The Dread: The Fallen Kings Cycle: Book Two by Gail Z. Martin Page A

ships. Where the hulks exposed their crews near the waterline, Pashka and his fishermen used their hooks to yank the skeletons into the water and bash them with the pikes.
    The ghost ships pulled back, but before Senne and Soterius could exclaim in triumph, Tris saw the cause for the retreat and felt his heart thud. In the space vacated by the ghost ships, a small waterspout was beginning to form.
    “Here’s hoping that our mages are paying attention,” Tris muttered under his breath. Even as he spoke, he saw their own fleet of fishing boats and privateer vessels also pull back, and then he saw the reason why. A wild wind rose out of nowhere, whipping toward the waterspout and buffeting it until it dissipated. Margolan’s motley fleet bobbed with the winds, but they did not flee.
    “Are the attackers moving backward?” Soterius wondered aloud. They strained to see, but as they watched, the ghostly hulks began moving in reverse, slowly at first, and then faster and faster. Tris pointed to a disturbance in the surface of the ocean, a growing vortex that pulled the Temnottan hulks back to their grave beneath the sea.
    “Their side raises a waterspout, and our side sinks awhirlpool,” Senne said admiringly. The ghost ships’ skeletal crews remained in their positions, either stripped of reason or no longer afraid of death. The whirlpool widened, drawing more and more of the hulks into its maw. Margolan’s “navy” of fishermen and privateers reversed course sharply, maneuvering their own ships out of danger. Even at the distance of the scrying, they could see the crews dancing in celebration aboard their vessels as the last of the ghost ships sank into the whirlpool.
    When it became clear that, for now, the battle was over, Beyral waved a hand above the image and the basin once again held only clear water. “Now by your leave, m’lord, I need to rest.” Beyral’s voice was scratchy and Tris could hear the exhaustion in her tone.
    “Yes, of course. Thank you.” Beyral left Tris’s campaign tent.
    The three men were quiet for a moment. “If they could raise a waterspout, why didn’t their mages do something about the whirlpool?” Senne mused.
    “And for that matter, why send ghost ships when we know they’ve got a fleet hidden?” Soterius added.
    Tris considered the images they had seen in the scrying bowl. “I think both were meant to test us,” he said finally. “It wasn’t the first real shot of the war; it was a fishing expedition. They wanted to see if they could intimidate the fishermen and privateers into turning tail and running away. Maybe they wanted to inspire terror in anyone watching on shore. Perhaps they were hoping to draw out our mages and get an idea of their power to use it against us later.”
    “Their power—or yours,” Soterius said quietly. “I noticed that you didn’t rush in to use magic, even thoughsomeone on their side obviously was using summoning tricks to raise those ghost ships.”
    Tris shrugged. “Not necessarily summoning. Animating something isn’t the same thing as bringing it back to life. We saw the same kind of thing at Lochlanimar, when Curane’s mages made our dead move like puppets. They weren’t summoners. They hadn’t brought the dead back to being able to move on their own; the mages had to use their power for every step.”
    “What about the skeleton archers?” Senne was frowning as if the sudden discourse on magical instead of military tactics was straining his patience.
    “That’s what Tris is saying—they could be ‘puppets,’ too, like the corpses at Lochlanimar. Any mage who could move something from a distance could do it, right?” Soterius looked to Tris for agreement, and Tris nodded.
    “If you think about it, the archers weren’t particularly accurate. Their advantage was surprise and sheer numbers, but they didn’t seem to be doing anything to steer the boats, and when the whirlpool opened up, they didn’t look like they made