Their trip to Laskar had been fast but mostly calm, besides a few instances of rough weather. Adam had barely noticed they were moving half the time, the ride was so smooth.

Not so their return.

Martin had taken the first crossing as the time to beat, despite being almost half a continent further from home. Though it wasn't in sight, Adam was aware they were following the southern Laskarian coast, getting ready to swing as wide as possible around the capital and then back into open ocean. All at speeds that were making him slightly sick. Apparently he wasn't as immune to the common complaint as he thought. Or Martin's speed was pushing them beyond any reasonable approximation of sailing.

The man in question was seated in a meditation pose at the base of the mast. The brief explanation when they set out, after trudging through marshland for an entire night, was that he needed complete focus. He was drawing in ambient mana at an absurd rate, funneling it into the enchantments in order to maintain their breakneck pace. It was terrible for the enchantments and made them "brighter than an ergot in breaker season" whatever that meant. But speed was the order of the day, so Martin stayed in his position day and night, pushing them faster than anything Adam had ever seen or heard of.

They stayed like that for days. Martin meditating and fueling the ship, Adam and Devon puttering around and trying to stay busy, either cultivating or reading one of the books he'd brought along. The camaraderie and jokes from their first voyage were long gone, everyone focused on the same thoughts. Get away. Get home. Deal with it later.

The monotony was absolute and crushing. Until a few days into the journey, when Martin's eyes snapped open. The Tide's Defiance slowed. Not even close to stopping, but down to the more normal speeds one could achieve on a regular ship.

"There's two ships waiting for us," Martin said.

"Waiting for us? Or just waiting?" Devon asked.

That caused some hesitation. It was a good question. They were on the ocean, that's where ships belonged. And if they didn't expect the three of them to be there, maybe they could just go around.

"There are cultivators on both the ships," Martin said.

"Could be new protection against sea monsters," Devon replied.

"It could be. But most ships don't just sit around for no reason."

"What should we do then?" Adam tried to head off the argument. "We could go around, right? We know they're there."

Martin began to pace back and forth along the deck, like a predator in a cage, waiting for the moment to strike.

"Going around would slow us down. If anyone's following we don't want to give them time to catch up. It also brings us a lot closer to either Oudigar or the Empire. Being seen is also not ideal."

"I think we should fight." He announced.

"Two ships full of magicians?" Adam asked in a faint voice. If he had been ineffectual on land, he was dead weight at sea. His ability to use ink was growing, but he could still only work in the area about a meter around his body. He could write some very rude messages across the ship but otherwise there was not a lot to be done.

"Not ships full of cultivators. A handful at most. And weak."

"Let's split the difference," Devon said, in a rare conciliatory gesture. "We don't try to go around, but we don't attack first either. If they're just merchants at rest then it won't matter. Anything else, we handle it."

A sharp nod from Martin settled the matter. Adam's anxiety spiked and he fought to control the reaction. Visions of dead teens, desperately running through the countryside, away from a sinkhole of death flickered in front of his eyes. Memories morphed into nightmares that never happened as he watched faceless masses being slaughtered. The generic people faded into his friends, the violent perpetrator into Adam himself.

A hard shake jolted him out of the panic.

"Whatever you were just thinking, stop it," Devon said. "They probably aren't even here for us. How would they have even gotten ahead?"

"If I were Dariella, stars-cursed bitch that she is, I wouldn't have chased after us." Martin said. "She had the advantage when she was sitting on something we needed and had time to prepare the ground for an ambush. Against both of us in a running battle, things might not go so well. I would have gone straight back to the capital and set up a way to block us. She knows we need to get back to Merista with the Legacy Stone. I bet there are ships, waiting along most reasonable routes, and other cultivators stationed at every city with a port on the east coast in case we went over land."

With each word out of Martin's mouth, Adam's hope dimmed. It was a good plan, and obvious, and definitely something the people they were dealing with would have thought of.

"So we just barrel in and hope for the best?"

"I'm a water cultivator, on the fastest ship on the planet. I don't care what kind of steam engines these people have, there's no way they can outrun the Defiance. Yes we barrel through. And sink anything that looks at us the wrong way."

*********

Martin crouched at the prow of the ship. The extra few feet weren't going to make the enemies come into view any sooner, but it still felt right to be in front of the others. His spiritual senses, magnified by the connection he had with the ocean, told him it was only a matter of minutes now.

The masts had come into view first. If they weren't fools, that meant their ship had been spotted in return. His personal vessel had no identifying marks pointing to a country or ownership, but that would be telling in and of itself. Any assassins waiting for them wouldn't need to second guess their target.

The ship on the right raised a dingy red flag, rippling in the strong breeze. Another mark against them. This was weather any captain would be leveraging to the fullest extent if they actually had somewhere to be. Not sitting still as though becalmed. The flag probably meant something but he wasn't up to date on modern sailing parlance. He didn't have to check to know the others would have no idea either. They were people he loved dearly, but city-boys, the both of them.

When Martin neither reacted, nor changed course, both ships began to maneuver. He was close enough now to see them hoisting anchors and swinging onto a collision course with the Defiance. Sailors skittered around the deck as they set to whatever their battle stations were.

Cultivators were easy to pick out from how in-the-way most of them were amid the actual sailors. Not that they did anything to veil their power in the slightest. Young, weak, entirely unaware of the predator in their midst as they moved towards him.

"Stand down or be advised that we will attack," Devon's voice echoed across the waves, easily reaching the other ships. Martin took a peek and saw the enchanter putting away some metal bauble.

The ships did not take the advice. Martin took one last survey of their enemy. Small ships, built for speed over any other consideration, though still around twice as large as the Tide's Defiance. That meant smallish crews as well. Cannons poked out from the sides, and that was his biggest concern. His pride and joy was well-made and enchanted for durability, and the far more finicky self-repair. But it was still made of wood at the end of the day. Waiting around or spending a day patching holes was just going to give the Laskarians more chances to catch up with them. Despite what he might have said, he was sure that someone, if not Dariella, had been sent to track their progress as well. They wouldn't be free of pursuers until they were mostly back to Merista, maybe not even then.

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Cultivators manned both boats, a handful on each. One was in the expert stage, slightly surprising based on the sloppy methods they had seen so far. It spoke to an experienced guiding hand that had started to become apparent in the Empire's actions.

All the others were the normal dross. Mostly water aspected, which he had expected, and vortex cultivators, if they could be called such. The haphazard meridians made the old designations mostly hollow in the modern world. They were armed to the teeth, which would serve them better than any of their cultivation. Martin could survive a stray bullet wound, but Adam couldn't. And even he might get badly injured if too many of them got lucky.

He didn't intend to give them the chance.

Both enemy vessels had been picking up speed, the wind in their favor. After some line Martin was ignorant of, a round of loud cracks split the silence, as a flurry of cannonballs arced towards them.

None hit the Tide's Defiance, splashing harmlessly to either side. After all, he wasn't alone on the vessel. And controlling lots of small pieces of metal was one of Devon's specialties. The energy behind the ordinance would make them harder to stop or divert, but they wouldn't get another volley off.

As they approached he had been pulling more and more water under his control. Now close enough, he sent dozens of streams to swamp the decks, and the holes were the cannons poked towards them. He didn't need to know how guns worked to know that nothing based around fire liked getting wet.

The swell he was riding grew and grew, until it was a dozen meters high at least. He felt the enemy cultivators band together to take control of his working. Adorable. The wave crashed down onto the ships. An application of focus and willpower created bands of ice he used to shatter both masts with satisfying twin cracks.

In a split-second decision, at the last minute he decided not to sink both boats. For the one on his left, he tore through the hull, leaving gashes too wide to try and repair. That happened to be the one with the better cultivator. For the other ship on his right, he satisfied himself with the destruction of the mast. There. No one was directly killed but they wouldn't be chasing them either. Adam should appreciate that.

As the Tide's Defiance sped through the wreckage, he turned to watch the fallout. The sailors were frantically saving what they could and hopping on to the intact ship. With at least ten water-aspected cultivators, they should be able to limp into port, unless they were just absurdly incompetent. At which point it was their own fault anyway.

Once they were out of sight, he went back to his position at the mast. This kind of rapid, ongoing warping of the ambient mana was stressful on his spirit, but it was the best option they had.

It was two more days at his top pace when they came into range of Laskar City. There had been one more ship that didn't want to let them pass, and it met the same fate as the first two. Crippled but not slaughtered.

The transition to the area under sway from the Laskar City Core was both obvious and concerning. It was also far further out to sea than Martin had expected. He cut out his technique as fast as he could, but he doubted it was enough.

He jogged to the mast and adjusted the sails. Just because he usually liked to use his cultivation to move the ship around didn't mean he forgot how to sail the mortal way.

"Do we want to start with the bad news or the worse news?" he said.

"Umm, can we have some good news please?" Adam asked.

"Not right now. The world isn't done fucking us over." Martin hated to poke the already fragile man further towards the edge but lying at this point was a bad idea. Adam would be okay. He just needed space and time to process underneath a pile of old books, which he wouldn't be getting until they were back in the sect house.

"What's the bad news?" Ever practical, ever emotionally unaware, Devon got them back on track.

"The bad news is that the capital is definitely a City. The mana character changed. You can feel it if you poke around a bit. But it's too well-controlled. Too powerful for anything else."

"And the worse news?" Adam asked. Without his beard, the dread showed, draining color from his tanned cheeks.

"The technique I was using is loud. I cut it off as soon as I noticed, but whoever's in there would have to be asleep at the wheel to miss it."

Devon swore up a storm while Adam turned even greener.

"The way I see it," Martin continued, "we have two options. Option one is to go quiet, sail like we're just mortal fishermen, in an unmarked vessel, out to sea. Try and bluster our way out if anyone confronts us. It gives them more time to prepare but there's a chance we make it out without ruffling too many feathers. It would be better if we'd stolen a Laskarian flag from one of those ships, but too late now.

"Option two is we go all out. Try and edge out on speed before they have everyone and their mother trying to chase us down. Squeak through whatever blockade they try to catch us with."

They all stayed quiet for a moment.

"It has to be option two." It was Adam that spoke up in favor of the riskier plan. "We'll get trapped otherwise."

"He's right," Devon agreed, using his least favorite words.

"Let's do this then. Devon, you have any disruption formations on you. Or anything to anchor us to the ship?"

"Sure a few, why?"

"Put them on. We're in the area of influence of a hostile City. Anything that can prevent them from reaching out and slapping us back is going to come in handy. And we'll need to hold on. Adam, take the helm. Keep us on course but if you have to dodge, go away from the City." He accompanied the instructions with a gesture to make clear the direction they should angle.

"Feel free to keep your spiritual senses open and drop the veil. They know we're here anyway."

That was as much instruction as he had time to give. Devon was capable enough, even if he wasn't primarily a combatant, and he would guide Adam and make sure he stayed on the boat at the speeds they would be going. All his attention was going to be on keeping them moving.

He sank his spirit into the ship around them. The Defiance had only been his for a few decades, but it had seen a lot of living in that time. In many ways it was his link to the water, and thus it held a special place in his cultivation. As his mana infused the ship and the surrounding water he commanded it to move.

In his peripheral awareness, he saw Devon stumble, while Adam went entirely to his knees. They were moving faster than before. Faster than any humans could go under their own power. This was freedom. Martin could go where he wanted. Those that tried to trap him would find only death.

The wooden boards creaked, channeling more mana than they were designed to. The reinforced sails bowed back with the speed, and he called out for Devon and Adam to furl them up. Nothing to slow them down now that they weren't pretending to be anything other than what they were.

It was exhilarating.

They skimmed through the water, ignoring anything else. A few ships were out to sea, some actually fishing while others were quite clearly military vessels. He sped past them all. These fucking steam engines were impressive, but there was no way a ponderous warship was catching up with him any time soon.

Faster, faster. They were almost out of the Core's reach when he hit bad luck. They must have a communication system worked out, as there was no way these ships would have been able to cut him off otherwise.

Just ahead, at the line where the Core influence faded away, there were at least five ships. Spread out in such a way that they wouldn't be able to avoid them all.

It was too close to go around, there were too many boats to avoid every gun. He hadn't wanted to reveal this trick but he didn't see another way.

"Make sure you're holding on!" he yelled back at the others.

No time to check if they were listening, he started funneling mana into another set of enchantments. They circled the hull and spiraled up the mast, filling with mana. When each rune was fully saturated, the Defiance began to sink.

Panels – usually seamlessly joined with the rest of the hull – slid aside, forcing sea water to rush into the hold. Shouting came from behind him, presumably Adam, but he didn't slow down the transition or stop to explain. It would take all his concentration to make sure they kept a bubble of breathable air. When exploring the ocean depths, he usually just sank the whole ship, not bothering with that part. He could breathe underwater just fine for any length of time. Laurel could too, but Farin and Imelda hadn't taken the steps to cement that ability, and so he had part of the enchantments built so that they could join him on those voyages. It had almost doubled the price. Not that their group ever took advantage of the option. They had always assumed there would be more time together.

Forcing himself back to the present, Martin saw only the mast was still poking out of the sea, a dome of air enclosing the deck and the inhabitants. Their speed slowed. It was inevitable. Dealing with the changing pressure, and trying to move a bubble of air underwater meant the same pace just wasn't an option. But it should be enough. From their enemy's perspective, they would have disappeared.

They approached the line of ships from well below, the light filtering down painting them in a gloomy twilight. It wasn't the deepest area of the ocean, where they would truly be undetectable, but hopefully it was enough.

Splashes far above preceded sinking objects, anchored with heavy weights and covered in spikes. To Martin's spirit they felt like weapons. He sent a jet of pressurized water at the first, intending to push it far away. Wrong choice.

It exploded, sending a shockwave and shards of metal streaking out in all directions. Cursing behind him assured Martin that Devon had handled it. Most of it. Spikes of metal were now embedded in the hull, the ship would have some new battle scars after this.

He should avoid them. The ships were throwing more of the mines, but most were too far to matter. For the three left over, some subtlety would get them past without issue, if he were capable of anything resembling subtle just then.

That wasn't an option. He was doing too many large-scale workings at the same time to carefully drift each explosive out of their way.

"Duck and brace!" he shouted. Then he set them all off at once.

The shockwave rocked the boat. Water started to swamp the breathable air, and with an extra effort of will, Martin pushed it back out. That would be bad. The self-repair enchantments were strong, but the ship would need some careful attention once they were free.

At least the strategy worked. The Tide's Defiance flew past the enemy ships, and out into the ocean water, free from Laskar City's influence. Still Martin kept them submerged. They weren't fast enough to outrun other ships in this condition, better to confirm they were fully away before resurfacing.

A few eels and some of the more curious fish swam by their pocket of air. Further out towards the sea, a pod of whales stopped to say hello. A bit less stressed, Martin pulsed his mana at them in acknowledgement. Sea creatures were smart, but so often alien to his human sensibilities. The merfolk had understood them better, helped him see the potential within each creature. But the whales were always his favorite. They felt some of the human emotions so often lacking in the depths.

When he could feel nothing around them in his spiritual senses, he raised them up. The original enchanter had been good, better than good, so the pressure change wasn't even an issue for Adam, who still had a mostly mortal body. They breached the surface to find a light drizzle beating down on them. Martin tilted his head back and let the water run down his face.

It was over. They would still be on guard until they got home, but it should be done. A flick of his willpower sent the pumping enchantments to empty out the water they had used as ballast. Now they just had an ocean to cross before getting home. Easy.

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