Shadowmage: Book Nine Of The Spellmonger Series (85 page)

Though he left a few men behind to watch his new secret haven, the pirates were lazy and grew complacent, allowing the careful watches Argarus declared to fail.  It proved their undoing.  Before Argarus was two months gone, the Alshari coastal folk rose in rebellion and slew their captors.  They did their best to destroy Vinnashaven and all memory of the first of the Sea Lords, and return to their quiet lives.

It was not to be.  While the depredations of the corsairs faded in memory, and the coastal folk felt free once more, a few years after Argarus’ departure, the
Fair Maiden
returned through Carredas’ Channel to Enultramar once more.  Argarus had gone to the Storm Lord’s halls before the ship returned to Cormeer, but his sons Ramonus and Salbino, returned with eleven ships, a corsair fleet.  

The first Sea Lords were independent captains Ramonus (the elder brother, and more ambitious) recruited in the wake of the Imperial Magocracy’s expansion from central Merwyn to their ancient havens in Cormeer’s Shattered Coast.  Many of the corsairs there refused to bend knee and take the sail of the Magocracy, nor was there a need to.  Their colonies in Remere, Castal, and Farise, among other far-flung ports, offered plenty of room to escape the Magocracy’s growing influence.  

With the cult of the Storm Lord and his daughters as the cultural center of the mariners, the sons of Arbarus were able to convince eleven adventurers to join them in a secret, bountiful haven only they knew about.  Promising wine, women, land and dominion, the twelve ships set out from Cormeer prepared to colonize, not merely raid.  Amongst their crews were smiths, carpenters, shipwrights, wainwrights, miners and other craftsmen from Cormeer eager for adventure and opportunity.  

When the fleet rounded the Horn of Farise and faced the forbidding barrier of the Shoals of Sinbar, a priest of the Storm Lord, Stormfather Vulintarius, led the
Fair Maiden
through Carredas’ Channel and into the Bay of Enultramar, beyond.  Before the fleet made landfall, they conspired behind the peninsula and divided up the lands of Enultramar before they set foot there.

The Pact of the Sea Lords was a simple one: each ship and crew would lay claim to a twelfth of the lands of Enultramar, to rule as lords in the name of the Storm Lord.  The Stormfather chose a high precipice overlooking the bay to claim as his future temple, and agreed to be independent arbiter between all twelve of the Sea Lord houses.

When the fleet emerged from behind the peninsula at high tide the next morning, each sail bore the Storm King’s sigil: the fearsome Sea Axe, upraised in aggression.  Each ship landed on a different site around the great bay, laying claim to an island or peninsula which they felt would be good to harbor in.  Then their men departed their ships, axes and swords in hand, and went forth to conquer the coastal peoples.  Within a week all within a day’s ride of the bay were subject to the Sea Lord’s might.

For two years the twelve crews, under the leadership of their captains-turned-lords, forced their new subjects to toil to build strong but simple stone towers on the rocky islands they’d claimed as their own.  Storehouses and shipyards were built, to be filled with the tribute and labor of the smaller natives.  Women, too, were demanded and delivered to the Sea Lords’ dire keeps.  As each lord took a totem in honor of the sea and the Storm Lord, they prepared their men for the conquest ahead by sharpening their skills on the conquered natives.

When the Magocracy’s nascent merchant fleet departed Farise, bound for Unstara, the Far Isles, and points beyond, their escort of Cormeeran warships sailed first far to the west to screen them from the coastal pirates along the Scorched Coast.  Unbeknownst to the Magi, the Sea Lords of Enultramar were well-prepared to pillage their grand fleet.  The proud ships of the Sea Lords descended from the Shoals of Sinbar like the grandsons of the Storm Lord himself.  

Quickly and savagely each ship took a prize and escaped with it through the Channel.  When they brought their prizes back to their havens.  Great fleets were forged out of their piracy, and the havens of Enultramar prospered.  Many of the most ancient harbors and settlements saw their rise from this time: Pearslhaven, Drakeshaven, Solashaven, Deitus’ Landing, Shellhaven, and other small ports along the rocky Bay of Enultramar rose to economic power during their first grand attempt at organized piracy.

The ships taken in that raid were quickly converted to military use and added to the fleet while the Corsairs of Enultramar returned to the rich waters off of Farise.  Thrice they made such forays before retiring behind their protective shoals.  By the time the news of their victories over thirty eastern ships came to Merwyn, the seat of the Magocracy, the Sea Lords had retired from raiding and devoted their time to enjoying their fortunes . . . and building their holdings.  

So great was the store of treasure from their raids that it overfilled their storehouses and was laid on the rocks, exposed to the elements for lack of a better place for it.  Some were abandoned entirely, a votive offering to the Storm King, while others were given to the Stormfather of the Bay.  Even modest captains enjoyed spectacular hauls, as they sold the slaves they’d taken as prisoners to the inland villages to toil on their estates and vineyards.  

Though the corsairs were not raiding, they were not indolent.  They turned their energies - and their great treasuries - on transforming the merchant freighters and caravels they’d captured into ships of war, and fitting them with new crews.  New sails, new forecastles, new catapults and scorpions were built, and hundreds of new mariners were trained as crews.  They fortified great stone towers in their havens, encircling the great bay with mighty fortresses and magnificent shrines.  Similarly, they began construction of their greatest achievement, the Tower of Waves, along the largest expanse of rock amongst the Shoals, and overlooking the secret channel.  By controlling access through the Shoals, the Sea Lords kept competitor and foe alike at bay.

Sealord Ramonus, counted Lord of the Waves, first among equals, called all the Sea Lords and their captains to counsel at his seat at Vinnashaven that winter to discuss their strategy for the coming year.  Wary of a response from the Magocracy’s warships out of Farise, the corsairs agreed to take the fleet to the center of the Shallow Sea, far to the south of Farise, and await the changing of the startides that spring.  

When the Magocracy’s fleet sped north into the Sinbar Sound to screen their charges, the thirty-strong fleet descended upon the merchant ships from the south.  Again the Sea Lords conquered, and fled north through the Channel back to Enultramar.  The Cormeeran fleet under the Magocracy’s sails chased the corsairs as far as the Tower of Waves, but did not arrive in force.  The stout ballistae and scorpions on the sea fort sent one warship after another to the bottom, and drove away the fleet.

That began a thirty-year reign of terror and raiding as the Sea Lords of Enultramar controlled shipping in the western Shallow Sea.  The scourge of the Sea Axe soon fell across the coast from Farise to Cormeer.  For when the various merchant houses sought to control their raids at sea, the Sea Lords took to raiding the coastal towns and temples.  The third Lord of the Wave, Ramonus’ son Chetas, though only twenty years old, led five captured merchant ships filled with Sea Lords disguised as a slave fleet into Farise by night at captured the port and pillaged the town for two days before they were driven off by inland troops.  

Eventually the Sea Lords re-took cherished ancestral havens in Castal and Remere, outside of the reach of the sparse Magocracy.  The Sea Axe standard of the Storm Lord was unfurled across the coasts of the continent from Enultramar to within sight of Cormeer, itself.   

But the far-flung empire of Corsairs, devoted to their bloody god, were not content to merely raid.  As merchant traffic lessened, they turned their own hands to trade and learned the immense profits that could accrue thereby.  

By the time the Siscos, Fourth Lord of the Waves took the bronze Sea Axe at Vannashaven from the Stormfather and pledged to rule by his ruthless laws, the Magocracy had had enough.  Using the powers of their magi they bescryed the entire Bay from afar, and learned much about the scope and plans of the Corsairs.  Though it took a decade to plan, when the Magi of the empire brought their powers to bear, it was only a matter of time before the far-flung havens of the Sea Lords began to fall.  

Using the Sea Lords’ distant kin, the faithful Cormeeran navy whose lords swore allegiance to the Magi, the Imperial navy’s squadron took one Sea Lord haven after another.  In each place they slew the resident Sea Lord and demanded their heirs change their sails for the Magocracy, or lose their heads as well.  Though many heads fell, many more Sea Lords bowed to their conquerors as their creed demanded.  Where they would not submit, the Archmage sent one of his trusted Magelords to rule over them.

Finally, after losing their strategically vital island base of Pagnatta near Farise, the Sea Lords struck back.  Mustering a mighty fleet of seventy ships, the Sea Lords struck the Merwyni port of Ricivu, a prosperous town deep in the heart of the Magocracy, pillaged, sacked, and razed it.  Outraged, the Magelords vowed to retaliate.  

The following autumn, before the fiercest of the storms rolled through the Shallow Sea, and the Sea Lords were far to the east, finishing their raids against the coastlands, a squadron of heavy Imperial navy ships assaulted the Tower of the Waves that guarded the channel through the shoals.  To the east a fleet of smaller vessels braved the Shoals at high-tide, using their arcane arts to overcome the challenges of the mighty sea wall.  When the tides began to recede, nearly fifty small ships filled with marines attacked the Tower of Waves from behind, then sailed into the harbor at dawn, taking Enultramar by surprise.

Trapped in their ports, the few Sea Lords who remained fought mightily against the Magocracy, but the weapons of the magi were far superior to theirs.  Caught by surprise and faced with destruction, the Lord of the Waves surrendered the Sea Axe of Enultramar to the Vorean magelord Komentava.  When the fleets returned, he demanded their submission to his decision, and they obeyed.

The terms of the surrender were not absolute.  The Sea Lords maintained their titles and their lands, but were restricted to four warships per holding.  They were forbidden from raiding and piracy, though were permitted to serve the Empire as privateers . . . and they had to agree to allow the Empire to settle the interior of the fertile valley, as well as keep a naval port in the Great Bay.  The religion of the Storm King would be allowed to be practiced in a place of prominence, but the other gods of the lands were also to be henceforth respected

Once the Sea Lords were brought under submission, the Magocracy encouraged education and exploration amongst the brave mariners, instead of seeking to punish them for their depredations.  Magelord Komentava, named Imperial Consul of Alshar by the Archmage, chose the relatively small and undeveloped inland port of Falas, at the base of the mighty falls of the Mandros River as his seat.  

Magelord Komentava realized as he surveyed the fertile coastlands behind the forbidding seawall that the Sealords ignored and realized the greatest bounty of Alshar was not its coasts, but its interior - particularly the sprawling western side of the vale, where the grapes grew as abundantly and deliciously as any in Cormeer, famous for its wines.  The Alshari vintages were poorly made, though strong, when the Magelords first arrived - the Sea Lords preferred to mix theirs with seawater, rather than drink it plain.

Komentava quietly imported vines and Cormeerans knowledgeable in the art, and began improving the vintages produced in the Bikavar region.  He introduced distilling and taught the production of brandy.  In addition, he found and exploited mines, began plantations of fruit trees which grew abundantly on the plains, and brought farmers from Merwyn and Vore to improve the yields of the Alshari peasants around him.  And he encouraged the villages to encircle themselves with walls for defense against marauding Sea Lords and bandits.

For five years Komentava brought craftsmen, monks, and ambitious lordlings from the east to Alshar, past the very noses of the haughty Sea Lords, and established small lordships throughout the coastlands and at Falas most of all.  These industrious folk mixed freely with the Alshari, elevating them in status and culture and treating them as equals in most things, a much different attitude than the haughty Sea Lords.  Many of the Magelords took them into service or even vassalage, improving their affairs as they improved their stations.  Some went on to become Coastlords and knights themselves, ruling over their relatives like proper lords.  The estates of the coastlands prospered, and five years after Komentava began proper production of Bikavar wine, the first barrels were sent downriver to port.

At first the Sea Lords welcomed the new trade, and they became fond of the vintage; but they soon grew jealous of the silver the coastal estates were making from their purses.  At a council under the auspices of the Stormfather, the fifth Lord of the Waves, Chetas II, commanded that all goods leaving Enultramar would pay a tenth of their value to the Sea Lords to subsidize the defenses of the Great Bay.  The fee was high, and added to the price of the new wine on the market; the tax was resented by many Coastlords, but with the unity of the Viscounts there was little they could do but pay.