(Author’s commentary); If you are not reading this novel, which I am posting as I write it, chapter by chapter, I don’t blame you. Who has time to read a bunch of words, anyway? Especially since I have been very honest about the fact that I won’t post the last quarter of the book, because if I did, nobody would ever buy it, right? (You can get around this stipulation by volunteering to be one of my editors, and you will even end up with a free, signed copy of the finished novel, with your name and whatever on the dedication page… just sayin’)…

If you are one of the few, the proud, the brave, the bored, the homebound, who are reading it, then let me apologize for the fact that the action seems to have stalled. That is because, once I realized that the scope and scale of the novel was growing, I decided that I needed to take some time to let the resistance army get organized for the coming war.

All that being said, I think I am fulfilling my promise to write an adventure novel about teenage princesses that is unlike anything else in that genre. True, it was impossible to avoid some of the standard prerequisites of a princess story. I have a dark, evil empire against which to pit them. I had an evil wizard… who, I remind you, turned out to be more of a parlor magician… I have kings and queens and romance and adventure… But that is where it ends. My kick-ass crew of teenage princesses are putting together an army of resistance to the evil empire that is much more like the allies taking on the Nazis when they were at their strongest.

New weapons and technologies are being invented, new tactics and methods are being experimented with… these girls are turning my make-believe world upside down. And still, amidst the growing menace and the fact that most of the world has fallen under the thrall of the dark empire, my princesses are facing the challenges not only with bravery and strength, but managing to hold onto their humor and decency at the same time.

Yeah, sure, during their darkest hours, I have no doubt that Eisenhower and Churchill still put on a brave face and cracked a few jokes… but my princesses remember to hug people, and aren’t afraid to cry… and they are just making it up as they go along, because on this world, warfare was a more or less stylized and formal event, where few people ever actually died.  Well, it ain’t that way now, let me tell you.

(You can read the entire book… so far… by clicking the button with the name of the novel up in my top bar at the top of the blog page)

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The Seven Kingdoms

Chapter Twenty Three

The next morning, Hildy was taking a break from the constant reading of reports, as well as the streams of orders and suggestions and clarifications that she was constantly sending out, which she had taken to dictating to whichever of her three new helpers that seemed the least busy at the time. Milla, Tora and Flek were the names of her three new assistants, and she had to admit, they were taking quit a lot of the load off her shoulders. In truth, she would be swamped completely if it weren’t for them.

She was in the yard outside the headquarters building, wearing her new uniform and practicing with her spear. She thought it was important that she be at least as good as most if not all of the men in her army. She was imagining sets of enemy soldiers coming at her. She was parrying their thrusts and striking out in return. It felt good to work up a sweat and forget about everything else, if only for a while. She remembered practicing with her father, and his endless patience when it came to teaching his daughter to use a staff, and she wondered briefly if her mother and father were still alive and well.

She saw movement from the corner of her eye, and was surprised to see Nire Reef, her commander of the fleet, walking down the lane. He too was wearing one of the new uniforms. When he drew nearer, she saw that his uniform had blue patches on it, each with a black dot and an X. He stopped in front of her, stood very straight, and brushed some dust off his sleeve.

She has never seen him in anything other than a white tunic with the blue-bordered hem of their kingdom. “You look very… military,” she told him with a smile.

He returned her smile. “I hate to admit it, but I like this uniform. Makes me feel important and useful.”

“You are both of those things, old friend,” Hildy told him. “It makes you look very handsome as well.” She was pretty sure he actually blushed, somewhere under his sailor’s tan.

“I would love to say I came just to chat, but I have some bad news. Some fishing boats came in, just a while ago, fleeing from Flame. The Skulls have landed there.” His smile was gone now. “But I have encouraging news as well. The forts are finished. I have had them disguised by planting young trees in front of them, and tying larger, cut trees to the walls, which will be replaced as they dry out. I also used some of princess Lawry’s green dye to splash on the walls. From the sea, the forts are more or less invisible.”

“That is encouraging,” Hildy admitted.

“You will recall,” the fleet commander continued, “that I told you I was undecided as to whether or not we should leave the fleet in the main port where it could be bottled up. But I have come to a decision. I think we should stay there, and try to lure the enemy fleet into the bay when it comes. I know it is a calculated risk, but really, all that we are doing falls into that category. I doubt they know just how many ships we now have, and we might not get another chance to try something like this.”

Hildy was curious. “What is it that makes you think this is our best bet now?”

“Sanara’s new ‘toys’, as she so quaintly calls them,” he explained. “I have my sailors rotating shifts manning the forts, but I was hoping you would see fit to start sending some of her new flame troops to do watches there as well. And to perhaps send some if not most of the new fire slings to the fleet as they are made. I believe that if we can get the enemy to sail into the bay, we can give them a warm welcome, if you will forgive the poor joke.”

“Talk to Sanara,” Hildy told him. “Ask for whatever you need, and I will take whatever I can get once you are satisfied. Without your fleet, my army is of little use, except to stay here and guard this kingdom. But if you can destroy their fleet before they land their troops, we won’t have to fight them on land at all, at least not yet.”

“Thank you, commander,” he said with great sincerity. “One other thing, if I may. I presume you have met a man named Oar, Tarry Oar?”

“Indeed I have,” Hildy said.

“He is cooking something up with my nephew, and the other black ship, which has now been painted completely black. My nephew says he can’t tell anyone what is being planned, including me.” The fleet commander didn’t sound thrilled about this.

“Mr. Oar deals in secrets, but you can trust him. That’s all I can say. If there is something more you need to know, I will make sure you do. But for now,” Hildy said, sort of enjoying sounding so mysterious,” you should consider the Black Ship to be sailing under separate orders.”

“It makes complete sense. The less people who know anything, the less people will be talking about it, and who ever knows who might be listening? And there is a very real possibility that some of us might be captured one of these days, and I have no doubt at all that the Skulls are not above using torture to make prisoners talk.”

Hildy was horrified to realize that this was something that she had no trouble believing was absolutely true.

The fleet commander thanked her for her time, and excused himself.

Later that day, as Hildy read a report from Zar telling her that she and the triplets should be returning the following day, Hildy heard the Caster brothers shouting her name from outside the old farmhouse. She went outside to see what they were up to, and spotted them standing nearby, facing a pair of dummies made from bundles of dry grass tied with string. The dummies had been tied to a pair of wooden posts pounded into the dirt.

The brothers were each wearing the new uniforms, and those uniforms displayed the plain red patches of an army junior troop captain. Tully saw her eyeing the patches. “We told Lawry that you said we could be captains,” he proclaimed grandly.

Hildy nodded, conceding the point.

Over their shoulders, the two boys wore strange contraptions. They were hollow tubes made of some kind of rolled tree bark, with ropes tied to them to allow them to be slung across a shoulder. Protruding from the tops of these tubes, and sticking up well past the shoulders of each of the brothers, was a bundle of wooden rods.

The brothers exchanged grins, and each reached an arm back, grasped one of these rods, and withdrew them from their carrying case. They were spears, but like none that Hildy had ever seen before. They were only a little more than four feet in length, and nearly half that length was made up of the metal tips. The tips had a widened, flared base where they fit over the wooden shaft, but then tapered quickly into just a long, round bar that came to a sharp point near the business end. Along the bar, which was about as thick as a large man’s finger, were many wicked-looking barbs that angled back towards the wooden part of the spear.

“It took us a while to get the balance right for throwing,” Tull told her.

“We tried a lot of different lengths and thicknesses of wood and metal, but these fly just fine,” said Tolly happily. “Let us show you.”

They each took a stance and threw the spears at the two targets. They each hit the mark, and each spear sank into its target all the way to the wooden shaft.

The boys each let out a yell. “Now go try to pull one out of the dummy,” Tull dared her. They followed her over and laughed as she tried tugging on the wooden part of one of the spears. She pulled it out of the dummy, but it wasn’t easy. The backwards-pointing barbs, each half as long as her little finger, grabbed and caught at the dried grass, and dragged long strands out with it. She shuddered as she imagined what it would be like to pull one of the spears out of a human body.

“The spears are pretty easy to make, and the carrying baskets are really easy. We already have two shops starting to make everything, and more will be set up soon,” Tolly told her proudly.

“And the best part is that these spears are easy to use. No training required at all. Here, you try throwing a few,” Tull insisted, taking his basket off his shoulder and handing it to her.

She returned to where they had stood to throw their spears and gave it a try. She threw the whole basketful. She hit the target she was aiming at almost every time. The spears were light and the balance was good.

“And it doesn’t matter where you hit someone,” Tull said, when her last throw ended up sticking in the lower leg of one of the dummies. “That guy isn’t going to be fighting anymore. Not for quite a while.”

“And the only way to get them out of a person without ripping them up, is to push it right through and out the back,” Tolly said, sounding almost gleeful about it.

Hildy thanked them, and told them to get back to work and get her as many of the new weapons as they could manage, as fast as it was possible to do so. Then she went back into the headquarters building feeling cold inside and out.