Three hundred miles off the coast of Elvier, Navoradreus. 501 years ago.

  Avanyu and Raine walked down to the main deck as Moira drifted alongside Thirza.

  Avanyu pulled a large speaking trumpet from its spot in a compartment on the rail and raised it. “This is Shipmaster Avanyu of Moira’s Hand of the Red Fleet. You are ordered to bring all valuables and arms, as well as one third of all provisions, you are carrying to the deck and begin transferring them to my ship. Failure to comply will see you sitting at the bottom of the Raiss with your consort.”

  One third had been the agreed upon take for food, medicine, and other staple items any ship would naturally carry. It should leave them with sufficient supply to either return to Elvier or wish they’d brought more on their way to Rielle. They likely wouldn’t take their cannons, but the shot and powder would always be welcome in either of their three ships’ magazines.

  Nearly all the top deck crew had received training from Corporal Turner Hart, Stray II's marine contingent’s squad leader. The result wasn't an elite force, but they executed the boarding action as professionally as any could expect. Deckhands lowered the gangplank and Thirza’s crew secured it without complaint.

  A group of six armed with muskets positioned themselves along either side of the gangplank and watched as Turner Hart led six others armed with blunderbusses across. Both types of weapons were horrible at any sort of range, but proved more than effective over the short distance between the two ships where their friends would be at their most vulnerable.

  Thirza’s captain, a tall, black-furred Cait Sidhe, met Avanyu and Raine as they crossed the gangplank next.

  “Do you have any idea who you are stealing from? This is an—”

  “‘Outrage’. Yes we're sure your owners and government will inflict a divine retribution the likes of which our pirate scourge has never before felt and we'll spend what's left of our short lives weeping and gnashing our teeth as we prepare to hang from the rope,” Avanyu mocked.

  The captain snapped his mouth shut, his seething rage like a tempest behind his eyes.

  “Let’s skip the small talk and get right down to it. It's a tragedy that we had to sink one of yours, but we offered to do things peacefully. Besides, you fired upon the governor’s ship.” Avanyu said.

  “Governor Anton would sooner see his ship blown apart than still floating in your hands.”

  Avanyu laughed. “And maybe someday he will. As for you and your ship, you may go free just as soon as we get what we came for. Provided you make no attempts to fire in our backs.”

  The captain turned to Raine as she started her way below deck with a crew of six led by Turner Hart.

  “Where in the hells are you going? We're already giving you what you want. My men are emptying our magazines so you can leave us defenseless.”

  “You didn't put up much of a defense to begin with, I doubt there's much to empty. And that paltry display of chests your men brought from below deck is in no way all you're holding, even if they are enchanted to carry more. Your ship left Rielle well laden with gold and other precious metals.” Raine smiled as she caught the Captain's look of shock. “Oh yes, we are aware of what you took to Elvier. We were too slow to catch you, but we'll take whatever you purchased with that sum instead.”

  Leaving the speechless captain to wonder who had spilled the contents of their manifest, Raine continued on her way below deck to Thirza’s hold. The men and women walking with her were a force of ruthless efficiency as they cleared each room they swept through along their way to the hold. Occupied rooms were consolidated and locked from the outside while one person remained and stood guard.

  Raine didn't use a musket or one of the blunderbusses preferred at close range. Rather, she trusted her own mana to guard her life. She had learned a broad array of spells; a few coatings for her sword, a shield spell, and she even knew a fear spell. Raine enjoyed magecraft as much as she did swordsmanship.

  That was why she was able to knock her assailant back with a mana barrier as he leapt from his hiding place in the corner beside the door.

  The man fell backward, sprawling as he hit a stack of wooden crates and satchels. He held a dull steel sword in his hand, but what interested Raine was the sword at his belt that he hadn't drawn.

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  She could only make out its hilt, gold and finely leather-wrapped. Was it a decorative naval sword of some type? Why was he holding it here? This man didn't look like any sort of naval officer.

  Shaggy, orange and blond hair covered his head in near equal parts. He had a strong, handsome face that somehow held a boyishness to it. Then Raine noticed the pointed elven ears. A Serethi, then. And a young one.

  The man stood and Turner raised his blunderbuss in response.

  “Don’t shoot him… Yet.” Raine held up a hand. “That was a rather cheap shot, don't you think?”

  “You ambushed us! You fired the first cheap shot,” he replied.

  “True to your first point. But we fired second. We raised a flag to offer a peaceful means of taking your cargo. The offer was refused by your captains and we fired in self defense. We truly do mean no further harm than we’ve already caused. We're only after your cargo and we'll be on our way.” Raine pointed to the crates behind the man. Then, as an afterthought, she added, “And I'll take both your weapons, too.”

  “I am only a passenger here, I will not stop you from taking their cargo, pirate,” he spat the word in insult. “But your other request, I cannot fulfill. This sword stays with me.”

  Before Raine could tell him off, a deep boom, followed by an impressive shockwave, jolted the ship, nearly taking Raine’s feet out from under her.

  “What the hells?” Raine crouched to steady herself and looked around.

  The wall behind Raine suddenly exploded as a cannonball ripped through the ship at a sharp, downward angle, taking out the three men who had been standing behind her.

  One had everything above his neck torn completely away, the other had a gaping hole in his chest, and the final man had his hips destroyed as both legs were ripped out from under him. His screams were quickly silenced by a second cannonball finishing him off.

  Raine and the remaining two men immediately dove to the ground as another muffled explosion rumbled overhead.

  “What the fuck are our guys doing shooting for? Don’t they know we’re down here?” shouted Turner.

  “I think both ships are shooting at each—” the slightly shorter, yet equally built Murphy Bradford beside Turner never finished his sentence. Six more cannonballs tore through the hold, killing him instantly.

  “Fucking hells, we need to go!” Turner shouted.

  Water flooded in through the holes the cannonballs left, mixing with the blood of Raine’s now dead crew mates. Still lying on the floor, Raine pushed aside Murphy's body and crawled across the compartment to the entryway. Water was filling the hold quickly and she was forced to bounce between staying low and catching a breath as the water level rose to nearly two feet.

  The whole ship bucked and lurched before slowly beginning to tilt onto her port side. Men's screams out in the hallway echoed the fear going through Raine’s own mind. She and everyone else were about to go down with this ship.

  “‘Mean us no further harm’ my ass!” the Serethi man shouted behind Raine and Turner, working equally hard to navigate through the slowly tilting ship.

  Raine stopped and drew her sword. “I'd cut the shit if I were you, my guys wouldn’t have fired upon you if you hadn’t done something after we boarded. Right now, I’m still deciding whether to give you a mercifully quick death now, let you try your luck with the scytherfish, or let you drown here with your ship with all your limbs cut to uselessness.”

  He started to say something, but quit as Thirza again bucked violently and tilted even further onto her side.

  Raine, Turner, and the Serethi man quickly turned and ran through the hold and into the hall, climbing along the corner between the floor and wall. The locked doors her men were supposed to be guarding were left unattended, the panicked yells inside their rooms making Raine glad she wasn't those guys.

  “Have you no hearts? Help me open these doors!” the Serethi man shouted.

  “Those men are dead already,” Turner said without looking back.

  “You’re a monster!” He shouted.

  “One who wants to live,” Turner acknowledged.

  Raine stopped, watching the man struggle with the doors. With a roll of the eyes, more so at herself turning back, Raine came to his aid. “Move. Let me help.”

  Two kicks broke the door and the three men inside threw a rope up at Raine and the Serethi. Thirza rolled again as the last man climbed out the room. Together, all five bounded up the sideways stairwell.

  They made it to the top deck just in time to climb up the starboard hull as Thirza finished her death roll onto her port side. Sailors from Thirza were jumping into the water, but it had become a bloody tumult as the little monsters of the shallows, schools of violently ravenous scytherfish, shredded the men and women in the water.

  Less than a hundred yards away, Moira's Hand’s deck burned from bow to stern. In the opposite direction, Stray II and Her Executioner’s main and mizzen masts were both toppled over like felled trees. Executioner's stern deck’s entire superstructure was just gone.

  What the hell happened up here? Raine watched her friends, dead or dying, going down with Moira’s Hand.

  Steeling herself with grim resolve, Raine quickly cast a spell, sending out a jet of ice-cold mana into the water. Chunks of ice grew outward from a section of the ship’s keel until it was the size of a small raft.

  Raine turned to the Serethi man and the three she’d helped save. With a fury at the loss of her friends, she kneed the man in the gut. “You can all join your shipmates at the bottom of the sea or in the bellies of those scytherfish!”

  She grabbed the sword as he toppled backward, though it had barely left its scabbard before a blinding white light filled Raine’s vision.