Dragon's Tale 102

I was tense as the sailors burst downstairs, trying to compare the merits of trying to take them down compared to jumping back to sea through the same ballista attack opening I had used for this exact objective. 

But that choice had become temporarily unnecessary as the few sailors that burst down only stopped enough to pick the sails that were hidden in the secret hold — the sails that were made of expensive magical materials and covered with runes, one that would increase the speed of the ship several times. 

At the cost of shouting any ship that drifted close enough to notice its presence that its origin was extraordinary. 

It seemed that they had lost their belief in staying concealed. Barely half a minute after they abandoned the secret hold, however, the aura of the ship changed completely. 

Initially, despite its extraordinary nature, the ship looked like yet another ordinary trade ship, but as they changed the sails, I could feel that nature changing. 

… slowly getting weaker. 

“Impressive construction,” I thought in fascination as I felt a surreptitious field appear around the ship, doing wonders to erase the aura of the ship, while also maintaining a complicated illusion field around. 

Enough to actually hide both the physical presence and magical signature of the ship. 

Far better than anything I could even imagine designing, let alone actually creating, showing the power and the reach of a special squad of the Eastern Empire — I might be good when it came to wards, but ultimately, that was not my true expertise. 

I could easily use a similar field around myself — well, I could have if my magic control hadn’t been once again ruined completely — but the same didn’t apply to doing so on a huge ship. Even with the huge power a sorcerer possessed, maintaining such a field around an actual battleship was difficult, and the speed it moved only made the achievement even more impossible. 

Without the assistance of the wards, it would have easily drained a sorcerer in minutes. 

Even with the wards supplying most of the magic and easing the management challenges, it was hardly something negligible.

It wasn’t as intense as actively managing a defensive ward — mostly due to the difference in magical intensity, which was similar to the difference between carrying twenty pounds and two hundred pounds — but carrying twenty pounds was not a simple affair if occasionally putting it down was not allowed for hours and hours. 

And, stopping the ward was not an option, not even for a moment considering our proximity to Italy and the intensity of the fleet activity. Even if the new sails increased the speed of the ship several times, we still needed to travel a day to leave the area that was under the direct control of Rome, and entered the contested waters. 

It would have been much easier to do so from the other Eastern side of Italy, as most of Greece was under Empire’s control, and while most of the Adriatic sea was under the control of the Republic, it was not an uncontested control. 

However, the ship sailed from a port on the Western side of Italy, and the Tyrrenian Sea was intensely under Roman control, and that had been the case for centuries. Ionian sea — which was the lower parts of the Adriatic, an area that was much more intensely contested between the Republic and the Eastern Empire — was the only destination they could reach to avoid the fleet's attention. 

To do so, they had three options. One was to go through the thin strait between Sicily and Italy, which was the most preferred route of any ship. But that was not a likely choice considering the traffic density. 

And, considering the state of alarm, it was likely that the strait was fully blocked by the fleet, preventing any passage — even with the invisibility. 

The second option, which was the safest, was to travel northwest and actually escape toward the Iberian Peninsula, expecting the fleet not expect them to pick that direction after destroying a ship of the Roman fleet. 

After all, the Iberian Peninsula was also under Rome’s dominion, making it a weird location to hide. Yet, the ship certainly had such capabilities. There, they could find a hidden cove and wait until the blockade was removed.  

The third option was to cut down south aggressively, escaping from the west of Sicily before turning and dashing toward the Ionian sea, betting on their speed to move before a proper blockade could be established. 

And, there, I found myself facing a dilemma. I preferred the third option, and for them, the second option was the superior one. 

Well, more accurately, I expected them to be under that impression. In reality, picking the third option was their benefit as well. With the intensity of the chaos, and the significance of the items lost, the sea blockade would run for months, and even for such a superior ship, constantly avoiding the noose of the determined Republic fleet was impossible. 

The Republic might not have the most excellent navy, but quantity had a quality of its own. 

I stayed hidden, feeling slightly relaxed as their attention was focused on maintaining the direction of the ship, while I focused on trying to find a way to trick them into choosing the third direction. 

Ultimately, I decided to slip back into the water and fake the presence of a magical beast at a distance, forcing them to change their direction. Yet, when I reached one of the hatches, a glance at the sky and the position of the sun confirmed that the ship was traveling south. 

“Why?” I murmured with a frown, though my confusion didn’t prevent me from dashing back to my hiding spot. 

No need to enhance an already complicated situation by pushing it even more. 

Yet, even as I settled next to Xia, I was unsettled. Their decision actually worked to my benefit, but from any rational perspective, they were taking a huge risk, one that was supposed to be extremely unnecessary from their perspective. 

My first instinct was that they just had terrible decision-making, but I ignored that soon enough. 

It was a bad idea to assume incompetency, especially considering the level of extreme competence and discipline they had been doing in other aspects. 

Which meant that they had a secret that they could 

I wondered whether I should just climb and have a discussion about some alliance. My presence in their ship was hardly something they would welcome, but one would ally with a fox against a wolf. 

Especially since they had destroyed any chance of cooperating with the wolf after destroying that ship. Without an option for them to sell me back to Republic was not an option for them, we could still have a discussion about an alliance of convenience. 

No one in their right mind would turn the assistance of a sorcerer and a sorceress, I thought as I looked at the sleeping figure of Xia. 

Especially if one of those sorcerers could destroy their ship in the blink of an eye.

While I was lost in that track, Xia shuffled in her place, her mouth getting open, maybe to let out a cry coming from her dreams. I immediately pressed my hand on her mouth, silencing her, my attention still on the best way to breach such a subject — or whether it was a smart decision in the first place. 

Before doing so, I needed to fulfill two directions. 

First, I needed to help Xia wake up from her coma — as her helplessness would give them excellent leverage over me, and negotiating from a position of weakness was never advisable. 

The second — and the more important — aspect was to understand the mystery of their decision. There were options, like having precious cargo with them — unlikely, as any precious cargo, they would have hidden in the great hold they kept their secret arsenal. 

The likelier option was that they somehow communicated with Rome and knew the true reach of the disaster. If that was the case, I needed to truly understand how they had communicated. 

It was not impossible to use magic to communicate over great distances, but even under the best of conditions, it was not the healthiest strategy. It was prone to interceptions, and blockages, and it was a good way to reveal both sides of the communication. 

Of course, there were many ways to hide and obfuscate most of the drawbacks, but that still meant that it was a risk. 

One that no one in their right mind would take while Rome was going through such chaos, afraid of making them a target at both ends of their communication process. 

Unless they had a secret method I was not privy to, of course. 

Pity that the crew was working with ruthless efficiency without the slightest gossip, not giving me any clue which might be the case. 

Of course, there might be many other reasons for such a decision, including just great strategic awareness of the captain, reading the mobilization level of the fleet much more accurately than I expected, and taking a decision. 

Before I could ponder on that question more, Xia took a deep breath, which stole my attention. 

The reason, as she breathed, a minuscule amount of mana was absorbed by her, making her stir…