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[YF] Chapter 237: Jarlship
🕑 Added 2024-10-16 03:36:11 +0000 UTCIn an instant, water is everywhere. The flood crashes over me with a power rivalling a chthonic cube — though thankfully nothing near the Anatla boosted power of the island — leaving me stranded beneath a raging river as it closes in on me.
With the waterfall already below, and this new gushing river breaking through the ruin of the fortress, there’s no room to escape, and even less time to think.
My body puffs out of existence. Extinguishing before the stream can slow enough to engulf me.
There is a loud crash as an immense volume of water smashing against the stone of the gorge’s cliff walls before tearing through the river far below.
I reform in the burning wreckage of the gates where my flames still linger and rocket into the air before the flood sweeps the collapsed structures out from beneath me. Unfortunately, I couldn’t extract all my flames from the smouldering remnants before the water slammed through them, but the sting of my fire dying is manageable.
Rising a hundred metres over the intense rapids, I watch as massive slabs of stone carry out from what remains of the fort wall and crash into the cliffs in the flow. A particularly large section of wall — around a quarter of the slab — finally topples into the river below, which sends the water whipping at the cliffs even so high as the ledge over the valley. A spray pelts me, but my white flame disperses it before it can inflict any noticeable pain.
Something catches my eye from the broken remains of the fortress. A single massive ship of similar design to other heqet longships peeks out over the ledge of rushing water. I watch as hundreds of metres of tar-soaked timber tumbles over the new waterfall. It breaks through the flooded river below, and considering how hard it hit, I expect it to have shattered beneath the waves.
But to my surprise, it breaches the surface and is carried down the canyon by the rapids. They slam the ship that is far larger than any other heqet vessel I’ve yet seen into the cliffs, leaving gouges through the tar coating. It is unavoidable; the ship is nearly as wide as the river itself, and the flow of water is too chaotic to keep it moving without taking damage.
Far below, the rush of water barrels into the fjord, and breaks up the wooden docks, carrying the timber to float out amongst the vessels of Sylvan’s army. The very fleet which is also caught in the sudden current and dragged out to sea.
My anger is forgotten for a moment as I watch the absurd sight of the massive wooden ship sail out into the fjord to join its smaller kindred. Flying higher, I discover that beyond what remains of the fortress wall, there are a series of tall cranes and extensive scaffolding stretching from the cliff-side ledges.
Jarlship Fort, Sylvan called it. I guess that was literal; a place their largest ships — the Jarlships — are built.
My flames roil at the thought of Sylvan. This was obviously an attempt on my life. Why else would he confirm I was coming right before the fort broke?
He planned this from the beginning. There was no need for me to take the low route up to the fort. That talk of not flying up was just a ploy to get me right into a position where he believed he could kill me.
As I fly over the fortress, it becomes all the more clear. Thousands of heqet lie dead. Only the odd few with weapons near their corpses, the others all equally malnourished. These were thralls; he had no need to kill them. Sylvan didn’t even attempt to convince these heqet to stand down; he simply slaughtered them all.
His attempt on my life might have very well worked if my connection to fire wasn’t as strong. With white fire, it is possible I might have escaped, but the agony would have been unbearable.
As I fly over piles of dead, my flames boil with rage. There’s no heqet manning any of the structures that remain, so Sylvan never intended to capture this place as some sort of decisive defence against Jarl Anoures. My gaze returns to the fjord below. He simply wanted that Jarlship. And my death.
Sylvan was the only one I’d considered reasonable. He was the only of his kind I somewhat trusted, as he could hold off the hate and aggression, but that was clearly misplaced. He truly isn’t different from the rest of the Heqet.
I want to chase after him, and burn the air from the bastard’s lungs, but Leal comes first. I need to find her. All I can do is hope that he didn’t try a similar attempt on her. She is strong, but I don’t know what Sylvan might have tried.
The sound of shouts carry over the fortress, and immediately I’m spearing through the air over the side of the cliff. Soon enough, Leal comes into sight. She’s surrounded by near fifty heqet. It’s impossible to tell if they’re Sylvan’s men or defenders of the fort, but right now, that doesn’t matter; they’re all enemies.
I rush down, ready to burn them all, but before I can reach, a dozen the heqet collapse. Their upper torsos decouple from their legs, spilling a disgusting mess of guts along the earth. Some unlucky enough to survive scream shouts of rage as they scrape weakly at the earth. At least those whose arms didn’t fall off as well.
More heqet dash forwards, and this time I see what happens. A stream, as thin as a pinprick, sweeps across the axe-wielding warriors and passes through flesh as if it were nothing but air. These heqet join their fellows in a pile of gore surrounding Leal.
I’ve seen those pressurised beams of water before, but never were they this powerful, this narrow… this deadly. It goes entirely against Leal’s method of fighting. Leal never designs markings with such deadly capabilities.
Her markings shine, and her face is hardened. Leal glares at the offending heqet as if their lives mean nothing to her. She methodically cuts them apart as they rush toward her in a way so completely unlike herself.
Finally, I snap out of my surprise and land next to her, burning away the last of her attackers so she doesn’t have to.
She spins on me, raising her glowing arms as if to spear me through. A gleam in her eye that promises death, and a hatred that doesn’t fit. The moment she spots me, though, her demeanour flips completely.
Rather than the hardened gaze with barely concealed anger, pure shock crosses her face. An expression of disbelief. In an instant, her arms drop and markings dim. Leal steps forward, hesitantly.
“Solvei? You’re alive?” Leal says, before crashing upon me and pulling me into her tight embrace.
What happened to her? What has Sylvan done to make her so unnaturally angry?
“Come now. You don’t actually believe Sylvan could kill me, right?” I try to encourage her, but she just turns a confused gaze down on me.
“Sylvan? No…” she furrows her brows before sudden realisation seems to strike her. “Oh… Oh!”
Leal’s head raises, turning to the Ember Moon, but she jerks to a stop before her eyes can reach. She snaps back to meet my gaze and speaks with a mad glint of fury. “Sylvan has to die.”
The declaration, while I agree completely, is all the confirmation I need that this isn’t Leal. Well, not the one I know. Her whole personality has shifted. I thought she said she’d limited the mental changes to only that of different mage variation. This version of herself is still a water mage, but clearly far less pacifistic.
I consider forcing her to glance toward the moon, but my roiling flames are hardly going to withhold the inferno Sylvan deserves, and I wouldn’t want Leal to have to watch that. Not when this version of her seems so much more desensitised to death.
If the only way Leal could handle killing her attackers was to switch out with an alternate her that was much better adapted to it, I don’t want to bring her back right before I burn Sylvan’s fleet. She’ll be fine, I know, but the less she has to directly experience that which she hates, the better.
I nod, and burst into a cloud of flames, wrapping up Leal in my grasp before taking to the skies. Leal starts, shocked by my apparent dispersal into flames. Around her eye, that same analytical lens of water forms and she stares wide eyed at my fire.
I guess this version of Leal experienced my death before I reached the binding threshold?
My flames shift into the form of a falcon hundreds of metres wide as my focus finally turns back on Sylvan. The bastard tried to kill me. He tried to kill Leal. In the next few minutes, he will wish he hadn’t dared.
Soon we're over the cliff and looking upon the fjord. There, down amongst the fleet, is the Jarlship. That is, without doubt, where Sylvan is hiding.
That is what I must burn.
The massive vessel moves through the waters with surprising speed, hundreds of long oars peeking out from its hull, rowing with the combined strength of hundreds of heqet.
With the added speed of the river at its back, it ploughs through the fleet of ships that fill the fjord, destroying any longship unfortunate enough to have failed to avoid its path. The smaller vessels crack and shatter, sinking beneath its hull without resistance, but their crews seem nonplussed. Heqet leap off, as if thrilled by the concept of riding the Jarlship, and clamber up the wooden hull.
With my eyes imitating the impeccable sight of an eagle, I spot the target of my anger. Sylvan stands on the deck of the Jarlship, commanding a group of steersmen who man the rudder, while other heqet relay his orders to those under the main deck. Likely the groups of oarsmen.
The heqet seem surprisingly pliable to his commands. Usually, they would do so grudgingly, making it clear they dislike having to follow them despite never opposing him. Is it the ship? Does it give him some form of respect amongst the others? Or is it simply because the outsiders — Leal and I — are gone?
Without any reason to hold back, my wings spread wide. Flames lap at the edge of the cliff as my inferno unleashes. I dive over the waters, spearing towards the Jarlship and mind none of the heqet in my way.
Ships catch fire; their tar soaked wood and sails igniting by my mere radiating heat as I pass overhead. Uncaring to limit myself for their safety, thousands of ships burn.
The inferno roars with my anger, rumbling like thunder through the fjord. I notice, with no small amount of satisfaction, Sylvan tense at the sound. He, along with every other heqet in sight, turn to face their destruction.
With rage churning through my flames, it bundles up within me until I have to let it out. A powerful screech escapes my flames befitting the titanic falcon shape, filled with my presence. The raging call enhances the roar of my flames, amplifying it to something these heqet will never forget. The quaking sound thrums across the ocean piercing all ships for kilometres, and spontaneously, fires ignite amongst every ship in sight.
My eyes are for Sylvan alone. And I relish in the moment his eyes widen in terror as he is frozen in place beneath my overwhelming pressure.
The fear is gone in a second, and he’s moving earlier than he should be, but I know what I saw. His mouth snaps shut, and he croaks orders to his crew that are still coming out of shock themselves.
He honestly believed that was enough to kill me.
He honestly believed he could take me out when thousands of his kin showed nowhere near the capability.
The skies burn. White flames spread further than ever, and the ocean bubbles as I tear towards the Jarlship.
But, before I reach Sylvan’s new vessel, I spot something on the horizon. It is only an instant after I spot it, to I hear the echo of a horn bellow.
Another fleet. Ten thousand black masts rise over the water in the distance, sailing into the fjord and filling every free space over the waters. What’s more, is another Jarl ship heads the fleet.
Even from the height I fly, the horizon is blotted in the dark specks of their tar-coated ships. Jarl Anoures, if I had to guess. Her fleet far greater than even what Sylvan gathered with my help.
Looks like I'm not the only one who wants Sylvan’s head.
