Turns out, the heqet’s main defence against the highly enhanced elite of the rest of the world in addition to their relentless aggression and apparent endless numbers, is their rapid construction times. In the few weeks we’ve been at war with Jarl Anoures’ forces, they’ve simply flooded the seas with those incredibly flammable ships and just enough warriors to man them.
If I wasn’t working with a heqet who followed by the same rules, there is no chance I could have held the same number of islands from the innumerable fleets. With hundreds of villages now under our protection, they build ships which constantly reinforce our strength.
As we've passed through the Isles, there are hundreds of villages we've liberated from their oppressors. Of those, every one is capable of building ships. Each day that passes, the production of longships accelerates. The influx is constantly being added to by the many villages now under Sylvan’s control. Today alone, we’ve received dozens more than yesterday.
I cast my gaze over the fleet that follows Sylvan’s ship, and I can easily admit that the sight surprises me. A thousand ships. So many have arrived in the past week that it is unrecognisable. And that is not the full breadth of Sylvan's fleets; there are plenty more stationed all along the seas he and his men now control.
We are growing rapidly, more than I thought possible. With the way the heqet leap back into battle despite having lost ships and countless lives, it is finally becoming clear how they are able to oppose nations like Henosis, who can throw elite soldiers into their battles; they simply throw numbers at them. The heqet may never be able to kill the strongest of the other nations, but neither can those nations control the isles with the seafaring race’s capability to spread.
The only way a nation could control the Warring Isles, is to kill them all.
Even for the Inner Circle, that would be difficult. The Warring Isles are vast, and not even Sylvan — a heqet who’s spent his whole life here — knows just how many isles there are. At best, they could hope to sweep the islands for villages and indiscriminately wipe them from existence, but they could never catch them all; not when new villages would pop into existence where old ones were destroyed.
An invader could only succeed if their common soldiers had the same numbers as the heqet themselves. Considering the construction time on each longship is only a day, I struggle to see many competing.
I’d been surprised when I’d learnt the typical build time for one of those vessels. When I’d seen the ship construction yard in the first village, my assumption was a more standard build time. A few months Leal said was common for that size vessel. But no. Some combination between the type of trees they use and the natural resource of tar on their islands allows them to build rapidly.
Even Leal was impressed when we learnt that.
But the fact that they’ve learnt to build their ships that fast says a lot about how often they are destroyed. The heqet almost expect their ships to be sacrificed in battle. I’ve seen it in the past weeks. Many warriors seem almost unsure what to do with themselves now that they’ve retained the same ship and crew far longer than normal.
Still, because of the rapidly declining need for new ships, I've taken to completely annihilating our enemies’. Allowing them to remain will only slow us down. Not like Sylvan needs the ships with how fast new ones are joining us. The heqet who fall into the ocean as their longships incinerate are either captured by the ships following behind, or they must swim to the nearest village. I’d been worried about the warriors coming together to cause issues for the former thralls, but Sylvan says there’s nothing to worry about.
Any time I think about how these warriors of Jarl Anoures treat their own kind, I almost don’t hesitate to burn them along with their ships, and it is only my promise to Leal that I hold back.
My respect for the heqet drops every day I fight them. They send their own people into thralldom everywhere. Not a single village we’ve come across has had a free person besides the warriors that stand above the others like overlords. It seems that every one of Jarl Anoures's relies on slavery to keep her war efforts active.
How she's able to make it work, I have no idea, but she does, and I loathe her for it.
How could someone do such a thing? How could someone strip the freedom from their own kind for the sake of war? Because that's all it’s for; every village is designed to further their war efforts. They construct cannons. They construct warships. They construct axes. But still, the only production for anything other than war is the food that they use to feed their men.
And even that is simply a requirement to keep their warriors alive long enough so they can kill each other in the seas.
I wish this wasn't the way their race was, but the more I see, the more I feel they are determined to slaughter one another for no better reason than the slaughter itself. Jarl Anoures could offer her charges a better life; one where their families and children aren't destined to sink into the ocean depths every day; one where they could imitate the northern countries and actually thrive. But no, they seem almost happy to throw their lives away in the name of their Jarl, and subject everyone else to thralldom.
I do not like Sylvan. but at least he does not send his people into slavery.
With him in charge, even if there are people sent into constant wars, at least those back home aren't forced into one of the worst possible lives. Maybe there's a better way. Maybe there's a way that the heqet can surpass this lust for slaughter. But I do not know.
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All I know is that when I see those countless enslaved villagers, it angers me something fierce. If I ever meet this Jarl, she will not survive long.
In the weeks that we have travelled, the landscape of the isles has changed tremendously. Back near the Mrtyuñ Coast, the isles were closer to hills or small mountains rising from the ocean. Waters touched sandy beaches that grew to forests and grassy plains littered with tar pits. Each of those tar pits followed rather straight lines, as if seeping to the surface from some underground river.
The further south we travel, the further from the mainland, the islands grow visibly less welcoming. Instead of the beaches and calm waters, we now have to face fjords and rough waves. Tall, jagged cliffs spike into the ocean, promising death to any crew that doesn’t treat the land with the respect it deserves. The heqet, thankfully, are more than experienced with navigating some of the narrow straits between cliffs, despite the size of the fleet.
It’s interesting to see how the villages are forced to adapt to these steep sea-facing walls. Each isle we pass, the buildings grow more intricate. They are still Heqet at the end of the day, so they want access to the ocean, yet the land itself makes that difficult.
I didn't believe the Hecate were capable of much technology, but as we've travelled, the villages have become more complex. Dug in the side of massive cliff faces, they build their homes. Tall pulley systems of rope lacquered with that tar of theirs hefts ships from the steep heights to the rough oceans below. They build the vessels above, where the forests reign and tar pits are frequent, then lower them down to the oceans.
In a way, it is an impressive defence system, but it still makes no difference when we have thousands of ships and my own ability to fly up and melt them all.
These villages built into the side or the top of cliffs are impressive. The technology they’ve created to survive out on these harsh waters is a sign that their race can achieve greater heights than the endless war they dedicate themselves to. The heqet seem determined to have everyone believe they are incapable of doing anything but wage war; even themselves.
Sylvan's a perfect example that they could become more passive, and yet they still choose not to.
This journey has already taken weeks longer than I’d hoped, and we have not yet found what we came for. We agreed to help Sylvan take these seas so that the people would not have to remain under Jarl Anoures’ thralldom. By giving the heqet steersman this much command, I’ve essentially made him the ruler of the area. I’m still not sure how I feel about that, but he has not been ordering the enslavement of the villages we’ve captured, so it is still by far the superior option.
If he decides to expand his power into Jarl Anoures’ territory after we’ve found the source of the anatla’s beam and have left, then I’m too bothered.
The concentration of Jarl Anoures’ forces are far more converged around the source of the beam than I originally considered. With each new island we take, and each battle we come out victorious, the enemy fleets only ever grow stronger.
I know we’re trying to carve out some territory so Sylvan can fight off the Jarl’s forces, but we’re also supposed to be heading toward Leal and my destination. With how much more dense the enemy navy grows, I’m almost certain that we are moving closer towards Anoures’ central command.
If the Anatla was near the core of the Jarl’s forces, then why would Sylvan have ever accepted taking us with his mere dozen ships. I know the heqet are bloodthirsty, but he is intelligent. He knows that wouldn’t have been possible. Not with the tens of thousands of ships I’ve sunk already.
This is clearly Anoures' major force.
So what has happened? Has she started to hunt us down? Has she realised how much we're taking her islands away from her? And is she fighting back? Or is this actually the core of her domain and we're moving further and further into it?
If it’s the latter, Sylvan has some answering to do.
“Sylvan,” I call as I approach from between the row of benches that might have been in use if I wasn’t powering the sails far beyond the need for rowing.
The heqet snaps his head my way, turning from grouching at one of the men who spilled rope oil on the deck an hour ago. “What?” he demands, clearly agitated.
“How much longer must we continue this?” I ask. “This feels endless. Every day the fighting seems to grow stronger. Every day I find myself burning more ships. We have captured enough islands for you to oppose Anoures’ tyranny. When will we reach the source of the beam, as you promised?”
“I'm not here to help you take on the entire Warring Isles, Sylvan,” I continue before he can respond. “I do not want to stay for long.”
“Don't worry so much,” Sylvan says, suppressing a scowl as the scolded heqet rushes to the other side of the deck while he can.
“We're close now, trust me. There's only one thing I want to do before we finally head to the source of the beam. We must capture the Jarlship fort. If we take the fort, it will solidify our hold on the region. Before Jarl Anoures attempts to retake the isles, she’ll want to retake the Tenner Isle.”
I’m not certain how a single fort can be so important when everyone can sail around it, but Sylvan must have a reason to consider it so important.
“Until that fort is in our hands, it'll be too easy for Jarl Anoures to recapture everything we've already taken,” he says. “But, if you are determined to head to the origin, then I will take you.”
I want to grumble under my breath. Of course I want to make sure that the people that we've already saved aren't immediately sent back into slavery, but it's still so convoluted. How many islands have we captured? How many villages have we saved? It is still nothing but a small blip on the entire Warring Isles.
If we want to, at the current rate we're going, it would take years to free everyone under Jarl Anoures’ control. I hope that this initial launching pad we've given Sylvan is enough for him to continue. How much I want to clear out Anoures and anyone else who would promote thralldom. This isn’t my nation, and I probably shouldn’t interfere with other’s politics, but this is slavery. It is impossible to ignore something that goes against my very being.
But I cannot stay.
I need to follow my original task. We need to determine whatever we can find from the source of the Anatla and return before my people continue to the pact nations. I do not want to miss my elders leaving.
I am close friends with Tore, but I am not as well connected in the many northern nations. Sure I know some people there like Remus and Bunny who are well known themselves, but I hardly have the sway there I do in New Vetus. What’s more, the people there are struggling. They were struggling before I left, and I can only imagine the difficulties they’ve faced after the Titan Alps collapsed.
Will they be welcoming to an outsider race when the last time one arrived, they experienced the worst war in history?
“Then, lets take this fort quickly.”
If any of our battles have taught me anything, it’s that the heqet are no threat to me. I doubt this siege will be any different.