Elfborn: The Quest

Chapter 13: Sighting Arafel

Garrett smiled as he leaned back and let the warm sun wash across his face. It was yet another bright and sunny day in the southern Meridian, with a sky so blue, it looked like living sapphire, calm seas all around the fleet.

The Quest fleet was now nearly a week outbound from Tanais, boring steadily southward with the prevailing northeasterly winds filling their sails from sunup to sundown. And while the first three days had been storm-filled, the winter raging off the coasts of Evindel to lash the Meridian into a frenzy, the harsh storms had subsided once they grew close to the shores of Arafel. The deserts produced a different type of climate all together than the winter monsoons that currently soaked the southern coasts of the northern continent.

Winter in northern Arafel only brought occasional rain, producing more siroccos and zephyrs and other desert winds instead. Unfortunately those winds also produced another, more dangerous phenomenon unique to the desert sands of northern Arafel: sand storms. The clouds of wind-driven sand, fine as silt yet as harsh and abrasive as ragged steel, would descend without warning onto anything in their path. The sandstorms buried whole caravans in a matter of minutes or turned the air into lung-clogging fog, which both blinded and stole one's wind away, making movement outside virtually impossible.

While the native peoples of the deserts, the Taureg and the Beduin were used to such storms, the knights and soldiers of Evindel were not. It would be a challenge to survive the unpredictable weather. If they reached the beaches alive, of course. The military might of the Manadim was still pretty much a mystery. Interrogations both at the crossroads and in Tanais itself had revealed little additional information from what King Frederik and his fellow Quest monarchs already had. For all they knew, they could be waiting for them just offshore in a fogbank, knowing the local weather and all, with a great fleet. The Quest could be over even before it began.

None of this, of course, was on Garrett's mind as he enjoyed a brief respite from the training Lash had insisted they carry on, despite the cramped quarters aboard the ship. While the paladin knights took the week off from their own training, the Hybernian was a constantly moving ball of energy now that he was confined to the Sea Falcon's decks. Knowing battle was just around the corner, Lash had kept himself and Garrett busy with a series of strength training exercises, meant to keep their muscles toned and strong.

Garrett smiled wryly at that thought. The man would've swum back to the broad-beamed cargo ship carrying the horses, if he thought he could get Deoban exercised in the even more tightly cramped spaces there. Still, the energy had served them both well as Garrett felt fit, perhaps in the best shape of his young life. 'Bring on the Manadim!' he silently challenged with a grin. 'I'll take them all on myself!'

Chuckling softly at his own boldness, he leaned forward against the railing that ran along the Falcon's foredeck, a slightly raised section useful for small catapults and archers to be placed in the event of a sea battle. The catapults would hurl burning pitch or other flammables in an attempt to set the enemy ship on fire, while the archers cut down the enemy sailors who tried to put the fires out. The Falcon's bow was also reinforced with metal strapping, making it possible to use as a battering ram in close combat.

In all, she was a formidable warship, a powerful weapon in the hands of the right captain. Garrett sighed, his smile fading. He just hoped they didn't have such vessels in the enemy fleet, or their landing was going to be a great deal more difficult.

Straightening up, Garrett tugged his thick practice tunic straight. It was a simple garment, meant to give him some protection from their practice weapons while absorbing sweat and blood from any injury. As were the light breeches he was wearing, his feet bare. They had learned during the last day of the storms, as the weather grew warmer, if not damper that bare feet afforded a better grip on the slick decks while topside, than any pair of boots could do. Garrett had seen many of the sailors doff their boots as soon as they had left Tanais, slipping something onto their feet only in the coldest of weather.