Nameless by Ryan P Freeman

Author:Ryan P Freeman
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: dark fantasy, dragons, epic fantasy, heroic fantasy, dark fiction, high fantasy, epic adventure, fantasy action
Publisher: Ryan P Freeman

Chapter Eleven

Mageland

The Isle of the Mages rose unassuming out of the channel mists. Before the Reliant were innumerable ships and other various skiffs and boats each held at bay by one single imposing obstacle: a great wall of water towered over every mast, keel, sail, and rudder.

“Impossible,” murmured one of the newer sailors.

The captain didn’t smile. He had seen this trick one too many times… come upstart pirate lords or foul weather, the first defense of the Isle of the Mages always seemed to be this one single trick. “Unoriginal…” Reymir muttered.

For the better part of an hour, they circled the flotsam and jetsam, seeking an opening, no matter how small it may be; then, finally, they found what they were looking for. To the southeast, between two rocky promontories little more than reefs peeking their meek heads about the seething ocean foam and tide jetted up like jaws left open wide.

“Captain…” the first mate began. “You’ve got to be joking.”

“I never joke, sir.” The pause held for a second before the captain cracked a dim smile.

“That’s what I was afraid of,” moaned the first mate.

“Helmsman, take us in,” ordered Captain Reymir.

“Sir, are you sure that’s, I don’t know… wise, sir?” eked the current helmsman, another one of the newer sailors from the eastern reaches.

Reymir shoved the young man out of his way and assumed the wheel himself. “Hard to port! Let’s show the rest of these floating matchsticks what we can do.”

Lasarus echoed the captain’s order. His little barks echoed, lost among the floundering wreckage nearby.

And with that, the Reliant began its painfully slow, arduous turn in through the rocks… past the floating wreckage and the razor-sharp tips of freshly sunken masts and shredded keels.

“Cap… Captain… are you positive we’re going to… you know… fit?” asked a pale North-Reacher.

Reymir only smiled fiercer. “Do you like surprises, seaman? Just you watch now. Heh, I imagine this’ll be the story you tell your children and your children’s children…” he said, concentrating.

“I already have children…” the northerner muttered. “Two, in fact, but they’re much safer than I imagine I’ll ever be for the last two minutes of my life…”

“Hah!” laughed one of the larger south-reachers. “Just you watch.” Through the growing darkness, his big black eyes shone with mirth.

And the southreacher was right, funny enough. For as the Reliant neared the surging wall of water, kept upright beyond thought and reason, as even the sun itself sunk suddenly behind its shadow, raised hundreds of feet high, the world as they knew it slipped away. There was only the Reliant sailing upon a crystal sea under the great star of heaven, the sun. On either side, biting up through the crashing breakers, were the two rocks, like edged teeth sunken through with frothy foam, daring the sojourners on and on. Past death and deep sea, past glory and fear, past the very arms of eternity herself: there was only here. There was only now.

The crew held their collective breath. Even Lasarus, the little black dog of the ship, grew ominously quiet.

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