CHAPTER 6

The team had just entered Ermythie when a harsh smell of cold gunpowder assaulted their noses. The palisades surrounding the city's south entrance had hidden the extent of the damage from the Cormoran's attack and its crew. Many buildings around them bore traces of explosions. Roofs had been shot open, walls were torn to shreds, it felt like a war had just taken place around them. Raphaëlle had continued to move forward, observing the streets, a strange feeling filling her heart, when she finally noticed her companions' reactions behind her.

Tolas looked even more stressed than before. Frowning, the young woman fixed her gaze on her friend, silently posing a question, but the bosun began nodding from side to side, indicating that he wouldn't answer right away. A bit frustrated, Raphaëlle resumed her movement while walking along the dilapidated walls, closely followed by the rest of her companions.

They were still on the main street leading to Ermythie's south exit and the further they ventured in, the worse the city's state of destruction seemed to become. The few streetlights that still dimly lit the south entrance’s ruined ground had been uprooted by the force of the explosions that had hit the city a few days earlier. Even though the ambient darkness concealed most of the damage, Raphaëlle could discern the presence of numerous corpses on their path. Choosing not to imagine the grim final moments of the Ermythians, the young woman refocused on the path they were following, and a few seconds later, she had an epiphany.

Without realizing it, the deckhand had started to quicken her pace, forcing the rest of her team to follow suit without delay. Suddenly, she took a side street on her right and upon reaching an intersection, she took another street to her left, confidently advancing toward an unknown destination.

The other sailors, Tolas first among them, wondered what had possessed her to dash into the unknown maze of the city with such conviction. But none of them could take the risk of seeing the young woman disappear or she would likely continue on her way without a word.

After about ten minutes, Raphaëlle stopped abruptly at the mouth of a large street. Behind her, the group had disintegrated a bit, with Cornell largely falling behind compared to Skepta and Tolas. The latter had approached his friend, who was now motionless, and he could see that her hands were shivering a bit. He placed a hand on her arm, as if to reassure her, and moved closer to her.

"Raph'? Are you ok?" he murmured with a hint of concern in his voice.

"This city... I knew it reminded me of something," the young woman whispered, scowling at a building directly in front of her.

The bosun followed her gaze to a huge five-story building. It was topped by a tall tower that must have added about ten more stories on its own. Even if Raphaëlle hadn't led them there during the night, they wouldn't have missed this structure during the day.

"What is this place?" Skepta asked.

"It's the town hall." Raphaëlle replied promptly. "See that tower up there? That’s the main transmission tower, you can get free access to the royal network if you’ve got a city ID. If the port’s lighthouse is out, it can also serve as a second watchtower. "

"How…how do you even know all that?" Tolas asked incredulously.

The young woman's fist tightened.

"This city…it’s exactly like Kardak."

Cornell, who had finally joined them, completely out of breath, cast a questioning glance at Skepta, who shrugged in confusion. But Tolas understood.

Kardak was Raphaëlle's hometown and she had been violently torn away from it by Captain Krag and his monstrous late Second, Dokland a few months before. Seeing this warped and devastated copy of it, smelling of fire and death in such a gloomy derelict light was one of the most gut-wrenching feeling she had ever gotten.

Still, she did her best to conceal anything that could have shown on her face despite the continuous flow of memories violently coursing her mind. The young woman took a deep breath, ran a hand through her curly hair to calm herself a bit, and turned her head towards the other sailors of the Altaïr.

"If we're lucky, the hall’s security post could still be standing and that means we should have access to the surveillance cameras, or at least what's left of them. And from up there, we should be able to observe all of Ermythie in one go. Let's go."

This story has been stolen from Royal Road. If you read it on Amazon, please report it

Without waiting for anyone's response, Raphaëlle had darted into the darkness of the night, straight toward their new destination. Tolas barely refrained from shouting at his friend, who had once again decided to act without consulting him, and he followed her. Skepta, who definitely did not want to stay alone in the ghost town, followed, and finally Cornell, who always brought up the rear, started to walk, one hand on his hips.

Suddenly, a strange noise made the old sea wolf strain his ears and he turned around abruptly, trying to pierce the ambient darkness with his only valid eye. But hearing his companions move away from him faster and faster, he chose to continue walking rather than remain alone in the night.

If he had waited a few more seconds, the clouds above the city would have parted enough for the moonlight to pass over Ermythie. He could then have noticed the glint of a spyglass aimed at them from the ruins of a house about a hundred meters from their position.

They quickly reached the foot of the town hall and noticed the entrance doors of the building had been rammed open, leaving a huge round mark on its metal doors. Raphaëlle was about to go in when Tolas firmly grabbed her arm, stopping her in her tracks. The bosun turned to Cornell and Skepta, indicating with a nod of his head that they should go around the building on the left, while he would go around on the right with Raphaëlle. The two sailors nodded and set off. The deckhand freed herself with a violent shrug, her eyes shooting sparks.

"What’s your deal?" she asked, trying to keep her voice low.

"What’s my…What’s yours?!" Tolas replied, once again restraining himself from raising his voice too much. "Stop going off on your own, you’re supposed to wait for my orders!"

"Wait, are you serious?" the she-wolf almost scoffed, walking around the building. " Is this an ego thing? Am I allowed to breath on my own or should I wait for further instructions?"

"What the hell are you on about? There’s a freaking hierarchy, Raph’!" Tolas suddenly shouted. "I am the bosun! I’m in charge here! You can’t just keep on fucking off whenever you want!”

Raphaëlle felt her blood starting to boil and she opened her mouth to retort when she saw the other two sailors coming from the corner of her eye. She almost bit her tongue but decided that it was probably wiser to avoid getting too worked up for now. Tolas, thinking that he had finally managed to get the upper hand on Raphaëlle during a conversation, stopped himself from smiling and also caught his men approaching. With a nod, they all indicated to each other they hadn't noticed anything unusual on their ends. They returned to the entrance of the hotel and entered cautiously, but they soon realized that the place was definitely empty.

The reception area was a wreck. Desks, windows, and display screens were scattered in pieces all over the room. Administrative papers lay on the floor in front of them, full of muddy boot prints and blackish stains. Hidden behind the shattered main desk, one could make out the silhouette of a motionless person, sitting on a chair with their head lowered.

Raphaëlle grabbed the flashlight from her pocket, put it at the bottom of her canvas bag to dim the light and illuminated the silhouette.

It was a woman, probably a secretary or receptionist, tied to a chair with old, worn-out ropes, her clothes in tatters. It was evident she had been tortured to death, her face was swollen and both her arms had been broken. All her nails had also been torn off and carefully placed on her blood-stained navy-blue skirt.

The faces of the three men suddenly darkened and Skepta took off his cap with a sorrowful look. Raphaëlle's face remained stoic, but a cold anger ran through her. She could very well imagine what this poor woman must have endured before dying. Finally, Tolas's voice broke the silence:

"Raph', you told us earlier that there's probably a security post in the town hall. Do you know the way?"

She remained silent for a few seconds, then turned the flashlight away from the corpse and pointed it to the left of the desk, illuminating the first steps of a spiral staircase that went up into the darkness, straight to the top of the watchtower. The young woman then pointed to a wall to the right of the desk.

There was an emergency plan indicating the location every room inside the building. The security post was at the end of a corridor on their right, next to the entrance to the hall workers’ offices. She couldn't help but sadly smirk; this could have been Kardak’s town hall. But she couldn't understand why they were so identical. Tolas turned to the other two sailors:

"Sailors, we'll split into two teams to cover as much ground as possible. Skepta, Cornell, you'll go to the security post, try to see if the surveillance equipment has survived and gather as much information as you can. Retrieve anything that could be useful. Meanwhile, Raphaëlle and I will go up the watchtower to..."

Suddenly, the deckhand raised her hand like a child and stared at Tolas. Taken aback, he stopped mid-sentence then eventually let his friend speak:

"Uh, yes?"

"I think it would be better if you went with Skepta to the post, sir. After all, you should be easier to assess the whole situation if you’ve got eyes on absolutely everything, sir."

Cornell and Skepta exchanged glances, feeling the change in atmosphere between the two teenagers, but refrained from making any comments. Tolas remained speechless, an almost imperceptible twitch distorting his face for a second. Raphaëlle couldn’t have been clearer and the worst was she wasn’t wrong. Preferring to remain silent rather than lose face, he nodded and turned toward the corridor leading to the post, while Raphaëlle turned toward the stairs.

"Cornell?" she asked in a soft voice.

Feeling like two children stuck between feuding parents, Cornell and Skepta almost reluctantly split and began following the two teenagers on their respective sides.