March Brume experienced heavy fog at times, as did all the seaports along the Westland coast. Mix heat and cold where land met water, stir in a healthy wash of condensation, and you could muster fog thick enough to spread on your toast-that was the old salt’s claim. The fog Redden Alt Mer was watching was like that, but it had something else to it, as well, a kind of energy, dark and purposeful, that suggested the approach of a storm. Except the weather didn’t feel right for it. His taste and smell of the air revealed nothing of rain, and there had been no sounds of thunder or flashes of lightning. There wasn’t a breath of wind. Even the pressure readings gave no hint of trouble.
The Rover Captain paced to the aft decking and peered harder into the haze. Had something moved out there?
“Pea soup,” Spanner Frew grumbled, coming up to stand beside him. He frowned out of his dark beard like a thunderhead. “Glad we’re not going that way anytime soon.”
Alt Mer nodded, still looking out into the haze. “Better hope it stays offshore. I’ll be skinned and cooked before I’ll let us be stuck here another week.”
One more day, and the repair on the airship would be finished. It was so close now that he could barely contain his impatience. Little Red had been gone for three days already, and he hadn’t felt right about it once. He had faith in her good judgment, and in Hunter Predd’s, as well, but he felt compromised enough as it was by what had befallen the members of the ship’s company in that treacherous land. They were scattered all over the place, most of them lost or dead, and he had no idea how they were ever going to bring everyone together, even without the added problem of wondering what might have happened to his sister.
“Have you solved the problem of that forward port crystal?” he asked, watching the shifting fog bank, still thinking he had seen something.
The burly shipwright shrugged. “Can’t solve it without a new crystal, and we don’t have one. Lost the spares overboard in the channel during the storm. We’ll have to make do.”
“Well, we’ve been down that road before.” He leaned forward, his hands on the railing, his eyes intent on the fog bank. “Take a look out there, Black Beard. Do you see something? There, maybe fifteen degrees off. . .”
He never finished. Before he could complete the sentence, a cluster of dark shapes materialized out of the gloom. Airborne, they flew out of the roiling gray like a flock of Shrikes or Rocs, silhouetted against the crimson-streaked wall. How many were there? Five, six? No, Alt Mer corrected himself almost at once. A dozen, maybe more. He counted quickly, his throat tightening. Two dozen at least. And they were big, too big even for Rocs. Nor did they have wings to propel them ahead, to provide them with vertical lift.
He caught his breath. They were airships. A whole fleet of them, come out of nowhere. He watched them take shape, masts and sails, rakish dark hulls, and the glint of metal stays and cleats. Warships. He brought up his spyglass and peered closely at them. No insignia emblazoned on flags or pennants, no markings on the gunwales or hulls. He watched them clear the fog and wheel fifteen degrees left, all on a line across the horizon, black as netherworld shades as they drifted into formation and began to advance.
Redden Alt Mer put down the spyglass and took a deep, steadying breath.
They were sailing right for the Jerle Shannara.
Here ends Book Two of The Voyage of the Jerle Shannara. Book Three, Morgawr, will conclude the series as the Ilse Witch is forced to confront the truth about herself and the survivors of Castle-down begin the long journey home.