Ocean Of Fear (Book 6) Read Free

king’s name he demanded to be let in and given food and water. The Preacher refused and that’s when the Black Priest stepped forward at a command from the pirate leader.
    Perhaps stepped was the wrong word. He glided, as if his feet did not quite touch the ground. His robes were black. The folds of his sleeves hid his hands. A cowl obscured his face. He spread his arms, emitted eerie sounds in a language that did not sound human. Demons came, like mist taking solid form out of the cold night air. They passed over the walls in a mass of swirling tentacles and terrifying features that the survivors could not quite recall.
    The gate buckled at the Black Priest’s touch. The pirates entered Wood’s Edge and worked their will on villagers too terrified to resist. Lorenzo and his mother had somehow found themselves at the edge of the wood, leading the children under the shadow of the trees. They had cowered there, listening to the screams and howls of terror until they stopped and the pirates departed. They emerged to see if they could find any survivors and hid again when the three Siderean ships showed up this morning.
    “When did the pirates go?” Kormak asked.
    “They camped in the village overnight and they left with the dawn,” said the boy. “I crept along to Headland Point and watched them set out from the woods there. They took the prisoners with them.”
    “Prisoners?” Kormak asked.
    “Some of the older people. The Preacher.”
    “That makes no sense,” said Zamara. “Slavers take men in their prime and young women. That’s not what happened here.”
    “I know who they took,” the boy said. “I saw them go.”
    “Which way?” Zamara asked. “Out to sea—towards the Sunset Islands?” It was a way of asking whether they had sailed west.
    The boy shook his head. “They went upriver.”
    The captain looked at him open-mouthed. “Upriver. Are you sure?”
    “Yes—they had oars out and they went up against the current. It was not what I would have expected either.”
    The captain shook his head. “That can’t be right.”
    The woman said, “It is right. We watched them carefully. You would too, if your life depended on it.”  
    “Why would they do that?” Frater Jonas asked.
    “You would need to ask them,” Lorenzo said. “I just know that’s the way they went.”
    “What’s up river?” Kormak asked.
    “Elves,” said the boy. “And a lot of them. We used to see them watching us from the edge of the forest.”
    “They ever attack you?”
    “Why should they? We never attacked them and we always respected the woods. The Preacher made us.”
    “Then we’ve caught him,” said Jonas. “All we need to do is wait here and we’ll catch him when he comes back downriver.”
    “If he comes back downriver,” Kormak said.
    “He has to,” said Zamara.
    “We can’t be certain of that. There are two more estuaries within a score of leagues from here. Your own charts show that. How do we know that those rivers are not connected? They might be able to take another route back.”
    “We could split the fleet and cover the river mouths,” said Frater Jonas.
    The captain shook his head. “It would surrender our main advantage. We have three ships to his one.”
    “We could follow him upriver,” said Kormak. He watched the captain make some calculations in his head.
    “The Marlin and the Sea Dragon are ocean-going cogs converted for war. They draw too deep to go far upriver. Only the Ocean’s Blade could follow under oar.”
    “And we would surrender our advantage,” said Frater Jonas.
    “Not necessarily,” said Zamara. “We could pack the ship with marines. We’d have a numerical advantage in fighting men.”
    “You’d need to carry supplies as well.”
    “We have the supplies, Frater, and we could put the men on half-rations.”
    “Are you seriously considering following this pirate upriver?”
    The captain nodded. “There’s a chance we may overhaul him and take him by