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Sir Dedran held tight to the ship’s railing and tried to make out their pursuit against the midnight black waters. It wasn’t far off, but the dark-stained vessel made a habit of blending into the night, so that he was constantly scanning the sea to find it again – not that it mattered. So far as he’d been able to tell, neither vessel was commanding its own course, not since they’d been caught in an infernal current that seemed determined to crash them against one of the islands their sailing crew seemed to hold in supernatural fear.
“Well,” the knight said at last, “what do you think, girl?”
“We’re in serious trouble,” the young woman beside Dedran replied. Her name was Winia, and as Raekar’s servant and apprentice, she had sufficient magic to See what Sir Dedran could not, and then some. “The pirates are evil bastards,” Winia continued in a voice that should have been used for casual dinner conversation. “That hasn’t changed – but the things climbing up their ship are worse.”
“Things?” Dedran hated it when anyone who used magic also used the word ‘thing.’ Something, anything, that thing – they were all phrases that boded an ill future for non-practitioners.
The youth shrugged. “Sorry, my lord. My mundane vision isn't any better than yours – so I can See a roiling cesspit of evil over there, but I can’t make out the visual details any more than anyone else. All I can tell you is that the ship was pretty foul, but then a bunch of things that have been to the plains of hell and back swarmed up it from below, and now it’s positively vile.”
Dedran grunted, but didn’t comment on the pirates’ probable fate. They’d been destined for a noose, if he’d had his way, but he was glad enough for them to die however they would. After all, it was trying to evade them in a storm that had put Raekar’s ship off course and into these waters. “What of the island? Any difference now that all this evil is offshore in a boat?”
Winia reached up and reaffixed her eye patch. Looking at a pirate ship with both eyes was one thing, but she had no idea who or what was on the island – only that some of it was evil. She had no desire to Look at someone who didn’t deserve it, just because they happened to be in the direction of someone who did.
She studied the island for a moment with one eye covered, and then spoke. “There’s not much change. The amount of evil, if you can imagine quantifying something like that, is the same. But it’s more active. Like…I think something in the hills is doing something heinous, and that woke up whatever got the pirates – but we’re still sailing into as much trouble as we were, because nothing on the island actually left to get them.”
Something doing something. And ‘heinous’ was another word Dedran hated – but Winia was nodding, apparently pleased with how well the theory fit with whatever it was she Saw.
“Yeah,” she said. “It looks like-oh, crap. My lord, some of it’s moving. It looks like some of the concentration in the hills is breaking off and – yeah. Yeah, I think it’s heading for the cove.”
Dedran swore under his breath and wheeled around. “Captain Gestar,” he roared in a voice to break through the sailors' own barked orders and profanities, “there’s been a change in plans! If neither your men nor Raekar’s magic have broken us out of this current yet, it isn’t going to happen. Now, there’s a damned ship behind us and a welcoming committee heading for the shore, so your men need to put their backs into getting us there first – unless you want to fight a beach landing against unknown numbers of unknown forces of confirmed evil…or a sea battle against the bloody same.”
For a moment, the ship was silent save for the creak of lumber and rush of wind through the riggings. Then Gestar began to bellow again. Dedran, however, was already ignoring him. The sailors might panic, but the captain and their officers would do their jobs and bring them in line, and they would get the ship moving faster. He had to do his job, and prepare for what awaited them on that damned island. He clapped his hand on Winia’s shoulder, startling the girl out of her resumed contemplation of the far shore.
“Lass, go below decks. Tell your master to stop trying to break us out of this current and either get us to shore faster or prepare for battle, as he can. Then rouse my men and have them assemble on the deck in armor.” Dedran turned back to stare at the isle and wonder what things they would face before daybreak.
“And girl,” he suddenly called over his shoulder, “After you’ve relayed my orders to the men, wake lady Halana and tell her everything you’ve Seen. We’ll damned well want her blessings before we hit shore, whether we’re under the moonlight or not.”
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