The Pirates of Pacta Servanda (Pillars of Reality Book 4) Read Online Free PDF Page B

given him a reason not to leave her side, Alain nodded.
    More of the sails overhead came into view, then disappeared. The mainsail flapped with a thunderous sound as it caught a freshening wind for a moment before drooping again. Straining his hearing, Alain heard oars splashing, then pausing, as the galleys searched for them.
    “Hang on,” Bev warned. A large gap had opened in the fog on the
Gray Lady
’s starboard side. Moments later the shape of a galley loomed out of the mist at the far side of the open space, its banks of oars resting unmoving in the water. Crewmembers on the galley spotted the sailing ship, pointing and calling out to the officers on their own quarterdeck. The galley lay low to the water, long and lean with a single mast. A large raised platform at the stern held the ship’s wheel and another raised platform at the bow offered a fighting position for lightly armored soldiers carrying crossbows and wearing swords.
    Alain heard commands being called on the galley. Now that its presence was known, the drummer keeping cadence for the oars stopped gently tapping and instead began pounding, the sound carrying clearly across the water. The oars rose in unison, an unexpectedly graceful sight as the banks of oars swept up and around to splash into the water as one. The galley jumped forward, curving around slightly to aim straight for the
Gray Lady
, which was still barely moving under the irregular winds flowing past.
    Alain felt the power in this area, appalled by how weak it still was. “Mage Asha, Mage Dav, only one of us can hope to cast a spell at one time. I will try this first one, which will likely exhaust me.”
    Asha drew her long Mage knife, holding the hilt in both hands before her and making a couple of swift practice cuts through the air as she serenely watched the Syndari galley draw closer.
    “I cannot hope to create a strong fire spell,” Alain told Mari, “and the fog has made all surfaces wet.”
    “Is there a weak point you can strike at?” Mari asked.
    “A what?”
    She had her rifle leveled toward the galley and kept her eyes on her target as she answered. “Some spot where applying a little force can produce big results. You’ve made holes in things. Like…like the mast on the galley. See it? What if part of it at the bottom went away?”
    His eyes focused on the base of the galley’s mast. Alain concentrated on that spot, trying to block out the uproar around him as the
Gray Lady
’s sailors tried to trim her sails to catch the erratic winds and the Mechanics prepared to fire their weapons. He had to draw to himself the dregs of power available here to augment his own strength, because no Mage could change the world illusion without some outside power added to his or her own. As Alain gathered the power he recited to himself the lessons that every Mage learned, the beliefs that made their arts possible. The illusion which was the world showed him a galley with a tall mast, the sail on it furled as the galley drove forward on its oars. The illusion of a mast stood tall and straight, but that illusion could be changed. Overlay another illusion, one in which the mast had a break in it, a small gap not far above the deck. It required the belief that what he saw was an illusion, and the confidence that he could change that illusion for a brief period.
    Alain felt the effort draining his strength but held his concentration as the galley swept down upon the
Gray Lady
. He almost lost his focus as Mari’s rifle roared next to him, followed by a series of other explosions as the other Mechanics fired. He barely heard Mechanic Alli calling to the others. “He’s a still a bit out of range for these old weapons. The rifling in their barrels is worn almost smooth. Let him get a little closer and then we’ll give him another volley!”
    Alain heard but did not pay attention to the captain calling out commands, hardly noticed the
Gray Lady
slowly, slowly starting to move and turning