19. Chapter 19
Chapter nineteen
The plan was simple: kill Serrans, free slaves, rouse rebellion.
The doing was not simple.
Freed Serran slaves were not bloodsport fighters. Even when struck from their chains, they cowered in fear, reluctant to move against the people who’d beaten them into submission. Many simply fled. Almost none fought.
Cyrus knew that collective masses would fuel the slaves and give them strength, but he had to physically touch them to free them, and he couldn’t do it fast enough.
He tore through the wharves, shattering every chain he could grasp.
His men moved quickly, physically breaking the chains, cutting ropes, prying open cages. Still, it wasn’t enough.
And they found another challenge they hadn’t expected: traps.
The Serrans were experienced with the desperation of men.
Traps lay hidden throughout the port to capture runners, should a slave find themself free of their chains with ambitious thoughts of escape, and these traps were claiming Cyrus’s own men.
Most were harmless, netting and foot nooses, but impervious to Cyrus’s manipulation of metal and time-consuming to free one from. He didn’t have that time.
Although the Serrans were still unorganized by the surprise attack and their resistance was weak, Cyrus wasn’t gaining the momentum he’d expected. Hardly any slaves had joined the fight—they were still fleeing.
More. He needed to free more . There was power in numbers, he just needed to get those numbers. He pushed harder, bellowing to his men to follow him. They did. Finally, they broke beyond the harbor front and spilled in between the rows of warehouses that stretched in nearly all directions.
But suddenly things shifted.
The Serrans started killing slaves, mercilessly firing arrows at them as they ran.
Cyrus snarled as he pushed even harder, even faster. He spotted a small group of Serran archers, and he ripped through them. His twin blades sang as they slashed through air and flesh, arcing sprays of blood around him.
Harder still, he fought. His armor slowed him, and he tore it off.
Ram fought beside him, and they settled into the kill combinations they’d used in the arena, working their opponents high and low.
Then the Serrans turned their attacks on the slaves not yet freed, brutally cutting down people bound with no means to defend themselves, with no ability to get away.
Ram staggered to a pause, horror etched across his brow. “What are they doing?”
Cyrus gritted his teeth as Slaver’s Bay descended into slaughter.
He knew exactly what they were doing. The Serrans were punishing them—killing them for being saved.
It was only a matter of time before the slaves would turn on Cyrus and his men to stop it.
Their fear would drive them to fight against their own freedom.
Cyrus had been counting on the slaves to join him. Now he was dangerously close to having to fight them as well.
The Serrans sensed it too and turned even more vicious. Screams cut through the air as whole groups of people were set on fire within their cages.
Cyrus pushed harder, grasping more chains, turning them to ash.
To the next and to the next.
But it wasn’t fast enough.
And the slaves began to turn on those there to help them.
Chaos reigned around him.
“Cyrus!” Kord boomed to his right as he came crashing through. “We have to fall back!”
Cyrus staggered to a stop and raked his gaze around him, panting as he assessed the fight. Fall back? Blood blinded his right eye, and he swiped it away. He wasn’t sure if it was his or someone else’s.
“We have to fall back!” Kord yelled again.
“No! We just have to free more. If we can get mass—”
“They’re fighting us! They don’t want to be free!”
“They do! But they’re afraid.” Cyrus surged forward and dropped a Serran who had launched an attack from the left.
Suddenly, an arrow sipped by, burying itself into the wall of a warehouse just behind him. Kord grabbed Cyrus and pulled him behind the cover of a stack of crates.
“We have to fall back! We’re losing too many men!”
Cyrus shoved him off. “Fall back to where? To the ships? To sail away?”
“If we wait much longer, we won’t be able to!” Kord pointed to the harbor. “They’re setting the ships on fire!”
Cyrus glanced back to see smoke billowing from several vessels. The bastards were trying to push him back toward the water.
It wouldn’t work.
He shook his head. “We’re not leaving.”
“Cyrus,” Ram interjected, “if they burn all—”
“I said we’re not leaving,” he snapped. “Where’s Everan?”
“Still at the docks,” Kord said. “Some of the Serran ships are loaded with slaves; he’s working to free them.”
Good. He looked north. He couldn’t see the palace from where he was, but he expected Orion and his team had made it there by now.
Cyrus needed to trust Orion with his task and just focus on freeing people.
He motioned to his left to a series of warehouses.
“Take men and start on that row,” he said to Kord.
Then he nodded to Ram. “You’re with me.” But as he started toward the center buildings, screams cut through the air, coming from the harbor.
His gaze darted to a flaming ship back at the docks.
A Serran ship.
Horror hit Cyrus as he realized. “There are people on there.”
Kord froze. “That’s the ship Everan’s on.”
Everan.
No! All focus on their plan left him. Nothing else mattered. Not Serra. Not the warehouses. Not King Milar. He bolted back toward the docks.
“Cyrus!” Kord called from behind him, but the sound faded beneath the rush of blood in his ears. The Serrans had somewhat organized themselves now and were coming heavy in defense to the docks. He tore through them, taking arms, taking heads, taking lives. He’d kill every single one of them.
Thick black smoke poured from the burning vessel. The screams were no longer screams of fear but screams of agony. Flames licked across the portside, racing toward the mast. The sails burst like paper.
He was almost there.
His heart pounded. Everan was on that ship—
An arrow struck a bollard just to his right, and he ducked left, but as his foot hit the next plank, the wood gave way to net.
And he was falling.
He’d hit a trap. He knew it before he even crashed.
Someone roared his name. Kord, maybe?
His head hit something hard, stunning him. He dropped his swords. For a moment, things went dark, but sound still flooded him—yelling and footsteps.
Then they were on top of him.
Rope bit into his skin as it was pulled tight around him. He thrashed, but still it held.
He was caught.
Metal pinched around his wrists, and he wasn’t prepared for the panic that rippled through him. As they jerked him to his feet, all Cyrus could do was stare down at the cuffs.
He was chained. Not just chained—manacled. The same kind used on him in Rael’s arena.
His heart pounded against his chest. He couldn’t get a breath.
Captured. Chained. Again.
He couldn’t breathe.
Someone bellowed his name, but it was too far away.
The men around him shoved him forward as they jerked the chains.
“Cyrus!” Kord raged as he fought to reach him, but he was still too far. Too far away, too many men, too many screams.
“Cyrus! Fight!”
It brought him back.
Fire rippled under his skin.
Cyrus raised his eyes to those who held him. The man in front of him laughed.
Laughed.
The manacles around his wrists burned hot. And hotter still. They turned darker, then brighter, until they glowed orange. The man’s eyes widened. Cyrus surged forward and looped the glowing chain around his neck.
The man let out a scream—a scream that was cut short as the searing metal cut through his flesh.
Others grabbed at him, and he felt the burn of ropes again. His anger swelled deeper. He let out a roar with a burst of power, shattering what was left of the chain and manacles and arcing a spray of molten death around him.
He was free.
He whirled back to the ship, and his heart seized in his chest when he found it completely engulfed in flames. His legs felt like they might buckle.
“Cyrus!”
Not Kord’s voice this time.
Everan’s.
Where?
Cyrus spun to see his friend on the next dock over.
Everan stood soot-streaked and bloodied, but breathing and alive.
Emotion tore through him. However, his attention was quickly pulled to where Everan pointed his sword.
On another flaming ship, hundreds of slaves were leaping from the fiery bow into the waters of the harbor.
The portside doors burst open, and amid the billows of smoke, more slaves jumped.
Their chains were gone. All of them. Just… gone.
Suddenly, a different kind of chaos swarmed them. Cyrus ripped around in confusion as hundreds of slaves rushed from everywhere they’d been held and joined them against the Serrans.
Not hundreds.
Thousands.
From the ships. From the cages along the docks. From the warehouses.
“Yeah!” Kord shouted, finally reaching him. “You did it! You freed them!”
Cyrus shook his head. “No, I couldn’t have—I have to touch them.”
“Their chains literally turned to ash—there’s no other fucking person who could have done that but you.” Kord’s eyes scanned the port. “Look at them!”
They were all free.
“Here,” Kord said, picking up Cyrus’s sword—a single sword now—and holding it out for him.
Cyrus took it. He glanced back at Everan, who cut him a wide grin and charged back into the fight.
If it could even be called a fight anymore.
As soon as the slaves saw that their chains were gone, that they were all free, they fought. And they fought hard. They took the capital like a tide, destroying everything—the ports, the markets, the city.
Cyrus broke away and headed toward the palace.
He reached the palatial steps just as Orion was descending. Behind him, surrounded by his men, walked two boys. One held a sword nearly as large as himself.
Cyrus cut Orion and annoyed eye. “You let him keep a sword?”
Orion stopped at the foot of the stairs and shrugged. “That’s how I found them. You just said to bring them to you.”
“The king?” Cyrus asked.
“Dead. Step around the west side if you want to see. I hung him from his balcony.”
As Cyrus’s gaze moved back to the boys, his blood chilled.
They were twins.
Seven, maybe eight.
The one with the sword held it in front of him and clasped his brother tightly behind him. His brown eyes burned fiercely. The boy leveled his blade at Cyrus. “If you put a hand on my brother, you’ll lose it!”
So fierce, so loyal as they both faced death. But Cyrus knew the loyalty of a blood brother—loyalty turned like the tide. Real loyalty came only from those bonded with the blood of battle. Blood of the womb meant nothing.
“Give me your brother, and I’ll let you go,” Cyrus told him. He wasn’t sure why he’d said it; he wasn’t one to taunt. But there was something in him that needed to prove how easy betrayal came.
“You can’t have him!” The boy gripped the hilt of his sword tighter. His arms had started to shake. “Return to your ship and I’ll let you go.”
Interesting.
Cyrus stepped toward him, but the boy didn’t cower. Instead, he lunged forward, arcing his blade in attack. Cyrus knocked it away with his own, sending the sword skittering across the cobblestone.
The child scrambled back, wrapping his arm around his brother’s head and covering his eyes. “Don’t look, Martine. And don’t be afraid. When we wake, we’ll play among the gods. Together.”
Cyrus paused. He couldn’t take his eyes from the young boy who clung to his brother, staring death down without fear. Choosing to leave this world together.
Pain clawed at his chest from the inside. Mercy , it whispered.
But a quick death was mercy.
Yet…
Cyrus swore under his breath. He couldn’t let these boys go free. He couldn’t leave them to be put back on the throne, to carry on what their father had built.
He had to kill them. Here. Now. He had to be done with it.
They had to die.
The boy’s brown eyes bore into him.
Cyrus tried to lift his sword, but it was too heavy in his hand.
Too heavy in his chest.
Finally, he sighed. “Put them on my ship.”
Six days it took for Serra to collapse—faster than Cyrus had expected, but longer than he’d wanted. The freed men had swept the rest of the kingdom like they’d swept the capital, and everything crumbled. Slaver’s Bay became Blood Bay, for the red water that now filled the harbor.
This was where Cyrus stood, looking out over all the Serran ships they’d pulled together, so many that they butted against one another. On the bows, the flayed bodies of their crews were strung.
His eyes drifted down to his blood-smeared arms and the crusted crimson staining his skin. The slavers’ deaths hadn’t been enough. To feel their skin in his hands, their blood running down his arms—it wasn’t enough.
Kord stepped beside him. “Is this really necessary?”
But Cyrus said nothing as he watched the remaining Serran slavers driven onto the ships. They’d be chained. As Cyrus had been. As everyone they’d stolen away from their homes had been.
He leaned heavily on the port wall as exhaustion started to set in. A pain needled his side. He hadn’t realized he’d caught a blade across the ribs until after they’d taken the capital. It wasn’t severe, but he’d need to keep it wrapped until he got back to Rael and Teron.
He’d depart for Rael with the morning tide. Until then, there were still a few last things to finish.
Cyrus motioned to the archers, who set their flaming arrows on the Serran ships, and the slavers chained to them.