The gentle current of the Golden Strait lapped gently at the thick walls of the fortress known as Sentinel Point. Established long ago in times since forgotten, the Confederate States of the Eastmarch oversaw trade through the strait from the impenetrable walls of their most renowned fortress. From the top of the walls that surrounded the whole island, relatively small though it was, one could see the jagged peaks of the untamed continent of Torgar looming to the South-East, and the long winding shore of Avar to the North visible only in theory as the Eastmarch Mountains descended into the sea. No large ship could easily pass between the two landmasses without being seen from the fortress, and no one wishing to conduct trade with the thriving cities of the Lakeland Republic or the city states of the Confederacy without the protective gaze of the Confederacy’s fleet anchored around the fortress.
Under these conditions, a long and steady peace had begun to form around the two mostly-human nations. Tensions could sometimes flare with some of the border city states of the Confederacy, yet their council always seemed to find a way to appease them before outright war erupted with the Republic due to some hot-headed Magister. The Republic was not immune to such outbursts either, unfortunately, despite their mobilizations often bearing the full authority of their Congress.
His plumed helmet precariously balanced on the South-Eastern battlements, Watch-Captain Steiner was scanning the Torgar coastal waters, wondering to himself if that was perhaps what he was witnessing here today. After a long minute, he turned to his attendant. “Corporal Mayer,” Steiner drawed the words out, as if uncertain he wanted to address it all, “was there record of a trade fleet bypassing the strait to circumnavigate Torgar?”
Corporal Mayer stiffened to attention with a quick salute to acknowledge the order, and he paged through a handful of papers produced from a satchel. “Uh, no sir,” he said after a moment, “if a trade fleet has done so, sir, they never passed within observation of Confederacy or Republic waters.”
Steiner peered back through the looking glass he held, “Wait just a minute — “ his words came at increasing panic, and cut off abruptly. Were his eyes deceiving him? Before he turned to Mayer, he had only seen three ships backdropped by the barely-visible Horn of Torgar, yet now there were nearly a dozen? More? “Corporal!” he all but shouted the man’s rank, spinning on his heels to face the man as he recoiled in shock. The looking glass swung wildly, knocking his helmet from its perch with a loud clang. “Sound the alarms! They’re on an intercept course for the fortress!”
“Sir!” Mayer fumbled to attention, his exclamation less the pride of a soldier and more the confused utterance of a child. With that, Mayer sprinted the short distance to the bells on the battlements, and began to ring them furiously. Across the fortress, similar bells chimed in unison. An attack was inbound.
About a mile off-shore to the South of the fortress, Captain Varruck of the Free City of Hillon Ship Fervor swayed gently with her ship atop the calm seas of the strait. Hearing the alarm bells, the halfling strode with authority toward the helm. Popping a compact looking glass from her heavy coat’s pocket, she squinted at the horizon before bringing it to her eye. Sure enough, ships of some unknown construction raced toward the island. She ran some quick calculations, noting that the dozen or so ships were of fairly light frame, and their speed suggested they wouldn’t be heavily armed. “Helm,” she asked calmly, “bring the ship around cut across the path of those ships. I would very much like to teach them a lesson for threatening the Confederacy.” She slammed the looking glass closed, and stuffed it back in her coat pocket.
“Aye-aye, Cap’n,” the Helmsman replied. The lanky half-elf deftly went to work, as sailors followed the lead and readied the sails, orders echoing across the massive deck.
Captain Varruck knew her ship well. It was the key ship-of-the-line to a new generation of shipwrights from the venerable Shipwright’s Guild of Hillon, constructed of some of the toughest lumber harvested from the pristine wilderness of the taiga nestled in the valleys and foothills of the Eastmarch Mountains. The Fervor boasted an arsenal of over thirty ballistae, and carried enough ammunition to reliably sink twice over the force poised against her. The ship surely wouldn’t dance circles around the approaching ships, but she wouldn’t need to. The expert gunners employed by Captain Varruck could nail a keel at speed and be ready to fire before even the swiftest of frigates could bring their arms to bear. Her victory was assured, she only needed a good audience.
The Fervor lumbered along her North-Eastern course, minutes from placing herself between the attackers and Sentinel Point. The whole fortress would witness the power of this new breed of vessel, and with any luck, the rivals of Hillon would take note and silently accept defeat in their generations-long arms race to produce the best ships in the navy. Captain Varruck gave some last minute orders as the crew finished their battle preparations.
At long last, the first of the approaching vessels was within range. An efficient yet unrefined thing, it bore at first glance the makings of a hastily constructed vessel. Clearly the designer was of some worth, however inexperienced, as it became apparent from their proximity the agile craft were laden with three forward-facing armaments. Some sort of bolt-thrower, Captain Varruck theorized, yet it would ultimately be fruitless as she was confident their attackers had never faced such a well defended vessel before. Even if they could return fire, she doubted their bolts would do more than throw splinters into her sails.
The first of the Fervor’s ballistae had entered their effective range, and drove precision bolts along fatal trajectories. Yet they did not crack the hulls as the Captain suspected. To her amazement, a flash of light erupted with each impact as each bolt was shattered without penetrating the hull. “Impossible! Keep firing,” she shouted to her deck officers, realizing that her gunners hadn’t made their follow-up shots. Volley after rapid volley struck out, yielding the same results. The battle had been started for what had felt like minutes to her, but had barely been one. The lead vessel was well within range for even some of the lightest weapons the Captain had encountered, and she awaited their return fire to assess how this fight might shake out. Were they employing mages? Surely then the rest of the vessels wouldn’t have the same defences, and they could exhaust this one once it realized it couldn’t sink them with its weaponry. Her calculating mind raced with countless battle plans, yet they all hinged on what the vessel would do in response.
A loud crack, followed by a deep roar pierced the skies. The three weapons on the bow of the approaching vessel flared with a flash of blue light, and nearly simultaneously, cries of alarm rang out from the decks. The Captain herself was flung to the deck, a tremendous force winding her as a shower of splinters dug into her sides. She quickly rolled, looking in the direction the splinters had come from. Where her Helmsman had been moments before, a red streak graced the floor to a gaping hole in the deck, and a cone-shaped hunk of some type of metal embedded deep into the ship, having pierced the battlements of the vessel and through the top of the deck as well. The Captain rightfully assumed the other two chunks of metal had done similar damage, but likely aimed at the gun decks. She cursed under her breath as a sharp pain reminded her she had been pin-cushioned by the damage. She assessed herself — nothing serious, but the smallest splinters were usually the most painful in her many experiences at sea.
She climbed to her feet, steadying herself before issuing new orders to her deck officers. These weapons were unlike anything she had seen before, but the damage hadn’t been too catastrophic. She might come out of this more bloodied than she could have possibly imagined earlier, but if they could wear down the mages guarding the lead vessel then the rest would fall to her expert gunners. The occasional flicker of the magical shielding let her know her gunners were firing at will, but they would need to focus their volleys to deal with defenses like this.
Before she could even inhale to issue the new orders a cacophony had struck up. Cracks and roars drowned out the words she had begun to bellow, as the rest of the swift vessels had joined the fight. They bore down upon the massive Fervor like pack hunters after a wounded animal — the flares of blue blinding her as the metal projectiles tore into and through her ship. She was thrown to the deck again, the sounds of splitting wood all around her punctuated by screams of agony and fear. The unrelenting storm of flashing lights, roaring booms, and the sickening cracks of her ship being shredded kept her cowering on the deck. She could hear her crew yelling for her, then a deck officer calling to abandon ship. How could this have all gone so wrong? If they could sink her ship in a manner of minutes — what hope did the rest of the Confederacy fleet have? The last thing she saw as her broken body was cooled by the calm waters of the Golden Strait were the red sails emblazoned with a golden effigy of her attackers. The Fervor had been reduced to flotsam and jetsam, once the mightiest vessel the Confederacy had hoped to set upon the waters.
From the battlements of Sentinel Point Watch-Captain Steiner witnessed the exchange. It had been at best a five minute ordeal, and one of their largest battleships lay in ruin while the rest of the fleet hurried to blockade the fortress from the invaders surging forward. He only hoped together they could accomplish what once vessel alone could not. If they could stall them for another hour or so, the Confederacy would outnumber them two-to-one, and that’s not even counting if the Republic vessels don’t join the fight to repel the pirates. Just to be safe though, Steiner turned to the men scrambling beneath him and ordered, “Prepare the ballistae for defense, they may break through our lines. I want half the garrison assembled in the courtyard to repel any troops that may land in the battle. Signal to the encircling ships that we’re preparing for siege.”
The previous chaos of the fortress returned to some semblance of order at the Watch-Captain’s direction, just in time for the first of the rallying fleet’s ships to come under barrage from the attackers. They were much closer now, and the sharp cracks Steiner had heard earlier were joined by low booms. He occasionally heard an object whistle through the air above him, yet he never saw anything. The momentum of the attackers had stalled, but he noted not a single vessel had yet to be sunk. Like a knight atop a horse, the attacking fleet pierced through the gathered ships, smashing apart the broken hulls that refused to yield to the devastating barrage they let loose as they drew ever closer to the island fortress. Around him, the Watch-Captain heard the ballistae of the fortress spring to life as the invaders crossed the buoys marking their effective range. He witnessed the same flashes of light from earlier from multiple vessels as the bolts were rendered useless, but he saw as well some imbedding into the light hulls. He knew it wouldn’t be lethal damage, but perhaps the fortress could create some openings for their defense fleet.
The ships were now a stone’s throw from the fortress, dangerously close to the shallows yet far from the docks on the North-Western face of the fortress. The lead three let loose another of their horrific volleys into the fortress wall that faced the continent of Torgar. Expecting perhaps a loose brick or two to be dislodged from so few projectiles from such relatively small ships, Steiner all but tripped over his helmet he had forgotten on the ground. The wall had been as effortlessly shredded as the Fervor had been. The men facing the Western gate were struck in the left flank by the hail of debris and piercing shots. Steiner recovered from the ground, strapped his helmet’s chin strap on, drew his slender blade, and joined his men as swiftly as possible.
“Breach on the South-Eastern wall! Breach!” he yelled above the crashing of stonework and groans of pain from the soldiers struck by the attack. “Prepare to repel invaders!” The soldiers that recovered the fastest circled around Steiner, filling the void where the wall had once stood. What had once been a beach had been filled with masonry and fortifications, resulting in a tide that at its lowest barely kissed the walls. From this vantage, they could see the landing craft drop from the vessels and row steadily towards them. What few defenders remained near that wall segment fired arrows down onto the approaching craft, but the dull thud of heavy shields absorbing blows told Steiner all he needed to hear. Sentinel Points fate would be decided here rather than by the might of the Confederacy fleet. He had at least fifty men assembled down here with him left standing, and the enemy couldn’t have much more than that. Even numbers meant the advantage would go to his well trained soldiers over the pirated, no matter how prepared they had been to defend against missile attacks.
The landing craft washed ashore with power, digging their angled prows deep into the shore and scattered ruins of the wall. The shields burst open to reveal orange-skinned Hobgoblins in heavy armor, thundering out of their vessels into defense formations. From within the lead vessel, an unarmed warrior strode forward, a cape billowing behind him and a small winged beast perched on his shoulder. Behind him, two robed figures emerged from the shield wall as well, making a series of swift gestures before loosing bolts of energy into the archers on the wall that had their bows ready to fire. The sound of their bodies splashing into the sea accentuated his heavy footsteps forward. Steiner readied himself, blade pointed forward, the soldiers around him ready to spring forward at any moment.
“Peace, warriors,” the caped Hobgoblin said in a soothing yet firm voice, “we do need to spill any more blood this day.” He smiled and swept his arms wide in a welcoming gesture, showing no weapons other than the sword firmly in his scabbard. The tall stature and tusk-laced grin betrayed his species, but Steiner felt something oddly familiar and comforting about the man’s presence.
Steiner looked to the men beside him, who returned the look. Slowly, they lowered their weapons, discarding them.
The caped Hobgoblin chuckled cheerfully. “Excellent. I promise you, no further harm will come to you this day. Please signal to your fleet that you have surrendered, and that I wish to speak to your leaders.”
Steiner simply nodded, and a runner went to convey the message.
“Now then… Captain, I presume?” The Hobgoblin waited for the man to nod in reply before continuing, “take me to the keep then, so that I may properly receive my guests.”
Rampant Swan 