Leonidas woke up to find that Cressida was by him.

"How is my dad?" Cressida said with a tear rolling her cheek.

"He's fine Cressida." Leonidas said with his hand on her shoulder. "How long have been out?"

"30 minutes exactly" Cressida said. "I had to give the opening speech."

"I'm leaving in a week to go to an island that has been marooned for a good 900 years." Leonidas said.
Cressida sat up. In the last year Icemark had been a war-free zone where politics was the main matter. In Cressida's 1st month on the throne she ended sea wide raids by pirates and re-made a relationship between Polypontus and its former colonies, and ended the dispute between Grinelda Blood-Tooth of the Upkik Wolves and the soldiers of the Polypontus. But it still didn't feel as rewarding as winning a war like her mother did, three times. She knew where this adventure was going and decided it was time to take pre-cautions.

The rest of the night was filled with laughter and eating. As the night closed Thirrin confronted Leonidas.

"I saw what happened." Thirrin said with tears rolling down her eyes. "How is Oskan, and will he be coming back."

Leonidas saw the sheer pain and sadness in Thirrin's eyes. Leonidas didn't want to bring up Oskan. Thirrin had been crushed for over a year now. Tharaman and Grishmak had been trying to get her to cheer up but simply hadn't worked. Titus had been the only one who could get a decent laugh from Thirrin.
"Well, no actually, but when he placed the coordinates to my next destination in my head, I saw a young warlock in Oskan's cave. I have a feeling that they'll be important to this upcoming fiasco."
"Then I'll go there tomorrow."

_____________________________________________________________________________________

After a week Leonidas was ready to leave. Leonidas insisted that Cressida stay which was truly an achievement worth recognizing. Tharaman, Grishmak, Sharley and Mekhmet were going with Leonidas as well as 80 Polypontus-Icemark soldiers 10 snow leopards, and 15 Wolf-Folk.

The first ship on the right was called the Redrought filled with Icemark veterans. The left ship was called The Alliance filled with soldiers of all sorts. The center ship was called the Kings Row, a ship filled with the kings and princesand personalfriends

The journey had started without a hitch. The weather was perfect, the waves were dead and the food was prepared to Grishmak's and Tharaman's likings. Sharley, Mekhmet, and Leonidas had been chatting about random stuff and playing cards.
As the trip got farther the bad omens started to kick in. For three days straight it rained, the waves started crash against the ships, and 2 soldiers had become sick.

At last the rain had stopped and the waves had stopped crashing.

"It feels good to come up to breathe the fresh air without getting soaked." Tharaman said in his usual booming voice.

"Agreed, let's eat in this beautiful weather." Grishmak said grinning.
As a ship chamberlain hurried downstairs to make the preparations a loud growling sound began to surface.
"Tharaman please tell me that was your stomach." Leonidas said nervously.
"Actually it is, but my stomach isn't that loud." Tharaman said.

On cue a large serpent shot of the water crushing The Alliance. Immediately Leonidas ran down to his cabin, as the soldiers went into action. The water serpent roared with ferocity causing creatures resembling hounds with gills and three sets of teeth. Sharley and Mekhmet were quickly attacked by the sea hounds. Sharley pulled out his scimitar slashing at the hound's throat but 2 other hounds dashed at him. Tharaman and Grishmak latched to the water serpent's neck clawing at the tough skin.

Leonidas came back up with his lucky gold encased musket he had used to capture the wealthiest city of the Southern Farthings. He fired twice at the large serpent and watched as Tharaman and Grishmak jumped off as it fell. But the hounds kept coming. 2 snow leopards had already been wrestled off the ship and the Polypontus-Icemark soldiers were being pinned down. Only the Wolf-Folk seemed to be putting a dent in the hound numbers.

Sharley and Mekhmet were bombarded by the aggressive hounds. Mekhmet plunged his scimitar into the skull of one the hounds as another ripped off a piece of his shirt. Sharley was on the edge of the ship. His bad leg had gotten in the way causing him to have to retreat. In desperation, Leonidas let out another round on the viscous hounds and used his musket as a bat to make it downstairs. He came back up with a slab of meat. Instantly the chaos of battle stopped as the hounds paid attention only to the slab of meet.

"Don't do it lad, we could fight." Grishmak shouted.

But Leonidas had already tossed the slab of meat overboard and watched the hounds jump over board after the meat.

Sighs of relief were heard over in the remaining ships. Everyone but Grishmak and Tharaman were relieved. Leonidas looked to his left to find the ship destroyed and soldiers, snow leopards, and Wolf-Folk swimming back to the ships.

___________________________________________________________________________________

After a few hours of recovering from the attack, Leonidas was ready for the full report. Leonidas' friend Ragmon went down to the cabin to give the report.

"Ragmon, please sit down." Leonidas said pointing to a chair on the other side of the room. "Give me the all the details."
"Well for one 8 soldiers are missing from the marooned Alliance. 4 soldiers are wounded and 1 soldier is dead."

Leonidas took in the information. The journey had been hard and he'd longed for the comforts of home. But Oskan's trance convinced him that he needed to go to the island.

"Get me Prince Charlemagne and Prince Mekhmet." Leonidas said. Immediately Ragmon ran up the steps to fetch Sharley and Mekhmet.

The two came up with their wounds patched up.

"Sharley, Mekhmet how severe are your wounds." Leonidas said.
"Not bad at all just scratches and bruises." Sharley said.
"Yeah we should be able to make to island without a problem." Mekhmet said.
"See that's you two will be leading a search party and when you two are done report back to Cressida."

The disappointments in their eyes were obvious.
"You have to be kidding Leo!" Mekhmet said.
"Yeah we didn't just risk our lives to not even set foot on the island!" Sharley said.
"You need to." Leonidas said throwing his hands up in the air."We can't have the wounded slowing us down on an island with inhabitants we don't even know about. And you know I'm right!"
"All right we'll go." Sharley said.
"Speak for yourself I'm in this to the end." Mekhmet said.
"Come on Mekhmet, don't you want to see Shelia again?" Sharley asked with a sly grin on his face.
"On second thought I'll come to." Mekhmet said quickly.

After Sharley and Mekhmet left, Leonidas went fishing. After a well cooked dinner Leonidas went up on deck. To his astonishment he saw the island. The giant trees stood majestically in the sunset.

"Alright Oskan, I'm here." Leonidas thought to himself.