[Hlaeth] Ch 40 - Maritime Decisions

« Chapter 39 | Index | Chapter 41

            “Captain,” I noted in an icy voice, “you seem to be having a bad day.”

            She so wanted to take that pistol and put a bullet into me, but didn’t dare raise her hand after watching every gunner among her crew die to their own reflected shots. Her eyes were icy and defiant as she stared at me, hovering there just above her deck. “It seems we have stirred up a person we were not prepared to deal with,” she admitted coolly, even taking the moment to holster her flintlock. “I don’t suppose this is something I might be able to negotiate about?”

            I did not like her accent. The edges of it were buffed with the jaggedness of someone used to speaking Mabrohoring, or Diabolic, the language of the Hells.

            “I literally do not require you or your men alive, and the town there is in no shape to cater to a bunch of mouths that want nothing better than to slap them in chains and sell them off for their own profit, Captain. I would suggest getting down on your knees and negotiating with your conscience for the final fate of your souls, but I can tell you straight away that you are all going Down.”

            If anything, that final statement seemed to shatter her composure the most. “What?!” she blurted out in disbelief and raw shock. “We are doing the work of the angels! Taking sinners and bringing them back to the Empire to lead productive lives and strive towards enlightenment!” she blurted out with the air of someone reciting a favored party line, all righteous and sincere and everything.

            “Heaven does not endorse slavery, woman. If you believe it does, then you have been lied to, and what angels you believe in are also lies and deceptions. Slavery is a tool of the Hells, in any guise it labors under, and that is whom you serve.”

            I was walking across the remaining half of the topdeck, the crew hurriedly getting out of my way. I was unconcerned with the threat level they represented, idly kicking their fallen gunpowder weapons out of the way.

            One fellow had the bright idea of thinking I didn’t see him draw a cutlass behind me and lunge after me. He thrust hard, made contact with my Di-Vest, and there was a crack and flash of silver Wrath.

            His ashes and bloodspray blew over those behind him, shards of shattered metal making them cry out and hunt for cover.

            I didn’t so much as glance back. “Heaven,” I noted dryly, “will not harm its own, and will definitely strike down those false of heart.”

            She was looking at me like I was some kind of demon, but that was absolutely fine. She’d likely never been exposed to true Holy light before, just a light show laden with some magical presence, and didn’t know what she was dealing with. If it hurt to see it, obviously it was evil magic, since she was in the Light!

            Idiot.

            I tapped down Mortus Dius, and water magic surged underneath me. Reach grabbed the wheel of the ship and hove her over as the current beneath her picked up and pushed. In remarkably quick fashion, the ship was turning back toward the shore, and moving right along as it did so, setting a standard for the Great Tufan hurrying past towards the galleys back there.

            She looked even more displeased with me. “Angering the Empire of Rhonidum is not a wise idea,” she warned me neutrally. “This primitive backland cannot hope to survive the forces it can unleash upon it! You would be wise to let us go and flee from the sword that will be coming for you!”

            I wasn’t facing her anymore, because I didn’t have to, fully able to command the ship from basically midship. “You call yourselves an Empire. That means you believe in conquest. Most excellent. The servants of Heaven so very, very rarely get to unleash the mindset of conquerors upon them.

            “Reclamation we believe in. Redemption we believe in, and Retribution. But conquest? We have better methods than by the sword.”

            “You… are you mad?” she snarled at me, stepping closer. “Do you think you can fight the whole Empire?”

            “Do you have more than one hundred million soldiers in this self-proclaimed Empire of yours?” I asked pleasantly, unimpressed.

            That brought her upright in shock. “One hundred million?” she repeated in utter shock. “There aren’t that many humans alive on the whole continent!” she proclaimed scornfully.

            “You are correct. There are under fifty million,” I agreed with her calmly. “I asked the continent, just to be sure.”

            She again stared at me as if I was insane, although now there was a hint of worry in her expression. “You, you cannot be that powerful,” she sneered.

            “Oh, I most definitely can be. Otherwise I would not be here. I’m not from this planet, you see, and what you seem to think of as limits to power I think of as minor stepping stones on the way to a proper destiny… or doom, in the case of yours. Why someone would follow a path leading to burning in Hell for your sins never fails to confuse me, but I guess I’m just not enough of a masochist to appreciate the range of choices available to people.”

            She grimaced again, aware she was on shaky grounds, and likely thinking she was dealing with a fanatic. “But you speak Rhonidum!” she challenged me triumphantly. “Your accent is strange, but you speak it perfectly! You are human! Surely you cannot object to carrying the glory of humanity forwards into the face of those who wrought such a mighty Doom upon us all those centuries ago!” she snarled at me.

            “I speak Human, the pure tongue. It is you who have the strange accent, for it is worked with the accents of diabolic belief, close to being corrupted and splintering off into an irrelevant Babal language as it does so. Likely your ancestors were taught it as a uniting element, and since then it has been used to affirm your special status as a great race.

            “It is nothing special in the eyes of the gods. Elven, Dwarven, Jotun, Draconic, Gnomoi, Goblin, Orc… these are all also Primal Tongues. It is a tool to unite humanity, but it is not a tool to divide us from understanding others, woman. Your accent grates upon my ear with the lies and pride of Hell, which tells me all I need to know about who and what your ‘angels’ actually are.”

            “You are WRONG!” she snarled at me, stepping closer again, fists balled at her sides. “I have met one of the angels! They are no servants of Hell!”

            “Indeed, I wasn’t going to comment on it. I can see the touch of three of them upon your Aura, actually.” Her face actually wavered. “I’m guessing your avowed meeting with one was an acclaimed envoy or something. But devils are flesh-morphers and body-riders. You have a distant but clear connection to a devil of Pride, probably masquerading as an admiral, your superior. You have a much stronger connection to a devil of Wrath, probably a famous weapon instructor of yours?” I went on, as she stared at me. “They did their job well, your Aura is firmly Ruby, and you are going Down, as so many others doubtless did before you, and are going after you… once the Veil against the gods is lifted.

            “Sacrifices to save this world. After all, it is the servants of the gods who normally reveal such beings among us, and drive them forth from this mortal plane. What can a woman denied the magic that is her birthright capable of discerning in the face of the cruel skill of beings with years uncounted tempting and Damning mortal souls without any opposition?”

            She stopped twenty feet away, at the edge of my Aura of Menace, feeling the threat of it weighing down on her and not willing to advance further into it.

            “Magic?” she repeated acidly. “I have no magical talent!”

            “Correction. You were TOLD by someone that you had no magical talent, and you believed them. That is something very different. Independent validation, you know?”

            She stared at me in disbelief, going over her own memories, and something in her eyes flickered as she realized she might well have been manipulated. “And what Bloodline might that be? Why would they deny it to me? The Empire is famous for its training of wizards!”

            “This is a Bloodline, not a Tradition. I trust you know the difference?” I asked wryly.

            “Wild sorcerers, uncontrolled wielders of strange magic, slaves to foreign powers!” she pronounced loftily.

            “An interesting viewpoint for the first arcane Casters of humanity, whose experiments with magic and delving into the secrets their Bloodlines granted them formed the basis for all of Wizardry,” I replied dryly. “And, of course, anything that is out of the control of Hell is to be denied. Wizards must be taught and instructed, a great time to impress your teachings and morals onto those susceptible during their pursuit of power, and Wizards really do pursue power,” I responded, having full awareness of leveraging my brains for strength.

            She was trying to discern why I was saying all this, why I was trying to sow doubt in her. “And I am a wild sorcerer?” she half-sneered.

            “If you have a Bloodline, you could be a Wizard, if not a very good one. You’re much more a leader than a thinker. But if they allowed you to be trained as a Wizard, you’d find out your Bloodline… and then you’d know.”

            “I would know… what?” she demanded suspiciously.

            “That the power of the Celestial Bloodline within you is very, very much opposed to them. An Ahren Bloodline, if I’m not mistaken, probably from an elven ancestor in the distant past. I’m guessing blue eyes and golden hair are not common among your people, save in the descendants of slaves, and I’m sure you have none of them among your recent forebears, right?”

            Her expression shifted again. “Of, of course not!” she stammered proudly.

            “But you were probably subtly discriminated against as if that were the case, and so denied certain benefits and advancements because of your lower-class blood, right? I do notice that your crew is olive-skinned and dark-haired. No doubt they consider you a noble bastard and only exemplary force of will and skill has enabled you to attain the position you have.

            “It’s also why I presume you have come hunting elves.”

            Now her face went icy pale.

            “I presume that is a rough medical ward in the prow there. I also notice you have three elves there. All humans aboard this ship will come up on the main deck, or I will kill you all. You have one minute, and I can see all of you.”

            There was a breath of hesitation, and then a door creaked on the deck below, cautious steps coming out to stare up at me, even as others below began to move hesitantly in the shadows.

            Some didn’t, thinking they were hidden.

            I didn’t know the symbol, but his Aura was Blue, tinged with Red. He looked up at me with a defiant expression.

            “I have wounded men in there from the cannon explosions who cannot be moved!” he stated with the pride of his role as a Healer.

            A flight of Shards whipped past him, brimming with Holy energies that made him jump frantically as they passed by.

            “Get up and get on the deck, or my next spell reduces you to ash,” was my reply to that.

            The priest of whatever god turned around at sounds, and saw the wounded men getting to their feet, urgently limping or walking out of the room there as they pulled off bandages to reveal completely healed burns, cuts, and broken bones now set and in place.

            The priest turned around to look up at me in disbelief.

            “That includes you, cleric,” I told him, Reach giving him a helpful telekinetic hand and yoinking him out, up, and over, and dumping him down right next to the captain hard on his heels.

            The elves I could sense did not move, however…

« Chapter 39 | Index | Chapter 41