Chapter 7: Phantom Ship Chapter 9: Fluorspar’s Oath
Chapter 8: Landing at Taizel
Our ship drew in to the port of Taizel the next day, as planned. All the soldiers and Myrrh were below deck, hidden from view. Syrene and I stood in the door to the cabin, sheltered, watching the sailors rush about. No arrows and fire had rained down on us as we entered the harbour, so I assumed we were not suspected yet.
“There’s no sign of enemy troops, either,” Syrene said, reflecting my thoughts.
“Let’s move quickly and prepare to go ashore. The capital is straight down the highway but we’ll be fighting for every step of the way.”
“Yes, and it will grow fiercer the closer we come,” the pegasus commander said with concern. “My lord, I would like to make a suggestion about troop distribution…”
“Yes?”
“The Grado Army outnumbers us by a tremendous amount. We’ve noted this many times. We have ready reservists to protect our supply convoy, but it is no good to defend the supplies if we lose the front. We should bring up all our soldiers to strengthen the van.”
“No, Syrene, that won’t do. I cannot approve of sending reservists to fight on the front lines, and we cannot abandon our supplies in enemy territory!”
“Prince Ephraim, we have talented soldiers, but that counts for nothing against those numbers!”
I looked quickly outside, but no one seemed to have noticed our heated argument. “Syrene, I know you only want to improve our chances of success, but when we are flanked on both sides by hostile armies, maybe towns, too, we will need that convoy. I also know that you make these suggestions to try to keep me from harm… but I have no intention of changing my mind! – Myrrh?”
The dragon girl had padded up behind me silently, her hands clutched to her chest. She reached out and touched me, and I had jumped and whirled on her.
“Oh… pardon me…” she stammered, looking rather frightened. “I-I… nothing…” And she fled deep into the ship.
“Myrrh…!” I called after her, apologetic. I had not detached myself from the discussion with Syrene, and turning the full intensity of my attention on Myrrh had probably not been the best thing to do. I sighed. I hoped she would forgive me.
“Sir! Prince Ephraim, Lady Syrene, sir!” Pounding footsteps brought me back to the intensity of the present. A guard in nondescript armour whom I’d posted myself dashed up to us from his station at the gangway. “Enemy soldiers have flooded the docks! It’s a trap! Orders, sir?”
I hazarded a quick look. There were Grado troops running towards us, all right. Some of them were at the foot of the gangway already.
I turned back. “All troops prepare to fight!” I bellowed to below decks. Of course, they were ready to fight. I had expected this.
The cavaliers were ready, and it only took a moment to open the horse loading door… or whatever it’s called… to let them out. With them I led a charge of foot soldiers backed up by archers to keep the enemy busy while we ran up to them.
We left on the east side of the ship. Deussel led the cavaliers off the west side of the ship, with Rachel among their number in case of emergencies. Syrene and Vanessa shot out of the horse bay and wheeled overhead, dodging flak from enemy magic users.
Then I saw a sight that chilled my skin. Lurching from around the corner of a building appeared first one, then a pack, of revenants. Over on the left, mauthe doogs sprang out at Deussel. Syrene had to swerve suddenly to avoid a javelin from a gargoyle that had been hiding on the stern of our own ship. Far back, at the top of the harbour, I saw a massive slouching figure that I could not identify.
“Th-they’re working with Grado!?” I cried. “How can that be?”
I had to duck, then, from the lance of a human cavalier.
It was a hard and cautious struggle up the slope of the harbour towards the upper terraces. As we came closer, I saw what the strange figure was. It was a cyclops, a huge ogre with one eye, hefting a huge axe.
Moulder was there first, guarded by Gilliam and a number of other soldiers. I was close by with my group, but there were a number of enemy soldiers, mostly human, between me and them.
A young boy who had but seen us and joined us, ignored the human enemies, running around them, and caught up to Moulder just as the priest sent a small blast of white light against the cyclops. The monster blinked and swung its axe carelessly at the group, hitting Gilliam with the flat of it. Gilliam went flying.
I whistled as I pulled my lance away from a body and stood watching. There were only a few soldiers between us and them, and some ran.
Gilliam rolled over as he hit the ground and stabbed the cyclops’s paw with his lance. I ran forward to help him up, and Syrene landed beside me in a flurry of white feathers.
“My lord!” she cried. “Not too close!”
Her warning was accurate, as the axe whistled past my head. Vanessa, with a shout, tried to distract it by stabbing it in the shoulder, but she barely grazed its tough hide.
A tiny fireball exploded on the back of the creature’s head. It turned, blinking, and with a roar of rage, came stomping swiftly towards Moulder and the young boy who had cast the fire spell. An equally young lancer stepped up to defend against the cyclops’s charge, and I began to call out an order to rearrange the group, to properly defend against a ridiculously strong axe-wielding foe – which meant, of course, swordsmen – but I was too late. The monster was too close.
An arrow came arcing up from the crowd and plunged right into the ogre’s eye. It stopped immediately.
“Now!” I called. “Swordfighters, forward-“
The creature raised its hand to its face, and fell over, dead. The ground shook.
When the dust had cleared, Syrene, after a minute of conferring with the unit captains, came to me and saluted. “The enemy has been defeated, sir, and we’re taking care of the wounded now.”
“Good job, Syrene. We’ll rest in this city tonight. Replenish all the food and weapons, and find a place for us to sleep… Oh, yes, remind every soldier that anyone who breaks the city’s laws will be severely punished. Anything else?”
“We should prepare some defence in case we are attacked in the night from the east. Fresh enemy troops could be here at any time.”
“Good point. All right, we’ll post sentries on three rotating watches at all gates and the east wall. Then tomorrow we’ll set out half an hour past dawn. Oh, and please commend those young soldiers who brought down the cyclops. They were very brave.”
“Yes, sir,” Syrene said crisply, happy, I think, that I had taken some of her advice for once.
“Dismissed. Don’t forget to rest, yourself.”
“Thank you, Prince Ephraim.”
If I had turned my head to the left just slightly, I would have seen Myrrh, cloaked and hooded, staring up at me…
The next morning, Syrene came early to see me in my room in the inn. I had just woken and was in the middle of my second piece of toast when she knocked and entered hastily.
I ran a hand through my bed-mussed hair. “Something important?”
“It’s… Myrrh,” she said, uncertain how to call the girl, I think. Myrrh never talked to anyone very much; she was shy of strangers, and we had been in a whole camp-full of them. “She’s been missing since sometime last night. There are no signs of a struggle, and it seems she left of her own accord.”
I dropped my toast with my mouth full. I tried to talk and ended up choking and coughing instead.
“My lord!?” Syrene quickly poured me a glass of water. I nodded and sipped it.
“Where did she go? Didn’t anyone see her?”
“No, no one at all. The gates were shut all night…”
“She can fly,” I said heavily, running a hand over my eyes. “Oh, Myrrh, what are you up to? Prepare to head out. We’re heading east.”
“Prince Ephraim…”
“Not just looking for her. We’ll find her on the way to the capital.”
Syrene frowned slowly. “And if we do not find her?”
I glared back at her. “I’ll keep looking for her. She is my responsibility. She’s alone without her dragonstone, and she doesn’t know either the land or the people. Did you hear how I found her?”
Syrene nodded slowly. “Prince Ephraim, I will not stop you in any way. I only want to warn you of dangers…”