Gamble crouched at the prow of the fast moving skiff.  Ten warriors knelt behind him, clutching ropes tied into the deck.  The skiff was a purpose built catamaran, twenty paces long with a single short mast.  The deck extended front and back just beyond the tips of the outriggers.  It was built for rapid approach and rapid offloading of landing parties.

Ten more skiffs were in close formation to each side of him.  Behind him was the growing light of dawn and a stiff morning breeze.  In front of him sat the dark cliffs of the Palan Voyd coast and the Rennon controlled harbor.  Over the next half an hour there would be so many Red bodies in the water he would walk across them from one dock to the next.

Gamble had seen the glow on the northern horizon.  He accepted what it meant.  He could only hope that the Rennon ships there were disabled.  Sorrow pulled at his heart.  He simply let it build to rage.  He would need plenty of that shortly.

For now, the clanbrothers on the skiffs needed him and the Arcanum Crystals he held in a long glass vial.  Shaped like a spindle, the vial was two hands long with gold wire tightly criss-crossing it.  He held it just over the wavetops that the skiff sliced through.  He looked over at the next skiff.  Thrown was crouched at the edge of the deck with a similar vial of Arcanum.  Gamble nodded.

They both lowered their hands into the water.  Reaching into the ancient ways, they opened their minds to the singing of the crystals, collected them, and brought them into tune.  Then they sought the water.  Turmoil and calm.  Friction and passivity.  The rhthyms of Creation.

Gamble and Thrown closed their eyes and let the expanse of Creation fill them.  They could hear the stretch of waves rolling towards the harbor.  They could feel the ground a hundred paces below as it slowly ramped up towards the continental cliffs.  Gamble smiled like he always did when using Arcanum.  Creation was perfect.  They built on their senses and urged the water to pull together.  Like the humped back of a greatwhale, a mound of water began to rise and move just ahead of the skiffs.

One hundred paces ahead of them lay the half mile long artificial breakwater the Rennon military had installed to protect the harbor.  Wooden pilings twice the height of a man floated upright atop a tightly anchored web of chains.  Not only did they deaden the waves and guard against a sea attack, the chains guarded against an underwater attack.  When Gamble had roused his clan to action it was his strategy of using Arcanum to render Rennon defenses useless that had won them over.  Now, he and Thrown were delivering on that promise.

The water continued to rise.  The skiffs sailed just on the trailing slope.  Each sailing team trimmed the canvas back to catch the wind at this new angle.  They worked as well trained teams, each keeping in line with the other skiffs.  Gamble and Thrown kept the entire line in focus and pushed the building wave just ahead of it.

With barely any space between the wave and the breakwater, both Gamble and Thrown shouted at the same time, "Release!"

The sailing teams pulled hard on the rigging and drew the sails full.  The wind filled them with speed and all the skiffs lurched forward, running up the wave towards its crest.  They all hit the top just as the wave smashed into the breakwater.  "Blood for blood!" screamed Gamble.  With a blast of water and spray, the wave tilted the wooden pilings back just as the skiffs shot out into the air and into the harbor.

Gamble and Thrown let go of the glass vials, now empty of Arcanum crystals.  They snapped their minds back to their immediate places and broke their connection with Creation.  The remains of the wave dispersed and quickly disappeared, leaving the breakwater gently rocking.

The Tormangi were inside the harbor and sailing fast towards the docks.