We shimmered onto the Seal Focus and found four people waiting for us.

  One wasn’t much of a surprise, as Oswald had indicated he had a vested interest in the final disposition of King Varicci, and wouldn’t object to slitting the fellow’s throat himself.

  Likewise, him bringing along his right-hand man Adso wasn’t much surprise.

  However, the presence of Elysa and Fan Strathelar was certainly unexpected. The Mick looked as confused as anyone else.

  “Your Highnesses, what are you planning to do here?” Kris asked archly, fully capable of and willing to tell them to flark off.

  “There will be diplomatic contacts with the Viamontians, and that is our area of involvement, particularly with Silyun. The Matriarch of the Bellenesse was a peer and ally of ours back then, and I should be of service in easing them away from Silyun,” Elysa replied promptly, backed with a lifetime of confidence from rulership. “I brought my daughter along to gain experience, and it looks to me as if you can use more skilled Archers,” she noted, eyeing the number of bowmen to the melee specialists with us.

  Kris just rolled her eyes at that. “Briggs?”

  “You’re under Lord Mick, Highnesses. He has far more experience in situations like the one we are approaching. If we were fighting olthoi, I might consider otherwise.”

  “Yes, Commander,” the Queen Mother replied calmly, saluting with her beautiful new Bow Thorsten. “The Lord Warden wouldn’t have his job if he wasn’t the best man for it.”

  “Princess, stick close to your mother, and watch. It’s what you are here to do. Don’t ask questions unless you really, really need to. Watch, observe, deduce,” he went on, and the golden-haired granddaughter of the Queen Mother saluted over the blued length of her Bow Azure.

  “Alrighty, then. Master Oswald, you’re eager to be the best guide in Dereth, we’ll all oblige. First stop is the Silyun survivors. Our second obligation is to find and free Sir Bellas from the System. Our final obligation is going after Varicci, if possible.”

  The Green Hunter smiled thinly, taking his hand and pointing knife-sharp. “That closest island you see on the horizon is the high point of Corcima Island, one of the primary training grounds of the Viamontians, cut off when Portal Magic failed, but also isolated from the mainland. If Varicci found a way to break the Shoreward, it is possible they’ve fled to that island, or at least made contact with it. The troops inside it had to abandon many of their duties to fish for their next meal, and certainly are not the threats they once were.

  “Directly past them to the west is the frozen realm of Vanguard Island, where the Viamontians were assembled as a defense against the Ruschk, which will be our second stop. Traitor’s Island, where Silyun was, is to the west of it, and where we’ll be heading.

  “We won’t be breaking through the Shoreward early, for reasons that you’ll soon see. You youngsters are in for a sight. My peers from before… will probably find that sight extremely unpleasant.”

  ---

  Princess Kristie and the Mick were the horses for the Mass Disk Train this time, with Briggs standing up on his personal Disk to look over the seas ahead of them. Almost everyone was standing up, everyone was in full Armor, and if their Weapons were not in hand, they were all at hand, and Shields were definitely out and ready in case of surprises.

  It was only two hundred miles further north than the tropics of Freehold, but the waters here were several degrees colder than those of the southern Direlands, perhaps currents coming down from the north, and as a result the amount of Aquatics traffic was much lower. As we breached the Shoreward and started across the waters, I noted maybe a tenth of the Aquatics that had been present down on the southern shores, and wondered if any of that was related to the Ruschk… or, more amusingly, the presence of the very dangerous intelligent Penguins known to live on the northernmost, Ruschk-controlled Isle of Ruin.

  Well, we’d find out soon enough.

  ------

  “Smoke, Commander!” Rogar sang out, and everyone followed his gaze to the fortress rising cold and lonely atop the plateau that dominated the island we were racing by to the north of us. His words were soon accompanied by horns blowing out over the waters, long and low and definitely attempting to signal us.

  “Ryin?” Briggs gestured offhandedly.

  I glanced that way. “To the inhabitants of Corcima Castle: We are aware of your presence and will return this way in due time. Wait for our return and consider how you wish to treat with us when we do. We are capable of taking you off of there and to the mainland, so you may wish to begin packing your things for a quick trip. We have no desire to commandeer your facility at this time, although circumstances will change.

  “We will return in several days, our schedule is flexible. Good day to you.”

  The horn-blowing cut off sharply, and the rising smoke was extinguished.

  “That is an inordinately useful ability,” the Queen Mother whispered from where she was standing next to me, enjoying my company. The combination of my politeness and utter lack of fear of her, probably. Her daughter preferred the company of the women of the Roaches, especially Mizaya and Selena, who she was childhood friends with.

  This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

  “It is. The Caster Level requirements are annoying, but being able to just talk at people at range is marvelously useful. The Commander and Warlord have a similar ability, but it doesn’t have quite the selectivity or the range, while being better at conveying commands and Heartsong effects. I trust you have some ideas on what you’d like to expect of the Viamontians?”

  The Queen Mother nodded slowly. “Master Oswald briefed me on the Viamontain survivors, with what he knows. He didn’t investigate their situation very carefully, mostly because he doesn’t really give a damn about most of them. However, I think he feels a vague sense of obligation to the Bellenesse for not killing the King of Viamont back on Ispar all those years ago.”

  “Mmm. Well, it is a professional’s mindset. His treatment at the hands of Varicci’s torturers likely didn’t endear him to them, either.”

  “Likely not. Hard to believe they’d be mad at him for attempting to kill their lord’s father.”

  “Some people just hold grudges too long,” I agreed dryly, noting the ice in her blue eyes as she glanced his way, which vanished a moment later.

  Varicci I, father to Varicci II on the island, wasn’t the only person Oswald had tried and failed to assassinate. On the other hand, he had also sought to make amends for the deed, and had turned against Nuhmudira in doing so, which was a good thing to have happened.

  We were turning southwest to parallel a stretch of frozen shores, the start of the high ice on Vanguard Island. The beach was thick with Summons, rather more than was typical of almost all places I’d ever seen. With the Eagle Eyes from my Mask of Clarity, I could see hundreds, if not thousands of Viamontians in various sorts of full body armor or bright red robes, as well as the occasional shade, lurching mad Fiuns, brightly glittering Wisps of different types than were found in the Dires, large numbers of Eaters, occasional penguins, mushroom people, glittering deep blue ice Golums of larger size, some banderlings, coppery or brazen gromnies, and ‘naval’ Empyrean undead scattered between them.

  And then, the spawns stopped.

  “They’re respawning,” Briggs said, as even Kris and the Mick slowed down, wondering what was going on as the many, many Spawns suddenly stopped.

  Indeed, as we watched, multiple Spawn points were hissing and spitting and coming back to life as new Summons were pulled into existence on them.

  Naturally everyone’s eyes tracked in the direction of the empty ground, and what was ahead of them.

  “Oh, bloody hells and demons,” the Mick said for all of us, as we saw what was happening.

  My Detect Aquatics blared at me. “Crap!” I muttered, snapping up the Holo in front of them.

  The waters ahead of us were packed with remorans and other Aquatics, some of huge size!

  None of whom seemed to be focused on us, however...

  “Magos, address them and get the Remorans to come out of the water and hold position en masse,” Briggs ordered calmly, while Kris veered away from the shore.

  Ahead of us on the beach was a line of Eaters.

  Thousands of Eaters.

  They were falling upon the Summons with the gluttonous, ravaging hunger of the starving. They chomped at every single creature there, including the otherwise motionless Eaters like themselves, and simply tore them all apart, devouring them wholesale and swallowing pieces of ectoplasmic flesh which shouldn’t have done much for them… and yet they were obviously eating everything, and it was doing something for them, because they kept right on doing it!

  “Remorans of the Deep,” I sent out in Hydrus with Magevoice, watching the wave of slaughter from those thousands of eating machines sweeping across the land, “if you want to lure the Eaters this way, they must see you first. Swim out ahead of them, come up out of the water, and launch some spells at the Shoreward to attract their attention.”

  The Water Elemental Command function of Primus gave my words real weight. The area ahead of us suddenly registered a massive movement of all those Aquatics further down the shore, clustering around a slight inlet in anticipation.

  We swung well wide of the mouth of the place as the remorans came out of the water.

  They tended to blues and purples up here in the north, with the occasional magenta or green visible. They rose up out of the waters on flapping manta-wings, hundreds of them, covering the water in a riot of color and motion.

  Then they detonated at least two hundred Firebolts against the Shoreward. The air shook with the thunder of their explosions, the air rush coming out and back in, and the bright blaze of magical pyrotechnics.

  It wasn’t at all hard to see all those Eaters trundling along the ground with inordinate speed on their two stumpy legs turn to look at the source of the light and sound, and then see all the colors and motion visible there on top of the water.

  “Shite again…” the Mick murmured, as my Detect Aquatics saw a constant stream of undersea creatures moving by underneath us as we trotted past above them.

  The gnashing roars of the Eaters as they turned almost as one and went after the real seafood eat-food over there was horrifying in the absolute hunger it conveyed. The horde of swollen pink, red, brown, and yellowish Eaters came raging for the free meals flapping in front of them, bulbous bodies that were over half mouth slobbering with eagerness as they raced for the food.

  They hit the waters, plowed through the waves, and smashed right into the Shoreward.

  That… didn’t seem to stop them, as they promptly started to eat the Shoreward!

  I could see it, feel it, their teeth scraping against the magic, clawing at it, sucking it in with supernatural power. The Eaters actually piled up on one another, driving a ramp up three Eaters high in all directions in a wall of frenzied, devouring mouths, completely uncaring of the fact that the remorans on the other side of the Shoreward were looking at them the same way they were being looked at.

  There was a visible crack in the air as a yellow Bloated Eater bit into nothing visible and snapped a piece of the Ward free, swallowing it and worrying at the gap. The crack in the unseen field was abruptly visible and the opening spread quickly and forcefully. In scarcely another breath a whole section of the Shorewards was cracking, shattering, splintering…

  It collapsed with a roar, and the whole rush of Eaters came raging out into the waters to feed, a slavering line of eating machines rushing out to their doom in waters where they could not swim, and where things were waiting to feed on them.

  The Mick and Kris had stopped us to watch and look at the gory sight as the feeding frenzy erupted, the Eaters spilling out into the waters, slavering, biting, chomping at anything and everything. Great jaws came from below and tugged them down, tentacles reached up and yanked them underwater, while the remorans actually backed away from the oncoming stream of massive boar and cow-sized bodies and let fly with shredding blades and spears of force, increasing the blood and gore as Eaters were torn apart and propelled forward into the frothing mess by those behind them.

  ============================

  For those who would like to support me and my daily updates, my Patreon Link is at:

   Ebook Series: The original Power of Ten: The First Day, The First Week, and finally The First Month, Vol Five and Six!