I slowly got up on my feet a second time, looking down from the balcony I tried to spot where Belinda might have fallen after the accident. But the first thing that caught my eye was the thugs that were stabbing the sea demons that had fallen down from the ships onto the docks after the collision. Second was the guard crossbowmen who were sending bolts as fast as they could load them into the sea devils trying to climb on to dry ground. So far the battle was looking good for us, we were holding without almost any casualties.

Closer to the balcony on the ground I spotted Belinda haltingly moving back towards the house. She must have hurt herself after being tossed from the second floor. I could feel my checks burning in shame as I remembered the fall, and how I had tossed her up into the air by reflex as I fell. I quickly moved my gaze from her but froze as I saw one of the smaller sea demons creeping up on her, spear at the ready.

" Belinda lookout!"

With haste I dowe towards my bow that lay on the floor. As I picked it up I also grabbed one of the arrows that had fallen out of my quiver. Knocking it and drawing the bow in the same motion, I quickly took aim on the fish head. That was now looking up at me, clearly hearing my warning. At forty meters it was not the hardest shoot I had done in my life, and as I breathed out I released.

With a wet thunk the broad headed hunting arrow sunk deeply into the fish head and the seamerian fell over in midstep.

Critical hit!

Seamerian youngling level two, takes 27 damage and dies. Awarded 200xp after the fight.

Belinda, who had turned towards the now dead enemy, looked up at me and nodded, I could only hope it would work as a small payment for the damage I had caused her. I waved for her to hurry back, before turning around to pick up the other two other arrows that had fallen out. With all my arrows back where they belonged I then starten to scan for targets.

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Amelia stabbed down with her dagger ending the already wounded and confused sea demon. The fight was going well so far and they had surely taken out twenty fish heads already. The only problem she could see was that more were climbing onto the docks, and they were not wounded so sooner or later they would be overwhelmed. It took two guild members to take down one fish head, three to be safe. They were thieves and thugs not fighters which made them bad at straight up fighting, most also lacking the courage to stand their ground and look an enemy in the eyes. A knife in the back was the preferred method of any conflict.

Then she looked towards Bull as he held one seamerian with one hand while cleaving another with his great axe, and she conceded. Maybe not all of them were bad at fighting. But the guards had yet to join the action, luckily the crossbowmen were no longer shooting at them, but gave them some kind of cower fire so long as they did not try to get away.

A guild member cried out beside her, and Amelia whirled around and saw a sea demon lifting an impaled member of the ground with his spear, then with sweeping gesture thosing him to the side. He was big and clearly a cut above the smaller fish heads, the sharp teeth smile he had sent shivers through her back.

"Help! I need help over here!"

There was no way she was taking on this brute by herself. He was easily two feet taller than her and clearly a couple of levels above her too. A swishing sound of an arrow passed by her, hitting the sea demon in the gut making him grimace as he bent over slightly in pain. Once more she heard an arrow passing her only to hit the fish man in the shoulder. Stealing herself determined to not let this chance pass her by, she gripped her dagger hard and sprinted towards the invader. Crossing the few meters separating them fast, the injured warrior distracted by the arrows was too late to react and she easily pushed the spear out of her way with her offhand. She quickly stabbed forth with her dagger aiming for his neck. Though wounded the warrior was able to move slightly to the side, throwing her aim of and making her killing blow to miss leaving only a shallow cut.

Standing so close to the sea demon made it hard for him to use his spear, so he went for the second option and hit her hard across the head with his right hand still clutching his spear. As she stumbled backwards reeling from the blow, he quickly took a step back creating distance. Pulling back his right hand he lined up the spear for a thrust. Amelia, still trying to get her balance under control, could only look on as she was about to be impaled. The sound of an arrow saved her as it went by her hitting the sea demon in the chest.

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As the warrior stubbled from the hit, she quickly threw herself inside his guard again. This time not taking any chances she quickly thrust the dagger into his body only to pull it out and trust again and again. Slowly his eyes lost focus and he fell down.

Catching her breath she backed up a couple of steps, trying to get the rush of adrenaline under control. That fight had been too close for her liking, and if not for the timely arrows she surely would be the one lying here. Searching for the archer that had helped her, she scanned the buildings. Easily she found him standing on a balcony, his attention had already shifted to another sea demon. It was that young ranger she had seen earlier. She didn't know what to feel about the help he had given her, since he was one of the men forcing her to be here. Sure Bull had demanded that the guards leave them the docks, but to force them to stay when the city was under attack was just cruel.

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Ylva turned to the men and women on board who had now gathered around her on deck. The crashing into the docks had been a gamble that had paid off, many of the sea demons had lost their balance and hurt themselves in the crash. This had given the crew an opportunity to eliminate the sea demons onboard clearing the deck for a moment, still they needed to get to shore, staying would only make them easier to kill. From the sounds and the few glimpses of the docks, it seemed like they had reinforcements waiting.

"So this is what we are gonna do, Jhorm and Birger, you are going to take the front with your big shields. Toke and Bodil, you grab the gangway and follow behind them. When the gangway is set we rush the docks and join the fighting."

The crew nodded and went to work, a minute later they were all ready.

"Okay, let's do it then!"

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The seamerians had more or less left the ships alone since they crashed into the quay. Climbing up the sides just made them easy targets, still they were crawling up onto the docks instead and the smaller ones had been replaced by bigger sea demons.

As I let another arrow fly, I noticed that something was happening on one of the ships. Two Shields could be seen and a head looked around the edge of the shield before they parted and a gangway was lowered down. Then with a call to their god of war the people of the Great fjords rushed down and joined the defenders.

"For Edur!"

Even though they were battered after fighting for hours defending their ship before getting to the harbor, they still did massive damage. The warriors from the north really showed that they were much better at playing offence then defense. And Anders, not missing the opportunity, ordered the guards to advance, joining the battle from the city side. Surrounded the seamerians were hard pressed and could barely defend themselves. They soon started to fall like leaves from a tree in autumn.

Seeing that the battle would soon be over I lowered my bow and started to think about how to ask Belinda to be my animal companion after the incident. She was surely not too happy with me right now, resting and guarding my back inside the house.

"Wa… o!"

"What?"

I looked towards where I thought I heard someone, it might just be my imagination. It was really hard to hear anything over the sound of fighting.

"Watch out!"

This time I heard it more clearly, and it was a warning, but for what? I looked over the battle but could not see anything, so I searched further out.

And there out at sea something was happening, was that a wave? Staring at the water trying to understand what I was looking at, it soon clicked.

" By all the beardless dwarf's!"

Out there at sea three female seamerians seemed to be chanting, and from the looks of things they were summoning a wave, a really big wave! It slowly grew and must have reached over four meters in height and twelve meters width was moving towards the harbor.

" Watch out, get out of there!"

It was not only me but the crossbowmen and even some civilians that had stayed indoors to watch the fighting cried out. Slowly the people on the ground started to react and tried to disengage and get further from the sea, but the few seamerians left alive lashed out with a suicidal aggressivity to force the defenders to stay and defend themselves. Some, mostly the thugs, were able to draw back, but most were still locked in combat when the wave hit. It crashed into the quay and the back of a ship, lifting it and dragging it along right into the combatants. The people onboard who had just preparing to leave, found them self being tossed around, many falling over the sides.

It was total pandemonium, people more or less gott dragged along with the wave as it crashed onto the docks. The ship carried along by the wave caused a lot of damage as it hit both aggreser and defender before it finally stopped almost ten meters from the sea. People were laying everywhere and most were wounded, the spell had clearly changed the battlefield.

I started to rush through the house and down the stairs, as I came out through the door I could see how the other crossbowmen were also rushing out, in an effort to save as many people as possible. I soon found Anders knocked unconscious, but otherwise he looked mostly unhurt. Marcus on the other hand had a big piece of wood straight through the chest, and it was clear that he would not raise to see the sun tomorrow.

I bent down beside Anders and tried to gently shake him, I had no idea what to do in a situation like this. As I tried to talk to him, I scanned the suraundings. Hopefully Bjorn would be alive and awake, knowing what to do. To my dismay, the first thing I noticed were twenty to thirty big sea demons that were now climbing onto the docks. And behind them were two big four armed seamerians with the three spellcasters, that had fucked our clean victory.