----------------------------------------

The foreign paddle ship limped away, listing and wounded, back towards the thick black columns of smoke now wafting over the Torrent Delta. Water gushed into its port side and its hull scraped against the stone temple on its starboard, but it would likely survive long enough to leave Secondhome territory.

“How many foes lay dead?” Kev bellowed out.

“Ten, granduncle. A total rout!” Yelled one particularly adrenaline-fueled young warrior.

Kev grumbled. “Only ten in all that. Another three victorious routs of this caliber and we won’t have any warriors left.”

Sara, meanwhile, picked up her father and sibling and docked the raft back in the temple’s central mooring once it was safe enough to do so.

“They’ll be back, in greater numbers,” Maat told the acting chief.

“We are victorious, for now. And we know their tricks. If they return, we’ll simply kill them again,” Kev said, having decided that a win’s a win.

Ma’at paced back and forth, broken mechanical slinger in hand. “We need to fortify the temple, keep them from establishing a beachhead. We need to commandeer these strange slingers. Maybe even set up barricades out in the river to keep their ships from even getting close.”

“These slingers require munitions,” Kev said. “We can steal them but hardly use them in force. Our hand slings require only stones. Supplies are limitless.”

The acting chief patrolled the grounds, finishing off any injured interlopers. Their kill count was up to fourteen by the time he was finished. Still a steep price to pay on their end for a noticeable but likely easily replaceable loss for their foes.

“Take prisoners,” Ma’at protested. “They’ll have information. Maybe even worth a ransom, or exchange.”

“What use are prisoners?” Kev scowled, then beat a stirring armored figure’s head in with his war club, foe fifteen vanquished. “Your father forbids our torture rituals, and Jean’in don’t have clans to petition for ransom.”

The proud Stormlander wasn’t about to take tactical advice from someone who was not yet of-age. Might have been a different story if Maat had managed to take someone’s head clear off their shoulders in the last battle. But shouting helpful tactical advice mid-skirmish didn’t meet the Alabaster Isle’s standards for martial prowess.

There was at least one hero of the day who could speak on his behalf, though.

“Now did my ears deceive me, or did I hear some kind of explosive?” Hector said, still soaked from his swim.

Stormlanders showered the older man, Lloyd, and even Sara (who’d aimed the ram and gave it an initial push) with commemorative war ribbons.

“The interlopers used these strange mechanical slingers.” Kev motioned to Maat.

Maat handed Hector the broken barrel. The old man squinted at the thing.

“Well hot damn.” Hector scratched his beard, then took a sniff. “Firearms.”

Kev, Ma’at, and Lloyd all looked at Hector.

“What?”

“It uses saltpeter to sling hot lead,” Hector explained. “Oversimplification, we think it’s a bit different here. Just… look… there are some primitive explosives on the north shore. Used in mines. But this is certainly fancier. Foreign isles could presumably have more advanced models.”

“Fire… arm. Fyrairm.” The word translated poorly to Kev’s vocal cords. “Strange outlander magic?”

“Not necessarily.” Hector shrugged. “The technology is deceptively simple once the idea is developed. Anyone with niter could make one, theoretically. Was anyone hit?”

Most of those who had been hit in the initial volley had taken multiple wounds and were now dead. There was one recent casualty…

Sam groaned on the ground, being force-fed some painkilling roots.

“He took a hit from a slinger, point blank.” Kur explained. “His-bark armor took most of the blow, but it appears to have penetrated.”

Too late, Maat realized that it was Sam who had tried rallying the right flank to push into the fortifications, only to be shot down. They’d succeeded, but only by clambering over his injured body.

“Build a flat gurney for this man,” Hector ordered the field medics. “March him double-time back to Secondhome. Ask for healer Maria. She’ll know how to treat these wounds.”

“Outlander healer Maria,” Kev reiterated. “Go, now!”

The medics bowed, administered the last of their painkilling root-weeds, then went to seek out palms for a stretcher.

“It’s not uncommon for… foreign islands to try and make inroads into the river delta,” Hector told the youths once Kev had moved on to preparing defenses. “Still, these firearms. And these uniforms. It’s more organized than just a simple band of traders or raiders…”

The thought went unfinished. Hector went to lend his expertise to the defenses. Kur would lead the first group of medics back to Secondhome. Lloyd, Ma’at, and Sara were to attend to the wounded wherever possible.

Maat got a good look at the uniforms – both the bulky, armored shells of the Jean’in warriors and the more mobile uniforms of the crew aboard the ships. Only a few of the later lay dead, having been thrown from the ship by the battering ram and ritually drowned in the Torrent by the victorious war party. But those uniforms – bird-leather dusters and matching wide-brimmed hats.

A stifling uniform, out of place for the heat of the Stormheaths. But one that was quite familiar to Ma’at.

----------------------------------------

Few of those struck with these fyrairms suffered minor injuries. Most were slain from the force of the blows, or seriously wounded with a slug still imbedded in their guts. Hector referred anyone who could still be moved to Outlander healers back at the compound, who apparently had experience dealing with these wounds.

“Nice maneuver with that battering ram,” Maat told the twins for the third time that afternoon. “What were you doing out on the river anyhow?”

“Dad took us out on a scouting mission,” Sara explained.

Lloyd and Sara took turns describing their river adventure. The unseasonal fires in Laval territory were an open secret for over a week. So, Hector and the twins took the initiative to do some scouting.

The story has been taken without consent; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

They’d been checking on some coastal settlements of the Laval – all abandoned. No signs of battle, though; typical Laval doctrine called to retreat to a few walled redoubts and baileys deeper in the swamps when invaded in force.

What was strange was that they found one such redoubt, up a hidden bayou, that showed signs of a confrontation. All gates were blown open from the inside, for one, and the site was abandoned for two. The indentured quarters had been torched, apparently preemptively. But the manses and towers of the high-status men were burned and looted.

“Which is strange, right? More of a rebellion than an invasion. And there were these burn marks. Dad didn’t say it, but sounds like he recognized the marks of a fyre… fire arm.” Lloyd annunciated both conjugant words extra slow.

“Saw no signs of these other islanders,” Sara said. “Not until they surprised us back on the river. At least we were hidden in the reeds.”

While the trio took a toll of the wounded, a gaggle of acting chief Kev’s cousins worked on up armoring the temple for defense against riverborne threats.

The same traits that rendered the temple grounds a formidable position to assault from the shore rendered it easy pickings from the river. The interloper’s own defenses could come in handy. Warriors were already filing down tree trunks into sharp points to imbed at an angle out in the shallows.

“We still have no clue who these attackers are.” Maat looked out to the fires of the far shore.

“Interlopers come up the river all the time,” Lloyd said.

“Never in these numbers,” Sara added.

“Hmmm…” Maat was forgetting something. “Ah, the wreckage.”

Maat explained what he’d been doing prior to the arrival of the boat.

“There’s a ton of supply boxes down the shore,” Maat said. “May have more fyre, uh, fire slingers. Might have other supplies.”

Might also have some clue to where these interlopers are from, and how the elder outlanders know about their limbs of fire.

----------------------------------------

Ma’at, Lloyd, and Sara petitioned the acting chief for some spare men. In true Stormlander fashion, Sara had to promise some of their cousins on their mother’s side with a bribe of a portion of whatever they could salvage from the wreck. Now traveling with the safety of numbers, the crew returned down the coast.

The broken bow was still beached on the shore, though many of the boxes seemed to have been either picked up or washed away. The body of the shipwrecked Stormlander was gone too, commended to the Torrent. It was the preferred way for the Laval to go, really.

“Pick up whatever’s left.” Ma’at pointed to the boxes.

Most of the boxes contained damp powder, fuel for the fire slingers. That could be the labor team’s payment if they wanted it. Maat was more concerned about whatever was in that hold. Once the remaining boxes were fished out of the water, he rounded up a posse to have a try at opening that bulkhead.

The circular lock would not budge with Maat, Lloyd, and Sara trying to move it. The ten strongest members of the salvage team took turns to no avail. They eventually resolved to force the door open using leverage and a length of aquatic rope-kelp. Pulling as a team, they managed to just force the wheel to turn before the tightly threaded kelp began to fray. With that initial rust and inertia overcome, Lloyd was able to unlock the door one-handed.

Within, the compartment was mostly flooded already. Water lapped so close to the door that they couldn’t even angle a torch down into the room to get a better look.

“All that for nothing, huh?” Maat said and frowned.

A weak “help,” in stormlander dialect barely perceptible against the wind, came from some far corner of the room.

“Someone’s in there,” Sara said.

Lloyd jumped into the room, peering into the corners.

“Yeah, there’s a guy in here!”

Lloyd disappeared under the water, swimming over to some other air pocket. He returned with another emaciated stormlander with manacles around his ankles and wrists. The other-islanders were taking prisoners. That certainly explained why the clans would unite to battle their prison ships on the open river.

“Water, get him water,” Maat said.

The crew pooled some water from their reserves.

“Interlopers have been burning the delta for the past two weeks,” the prisoner said once his throat was parched.

“You’re from the Laval?” Maat asked.

There was a certain mannerism to the way he accepted water with both hands. A specific twang to the clicks and snaps to their dialect that stood out among the neighbors.

The prisoner nodded.

“A subaltern?” Lloyd asked.

Another nod. “You are… not interlopers. Outlanders? From Secondhome? I had a third cousin who crossed the river to join you. The clan heads whipped his immediate kin as punishment.”

“We might know him,” Maat said. “How did you get in here?”

“Jean’in. The barbarian outsiders. They’ve set up outposts along the coast. Have been burning every settlement along the delta for the past two weeks. They’ve targeted the nobility, the clan-heads, and big men. We thought they were liberators, but the indentured and subalterns have been carted off.”

“To the coast?” Maat asked.

Carting them off-island would be the most obvious motivation. Human cargo. Pirates established a coastal outpost every few years. They never came in these numbers, however.

The prisoner shook his head. “Moved around. Up and down the coast, up and down the river. They’re building new forts in old ruins. Camps.”

A paddle-wheeled boat – same craft repelled from the shore earlier that day – had finally tilted over to one side far to the south. Smaller rafts swarmed around it as the crew evacuated. They were too far away to pose a threat, and too far to row out to continue the battle in a timely fashion.

“At our settlement the interlopers smuggled weapons into the untouchable pits. We blew open the doors to the clan mottes and the estates, taking great casualties despite all our new fire slingers. With the clan-heads run off, the other-islanders then rounded us all up. Without a steady stream of powder and lead-rocks to sling we lost the ability to even fight back.”

“Rest easy. We’ll get you back to Secondhome.”

Maat then conferred with Lloyd and Sara.

“What makes this different from all the other interlopers over the years?”

“Never seen these firearms before. New technology?” Sara suggested.

“Some change in the political situation off-island?” Lloyd scratched his chin. “Stormlanders are awfully incurious about anyone who doesn’t speak their language though. Why, about the only person we could ask about what goes on outside the island is, well, your father.”

Once again, the answers all ventured back to the Quarterchief. They were going to need Michael back, both to lead the war effort and to explain what they’d learned from the north shore.

“If they’ve been handing their weapons out at least we might be able to get our hands on some more of them,” Lloyd said.

“Which will be useless without ammunition,” Sara said.

Maat shushed the twins. “Hear that?”

The territorial shriek of an Alabaster condor filled the air immediately after.

They would be safe this close to the tree line. Besides, the condor had already decided upon its target. With a squawk the creature pulled its wings in right and dived towards the center of the river.

Faint screams came from the riverboat. The condor tipped it over with the force of its landing, then immediately let loose a wave of fiery breath that clung to the water’s surface. An emergency raft was subsumed by the blast, and the still-moving paddle wheel soon caught on fire as well.

All along the bend, the salvage team cheered.

“Stupid Jean’in don’t even know to mask their vessels with whitewood,” said a salvager.

Quick pops of those firearms accompanied puffs of smoke at a considerable delay. The firearms did nothing against a bird of that size.

Cheers from the shore were abruptly cut short as five vessels, each the same size as the river boat, steamed upriver. They fired off massive puffs of smoke from extra-large slingers on their bows. Five bursts bloomed on the far side of the river. Despite the miss, the noise alone was enough to force the towering condor back up into the sky, angled back over the rainforest and towards the mountain cliffs.

----------------------------------------

The rescued prisoner was marched back to Secondhome without incident. Their healer’s quarters were full, requiring the heartier Stormlanders to rest in makeshift tents on the jungle floor, just outside the compound walls.

A search was put out for the injured man’s refugee cousin. No written records of the various refugees and transient wanderers who came and went at Secondhome. They had to poll random Stormlanders, determine who came from settlements in the new patient’s kin-network, then further determine if they hailed from the same walled compound or not. Tracking down kin-based allegiances was the Stormlander way, and as the prisoner belonged to the lowest rung of Stormlander society, they didn’t always have knowledge of their kin and clan history. At the end of this trail, they discovered… that the only living member of that settlement to have ever entered Secondhome had died of natural causes three years prior.

----------------------------------------