Chapter 2: Isles of the Cosari

What now awaited Brandyé was a thing beyond his imagination. Who these men were remained unknown, but where they had come from was now clear, for before him lay a creation of a size and nature that he had never heard spoken of, even in his grandfather’s wildest tales.

It was a water vessel – so much was clear, for it lay half upon the beach, and half in the shallows of the sea. But it was as unlike the craft that had borne him from Consolation as a pebble is to a mountain. The vessel’s hull rose some ten or more feet above his head, and atop that he saw a great mast, towering high towards the clouds, and from which hung vast drapes whose purpose he could not fathom. To the rear of the craft stood another mast, though shorter than the first, and the tapered bow ended in a carving of some fanged beast that reminded him uneasily of the fierundé.

There were perhaps some dozen men on and around this great craft, and Brandyé could see many more animals – small deer, foxes, a kind of wild pig, and birds that resembled pheasants. Each was bound in a […]

Read the complete chapter here.