Firebrand

“You should just take some of that remedy you bought. Otherwise why bring it along?”

Martel sat next to the railing, trying to think of anything but his stomach. The whole ship rolling from side to side made it difficult. “I only have enough for some days. I don’t want to use it all so soon if it’ll be ten days.”

Eleanor moved down next to him. “But you usually adjust after a while. In five days, you most likely will not feel anything. You will end up arriving at Port Verde with the remedy still in your pocket.”

Another wave of nausea convinced Martel that she was right. Reluctantly, he grabbed the small jar from his belt and opened it to take a sip. The taste of ginger made him pull a face, and it felt like needles scratching his nostrils. He shook the pot, measuring the remaining liquid before returning it to his belt. For more chapters visıt novel✦fire.net

“I can ask the ship to sail more steadily if that would help.”

Martel looked up at Kanani. “It’s fine. In a few minutes, I won’t feel it as much.”

“A few what?”

“Oh, in a little while. It works fast, at least.”

Eleanor got on her feet. “When you say that you can ‘ask the ship’… what do you mean?”

The islander wizard shrugged. “I suppose it’s the same as telling the ship, but it sounds more polite. Either way, I’ve never known the ship to refuse.” She laughed. Martel blinked a few times, feeling his stomach settle. He reached out to grab the railing and pull himself up as well. “How does that work?” The old, familiar curiosity concerning magic stirred in him.

“What you call magic, the life force, is everywhere.” Kanani spread out her hands. “The air, the sea, the ship, all of us.”

“Right, we do not dispute that.” Eleanor took out an apple and began carving it with her knife, handing a slice to Martel.

“But you see it all as parts. Something is water or fire or earth. On the Isles, we don’t think like that. Everything simply is.”

Reminiscent of Sindhian thinking, Martel considered, which saw magic in every object; in some ways, the opposite of the Asterian school. Drawing magic out of something rather than imposing magic upon it. “But how does that work?” Martel asked her. “Specifically. Your spellcraft. How do you steer the ship?”

Kanani shrugged again. “I simply connect to it, and it obeys.”

“Even now?” Eleanor asked.

The vessel suddenly listed to one side, making a few sailors utter what Martel assumed to be curses. The islander wizard simply smiled. “Even now.”

“How curious,” Martel mumbled. This did not drain her spellpower, apparently, or it had to happen slowly for her to sustain the connection all day. Or did islanders not possess spellpower at all? He had no idea. But before he could ask, the captain yelled something, and his words sparked frenzied activity; most of the crew, Kanani included, ran to the other side of the ship.

Following the crowd, the two Asterians did the same and saw what had caught everyone’s attention. In the far distance, sails could be seen.

Hours later, it became clear that the ship pursued them. It followed a course directly aimed at Lookfar; in addition, it gained on them.

“Any chance it’s a merchant vessel like us?” Martel asked. He stood with Eleanor at the stern, looking at the approaching ship.

“No,” mumbled the captain before yelling orders. The sailors responded, tightening the rigging, but there was little else they could do; every sail was up, catching all the wind possible, and Kanani spent all her strength pushing the ship forward.

“How can you be sure?” asked Eleanor.

“Timber isn’t black,” captain replied with the same mumble before leaving the helm to his helmsman.

“I don’t understand,” Martel admitted.

“Consortium ships that travel the ocean are made from ebony wood,” Kanani explained. She spoke with a strained voice, and Martel could feel the tendrils of magic seeping from her into the ship. “Those are pirates. And they’re faster than us, which means their sea-worker is better than me.”

Eleanor looked at Martel. “How close do you need to be?”

He shrugged. “The length of a bowshot.”

“Some can shoot an arrow further than others.”

“The length of a short bowshot.”

Kanani glanced at him. “You can stop them? You have such powers? Their wizard will know how to fight.”

Martel exhaled. It could not be worse than a Khivan galley with cannons. “I can stop them.”

It was close to evening when the pursuing vessel caught up to them. Standing on the helm, Martel and Eleanor watched while Kanani stood nearby, channelling her magic into the ship. The wind blew favourably for both crafts, filling their sails to add extra speed.

Staring at pirates, Martel saw a shape standing in the bow with a powerful shine of magic surrounding them. The hostile ship wizard, no doubt, doing the same work as Kanani. As their ship came close enough for the battlemage to consider taking action, the pirate spellcaster reacted faster.

A burst of magic so strong, Martel felt it across the distance. It seeped into the water between their vessels, raising it to the height of a great wave that loomed larger than Lookfar. With a rising sense of dread, Martel realised the water would crash into their ship and make it capsize.

He could only think of summoning a wall of flames so intense, it would evaporate the water before the wave slammed into them, as he had done on the bridge during the battle of the Alonde crossing.

The spell already coursing through him, Martel felt a release of power from Kanani and halted his own magic in response, knowing he had a few more moments before the wave struck them.

He did not have to. Kanani’s tendrils of power tangled with those of the hostile mage, and the water subsided in strength and size before striking their ship. While it rocked the hull, they stayed afloat and upright.

Next to him, Kanani fell to one knee, gasping for breath. Martel did not know the magic at work, but he understood that he had to act.

If a stormmage, he would have summoned lightning from the sky. Martel could still fling a lightning bolt at the enemy ship, but these islanders seemed to have strong powers related to nature, and perhaps the hostile wizard could weaken such an attack the way Kanani had weakened his.

Instead, Martel reached out with his own magic to entangle with the other vessel. Immediately, he felt like his mind had grabbed hold of a slippery eel, and he recoiled in physical disgust. Nausea washed over him, though his recent experiences with seasickness helped him overcome that quickly.

He realised what Kanani had spoken of, connecting with the ship; the other wizard was likewise bound to his vessel, and Martel’s magic had struck against his.

“Kanani, are you connected to the whole ship, or just the hull?” he asked, leaning forward to support himself against the railing; he still felt sick.

“What?” she gasped.

“The ship! Does your magic extend to all of it? The masts, the sails?”

“Just the wood. Yes, the hull,” she replied through gritted teeth.

Martel nodded to himself and reached out with his magic once more, this time entangling it with the nearest sail. The canvas welcomed him with no trouble, and he sent a burst of spellpower through the connection to set it ablaze.

The sail suddenly catching fire had the expected effect among the pirates; not that the sailors could do much. Only their wizard stood any hope. Their ship slowed down significantly, his attention and magic no longer on the pursuit. Instead, a wave rose up from the sea to wash over the sails and the decks with the pirate crew jumping aside from the onslaught of the water.

It availed nothing. Martel kept the connection going, and his magical fire could not be extinguished that easily. Once the sail seemed sufficiently destroyed to be useless, he did the same to the next sail, and the next. He only stopped when the distance became too great, their pursuers falling behind now that neither magic nor wind pushed their ship forward.

Kanani refocused her efforts back on sailing the ship, granting it all the speed she could. Martel sat down on the deck, resting; keeping the fire going against the hostile wizard’s attempts to extinguish it had cost him more strength than he would have imagined.

Eleanor brought him a cup of water and sat down next to him. “Well done. You earned our keep on this trip.”

Martel took a sip. “Just glad we avoided an actual fight.”

“Something struck me as odd, though.”

“Yes?”

“That wave their wizard sent against us… it would have capsized this ship, surely, and sent us all to the depths.”

It took Martel a moment to catch up. “You’re wondering why they’d risk their prize.”

“I cannot make sense of it.”

Martel emptied his cup, trying to think of an answer. “Maybe they knew we had a wizard aboard who’d temper the attack. A wave like that forced Kanani to spend her strength defending. Could be a brute tactic to simply wear her down – they couldn’t have expected a firemage aboard as well.”

“Possibly. Well, I shall be glad to have Port Verde in sight.”

Memories of the nausea felt when entangling with the hostile mage’s magic flowed together with a resurgent seasickness as the ship gave a sudden roll from side to side. Martel did not reply.