Leaving a burning fleet behind me, I fly to the docks at the neck of the fjord, where the cliffs funnel into a river. With hard stone meeting my feet as they form, I cast my gaze up the path cut from the side of the cliff. Unlike the insets for the cannons, this is wide. Wide enough for a dozen men to march toward the steadfast fortress.
Once again, I grumble at the task Sylvan gave me. It would be so much more simple to fly over the duo of gate defences that stand in my way. Even more so for the last stretch beyond the gates.
The path that leads up the side of the cliff doesn’t reach the full way to the top. It only takes one to the base of the fortress, where it sits above a waterfall that rushes from a hole in the earth. An elevator pulley system made of wood and rope sits in place ready to carry goods or heqet between the fort and the docks.
Sylvan and his crew should already be up there, striking at their command. As much as I want to rush up there, my presence won’t help; of that, Sylvan is right. Regardless, I need to remove these walls so the heqet warriors following in my trail can reach the fort without much difficulty.
As I walk up to the first break in the ledge trail, I can feel a dozen heqet within the stone structure around the heavy metal gate. A couple throw axes as I approach, but I simply ignore them as they disintegrate upon contact. The rest remain hidden from sight; their heat signatures only barely seeping through the rock that separates us.
“Open the gate and let us pass. Your army is gone and those above should already be dealt with.” As futile as I know it will be, I give them the opportunity to stand down now. Hidden in stone as they are, it’ll be hard to assure their survival while still destroying the gate and disabling their ability to fight.
I’m not bothering to hide my flames right now. Not when that annoying heqet hiding in the stone to my right continues to throw axes through his small window.
The trio of heqet in the wider opening above the gate respond to my demands by shoving a large pot into view. It sits there a moment, innocuously, before it tips and the contents spill over me. Hot, boiling oil ignites the moment it touches me and my fire spreads into the cauldron before exploding. The metal shatters, and sharp shrapnel cleaves the nearest two heqet in halves. The other is burnt immediately as flaming oil flows through the interior of the gatehouse.
This might have been a good defence against any other invader, as the oil that still flows around me slicks the smooth stone of the rampart and would melt through any heqet as it rolls down the path to the docks. But, the problem for them is, I am no heqet. I’m an áed. I greedily burn through the oil — which, unfortunately, comes nowhere near the quality of the centzons’ version — and in moments, the gate is melting.
I could stop the spread of fire if I wanted, but I don’t. They could already see I was aflame. It’s their own stupidity that got them in this situation. Why shouldn’t I let them feel the consequences?
I feel the burning oil flow down a set of stairs and reach the other heqet, but before the boiling liquid can melt through their legs, a barrel explodes and blasts open the side of the gate that connects to the cliff, killing each of them instantly. Huh, maybe I should grab some of the explosive powder they use for their cannons. They seem to have stockpiles of it here… Nah, it’ll unlikely to be all that much more beneficial than the explosive force I can already create.
All that training my elders have made me do with the microbursts for running has surprisingly had a noticeable effect on my offensive output. Sure, it’s easy enough to burn anything in my way, but directing all that power into an instantaneous explosion is incredibly effective.
Strangely enough, while micro explosions within my flames are incredibly efficient, macro blasts beyond the scope of my body are the complete opposite. I could blow up a ship or one of these gates, but the energy expenditure would be immense compared to just melting the thing. Of course, that is far less of a problem for me than most other áed.
A creak preludes a crash as the stone arch over the gate collapses. I hop over the rubble as half of it tumbles down the rampart, while the rest slides over the cliff edge down into the river below. Well, that’s one obstacle done. Before I move on, I spread my flames through the wreckage and consume the bodies of the fools that tried to burn an áed. Regardless of whether they’re slavers or idiots, they still deserve to be returned to the cycle.
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The oil, while flammable, wasn't any more so than the tar they use for their ships. I'd imagine they didn't use tar itself because it wouldn’t flow down the pathway as this oil has. For anyone besides myself, the walkway is now unusable. Well, at least until my flames eat through it all.
Despite it not being as great as the centzon’s unbeatable nectar, it is still oil and I take my time to burn through it all to relish in the taste.
A few hundred metres up the path, the next heqet are not as stupid. They’ve seen what happened to the first gate, and rather than waiting until I was close and dying to their own oil, they shove the entire cauldron out the opening of their barricade. A bunch of hot oil splashes out as the metal pot thuds to the ground. More spills and coats the path as the cauldron rolls down toward me like a boulder.
My body breaks apart into swathes of fire as the pot passes through me. The flame tongues lap at the oil spilling from its side and with a sudden explosion, the cauldron alters its course, flinging itself out into the fjord, where it crashes into the waves and taking all the remaining oil with it. I look on in dismay. If only I stopped it instead.
Another crash returns my attention up the path where the heqet are dumping all the cannons’ explosive powder barrels out from the gate. Maybe they’re hoping they’ll roll like the cauldron did, but besides one that bounces off the side of the cliff, most just break upon hitting the stone path, leaving the explosive dust to pile up.
How nice of them to treat me after I lost their last gift.
Instead of walking the distance, I ignite the trail of oil that dribbles down the path and shoot right into the explosive powder. The explosion shakes the air, but does little to damage the gate. I reform amongst the flames that burn in the small crater and step toward the gate.
“I’ll say the same thing I said to those down below.” I stand before the snarling heqet as they glare at me from above. “Open the gate. Your fort is already lost.”
Of course, their response is aggression.
At the first thrown axe, I incinerate the metal gate, along with any of the stonework it was attached to. Not bothering with any of the heqet still in the structure, I step through the burning remains. Three steps is all I can take before a battle roar of one of those heqet reaches me.
Sighing, I turn to the one who climbs from an opening in the gatehouse along with a decent quantity of smoke. I didn’t try to burn them, but it looks like something dangerous still caught fire.
He shouts a challenge, then rushes me with both axes held wide. His blades slice through my body with nary any difficulty. Obviously not expecting such a lack of resistance, the heqet loses his balance and ploughs through me. I didn’t try to scorch his body when he attempted to strike me, so under normal circumstances, he would be fine. Unfortunately for him, he threw himself over the side of the cliff.
I shake my head in contempt as I reform before striding to the fortress once more. A wide wooden platform sits suspended over the side of the cliff, swaying in the breeze. All that holds the platform in place is a series of ropes that rise to a crane at the top of the massive wall looming above me. Some ropes attach to the bottom stop the wooden platform swaying too much, but it still looks like they could have made a much less dangerous elevator up to their fort if they put as much effort into it as they did the stone wall itself.
As I look at the rickety thing, I reconsider the compliments I’d thought toward the heqet at the construction of this fortress. With the pommel of my spear, I poke at the platform, expecting it to collapse the instant a slight weight touches it. It sways a little, but it doesn’t break.
Turning my attention upward, where the flat stone wall stretches to the sky, I consider if I’d be able to get away with flying up and changing back without the heqet noticing my flames. Sylvan said I shouldn’t let them see my flames, so risking the brief time it would take to transition from my solid bird form to standard might be too much.
Well, it’s not like I’m afraid of heights. If the elevator breaks, I’ll simply fly off.
I step onto the unstable timber and immediately realise that there’s no heqet around to pull on the pulley system to carry me up. Not an issue. I spread my flames around the ropes and pull them into motion. The ground beneath me lurches into motion, and I slowly rise.
Gazing out over the fjord, the battle is finally ending. Whatever vessels remain of Jarl Anoures’ fleet is swiftly sunk by the Sylvan’s heqet, or remains burning under my flames. As I watch the floating pillars of fire, I consider simply burning through the rest. None hold my will, as I find it far too uncomfortable being this far from separate instances of myself, but it might be best to clean up now that we’re all done.
I feel a thermal presence peek out over the fort above, and peer up to spot Sylvan there, looking down at me. Raising a hand, I wave at him, but he steps away from the ledge. It is Sylvan. I shouldn’t have expected any sort of greeting. While he’s the only one of his kind that is sociable, he’s still a heqet.
An explosion roars above. My platform wobbles, but I hold on. Before I can even begin to wonder what is going on, the fortress fractures. A massive crack meanders down the front of the surface, and as I watch the damage spread, the ropes fall slack and my platform drops beneath me. Another explosion rips through the wall, and the fort shatters. Boulders fly, but that isn’t a problem.
The water is.
A fountain gushes through the broken fortress and floods the air above me. Before I can comprehend what is happening, a river soars over my head and cuts off any escape as the platform falls to the water below.
Despite how far I’ve grown, this much water can still be deadly, but that’s not what I care about right now. Sylvan, that bastard, just tried to kill me.