(Author’s commentary): Oh yeah, the bad guys better watch out… because the princesses are getting ready to kick some butt… and seriously… you do not want to mess with that feisty farm girl, Sanara.

Don’t forget, it is not too late to get your name… or a reasonable facsimile… written into the novel as a character. Just let me know in the comments. Also, once again, you can read the whole story… so far… by clicking the button called: ‘The Seven Kingdoms’ up above in the top bar. That way, you miss this annoying commentary.

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The Seven Kingdoms

Chapter 12

Hildy leaned against the deck railing of the Wavebounder, gazing out over the water at her fleet of ships. Twenty ships, all under her command, the sails in the various colors of all the kingdoms, gave the entire bay the air of some sort of festival, but her heart was heavy. Her mood more closely matched the black sails of the Wavebounder that hung above her. The morning was wearing on, and though they had gone to speak to the king at about the same time the day before, still no word had come to them from the palace.

Hildy felt a hand on her shoulder, and turned to find Sanara standing there. The girl had fire in her eyes. “We are wasting too much time,” Sanara said, “but I have an idea. I just need some money.”

Hildy was intrigued, and asked what the money was to be used for.

“I want to go into town and buy some leather,” Sanara explained, “some rooter hides to cut up to make slings. I am going to make them for everyone, and then I am going to teach everybody how to use them.”

She sounded so determined, and the plan was so simple, so obvious, that Hildy found herself ashamed. She had been standing around and feeling sorry for herself, waiting for things to happen instead of making them happen. She impulsively threw her arms around Sanara and hugged her tightly. “Thank you,” she told the young farm girl sincerely, then led her by the hand across the deck to where captain Reef was talking to his nephew.

“Captain,” Hildy said to him, “I need to know how many sailors we have on all twenty ships.”

The captain considered this for a moment. “There are, on average, thirty men on each ship, princess. A few more on the larger, a few less on the smaller, but I can find out the exact number if you give me an hour or two.”

Hildy told him that was unnecessary, then did some quick math in her head. She had brought slightly more than fifty soldiers from Evergreen, Sanara had brought four more. When she included the small band of royalty, and the sailors from all the ships, she was shocked to realize that there were over six hundred and fifty people waiting around doing absolutely nothing, all because she had been doing absolutely nothing.

Hildy decided that the time for doing nothing was at an end. “Captain, I need the longboat to take Sanara, Tull and Tolly ashore. Your men should accompany them when they go into town to do some shopping. I also need to find out how much money we have. I plan to gather all of it together, and then divide it up amongst several of the ships, so that we won’t lose it all if something happens to split up the fleet. And I am going to need some tools. Knives, axes, whatever we can find in the ship’s carpenter shop.”

“I will take the other longboat around, and speak to all the captains, and return with all the coins we have,” said the captain. “We have no carpenter on the Wavebounder now, but the tools are still here, and I am sure that my nephew won’t mind going and getting them.” He cast his eyes on his nephew, who left to fulfill this task. The captain went of to get the longboats ready.

Hildy, still followed by Sanara, went over to the stern rail of the ship, where Tull and Tolly Caster were dangling fishing lines into the water. Hildy explained to them that they were to accompany Sanara into Flametown and help her purchase and carry rooter hides back to the ship.

“Well, the fish aren’t biting, so we might as well go shopping,” Tolly said. “The fish never bite when Tull is around.”

“I’ve caught more fish in my life than you have,” Tull shot back.

“Fish hate you,” his brother responded.

“Maybe they like you better because they know you are no smarter than they are,” his brother suggested.

“Maybe we can settle this at another time,” Hildy said in some exasperation. Within a short while, Sanara, the brothers, and four of the soldiers who now crewed the Wavebounder, were rowing towards the docks with all of the money that Hildy had brought with her when she left home just a little over twenty days earlier.

Before the captain left in the other longboat, Hildy asked them to row over and bring back the four Dancer soldiers from the Shooting Star, along with their staves. By the time the boat was back, Hildy had captain Nius Tar and the soldiers from Evergreen gathered on the deck of the Wavebounder, also with their staves. Before her lay two small axes and some knives, chisels, and a saw.

Hildy addressed captain Tar and the men gathered around her. “I have decided that we are going to sharpen our staves to a point on one end. It won’t be quite as effective as the iron points the Skulls use, but it should even the odds a little, until we can make some blades of our own.”

The captain gave Hildy an impressed smile, and there was a wicked gleam in his eyes. “A brilliant idea, princess! We can harden the points in the cooking fire in the galley. That will make then even stronger. They should be able to pierce armor.”

Hildy had gone to fetch her own staff, and, picking up a knife, she set to work on it. As the men formed lines around the tools, Hildy went on to explain some of her ideas. “Eventually, I want to get staves for all the sailors on all the ships, sharpen them, and then train the sailors how to use them. Soon, thanks to Sanara, we will all have slings, and we will need to start learning how to use them too. But until then, captain, I want you and your men to start developing a fighting technique that incorporates stabbing and thrusting and not just hitting. Can you do that?”

“Yes, my Lady, I think that sounds like it might be fun,” said the captain with a malicious grin. However, I would once again remind you that these men are your men, not mine.” Around them, the soldiers were nodding in agreement with the captain’s statement. They also began to speak amongst themselves, excited over the prospect that they were preparing to strike back at the Skulls with a chance to beat them at their own game. The rockwood staves were not easy to sharpen, but they set to the task with a will.

As she finished putting the point on her staff, Hildy happened to glance over the railing, and she saw the ship’s longboat returning, followed by two more longboats loaded with sailors. Captain Reef was in the lead boat. She went to greet him as he climbed over the rail.

“My Lady, I had no doubt that my fellow captains would see the merit of your plan to collect and tally all our finances in order to fund our mission,” the captain said. “But I thought that perhaps the sailors might try to hold on to a little spending money, just out of habit, you might say.”

Hildy was surprised by this announcement. “I didn’t actually expect them to give up their own coins. I just wanted the money the ships used for trade.”

“Princess Hildy,” the captain replied, “the ships have very little money, and that mostly to pay the crews and for emergencies. Traders trade in goods, not coin, taking a share of the cargo they transport. Eventually, the captains do sell the extra goods, but most of the money goes back into repairing and outfitting the ships, paying the crew, and paying off personal debts to keep their houses running. There are very few rich captain running around out there. I explained, and each captain explained, that the men don’t need any money of their own. You will make sure they are all fed, and to do that, you do need money. We, the captains, also pointed out that nobody was going to have any time to go ashore and go drinking and carousing at the taverns, so the money wasn’t going to do them any good anyway, and there is no way they can send any money they had left over home right now.”

While she listened, Hildy watched as the sailors on the longboats hoisted four large chests aboard the ship. She noticed that most of the sailors who had come on the longboats remained on the Wavebounder when the other longboats returned to their own ships. Captain Reef explained this too. “I asked for some crewmen to sign onto our ship, to free up your soldiers for training and fighting. They can’t very well sail the ship and do that at the same time, if we run into trouble.”

Hildy thanked the captain, and then they set about opening the four chests and began counting the coins. All the soldiers on deck, seeing what was happening, walked over and dropped whatever coins they had into the chests as well. Hildy was, once again, deeply moved. As she continued to count and pile coins, Sanara and the two argumentative brothers returned in the other longboat. Tull, Tolly and the four soldiers began to unload a large stack of hides onto the deck. Hildy had a few of the new Wavebounder crewmen take over from this task so the four soldiers could join their fellows and sharpen their staves.

Sanara wasted no time at all. She laid one of the hides on the deck and then borrowed a knife from one of the sailors unloading the rest of the hides. She began to cut long, thin strips from the hide. Tull and Tolly watched her for a while, asked a few questions, and then also borrowed knives and began to copy her. A few of the soldiers who had been slingers, and had finished sharpening their staves, also joined in, and so did Lawry and Zar. Sanara then began to cut small, rectangular pieces of hide, using the knife to make a hole at each end. These would serve as the pouch to hold the stone. She tied a thong to each hole in one of the small pieces she had cut, completing the sling. Soon, a pile of slings was growing on the deck.

As Hildy finished her counting, the other princesses came over to her and handed her their small bags of coins, and then went back to helping make more slings. King Aluff, who had been lounging on the ship’s rail, upon seeing this, followed their lead, and even joined in the work of making even more slings. Hildy counted the rest the new coins and divided them evenly into the four chests. Hildy felt a warm glow filling her. To have so many people trusting her, counting on her, it was beyond anything she had ever experienced before in her life.

“Captain,” Hildy said to captain Reef, “will you have three of these chests taken to whichever of the ships whose captains you trust the most?” Then, we are going ashore with the last chest, you and I, and a few of your sailors. I have some more shopping to do.”

As the sun set, Hildy was seated on top of a very uncomfortable pile of tools in one of the longboats, heading back to the Wavebounder. Captain Reef sat perched on a similar pile in the other boat that followed along behind the first. Hildy was surprised to see a small armada of longboats ahead of them, all in a neat row, and all heavily-laden, also heading towards the ship. When her boat caught up to the last of the other boats, she saw Tolly perched on something that left him so high in the air that he was almost above the gunnels of the boat, which was riding so low in the water that it seemed in danger of sinking at any moment.

“What have you got there?” Hildy called across to Tolly, as her boat came abreast of the other boat.

“River rocks,” Tolly called back at her. The four sailors were barely able to move the craft through the water.

Tull sat on the pile in the next boat. As Hildy’s boat caught up to it, she asked, “more river rocks?”

“Yup,” replied Tull, who, like his brother, was very dirty and seemed in no mood for small talk.

The next two boats they passed had only sailors and stones, but the next boat, the lead boat in the line, contained Sanara, looking dirty and tired but oh so proud of herself. “I am very impressed,” Hildy said as they slowly pulled by the other boat.

“Don’t be yet,” Sanara told her. “To be honest, it takes years of practice to be accurate with a sling. All we can hope for now is to get everybody sending the stones in more or less the right direction. And we are going to need a lot more stones just to get to that point. What have you got in your boats?”

“Every knife, axe, pitchfork, scythe, hoe, rake and wooden pole from every tool shop in Flametown,” Hildy said with a grim grin.