I stopped Jack with a hand on his shoulder, making him look at me.

  “I know something different is going on,” he said. “Are we going to war?”

  “Kind of,” I answered. “Do you remember me talking about incursions?”

  “Yeah, but that was something we wouldn’t need to worry about for ten years,” he said.

  His eyes widened at the airships, the supplies being loaded and the people assembled on the dock.

  “Something happened?”

  “There’s an incursion up north,” I said. “In that new clan’s territory.”

  “How?”

  “Don’t worry about that,” I said. “I’ll explain it all later.”

  He nodded. Jack was a smart kid. Curious, like all teens, but he knew about state secrets and stuff like that. There was a lot of stuff I couldn’t tell him and not because of his age, but because it just couldn’t be told.

  “So we are going to war?”

  “Yeah, I guess you could say that,” I replied.

  “You going to be up there the whole time?”

  “I don’t know.”

  Jack was used to me not being around much. It came with the territory of being an Adventurer and was worse because I was the Faction leader. He’d been too young before so I couldn’t bring him with me to most places I went. A World Council meeting? Not fun for a kid. Usually when I was gone, it was only for a couple days.

  War though? He was young then, but he remembered the early days of the Faction. There were a lot of long fights, monster surges, all that stuff. I could be gone for a week or more at a time. That’s probably what he was thinking now.

  “No promises,” I said. “But once the portal is up and running, we’ll see if you can come out for a day or so.”

  “That would be cool.”

  “There would of course be a guard detail,” I cautioned.

  He nodded.

  I sighed, afraid I’d made a promise I couldn’t keep. I had said ‘no promises’, but I’d been a teen once. I knew what that meant. All he heard was ‘promise’.

  “Come on, I’ll introduce you.”

  We walked over to the group, the elves turning to see us. Sunie stepped forward, bowing at the waist to Jack.

  “You must be Jackson. I have heard a lot about you. I am Sunie Teralei.”

  He held out a hand, which Jack quickly shook.

  “Nick’s told me a lot about you too,” he said.

  I could see it in Jack’s eyes. He was doing his best to not stare at Sunie’s ears. Everything about the elf was exotic, and Jack was doing a good job of not looking too excited. He glanced at the other elves and back at Sunie.

  “At some point soon,” Sunie said. “You will have to join Nick on a trip to Cerim, which is my homeworld.”

  “That would be so cool,” Jack said, looking all the part of a thirteen year old boy.

  “No promises,” I said again, a little sternly, knowing Jack didn’t hear the ‘no’ part. “I don’t even know when I’ll get to go and if your studies slack off while I’m gone…,” I trailed off, leaving it hanging.

  “Are Nathan and Tracy going to?” Jack asked. I nodded. “So I’ll be staying with Kat?” I nodded again. He groaned, making me chuckle. “No way will my school work slack. She makes me work twice as much,” he muttered.

  “Good,” I said. “Maybe I should make you stay with her more often.”

  Jack rolled his eyes, everyone around us getting a good chuckle.

  We all talked for a bit until I heard my name being called.

  “Nick,” Kat’s voice broke through the general conversation.

  “Duty calls,” I said, walking back toward the command group.

  ***

  “Nick,” Benjamin said as I got closer.

  “Ben. Kat fill you in?”

  “Yeah. Right mess it is.” He shook his head.

  I didn’t see the two people he’d brought with him. They must have already been on board with the rest of the support staff. They’d keep a very low profile, blend in.

  “I’ll send some more people with the next load that heads up,” Ben said. “Hadn’t planned on sending anyone from Solace Intelligence, but I’ll have someone on the next flight.”

  “Any idea who?”

  “I’d send Trevor but you already have him assigned and,” Ben shrugged. “He’s not much of the admin type. More get in the field and get dirty. This will need to be someone from the admin side of things. We’ll filter the agents through the Gray Wolf Clan people, see what they can dig up. I would have sent more this trip but wasn’t prepared. Sorry about that.”

  “None of us were truly prepared for this and I just found out the reason why it’s happening earlier today. You did good in a short time.”

  Unauthorized use: this story is on Amazon without permission from the author. Report any sightings.

  Ben nodded.

  “I’ll reach out to the agents in the field, see what they can dig up. Hopefully we will have a prelim report in a week or two.”

  “Great. The suspect list isn’t huge.”

  “Yeah, Kat explained the criteria. I’m still going to check on some of the larger clans outside the Council. It’s been a while since we’ve gotten a real work-up done on the current Clans. This is a good excuse to update our files. With all the One Hundreds hitting the Tower, there’s going to be some shifts in power.”

  “Good idea. Sorry to add more work to your plate.”

  Ben chuckled, waving it off.

  “Keeps me busy,” he said. “The wife hates it when I have nothing to do. Says I bother her.”

  We all laughed.

  There was an extra loud stomping of booted foot on wooden planks coming our way. It was done in an obvious manner. A way to warn us of the approach so we’d stop talking about the top secret stuff. We turned to see a woman walking toward us. I didn’t know her, but she had the bearing of one of the airship captains. Dressed the part too. The clothes were in the Solace Fellowship colors, a smaller symbol on the breast of the long coat she wore. No tricorn hat, but her brown hair was done in a ponytail. Sharp blue eyes studied us as she focused on me and then Maria.

  “Lord Howell, Colonel Ferandez, we are ready to set sail whenever you are.”

  “Thank you Captain Nichols,” Maria said, nodding. “We are waiting on a couple more people and some special items and then we will be able to take off.”

  The Captain gave a stiff and formal nod, turned crisply and walked back down the docks. She barked out some orders to some of the slower moving sailors.

  Kat looked at me, with that set to her eyes that warned me she was going to publicly call me out on something. She did that on purpose, knowing that I was more likely to not brush it off if it was done in front of others.

  “Do not be giving anyone a hard time about calling you Lord,” she said.

  “But…”

  “No,” she said, firmly. “This is important Nick. The Solace Fellowship is going to war and formality needs to be maintained. Everyone needs to know that you are ultimately in charge. This is even more important when dealing with the Gray Wolf Clan, especially if they had anything to do with the incursion or just joined us to get our help with the dungeon surges.”

  I had almost forgotten about that little issue too.

  Kat was right, of course, she usually was.

  “I get you,” I said. “And yes, this is important.” I paused, realizing something she said. “Oh crap, I’m going to have to deal with politics aren’t I?”

  Donovan and Maria rolled their eyes. Kat looked like she wanted to lash out but just sighed.

  “Yes Nick. You are.”

  “Derek has a full packet on the Gray Wolfs?”

  “He does. Everything we know about their leadership, their history, what Ben and his people were able to get before we allowed them to join the Clan. He can brief you on the flight out.”

  “I doubt they have anything to do with the incursion itself, that is their territory being attacked, but the timing is very suspicious.”

  “Agreed,” Ben said. “Anything we get between now and when the next airships head out, I’ll send along with whoever I assign as the Intel Officer.”

  The crowd watching all of us had changed through the afternoon. It was pretty boring just watching people load airships, groups of people talking. The only interesting thing was who made up those groups. The elves were getting a lot of attention, which was understandable.

  I watched the crowd part a bit as two guards escorted Derek back to join us. He wasn’t carrying anything, all of it was in his inventory. The guards joined the rest that had formed a perimeter around the docks, keeping the curious onlookers back. Derek joined us.

  “You got the crystals?” Kat asked.

  “Yes ma’am,” he replied. “I wasn’t able to make many but got as much as I could. The office is going to make some more.”

  “Excellent,” Kat said, turning to me. “I guess that’s it.”

  “Yeah,” I said, kind of nervous.

  It had been a while since we’d had to do one of these large scale deployments. I turned to look at the group of Adventurers, Elves and Jack.

  “Say your goodbyes,” I called out. “We’re leaving.”

  I reached a hand out to Donovan.

  “I’ll hold down the fort,” he said, shaking it.

  “I know you will.”

  I gave Ben a handshake, and left him with Donovan, Maria and Derek. Kat and I walked over to our friends, Jack and the elves. It was time to say goodbye to Jack.

  ***

  The last of the line’s were untied, the ropes tossed across to the sailors, who took them and did sailor things with them. I wasn’t paying attention. I was at the back of the ship, watching Solacetown recede, growing smaller. Jack, Kat and some others stood at the docks, waving. Kat took Jack by the shoulder and led him away.

  I sighed. It was always hard leaving the kid, but usually I knew it would only be a day or two. This was an extended trip and those always sucked.

  I turned away and headed down the ship. It was a basic cargo ship, the cargo mostly people. It sat low in the water. It’d be about a mile out from shore before it took off. We wouldn’t be flying that high. Airships didn’t go above the clouds, they kept lower to the ground.

  The first of the islands in Loch Ursa came into view, and I could see the construction still going on. There was a fort being built on the island as Dungeon had been discovered. It was rare for new Dungeons to pop up that close to population centers. They tended to like being in the middle of nowhere. That way there was no competition for the ambient Arcanum and they could feed and grow off it.

  The ship shuddered as it started to lift off. I walked over to the railing, looking down. The waters of the lake drifted back, a rain of drops falling down from the ship, splashing into the lake. We got higher and higher. I could feel the thrumming of Arcanum through the tubes that kept the ship flying. I didn’t understand how airships worked, it was just cool to be on one.

  I leaned against the railing and watched the perspective change as the ship rose into the air.