Marco pushed another dose of his magic into the ship. It was all that he could do at the moment. For reasons he couldn’t entirely explain, he didn’t need Elisa to explain what was going on. He felt every cannon shot that hit The Foolish Endeavor and a fire was starting to burn in his heart. “Noted. Not much we can do about it now, anyway. Just stay under cover, all right? No more taking risks like that. I’m giving it everything I have.”

The enemy fire continued as they skedaddled for all they were worth. Aethe tried firing a few arrows back but soon found herself both outgunned and outdistanced.

“I’m not seeing Frisk!” Marco yelled.

“Maybe he went a different way?” Elisa offered. “Just keep sprinting. We’ll just have to get out of this ourselves.”

Marco pushed himself to the point of exhaustion, giving as much magic as the ship could possibly take. Incredibly, it seemed to rejoice despite the damage it was taking.

By the time they crossed the invisibility barrier around the island, they were taking on water fast.

“I’m crashing into the beach,” Marco yelled to his crew. “Hold on.”

The ship splintered and cracked as they skidded over the sand, halfway out of the water when they finally stopped. The old woman was almost to them when they made it off the ship.

“Tell me you have something ready,” Marco called out. “Anything at all.”

“You could say that.” The old woman’s eyes traced a path from Marco to the docks, where row after row of cannons were set up, taking up all the available space that small aisle’s left for reloading didn’t. “It’s gonna be a hell of a show.”

As the first pirate ships started crossing the barrier, their scouts seemed to notice what was waiting for them. A full reverse was called, judging by the sudden slowdown of the entire fleet. There wasn’t enough time for that reverse to be effective, or anywhere near enough to communicate across an island’s magic stealth. If anything, it made things worse for the fleet as they all bunched up just around the line of demarcation between the island’s territory and the outside world.

In the meantime, young men were running down the lines with torches, lighting cannon fuses as they went. When the beginning of the cannonade went off, even Marco’s artillery-accustomed, stat-reinforced ears couldn’t quite cope with it. These were big guns, and there was an endless stream of their chatter as a cloud of cannonballs so thick it could hardly be seen through filled the air.

It hit Steed’s armada hard. The smaller, cheaper ships at the back of the pack started sinking in droves as their crews abandoned ship and started paddling towards shore. The bigger ships took beatings as cannons ripped free from their mounts, masts broke, and unfortunate sailors on board were decimated.

“Wow,” Riv said in awe after everyone’s hearing slowly returned to normal. “How many times can you do that?”

“Once. Just once.” The old woman waved them towards the docks. “The rest of it needs to be reloaded and fired the old-fashioned way. Man cannons, you all. We need to get every bit of advantage we can out of this.”

The fleet crept forward again, taking fire under the shore’s cannons but never in a mass so heavy as to take them completely down again. A few of the large ships eventually floundered, but even that didn’t significantly reduce the number of enemy combatants. They could all swim, after all, and they weren’t far out. They’d hit the island sooner or later, now with no means of retreat.

“When they start coming, leave the small fries to us,” the old woman said. “We have some fighters. Real shoreline guard types. That Steed, you better get a plan ready for. Way I figure it, you have about a minute.”

Marco talked to Elisa, who talked to Aethe. Riv bowed out of the planning itself, opting to fire his cannon just that much faster. When Steed’s ship got close a minute later, they had it just about pounded out.

“Here he comes,” Marco said. “Start yelling.”

As Steed leapt from his ship and started striding through the water, Elisa nearly screamed out the next part.

“Marco!” Elisa said. “The temple! It’s ready! It’s our only chance!”

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The four of them turned tail and ran. Steed followed right away. Marco was sure he would have gone for them even without the threat of the temple. His eyes were filled with fire and rage. As they cleared the town, Marco got one last present from the old woman.

“Now!” she yelled, and the forest answered. A dozen archers and musketeers poked their heads from the wood and shot at once, making every single chance count as every bit of force found a home in some different part of Steed. Marco heard him grunt as it all hit him, and then twice more as two arrows from Aethe slammed in just after them. “Get out of here now! And take him the long way!”

Elisa nodded as they kept running. It took Marco longer to realize what she was saying. It was only when Elisa moved towards the grove of special boat-lumber trees that he got his first hint.

Steed was as fast as them, maybe faster by a hair. The injuries he had taken from that first big volley had slowed him down, but hadn’t really hurt him. It was mind-boggling how much damage he could probably take if it came down to it, judging by how little that had done to him. Luckily, he was still focused on Marco and his crew, ignoring the long-distance fighters and even the rest of his own crew as they fought with defenders of the island. He now carried his shield in front of him as he advanced with fast but even steps.

Marco and Aethe were faster than the others and took turns turning and firing at the enemy captain as he followed, letting the others get a lead before they made up for it themselves. When they hit the grove of trees, their hit-and-run tactics stopped as they zipped through, slapping bark to make sure every one of them was awake while getting past them themselves.

“What in the hell?” Steed yelled behind them. When the captain came through, it was to the strong, accurate swings of every tree he passed. He bashed through the branches, splintering them with sheer momentum as he blocked as best he could with his shield. Still, it bought them time and did some amount of damage.

The long way turned out to be longer than than even Marco thought. Elisa dragged them just around a dozen major and minor hazards she had learned about from the scholars maps, pits of quicksand and herds of aggressive animals she had steered them clear of before without the slightest mention.

Even though they were also going through these hazards, Elisa found a way to get them through with the most efficient route. When Marco sent her a questioning gaze after she pulled him away from stepping into the attack range of one such animal, she simply mouthed the word, “Learned.”

Each one of the hazards did damage to the captain, whittling him down. Even so, he was more bloody and scratched than he was truly injured. With sustained fire from Marco and Aethe every time he got tripped up, that was adding up. Steed still didn’t seem much bothered. He growled and followed them.

“You think that temple is going to help you?” Steed was getting close enough to start taunting them. “Must be a pretty special thing. I’m sure it will give you whatever you want, too. Whatever you think it has.”

Marco opened his mouth to respond when Steed suddenly rushed forward. The captain covered the gap in a matter of seconds, like he had taken one giant step forward while his shield burned black with some unknown energy. It caught Elisa in the back, a backhand swing that sent her flying off the path. Steed kept coming after Marco. Marco could see Elisa rising behind them, but couldn’t afford to stop. If Stead was chasing him, he wasn’t chasing her.

When Riv turned, there was nothing Marco could do about that, either. The Sturdy’s big club slammed into Steed, taking him in the side of the knee and making him stagger. Steed growled and swung his shield again. It was still boiling with the same dark energy as before, and this time Marco watched some of it stick to Riv as he flew away. He got up just as slowly, and tried to take a step in pursuit before gasping and falling to a knee.

Aethe was the next to turn and face the pirate captain.

“Don’t,” Marco tried.

“You have to get to the temple. The plan, remember? I’ll be fine. We’ll catch up soon.” She leapt forward and started firing her bow, shooting with an overdrawn force that pounded the arrows deeper than they had sunk before. Steed slowed down significantly, but not so much he didn’t send her flying too.

In the meantime, his shield was glowing with less and less of the black energy, like it was a resource that could be used up. Marco sprinted away from the man, turning a corner and finally seeing the temple in the distance. Steed swung his shield just as Marco turned, letting the point of his rapier take the impact and launching him in the same distance he had been running. He took no damage from it directly, but a tiny bit of the black energy came through. His legs bogged down as he landed in a sprint, leaving him a questionable amount of time to get where he needed to go.

He made it, somehow. Firing his gun when Stead got too close, he managed to ride the sheer force of the bigger captain’s attacks like waves until he finally ducked through the door of the temple.

Inside, he was halfway across the floor when the size of the room hit him. It wasn’t the biggest building he had heard of, but it was in terms of sheer interior volume the biggest he had seen. Everything was the same uniform black it had been on the outside, except for a subtle line of silver here and there, working through the building’s walls like inorganic veins.

“Oh, hell. Ain’t that a thing,” Steed said. “Looks like it’s being fair, after all.”

“Looks like they wanted a fight when it was this close,” Steed said. “More than most would give, I guess.”

“Yeah, maybe.” Marco turned and took a fighting stance. “You won’t like what happens now, you know. You aren’t in good shape. So you might be able to take me, but not before my friends get here. There will be four of us, and one injured you.”

“Ha! You think so, huh?” Steed laughed. “Not gonna happen, kid.”

The enemy captain cracked his neck and spread out his stance. He had looked big before. He looked even bigger now.

“They can’t get here any more than you can get out,” Steed laughed. “I cursed them. Pull of the Deep. They won’t be coming any time soon.”