Rob Scott - The Larion Senators

Somewhere near the bow he heard a scream and then a splash. It was followed a moment later by two others. The crew was abandoning ship.

‘Go, go!’ Gilmour shouted, smacking Steven’s horse into the river behind Kellin and Garec. ‘Stay with her, hold on as long as you can.’ He checked a final time for the spell book and far portal, then spurred his own horse as, with a deafening roar, the floodtide ploughed its way towards Wellham Ridge.

The barge was lifted up and tumbled head over heels before it finally shattered in a prolonged ripping crack, like so many brittle bones snapping beneath the weight of a hundred thousand tons of water.

‘Alen?’ Milla touched him gently on the shoulder. ‘Alen? Are you awake?’

Cramped and stiff as a corpse, Alen Jasper opened one eye, swallowed dryly and groaned, ‘I am now, Pepperweed. What’s wrong? You need the pot? There’s a clean one under the-’

‘Something’s happening,’ the little girl cut him off.

Alen propped himself up and rubbed his eyes. Yawning, he asked, ‘What’s the matter?’

‘The people are in trouble. Should I try to help them?’

‘What are you-?’ Alen sat up, found a goblet beside the bed and drained whatever had been inside.

‘The people, they’re far away, but they’re in trouble from the water.’

Now Alen felt it begin, quietly at first, like the low hum of a familiar tune. He shrugged off his irritability and focused his attention inward. ‘What is it, Pepperweed? Can you tell where it’s coming from?’

‘Far away, back where Gilmour fell when I let him go,’ she whispered.

Alen tried to hone in on the monstrously powerful magic, but it was distant, half a world away. ‘You’re right, Milla,’ he said finally. ‘It’s coming right from where Fantu- um, Gilmour said he was going.’

‘Should I try to help them?’ she asked again.

‘Do you think you can?’ He let the distant drone fade, knowing the shockwaves would reach him in a moment, like huge ripples churning a mill pond.

‘I can try.’

Orindale Harbour was the busiest port in Eldarn, even during the coldest winter Twinmoon. Moorings were rented by the Moon when necessary, but most captains paid for a few days’ anchorage at a time. Cargoes were loaded, offloaded, speculated on, bought and sold, day and night, in all weathers and at all tides. The northern wharf was tucked into a crooked semi-circle of a cove, a natural jetty of topsoil and rocks rolled or dragged across southern Falkan by the river over the ages. The southern wharf was larger, if more sparsely populated, and it dominated the lower part of the waterfront, a sprawling testament to the city’s industrial growth.

On the day that Mark Jenkins sailed into the harbour, thinly disguised as Major Nell Tavon of Malagon Whitward’s occupation army, absent without leave and in command of a missing platoon, there were thirty-two merchant and naval vessels docked, moored or making their way into the harbour on the inbound tide. Hundreds more small barges, skiffs, ketches and transport vessels worked the harbour as well, but Mark was interested only in the fat ones, the fancy sailing ships rigged for the gusty headwinds that blew along the Ravenian Sea. A scattering of naval vessels monitored the passage of merchant ships to and from the wharf; Mark didn’t give these a second glance.

With the spell table opened, his first target was a Malakasian schooner, which started breaking apart audibly. When the mainmast snapped, it was loud enough that Captain Blackford covered his ears and he was still holding his head when the thick post crashed through the foredeck, bringing down the main and topsails in a tangle of canvas and rigging. The hull opened and the sea poured in, but by that time Blackford had been distracted by the devastation in other quarters and when he briefly looked back to the schooner, it was already gone, the few crew members who had escaped rowing towards shore in an overfilled launch boat Mark had overlooked – but before they reached the wharf, he’d spotted it and set the small boat aflame. A couple of sailors managed to swim the last few paces to shore, but that was all.

A Pragan galleon, crammed to bursting with textiles, tanned leather, mortar sand and quarried stone was also on fire. Her crew had been watching the schooner snap in two when their own vessel started to burn. Their screams filled the air as they tried to reach the sides and jump over. The flames, oddly resistant, quickly engulfed the galleon, and once the rigging went up and the fore, main and mizzen masts were burning, the firelight lit the whole harbour. Heat radiated across the water and the sailors working Major Tavon’s barge felt it warm their faces. The fire was a beacon, and could be seen from anywhere in the city, a harbinger of grim events yet to come.

As the news spread, the city of Orindale turned out in force to watch as frigates, barges, two more galleons, a massive carrack and a handful of sleek schooners were all sent to the bottom, ripped in half, punctured, blown to splintered bits or simply set ablaze and burned to the waterline. One sloop, a single-masted vessel from Strandson, was lifted from the water and those watching from the relative safety of the wharf talked for Twinmoons about seeing its keel clear the surface as it rolled lazily to port then back to starboard before wrenching itself in two, snapping like a handful of kindling and disappearing beneath the waves. Two barges were swept clean of their cargo by rogue waves and then broken into flotsam. The bits that remained afloat caught fire, looking like a string of macabre lanterns floating upstream.

A Falkan carrack, one of the largest ships currently making its stately way into the harbour, came about hastily, despite the tide, and endeavoured to tack into the open sea. Onlookers cheered – it was a local ship, after all – and when the captain ordered the top and main sails set, the waterfront erupted with an ovation Blackford could hear halfway across the harbour.

‘Stop cheering!’ he shouted, ‘don’t you understand? You’ll make it worse! Stop cheering!’

The cheering did stop when the carrack exploded. It was almost to the horizon, almost into the currents – almost free – when the proud giant simply blew apart. The concussion was massive, throwing Blackford and his men to the deck as the shockwaves passed by. He had never seen such a disaster, had never heard such an explosion – nothing in Eldarn exploded like that! This was the work of a god.

All manner of vessels set out on a mercy mission in hopes of rescuing the hundreds of sailors, soldiers and merchant seamen now drifting amongst the floating debris, though many had already drowned; either they couldn’t swim or they had succumbed to the cold.

Fathers and mothers, fat merchants, aged grandparents and children barely old enough to grasp an oar all rowed, hauled lines, gripped tillers and tied great loops into heavy rescue lines, a flotilla of venerable, chipped, rotting and battered family boats, making their way into the harbour to save what lives they could. Even the soldiers, the Malakasian brutes who periodically beat them, or hanged them for no reason on the common near the imperial palace, even they did not deserve to die like this.

Mark attacked them all, using five-foot waves to wipe the sea clean of the determined but irritating little boats. The more seaworthy craft, those that rode the five-foot swells, he set on fire or snapped into splinters. There was howling from everywhere as people burned to death, drowned or succumbed to hypothermia: everyone cried for mercy in the same miserable language.

When it was over, the galleon burned brightest, a signal fire warning all craft away from this place. With the chill snaking into their bones, many of the spectators, their lust for carnage sated, realised with a catch in their throats that perhaps the gods weren’t done with them yet; perhaps the devastation they had witnessed was just the beginning; perhaps the city itself was next. There was a moment of stunned silence, broken only by the crackle and snap of the flames and the piercing cries of the injured and dying, then panic blew through the crowd like a fogbank and, pushing, pulling, shoving, punching and kicking, the people of Orindale turned and fled as one.