1
The Heat Hammer was in bad shape. Thanks to the on-going commotion on the deck, the vital bailing effort to clear the hold and extinguish the fire wasn’t getting done with the vigor or manpower that the emergency demanded. Water from the hastily sealed compartments leaked through to other areas faster than they could be plumped, causing the ship’s tilt to gradually worsen. Deceitfully slowly, but no less certainly.
What wasn't flooded was taken over by the opposing element. On the deck, most of the flames from the initial explosion had been put out by now, giving a false illusion of security, but the feat was not so easily achieved on the decks below, where there was more material to burn and less room for people to operate. The fire was spreading fast along the third and the fourth deck towards the cargo hold. Smoke filled the cramped levels, making it impossible for people to get close. The crew could only throw water at the spreading inferno from a distance, with poor effectiveness.
A worse yet catastrophe awaited. Down in the main cargo hold were stored tons of oil for boarding, insofar unused. One didn’t need higher education to tell what would happen if the flames reached there.
All available hands were needed to stop the impending disaster, but with the Quartermaster dead, the remaining officers otherwise occupied, no one was giving orders. Moreover, Graystrode had called everyone onto the deck to battle. Not all obeyed, but their work became that much harder for it.
Who could have broken the bad news to the Captain?
Greystrode currently had other things on his mind.
“At last, the time has come,” the old man sneered, pointing his pistol at the Prince’s heart. “The act is done, the masks come off. Here I bid ‘farewell’, my King. I regret nothing!”
The Prince could only frown at the villain’s odd behavior.
Greystrode stood a good eight feet away, his sword sheathed, yet acted as though victory were already his. The tool in his hand didn’t look particularly menacing, as vaguely uneasy as the sight of it made the Prince. His instincts cautioned him not to rush blindly in. Was it some kind of a magical instrument? But what could the old man do with his meager ability? The Prince kept his guard up, trusting his experience and reactions to save him from whatever should transpire, while he sought for an opening to strike.
“You know,” Greystrode spoke with a grin, unhurriedly stepping right, and they went circling one another like hyenas. “You had ever the makings of a proper pirate, my boy! I dare say you were better suited to this life than you ever were to your hollow Court. What say you? Give up any pretenses of nobility you have left, the shackling notions of what’s prim and proper; be a brother to me once again, and I’ll let you take over for me when the time comes. You'll rule over a conglomerate of crime greater than any one on land, its sole rivals today laid low! Hold command over true men, bearing no disguises, and lead them onto a better future. Pledge me this, and you can keep that pesky sow for your prize.”
The Prince made no answer, he didn’t have the time to. Greystrode soon forced the answer on him, raising his voice in an ill-tempered rant,
“Only a whipped dog would say no! But you are King! The only thing true in this world are the reactions of your body, what you feel here and now, the heat of your muscles, the fire surging in your veins, the lust, the greed, the fury! Do not deny them! All else is lies and folly! Childish contrivances conjured by the cunning to keep the hapless sheep in line! But we’re not among those mindless masses, you and I! We divorced the life that betrayed us! You think you turned your back on the society to protect it—but you’re wrong! You don’t throw away old shoes for their sake, but your own sake, because they’ve outlived their usefulness! You saw Law had no real power, why fight for a system that doesn't work? So stop being such a pussy! Make your own rules! The greatness of a man isn’t defined by what he forbids from himself, but what he can take in his hands! How much more glory he amasses than all the rest! It’s what will be remembered of him when he’s gone, and little more! Yield nothing! Never say no! Say ‘yes’, with a will! Lest this be the day you walk the shores of Death’s river, not as a King, but as a nobody! A fool who could’ve had it all, but threw it away for inane delusions of morality!”
The Prince glanced over his shoulder at Yuliana.
For a moment, she thought to see a shadow pass over his gaze, something dark and bestial. Who could have professed full immunity to such an offer, and still call himself human? A person without greed, without ambition, was surely no person at all, but either dead inside, or a mindless automaton from the Heaven. Not even Yuliana herself could easily tell him to pay those words no heed. For her majesty to deny that she herself was the greatest of temptations would have meant rejecting her own pride and worth as a woman. And despite Yuliana's pursuit of a valorous life, the height of her pride was surely fit for a flaw.
Had his spirit fallen then and there, she wouldn’t have had the heart to blame him. But whether worthy of commendation, or something of a pity, the Prince quickly faced forward and was his own self again.
“Aye, what we feel in this moment is true,” he answered Greystrode. “And I feel, above all, that you are the true monster on these waters, a snake beyond forgiveness!”
The glint of malevolent zeal faded from Greystrode’s eye and he turned altogether dispassionate and quiet.
“I see,” he dryly remarked. “As you wish, Nobody King.”
His grip on the pistol grew firmer and he began to squeeze the trigger.
Then came the blast of the dragon.
Its effects could be felt keenly even over a mile away from the epicenter. First came the aerial shockwave, smiting the galleon with the fierceness of a slaver’s whip. It pressed the ship deeper between the waves, bending the masts, before allowing it to spring back up, violently rocking from side to side. The Hammer nearly fell over the smaller ship by its side, before the water filling the interior dragged it back the opposite way.
None on the deck could keep on their feet. The sailors fixing the rigging aloft were cast off into the sea, and so were a large number of those on the main deck as well.
Yuliana went rolling by the central mast and caught hold of the halyards attached around the base to still herself. The Prince was about to slide into the smoking hole along with a few other sailors, but he struck his saber into the deck and hung on. Greystrode crawled with effort to the ornate aftcastle stairs and clung to the handrail to save himself as relentless waves continued to sway the ship.
Before any could recover their balance, the ocean changed direction and sucked the Hammer westward, spinning it clockwise with the ease of a windmill rotor. If not for the other ship tied to its side, it might as well have capsized. But together they endured, and in a while the waves grew easier, and the worst appeared to have passed.
As soon as he felt he could keep on his feet, the Prince seized his chance. He dragged himself up and dashed at the old pirate, raising his saber to strike. But Greystrode was faster. He rolled on his back in the stairs and flung his arm forward, aiming the pistol at the Prince once more. Confronted so at gunpoint, sensing the murderous intent, the method of which his reason failed to explain, he hesitated. A fatal mistake.
“Avast ye!” Greystrode roared and pulled the trigger.
BOOM! A thundering sound rang out at once and thick steam erupted from the pistol’s muzzle in a sharp, horizontal column. Seeing it fly straight at him with such force, the Prince staggered back, dumbfounded, certain he’d been hit by some lethal sorcery.
With haste, he examined his vest with his free hand to see how he’d been hurt, but to his mystery, felt no pain and saw no blood. His armor remained intact and, increasingly confused, he looked up again.
As the vapor cleared away, the guise of the miracle became revealed.
Between the two stood Erynmir, now in her human form. She had flown over as fast as her wings could carry her and dropped between the two from the sky, right in the nick of time.
As frail as her childish body looked, those looks were but a magically crafted illusion. Her smooth skin was no less durable than genuine dragonhide, her bones besting the firmness of steel, her muscles like castle fortifications. The iron ball launched from the barrel lay flattened and hot on the girl’s open palm.
Feral madness and fury in her green eyes, Erynmir snarled at the pirate, ready to rip him asunder.
Greystrode was not a wizard. The firing mechanism of his pistol was automated by arts not his own, but he still had to reload it manually with physical bullets, unable to materialize more at will. But even had he toted a machine gun of more modern make, it would have done little against a beast of this caliber. No matter how he sought escape in his mind, he had to soon admit he was cornered, and about to be killed by that terrible creature.
So he chose the next best course of action.
“Easy there! Have mercy, little one!” Greystrode quickly pleaded. He dropped the gun, raised his hands up in the air, and lay flat on his back on the stairs. “You’ve won, you’ve won! This is your victory! Ahaha! How valiant you are, little wyrm! Truly!”
“Eryn…” The Prince sighed with relief and lowered his sword. “Thank you.”
Erynmir made no response, but turned a cautious eye at the man over her shoulder.
Seeing that look, he gasped out of shock.
The dragon’s illusion also masked the truth of her condition. None of the wounds Erynmir had sustained in the battle could be seen and her pearly dress fluttered dry and clean in the wind; yet, this was a visual remedy only. Today, she had faced forces beyond gunpowder and hadn’t escaped unscathed. Unlike elves or shadowy daemons, dragons were not expected to get hurt in the first place, and were slow to recover. Under her immaculate appearance, she remained gravely injured, her higher thinking dominated by pain, rage, and confusion. How distant and frail was the light of recollection in her eyes now! It had been the instinctive, primal drive to protect her family that had brought her here in time, and no calculated stratagem.
Recognizing this, the Prince was cut by acute awareness of his terrible crime, the sin heavier than any other in his life, of having ever brought this innocent soul to such a scene of mindless carnage. He had assured himself it was necessary, that her power was vital to protect the people at the sanctuary—but now, he had to question in his heart if the sacrifice had been worth it, or if the dragon’s innocence weren’t, in fact, worth more than a hundred human sanctuaries, more than even the ships and harbors of Efastopol.
“Forgive me…” he grunted and bent his gaze down in remorse.
“Cap'n...”
Seeing the agony in the man’s expression, Erynmir’s gaze softened somewhat, and the tension in her shoulders became ever so slightly relaxed. She let her hands come down, the discarded bullet clicking on the deck. But then, something else caught her attention and she quickly turned her eyes east.
——“Sail ho!” a cry from the helm above interrupted the actors. “A ship coming straight at us! It’s not one of our own, sir!”
Everyone still left on the deck faced to where the sailor was pointing. As forewarned, a light vessel could be seen gliding through the storm and smoke, headed right at the field of battle. The ship bore no flags and answered no hails, but she was very clearly neither a Royal Navy craft, nor one of the Confederate fleet. Not a warship by any means, but only a simple, one-mast tartan, with a dark gray triangle sail, which stood upright like a slim pyramid against the Egyptian darkness of the day.
Although she was only a civilian craft, evidently uninvolved in the confrontation, the tartan kept flying straight at the grand galleon, making no attempt to heave or adjust course. Meanwhile, the Heat Hammer lay barely seaworthy, lacking canvas, control, and direction alike.
“They mean to ram us!” someone voiced the obvious outcome.
“Brace!” the Prince shouted, making no distinction between friend and foe in an emergency. “All hands, brace yourselves!”
Although they had barely just gotten back to their feet, all the people on the deck hurried to cast themselves down once again. The Prince tried to grab Erynmir to shield her, but agitated again, the dragon shoved him aside and his large frame was knocked back a lengthy distance.
Compared to the earlier blast, the following collision was rather anticlimactic.
The airy tartan could do little to move the massive galleon with its mass. Its bow was cast up by an erratic wave as it neared, sending the ship running up the Hammer’s half-submerged larboard flank. The bow rose all the way onto the bulwark, boards loudly squealing and sighing under the passing keel. There the unnamed intruder ground to a halt, upright and menacing as a dark-feathered falcon, leaning against the greater ship’s rigging, soon to be dislodged by the restless sea.
Nobody dared utter a word. They slowly stood and stared at the ghastly guest, wondering what manner of a crew was steering the craft. What band of renegades could be mad enough to tackle a pirate man-o’-war in the middle of storm and battle? No one who valued life and worldly existence, not their own, and not that of any other, as much was a given.
But even as they waited, the tartan’s crew showed no sign of themselves.
No soul came forward to conquer, or to offer so much as a passing excuse. Not one grappling hook was cast. All was quiet.
The motion they had expected to see came not from the ship, but from above their heads.
A solitary person had been riding on the tartan’s foresail, whence she had been launched high up in the air at the moment of impact. She came now falling down on the Hammer’s deck, right in the middle of the befuddled spectators. She broke her fall by stabbing her large sword right into the deck. A sound like a judge’s hammer in a courtroom rang out, and the invader posed there crouched and still before the loose circle of confused faces. Like an audience awaiting the announcement of the verdict, they stared on with bated breath, unsure of what to make of this unexpected vision.
Even the sound of waves seemed to grow quiet and distant.
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A woman dressed in black. Not a navy troop, or a buccaneer, never mind a fisher.
An apparition from a world altogether foreign.
Of course, there was only one among the crowd who could recognize that character.
It would have been too much asked of any aspiring poet—or even a seasoned one—to comprehensively describe the storm inside Yuliana’s bosom at that particular moment. If it weren’t for the sprinkles of seawater, the fierce gale whipping her face, or the coarse halyard line in her fingers, she could never have accepted what she saw as real. But while the elements and the general discomfort made it evident her existence was true, she still had to question her own sanity.
The situation simply made no sense at all.
Soon recognizing that the causes of this outcome were beyond her deductive skills, Yuliana gradually mastered herself and voiced something of a question at the woman.
“I-Izumi…?”
Izumi made no answer. Instead, she moved. She stood, wrung the Amygla off the deck with a twist of her wrist, turned, and cut down——at Erynmir standing closest to her.
Alert, the dragon caught the greatsword in her fingers and held the woman back, veiling her surprise by baring her teeth in a furious grin.
“Ahahaha! A dragon!” Izumi laughed out loud, pressing on. “Now there’s a dragon! A little loli dragon! There’s no shortage of monsters with you lot, is there?”
“Ye wanna play with Eryn!?” the dragon roared in answer. “Ye wannabe-swashbuckler!? Then ye get yer duff, ye cow of a woman! Ye’ll give me lip no more after I take ye out for a tussle!”
“Ooh! Aren’t you cute!” Izumi purred, adding force to her arms. “So cute I wanna die!”
The idea of a human battling a dragon should have been, as many times stated, quite unreal. But the Amygla’s blade was steadily digging into Erynmir’s palm, drawing blood. Arcs of magical light dangled along Izumi’s arms, mana coursing firm through her flesh.
“Grrh…!” Erynmir gripped the edge of the blade, turned and flung it far overboard, the weapon’s holder along with it. She dashed forth and leapt after the warrior, soon pursuing her across the air on wings of steel. A heavy, drawn-out bellow of wrath and vengeance rent the air, forcing everyone to cover their ears.
As soon as she could, Yuliana pushed herself up from the deck and ran over to the bulwark.
“Izumi!” she shouted into the wind. “Izumi, stop! Erynmir is not the enemy! Stop, you have to stop…!”
But no matter how hard she wished otherwise, there was no way her voice could overpower the storm. As soon as they left her lips, her words were drowned out by the wind and the waves. The dragon and the woman from another world were but shadowy spots in the twilight distance now, a cat and a wasp.
Could anyone tell how such an absurd match would end?
Only, whatever that end should be, it was going to be nothing but a terrible tragedy at the end of so many others.
Yuliana felt a hand on her shoulder, and the Prince was beside her.
“I have to go,” he told her, unease and resolution in his gaze.
“I understand,” Yuliana answered. “Please, do whatever it takes to stop them!”
The Prince glanced to the side, at Greystrode, who remained huddled in the aftcastle stairs, looking quite overwhelmed and defeated. Bringing her majesty along was hardly the best idea, looking at the chances of success. But even if perhaps the lesser of the two perils, leaving Yuliana aboard the Hammer was not the ideal option either. There was no telling what the old villain could still come up with.
But knowing what he was thinking, Yuliana quickly dispelled his concerns.
“Go!” she urged him. “Don’t worry about me. I’ll be fine now.”
Wasting no more words, only nodding, the Prince put his saber away and vaulted over the bulwark, to climb down onto his own ship waiting at the side. As soon as he was aboard, the hawsers were cut, sails dropped, and the brig set out westward in pursuit of the combatants.
Yuliana saw them off, praying quietly for their success. Even if she could reason with Izumi, to some extent, she couldn’t well say the same about Erynmir. The rampaging dragon inspired in her the same fear as it should in any sensible person, and the Prince's odds of success were much better on that front. In the meanwhile, the mortal obstacles ought to have been within her ability. She had to get herself and Greystrode to the navy, for herself to be saved and the latter arrested, thereby ending the bitter conflict.
But Yuliana was not a sailor, nor confident the crew would listen to her, and so she turned her attention back to the old pirate.
“Captain,” Yuliana called and marched over to Greystrode, who remained seated in the stairs. “We have to turn this ship around—”
But as soon as Yuliana was close enough, Greystrode casually took out his pistol and aimed at her, forcing her to stop short. In an instant, his crushed deameanor underwent full reversal.
“Uh-uh-uh!” The old man grinned at her. “Not so fast, my dear!”
He had taken advantage of the confusion to reload his weapon. Given the earlier demonstration of the gun’s functionality, Yuliana recognized her disadvantage.
“Are you completely out of your mind!?” she questioned him, holding her hands up. “Even after everything you have seen, you still mean to fight on? Look around you! Your ship is on fire and sinking! At least think of your crew! Take us to the navy and save their lives!”
“What are you on about?” Greystrode asked in exchange. “’After everything I have seen’? Why, it is precisely the chaos I sought all along! Nay, it is far better than anything I dared hope! You look around! Look long and hard! There is no way mankind will ever be the same again after this day!”
Keeping his aim at her, the pirate climbed up to his feet.
“But we’re not done yet!” he told her. “Now is no time to rest on our laurels, oh no! There is still more to be done. Still more left to crush, more left to take, and to lose. I cannot stop while there is breath in me. Not until there is no rock left upon rock, and people like yourself are no more.”
“I am not such a rare specimen, I assure you,” Yuliana responded, backing away. “So long as humans exist, others will stand up to oppose madness like yours. Because it’s not only our wants and needs that define us people—but also our will to seek better! In your own twisted way, you are also proof of this, Greystrode!”
The captain twisted his face in annoyance. “I’ll be sure to convey your last words to the good Marshal! For I will be seeing her soon!”
His finger began to squeeze the trigger.
But the battle was not all spent with its surprises yet.
No more strange ships sailed into view, but the fire below the deck, having gone untended for so long, had reached the storage faster than the flooding. The flames began licking the urns of oil, some of them poorly fastened and broken in the turmoil.
The growth in temperature had built up considerable pressure in the hold. The fire was only missing one essential component to get even bigger: air. All it took was one compartment door to be carelessly opened, and a phenomenon very similar to a gunshot followed.
The cargo bay doors in the middle of the deck were blown apart, as the entire mid-section of the galleon was ripped by tight-packed destruction addressed for others. Raging hell poured out through every available opening, the gaping hole in the lower deck as the most opportune secondary exit. A bright mushroom pillar of flame sprang up to the sky, ripping the cavity yet wider open. Many unlucky pirates involved in the repairs were swallowed whole by the torrential blaze, while others even further away sustained grievous burns. Many were cast overboard by the pressure of the eruption.
Yuliana was nearly the full width of the deck away from the explosion, but felt its effects stronger than she would’ve liked. She ducked low and covered her head with her arms. A wave of air hot enough to make her drenched clothes steam pushed her off her feet.
“Arrhh!” Greystrode didn’t escape unscathed either. He did his best to endure the heat and correct his aim while staggering sideways, but his best was not enough and he missed his timing. The gun barked with fatal hunger, but the bullet struck the deck several feet away from Yuliana’s head.
“Useless piece of shit!” the pirate cursed and flung the gun overboard.
Could there be a setback great enough to make him give up? Gritting his teeth, enduring the heat searing his face, Greystrode drew his cutlass and faced the young Empress, eyes red with rage. But Yuliana feared swords nowhere as much as that loud and abominable magic contraption. She spotted Jiggs’s saber abandoned on the deck a short distance away and quickly ran to pick it up.
“Compared to the weight of the Amygla, this isn’t much of a burden,” she said, facing Greystrode, now properly armed and on equal terms again.
“Could you please stop being such a pest and die?” he requested.
“I’m so sorry to get in the way of your fun and games!”
They clashed with their blades, but the second round of this duel was more a fight against the forces of nature than it was against the other person. Their footing was turning worse and worse by the moment. Fire was pouring out of the oar and archery ports on the sides, licking the hull all around and smoke came thick.
The ship Izumi had arrived on had supported the galleon for a time, but now it was pulled away by the sea. As a result, the Hammer was starting to tilt even more heavily on the larboard again. Yuliana caught hold on the lines going between the side and the main mast, to keep from losing her footing, while her opponent did the same. Behind her back, the whole central part of the ship had been turned into a sea of luminous fire that the oil below further fueled.
“Captain! We can’t save the Hammer anymore!” someone came to tell Greystrode. “We have to abandon ship!”
“Piss off!” was Greystrode’s answer. He kicked the messenger, who lost his balance and went rolling down the slanted deck. The Captain lunged forward from the ropes, trying to stab Yuliana’s face. She bent her knees and deflected. Turning her blade around, she cut back with a two-handed blow, all her strength behind it. Unable to retreat in time, Greystrode was forced to block with his wooden arm, which splintered. “Arrh!”
“Give up already!” she yelled at him. “You’re not going to change the world like this! All you will achieve is the death of you and your men!”
“And so’s fine!” Greystrode replied, pushing forward one-armed. “Let each man find his own grave! Mine’s with my ship—and yours with mine!”
“I’m not even a man!” Yuliana argued.
“Aye, I’ve never hated any man this much!”
They continued to trade blows, even as the ship was fast coming apart about them.
The main mast, corroded by the fire below the deck, couldn’t withstand the strain of its deep-leaning position anymore. With a deafening crash, it shattered, tearing off sheets, clewlines, buntlines, and anything else attached, like cords off a harp, while slowly bending towards the waves. Yuliana crouched low to avoid being lashed by the snapping rigging, while Greystrode staggered to the side to hug the bulwark.
It was certainly no time to be fighting.
Abandoning the fight, taking advantage of the devastation and her youthful agility, Yuliana half-ran, half-crawled along the slanted deck past Greystrode, towards the relatively intact aftcastle. The pirate pursued her as well as he was able, but was left far behind in the race. His sword he had to abandon to get anywhere, having only one working hand left and bad knees.
All the lines cut, the main mast fell completely, tearing a large portion of the main deck along with it. From the created crack immediately burst up tall tongues of flames.
Great waves washed up against the deck as the ship lay almost on her side. Wherever seawater poured down into the burning cabins, prodigious amounts of steam and pressure were created. More irregular explosions ravaged the galleon in rapid succession throughout its length. Pitch black smoke and steam billowed out of every seam and crack, fast covering the ship and the vicinity with an impenetrable, eye-stinging screen. Whenever a new oil jar was cracked by the heat below, another violent quake would hasten the coming end. The constant creaking, cracking, and banging made it clear the ship was about to break entirely in two.
Very few of the crew were left around at this point. There were a handful of stubborn sailors, who had tried to fix the ship up until the moment the mast was lost. But seeing the full extent of the damage and the fire, they had to admit their efforts wasted and hurried to resign from service. The smartest had long ago stolen a boat, or fled to the distancing tartan, not waiting for orders. The remnants now jumped overboard, hoping someone—anyone—would come and pick them up before the sea would claim them.
The galleon continued to rip in the middle and more water flooded the lower decks. The bow and the aft began to rise, while the middle part sank, bending the hull with a wooden groan that rang deep and ominous in the water. Yuliana reached the aftcastle stairs and pulled herself up along the railing to the quarterdeck, upon which the lankly helmsman still clung to the wheel of the inoperable ship, not blessed with much wit.
“Get off the ship!” she yelled at him as she passed, but the man only stared after her, too overwhelmed to comprehend. Yuliana went on to climb up onto the poop deck, where she took shelter behind the mizzen-mast, her shoes already slipping under her.
The rear half of the ship continued to steadily rise, and the main deck's conflagration climbed along the boards higher. The bow part was all but completely detached from the rest now, a flaming mass of flotsam, the foremast turned to spear the quarterdeck in an avant-gardist exhibit of impossible ship architecture.
The heat of the furnace was growing unpleasantly intense. The smoke made breathing difficult, and the stern still ascended. Seeing she would soon be trapped, Yuliana climbed over the taffrail, and came to balance on the stern. Her at first awkward position turned soon stable, so that she could let go of the edge and stand on the wide rear of the galleon with little trouble, and out of the flames' reach.
For a moment, the wreck balanced almost perpendicular and wouldn’t move in any direction. Right as Yuliana had assumed everyone below lost, a solitary hand gripped the edge of the taffrail.
Stubbornly following her this far, the old pirate had managed to save himself, right before his footing was all gone. Or, almost. Even if it were a feat possible once in his youth, Greystrode had nowhere near enough strength or vigor left to pull himself up with only one hand. Holding persistently on was the best he could, and even the time he could manage this was quickly spent. Yuliana drew closer and peered over the edge at the distressed pirate, while he dangled a good forty feet above the deadly swirl of fire and sea. Left like that, he was death's own.
There, between the Numénn and the sky, his failing, bony fingers alone keeping him from his end, Greystrode’s spirit finally cracked. He was the Terror of the Four Seas no more, but only a tired, mauled old man, and at his ultimate limit.
“Please help me!” he pleaded. “I am deathly afraid of heights!”
Yuliana looked down at the man in open loathing.
Was there a soul in this world who would have taken pity on one like him?
After everything he had done, was there anyone left at all, who would have shown him mercy, and risked betrayal? Had he ever once shown such mercy to his own enemies? She was quite certain that were she to lend him a hand now, he would remember his ambitions as soon as his feet had solid wood under them, and go to any trouble to make her regret it.
Did Greystrode deserve death?
Perhaps.
But she was not the judge of him. And had she sentenced him there, nonetheless, she wouldn’t have been Yuliana Da Via Brannan either. Staring at the helpless villain, pity soon overcame the grudge she held for him. A man or a monster, he had asked to be saved, and that was all that mattered. Were he to perish there, it would've been fear and weakness that killed him, and no law or fairness. Even if he somehow managed to betray and best her, she would rather fall true to her principles than live long by relinquishing them.
So determined, she knelt, reached down to grip his wrist with both hands and began to pull.
“Bless you!” Greystrode thanked her, laughing out of relief. “Bless you, dear child! I am in your debt—Ah...?”
The old pirate interrupted himself, sensing something strange. Yuliana’s hold appeared all of a sudden to gain inhuman strength. She let go her other hand and stood with casual ease, lifting the man up with only one arm. Deeply confused, Greystrode stared at young woman's face and saw that her eyes had taken on an unnatural, disturbing shine. On her lips had appeared a haughty, condescending smile that anyone who knew the Empress in life would have thought beyond her.
“Hasta la vista!” she lightly pronounced and cast Greystrode away, into the fiery whirlpool awaiting below.
In the next moment, Yuliana was herself again. She blinked her eyes, confused by her changed posture, and the fact that the old pirate was nowhere to be seen.
“...What did I do?”
No one was there to answer her. Her small island was slowly descending into the sea’s embrace, yet she spared no more thought to her own plight, or the uncertain future. With the imminent threat gone, she turned her worried eyes to the dark sky, where the last act of this bitter campaign was played, under the mother of all storms.