Hunting the Star-Caller: A Story of Mara (preview)

Chapter 1: Vinn

Sailing up to the main land is nothing like sailing up to one of the islands. For one the entire continent stretches across the horizon, a sea beast's mouth waiting to swallow you. To the east the mountains seem to pierce up out of the skin of the water like shark teeth. Rows upon rows of large green and gray teeth leading south into the heart of the mainland. I bet that those mountains were just as capable of taking a man's life as the great finned sharks back home. I've heard that inside those mountains great halls have been dug out and filled with gold, silver and other metals that the dwarf clans like to mine out and trade around the world.

Off the bow of the ship the land started to quickly slope down creating rolling hills of tall trees – or at least I think they are tall –. Back on Kanguwatza and the other islands the only trees are generally low brush, river oaks and a few palm trees near the beach. Those trees off in the distance would be holding elvish tree homes and Moon Owl perches. I remember hearing that in those very woods at a great human kingdom waged a gruesome and long war with the elves that filled them. I remember hearing how the sea here turned red from the blood and how the elvish mages shook the humans' castle to the rubble. I wonder if I could find the old ruins of that war, for all I know that war is just a myth to tell around a couple of horns of ale.

Have to keep my mind open for anything, any opportunities or any dangers. New places offer both in surplus.

And of course to the west, ever so slightly rising from the water, was the peninsula known across all of Marra. This is because for the past thirty-four years that piece of earth has been the home of Five Points, the capital city of the Penta-Alliance. A place that...

A sudden jerk to port throws me out of my introspection – which I find myself often in since the passenger ship offers little other entertainment – and inches away from slamming right into a shipmen with a rather nasty scar across his nose and arms that look like they could wrestle an alligator and win. His glare and pinched nose snarl in my direction informs me that if I had stumbled into him there is a good chance it would have led to my sorry butt soring over the railing right into the blue depth holding this boat aloft. He continued on his way down to the belly of the ship, Sili's Shadow.

The jerk did remind me of the second thing that is different about sailing near the main land. The waves are a lot larger! They are like a giants fist slamming into the sides of the boat. I have been being tossed around like dice in the hands of a gambler since I boarded this old barnacle covered vessel at Port Dirk. By contrast we had been sailing on glass flat waters on the trip from Kanguwatza to Port Dirk. The intense rocking of the boat over the past 3 days I had now been dealing with defiantly lead to many complications in trying to move about the ship, and a few frustrating moments using the head. Of course though the shipmen moved gracefully across the old brig ship – well as gracefully as scruffy men can be which I imagen is something close to an orc dancing.

I can hear Ali giggling behind me at my near fatal stumble into the scarred fellow. Turning around to confront my little sister I'm stunned by how much she looks like our mother today. Two dirty blonde braids ran tightly weaved across the right side of her head eventually meeting the rest of her hair in a ponytail higher up on the back of her crown. The sea breeze made her hair look like sheets of rain falling between her shoulder blades.

"Careful Vinn, would hate to see my only brother be killed by a stranger before we even made it to our new home." She said in her usual snarky tone accompanied with her famous hook eyebrow raise and half smile.

She stood in the sun with her hands on her hips. For an island girl she didn't tan too much but she was by no means pale like the southern woman on board who clearly was suffering from a sunburn based on how red her cheeks had become over the course of the journey. Ali skin was a light olive color, and her features striking. Tall, lean, and confident. By any accounts beautiful... just like our mother. The pit in my stomach reminded me that it was still there by swallowing what felt like another piece of my soul.