Skipari Sylvan stared wide-eyed as another longship exploded in flames. The vessel joined the dozen other around his own that were nothing more than floating bonfires.
A round of cannons fired. Sylvan turned in time to watch an axe flung through the air race past the volley of cannonballs. The thrower, Jarl Shanarr herself, screamed a war-cry to the skies, shaking her second axe above her head in challenge. Apparently unsatisfied with her throw, she snatched another from the grip of a crewman beside her and pierced it through the air, sending a visible shockwave as it left her grip, and dangerously teetering her ship in the already rocky waters.
A flash of white and the Jarl’s own longship incinerated.
The heat was so intense that it burnt the mucus off his body in an instant; his mucous membranes stung as they increased production to replace the lost slickness over his skin.
The larger longship didn’t burn like the other vessels around him. No, that white flame had burnt through the tar and wood so quickly, nothing but crew remained. As the hundred or so warriors fell into the waters, he could no longer see the Jarl amongst them.
His gaze trailed up the tendril of yellow flame that cut across the sky like a bolt of lightning, yet didn’t share its brevity. It burned where there wasn’t anything to burn. Spread far enough it almost outshone the sun. Scorched where ocean reigned supreme. And yet, it had nothing on the monster at its centre.
A large white bird of flame. Not large enough to be considered a Titan, but that’s what his mind kept telling him. Despite its immense altitude, the white flames stung at his skin. It pierced deep through him and heated every tiny fibre of his being.
Skipari Sylvan knew this creature was beyond him. Beyond any he knew. But the deep, instinctual desire to fight wouldn’t leave. It was a natural part of any heqet; he needed to throw his axe, or angle a cannon to damage the wondrous creature. It was powerful, but that made him want to bring it down all the more.
He jerked his mind out of the dangerous trance, accidentally jerking the rudder along with it. His longship veered to the right, and the sudden change sent the crew stumbling. They were quick to regain their steps. Only a couple sent him death-glares, but he paid them no mind.
Sylvan was not the steersman of this crew, but while his actual steersman readied his axe to leap into battle, the job fell on him.
“port-side cannons, take aim. Oarsmen, steady the ship. We’ll be taking down a big one today, boys.” The steersman’s grin mirrored the crew’s as he gave the orders. No warrior amongst them unwilling to battle the creature that had already killed a dozen other longships of better make and crew quality.
The men cheered and roared to the skies, mimicking Jarl Shanarr’s final moments.
Skipari Sylvan abandoned his post. Both strong, protuberant hands wrapped around the leather bound handles of his axes, and yanked them out of the wood they rested. He stepped past the oarsmen. Some eyed him suspiciously, but most were too busy angling their cannons higher than the braces allowed.
“Get those damn cannons loaded if you don’t want to be tossed overboard,” the steersman grouched as he ordered around the crew. He raised his axe to the sky, pointing his men toward the living inferno above. In a moment, he would give the order to fire.
Sylvan swung his left arm. The sharp edge of his axe sliced through the rubbery skin of his steersman before stopping in the fat of his gut.
Sylvan’s steersman grunted and turn turned to him with an understandable rage in his eye reflecting the inferno above. “Sylvan,” he sneered. “You bastard.”
The steersman twisted, digging the axe in deeper as he raised his own, ready to retaliate, but the skipari’s other weapon was already crashing down from above. The blade sliced between bulging eyes and torrents of reflective oil-like blood showered over the nearest of heqet; Sylvan included.
The steersman’s axe crashed into the side of the skipari’s mouth, right above his shoulder. It cut away the side of his upper lip, revealing thousands of pinprick-sized teeth.
This longship’s former steersman slumped to the tar-soaked wood before him. Dead. Sylvan yanked his weapons from the corpse of their former leader and glared around the crew that stared at him, daring any of them to challenge him. They all tightened their fingers around their axes, yet none attacked.
He holstered a single axe in a loop of his belt and kicked the dead steersman on his back. The dark blood seeped into the wood, mixing with the tar to give it a distinct reflective sheen of dim colours under the bright light. With his free hand, Sylvan hefted the corpse overboard, to rest beneath the waves as each of his fathers had done before him.
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With the heqet’s funeral unceremoniously completed, Sylvan lifted the man’s weapons. Finding their quality superior to his own, he wasted no time tossing his aside and fitting his holsters to the axes. Three of the crew fought for his discarded weapons, but he paid them no mind.
He’d had his suspicions of the steersman’s weakness for a while, but he hadn’t thought the heqet to be as weak as he’d turned out to be. Sylvan had left himself open when he took advantage of the man’s surprise, but the swing hadn’t come close to fracturing his jaw. If he’d known the steersman lacked enhancement to this degree, he wouldn’t have let himself be hit at all.
Sylvan dabbed at the wound on the side of his head. A good portion of upper-lip was gone completely. It would scar nicely. The fight that inflicted it could have been more worthy, but it was a mark he would take.
While Sylvan had questions regarding how such a man ever got the position in the first place, the man was dead, so questions about his life no longer mattered. The moment his family knew he was gone, they would discard him from their minds; there was no reason he should do any different.
Sylvan was no longer a simple skipari; he was now the steersman. He’d experienced many battles to reach this point, and it was worth it. The way each of the hundred crewman glanced his way, but held back their hostility in deferment to his strength was intoxicating. He was glad he’d joined the larger of longships; a steersman was a steersman regardless of vessel size, but there was a clear hierarchy of those who commanded more warriors.
He’d been analysing the previous leader for weaknesses ever since he joined the crew, but the man was reluctant to show his strength against any but the weakest of enemies. To go against the instinct so strongly showed cunning, and that the man knew his crew were searching for chinks to strike at.
Of course, his final act showed he wasn’t intelligent enough.
It showed that he couldn’t think through when to fight off the instinct, and when to embrace it. An effect of those who had been trained to ignore it, rather than learning it for themselves.
That had been enough for Sylvan. It was clear to him that no longship that showed aggression to the burning deity above was spared the blaze. Any attack would be suicide. He had witnessed the creature destroy one of the northern navy’s floating castles in a mere wave of its wing; only the great Jarls could achieve similar.
Despite knowing that, it was hard even for Sylvan to hold himself back from ordering the crew to fire. The desire to battle the mighty beast was overwhelming, but he would never have lived this long if he hadn’t run when necessary. He would never reach those heights he desired if he was dead.
“Stow the cannons!” he shouted to the crew.
Every warrior aboard flinched at the order. All sent murderous glares his way, and he held a hand on the steel head of his axe, not yet pulling it from his hip, but ready should they attack. The most important thing he needed to remember now that he had taken the position as steersman was to keep a permanent air of superiority. If he ever appeared weak, they would swarm him. He trusted his strength, but amongst his crew were warriors of considerable strength that he could not ignore.
After a few seconds of high tension, the men backed down and did as they were told. The only thing that could supersede a heqet’s ingrained instinct for violence was the command of one of their own, as long as they believed them sufficiently superior.
Sylvan — Steersman Sylvan — returned to the aft and grasped the rudder that angled off the starboard side.
“Oarsmen, full stroke,” he called to his men once they stowed the cannons. Commanding them felt like second nature. This was obviously his destiny.
He steered them away from the dozens of burning longships behind him, wanting to be as far from the disaster as he could. His Jarl was already dead; the battle against Jarl Anoures’ forces would have to wait. There was always another battle tomorrow; his men will forget this retreat when they have some more of their kin to sink their axes.
Sylvan watched each of his crew closely. His position on ship aft allowed him to keep them all in sight. Many glared and spat insults under their breaths, but they rowed regardless.
This was the most dangerous time for any prospective steersman; the first day after taking command for themselves, the crew was likely to act. They might believe the new steersman’s victory was chance, and try for themselves. Many would strike at him, but he just needed to cut them down to cement his position in their minds. It helped that this crew already knew his strength from the last half dozen battles and raids he’d fought with them.
He still didn’t trust them.
It was because of that distrust that when each of their eyes rose to something behind him, he didn’t turn. Even when he felt heat sting at the back of his head, drying out his mucus again, he held his head straight.
Only when the blaze spread over his head did he glance up. The deity of white flame flared out before hitting the deck before him. The inferno convulsed and shrunk down on itself. Despite the white flame, it did not burn. He felt an unsettling heat within each part of his body, but his skin did not scorch, nor did his longship ignite.
The blaze converged before him, revealing two of the northern races. If he knew their appearance correctly, they were both young women, barely out of childhood. The large one was an ursu; he’d raided their kind plenty of times in his life, but they never truly kept anything important near the coast. And treading deep into land was a rarity by his kind; unless they knew it was worth it. Heqet didn’t like the lack of the ocean mistresses’ sway beneath their feet, and the ursu were too difficult an opponent on land.
The smaller one, though, was what held his attention. While appearing as an albanic, she was clearly anything but. Her arms and legs swirled in flame before solidifying into the more standard skin tone of the albanic. Her body wasn’t on fire, but fire itself. Even when the flames fully hid themselves as the race of his northern enemies, those eyes still held the same power he’d seen burn the sky. A firestorm of white sparks spun around wide irises like that of an eagle.
Ah. This was no normal person. This was the deity of fire.
He was suddenly very glad for his mutiny. Far more so than the feeling of finally being steersman inflicted within him. If she wasn’t here to kill him, then maybe this was an opportunity?
Sylvan couldn’t suppress his grin.