Savage and skilful, the cannibal raiders rowed away into the
night, their five canoes — hollowed tree trunks carved with bone-blade
precision — slicing across the dark water. They bore hostages with them:
sailors bound and bleeding, taken alive for grim purpose. But the adventurers
aboard the Crimson Reprieve reacted without hesitation.
Salt raised her staff and cast a spell of holding. Beside
her, Mustafa and Ryu joined their magic to hers, freezing several of the
escaping raiders in mid-paddle. Bojing, Tetsukichi, Dolkar and Nekhil loosed
volleys of arrows — some struck home, but the canoes continued their desperate
flight.
Bojing weighed the option of asking Ryu to summon a
whirlpool, but the danger of drowning the sailors as well as their captors discouraged
him. Instead, Salt extended her magic, conjuring a towering wall of flame
across the sea ahead of the fleeing canoes. The fire hissed and crackled on the
water, casting its red glow across the night. The cannibals veered, paddling to
avoid the inferno — but Salt summoned a second wall at right angles to the
first, boxing them in.
Then came illusion. Mustafa conjured terrifying sea monsters
— tentacled horrors of the deep — rearing up behind the cannibals. Their teeth
shone in the flame-light, their eyes like burning coals. Panic broke out among
the raiders.
One canoe had already fallen into disarray: the holding
spells had frozen all the raiders, save one — the cannibal chief. The bound
sailors wasted no time. They overpowered him and hurled him into the sea. But
another canoe veered close, and a raider hauled the chief aboard.
The illusions worked too well. In their terror, the
cannibals took their hostages — the captured sailors — and threw them into the
sea. A sacrifice to the monsters, a desperate bid to appease angry gods.
This had not been Mustafa’s intention. Bo-Jing called out to
the sailors through the illusion. The party shouted from the deck, assuring the
drowning men that help was on its way. Even as the rowing boat was prepared for
rescue, Mustafa steered the monsters towards the canoes, hoping to show the
futility of their human offerings.
Salt, resolute, raised her hand again and sent a missile of
pure force streaking toward the furthest canoe — one filled entirely with
raiders. The missile struck true, and the boat was torn asunder, its occupants
hurled lifeless into the sea.
Arrows flew again. More spells of holding surged across the
waves. The tide turned.
A sea monster — real or illusion, none could say — pulled
one last screaming raider beneath the surface, vanishing in a froth of blood.
Then, as swiftly as they had come, the illusions faded, leaving only silence.
The sailors were pulled from the sea by the rescue boat. The
surviving cannibals, held fast in place by enchantments, remained adrift in
their canoes. When the spell’s duration ended, they would find themselves
weaponless, surrounded by open ocean, and utterly alone.
Bojing ordered the chief brought aboard the Crimson
Reprieve. He was tightly bound and held under watch. When the spell was
reversed, the man grinned with broken teeth and introduced himself as Mad Dog.
He asked for wine.
They gave him none.
Under Bojing’s questioning, Mad Dog revealed the truth of
his people. They raided passing ships when the winds favoured them, seeking
plunder — and captives for their rites. Their god, he said with wide eyes and
reverence, was the Great Turtle, an ancient power to whom all sacrifices were
owed.
Once he had said enough, Bojing gave a single nod. Mad Dog
was cast back into the sea.
The following morning, with the sun climbing behind them and
the wind strong in their sails, the crew of the Crimson Reprieve looked over
the stern — and beheld an island where none should be.
It rose from the water in the perfect shape of a sea turtle,
its shell a mossy dome, vast and unnatural. The island had not appeared on any
chart.
The crew fell silent, soon broken by a wisecrack and grim
laughter among Captain Hu’s men. Sailing under a curse for centuries, many had already
died in worse ways than being fed to a giant turtle.
The winds were in their favor and the Crimson Reprieve
sailed on.
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