Even as dozens of ships from both sides of the conflict converged on the continental corner, the citadels guarding Nautinia Bay stowed their cannons and constructed earthworks as their garrisons prepared for the coming onslaught. Never again would the Atlantean capital be left as vulnerable as it was during the siege a year before.
Using the palace and fortresses as fallback points, they dug day in and night out, from dawn to dusk. They shored up the outlying sides of their trenches with wooden beams and flattened the land into a killing ground. Cannons were placed at overlapping intervals. Ammunition stockpiles were dug, barracks and dugouts were constructed, and the palace guard conducted regular patrols of the area.
Five layers of trenches, each separated by a three-quarters-mile no-mare’s-land and intertwined through several zigzagging trenches, were built around the city. Every quarter mile, a miniature fort of fallen trunks and earthen mounds supported four citadel-grade artillery pieces, one for every forty-five degrees that had to be covered. At the farthest trench from the city, over a hundred of these would be in place.
The entire defense plan would take an estimated four years to fully develop if resources were not reallocated to AREA and the Navy. But with the war’s end still far over the horizon, Atlanta believed it could be fifteen years before it was complete and mared. For now, she wanted the first layer complete before midsummer, the second in three years, and the third in five. The fourth and fifth would be done by the eighth and eleventh, respectively.
Even with time-prediction spells, it was not certain how the war would shape by then. The only hope was that Atlantis never needed that final inner trench ringing the city.
Ever.
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The Narrow Ocean, fifty miles northeast of Whitecap Point
Commodore Evergreen spun the ship’s wheel hard to starboard to counter a sudden gust of wind pushing her ship, the Mermaid-class battlewagon Chesapeake to port. In response, a splash of sea spray salted her eyes and drenched her dark, rain-soaked brown coat.
The skies around Chesapeake were a foreboding dark gray without a single patch of light. Stormy clouds rejected the sun’s comforting rays with a cold hatred, channeling their energies into the ocean through blinding lightning strikes, while howling winds whipped the waters off Whitecap Point into a sailor’s hell. Even the large Atlantean battlewagons were tossed in the rolling waves, and at least two of Evergreen’s smaller escorts had been smashed against the Whitecap reef. No survivors.
The gun deck lit up on the port side as each cannon discharged its shot into the screaming air, hoping to hit the Dominion frigate bouncing over crests and digging into troughs a few hundred yards away. At the same time, the Doms fired back. Most shots were swallowed by the ocean, never to see the sky again. Some did make it, and her crew let out a cheer as the frigate’s mainmast came crashing to the deck.
Far in the distance, several other ships exchanged shots, each with about the same amount of luck Chesapeake had, which was close to none. Atlantean rigs carried a red storm flare atop each mast, lit with magic and blinking in an identifying interval. The Doms used bright yellow, comparable to the sun with their clarity, and they never blinked. It was difficult to see, but stern lanterns could be seen behind the blanketing rain.
Evergreen felt the wind change and knew she was in trouble. Instead of coming in along the beam or from the stern, it blasted her face with its icy breath--from the bow. Standard rigging procedures called to keep the stern somewhat pointed into the wind for the most part with some canvas set in an attempt to prevent the ship from broaching. This was crucial to maintaining steerageway during a storm.
The topsails fluttered as they were battered from their filled humps to flowing sheets wrapped around their skinny masts. Still tied to the yards, the sheets failed to fold completely and acted as reverse sails, putting enormous strain on the masts. She could already hear the mainmast groaning.
“Untie the sheets! They’re gonna dis--”
CCCCRRRAAAACCKKKKK!!!!
With a bone-chilling break, the mainmast snapped loose just above the lowest yardarm and tumbled aft. Its twisted yards smacked into the mizzen from port, bringing the whole mess over the side in a tangled heap. Ropes, sheets, mast, and all hit the waves and pulled Chesapeake into a list. The last thing Evergreen saw before she blacked out was a split rig coming at her like a whip.