The next few days of our voyage went well. Everyone learned the command words related to the ship and the golems, and we all took turns in the control room piloting the ship. We experimented once with the smaller lever near the speed control lever, too. It was indeed a sneaky tool. When the lever was in the engaged position, the ship was covered in an illusion of what was behind it, which we learned by looking down onto the deck and by leaning over the rails. The Unseen Blade, which was very well named, may as well have been invisible. This would really come in handy one day, I knew. It was the secret of the Pirate King’s success, after all. The illusion didn’t last forever, though. It seemed like it could only work for an hour at a time before it needed to recharge for a few hours.

  Elle was at the wheel when she spotted a sail on the horizon to the northeast. We were all in the control room since the air was always fresh, it was shady, and we had a great view of the ocean. The cabins were very small and felt claustrophobic after spending any amount of time there. Elle picked up the double spyglass and peered through it.

  “We have trouble coming our way,” Elle said. “Looks like a war galley of some kind. It has one big sail and two rows of oars. I think it’ll cut us off if we stay on our current course.”

  “Pirates?” Bran asked.

  Elle checked the map next to her. “I think they came from Grunbar. That’s the coastline we’re closest to, and the one they’re angling away from.”

  “Ships are pretty flammable. They don’t scare me very much,” I said. “Let’s see who it is and what they do when we keep our current course. We can always either blow them out of the water or turn into the wind, which would give us a big speed advantage.”

  As time progressed, we saw that the other ship was definitely trying to cut us off. They were using their rowers as well as the wind. Through the spyglass, we could see now that there were ogres and goblins on the deck of the boat.

  “I didn’t know the ogres of Grunbar had ships,” Elle said.

  “Neither did I,” I said. “What do you think, Bran?”

  “They probably have slaves rowing their ship,” Bran said. “I’d certainly bet on that. We can’t just blast their vessel, and I can’t let this piracy stand. I can feel the malice in them from here. I vote that we fight.”

  “I agree with Bran,” Elle said firmly.

  “All right. I’m with you,” I said.

  “I’ve been wanting to try out my new crossbow,” Mira said. “I’m in.”

  Elle locked the wheel in place and slowed the ship a bit. Then we all went to our cabins, dragged our armor out into the corridor, and helped each other suit up. By the time we were done, the enemy ship was a mile away and bearing down on us fast. Mira, who was armed with her crossbow, the crystal sword and daggers, and two full quivers of bolts, climbed up the ladder to the observation platform above the control room. Elle sat back down in the captain’s chair and took the lock off of the wheel.

  “Don’t let them ram us, Elle,” Bran said. “They’ll probably try to grapple our ships together, anyway, so just come straight at them and throw the lever into the off position when you know they won’t directly hit us. I’ll be ready with the gangplank so the golems can board them.”

  “I’ll be on deck with the T.U.R.D.s,” I said. “Don’t forget to close the doors so they can’t get inside the cabin.”

  I went back down the stairway as Elle maneuvered the Blade into a course that went straight at the ogres. Bran was right behind me. As I was opening the door to the hold, Bran was closing the door to the cabins. I went below and commanded the T.U.R.D.s to follow me, then I led them to a spot on the ramp close to the door but out of sight. I peeked outside, and saw Bran was kneeling with his shield in front of him at the gangplank controls. Although the doorway was facing the rear of the ship, I could hear the war cries of the ogres and goblins on the enemy vessel. I could also hear when Mira started firing crossbow bolts at them. Shortly after she started, the ogres must have started firing their own arrows. I could hear the arrows plinking against the hull, then rattling along the decks. Though the Blade seemed to be immune to arrows, I would still have to watch my footing.

  I could hear the grappling hooks clanking onto our deck and scraping into place on our railing, but still I waited. Their ship’s hull bumped against ours, and I could see that their ship was a little bit taller than ours. Bran worked the gangplank controls, and it very quickly extended from the center of our deck, over the rail of their ship and spiking down into their deck, locking the two ships in place. I’ll bet they were scratching their heads at that. I gave the golems the command to attack all combatants that were not attuned, then got out of the way. The T.U.R.D.s lumbered out of the hold with the squeal of metal on metal as the goblin shock troops came pouring over the side. I shut the door to the hold, then channeled concussive force into my mace.

  The goblins came across by the dozens, and they crashed into the T.U.R.D.s with no effect, their wickedly edged shortswords glancing off of the golems’ steel bodies. The T.U.R.D.s sliced back and forth with both of their upper arms, which held scimitars, and moved the circular saw blades on their lower arms this way and that, severing limbs and sending goblin heads rolling around the deck with a look of shock still on their malevolent faces. Bran cut through them almost as quickly as the golems did, his holy sword blazing with golden light. I sent one of the golems to guard the front of our ship where a number of goblins were looking for a way in, then took the other two with me and boarded the ogres’ vessel. There were at least a dozen ogres lying dead on the deck already, and the twenty remaining ogres charged at us even though they were clearly reluctant to face us. One of them suddenly went flying sideways as a crossbow bolt struck it with the force of a ballista bolt.

  I let the T.U.R.D.s take the brunt of the charge, and Bran and I came at them from the golems’ flanks. I realized that this was a bad place to stand as the golem hit my shield on its backswing once. When it followed through with the saw blade, blood sprayed all over me. I tried to concentrate on the foe before me as the ogre swung overhand with a powerful chop of its greataxe. I deflected it to the left with my shield as I stepped to the right, then followed up with an overhang chop of my own that crushed its skull as my empowered mace hit it directly on the nose. Another ogre swung hard at me from my right, and I turned to block with my shield. It was a heavy blow that knocked me back a few paces and hurt my shoulder, but my shield held together. The golem next to me took its head off with the backswing of one of its sword-wielding upper arms.

  It was a very short, brutal fight. The ogres were very strong compared to humans, and they hit very hard with their greataxes, but they were no match for the golems. The golems were made of solid steel and could take the hardest hit with only a small scratch to show for it. We cleared the deck of enemies in short order. Soon, there was nothing left but corpses and their blood seeping into the deck. When nothing else came forward to attack, I commanded the golems to return to our ship and defend the deck.

  Bran and I carefully stepped over or around the corpses to get to the stern, where there was a cabin, and presumably, a way down to the rowing deck. The cabin here did not have a door, and we carefully entered. The room was empty except for trash and ragged furs laying everywhere, but there was a way down. It was a steep staircase, almost a ladder. Bran and I exchanged glances. I nodded. I moved to the stairs down, and when I could see where I was going, I suddenly whooshed down to the deck below. A fat ogre with a whip and a club blinked stupidly in surprise, and I stepped forward to deliver a powerful blow. The ogre tried to block with its forearm bracer, but my mace smashed down on its arm with a crunching sound. I swung again and connected with its head, delivering a spray of unpleasantness to the walls. It went down in a heap as Bran finished climbing down the ladder.

  Behind the ogre’s corpse was a deck full of rowing benches manned by captive humans shackled from their necks to the benches with iron chains. They looked at us blankly for a moment, then started shouting, “Help us! Release us!”

  “Don’t worry, we won’t leave you here,” Bran said. “Are there any more of them on this boat on a deck below or anything?”

  He was answered with a few negative replies, and I was already looking for the key. With my luck, I figured it would be in the fat ogre’s smelly loincloth, and I wasn’t far off. It did indeed have a key dangling from its belt which I had to remove while pushing aside its fat, hairy stomach.

  “All right. We’re going to get to everyone, don’t worry,” Bran was saying. “Does anyone know how to sail a vessel like this?”

  “Aye!” Six men said with their hands raised.

  “Good, because my we don’t,” Bran said laughing.

  “We’ll sort that out if ye can get us out o’ these chains, lad,” an older sailor said.

  “By the way, stay off of our ship if you want to live. The golems are under a command to guard it, and they won’t recognize any of you as friendly,” I said loudly.

  They looked at each other in confusion, not knowing what a golem was, I presume. I started unlocking collars to many thanks. There were a hundred men down here that were clearly dehydrated and badly abused. All of them showed whip scars on their backs, and some were still bleeding. The men started going up to the deck as they were released, and any of them that had any sense started picking up weapons. It took a little while, but I eventually unlocked all of them. No one wanted to be down here, so everyone gathered on the deck. I saw Mira was still ready to fire from her protected perch and Elle had stayed in the command room. The golems were all aboard the Blade and stood at the ready.

  “I take it you don’t need our help to get back to a city, do you?” Bran asked.

  “Nah, we’re good here. I know where we are. Since the fleet went north, we’re going southeast along the coast, maybe as far as Seacrown,” one man said.

  “What fleet?” I asked.

  “Someone taught the ogres how to sail, the bastard. There was a fleet of about a hundred ships that went north about a month ago,” another spoke up.

  “Yeah, they’ll be returning with slaves and booty sooner or later, I’ll reckon. Safer to go south, and that’s a fact,” the first man said.

  Bran and I shared a look. That meant a world of trouble for us.

  “Thanks for that news,” Bran said.

  “Thanks for rescuing us! We can’t repay that debt,” the man said.

  Bran clapped him on the shoulder in a friendly way. “No payment’s required. Safe travels, men,” Bran said.

  Unauthorized duplication: this narrative has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

  The sailors among the crowd made ready to hoist the sail again and journey off. Others made themselves useful by stripping the dead of anything useful and throwing the corpses overboard. Bran and I returned to our ship, removed the grappling hooks and tossed them back to the other ship, and started the process of cleaning up the mess by tossing the goblins’ weapons onto the other ship. They would have need of them there. Bran then retracted the gangplank to our deck, and our ships drifted apart. Seeing we were free, Elle wasted no time in getting us underway. We turned northward, and the galley turned to the southeast.

  I commanded the golems to return to the hold and then set our shields inside the smaller door. It was hard to chuck a body over the rails when you’re holding a shield ready, after all. Mira came down to help, though I could tell she really didn’t want to. As Bran and I worked, I noticed some of the goblins had some loose change in coin purses tied to their belts, and I made sure to toss those over to the doorway for later collection when I found them. Soon we were just left with a bloody deck, but I felt like the rain would have to take care of that. I didn’t see a mop lying around here anyway. Mira cleaned up our armor and boots for us before we got blood all over the place. I was a bloody mess thanks to the golems.

  “Thanks, Mira,” I said. “Do you think you can teach me that trick?”

  “I’d be happy to. We have a lot of time on our hands.”

  For the duration of our voyage, we were especially vigilant. With that fleet lurking out there somewhere, we kept our armor handy. We did run into more ships going back to Grunbar, too. In all, this ocean battle repeated itself two more times. After each battle, we gave the plundered riches to the newly freed slaves to divide amongst themselves. In my opinion, it was good to help those who were helpless, and we were definitely doing a good thing for others by facing these threats head on rather than trying to outrun the slavers.

  Eventually, we docked at a port city called Kinnet to replenish our dwindling supplies. Kinnet was on the northwestern coast of the continent before the land started to turn to the east. Surprisingly, there were no signs of damage to this city, unlike the smaller enclaves we passed. The admiral of the ogres’ fleet must have been saving his strength for something, or maybe he wanted to get to a place quickly. Either way, a fleet of a hundred warships was bad news for someone, and we all thought that “someone” would be living in Stonekeep.

  While we were in Kinnet, Mira visited the marketplace and picked up a dozen honey buns for Bandit when she bought our supplies. Our gold was running out, but there was plenty for some sweets. After pooling everything together, we had around forty gold royals each. She put the honey buns in the cube portal to keep them fresh. Our diet improved after this stop, too. Because things didn’t go bad in the cube portal, we could store any kind of food we liked without worrying about it rotting, so we could pick up fresh food that would normally go bad after a couple of days. We were in a hurry, so we only docked long enough to resupply, then we were off again.

  The Unseen Blade was a fast ship. Three weeks from our departure from the Sunset Isles we were in the southern part of the Blue Bay nearing Mithram. We planned to take the Deepflow River from Mithram to Stonekeep because the Deepflow was navigable all the way to Goldsprocket, a few days south of Stonekeep. It surely beat walking, too. Mira happened to be in the captain’s chair and called out to us about smoke on the southern horizon. From looking at the map, it was definitely Mithram we were seeing, and the city was still smoldering from a huge fire. As we got closer, we could see no sails or docked ships through the spyglass. In fact, it looked like someone burned the docks and Mithram’s navy to the waterline. The rest of the city was intact behind its walls. We kept our distance as we cruised past the city and into the Deepflow River.

  “The ogres’ fleet has definitely been here,” Mira said.

  “I thought we would have run into it by now,” I mentioned.

  “You know, I’ll bet that fleet was carrying supplies for the ground army,” Bran said. “If they’ve been here and were able to do this, then they have free passage all the way to Stonekeep.”

  That was a grim thought indeed. I did some calculations in my head.

  “If the ogre’s army didn’t stop or besiege Fellton or Indigo or Aerie, then they could actually be at Stonekeep right now. I think we should count on there being a blockade of ships upriver somewhere and formulate a contingency plan for that,” I said.

  “It just couldn’t be as easy as cruising right up to the docks, could it?” Mira lamented.

  “I’ll bet they could use the fleet to move their troops across the river to the eastern side that Stonekeep sits on a lot more quickly, too,” Elle said.

  “This looks worse and worse,” Bran said. “You’ve read the notebook about the command words and the golems of Stonekeep, right, Jeron?”

  “Twice,” I said. “I think I’ve got it down. I know what I need to do once I get there. It’ll be getting there that’ll be the problem, though.”

  “All right. We need two people here in the control room at all times, one in the chair and one with the spyglass,” Bran said. “We could find an ambush around any bend in the river.”

  “All right,” I said. “I’ll take spyglass duty with Mira at the helm for the next few hours. Bran, Elle, if you want to get some sleep, now would be a good time. You’ll be on night duty soon enough.”

  “Good suggestion,” Elle said. “Let’s go to bed, Bran.”

  Bandit laughed out loud at Elle’s unintended meaning. Mira and I smiled widely, trying not to laugh.

  “Separately. To our own rooms. You know what I meant,” Elle said as she blushed with obvious embarrassment.

  “I knew what you meant, Elle,” Bran said calmly.

  Elle went down the stairs quickly, still blushing. Bran winked at me as he walked by. I knew he was thinking. He was making progress. It had taken him nine years, but Elle was finally starting to think of him with more than just friendliness. One would think that he was still in the friend zone, but if she got that embarrassed about an accidental turn of speech, then the chances were good that she felt more than friendship for Bran. I was happy for them both. They were perfect for each other.

  “Elle really does love him, you know,” Mira said. “She talks about him sometimes, and it’s really very obvious. I think she doesn’t want to court while she’s in the militia, and I also think she’s afraid to trust anyone after what her father put her through. That guy was a really bad person.”

  “I got the same impression. Bran has loved Elle from the moment he laid eyes on her nine years ago,” I confided. “He was done for, just like that.” I snapped my fingers. “What about you, Mira?”

  “Me? Little Mousy Mira?” She joked. “You know the other kids used to call me that.”

  “Yeah, I knew. I never thought of you that way, though. And stop trying to change the subject,” I said. “What do you think about courting? About us?”

  “There’s an “us”?” Mira asked, seemingly shocked. Seeing that I wasn’t amused, and that I really wanted to know, she said, “Oh, all right. You know how my father is, right? The eternal patriarch, ruling with an iron fist? Well, I was afraid to commit to anyone because my father’s likely to arrange a marriage for me solely based on money.”

  “That’s a really rotten thing to do,” I said.

  “Yeah, but that’s my father for you. When I moved out, I hid from my family for years, but now that I’m in the militia, he knows where to find me. I wouldn’t be surprised at all if he shows up on New Year’s Day with a groom and a magistrate to perform a ceremony, treating me as the prize for the highest bidder. It would be just like him to do it, too. He can’t force me to marry when I’m in the service of the militia, but as soon as that obligation is done, I think I’m finished with any kind of freedom. Legally, he can still treat me as if I were his property for an entire year after I leave the service,” Mira said sadly.

  “So that’s why you’ve been a little reserved around me?” I asked.

  “It’s a pretty compelling reason, Jeron.” Mira got a little misty eyed and focused on the river. We were going pretty fast, after all.

  I put a hand on her shoulder and thought about how I would handle this situation if it ever came up. Most of my thoughts on the matter turned to violence, but I didn’t want to be that kind of person. Looking ahead with the spyglass, I stood next to Mira over the next few hours as she piloted the ship. Our future together looked pretty bleak, but there was hope. There was always hope.

  -----

  “Hurry!” Dortham said as he set his hammer down. He put the head of a ladder pusher in the closest barrel of oil and waited for the hissing to end. Elric and Darek were in the smithy working as hard as they could. “Sunset is upon us!”

  Elric and Darek both shook their heads, dropped their hammers, and quenched the items they were working on. Nora had heard the hammering stop and was already coming inside with a bucket of fresh water from the aqueduct outside the smithy. She set the bucket down on a workbench where three mugs already rested.

  “Drink up, you three!” Nora said. “This is thirsty work! And don’t let me see you get dragged into my healing station,” she said with mock severity. Nora was very concerned but determined not to show it. After delivering her admonishment, she hurried off to the healer’s stations to tend the wounded.

  When the ogres had surrounded the city, they didn’t immediately attack, which surprised the townsfolk. Instead, they had used a few days to scour the area for anything useful outside the city, each day retreating to the forest to hide from the sun. A few days after that, they had started the attacks at dusk, each day bringing more ladders to use against the walls. The defenders had seen the human troops, who had a standard showing they were from Fellton. The defenders knew they were engineers when they had begun construction of siege towers and a massive, covered battering ram. The ogres didn’t want to wait for the siege weapons and had launched attacks against the walls many times, each morning retreating back to the forest.

  Since the ogres had arrived, the Smiths had been fighting on the walls all night, sleeping a little bit, then working the forge the rest of the day until the nightly assault began. They had run out of ingots a long time ago, but the quickest townsfolk had been scavenging iron and arrows from the corpses outside the walls by means of ropes they used to get down the walls without opening the gates. The scavengers would then take the broken weapons and armor to the various smiths of the city. Everyone was exhausted, but the Smiths were made of stern stuff.

  “I’m not thirsty yet,” Elric said as he grabbed a mug and dipped it into the bucket. Sweat poured off his brow and he drank the entire mug in one pull. “You thirsty, Darek?”

  “Nah.” Darek was already there and drank fiercely. He set his mug down. “Hurry up, grandpa! You don’t want to miss all the fun, do you?”

  “He’s too old for this,” Elric said, laughing. “Look at his shaking knees! Your cane’s over there, you old fart!”

  “Bah! You punks haven’t lived through half the battles I have,” Dortham said. “If brains were a requirement for swinging a hammer, I’d have run you two off years ago!” He took a deep drink of water, then wiped the sweat off his forehead with the sleeve of his stained shirt.

  “Quit your muttering and pick up a weapon already,” Elric said.

  All three men helped each other into their scratched and dented armor as quickly as they could. They sunlight was fading fast, and the attacks would begin again shortly. When they were ready, they punched each other on the pauldrons, something they had watched their brothers do when training. Dortham noted the dark circles under his sons’ eyes.

  “Careful not to hurt your brother,” Dortham told Darek. “He’s always been a little too delicate.”

  “I’ll show you what’s delicate, you old windbag,” Elric said.

  All three men laughed at their banter and drank another mug of water. Knowing what they had to do, they set their mugs down and loaded the weapons they’d been making on top of their shields. Hefting the heavy loads, they shut the smithy door on their way out and began their nightly march.

  “Hurry up, or I’ll have to change your diapers again before we even get there,” Dortham said.

  “We’ll be changing your diaper soon enough, you doddering old fool,” Elric said.

  “But before that, we’ll have to make him a set of teeth,” Darek said.

  “Yeah, he’s been needing a decent set of chompers for years, now,” Elric said.

  They were approaching the marshaling grounds now and angled towards the entrance to the keep. They didn’t notice, but the other men stood a little straighter when the Smiths approached. Heads turned when they passed by. The people of Stonekeep were sturdy folk, but the Smiths were the standard the rest measured themselves against. A select few knew Dortham was one of the toughest to ever walk these streets, a fact they kept to themselves. The confidence the Smiths projected was contagious, but they still didn’t let it get to their heads, hence the insulting banter. There was nothing like a good insult to keep someone grounded. They dropped their loads close to the gates near a stack of arrows.

  “Which wall will be the busiest tonight, sergeant?” Dortham asked.

  “They’re massing at the east gate, sir,” the sergeant said.

  “Thanks,” Dortham said. All three equipped their shields and drew warhammers from their belts. They all felt very comfortable with the weapons for obvious reasons, and warhammers were great for bashing goblin helms and yanking the goblins off ladders with the spiked side of the weapons. “Come on, girls, if you think your skirts won’t get in the way.”

  “You never stop nagging, do you grandma?” Elric said as he followed Dortham.

  The Smiths turned towards the east and began marching. Behind them, the other townsmen followed, all of whom were veterans but unattached to military units now. Someone started singing a marching song, and the whole group joined in. They reached the outer walls in short order but still had two verses left of the song to sing. As the men took positions on the wall next to the professional soldiers and gazed down at the carnage below, the song trailed off a bit. Stroks were everywhere feasting on corpses. Dortham sang all the louder, and the rest rejoined. They finished their song with a great “Hurrah!” as the ogres’ drums gained strength across the fields. The last of the light faded as the goblins and ogres emerged from the woods. Another night of blood and death was upon them.