First came the confusion. Then the horror. Then the betrayal.
Brinn were firing on his party. Yethyr thought it unthinkable. He could imagine them firing on him: the unpopular prince that wielded “demonsong,” but in that, he expected assassinations and singular duels. To attack a sanctioned Host of Heaven without prior provocation was inexplicable. It was blasphemous.
For a moment, he stood still in shock, his usually quick thoughts frozen solid.
Jaetheiri shoved him down onto the deck as arrows flew over their heads.
“Raise the anchor!” Tular cried behind them. “We’re pinned down. We need to move.”
Thralls scrambled to obey, rushing at tasks that they had only just learned to do as arrows were dropping them at their posts. It was chaos. It was a miracle The Finrider lurched into motion at all.
Some Flaveans that had been teaching them threw themselves in the river to swim back to town, others took up oars and sails in confusion.
I could hear the other two boats in a similar state of mayhem. The Wily Seal was nearest and I heard Kvelir shouting similar orders from its deck, except he was much much better at coordinating the chaos. He had already raised its anchor and The Wily Seal was sailing away and sailing away fast.
Flaveans and thralls both began to row and The Finrider went after it, slowly picking up speed while Leena’s Wind struggled to raise its anchor.
Jaetheiri helped Yethyr to his feet. “We need to get below deck. We're still within their range.”
“The men will read that as cowardice. I’m staying right here.”
“Your father has at last betrayed us,” Grokar cried, running up to him.
“No,” Yethyr said. “This is not under the orders of my father. He would not do this.” When Grokar looked at him skeptically, he straightened. “He would not do this,” he repeated. “He would do me the courtesy of killing me honorably. This is not my father's way.”
“Fire!” A thrall screamed.
Yethyr whipped up his head, expecting to see his hunters in the process of a return volley, and was startled when he saw actual flames lick at the deck.
The attackers were switching to fire arrows.
“Put it out!” Yethyr shouted. “We cannot lose the ships!”
Thralls rushed about, desperate to stamp out every flame that came with every arrow, but the volleys seemed endless.
I was filled with horror. Yethyr had not even held the boats for three days and such wonders were already burning under his watch.
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Thankfully, not The Wily Seal though. It had moved fast enough to already be out of the archers’ range.
The Finrider had hopes of following suit; it was at least moving.
The ship behind us on the other hand was still trying to raise its anchor, leaving it a perfect target. Before Yethyr could even voice a plan to address the problem, Leena’s Wind was a raging inferno.
People screamed as they burned, frantically throwing themselves from the ship when they could.
A horn cut through the horrific shrieks and the gust of wind that followed the sound snuffed out the fire all at once.
Nisari.
In the midst of smoke, she could be seen from the deck, hair unbound and headdress crooked.
She was yawning. It was clear she had been awoken from a nap and was more displeased by the interruption than the smoldering. “What is the meaning of this?” she cried, the wind amplifying her voice. “Aren’t we going to fight??”
“There are two whole parties over there! Our number is 15, woman!” Tular shouted, notably not including Yethyr in the count. “We’d all be shot down."
“Nonsense! We can take them!
“You would have us go into battle with a Host of Heaven?” Yethyr shouted back. “They may be so cavalier about blasphemy, but you will not find me so!”
Nisari's sigh in exasperation could be heard even among the chaos. Then we all heard a terrifying crack. The smoking hull of the ship beneath the windsinger's feet began to lurch sharply downward.
Leana’s Wind was sinking.
With Yethyr's only other spellsinger still on it.
“Jump!” the Prince screamed. “Swim over to us while you still can!”
She huffed. “I will not do something so undignified as swimming.”
Nisari turned her back on Yethyr, put a different horn up to her lips, and leaped.
The gust of wind that burst from her horn blew her off the ship. She sailed through the air like an arrow and hit The Finrider deck hard.
“Ow.”
“Much more dignified,” Jaetheiri muttered.
The rest of Leena’s Wind crew were not so lucky. People were throwing themselves into the water and not many Brinn, it seemed, actually knew how to swim.
Dozens were flailing in the water. Yethyr had thralls throw in ropes to save who he could, but soon, too soon, The Finrider drifted too far to help. No one involved was sure how to stop and more critically, the Prince wasn’t sure he could afford to stop.
They left many to drown.
Once they were out of range of the flaming arrows, the attackers immediately began firing on Flazea itself instead.
Flazeans still on the ships began to wail in horror. More threw themselves into the river, desperate to defend their already battered town.
It was tragic and pointless. The fighters of Flazea had long since died or been taken away. All that remained were old men who could do nothing.
Plenty knew it. The few Flazeans that remained did nothing but just wept as The Finrider and The Wily Seal drifted further and further away.
For the moment, they had escaped the sudden attack.
It did not feel like victory.
They had lost a whole ship, countless supplies, dozens of thralls, and 4 Brinn hunters. Yethyr tried to not let the despair bleed on his face as he now had only eleven hunters, twelve including himself, to face 36 master arcanists.
For the first time, I felt him feel that he was on a suicide mission.
“I do not intend to die, Maethe,” he breathed. “I swear to you, I intend to pay my penance in full, but if I do die in this test you have given me…” he forced himself to look away from the massacre and toward the Numa Mountains in the distance.
“...please let it be glorious.”
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Best Boat Name!
