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Voyage of the Sunspear - Ben Counter

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Voyage of the Sunspear

Ben Counter

Upon the seas east of Ulthuan, the fleet set sail. At its head was the magnificent Sunspear, a twin-hulled warship as swift as the wind itself, carried on sails of silk embroidered with the image of the Everqueen in her bower deep in Avelorn. Two hundred elven sailors in the livery of the Eataine citizen army manned repeater bolt throwers on the Sunspear’s prow and drilled with spear and bow on the deck.

Grand Admiral Caladoria of Lothern had the helm, spinning the gilded wheel this way and that to catch the subtlest eddies of the wind and keep her ship speeding on at the head of the fleet. Her gold-woven hair flowed behind her and the purple and white of her admiral’s uniform seemed to glow in the bright sun.

The fleet was one of the grandest that had ever sailed from Lothern’s gates in the present age. Archmage Galindorm had his own ship, its hull a deep azure, its sails wreathed in the smoke from hundreds of braziers mounted along the deck rails. A wizard’s tower rose from the aftcastle, and Galindorm himself, ancient and wizened in blue and silver robes, cast many-coloured lights into the sky as he read the portents for the voyage ahead. Fifty Sword Masters of Hoeth stood ranked up on the deck as magical winds blew down, conjured from the heavens to lend the fleet even greater grace across the waves.

Prince Keldorim served as Caladoria’s second in command, representing the royalty and aristocracy of Ulthuan, and he had taken to war in his family’s pleasure-yacht, fitted out with ramming spears of ensorcelled crystal and crewed by the elite spearmen of his household guard.

Swift dagger-shaped ships, which normally plied the seas off the Shadowlands of Ulthuan, cut through the waves on the fleet’s edge. They hunted the hated druchii pirates who preyed on the vulnerable coastal towns of that ill-starred region, but they were just as at home watching for threats that might seek to disrupt the swift progress of the fleet. Each ship had a roost of messenger birds with which they could send a signal to the rest of the armada should danger be sighted, and a complement of the sharpest-eyed Shadow Warriors perched atop their sails to keep watch on the horizon.

The Everqueen’s court had sent a cairn-ship which normally sailed the calm waters of Ulthuan’s inland sea, and which carried on its deck a circle of menhirs, between which crackled lances of blue-white energy. The cairn-ship siphoned the winds of magic into the air above the fleet, charging the sky itself with magic to be called down by the Grand Admiral’s wizards to command the very winds in the fleet’s sails.

A dozen ships of the line made up the backbone of the fleet, each one with sails emblazoned with the heraldry of a royal family of Ulthuan. Some bristled with bolt throwers, others teemed with bowmen and the marines of the Lothern Sea Guard ready to hurl boarding grapples and swing from the rigging onto the deck of an enemy ship. Some had starmetal prows to shatter enemy hulls, sharp enough to cut right through a battleship and leave it sinking without the elven craft even slowing down. Banners of worthy Ulthuan families hung everywhere, for it was their first sons and favoured daughters who helmed these ships and commanded their men. Some even carried Dragon Prince knights, without their warhorses for once, to lead the fighting elves on board. Contingents of White Lions, tough huntsmen from the forested lands of Chrace and Cothique, the Phoenix King’s own guard had berths among the fleet, for few in Ulthuan did not want to have their banner flying over the victories promised by the fleet.

The rear of the line was brought up by the Caledor Dawn, its prow a great dragon’s head plated in bronze, fifty oars along each flank pulled by the strongest sons of the mountainous region of Caledor. Into the dragon’s head was mounted an alchemical cannon that could fire a blast of liquid flame over the rigging and deck of an enemy ship. Its masters were a cabal of alchemists from the White Tower of Saphery, eager to show the genius of their weapon. The Caledor Dawn wore the colours of white and blue common to regiments and cavalry from Caledor, and pennants with the arms of countless alchemists and mages of Hoeth fluttered from her masts.

Grand Admiral Caladoria spun her ship’s wheel and the prow arrowed towards the south-east, where the fleet’s destination lay. In her cabin lay maps of great value and antiquity that picked out the rugged coastlines of the Old World, of Estalia and Araby, where had fled the pirates who had sought to plunder Ulthuan of her riches. They had approached the coast, committed petty acts of barbarity upon Ulthuan’s fair lands, and then fled like whipped dogs towards the places where men lived in what they called civilisation. Simple and brutish things these men were, often allies of the elves but just as often wayward and quarrelsome like children, easily corrupted and misled. It was up to the elves to teach them their place. War among yourselves if you wish, she thought, but leave your betters in Ulthuan alone.

The whole fleet wheeled to follow her, as swift and graceful as a flight of birds on the wing. The dagger-ships sped across the Sunspear’s prow, ever-watchful for an enemy foolish enough to stand in Caladoria’s path. Archmage Galindorm cried a word of power and the sky replied, a great wind whistling down. It filled the sails of the Sunspear and caught Caladaria’s hair, and every prow cut through the waves with the grace of the dolphins that leapt in their wake.

Captain Granitebrow peered at the sight of the fleet, then slid the periscope up into the ceiling before hawking a wad of tobacco into the spitoon. The rest of the crew of Grimnir’s Revenge sat at the controls, faces smeared dark from the smoke that leaked from the boilers.

‘Damn pointed-ears,’ he said. ‘Almost seems a pity to spoil their fun. Launch torpedoes.’

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Ben Counter is the author of the Soul Drinkers and Grey Knights series, along with two Horus Heresy novels, and one of Black Library’s most popular Warhammer 40,000 authors. He has written RPG supplements and comic books. He is a fanatical painter of miniatures, a pursuit which has won him his most prized possession: a prestigious Golden Demon award. He lives in Portsmouth, England.

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Published in 2012 by Black Library, Games Workshop Ltd., Willow Road, Nottingham, NG7 2WS, UK

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