The Barons' War
Copyright© 2025 by Lumpy
Chapter 8
The Silent Isles
“How much longer?” William asked, a question that seemed to be on his lips every time he spoke.
It had been more than a month since they were stranded, and the progress on the boat had been very slow. There had been progress. He could see the front of the ship slowly starting to reform itself, and the men worked from sunup to sundown, with everyone focused on a single goal.
But William needed to get back to Sidor, and every day they spent here was a day the war progressed without him.
Foskett straightened, wiping sweat from his brow despite the cool morning air. “Hard to say, Your Highness,” Foskett said, giving the same answer as always. “As I said yesterday, this takes...”
“Time,” William said, finishing his sentence. “Yes, I know, but time is not a luxury we have. The more we waste, the more of our people die.”
“We waste nothing, my lord. The men work from dawn till dusk. Some through the night as well.”
William bit back a sharp retort. He was pushing them hard, and they were pushing themselves harder. Every man wanted off this cursed island as much as he did, and worked themselves raw to do it, but William felt his impatience rising with every day.
The man spoke the truth, however unwelcome. The crew had indeed worked themselves raw, and the island’s strange noises at night did little for their rest.
“You’re right, of course. Show me what progress we’ve made.”
Foskett led him to where they had built a crude forge using some of the ship’s ballast stones beneath a shelter of scraps of damned sailcloth to keep the occasional falling snow out of it.
A sailor who had an uncle who worked in a smithy was working glowing coals, pushing in new charcoal burned in a pit nearby. He was as close as they could come to a blacksmith.
“It took some time to get this built, since none of us had tried to build a forge before. We’ve started making progress though, and have begun to melt down anything non-essential to create the nails and fastenings we need, which is good, since we just used the last of the spares we brought with us.”
“Swords are not non-essential,” Drummond, who’d been following behind William, said.
“We have more than can be swung,” William replied. “Aside from the men that died in the storm and in the battle, we had extra aboard. They aren’t taking swords from men’s hands.”
“You should talk to the captain, though. We have ... another problem.”
“What?”
“You really should talk to him, my prince.”
William sighed and signaled the carpenter to lead them on to the ship’s captain. They found the man near the bow of the ship, where they’d stacked all the supplies they could get off of the damaged vessel or had rescued from the sea.
The stack was frightfully small.
“I don’t care, do it again,” he said, annoyed.
The two sailors looked equally unhappy, but they nodded and went to do whatever task he’d given them. Tempers were running high and several men had already been disciplined when they’d been unable to contain their frustrations.
“I’m told we have new issues.”
“That we do. We’ve started to look at replacing the sails and the rigging that were damaged or lost. We had some sailcloth in storage for this kind of problem, but between the battle, and the storms, and then the beaching, we lost more than was expected.”
“So we do not have enough sail cloth to be seaworthy again?”
“We do not, my prince. We have less than half the sail cloth we need. If the winds are favorable and we are with them, we would be able to sail, but if we hit weather again, there will be problems and we will not have enough sail to tack against the wind very well, limiting where and how we sail. Which will slow us down a lot once we’re back on the waves.”
“And are there any solutions to this?”
“No good ones, my prince. Actually, there is only one, since we have to have the sails and it’s not like there are sheep here to shave and wool to weave. We can take any clothing the men can spare, double-layer it, sew it tight, and then coat it with the pine resin. It will be weak, especially at the seams, and will tear under high wind, but it should be enough to let us limp somewhere close.”
“How close? Can sails repaired like that get us to Rendalia?”
“No, Your Highness. It will not. These are temporary measures at best. The hull, repaired as it is, without being shimmed and smoothed and haphazard as it’s being attached, will create extra drag, force the sails to work harder, putting extra pressure on them. They will be weak and will rip often, even with the resin. We can sew the rips closed, but each time we do that the makeshift sail will get weaker, becoming more binding than cloth until a gentle breeze will tear it apart. Unless we strip the men naked, we will only have enough to replace small sections once or twice at most, and then we will have sails not able to catch any wind, leaving us adrift. So no. We need to go to the closest port available, and even that will be risky.”
“That is not what I wanted to hear,” William said. “We need this ship to make it to Rendalia.”
“And I need a firm chested woman to warm my bedroll, but we don’t always get what we want. Begging your pardon, Your Highness.”
“The hull will not be much better, my lord,” Foskett said. “We do not have a proper dock to build it. The seams in the hull will be weak and the ship will take on water the entire trip. The only question is, can we keep it to a manageable amount? So I agree, the shorter the time we sail, the better.”
“What do you suggest, then?”
“Our best option is to make for one of the northern Iceland ports. Less than a day’s sail once we clear this island. We could limp to harbor there, secure proper repairs, and continue our journey south.”
“Out of the question,” William said.
“My lord, if we...”
“No,” William said, cutting him off. “The Icelanders have sworn for my father and invaded a duchy, killing their countrymen and taking their land. The moment we dock at any Sidorian port north of King’s Bay, we’ll be boarded, arrested, and our heads will be on pikes.”
“I understand, Your Highness, but that doesn’t leave us many options.”
“What about Werna?”
“Werna?” The captain’s brows rose. “It’s nearly as far as Rendalia.”
“But not impossible,” William pressed. “My tutors always said the reason Werna is the trade powerhouse it is, is because of the currents that flow from the Straits, swirling north, then west around Werna, and then down to Lynese. That they make for a perfect cycle of trade, since the winds make sailing time faster than a direct route to Lynese. That is why Werna became the middleman between our nations.”
William was almost repeating his last tutor verbatim, but they needed an option that was not Sidor.
“That is generally true, Your Highness. The western current would aid our passage, and with favorable winds, we might make it there, but Werna is still a long journey on a very damaged ship. I would not give us good odds of reaching it safely.”
“A northern coastline is not safe.”
“It will be a difficult voyage and require more repairs. We might have been able to make it to Sidor with the rigging and cloth we could put together now, but we will need a lot more rigging and a lot more material to sew the cloth up as it tears if we are going to sail all the way to Werna. We’ll need more hemp or similar fiber that can be woven into rope and thread, we’ll need a lot more resin to coat the cloth with, so hopefully it doesn’t tear, and we’ll need to shore up the main mast, which has some slight cracks in it which will get worse with this kind of sail being used.”
“This means more expeditions inland,” Sir Drummond said.
“We’ve already had trouble finding what Master Foskett needed for many of his supplies. It will mean going deeper than we have.”
It was clear Drummond was not pleased with the thought of that. For good reason.
“Have we lost any more men?” William asked.
“Just the one so far, and there is still no trace of him. Not a body or a track. It’s as if the forest simply swallowed him whole.”
William looked to the tree line that marked the boundary between the relative safety of their beach camp and the unknown dangers of the forest interior, and then to Drummond.
Still, they were left with little choice.
“I understand your fear, but I’m not sure what other options we have. Proceed with caution but find the supplies the captain needs. Captain, while he does that, start looking at your charts and plan the shortest route to get us to Werna. I want us off this damnable island as soon as possible.”
Ramsgate, Barony of Merrick, Kingsheart
Garris paced before the hearth, the dancing flames casting long shadows across the stone floor of Baron Farrow’s great hall. Outside, rain lashed against the leaded windows, a fitting backdrop to the somber mood that hung over the assembled nobles. Six barons of eastern Kingsheart sat at the long table in the center of the room, their faces drawn with exhaustion and worry.