The Axe and the Throne (69 page)

Cassen searched the waves for some discernable pattern, but the rollers and breakers seemed to come and go without purpose.
Much like the actions of men
, he thought. To be at the mercy of such randomness was disquieting, and his hand crept toward his waist. He let his fingers rest atop the fabric tucked beneath his belt, content to know it was still safe.

The porthole that he peered out of was a vertical slit, barely a finger in width. Such quarters seemed ill-fit for a captain of such a colossal ship, but Cassen reminded himself this was a warship—there is no luxury in having a larger window through which flaming projectiles may come.

“Will we reach it soon?” asked Annora. She sat on the edge of a hammock in the room, still unwilling, it seemed, to allow herself to be at ease.

“I cannot see the ship from here, but I would assume so.” His words did not appear to comfort her. “How is your burn?”

“It will heal,” she said, chagrinned. “So long as no more men grab at it.”

Given what had just happened to the last man, Cassen did not expect she need worry for the time being.

“What kinds of friends are these people anyhow?”

“Sacarans,” Cassen replied.

“
Sacarans?
”

The name of the people had not gone completely from Adeltian vernacular, but had come instead to be fictional in nature. Mothers used threat of being shipped to Sacara to frighten their brats, no longer believing such a place existed.

“Our friends in Adeltia will know them well in the coming days. This ship is one of hundreds carrying armies to their shores. And Adeltia's mighty king has but one good hand to defend his people.” Cassen finished with a smirk.

“These people are degenerate savages. I now see why you get along with them.”

“Oh, you have become quite the Adeltian princess. You would no doubt say the same thing if we had run into a ship full of Spiceland sailors.”

Annora scowled at the accusation. “I would,” she said in defiance.

Cassen snorted. “Well, you will soon have the chance. The men aboard this ship are Sacaran, but those aboard my friend's ship are mostly Spicelanders. Spicerats to be more precise.”

“You cannot be serious…”

“But I am. They are not so bad as you have been led to believe listening to the gossip of the women in the laundry. Well, at least not when seen from a different perspective.”

“Being friend to a murderer or tyrant does not make that murderer or tyrant decent.”

“You are right in that,” said Cassen. “But a person with no tyrants as friends is like to be a slave. Better to befriend ruthlessness than call it master.”

Annora exhaled and shook her head.

“And that should be the last we hear of the word ‘friend' lest we offend our new host. He is not fond of it.”
Good that I remembered.

“I hope your
acquaintance
speaks our tongue as opposed to just barely understanding it.”

“Ah, he speaks it well, though it is his second known language. The captain of this vessel is like to speak it also, but Sacaran pride does not allow one to do something poorly. I do not think they intended to ever use the common tongue for any reason other than to know what it was those they were soon to conquer screamed in the throes of death.”

Annora hid her face from him.
She worries for her friends. Perhaps she is right to.
“They have promised not to harm the nobility. They know there are some I have a vested interest in.” The sentiment did not have its intended effect.

Minutes later as they sat in silence, a knock was heard at the door.

“Time for you to meet my good rival, Sacarat,” said Cassen to Annora. “Though I do not think you will be very fond of him.”

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

“Is it not beautiful, Sister?”

A fire of hatred burned in her belly commensurate with the mass of flames before her. Spine straight and muscles taut, Ethel stood beside her half-brother. The nearest blaze cast a flickering light on Stephon's face in the evening twilight. “That fool Veront calls them
dragons
,” he scoffed. “The man has no flair for words, but what would one expect from a man with Rivervalian blood.”

To the left of Stephon was an old man in loose cottons. He might have been tall, if not for his stoop, and he might have been handsome, before the decades had put bags under his eyes and stripped the color from his hair.
How can such an unremarkable man create such weapons of destruction?
Ethel wondered.

The three of them were atop a small turret overlooking the waters to the south of Eastport. Along the shore, Stephon had two dozen menacing structures facing the water, each armed with a flaming arrow near two men in length. A pivoting arm on either side of the structures had been rotated back under tension, and held in the hand of each arm was a rope that would no doubt propel the arrow, although how far Ethel could not guess.

“My spies…well they are mine now…discovered he was constructing similar weapons over a month ago, and my engineers have seen their simplistic design improved upon—
greatly
. Dysar here calls them ballistae, a name I am inclined to allow persist. Would you like to see them fire, my sister?”

He was so adamant now about calling her
sister
. For half a day she had been locked in the room behind the throne, unable to hear a sliver of what went on outside. For hours she'd alternated between pounding the doors and searching for a means of prying them open herself, fearing for the lives of Annora and Eaira and eventually her own as the notion that she had been left there to rot seemed more possible. Stephon had already proven he was capable of worse.

Stephon himself had come to free her from the prison, and in a
gracious
attempt to smooth matters over, decreed her his full-blooded sister. “Our mother is a whore and our fathers no doubt different men, but that does not mean we should not be brother and sister,” he'd said.

The bandage on his right hand had worried her and, glancing at it now, it still did. If Annora was the one responsible for his injury, she would be suffering if not dead. Ethel had demanded to know what he'd done with her two friends to which he responded, “I set them free before Sture could harm either one. I did it for you, my sister.” She did not believe him in the slightest, but she feared he might be keeping them imprisoned with the intent of worse, should Ethel cause him trouble. She did not care to guess why Stephon had come to want her friendship—if that even was the case, but she would humor him as best she could until she found a means to free Annora and Eaira, assuming they were still alive. The days that had passed since then felt like an eternity, and with eyes upon her at all times, Ethel was no closer to learning of either of their whereabouts.

Ethel nodded her consent, pleasing Stephon as his brow jumped.

“All of them,” Stephon shouted down to the men. “You will fire all of them on my command.” Stephon raised an upward pointing finger atop an outstretched arm.

Lightning strike him where he stands
, Ethel prayed, willing it to actually occur.
Let it take me as well if it must—I do not care.
She closed her eyes and pictured a bolt leaping from the dark clouds above, making contact with the tip of that well-kept finger. The hair of her neck and arms stood on end as the moist air surrounding her seemed to brim with energy.

A violent crack sounded followed immediately by screams of agony.

“Peace's mercy. Silence his cries,” shouted Stephon.

Upon opening her eyes Ethel saw a man below impaled through the shoulder by a massive shard of wood. An arm had snapped off one of the closer ballistae, finding a new body in which to embed itself.

“I told them, only use heartwood for the arms. That wood is clearly of two tones.” Dysar's somber disappointment was evident in his voice.

“Should we kill him, Your Grace?” came a distraught voice from below.

“No, you damn fool. Put a hand on his mouth and send him to a mender. We will be under siege in a day or less,” said Stephon. Then with a lowered voice, “There is no need to be killing our own.”

“Under siege?” Ethel asked, wondering what game Stephon might be playing.

Stephon shook his head and snubbed her. “Consider that preparation for war, men. Some of us will be maimed and die, but the others must continue the defense. Adeltia will not fall into the hands of foreigners. Not under my rule. Now
fire
!”

An uncoordinated volley of flame leapt from the structures, streaking through the air with unimaginable speed. The fiery trails traveled so far Ethel thought she may lose sight of them, and when she did, it was difficult to tell if it was due to distance or the water having snuffed their flames.

Stephon wore a satisfied scowl as Ethel turned to look at him.

“You have done the kingdom a great service, Dysar. If I come to need a First, you will be atop the list.”

Dysar appeared deep in thought, stroking the shaved skin of his chin. “I had expected more range… The arrows were over fletched. Must remedy that.”

“Well do so quickly,” said Stephon. “We do not know when or where these attacks will come from, and we must see the machines spread along the coast.”

“What attacks?” Ethel placed her hand upon Stephon's arm to prevent the possibility of him ignoring her, but the contact with him reminded her of whom she touched. Though he'd assured her otherwise, this boy-turned-man was the one responsible for seeing their father,
her
father, tortured and killed. The guards and servants she'd overheard speaking of its brutality—hushed to silence upon their noticing her—recounted details almost too gruesome to be believed.

“It may come as a surprise to girls who sit within their provided comforts, sipping tea and oblivious to what goes on beyond the walls, but there are those who would wish to harm us. Those who would like to see our kingdom destroyed.”

You needn't look outside the walls
, she thought.
One such person stands before you.
“What do you mean? Speak plainly so my woman's ears can make sense of it. If we are in danger, why are you playing with these…things…on the water? Shouldn't we be guarding the walls?”

Stephon exhaled a mighty breath. “Oh, my sweet sister, these
are
the walls…” Stephon swept his hand in front of himself toward the ballistae. “And the shoreline is the battlefield. We are to be attacked by sea. By whom, I do not know, only that their fleet is massive.”

Dysar was making his way off the tower, but turned for a final word. “The ballistae are deadly accurate. We should be able to set ship to fire at near five hundred paces…provided the winds comply.” A strong breeze seemed to answer in defiance, pulling at his dark brown cottons as he disappeared down the stairway.

“I only learned about it the moment after you threw your tantrum in the throne room,” continued Stephon. “You would not have waited for so long in there if not for my urgent need to make preparations to save the kingdom.”

Perhaps he did not have time to torture Annora and Eaira in earnest, then.
The thought gave her some hope.

“And where is our army?” she asked.

Stephon ran his left hand over his face and spoke with stifled anger. “Master Warin, it seems, has taken it upon himself to march north on Rivervale without my consent. I have made arrangements for his disposal, but there is no need to rush. I would as soon let him take Rivervale first. I always wanted some land in the North.”

He is without sense.
“You expect a handful of your wooden archers to repel a fleet without an army to defend them? What if they land ashore elsewhere and march upon us?”

She saw a flash of uncertainty upon his face. “My dear sister, I think it is time for you to return to your sanctuary in the Throne. I cannot discuss every detail of our preparations only to have them fall upon a woman's stone ears. You need only know that I will protect you from harm.”

Stephon called down to the guards to come escort Ethel. She had no desire to remain in his company, but she also felt inclined to stay and watch the horizon for danger. She knew the southern border was vast and could not be guarded by these few ballistae even if Stephon spread them in time. Ethel scanned the edge of the sea, unsure of whether she truly wished to see something—unsure of whether she actually wanted to see this kingdom destroyed as she'd so recently wished.

“There,” she said faintly, unsure if she'd even spoken audibly.

Stephon ignored her, yelling something to Dysar who had reached the bottom of the turret.

“Look there,” Ethel said at Stephon, now with urgency, pointing toward the sea.

A dark square could be seen in the distance against a sky lit yellow by the setting Dawnstar.

“Is that one of ours?” she asked.

“They come,” yelled Stephon. “Dysar, get your men ready to fire. You there, guard, run and fetch the boy Sture and his cousin or sister—that girl that looks just like him.”

The guard ran to obey.

“We only have a hundred bolts constructed,” Dysar said from below, his frail voice almost lost to the wind. “I warned against loosing a whole voll—”

“Then make
more
,” Stephon screamed at him. Dysar bowed and shuffled off at a hurried pace.

Stephon regained his composure and turned to Ethel with a king's self-assurance. “It seems you will bear witness to my making of history after all.”

An hour had passed, and the Dawnstar touched the western shore. Shadowing the southern skyline was a fleet the likes of which Ethel had never believed existed. There were hundreds—too many to count without losing track, but at least two hundred ships each as large as any she'd seen formed a single row, pushing hard on their shores.

“How long until we can send our first volley?” Stephon had no fear in his voice. He was a child anticipating the greatest prize one of his ilk could hope for: unfettered glory.

Dysar was a different matter. The man had become pale and sweaty once the ship count rose above fifty and he had declined in appearance ever since. “By my estimate we have another five minutes before they are within range, and then only another five at most before they begin to land the shores. It takes us twenty seconds to load and another ten to properly aim. Given we have twenty three machines—”

“Spare me the arithmetic. Just see that your men load with the haste that is required. We fire in five minutes when they are in range.”

“That is the other issue, Your Grace,” continued Dysar. “They span a mile or more in breadth, and we only managed to push the ballistae a mile in kind. If they spread farther apart we will not have the ability to hit them.”