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Meanwhile, Eir learned the charts, the currents, and the hazards of the local seaways, as well as the lairs of their enemy. Captain Magnus made sure they never approached the unholy sanctum of Morgus Lethe, for to do so would be to draw him out, but he showed Eir on the charts where it lay. It was a maelstrom above a great graveyard of ships. To go into those waters would be certain death—unless they were prepared.

At last, they were.

The galleon Cormorant breasted through gray waves beneath a gray sky. Her sails snapped white overhead, straining with the elemental wind that Zojja had called up to carry them across the sea. The deck of the ship groaned beneath four hundred boots—crew at battle stations. Gunners loaded cannons, fighters drew blunderbusses, and necromancers readied vials of enchanted acid. Grim-jawed, they braced for war.

Captain Magnus the Bloody Handed manned the helm. His eyes glowed with the thrill of the hunt, and his hands held the wheel in a steady beat against north winds. Beside him stood Eir Stegalkin, slayer of the Dragonspawn. Logan, too, was there, assigned to guard Snaff and Zojja. The two asura stood nearby, wearing golden laurels and swaying slowly. Rytlock and Garm were stationed along the starboard rail, tasked with deck-to-deck fighting, and Caithe had taken up her position in the crow’s nest.

Eir had planned out the whole battle, giving assignments to each of her friends. She had even asked Zojja to enchant every weapon aboard to strike hard and true against undead. Everything was in place.

Now, they just waited for Morgus Lethe.

“Do you think we’ve scared him off?” Eir asked, scanning the choppy waters ahead.

Captain Magnus shook his head. “Lethe doesn’t scare off. The Cormorant gives him pause, aye, but only until we’re fully above his lair.” The captain nodded to the fore. “We’re approaching it now.”

Eir perched a hand over her eyes and saw it—a hundred yards beyond the bow, a black maelstrom. A wide, roaring pit opened in the choppy seas, and water rushed down into some black abyss. “The lair of Morgus Lethe, champion of Zhaitan.”

“Aye. That maelstrom swirls above a deepwater drop-off, where the sea falls away to a bottomless rift. It’s a maelstrom that drags ships down. Beneath that vortex lie a thousand wrecks, home of Morgus Lethe’s undead navy.” Captain Magnus lifted his ear, listening to the slap of waves before the Cormorant. “They’ll hear our bow wave, see the shadow of our hull. It’ll bring them up.

Captain Magnus spun the wheel, and the bow shifted to point south of the whirlpool. Sails bellied full as they tacked into a run. “Split up the barques,” the captain commanded, “one north and one south.”

“Aye, Captain,” Snaff and Zojja chorused. They closed their eyes, and red powerstones gleamed in their golden laurels.

In the boiling wake of the Cormorant, a pair of asuran barques rode low in the water. They seemed to be heavily laden cargo vessels, ripe for the picking. In fact, they held a surprise—one linked to the golden laurels on the asura’s heads. As they sent impulses from the powerstones, one barque veered north and the other south.

Caithe called down from the crow’s nest, “There’s something shifting in the maelstrom!”

Eir went to the starboard rail and stared down at the green-gray waters. They sloped away into a deep vortex. The heart of the whirlpool was black, but in the swirling waters, Eir glimpsed shadowy figures. An emaciated arm, for just a moment, and then what seemed a knobby spine, and then a skull draped in ratty hair or seaweed or something. These shapes were distinct only a moment, pressing against the spinning membrane before vanishing again.

Captain Magnus shouted, “Fighters to the rail!”

Seamen stepped forward, cutlasses and cudgels raised. Rytlock dragged Sohothin from its stone sheath, and Garm shouldered up beside him.

Eir meanwhile brought her bow into position and nocked three arrows. She trained them on the waters that sucked away just to starboard.

There were more glimpses—here, a half-rotten