The Bleeding Tide

Massively popular within the local districts are a handful of "high class" establishments where the mutterings of an invasion sharpen by the hour, patrons eventually taking the stumble of shame as they're kicked out by the staff and put to work on the war effort. Word drifts across the planks like smoke, heavy enough to choke. A mercenary fleet from New Ashen, some say, tired of Delair’s plundering reach. Others swear it is no kingdom’s banner, but something darker, older, a foe that no man nor ship can truly stand against. In truth, I cannot yet discern which tale is the better lie.

What I do know is this:

In a place like Delair, captains are monarchs, tyrants, gods aboard their ships, yet here they are forced to breathe the same wet air and brush shoulders with rivals at dockside. No battle has yet been fought, but the storms seem to taste it, rolling heavier, pressing the island flat with their weight. The weather surrounding this island has a tendency to violently lash and flood the surrounding stones, eroding away constantly at the foundation of this hideaway, yet more and more material seems to pop up, keeping it all jerry rigged in place.

I saw Captain Aros this morning his beard matted with rain and mud, laughing as he inspected the rigging of his sloop. The laugh was not joy, it was defiance or delirium, I could not tell. The clear lacking of crew and weaponry seeming to finally break the poor Aros as I saw him push off the docks to likely never return. A few paces away, the Red Vulture herself argued with a smith over the faulty fuses of a half-rotted cannon. Her voice cut through the storm like a cutlass. None who heard it would doubt she would put shot into any ship, be it enemy or so-called ally, if it came too near her vessel.

The men, meanwhile, fill the hours with superstition. I counted three different shrines raised along the boardwalk, hearty lashings of rope, trinkets nailed into driftwood, bottles smashed in offering. Gods of sea and storm are begged for favor, though the pirates give no favor in return. I cannot help but wonder if they know, deep down, that gods have long since abandoned Delair.

And yet, despite their noise, their brawls, their scrambling for supplies, there is a rhythm to it. The island itself seems to lean forward, ready to leap. If an invasion does come, it will not find these brigands cowering. No, it will find them like a pack of starving hounds, teeth bared, eager to bleed the tide.

As for me, the Ironwood Mouse, I must remain sharper still. A storm hides many things: whispers of betrayal, sudden shifts of loyalty, blades unsheathed when the thunder is loudest. If I can survive unseen, perhaps the next chapter I pen will not only capture their preparations, but their descent into either legend or ruin.