Secrets of the Sea

Prologue

The King of Amaria, rubbing his tired eyes, sighed as he dropped all of the reports onto his desk. He had been reviewing them all night, but still had no idea how the pirates managed to keep coming back….

            “Your Majesty,” said the Royal Spymaster. “I don’t think we can figure out what is going on through hundreds of reports. We have to put people out there!”

            “What people?” the King asked. “All of our spies are scattered throughout Amaria and Dissira.”

            The two men sat at the king’s desk, which was stalked with various reports from survivors of the recent pirate raids. Pirate raids weren’t something Amaria wasn’t used to; their ports and coastal villages have always been subject to the raids, what with all of the trade they did with other countries. However, the navy was always able to keep the pirates at bay. Until now.

            “And our navy doesn’t seem to be preventing them. Several ships have just seemed to disappear off the coast. Then they reappear again attacking some village! Is our navy turning against us?” the King said.

            “No, it’s pirates,” the Royal Spymaster, Neil Grey, said. “They capture our ships and use them, with all of our artillery, against us.”

            “But how? How do they always win? How do they never tire?” the king exclaimed. The spymaster hesitated before sharing his idea, knowing that King Charles-Xander the second wouldn’t like it. Amaria already had a formidable army, cavalry, and navy, and most of its funds were put into them. And he knew the king didn’t like spying and blackmailing people; however, he still understood that sometimes it was necessary.

            “Maybe,” he started, “we could start a secret army. And it doesn’t have to be a big one – just one that will be big enough to sabotage the pirates’ efforts while we find the best way to get rid of the damned pirates.”

            The king hesitated. “Continue.”

            Neil Grey kept going, drawing out an outline of the plan he had. A large fire crackling in the stone fireplace that took up most of the wall kept the room brightly lighted throughout the night as the king and his spymaster added more and more details to the original plan. The spymaster took a piece of parchment and started scribbling more ideas, in code, of course, down so that he could put everything together. He never wrote any other way these days; everything they were doing had to be kept secret.

            “And what kind of people would we target?” the king asked, looking over what they had already come up with again.

            “Veterans? Experienced soldiers?” Neil suggested.

            King Charles-Xander thought on this for a bit, then shook his head. “No, people would notice if we started putting them back into the field. How about the younger generation? And they don’t necessarily have to be men; they could be young women, too.”

            “But they won’t know anything!”

            “We can train them! Plus, the young people these days are always out looking for money. We’ll give them high wages, promise them comfort when they are done fighting for their country, and threaten to hurt them and everyone else they know if they speak a word of it to anyone. Or maybe it would be better to recruit people who don’t have families they care about, since the chance for most of them returning would be pretty slim. What think you?” the king asked his spymaster.

            From behind a tapestry, and through a thin wall, a young man listened quietly, his horror and anger for the Amarian king growing. He then smiled with malice, and his dark brown eyes lit up. This was the kind of thing he was waiting to hear. And he knew he would be paid generously for this information.

***

            “What? That’s it??? I was promised that I would get five times more than this at the end of the week! You can’t really expect me to be okay with only this after all of my work!” Peter cried, throwing the thin coins onto the blacksmith’s counter. “We had a deal. You said –”

            “I changed my mind,” the store keeper said. He liked the boy, especially because he worked so hard. And he wanted to keep him as long as he could. So, Mr. Radwick figured, the less he paid Peter, the longer Peter would have to work for him, and the more work would get done. “But you’ll still be gettin’ the same amount in the end of the year.”

            “But I don’t want to work here for a whole year. I was only going to be here for six months!”

            “Just bring your fiancée here, then! If you want to marry her so bad, bring her here, and continue working here. Then everyone will be happy.”

            “No. She won’t be happy. Laria loves the coast, and I don’t want to take that away from her,” Peter said. Then, “I liked working for you, but unless you can give me the agreed amount, I can’t continue.”

            Mr. Radwick hesitated. He didn’t know Peter that well, but wanted to keep him. Even so, he could always find someone else.

            “I will not do that.” Mr. Radwick was confidant Peter was just bluffing. After all, the wages were all pretty much the same at all the blacksmith shops in the King’s City. He wouldn’t get any better anywhere else, despite his skill in working the metal.

            Peter nodded. “Very well. Good day, Mr. Radwick.” And he left.

            Once outside Peter went to the nearest alley and kicked the wall furiously. All he needed was a well-paying job for six months. All he wanted was to go back home to Laria. All he wanted to do was marry her and make her happy.

            He could marry her now, but then they would both have to work hard in order to get their own apartment, and he didn’t want her to have to work. He was a man; he should be providing for her, and not the other way around.

            For a moment Peter let him close his eyes and imagine her touch, her scent, her light, soft voice.

            “What’s wrong?” A voice asked.

            Peter jumped and spun around, his fists balled up in front of him, ready to fight.

            “Who are you?” he asked.

            “A friend,” the voice said.

            “Come where I can see you,” Peter said. The person stepped forward and Peter saw that he was a young man, not much older than Peter himself. He had dark skin, unlike the pale people native to Amaria, and short black hair. The two young men appraised each other; they were both tall and strong. If they got into a fight, though, the dark young man would no doubt win – his muscles stood out prominently from his light shirt, and the way he held himself was threatening but relaxed, as if saying that he wasn’t there to hurt Peter, but if Peter threatened him, he wouldn’t hesitate to beat him to a pulp. And Peter had no doubt that he could.

            “What do you want?” Peter said.

            “I want to know what you want,” the young man said. His bright dark eyes stared into Peter’s light blue ones, as if looking into his soul.

            Peter laughed coldly. “I want money. I want to go home and marry my fiancée by the end of six months. Why? What’s it to you?”

            The young man smiled slyly. “I think I know how you can get back to her in one month.”

            Peter’s heart rose. “How?”

            “Follow me.”