"Hard to port! Hard to port!" the bosun hollered, and the crew made it happen.
We were turning away from two vessels flying Clan Wyvern colors, each slightly smaller than our own, but together a force the bosun was trying to avoid.
As we rounded the end of our island, we came suddenly across a vessel flying Neonen colors, and the gold on scarlet emblem of their church beneath their own.
"Pirate hunters, ho!" came the cry from the crow's nest.
"A pox upon the ocean, concealing such things from us. Back starboard! Starboard! Return us to our original bearing."
Should it matter, that was a posting atop either the central or forward-most mast on a ship. The person above had at least a curved lens, and often an entire spyglass.
These devices were a mystery to me, at the time; to most of Achaea, my homeland, they might as well be made of magic rather than glass. But they WERE useful in spotting the dangers of the sea, such as a frigate, tacking toward us against the wind.
