharing the same ships with Gaet. Gaet was high-ranking officer material, and everyone knew it, including Gaet. Right now, they were both lieutenants, but Esra was sure Gaet would soon outrank him. He would surely captain his own galleon soon. He might even rise to admiral someday. That would be an improvement, Esra thought with an inwardly wry smile.
Esra knew Reneva well. She was tough as the skin of a rock whale and was unflappable in a storm. Feeling his eyes on her back, she turned to catch a glance at him. She squinted at him as if to say, Look somewhere else, sailor, and then quickly turned back around. Esra was caught off guard. Not about the way she glared, but for a moment he saw fear pass across those eyes. A fear that was so uncharacteristic of her that he was shocked. Then again, he wondered what his own eyes betrayed. Maybe he wasn’t the only one who had doubts about who they were invading.
He had been surprised to see Darnel here. Esra had heard he had given up navy life for trading. He remembered him as gruff and unapproachable, but an impeccable sailor. Rumor had it, he was one of a few that had traded with the Ward Islanders. Having someone aboard that had at least seen an Islander, much less been on one of their islands was an invaluable asset, if it were true.
He was not very familiar with the other four sailors although he had served with three of them for a very short span, each at various times. He did not know the scout at all, who apparently had come from the Emperor’s Spy Guild.
The commander was a complete mystery to him. Like the commanders in the other boats, the one in Esra’s boat had been added to the officers as an agent of the Imperial Army just for this venture, outranking Esra and the other lieutenants. He went simply by the name Z. Esra had no idea what that stood for, or even if it stood for anything besides just being cryptic. He also wasn’t sure of his credentials as a commander. Supposedly he came from the southern army. In fact, of the twenty commanders that were brought along, only a quarter of them came from the northern military forces. That so many commanders had been brought up from the south for a northern operation seemed odd to him and only added to his unease with his present circumstances.
Commander Z stretched out his scope again and eyed the place where they knew the island to be. They could sense its immensity based on the profile of the starlight that was blocked from view. They were told that the island was surrounded by steep and severe cliffs. But they had been assured that there was a beachhead and then a route to the guardhouse and tower. The commander scanned back and forth and up, seemingly tracing the contours of the darkness ahead. He then swung his telescope to the side and back behind their boat, looking to where they knew other boats and the Spear’s Head lay. He silently collapsed the scope and tucked it into a pouch he concealed underneath his black shirt. He stretched out the fabric across the chest of his shirt and pushed his head inside to look at something, like a duck tucking its head under its wing to sleep. Probably looking at his timepiece. Those were exceptionally rare and beyond value in the trade markets. But each commander had been given one so that the timing of this operation was exact. Esra knew that the tiny lev-stones that moved the gears of the timepiece emitted a greenish glow, which explained the tucking of the head like into the front opening of his shirt rather than removing the timepiece from the shirt to look at it.
Esra had been craning his face over his shoulder to see if the commander reacted to anything he had seen on the island with his telescope. Seemingly out of nowhere, he heard a soft sound off the port side of the boat. It sounded like a small stone had been dropped and it plopped into the sea. He quickly spun his head back around and looked over the edge to see if he could spot the origin of such an odd noise. Just underneath the dark water’s surface were two round glowing orbs. They radiated a deep red light, like underwater lumen-draught lamps, but with a peculiar menace about them. He felt hatred in those lights and a feeling of fear seized his heart. And then, to his utter surprise, the lights blinked. Not a simple on and then off, but as though eyelids moved across them and then reopened again. They were looking back at him like some pair of disembodied sea dragon’s eyes! The lids closed once more and then the lights were gone.
“Saints alive!” Esra reflexively shouted the blasphemy, lurching backwards in startled fright. The boat rocked and his hand slipped on his oar, its butt clattering against the floor of the boat. Every head swung towards him in surprise and there was a sound of nine people inhaling in unison. The ire and fear his crewmates exuded was as thick as unprocessed lumen-draught.
“What are you doing?” hissed Reneva, her eyes mere slits of fury.
Esra pointed at the water. “Sea dragon,” he whispered sharply, although he immediately felt foolish when the words escaped his mouth. Every sailor knew sea dragons were not real, but he couldn’t come up with another word for red glowing eyes peering up at him from the water.
Most of the sailors shook their heads and rolled their eyes in disgust, although they continued to eye Esra with suspicion and residual anger at his outburst. Reneva and Darnel were adjacent to him, and they leaned over to look where he had pointed. Seeing nothing, they turned and shot him nasty glares accompanied by sighs of frustration.
Esra growled. “They were—,” he started to softly argue, but the commander interrupted him with a hiss, a pointed look, and an angry gesture that altogether made it clear that there was some navy discipline in his near future.
Right. Esra remembered. Silence. He shook his head. How am I going to convince anyone about what I saw?
Just as the boat’s occupants began to relax and breathe regularly again, there was suddenly a flare of bright yellowish white light that erupted from behind the sailor’s backs. All heads spun around to see a tower on the high cliff on the island ahead of them. It was the very tower they were supposed to be invading. The source of the light was from its upper reaches, and it seemed to them as if it was the midday sun shining. Eyes squinted and hands were raised to brows, shielding faces from the intensity of the light. Now the entire island could be seen. It indeed had a very small beach ahead of them and then the island sloped up sharply like a mountainous cliff rising from the seafloor. The rocky heights of the island were coated by a thick forest. Rising from the tree canopy at the uppermost tip of the part of the island visible to them stood the tower. The guardhouse was likely obscured by the trees. The tower was not like the towers of their Caradon Empire, that were stacked speckled granite rocks. This tower seemed all of one piece, smooth and shimmering with reflected white light. The origin of the light could not be seen, but it illuminated the sea well, revealing the twenty boats waiting about one mile offshore. And most troubling to the boats’ crews, the Spear’s Head could now be seen another two miles behind them, unmistakable as a capital ship with its exceptional length and towering five masts. They were fully discovered. Some sort of warning light had been activated, and all stealth was now lost.
Reneva was the first to respond. “Brine!” she swore. “Is that a lighthouse? We weren’t told we were invading a dragonscratched lighthouse. Can they see us? Saints alive, what do we do?” The once stalwart sailor was losing her grip as her curses and blasphemies flew. Esra understood. His own heart was beating out of its normal rhythm, and he had a hard time taking his eyes off the tower, worrying that one of those long-range magical cannons would blast them right out of the water at any minute.
“Turn to port!” Commander Z screamed. “Make way to the Spear’s Head! Row! Your life depends on it!”
“What about the invasion?” Gaet shouted at the commander. “Are we going to let some light scare us away? We can still do this!” This was why Gaet was leadership material. He was unafraid and always mission focused.
“It’s the dragonmothered witches!” Darnel swore. “They could be casting their spells on us any second now.” Even gruffness was retreating in the face of terror.
“Shut it, draughtheads!” cried the commander. “To port and back to the Spear’s Head. For the sight of the Saints, start rowing!” he ordered. Eight oars were immediately in the water, and they vigorously churned the sea. All attempts at stealth were abandoned. Priorities had completely shifted to survival.
Esra heaved at his oar matching every stroke of his fellows in rapid succession. They strove to make it back to the Spear’s Head to what they thought was assured safety. The other boats were racing back as well. Their commanders clearly had the same idea as Z did.
The light around the tower immediately went out as if someone had just snuffed a lamp. Jet-black night immediately returned and the sailors were now sunblind. Oar strokes faltered as the abrupt loss of light created mass confusion.
“Saints alive!” Reneva shouted. “I can’t see!” The other oarsmen loudly murmured their agreement. Esra was blind in the night too.
“Just keep rowing, you wormers!” screamed the commander, furious at the slowing of the boat. In obedience, the crew began their synchronous rowing again, very slowly regaining their night vision as they went. The commander sat with his back to the bow. His eyes were wild with terror, and they were fixated on the spot where the lighthouse had been, getting ever farther away as they rowed into the distance. Muttered curses filled the air around him as muscles strained under the intense pace. The acrid stench of sweat began to mix with the saltiness of the sea air.
The scout sat in the stern, facing the rowers, focused on getting back to the Spear’s Head. Thus positioned, he was the only one who saw what suddenly produced a similarly bright light along their current trajectory. He let out a wordless high-pitched scream. His eyes opening almost impossibly wide. Raising a trembling arm, he shakily pointed at something behind the oarsmen and the commander.
Nine heads swiveled about in unison and similar cries of horror erupted and sharp oaths were screamed. The Spear’s Head was aflame, its mighty masts were now torches, burning with a white fire. Large pieces of the ship floated a thousand feet away from the ship as if an explosion had ripped apart a large chunk of the galleon. It was clear that there would likely be no survivors. The other boats were once again visible, and they were all stunned into immobility.
The commander didn’t need to order a stop to the rowing. The entire boat now sat motionless, agape at the horror that lay ahead of them. Their only way home was now giving itself up to the ocean, its stern now pitching back, succumbing to its injuries and sinking into the depths. The bow had broken off and fell to its starboard side and then it too began to slink down below the surface. The crew sat and stared for what seemed like hours, terror freezing every muscle.
“Oh Saints—” began Gaet, trying to find the right words. “What kind of sorcery could do such a thing?”
“I didn’t see or hear a cannon shot,” Reneva added. “It was as if the light in the dragonscratched tower just winked out and then reappeared at the Spear’s Head. What kind of light can destroy a Saint’s forsaken galleon?” she wondered.
Esra was just as shocked as the rest of the crew, trying to make sense of what just happened. “What kind of weapons do these witches have?” Esra asked worriedly, grabbing Darnel by the arm.
Darnel violently shrugged Esra off, getting his arm free. “How should I know, you draughthead?” he exclaimed. “All I saw at their trading centers were swords and lev-guns. I didn’t deal with any of the dragonmothered witches.”
Commander Z regained his composure. “Enough talk. Back around! For the sight of all the Saints, take us back to shore,” he croaked. He sounded like he was being strangled.
“But that’s where the witches are,” Reneva protested. “Brine! You saw what they just did! We’ll be slaughtered.”
“Our chances of escape are much higher if we can hide on the island than be caught sitting out here in the Saints-forsaken open ocean,” he retorted, finding command in his voice again. “If they can destroy a dragonscratched galleon, a longboat is clearly no problem.”
Yet another round of shouts, curses, and blasphemies were flung as they once again spun the boat about and thrust their oars back into the sea at an excruciating pace. They hurled forward. Every stroke seemed to elicit fresh curses and angry outcries. Even the strongest sailor couldn’t keep up this pace for much longer. Fear fueled them, but at some point, their bodies would succumb to their physical limits.
The commander had both his hands on the edge of the bow and leaned out over it, as if extending the length of the boat with his body would help them reach the shore sooner. The scout in the stern had clearly lost all his composure. He sat huddled on the floor, his face between his knees and hands holding his head down. He rocked a little backward and forward. A muffled prayer to the Saints drifted up from his compact body, repeated again and again.
Esra was the first to see the woman from afar. She was a being of pure light, that same yellowish white sunshine emanating from her very personage. One second it was complete darkness, except the lights of the fires of the portions of the Spear’s Head that had yet to sink, and the next moment she was there behind Esra’s boat a couple hundred feet, walking barefoot across the water towards the boat. She just appeared like a lamp had been suddenly unshielded in the night. Although she seemed to be walking at a very leisurely pace, she quickly closed the distance with the boat despite the heave of the oarsmen. She wore a thin flowing white dress, almost on the verge of being transparent about her. Her hair was pale, and light seemed to spring forth just as much from it as the rest of her, making it impossible to tell its true color. Her face was young, like that of a girl on the edge of womanhood. Despite her beauty, her eyes burned as she eyed these sailors that dared to violate the borders of her land.
Esra tried to scream to warn the boat, but no sound came out. Ultimately, it proved unnecessary. The sailors at the oars all caught sight of her mere seconds after Esra had and tried to increase the pace of their rowing, to get away from this apparition walking on the water. They too seemed unable to vocalize a response, so great was their shock. As she neared, her light intensified and soon it was like a sunrise was occurring from behind their boat. The commander caught sight of the gradually increasing light and swung about. The scout didn’t react at all, still curled up in that ball. The commander seemed to lose his voice completely. A gargled cough-like sound came from him. He was trying to issue some sort of order, but had no words left in him.
In a mere minute the woman came abreast of the boat. She reached down and grabbed a hold of the edge of the stern, and the boat lurched to a startling stop. Three of the other oarsmen dropped their oars in fright. A couple others held them in front of them as if they were weapons, they were brandishing to keep her away.
“You should not have come here,” she uttered in a soft, almost mild voice that yet somehow pierced their minds like a white-hot dagger. “You have endangered the entire world with your foolishness. After I have expended my powers dealing with the lot of you, I can only hope that the Circle can find someone to take my place in time to seal the Rift and prevent calamity. I am sorry that it has come to this.” She strolled along the starboard edge of the boat, with her hand running along its rim. She stepped over a pair of oars that each of two sailors held, now simply lolling in the water.
As she passed Esra, she paused and cocked her head slightly to the side. After a moment, she asked, “You are not like the others, are you? Why are you here?” Esra’s shock at this question was buried in the rest of the astonishment at the entire night’s events he already felt. He had no words to reply but just gaped. When he did not answer, she tilted her head in the opposite direction and considered him a moment more. She nodded slightly then continued walking to the bow of the ship. As she did so, she began humming to herself softly.
Apparently during her pause to talk with Esra, the commander had found some latent courage and now held a lev-pistol in his hand, aimed at the woman. The woman showed no sign of a reaction to this new threat. As she approached, he stretched his arm out, aimed, and pulled the trigger. “Die, you witch!” he screamed. Nothing happened. There wasn’t even a click of the firing mechanism.
“You, above all, are most unwelcome here,” she responded to Commander Z’s attempted attack with a sneer. “In fact, you do not belong to this world at all do you? It is time to go back to your nightmare world and leave this place. And sadly, you must take the rest of these souls down with you. You truly should not have come here.”
When she turned her head to look at Esra once more, the fright nearly stopped his heart. Her brows knitted and she looked sad for a brief moment. Turning back to face the commander, the fury returned to her eyes.
Commander Z tried to throw himself at her, a knife flashing in his hand, but it was too late. She placed both her hands on the point of the boat’s bow and abruptly the front of the boat exploded. The commander was instantly thrown vertically in the air and came down with a hard thud and a splash across a large piece of the debris. The remains of the boat flipped backwards, ejecting the entire crew into the ocean in all directions.
As he emerged from the sea, Esra saw the woman approaching another boat, not too far from where his own once was and saw it explode similarly. A piece of debris flung wide and struck his temple. Head aching, he thought he saw Commander Z transform into a beast of some kind, with scales, horrible fanged teeth, and glowing red eyes. It frantically splashed in the water trying to stay afloat, but soon it lost its hold on its plank and sank below the ocean’s surface.
Esra’s vision began to fade by slow degrees, his head wound taking its toll. He was certain he had been imagining things. Dragons weren’t real. They were just stories, invented to scare children. Directly beneath Esra, a dull red glow seemed to grow. Then he felt something pull on his ankle from the deep and he too sank into the sea. As he descended, he felt a hand grasp onto his wrist and pull him upward. It became a conflict between the pull on his wrist and on his ankle, threatening to tear him in two. The pain was terrible as his joints stretched. He wondered whether he would be spared or pulled to his death. He wondered if he would ever see his beloved Sefina again. I should have married her a long time ago, he thought.
As his vision completely darkened, and the rest of his senses began to dull, he imagined that he tasted air once more. He seemed to hear a faint voice speaking to him as if from a great distance. “You have been saved for a reason. A path of obligation now awaits you.” Then he heard and felt no more.