For weeks, Arn watched the waters of the Deep drifting past beneath the ship. Drowen’s flagship, the Horizon Prince, was twice the vessel than that of Captain Emrez—its decks rose higher than the surrounding galleons, its ram rode the waves with ornate fury, and its slaves numbers in the hundreds. When the winds were strong enough to pull their sails, the slaves were given a dozen menial tasks ranging from rope-tying to scrubbing the deck. The fleet barely stopped when encountering a rainstorm. Drowen Targahal was a force of nature.
To his surprise, Arn was made a leader among the slaves—he was one of several authorized to oversee his kindred and give orders that he saw fit, so long as they aligned with the standing orders of the crew and its leadership.
Arn therein learned that the Prince was just a floating Razaad. One slave reported an entirely fictitious mistake to one of Arn’s superiors, earning him a reprimand. Later, Arn tracked down the ambitious underling and beat him as hard as he dared—he needed the man to continue plying an oar, after all. The man had claimed it was Arn’s regular visits with Vellek the Mage that had convinced him to distrust Arn.
These doubts only made Arn more enemies among his kin, but Drowen—when Arn managed to get a few moments of his time—told Arn that he had handled it right. Arn had been made an overseer of slaves because he had no qualms about doing what was necessary to maintain order.
A few weeks after their departure from Starath, the fleet passed something that was new to Arn. Emerging out of the Deep came broken timbers and floating bodies. “It’s the wreckage of a few ships,” murmured one of the nearby crew. It was not Elwar’s fleet—but maybe a few of his ships, and the ships that had attacked them. Drowen’s vessels were only a few days behind.
They dragged one man out of the water. Delirious and blood-stained, the man had been clinging to a section of hull and had been drifting on the waves for days. He stammered and kept passing out as Vellek tended to him with healing magic, and the quartermaster brought him food. Drowen had impatiently told them to summon him if the poor sod ever mumbled out sensible words.
Arn wondered if this was how he had seemed when Emrez had found him on that sun-blasted sand bluff.
A day later, the castaway explained that Elwar and his allies had come across a small patrol of vessels flying the banners of House Valakono, the rulers of Var Nordos. Drowen commented that they were far from home then, but he gave orders for his fleet to adjust their formation, and to post double-duty in the crow’s nests.
Then they pressed the man to reveal his loyalty—when he avoided answering, the pressing became a beating. If he had been loyal to their cause, he would have said so. Drowen grabbed the man around the neck and threw him back into the Deep.
Watching the sun rise up over the gleaming Deep, Arn spent a long shift up in the nest. He had been told to watch for ships, but he saw none. Instead, he spent the day remorsefully remembering his own fateful passage. He whispered Shar’s name quietly enough that Lalloro, the crewman stationed with Arn in the nest, could not hear. Shar had long been a thorn in Arn’s side, but his change in tune was commendable and his loyalty even to his intentional death deserved remembrance.
Arn clung to the rail as his feet dangled below it. The Prince was the only barrier between himself and that deadly end. Arn was along for the ride as Drowen barked his orders. Where was he taking them?