Dark sea
Fear...Screams...Pain...Blood.
The deck was slick with blood that was not yet dark. Men screamed, or tried to. Some of them had no mouths left to scream with. Others screamed with their eyes, which was worse. The air was thick with the smell of iron and salt and something else—something that had been inside men and was now outside them.
But one man stood confident, steady on his cane. William the Lame was looking left and right, glimpsing Salter's ships in the great valley. His face was calm. His hand was steady on the iron cane. Around him, the world was ending, and he watched it the way a man watches rain.
Meanwhile, on one of Ironfield ships, blood was rising over the deck. Not pooling—rising. As if the ship itself were filling. The soldiers of Salter's were killing in the most brutal ways. Not because they were cruel. But because they were dominant, they were in a position of power. They kill faster. They kill without looking. They kill until their arms ache and then they kill again.
One of Ironfield's men screamed. The scream was short and high and ended suddenly.
Another begged. The begging went on longer. It was in a language the soldiers of Ironfield did not understand, and perhaps that was a mercy, because if they had understood the words, they might have stopped. They did not stop.
Most just jumped. They jumped into the black water, into the darkness, into the cold. Some of them could not swim. Some of them could swim but their armor pulled them down. Some of them simply floated, face down, and let the sea take them. The sea took them all.
The old captain behind William stood in his place, thinking one thing over and over again—Did we lose? Did we lose? His hands were gripping the rail so hard that the wood had begun to bite into his palms. He did not feel it. He felt nothing except the question, turning in his chest like a wheel.
Then a third time, his voice quiet and anxious, he said: "Did we lose?"
William looked at him. Not at the ships, not at the blood, not at the men dying on the decks below. At the captain. His eyes were steady. His voice was quiet.
"No...We won."
Then he looked at the entrance of the valley. His voice sharpened.
"Bring out the spears. And make sure you bring a flame. We will make sure to rain fire on them."
The captain did not understand the source of William's confidence—until he saw them.
There, behind Salter's ships, the other twenty-five ships were entering the big valley. They came slowly. They came silently. Their sails were dark, their hulls dark, and they moved through the water like shadows that had decided to become solid. They did not announce themselves. They did not shout. They simply appeared, the way fate appears—without warning, without mercy.
The captain looked at William, his eyes wide. "Did you not say those ships were to guard Izzadar?"
William said, his hand steady on his cane, "Izzadar has its walls. But here, we need all our ships to defeat the sons of the sea. Did you think I revealed myself through those plateaus without a plan? We only let him see what he wanted to see. Now—bring the Spears. We must attack from both sides at the same time."
There, on Izzadar's ship, where the soldiers of salter's were defeating Ironfield's men, one of them screamed—a scream that was not of terror, but of victory. He was looking at the other ships entering. The scream was wordless. It was the sound a man makes when he has been holding his breath for too long and finally, finally, lets it out.
The soldiers of Salter wondered at the reason for the scream. One of them said aloud, "Look—ships!"
And they looked.
And they saw.
Suddenly—in a single moment—terror turned. It did not fade. It did not lessen. It turned. The men of Salter had been the hunters. Now they were the hunted. The knowledge went through them like a blade. Some of them dropped their swords. Some of them turned and ran toward the rails, as if the sea itself were safer than the decks they stood on. Some of them simply stood, frozen, their mouths open, their eyes wide, their hands no longer remembering what they had been holding.
They fled back to their ships. They climbed over the rails. They pushed each other into the water. They did not care. The water was cold, but the water was not Ironfield. The water was not the fire that was coming.
And the soldiers of Ironfield chanted: "Kill them! Kill them all! Do not let them escape!"
They did not chant with joy. They chanted with relief. They chanted with the voices of men who had been certain, moments before, that they were going to die. And now they were not. And the men who had been about to kill them were running. It was not noble. It was not glorious. It was human.
On the last ship of Salter's fleet, Marcus stood at the stern, watching Izzadar's ships surround him. He froze in place. His hand was on the rail. His hand did not move. His hand could not move.
Behind him, the captain said, "What do we do, they have surrounded us?"
Marcus turned his head, thinking—Where did I go wrong?
He had done everything right. He had seen the trap. He had closed it. He had brought fifty ships against twenty-five. He had done everything right.
And yet.
He raised his hand. It was trembling. Not from fear—he told himself it was not from fear—but from the knowledge that defeat was near. He clenched his fist quickly. The trembling stopped. He turned to the captain.
"Tell the other ships to turn. We must fight outside. If they do not come closer to us, they will not win. We have the numbers. Not to win, but to get out of this trap."
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The captain ran to the front, between the soldiers, then screamed at the top of his lungs to the advancing ships: "Retreat! Retreat!"
Marcus also turned and walked among his soldiers. As he passed between them, he saw in their eyes looks of fear and doubt. He saw men who had been laughing moments before. He saw men who had been shouting More! More! More! He saw men who were now silent. He saw men who were now looking at him—at their king, at their commander—and finding no comfort in what they saw.
He hurried to the front and stood at the highest point, looking between the enemy ships. His eyes moved from ship to ship, as if searching for the man who had brought him down. Marcus wanted desperately to know who had trapped him. He wanted a face. He wanted a name. He wanted someone to blame.
And while he searched, he saw a person standing—also at a high point. His nerves were cold. With a cane.
Marcus's features were shocked as he looked at the young man who possessed certainty—while Marcus possessed only doubt.
Marcus looked at his retreating ships and said in a low voice: "Cripple."
Then, after he looked again, he saw William raise his cane high.
And suddenly—Spears glowing with fire appeared.
The fire Spears were not like arrows. They did not fly. They blazed. They left trails of light across the darkness, trails that reflected in the black water, trails that made the eyes of the gods look small and pale and far away. The men of Salter saw them coming. Some of them prayed. Some of them screamed. Some of them simply closed their eyes and waited.
Marcus stood in the middle. As the Spears appeared, he turned his head and saw their fire everywhere—on every ship around him. Each one held two of the fire Spears. William stood there, his cane high in the sky, while the large bows were aimed at all fifty ships.
William stood for a moment of silence.The silence was not empty. It was full. It was full of the sound of breathing—hundreds of men breathing, trying not to breathe, failing. It was full of the sound of the sea—breathing, always breathing, slow and heavy and indifferent. It was full of the sound of fire—crackling, hungry, patient.
Then William said in a loud voice that echoed through the depths of the seas:
"Fire."
Inside Salter's ships, which were retreating, the soldiers stood in fear, praying in their own way to the sea. Some of them touched the water. Some whispered to it. Some called it by names that had not been spoken in a thousand years. They prayed to the sea because the sea was all they had. The sea was their mother. The sea was their god. The sea would protect them.
But what they did not know—this was not Salter's sea. This was the Dark Sea. It swallows sounds. And the dead. And screams as well.
In a moment where breaths were held, the strikes were powerful—piercing every one of Salter's ships from below, from above. The fire Spears did not just strike. They entered. They went through wood and rope and flesh. They went through shields and armor and bone. Some arrows even pierced through ranks of soldiers, leaving behind blood and burnt limbs. Men fell. Men burned. Men screamed.
The screams of the men killed by William's Spears were louder than the screams of those tortured by the Normens. The Normens had taken their time, A bloody century. but William did not. William's fire was quick. But quick did not mean merciful. Quick meant that the men had time to feel everything—the impact, the heat, the knowledge that they were dying—and no time to do anything about it.
The ships sank. Some burned. The fire spread across the decks, from sail to sail, from man to man. Men jumped into the water to escape the flames—and found that the water was also burning. And the surface was now a sheet of flame. Men who had escaped one death found another. The sea, which they had prayed to, swallowed them.
And among those ships, one ship stood without any damage—as if that was decided by God or a demon.
It was Marcus's ship.
He stood in his place, frozen. Inside his wide eyes, fire mixed with the dark water. He watched his men drown, be killed, be burned. He watched the ships that had been his fleet—fifty ships, fifty—become a graveyard of fire and wood and bodies. He stood there. He did not move.
Beside him, the ship's captain also said, "Will we die?"
Marcus stood as if he had already died. A body without movement. He looked again at William—who looked at the old captain in turn and said in a quiet voice:
"Tell the men to aim their arrows. Let us relieve the men of their torment."
And while Salter's men drowned and mercy arrows were fired upon them, the bodies on the dark water formed a complete surface—a surface that made the reflections of the gods' eyes disappear completely.
On Salter's side, Marcus's ship alone stood between the two fleets. Salter's soldiers swam and screamed: "Here! Here! Save us!"
The screams were not words anymore. They were sounds. They were the sounds of men who had forgotten language, who had forgotten everything except the need to be saved. They reached toward the ships. They reached toward Marcus. They reached toward anyone.
No one reached back.
Suddenly, the captain came from behind Marcus, his voice excited. "They are opening the back passage! We must go immediately."
Marcus turned and said, "Impossible. Why would they do that? Are they trying to guide us?"
The captain said, "Damn you—I will steer the ship. Whatever happens, happens."
Marcus was looking at William, trying to understand why he was letting him escape. He searched William's face for mockery, for cruelty, for triumph. He found none of it. He found only calm. The same calm he had seen at the beginning. The same calm that had made him doubt.
William was holding his cane in his right hand. He knew Marcus was looking at him. So he switched the hand that held the cane and raised his right hand—like a person helping his enemy, showing him the way. The way of escape.
Marcus felt the weight of defeat, unable to move, while his ship moved and passed between Izzadar's ships. The soldiers of Ironfield on the ships looked at the soldiers of the last ship and smiled and laughed as the ship passed. One of them chanted: "Flee, you cowards!" Another said: "sea whores...sea whores."
The laughter followed Marcus's ship through the passage. It echoed off the cliffs. It mixed with the sound of the sea. It was the last thing Marcus heard as the darkness swallowed him.
And after Marcus's ship departed, the soldiers of Ironfield made sure not to leave a single person moving on the dark water. With their arrows, they killed every soldier of Salter in the water. They did not enjoy it. They did not hate it. They simply did it. It was work. It was the last work of the battle. And when the other half of the ships advanced, they did not float on water—but on their bodies.
At the front, William descended from the top of the ship. As he passed through his soldiers—who looked at him with respect and awe—William walked heavily. His cane tapped on the wood. His leg dragged. He did not look at them. He did not look at anything.
Then he quickly went to the edge of the ship and vomited from the top of his stomach while looking at one of the bodies.
The body was young. Younger than him. The face was turned toward the sky, toward the eyes of the gods, but the eyes of the boy were empty. He had been handsome, perhaps. He had been someone's son. He had been someone's friend. He had been someone who laughed, once, at something that was not funny.
William vomited until there was nothing left. Then he vomited again.
Suddenly, the soldiers on the ship began to chant: "the lord of the Dark Sea! Lord of the Dark Sea!"
The chant spread from ship to ship. It echoed off the cliffs. It mixed with the smell of fire and blood and death. It was a chant of victory. It was a chant of relief. It was a chant of men who were still alive and could not believe it.
William did not turn. He did not raise his hand. He did not acknowledge them. He simply stood at the edge of the ship, his hands gripping the rail, his body trembling, and looked at the water below.
The old captain ran to William and said, "The great gate has been opened, my lord. Shall we Disembark now?"
William gathered himself. He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. He straightened his back. He turned. His face was calm again. His hand was steady on his cane.
"Now is the right time. Let's go in.."
The soldiers screamed: "Go! Go! Go!"
Then the armies of Ironfield descended from the ships, led by William, entering through the back gate— Conquerors of the Kingdom of Thorns.
Behind them, the Dark Sea swallowed the last of the screams. The bodies floated. The fire died. The eyes of the gods looked down on the water, and the water reflected nothing but darkness.
And somewhere, far away, Marcus stood on the deck of his ship, watching the black water, and said nothing. There was nothing to say. He had lost. He did not know how. He did not know why. He only knew that the cripple had let him live.
And that, somehow, was worse than dying.