Chapter 98 Aren
Aren
“Everyone to their positions!” Aren shouted, his mind filling with flashbacks of the siege of Eranahl. Countless ships pressing in, steel and flame flying through the air, and defenses falling one by one as Silas tried to pull out the island’s gate.
This was a thousand times worse.
“Don’t show them your true range,” James said, falling in alongside him. “Let at least a few of them find out the hard way. The debris and sinking vessels will get in their way, and they’ll have to deploy ships for rescues.”
Nothing he didn’t already know, but Aren gave the orders to keep the shipbreakers at the ready, no deployments.
Then James grabbed his arm, his amber eyes intent as he shoved a spyglass into Aren’s hand.
“It’s not just weapons those decks are mounted with.
They’ve adapted siege towers and other mechanisms that we’d use to gain entrance to fortresses.
They aim to use them to get soldiers onto the island. ”
Aren lifted the spyglass, focusing on each individual ship.
“It’s warfare we haven’t used in a generation.
” James’s expression was grim. “Someone did their research, and this doesn’t feel like something Alexandra would have included in her plans.
These retrofits couldn’t have been accomplished so soon after my father’s death.
They were in the works well before, I think. ”
“Edward’s own designs.”
James gave a tight nod. “I think so. Sea warfare isn’t my expertise, but it was my father’s.”
“And we gave him all the information he needed to take Southwatch from Silas.”
“He’d invested in the shipyards,” Ahnna said from where she was strapping on weapons that Sarhina had brought with her in the longboats. “It was marked as repairs in his banking records. I suppose now we know the truth.”
“I assume you didn’t know, James, so it’s not your fault.” Aren tried to pull out of James’s grip, but the other man’s fingers tightened.
“I’m not apologizing for my father’s ambition—I’m telling you he would have aimed to command this sort of battle himself.
Would have been preparing and doing his own calculations and strategies in secret, because he didn’t want anyone to know his endgame.
He’s dead. Which means whoever is in command is unlikely to have the skill or knowledge needed for this.
He’ll make mistakes. That is where our advantage lies, because none of them”—he waved a hand—“have done this before. You have.”
“They’re dropping sails and running out oars,” Lara called. “Forming a line. They’re not waiting. This is happening now.”
Aren’s eyes filled again with Eranahl, his ears ringing with the screams of the injured. The shriek of steel dragging against rock.
Lara, dead in his arms.
His breath caught, chest tightening so fast it hurt. He wasn’t on the cliffs of Ornak—he was back in the harbor of Eranahl, crushed beneath the weight of loss, grief strangling his will to go on.
Aren blinked, forced air into his lungs, and shook his head roughly. Lara is alive. And you won that battle.
Lara won that battle.
And from the way she stood surveying the threat, the queen of Ithicana intended to do the same thing again.
The sea surf was quiet, belying the chaos that was about to unfold atop it.
The Harendellian fleet was moving into formation with their typical efficiency, sleek cutters flanking heavier ships loaded down with siege towers and catapults, none of it anything Aren had seen in his lifetime.
Sunlight flashed on the spray made from oars moving in perfect unison.
Glistened off the shields and weapons of the uniformed soldiers lining the decks.
The line of ships curved, spreading outward and encircling Ornak like a noose.
He turned and took in the lines of Ithicanians stretched across the cliffs. Warriors—his people—waiting with weapons ready. Brave and determined, but very much targets.
“Everyone get behind cover!” Aren shouted.
“Do not let them see you. Do not let them see so much as a glint of steel. I want every third shipbreaker removed from its mount and put behind obstacles that can take a direct hit. The rest need to be kept behind vine screens. They are the targets, so don’t make it easy for them! ”
Voices called back, affirming the order. Then came the clatter of movement—grunts of exertion as the crews scrambled to obey. The grinding sound of heavy bolts being unscrewed from stone. The massive shipbreakers, painstakingly mounted to defend Ornak, were dragged back under jungle cover.
Ahnna remained on the cliff edge, silhouetted against the water. Her hair was pulled back in a tight braid, and though his sister’s face was grim, her eyes were alive with calculation.
“We need to get every vessel we have out of the cove,” she said, watching the ships move closer. “They may try to damage the entrance, but at the very least, they’ll take shots at anything that comes out.”
Aren jerked his chin at two of his soldiers who waited to relay orders. “You heard her. Make sure they are well crewed and armed with all the explosives they need. Fire is going to be our best weapon.”
“No,” Ahnna murmured. “Fear will be our greatest weapon.” Her eyes flicked sideways, meeting his. “You have chum barrels?”
Aren gave a nod. They’d been sitting far from camp, their stench enough to make hardened soldiers gag.
“Then let’s ring the dinner bell.”
Ahnna retrieved one of the clay pots they’d prepared days ago—pitch sealed and primed to burst when it hit the sea. With the smooth motion of long practice, she hurled it far out over the cliffs.
Boom!
The sound rolled back toward them, muffled but ominous. She threw another.
Boom!
All of Lara’s sisters had joined them and were watching with interest. Ahnna said, “The sharks know that sound means a battle. They know it means bodies falling into the seas. They’ll come, and the Harendellian captains will find their crews far less willing to risk a sinking ship when they see gray fins circling the water. ”
But fear would only serve them if first they rattled the fleet’s confidence.
“Lara and I will hold the north,” he said to Ahnna. “You and James take the south. Jor, the east. Taryn, the west.”
Everyone departed without argument, Sarhina quietly splitting her sisters into pairs and sending them in various directions.
Aren returned to Lara, behind one of the vine screens hiding a shipbreaker. Her face was streaked with sweat, her eyes narrowed behind her spyglass.
“They’re moving in slowly,” she muttered. “Waiting for us to deploy so they know our range.”
“They’ll discover our range when they’re inside it.”
Below, the Ithicanian ships were exiting the cove and moving like a swarm of angry bees readying to attack.
Aren knelt beside his wife, peering through the screen of vines and leaves. One of the ships in the first row of the Harendellian fleet had soldiers scrambling around a catapult. The rope tightened. The load lifted.
He gritted his teeth. “First volley’s coming.”
The catapult fired.
A large block of stone shot into the sky. Aren’s stomach clenched as he tracked its arc. Time slowed.
It fell short—hitting the sea with a thunderous splash, just missing one of the Ithicanian ships.
Next to him, Lara let out a loud breath.
Another shot came. Higher. Closer.
Still short.
“Everyone hold!” Aren shouted. “We know we have better range. Once they have their first strike, we’ll know they’re inside it. Then we send death down on their heads.”
He felt the tension building in the jungle, in the cliffs, in his spine. His hands flexed on his machete hilt, the wait always worse than the fight.
“The next one will hit.” Lara’s voice was tight. “They know it. That’s why the other ships are making ready.”
It was why they were using fire.
The third projectile, this one covered in burning pitch, arced through the air. Like a star falling from the sky.
Aren’s body went still. He could feel the pressure shift in the air. Could see the faint spiral of flame as it began to fall.
The sound came a second later.
Boom!
It struck the edge of the cliff line, flipping and rolling into the jungle, destroying everything in its path. The air reeked of burning pitch and charred vegetation, but there were no screams.
Instead, a hush fell over the island, and in it, Aren roared, “Deploy!”
Lara had moved to man the shipbreaker, brow furrowed as she rotated the machine slightly left. Then she pulled the lever.
Crack!
All along the cliffside, shipbreakers deployed with deafening cracks. Boulders flew through the air, nothing but shadows soaring toward the front lines of the Harendellian fleet.
But Aren didn’t watch them strike, because coming toward the island were six balls of flame.