Blade of the Avatar/Blade of Midras/Chapter 15

=The Bay of Storms=

Excerpt
The Cypher set sail from Etceter the day after the Council had pronounced their decision. Given the size of the ship – she was a rather large ship with three masts – it was remarkable to Aren that they had managed to provision her in so short a period of time.

Aren was not, by any definition of the word, a ‘man of the sea.’ He didn’t know a belay from a barnacle, although he did recall hearing both terms while aboard the Mistral; especially the last as it had often been applied to him. Even so, he could read a map and knew enough about the world as to make reasonable estimates about distance. They had come aboard the Mistral along the coastline somewhere south of the Blackblade Range and it had taken the ship eight days to arrive at Etceter. He had seen the port in Quel on a chart in the captain’s cabin once, as well as the position of Opalis in the South Paladis. If they sailed eastward from Etceter and back along the same coast they had stayed with while coming here, it would take those same eight days to get back to the mouth of the Fang River and, given the distances involved, another three or four days to reach where the Jaana River emptied into the Bay of Storms. Then, given the overland distance into Opalis, another six days before they arrived.

As the ship slowly drew away from the dock at Etceter, Aren leaned against the rail and congratulated himself on a brilliant plan. Eighteen days, more or less, at sea and in transit to learn all he could from his captors. Eighteen days and his friend Evard Dirae would come for him. Eighteen days and then he would be free to return to his service in the Obsidian Empire, deal at last with General Karpasic, and figure out the most profitable way to be rid of this ridiculous sword.