The rhythmic thrum of five thousand voices chanting in unison woke Kaelen from his midday nap.
He opened one eye beneath the brim of his straw hat.
The salt barge had already slipped past the twin obsidian pillars guarding the caldera harbor of Storm-Anvil Reef. Across the wide bay, fourteen colossal Star-Iron warships sat anchored in two perfect defensive crescents.
Their spiked black hulls bristled with heavy spirit-ballistas, iron boarding ramps, and massive dragon-prow ramming horns. On the terraced limestone cliffs above the docks, five hundred thousand allied continental soldiers stood in disciplined formation, their banners fluttering in the sea wind.
Yet the noise echoing off the volcanic crater did not sound like military battle cries.
It sounded like a dramatic poetry recital.
“And then the bandit lord lowered his curved saber,” five thousand voices chanted in solemn, reverent harmony across the northern terrace. “He took her trembling hand beneath the weeping peach blossoms, swearing that no imperial magistrate would ever tear them apart.”
Kaelen slowly sat up on his daybed, pushing his straw hat back.
