Finally, the water came to an agonizingly slow stop. It slammed into the base of the Cliffrose mesa, steam rising as the very earth dissolved beneath its cruel touch. The edge of the seawater clawed into the ground, as if trying to pull itself just a few more feet forward to the next tree or the next fleeing Wysterian.
When the water finally began to recede, the forest shuddered and wailed at the magnitude of the damage. A full fifteen miles of forest had been destroyed, from the Nettle Mountains to the north, all the way to the Lucerne Islets to the south. A gash nearly a hundred miles long and fifteen miles wide. Fully half of the entire eastern forest, including two cities and four towns, no longer existed.
Its mission complete, The Seawolf withdrew and headed back for Stretis. Most of the Agnita Kaito had collapsed from exertion. Queen Strelan looked back over her shoulder at the ruined coastline, smug satisfaction on her face.
The rest of the Navy fleet moved towards the now-barren shoreline, hundreds of troop transports ready to deploy their Marines onto the island as soon as the waters cleared.
The winds were mostly calm as the artificial storm dissipated, so most of the ships moved slowly, their sails sagging in the weak winds. The one exception was a little black Navy patrol boat whose sails were full and bellowed as it came up at the fleet from behind, then passed through the formations, trying do do everything it could to not draw too much attention to itself.
“Do you think you can go any faster?” Athel yelled out at Margaret as she clung to the shrouds, her long red hair whipping about.
Margaret stood on her carpeted podium, beads of sweat running down her face as she created the powerful windtunnel that was propelling them forward. “I’m at my limit as it is,” Margaret shouted back. “All the currents around here are furious at being used in the storm. I've never felt anything like it before. They're actually resisting me.”
The Dreadnaught sped past a squadron of fifteen interceptors, their crews looking out at them in bewilderment as they continued on. Ryin and Captain Evere saluted the Navy ships as smartly as they could. They didn’t have to fool them for long, just long enough.
“We better not risk it, Margaret,” Mina yelled over the winds as she tightened the blank. “The sails are full to bursting as it is.”
The Dreadnaught swung wide and passed alongside a long Bireme from Tirrak. Instead of cannons, it had tall curved mirrors that the Tirrakians used to release concentrated beams of sunlight. Many of the lizard-skinned sailors called out to them, their flagman signaling them to stop. As they sailed past, Captain Evere waved his captain’s hat and touched his fist to his elbow, indicating that his ship was under special orders. Beams of light flashed from the Bireme ahead towards the next formation of Navy vessels.
“They're signaling ahead,” Captain Evere called out. Hoist the colors, that might buy us a little more time.”
A sudden cross-wind knocked Margaret to the deck, her hands groping around for her glasses.
Setsuna, for her part, sat calmly on a crate, sucking on a lollipop, as if she hadn’t a care in the world.
“Margaret, look out!” Privet bellowed, pointing ahead.
Margaret rose to her feet and put on her glasses, only to see the enormous form of a Navy Destroyer growing larger and larger in front of them.
Margaret created a down draft and they slipped down between a formation of three destroyers, barely avoiding clipping their rudders. The destroyer flagmen signaled them with two red flags and an orange flag, a clear message for the Dreadnaught to drop canvas.
“They don’t look too pleased with us,” Hanner chuckled as he leaned against the ship’s winch.
“Aye, they always get suspicious of a ship out of formation,” Captain Evere noted.
“It doesn’t help that we're the most wanted ship in the twelve seas,” Ryin commented as he jerry-rigged a mast from a ladder and Pop’s mop handle. Moving over to the gunwhale, Ryin waved their Navy Patrol Ship flag back and forth as conspicuously as he could.
“Do you think that will pacify them?” Ader asked as he adjusted the halyard lines.
There was a crack like thunder and Ryin brought the flag back down, a smoking hole punctured right through the center of it.
“Yeah, I’d say so,” Privet quipped as he jumped over the capstan and grabbed his rifle.
Two more balls of lead sped out towards them, one striking the Dreadnaught in the poop deck, tearing apart the captain’s cabin, the other passing through the upper sail, tearing a hole in the canvas.
Everyone could feel the ship slow down. Athel primed her pistol and fired a seed at the sail before the ship. The seed burst into vines that wove themselves in and around the hole, sealing it shut.
The Dreadnaught passed by a pair of enormous ironclad warships. Gun ports were being opened, rows and rows of 48-pounder long guns were being run out and readied to fire.
In an act of defiance, Hanner put one foot up dramatically on a bollard, holding their one cannon like a shotgun and fired off a round, the lead ball bouncing harmlessly against the iron plating of the closer vessel.
As the Dreadnaught sped past the ironclads, they both turned in unison to their starboard side, lining up for a double-broadside.
“Everyone down, this one is going to hurt!” Mina yelled.
“Jink us to one side, lass, or they'll tear us to ribbons!” Captain Evere yelled at Margaret.
“I’m trying,” Margaret complained, falling down on one knee.
“Do something Margaret!” Mina yelled as she climbed up the sterncastle.
“Will everyone stop yelling at me?” Margaret screamed as she covered her ears, her glasses falling off her face.
Setsuna took one last lick on her lollipop then hopped down from the crate. “Ugh, you people are amateurs. Let me show you how it’s done.”
Bounding up to the coachroof, Setsuna stood defiantly before the two battleships as they were enveloped in the black smoke from their cannons. A hearbeat later, the sound of one-hundred sixty of their guns roared in unison. Behind the sound, a tightly-packed hail of cannonfire streaked straight at the Dreadnaught. Setsuna took some powder out of her coin purse and clapped her hands together in a poof of kaleidoscopic smoke. As she pulled her hands apart the air aft of the Dreadnaught was torn apart into a gate.
The cluster of red-hot shells flew into the gate then reappeared, speeding out the other end, positioned directly behind the ironclads. The shells lacerated the sails and rudders of the mighty warships. Warning bells rung out and sailors yelled and screamed at the unexpected attack.
Slowly, the pair of ironclads listed out of formation as the Dreadnaught sped out of range.
Before them, a trio of Navy frigates were coming, ready to attack.
“You, ferrus guy, heat this up,” Setsuna ordered, kicking a loose cannonball across the deck to Ryin.
Ryin took the ball and held it in his fingers. The tatoos on Ryin’s arms glowed brightly and the cannonball began to hiss and squeal as it heated to a red-hot glow.
“Now,” Setsuna ordered, creating a gate. Ryin tossed the ball in and it reappeared above the first frigate’s mainsail, falling right through it and setting the canvas ablaze. Sailors and marines scrambled to put out the spreading fire as the other two frigates closed in.
Athel leaned out over the side of the ship, hanging onto the shrouds with one hand while aiming her pistol with the other.
“It’s too far, can you give me a shot at their rudder?” Athel called out.
“Sure, I'll just add it to your tab.”
Athel fired into the gate that appeared before her and her pistol’s seed flew through, reemerging just behind the frigate. Under her influence, the seed grew rapidly into a tangle of stranglevines that wrapped themselves around the frigate’s rudder. Athel pulled her fist to one side, and the powerful vines wrenched the rudder portside.
The two frigates slammed into one another, their rigging snapping, their yardarms becoming entangled with each oth
er. Cannons and crates were tossed overboard as the crews held on for deal life to anything they could lay hold of.
Margaret created a windshear from below that drew them up above the damaged frigates, rifle and pistol fire thudding into the keel of the Dreadnaught as it sailed over the stricken vessels.
Now the whole fleet was alerted. Ships were closing in from all directions. Bolts of sorcerous energy and cannonballs zipped past the Dreadnaught like speeding insects, leaving little trails of smoke and ash. Far ahead, the white shores of Wysteria were visible, but dozens of ships blocked their way.
A fireball impacted the port-side longboat, knocking Ryin to the deck and setting the longboat ablaze. While Hanner helped Ryin to his feet, Mina covered the longboat in a layer of frost, extinguishing the flames.
With a thud, a heavy mortar shell stuck itself into the deck. Deutzia wrapped her branches around it and tossed it overboard. It exploded in the air with a deafening thunderclap.
A sharp wind hit the Dreadnaught and threw it sideways. The ship was now crabbing away from its destination.
“Wrong heading, lass,” Captain Evere said as he shot his rifle, forcing the crew of a passing schooner to keep their heads down.
Margaret stood up and leaned against the cockpit. “There’s another Stormcaller somewhere out there, the winds want to...”
“So don’t squattin’ fight it, use it,” Hanner suggested as he reloaded his cannon.
Margaret swept her hands and it felt like the whole ship was scooped up from underneath. Everyone grabbed onto anything they could as the ship corkscrewed all the way upside down around a Navy ketch. The sailors could only look up and stare at the Dreadnaught when, it hung upside down above them for an agonizingly long moment before completing the corkscrew and speeding on.
Everyone on the Dreadnaught slammed back down the deck of the ship.
“Margaret, don’t you ever do that again!” Ryin yelled.
A blast of green energy slammed into the orlop, tearing away the wooden skin and exposing several of the cabins. The Dreadnaught was yanked hard to one side as a volley from a closing interceptor peppered the quarterdeck. Wooden splinters and wrenched bits of metal flew everywhere, spinning lazily, almost as if in slow motion, as Mina was tossed overboard. She made one final swipe with her hand at the gunwhale, but failed to grab on, then she was falling past the side of the ship. The floatstones in her belt hummed to life and she was hefted up enough to lay hold of the rope ladder that Captain Evere rolled down to her.
As Mina clung to the ladder with both hands, she instinctively looked down, and saw the contents of the galley spilling out towards the ocean below. Among the tumbling items were three crates of cabbage.
“No!” Mina screamed, reaching out towards the falling vegetables.
As Captain Evere pulled her up, a bolt of lightning tore across the deck, shattering wood and rigging. Margaret leapt aside just in time as the cockpit and command podium exploded. With a scream, Margaret clutched her leg. A tendril of the lighting had licked her skin, leaving a black, charred streak that ran from ankle to knee.
Alder was the first to come to her aid. “We need to get you to Dr. Griffin,” he surmised, looking over the weeping wound.
“Don’t you dare take me to him!” Margaret screamed as she clutched her leg.
Alder pulled out his medical satchel and began wrapping her wound. As he did so, their attacker prepared another blast.
Privet took aim at the Lightning-Galleon as it closed. With an expert shot, he hit one of the metal conductors with his rifle, knocking it out of position. The uncontrolled discharge of energy set the Galleon’s own sails ablaze, and the craft careened heavily away from them.
Four Navy Interceptors closed in from the starboard side as Margaret tried to regain control. Their shells mercilessly pounded the Dreadnaught, tearing out large chucks of her bow and forecastle. The very air seemed filled with shredded timbers, a storm of splinters.
Setsuna bounded up and balanced on top of the bowspirit with one toe, chanting powerfully in her native tongue. The air before her twisted and bent inwards on itself.
“Okay, this is a special kind of gate,” she explained over the sound of Hanner firing his cannon. “Very secret and hush-hush. So, if anyone else asks, you never saw me do this.”
The Galleon recovered and released another bolt of lighting. Setsuna pulled her fists to one side and her gate mirrored her movement, placing itself in between the Dreadnaught and the Galleon. Lighting poured into her gate, little tendrils licking at the edges, but it did not reappear anywhere else; it simply vanished into the gate’s depths.
“Where is the other end?” Athel asked, looking around.
“There isn’t one.”
“How is that...”
“Hold on!”
Setsuna moved the gate in front of Athel just in time. The broadside from a sandship tore apart the quarterdeck where Athel was standing. The gate lapped up the shots that would have hit her, but the deck collapsed around her and Athel fell down into the deck below.
“Athel!” Privet shouted as he shouldered his rifle and jumped down into the pile of splintered wood and metal.
“Don’t save her, what about me?” Setsuna complained as she wheeled her gate around to absorb another volley. “I’m a damsel and I’m in distress here too, you know!”
Privet dropped down and picked up a fallen beam. Beneath it, he found Athel unconscious, amber-colored blood trickling down her face.
He leaned in close and was relieved to find she was still breathing. With remarkable tenderness, he brushed the dirt and splinters off of her freckled face. Carefully, Privet took out his satchel and began cleaning her wounds and wrapping up the cut on her forehead.
As the ship rocked from side to side, the air above filled with the crack of cannon fire and the screams of battle, Privet’s breathing was steady and calm as he looked her over. Up this close, he was overwhelmed with how beautiful she was. He remembered a time, it felt to him like a lifetime ago, when she had asked him to marry him. Privet’s eyes pinched in pain at the memory. He felt like such a fool. He loved her, and she loved him. It should have been so simple, but it wasn’t. He had turned her down out of fear, and try as he might, he couldn’t forgive himself for the hurt he caused her.
“I know it’s kind of late to say this,” he whispered. “But, if you'll still have me, I accept.”
Forgetting himself, Privet leaned in and kissed her gently on the lips. When she began to stir, he withdrew quickly, his face flushing with embarrassment.
“Are you okay?” he asked as she slowly opened her beautiful, light-brown eyes.
“I...I think so,” she answered, looking around in confusion, as if she were unsure what had really happened and what was just a dream.
The Dreadnaught rocked to one side again as a mortar exploded alongside her.
“Come on,” Privet said, picking her up. “We've got to get you to a safer spot.”
Navy Ships fired at the Dreadnaught from all directions. Setsuna swung her gate this way and that, absorbing fireballs, mortars, sorcerous bolts, cannonballs, and beams of light, but still more came through.
A corrosive mist hit the Dreadnaught’s bow, dissolving a good portion of the bowspirit and releasing the top of her three sails to flap limply in the wind. Cannonballs pounded deeply into her hold and keel. The entire spine of the ship bent under the strain.
Margaret fought against the other Stormcallers to keep them moving towards the shores, but one final group of ships lay before them. Sutorian Ship-Hunters, four of them at each corner, had created a net of energy. They gleefully moved forward, ready to fish the Dreadnaught out of the air.
“We can’t break that,” Hanner called out as he fired a shot, the shell harmlessly bouncing off the net.
“Can you turn us?” Captain Evere asked as he fires his rifle.
“I can barely keep us moving,” Margaret answered, her hand extended as she leaned on Alder to hel
p keep her on her feet. “This other Stormcaller is too strong.”
“Don’t worry, my little grubs, the Navy will break the trap for us,” Setsuna boasted.
“Why the blazes would they do that?”
“For the same reason everyone does things for me,” Setsuna answered, wheeling her gate around until it pointed directly before them. “Because I’m too darn cute to die!”
Setsuna’s gate belched and reversed direction. Suddenly everything it had absorbed it now expelled. Hundreds of cannonballs, mortars, beams of white-hot energy, fireballs and sorcerous blasts of green, purple and orange all flew out in a unified swarm that slammed into the energy net. The net bulged inwards, then shattered, completely overwhelmed by the firepower.
The crew of the Dreadnaught cheered as they flew past the four Sutorian ships and crossed over into Wysterian skies. Margaret brought them down low, just barely over the tops of the trees, where no Navy vessel dared follow them. Athel stuck her staff out of a porthole to greet the forest and the trees shook with excitement.
A few minutes later, the remains of the Dreadnaught came to a final rest on a landing pad just outside the palace gates. Captain Evere climbed down and held his cap over his heart. This little, oddly-named patrol boat had been their home, and was now an almost total loss. Beams and timbers stuck out like bones, the spine of the ship irredeemably broken. Sails shredded and limp. It was barely recognizable as an airship anymore; little more than a corpse of wood and metal. Mina found her way over and embraced him warmly, sharing their loss.
Despite the Navy attack, there were no Treesingers to be found around the landing pad. Only the men stood at their posts, manning the cannon emplacements that had been constructed all around the capital. When they saw Athel climb down off the ship, they recognized her instantly, and a great cheer rose up that spread down their lines.
Athel and the crew of the Dreadnaught walked up to the giant, ornamented palace gates, made of living wood. “Our lands under attack and only three women at the gate?” Athel asked, a little perplexed.
“All the other women have abandoned their posts,” Captain Tallia admitted, holding her spear as best she could with only one arm. “They refuse to work together, preferring to feud amongst themselves.”
Isle of Wysteria: The Reluctant Queen Page 47