Chapter 17
"Thank you again, for everything, Your Excellency," Henrietta said, as Germanian servants loaded the last of the supplies and gifts Prince Arduin had given to her onto the ships behind them. "I will never forget your hospitality."
"You are very welcome, Your Highness," Prince Arduin smiled, showing off his pearly white teeth one final time. "I will pray for your safe travel." He bowed, then turned to Lady Joanna who stood beside Henrietta and leaned up to give her a brief kiss on the lips. "Be well, love."
"I shall," Lady Joanna said, smiling back at him once they parted. Then she and Henrietta joined the others and boarded the ships.
Prince Arduin had loaned them two large ships-of-the-line – the Augustus and the former flagship of the Anhaltian fleet, the Burning Woman – along with a dozen smaller frigates. The ships were all flat-bottomed, allowing them to easily land and ascend from open ground; and as the windstones were burned deep in the bowels of every ship, they began to rise into the air. Soon they were flying above the clouds and making good time. Henrietta leaned over the side of the Burning Woman and gazed out at the sprawling white sea, while a pair of knights stood dutifully behind her. Though the air was bitingly cold this far up in the sky, the sun at her back felt pleasantly warm.
It's beautiful, Henrietta thought. When Prince Wales looks out past the skycoast of Albion, is this what he sees?
Henrietta sighed. She should not be doing this to herself. But the closer she drew to Vindobona, the more she found herself thinking about Prince Wales. It was especially bad now that she had no one to talk to. Mazarin had taken ill from the rocking motion of the ship when it had begun its ascent, and Lady Joanna was busy discussing the itinerary with the captain.
Henrietta sighed again, and went below deck, back to her cabin. Her knights took up position outside her door. She lit an oil lamp on the table and found a scroll next to it. When she unfurled it, she couldn't help but chuckle at what she saw. It was a detailed report of what would be required of her for the engagement ceremony, the key points of the speech she would have to give, the dress she was to wear, and the finalized terms of the alliance – all of it personally organized by Mazarin, it seemed. Even while airsick, he was doing his best to ensure that she was absolutely prepared for what was to come.
Seeing as she had nothing else to do, and hoping that it might take her mind off of Prince Wales for a time, Henrietta laid on her side on the bed and began reading through the scroll's contents, though only halfheartedly. It was dry stuff, and she could not focus. At times she found her eyes moving down the parchment without actually absorbing any of the words, forcing her to go back and read it again.
An hour passed before Henrietta at last gave up and set the scroll aside on the nearby nightstand. She flopped heavily on her back and splayed her limbs out, taking up the whole of the mattress. She stayed like that for a minute, before lazily rolling over to the edge of the bed and reaching down with a hand to trace random patterns on the floorboards with her fingers.
For days the threat of assassins had been an enormous burden on her mind, but this high up in the air it would be difficult for any assassin to reach her. More, Prince Arduin had personally picked his most trustworthy soldiers and sailors to escort her to the capital. Even if one among them – or even if all of them – turned out to be a traitor, she was guarded constantly by her knights, and on this ship they outnumbered the Germanians at least two-to-one. She was as safe now as she would ever be in this country.
However, rather than liberating her from that burden, all it did was to replace it with something else. No longer preoccupied by the threat to her life, Henrietta's thoughts now wandered constantly between Prince Wales and Albion, Emperor Albrecht and their wedding, and her familiar, Alex Mercer.
Alex most of all.
She knew that her familiar was incredibly strong and fast, but she was still boggled by the idea that he could somehow make a journey of weeks in a single night. It was an impossible feat, accomplished only thanks to an impossible pace. Why, to make that trip one would need to travel nearly a hundred leagues an hour without ever stopping for a break.
But more than that, she thought about the warning Alex gave to Ingemar. His loyalty and devotion was touching, and Henrietta couldn't help but smile, even as she wished he had instead chosen to remain by her side and protect her from there instead. At the same time, however, his words were disturbing.
One of the things that Henrietta was so fond of in Alex was his irreverence to others' status. No matter who he talked to, he was always himself. At times that made life difficult for her, but it was such a breath of fresh air that she did not mind. But openly threatening royalty, even if that threat was pointed only at her enemies, was another matter entirely.
For one thing, it reminded Henrietta too much of Reconquista's anti-royalist sentiments. But more importantly, if word of this threat somehow reached Emperor Albrecht's ears, there could be trouble.
He said that the Princess Henrietta is now under his protection, and that he will kill anyone who tries to hurt her, even if that person is a king or an emperor. Yet in all of Halkeginia, there was only one man who claimed the title of emperor. By wording his threat in such a way, whether intentionally or not, her familiar had directly challenged her future husband. The potential crisis that involved was enough to make Henrietta turn around and scream into her pillow.
Henrietta brought these concerns up with Lady Joanna when they joined for lunch in the captain's cabin later that day. (Mazarin had recovered, but still felt slightly queasy and had politely chosen to abstain from eating.)
"It is most certainly a worry," Lady Joanna said after listening to the princess. "But I believe there is also a fair chance that nothing will come of it."
"What makes you say that, my lady?" Henrietta asked.
"It seems to me that Ingemar was spared only because he was a pawn in someone else's game," Lady Joanna explained. "I cannot imagine that your familiar will grant the same mercy to those responsible for the attempt on your life, nor do I believe that he will deliberately slow down long enough to spread the warning throughout the countryside. And with Ingemar currently imprisoned in my family's dungeons, there ought to be very few, if any, who will hear his warning."
"I hope that is true," Henrietta said, but even then unease crept into her heart, and it was not assuaged when she went to seek Mazarin's advice shortly thereafter.
"It is always wisest to prepare for the worst and hope for the best," Mazarin said. "Emperor Albrecht is a mercurial man. If he should hear of this threat, he may decide to annul your engagement and leave Tristain to fend for itself."
"Or he demands Alex's execution in recompense," Henrietta said softly.
Mazarin said nothing, simply nodding, and Henrietta knew which option it was that he would prefer.
That night, as Henrietta laid in bed trying to force herself to sleep, she could not shake off these worries that continued to plague her. And then, as their convoy approached the easternmost border of the province, the tolling bells and cannon fire shattered the silence of the night.
Lady Joanna, Mazarin, and Sir Marrok were already on the upper deck when Henrietta arrived, wrapped in a shawl and still in her nightwear, with grim expressions on their faces. They were facing south, over the ship's starboard side, while soldiers and knights and sailors all scrambled around them to prepare the cannons.
"What's happening?" Henrietta said. "What's going on?"
"Pirates, Your Highness," Lady Joanna said through clenched teeth.
"Pirates?" Henrietta said incredulously. "Here?"
"It's the mountain bandits," Lady Joanna said. "I should have realized they would not have gathered in such numbers without reason. Cowards and fools? No, I am the only fool here. One amongst them must have discovered a vein of windstones in the mountains and gathered men to mine it, all for this."
"You couldn't have known," Mazarin said.
"But I could have," Lady Joanna spat out. "It's all so obvious now. If I had paid greater attention to the reports of what they had stolen in their raids, I would have seen the pattern. I could have predicted that they were gathering all the supplies necessary to construct their own ships."
A sailor handed Henrietta a telescope, which she brought to her eye and pointed at the incoming fleet. Ten... twenty... thirty-five...
Henrietta blanched.
There were fifty ships coming after them.
Most of the pirates' ships were actually little more than rafts, barely large enough to fit ten or fifteen men at a time, but some of them were, in size at least, equal to that of a small clipper. And there were so many of them; they outnumbered the royal convoy at least three-to-one.
"Will we be able to outrun them?" she asked.
"Unlikely," Lady Joanna said. "Their ships are crude, but they're not carrying as much weight as we are, so they will be that much faster. We must prepare to engage." She turned to the captain. "Give out the orders."
The captain saluted, then turned to the crew. "Turn broadside! Beat the drums! I want everyone in position!"
The Augustus and the Burning Woman began turning with what felt like tortuous slowness, while every other ship rose still higher to take position above them in a line formation.
Due to the way that modern ships were designed, cannons could be fired in every direction of the ship, save for above. This meant that seizing the high ground, so to speak, was paramount in ship-to-ship combat, even more so than in regular land based battles. A much smaller and weaker ship could easily destroy the most powerful battleships in the world simply by holding position above them. And because larger ships required proportionately more windstones just to remain afloat, it was not an uncommon occurrence either.
Thus, standard tactics dictated that the smaller warships and mounted aerial knights and soldiers engage in combat first. Their role was to prevent the enemy from taking the higher position and to drive them into the larger battleships' line of fire.
However, the pirates' ships were so small and light that they could rise higher than the maximum height of even the lightest of the convoy's ships, and they lacked mounted soldiers to intercept. Fortunately, their lack of cannons meant that they were unable to rain destruction upon the Germanian fleet. But what they lacked in heavy armaments, they more than made up for in sheer recklessness.
With little more than a sword or pistol in one hand and a windstone in the other, the pirates jumped off the edge of their ships and began free falling through the air, howling like wild animals. Using the pommel or grip of their weapon, they cracked the windstones open, releasing the power stored inside.
It was a terrifying display. No sane man would dare attempt such a thing, except in the most desperate of circumstances. There was almost no margin for error in what they were doing. Indeed, many were killed because they did not break their windstone hard enough to properly release its energy, and their bodies were dashed on the decks of the ships. Others had smashed their windstones too hard, and released all of its power in a single burst, thereby actually accelerating their descent, or else leaving nothing behind to check their fall. Even those who succeeded were still shot down by the score. But there were so many of them that they could afford to take even these losses.
One of Henrietta's knights cast a spell, creating a layer of water above them. When blood started to fall like rain, the water caught it so that they remained unblemished. Soon it was swirling with crimson color, and the only sound that could be heard from above was that of dying men, clashing swords, gunfire, and the pitter-patter of crimson rain
"Sir Marrok," Henrietta said. "How many wind mages do we have?"
"About a hundred, Your Highness."
"Gather them. I want them to fly up and reinforce our allies."
"As you command," Sir Marrok said, bowing briefly before leaving to do as he was told. At the same time, Lady Joanna also made to excuse herself.
"Please pardon me, Your Highness," she said. "I ought to leave to assist my men as well."
"You must not!" Henrietta cried. "If something should happen to you, how will I face your husband and daughter?"
"You need not worry, I assure you," Lady Joanna said, smiling thinly as she slid her wand out from a hidden pocket in her voluminous sleeves. "Though I may not look like it, I am quite the capable battlemage, you see. More, those are my men they are attacking and it is my fault that they have been ambushed. I do not believe I can suppress my rage for much longer if I were to remain here."
"If I cannot stop you, then I wish you luck." Henrietta bit her lips. "May the Founder watch over you."
Lady Joanna bowed, then cast a levitation spell on herself. The winds wrapped around her and lifted her into the air, and she was soon followed by a hundred Tristanian knights, but by then the pirates had descended in force and had begun their slaughter of the Germanian troops.
The arrival of the mages did much in equalizing the fight, but it did not swing it in their favor. To begin, they were outnumbered; but, too, there were other factors that worked against them. The still leaking power of the windstones that the pirates held disrupted all other forms of wind magic within a certain radius; this high up in the sky, the air was thin, weakening the effects of fire magic; and there was no earth for earth spells to be cast. It was those who were also of the water element that found the most success in culling the pirates' number, but they were too few to make a difference.
Using the telescope that the sailor had loaned her earlier, Henrietta tried to find Lady Joanna amongst the chaos of battle. She found her on board a ship called the Witness, moving almost as though she was dancing in the ballroom, turning and spinning this way and that as she battled entire groups of pirates all at once on her own. Almost, that is, save for that undeniable edge of viciousness that belied her normally regal mien. It gave Henrietta the impression of a hungry lioness in a dress.
In one hand, Lady Joanna wielded her wand, attacking with gouts of fire and defending with wind. In the other, she held a sword, which she had taken from one of the pirates she killed. She used both almost effortlessly, simultaneously striking down the pirates both near and far. All the while she shouted out orders and rallying cries, serving as the rock upon which the rest of the Germanians regrouped.
Seeing this, Henrietta allowed herself to breathe a sigh of relief. Lady Joanna certainly had not lied. She was easily as skilled as any Tristanian knight – an impressive feat considering how underdeveloped magical education tended to be in Germania.
On another ship, Sir Marrok was pushing back the pirates as well. He was a rarity amongst mages, being one of the few with the ability to work all four elements, and amongst knights as well for his strength. He hammered the pirates with spells, overcoming the handicap of the high atmosphere and the windstones' protection through brute force alone. He fought like a wild man, completely unlike the other mage-knights who all fought with the strict discipline typical of their order.
Henrietta lowered the telescope to get a better view of the battle as a whole.
The advantage was finally turning their way, but on many of the smaller ships, which housed the fewest men, the pirates had successfully overrun the defense. Henrietta cried out in futile warning when she saw one of these hijacked ships veer sharply into the line. They rammed into the Witness, and fresh reinforcements were now pushing Lady Joanna and her forces back into a corner.
Seeing this, however, Sir Marrok barked out a few orders and led ten knights with him to fly towards the Witness. They attacked the pirates from the flank and rear, allowing Lady Joanna to press forward and catch the pirates in between them.
By then the pirates could see that they were outmatched. Though they had the numbers, they lacked the discipline and equipment necessary to overcome their target. And with Germanian muskets backing Tristanian sword-wands, they were soon driven out.
Two hours after the ambush, the battle ended.