A Perverted Path to Victory - Chapter 90

Chapter Text

Ignite should have known better.

Requesting to be a common Marine Sergeant. Asking that his old rank be restored, his notoriety erased. To be allowed to suffer his dishonor in obscurity. The Champion had been compassionate enough to acquiesce to such a thing.

Admiral Nora O'Gallison was not.

She'd played coy about it for a time, allowing him to take up position on one of the common ships, a dromon. She had even taken care to place him amongst a vessel sporting the newest of recruits, those who may have recognized his heritage as of the Carrion Navy, but did not know his former importance. He had done well in this role, dutifully training his troops to a standard he found acceptable, if not equal to their Carrion equivalents.

And then, a few short weeks later, he had been summoned to the flagship, that hulking behemoth. The Waverake, with its black hull scraped through by a single strip of shining white, had seemed to yawn up before him as he had been rowed over in a launch. Even before he had set foot on deck, received by the Admiral herself, he had known what to expect.

"Yer performance as a Sergeant has been exemplary," Nora had said, a knowing smirk hidden behind the thin veil of naval formality that suffused her cabin. "And in light of yer request to be seen as nothin' more than a newly minted Sergeant, I've seen fit to test ya further, see where your potential lies. You're to transfer station to the TRS Waverake, effective immediately, to serve as the First Sergeant of her Marine contingent. Yer belonging's'll be brought over shortly."

And so, in the truest fashion of naval politicking, Sergeant Ignite Parables had become First Sergeant Ignite Parables, a rank that paid only lip service to his request to remain low in the command structure. As First Sergeant, a title invented out of the aether by Admiral O'Gallison, he was placed above not only every other Marine Sergeant on the flagship, but also the Marine commanders of every other ship in the fleet, should joint action be undertaken. She justified it as a natural extension of the naval hierarchy, that the flagship would be expected to have the most experienced sailors, and so their officers would supersede the others should a potential conflict in authority arise.

And because the justification had made sense, and moreso because he'd sworn an oath to serve the Tulian people, he did nothing more than stand straight and and salute.

His bags were brought over shortly indeed, so shortly that they were in fact already neatly arranged on the floor of his quarters when he was shown to his officer's cabin. She'd known, of course. Ignite was not a difficult man to anticipate.

The first thing Ignite had done, of course, was drag his few belongings out of the room, taking them to the main area of the berthing deck–one of four decks–and store them beneath a hammock, so he would sleep amongst his Marines. He held no concern for theft; there was little in his possession of value beyond his armor and coin purse, and those only left his body when he slept. If some sailor saw fit to steal his underclothes and sweat-stained shore uniform, he figured they needed them more than Ignite ever would.

Then, reasoning that there was no use wasting time now that this not-promotion had been thrust upon him, Ignite had set to familiarizing himself with the ship.

In structure it was quite unlike anything he had ever boarded, save perhaps for the greatest of Carrion Magecraft troop transports. He began at the lowest level of the ship, its hold, tucked beneath the orlop deck. The walls curved claustrophobically inward on all sides, holding back the burbling sea beyond, and if he paid attention, he could feel the water gently tapping at the hull beneath his feet. The ceiling was so low that he had to take caution as he passed under each overhead beam, and the cramped span ran the entire length of the ship, nearly two hundred feet, though the many crates and barrels obstructed such a long view. Though the storage space was limited by the hull's steep sloping, even a casual tally of the accumulated goods told him that this warship could carry more supplies than the vast majority of merchant vessels Ignite had ever trod upon. The Waverake was clearly designed to spend months upon months on the open sea without resupply, prowling the waters long past when any other ship would have been forced to retire.

It was on this lowest space of the ship that he met the first of his fellow officers, as he was investigating a strange structure in the center of the hold. His attention had been caught by a large box built of thick-walled planking jutting incongruously out of the flooring, a sturdy door of equal thickness all that decorated its exterior. He opened the door, holding his lantern up into the darkness, and was surprised to find nothing more than a second door placed several feet behind the first. He was reaching for this door curiously when its handle twisted, swinging open.

Ignite politely stepped back as a man emerged, wiping sweat from his brow. They locked eyes for a brief moment, mildly surprised to see the other.

And then the man's gaze had flicked down to Ignite's lantern.

The man lunged forward with a suddenness that nearly took even Ignite off-guard, trying to wrap his arms about his waist and tackle him to the floor.

Unfortunately for the man, Ignite had not survived years of Carrion service by pure happenstance, and all the poor fellow received for his action was the pain of a knee popping up into his jaw, slamming his teeth together with a painful clack.

Ignite took two quick steps back and drew his sidesword, leveling its tip at the man, who was sprawled out on the floor.

"Explain yourself," Ignite snapped, "Or surrender yourself for the crime of attacking an officer of the Tulian Navy."

Groaning quietly, the man forced himself up onto his hands and knees, rubbing at his jaw. Ignite scooted back again, out of range of a second lunge, and waited.

"You exshplain your godsdamned shelf," the man growled, a bubble of blood swelling up between his lips. He spat onto the boards, then gathered himself up into a sitting position, still rubbing his jaw. "Trying to bring a damned lantern into the damned powder magazine."

Ignite's eyes widened, comprehension dawning. He looked behind the man, through the second door which still swung loosely with the rocking of the ship. Barrels sat in neat rows on the shelves, sealed tightly with tar, the crude image of a shattered skull painted across their front.

Ignite quickly sheathed his blade and clicked his lantern shut, starving the flame. The area grew quite a bit darker, but it was not pitch black. Enchanted lights glowed within the powder magazine.

"I apologize for my mistake," Ignite said, bowing deeply at the waist. He held the supplicant posture as he spoke. "You were right to assault me, and no charges will be brought against you, nor do I hold any ill will."

"Think I outrank you anyway," the man grumbled, spitting another wad of blood onto the ground. He eyed Ignite's armor, his ink-black skin, and the stripes of rank on his shoulder. "You the new fancy super-Sergeant, or whatever it was the Cap'n called you?"

"First Sergeant Ignite Parables, in your debt," Ignite replied, still holding his bow.

"Ain't no honor debts in the Tulian Navy, boy, you oughtta know that by now."

"Honor transcends duty," Ignite replied, the old Carrion adage slipping easily from him, even when speaking a foreign tongue. "And for saving my life and those of the crew, I am in your debt."

"No y'aint," the man said, standing. "And straighten up. Y'ain't no orc, and you don't need to be crouching down in the hold."

Ignite did so, retrieving his now-extinguished lantern from where he had set it. He waited until the man finished closing up the powder magazine before speaking again.

"And to who do I owe my apologies, sir?"

"Gunner Balon," the man said, dusting his hands off before offering one for a shake. Ignite noticed there remained a light dusting of dark powder on Balon's hands, and wondered how dangerous that was. He shook all the same, and resisted the urge to check his own hand immediately after. His exposure to the newly introduced firearms had thus far been exceptionally limited, only a few demonstrations of the land-based Napoleons, and his paranoia was paramount.

"I am unfamiliar with your rank, sir," Ignite apologized. "I transferred from the Snakesnapper only a few short hours ago, and our vessel hadn't yet been honored with any firearms."

"Gunner's're in charge of the cannons," Balon replied. "And the muskets, and the swivels and what-have-you. Honestly, better title might've been Powder Master, seeing as I'm in charge of everything that goes boom, but ain't me that makes the names. Far as you're concerned, I'm mostly the one you'll see running the gun crews through their drills, yelling my head off and whatnot. Not too different to a Sergeant, speaking honestly. Crew just think I've got more of a pedigree because I'm in charge of the fancy new goods, I 'spose." He crossed his arms, looking Ignite up and down. "You're the Carrion fellow, ain't ya? Well, I know your sort. If you're worrying about whose rank trumps who 'tween us, don't. Gunner's a rank a month old, and First Sergeant's..." He trailed off, looking expectant.

Ignite chuckled slightly. "I'd have to check the sun to be precise, but I suspect my own rank is no more than two hours old."

Gunner Balon grinned. "Well, guess I got you beat on seniority, when it comes to our current ranks, at least."

"So it would seem." Ignite nodded to the lantern, shame still burning bright in his breast. "And familiarity with the new dangers of our shared home."

"Bah!" Balon gave Ignite a slap on his armored shoulder, which clanked loudly in the cramped space. "Not your fault the Cap'n reeled you in and let you flop all over the deck without a clue of what's what. Never served under a better Cap'n, I'll tell ya, but never served under a stranger one, neither."

Ignite felt himself being steered towards the hold's exit, and didn't fight Balon's directions. Now that Ignite wasn't a threat to the safety of the entire ship, the man had gained an easy-going cheer, keeping up a pleasant narration as they went.

"What's say I give you the tour of the Waverake's odd bits, then, yeah? Keep ya from shoving your foot in your mouth when ya got the lower ranks watchin'."

Ignite barely had time to agree before he was swept up onto the orlop deck, Balon sustaining a steady chatter, focusing particularly on all which fell under his personal purview. Gunner, it seemed to Ignite, was not a rank long for this world. It encompassed too much, placed too many responsibilities on one person. Balon's tour of the ship was constantly interrupted by those coming to him with questions regarding various pieces of equipment, many of which involved circ*mstances or devices Ignite was wholly unfamiliar with.

Balon, to his credit, gamely answered what he could, and ordered the crew to pause their work when he didn't have a clear idea of what to do. He freely admitted to Ignite that the Champion-provided weapons were still alien, and many of his decisions were decided only by gut instinct and careful reasoning. It had even taken him some time realize that the strange double-doored box in the hold had been for storing the ship's powder, unbelievably. Balon had laughed quite heartily at his own ignorance, nearly knocking off his own wide-brimmed hat. Though the shipwrights had copied the Champion's otherworldly design exactly, they'd done so mimicking what they didn't understand. As a result, despite that the ship had been in the water for months, it seemed to Ignite that it was still in the process of its shakedown cruise.

Balon took him up to the orlop deck, which was familiar enough to Ignite, storing the ship's spare ropes, supplies for repair, surgeon's station, and other such odds and ends, and when they moved to the berthing deck, he was equally comfortable, though the lack of rowing portholes and benches was unusual. Hammocks freely swung all across the berthing space, nearly half of them presently occupied by the crew's compliment of over four hundred sailors, despite it not yet being midday. As Balon explained it, most were presently little more than malingerers with barely a job to do, the ship being too inadequately outfitted for them to find constant busywork. When Ignite had questioned that–because he had rarely seen such a well-supplied vessel–Balon had taken their tour up to the gun deck.

Here was the most peculiar of the ship's decks, of that Ignite was certain. Well above the ship's waterline rested the iron heart of the Tulian Navy's flagship: the cannons.

Wider than a man and black as the night, the beasts rested serenly on hefty wooden carriages, held down by ropes as thick as Ignite's bicep. Those ropes had been looped around and around the rear of the cannon's length, as if such bulky bindings were barely enough to keep the cannons from leaping free of their own accord. Though Ignite had never seen the Waverake's weaponry from so close before, he had heard her gunnery, seen the smoke and shot that spewed from her hull as if flung from a tyrant's frothing mouth. Every time the Waverake began her gunnery practice, the fleet's formation degraded, Captains as eager as the Landsmen to watch the flagship roar.

"Y'see the problem?" Balon asked, waving across the cannon deck. "Count the cannons, Sergeant," Balon said. "And then count the portholes."

Ignite stared down the deck, which for a moment seemed to stretch out before him, twisting into impossible dimensions, his mind trying to envision every narrow porthole sporting another one of the massive cannons. No wonder the ship carried four hundred and fifty crew; operating the weapons alone would take most of that number.

"She wants more on the main deck," Balon added, rightly taking Ignite's silence for astonishment. "We have four there already. Short-barreled thirty-two pounders, instead of the longer twenty-four pounders you're looking at now. All told, she wants fifty guns on this ship before the year's out." Balon wiped his nose, a mixture of emotions flitting across his face. "That'll add two hundred and seventy thousand pounds to the ship's weight, if you're wondering. Pretty sure most ships I've ever sailed on weighed less than that."

Ignite licked his lips, deprived of a proper reaction.

"With armament like that," he eventually said, "one wonders why she even wishes to train Marines."

Balon cracked a grin. "Hells if I know. Guess we shouldn't be friends, speakin' truthfully. After all, my job's to put you out of work. I get my way, and there won't be a crew left to fight your sorts."

Ignite could surmise much from that comment, but he let the topic die. He would have not lasted long among the whirlwind of Carrion officer's politics without the ability to stop asking the wrong questions. It was not as if the Governess was incapable of reading between the lines, regardless.

To his considerable surprise, Balon ended the lessons with the sinking of the sun, and their course was still northerly. If the Sporaton Navy had set sail for Tulian on a circuitous route, the fleet would soon be beyond the range of response, should the scattered picket ships spot their forces.

Yet north they traveled, even as evening turned to dusk, then to night. Ignite made his belated introductions to the Marines under his command throughout evening supper, relieved to see that the bulk were those he'd personally trained. Many even still maintained their Carrion-patterned armor he'd first equipped them with, eschewing the newer, heavier sets offered to Tulian Marines. They felt, as Ignite did, that the added weight was more of a danger than a boon on the slick, rolling decks of ships locked in battle. The few Marines that he hadn't personally trained still greeted him warmly, happy to meet the man their comrades had spoken so fondly of. Ignite offered a brief prayer of thanks to Daylagon as he settled comfortably into the routine of an officer amongst their troops. He sat apart, at the head of things, but never too far that the privates couldn't include him when they wished.

He also quickly took to the inevitable traditions that wrapped themselves about the crew of a vessel. In this case, it was that the Marines, whose battle posts were in the rigging or on the gunwale, ate their meals on the maindeck, sitting crosslegged in a knee-jostling pile near the ship's boats. Ignite rather enjoyed the new-found tradition; even with the breeze filtering through the ship from above, the lower decks quickly grew stuffy in the southern heat.

Ignite finished his meal before most and returned the wooden bowls to the cooks, then returned to the maindeck, leaning against the mainmast to look out at the fleet. Coordinating formation travel in the night was always a difficult thing, but the Admiral was conducting things well. The fact that she never slept likely helped, as every Captain knew the Admiral herself was watching their ships through the dark hours. They carefully tended their signal lanterns throughout the night, the higher hung on the ship's port, lower on the starboard, with two at the prow and three at the stern.

Together, their forty ships gliding through the water were beautiful. It was one of the things Ignite had always loved about traveling in formation. The wind was brisk, sending sparse clouds to cover and reveal the stars in brief bursts, lending the sea a patchy appearance. At times some waves would reflect twinkling starlight, decorating a swathe of sea with glittering gems, while other waves rolled just out of sight, what lurked there black and formless, all the more enticing for the mystery they represented. Through this tapestry ship's lanterns bobbed, brightening just the barest swathes of hull, rhythmically revealing portions of the ships as they swung with the roll of their vessel.

Ignite's eyelids had begun to grow heavy when he began to hear something from up above. He co*cked an ear to the side, straining to hear the hushed, hurried conversation that had begun atop the mainmast.

Before he could discern anything, he was startled to life by the striking of a bell. Almost immediately other bells across the ship began to clang, their tones echoing out across the waves, where other ships began to echo their call. Lights and lanterns flared into existence, boots thudding and shouts calling out from every vessel.

"Up, up!" Ignite barked, adding his voice to the chorus. "Those that are armored move to the starboard gunwale! Those that aren't, get equipped, and bring your comrade's weapons!" He turned, finding one of the sergeants under his command in the chaos his Marines had devolved into. "Madz! Go down with the unarmored, ready pikes!"

"Aye!" The orc confirmed, bolting to the lower deck without a salute.

"Lookout!" Captain Nora called. "Lookout, what did you see?"

"Two ships, ma'am!" The lookout cried back down. "Trimarans, three-quarters league to the north, heading south-south-east!"

Ignite's heart flared to life. Trimarans, large enough to be called a ship. That meant one thing only.

"Marines, prepare to repel boarders!" He called, drawing his sword. They reacted promptly, near instantly, but not in the way he expected. Instead of spreading out along the gunwale, preparing to hack at grapples, they leapt away from the ship's exterior, clustering around the mainmast. Ignite was left charging alone to the edge of the ship, his Marines abandoning him. His vision went red.

"What affront to the gods are you committing!" He roared, seizing one of the Marines by the shoulder and dragging him away from the pushing match that had developed beneath the mainmast. "Are you a coward?! Why are you–"

Ignite bit his words off as he saw what was in the Marine's hands. One of the muskets, taller even than Ignite, on account of a wicked-looking spike hanging beneath its muzzle.

"Sir?" The Marine asked, staring levelly at him. A flash of understanding then passed between them.

The Marine knew Ignite had spoken in ignorance, and Ignite knew the Marines of this ship knew their duties better than he did.

He released the man without another word, forcing himself to watch things develop. Perhaps a dozen of the Marines climbed up the rigging to the first horizontal spar supporting a sail and spread out there, crouching or clinging to the wood with their legs. They set to biting open packages and dumping them down their muskets, ramming them into place. With the long spikes protruding under the barrel, it looked a rather dangerous activity, threatening to impale the meat of their hands with each ram, but they were careful and experienced in their movements. The rest of the Marines did eventually return to the gunwale, this time holding muskets and tossing boxes down at the edge of the ship's decks, so they could level them over the edge. The long spikes attached to the muskets, he realized, must be a replacement for pikes. A soldier could fire the weapon, then fight as normal. Ignite shouldould have to get Balon to show him how to use the muskets, not just cannons. He had been too lax in his training duties since rejoining the Navy.

"Lookout!" Captain Nora called. "Any sight of other ships?"

"...No! No, ma'am!" The lookout cried back down, nerves clear in their voice. "Just the two, ma'am!"

Ignite silently cursed. Any enemy that saw fit to charge forty ships with two knew something they didn't.

"Bearing and speed!"

"South-south-westernly still, holding tack. Speed–" The lookout's voice cracked. "Eighteen, maybe twenty knots!"

The frantic work across the deck briefly stuttered as the speed was called out. Those that hadn't known they were facing two Magecraft did now.

"I want everyone in the tops not holding a gun scanning our flanks and stern!" Nora shot back, turning to stomp up the deck to the wheel. "Gunner Balon to the helm! All others, ready for action!"

How far away were the ships? Ignite tried to work through the math. Three-quarters a league, at twenty knots? He stared up at the ship's wheel, where Captain Nora stood in conference with her First Lieutenant. With how close the ships had gotten to them, there wouldn't be but five minutes until battle was joined. Ignite debated for a moment, then bit the belt and sprinted down the ship to the helm, taking the steps two at a time.

"Captain," he said with a salute, interrupting whatever the First Lieutenant was saying.

"First Sergeant," she replied, without glancing his way.

"Requesting permission to cede command of the Marines for the extent of this battle–"

"Denied."

"–due to lack of experience with firearms," Ignite continued, undeterred. "I have no knowledge of their use or appropriate tactics."

"Denial maintained, First Sergeant. Treat your Marines as archers until contact is made, and spearmen thereafter. Dismissed."

Ignite's jaw clenched until his teeth ached, but he saluted and ground out his confirmation, jogging back to his Marines.

As he went, he couldn't help but let his head track the onrushing trimarans. Recognizing now that they had been spotted and battle was iminent, the trimarans had given up any pretense of stealth. The unnatural light of gemlight turned them into furious flares in the night, an eerily pure white that coated their hull and the waters around. Their outriggers were heavier sorts than most trimaran magecraft Ignite knew, with wider floats attached by thicker beams, and more beams beside. In Carrion terminology, they were Skimmers, built to skirt around the enemy and bombard them with enchanted ballistae or, if a mage was available, spells. Against their Carrion opposites they would have been laughably outmaneuvered, so poor was their construction, but that didn't matter here. Even the most primitive of magecraft still sported enchantments to wick water away from the hull, spells built into their woodwork that lightened the entire vessel, and Ignite was not prideful enough to say the Sporaton shipyards were that incompetent. Bouncing over wavetops at twenty knots, the two vessels outsped any of the Tulian ships by a factor of three.

That they'd gotten to within a league before being spotted was either a testament to the enemy Captains' skill or a shameful display by Tulian lookouts. After months of the Sporatons failing to join battle, Ignite suspected the latter. Nothing bred complacency faster than uneventful guard duty.

"Madz! Dal!" Ignite bellowed as he returned to the Marines, calling the two Sergeants under him over. They quickly dropped out of line, hurrying over. Together they stepped into the space between two crates, so they would be out of the way of the sailors sprinting across the deck.

"Sir?" Dal asked, saluting. An odd look, the two Sergeants standing next to each other. Madz, an orc closer to eight feet tall than seven, and Dal, a human man that stood five foot nothing.

"I anticipate that the Magecraft's target will be the Waverake, and the Waverake alone," Ignite said without preamble. "There are two possibilities. The first is that they will be fool enough to try and capture the ship, to study her construction and weaponry, and this is what we will pray for, for it will be the most likely to fail. However, I want each of you to split off a contingent of Marines to guard the cannons all the same. If the ship is to be lost, they will defend the cannon crews to the last, until they can place iron plugs in the cannon muzzles and fire them, destroying the weapons. If they succeed in this, their next task will be to set fire to all they can before abandoning ship. Make these preparations immediately and then return to me."

"Sir!" They both barked, sprinting to their contingent of Marines. There were near a hundred of them aboard, and Ignite watched the two Sergeants pick out the troops fit for the task, assemble them, and then send them down below. Of the five minutes they had before battle, this consumed two. They returned, and Ignite resumed his orders. "The second scenario, far more likely, is that they will wish to burn the Waverake's hull to the waterline. If boarding is not likely, the Marines will transfer to sand duty, smothering the flames."

"Sir, permission to speak–" Madz began.

"Granted, damnit!" Ignite snapped. "We have no time! Speak or be silent, do not ask!" Gods, was this what he had been like, before the Champion?

Madz jumped, swallowing hard. "Sir, the Captain said our Marines are to be replacin' ballistaes on mage suppression duty and with how many we got aboard she's got a whole crew of thirty already assigned only to firefightin'–" Madz took a deep breath, "–and we also don't use sand anymore but something the Champion made called firefightin' foam that's supposed to be better for putting out magefires and it's stored in those barrels back there where you can see they're workin' on that pump to build pressure so it'll spray out of those hoses." He took another breath, chest heaving. "Ah, sir, that is."

"Figlio di puttana!" Ignite cursed as he slammed the pommel of his sword against a crate, making the two Sergeants jump. He gnawed at his cheek for a moment, watching the magecraft approach, then made his decision. "Sergeant Madz, Sergeant Dal, consider yourself authorized to ignore any and all of my orders in this battle. I haven't had enough godsdamn time!" He bashed the flat of his sword's blade against the crate, venting his frustration. This time the wood shattered, flinging shreds of fruit out into the sea. "I may have been in more battles than all on this ship combined, but it will not matter when I am in one I do not know how to fight! I will not have my ignorance bleeding Marines! If you see no reason to object my orders, follow them, but bite back if I prod you as a fool, do you understand?"

"Yessir!"

"Then get to your troops!"

The two Sergeants bolted, whites of their eyes wide in the black night. Ignite took to pacing behind the lines of Marines, who waited between the cannon crews, wads of cotton spilling comically from their ears. The Marines lined the gunwale only one thick, their muskets resting against their shoulders. Another mistake he would have made, if he'd have been in command. He would have clustered them in rows two or three deep, using their muskets as pikes. Now that he'd seen his Sergeants doing otherwise, he recognized it was far more important every Marine was able to freely aim their muskets, at least until the grapples were set and boarding was underway.

Gunner Balon suddenly stomped past him, looking furious. When the man spotted Ignite he redirected himself, looking mad enough to burst a vein.

"Ignite!" Balon barked, then looked about himself, scowling. "Ignite," he repeated, this time much quieter, "remember what I said, about staying out of the way of the cannons?"

"Yes," Ignite said. It hadn't been three hours since the lecture had ended.

"Well, forget the whole lot," Balon spat. "I've been ordered not to let the guns fire, not unless I'm sure I'll sink the ship in a single volley, and I damn well know I won't. We'll not be using them."

"What? Why?"

"Damn'd if I know! She doesn't want the enemy knowin' 'bout the cannons, what they can do, I s'pose, but what's the damn point of that? They've got cannons they're usin' on land, don't they? The Sporatons know what they can do."

Perhaps, if Ignite had been in a better mood, he would have argued in the Captain's favor. He had seen the Napoleons the army used, and now he'd seen the naval cannons. The difference between the two was that of a dagger sat next to a greatsword. But seeing as he was nearly in a rage himself, his scowl matched Balon's.

"Not much sense in a weapon one never uses, is there?"

"No! I swear, if we lose even a single cannon in this action, I'll damn well demand a transfer to another ship!"

Balon stomped away to continue his inspection of the cannons, even knowing he couldn't fire them. Ignite shook his head, trying not to let the man's fury flame his own. The Captain's orders made sense, he insisted to himself. Ignite was the most experienced Marine aboard by a laughable margin. Fifteen years he'd spent on the sea, fifteen years in which his feet saw solid ground for no longer than a week at a time, all in service to the Carrion Navy. While there were plenty of experienced sailors aboard, he was perhaps the only one who had carried a blade for longer than a year. With a gap in seniority like that, not even the most radical of Carrion captains would have accepted his temporary resignation.

That didn't make him feel any less fury at the situation, however. He was a bookish commander, one who studied strategy treatises and exchanged battle reports with any and everyone he could. His confidence was born of experience, and here he was, preparing to fight a style of battle that had never been fought before.

As with the rest of the crew, Ignite was forced to do nothing but watch as the magecraft pierced the fleet's confines. They had been traveling in a Deepwater Escort Formation, an arrangement meant for cruising, not battle. With the trap so elegantly sprung on them, their forty-odd ships had no choice but to maintain their encirclement of the Waverake. It was a formation meant to protect the most valuable ships in a fleet from Deepwater leviathans, the outermost ring of ships being the smallest, growing larger as they neared the center. Officially, ideally, it was said that the more maneuverable ships could dodge the leviathan, warning the bulkier vessels of its approach in the process. No sailor spent long believing that. In reality, the outer vessels were sacrificial lambs, placed in the hopes that they would whet the leviathan's appetite before it decided to attack the more valuable ships.

Against two magecraft skimmers, the effect was much the same. The vessels in front of the Waverake vainly tried to heel away from the onrushing magecraft, oars sprouting from the side as they hurriedly made to flee. It was hopeless, of course, but no one wanted to take their death lying down.

Voices cried out in dismay across the Waverake's deck as a gout of flame lanced out into the night from the leftmost magecraft, splashing into the first Tulian vessel. The Ironmonger, if he recalled the day's formation correctly. The supernatural flame was bright as the sun as it sputtered and roared, ripping and down the length of the hull. The flame barely existed for a single second, but that was all it took. The first victim of the Sporaton magecraft was afire from stern to bow, the Ironmonger's port side indistinguishable behind the glowing flames. Silhouetted by the hellish glow, Ignite watched sailors begin to leap overboard, their clothes steaming from the shear heat of the flames.

Then the second magecraft screeched to life, and the gasps of the crew turned to shouts of fury. Everyone had been readying themselves for the Waverake to fight the magecraft, for the greatest ship borne of peasant hands to clash with the elegance of an aged and vaunted institution. They had imagined a great duel, the finest of the Tulian Navy pitting itself against the finest of the Sporaton Kingdom.

It never gets easier, Ignite thought grimly, watching the sailor's expressions twist in the lanternlight. Everyone scoffs at those that have kept their naivety, as if they've forgotten the pain of losing it.

The crew of the Waverake were forced to watch as the Sporaton magecraft sailed serenely past the screaming bodies they left in their wake, curving slightly to either side to ensure the next would be in their range. The dromon's crews did all they could, drums pounding and oars pumping, but it was clear that it wouldn't be enough. The Tulian formation had been tacking its way against a southernly breeze all evening, the same one which now sped the magecraft down its gullet. Two more hideous flames lit the night, turning the waves orange for hundreds of yards. The spellflame disappeared as quickly as it came, but the light remained. It was spilling out of the ruined ships, bonfires in the middle of the sea.

The crew seemed to be in a stupor around Ignite, stunned to silence. They'd heard stories of magecraft, of course. Stories of their prowess, of what they were capable of. Seeing it was another thing entirely.

Ignite squinted at the magecraft. They had manuevered to to the port and starboard of the Waverake, respectively, to reach their second targets, but instead of correcting their course, they maintained it. Sailing further away from contact with the Waverake, curving further and further outward.

Ignite felt his bile rise. The magecraft weren't coming for the Waverake. No. With the wind filling their sails, they were moving to speed through the formation's edges, burning everything they passed before disappearing into the night. They wouldn't even bother to challenge the flagship, not when they could cripple the Tulian Navy without fear of reprisal. The sheer odds of the two isolated magecraft having stumbled across the fleet in the dead of night was stunning, but whether it was skill, luck, or fate, those two Captains were intent on seizing the opportunity given.

He was witnessing a massacre in the making. And there was nothing any of the Tulian ships could do about it.

"Gunner Balon," Captain Nora whispered. She spoke in near silence, but he heard it somehow. A scratchy whisper that fell like ice from her lips, needles of sleet that pierced his eardrums, scraping against his mind itself. "You may fire as you bear."

Silence reigned for a long moment, the crew frozen in place. One voice broke the spell, loud and full of affront.

"f*ckin' get me in position, then!" Balon bellowed.

The entire ship lurched to starboard as Captain Nora threw the wheel aside, kicking the rudder into place, unthawing the frozen crew, who cried out with one voice.

They could only head for one of the magecraft, but if Daylagon himself rose to stop them, Ignite felt certain the crew would think nothing of charging the god. Months spent on endless drills, training under the blazing sun and through raging storms, all to fight Sporaton magecraft, and now that the day was finally here, the magecraft were running? It couldn't be allowed. They could only reach one of them, and only just maybe, but by the gods, they were going to try. Officers began shouting orders, strategies shifting, anticipation building.

"Marines, prepare for mage suppression!"

"Barshot for the 24's, get me all the elevation she'll give you!"

"Keep pressure in those barrels! Hoses under each mast, and pumps ready below!"

"Signal to the fleet, all ships free to maneuver, those not in danger are to form line abreast immediately!"

The Waverake shuddered as her sails caught more of the wind, which was now striking her directly abeam the port side. A large lady though she may be, her lines were trim and her hull slick. On her best day, with a gale at her stern and every sail unfurled, she'd once climbed up to 14 knots, leaving the rest of the fleet in her wake. She wouldn't be making that tonight, not with the wind as it was, but he knew she'd be giving her crew every ounce of speed she had.

The ship continued to haul about, even as more flames lit the night. Six ships were now afire across the fleet. Six of their original forty. But they were also the poorest equipped, converted from merchant vessels, rather than proper ships of war. The magecraft were being inordinately cautious in their approach, targeting only those lightest and most isolated ships at the edge of the formation. Ignite was shocked to see magecraft of all things acting timid, and wondered if their behavior was the product of a clever admiral or a cowardly captain. Either way, it was the exact tactic that suited the moment.

The Waverake straightened with a groan, their angle chosen. The wind was now striking their sails at the starboard quarter, nearly ideal for the tangled arrangement of square rigging that rose up from her deck. Where before she'd rolled over the waves, bobbing gently, she now plowed her way forward, lifting up off the last wave to crash down unto the next, throwing great plumes of salt spray each and every time. The Marines took care to cover the muzzles of their muskets, so water would not enter to foul the powder, and sailors rushed about, pulling down dangling lanterns so that they would not fall and light the deck afire.

If the enemy captain took note of the fact that the Waverake was now racing to cut their vessel off, they showed no sign of it. They continued to pursue their next target, even as the Tulian captain frantically spun their ship about, rowers desperately heaving as the ship made for the safety of the Waverake's hulking mass.

Suddenly, two deep booms sounded from the prow of the ship. Ignite nearly leapt out of his skin. He had heard the Waverake's cannons at a distance before, and had even seen the 12-pounder Napoleons fire. Those had been characterized by a distinct crack, under which ran a barely perceptible rumble, like a tree branch breaking as a thunderstorm brewed in the distance. After the initial burst, the shrieking sound of the flying projectile had been the most distinct out of what he'd heard.

Hearing the guns fire on the ship was an entirely different experience. The deck's plankings rattled and shook, while his chest felt as it had been hit by a cloth-wrapped hammer, his heart clenching in shock. The subtle rumble he'd heard from a distance now revealed itself as a rolling echo, a chorus that took several prolonged seconds to fully fade away. The smoke washed over him then as the ship plowed onward, stinging his eyes as the world was briefly lost in ethereal white.

This ship is going to carry fifty cannons, Ignite thought. This ship is going to have fifty cannons. What has Amarat done?

Two mountainous splashes erupted off a dozen yards starboard of the Sporaton magecraft, a spray of water that rose as high as the vessel's mast. At least one of Ignite's questions found its answer as the magecraft responded by lunging to starboard, turning to engage the Waverake. Not a coward, then.

And not half as clever as whoever gave them the order to skirt our formation in the first place, Ignite noted. The magecraft charged them with a feral dog's eagerness, uncaring that they were sailing near forty degrees into the wind. The magecraft slowed, slowed, and slowed further, until it was making nearly the same speed as the Waverake, no more than twelve knots.

Not clever at all, Ignite decided. A long career in the Navy told Ignite politics was responsible for it. He was certain of it. This Sporaton captain no doubt belonged to some faction or another that thought the Waverake couldn't truly be a match for a proper magecraft, and had spent the trip roiling under the orders that they weren't to engage it, but rather pick off its escorts. Having been shot at, they had the excuse that they must defend themselves, and they were seizing it.

Ignite spared a glance for Captain Nora, up on the helm. Set against the starry night sky, her brilliant blue eyes seemed to be another glowing light in the night. Ignite would have thought it beautiful, poetic even, if not for the rictus grin that split her face from end to end beneath those glowing eyes, teeth bared like a grinning skull. Her grip on the wheel was steady as could be, but her hips shifted from side to side in animalistic excitement, like she wished to be pacing back and forth, or perhaps grinding herself against something. Ignite couldn't place himself in her mind, and he frankly didn't want to. He turned away, focusing on the magecraft.

With a combined closing speed of twenty-four knots, the moment of battle was fast approaching. Lit as they were they by the crystal lights, Ignite had an excellent view of the enemy crew. Dozens of heavily troops stood in stalwart lines on the deck, more heavily armed than even the equipment provided by Tulian, almost as if they were styling themselves knights. Not one, but two mages stood on the deck, and he noted the presence of several Irregulars dotted across the rest of the deck, recognizable by their exotic equipment and odd choice of weaponry.

It was no wonder the enemy captain had been so eager to charge. Even among the Carrion Navy, Ignite had rarely seen a Skimmer so well-prepared for boarding. It was clear that the enemy captain intended to capture the Waverake as a prize, earning themselves all the accolades that would come with it, and they'd spent a considerable fortune preparing to do so. They maintained a head-on course, their gleaming ram splitting the waves with exacting precision, a symmetrical wave arcing to either side.

Suddenly, Ignite startled. The enemy was far closer than he'd realized, too absorbed in his analysis.

The enemy clearly wanted to begin the duel with a head-on collision, hoping to savage the bow and prevent any chance of the Waverake's escape. "Marines, move to the bow to repel boarders!" He shouted.

"Belay that!" Captain Nora cried, halting the Marines where they stood. "Move to the front of the deck, but keep twenty paces off the prow!"

Ignite moved with his troops, following the Captain's orders without understanding. Why would she allow the enemy to gain the deck so easily? With how heavily armored the enemy was, all it would take to kill them was a simple shove over the side.

Despite his protests, Ignite did as instructed, joining his Marines in a line that stretched across the maindeck. The first ranks knelt down, muskets held against their knee, the second rank standing behind them, firearms resting on their shoulder. Ignite alone stood with blade drawn, feeling like a relic of a different era.

The water crashed against the bow for an agonizing time, the magecraft still aimed directly at their prow. Its deck was much lower than the Waverake's, but the enemy would be prepared for that, grapples or bridges readied. Ignite could do nothing other than wait, could not even his troops to open fire, sheltered rearward as they were.

"Brace for impact!" Captain Nora suddenly called. All dropped to their knees and grabbed something, save for Ignite and the Captain herself, the lone individuals that stood tall. Two more shots boomed from the bow down below, and Ignite heard the crash of wood, but couldn't see the cannonball's effect, because the magecraft was hidden by the nose of the ship.

Just before the moment of impact, Ignite shifted his weight, twisting his hips.

As Ignite later recalled, time seemed to slow to a stop. It was if he had hours to pause and consider, working through his thoughts. In hindsight, he would later say when he recalled the story, what happened next should have been obvious.

Most ships Ignite had ever known were built in a certain fashion. Merchant ships had thin, cheap hulls, two planks overlayed and nailed together, not built to withstand impacts beyond the occasional scrape as they pulled into harbor. Warships were built different, far more robust. They had internal bracing that kept them rigid in the heaviest of waters, and their hulls were made of four planks of old-growth stock, overlapped and joined with a multitude of redundant nails, wood glue, and tar sealant. Centuries of shipbuilding development had created a vessel capable of not just surviving the brutality of war, but thriving in it. Ram-bowed warships were the ultimate example of this, the very pinnacle of shipbuilding. Their bronze head was affixed to a complex latticework of interwoven timbers, joined by clasps of stalwart iron, forged by skilled smiths whose secretive techniques were passed from generation to generation. There existed no ship more solid than one meant to spend its life crashing into others. At its peak, there were over six inches of solid wooden beams reinforcing the head of a ramming ship, and the enchantments of a magecraft effectively multiplied that number two-fold.

The Waverake, Ignite suddenly recalled, had a hull two feet thick.

The ship shuddered as the magecraft struck it. Ignite heard an awful crunch, then a scraping noise, and then he saw an absurdity–the underside of a ram, jutting skyward. As he watched, paralyzed, that ram was shoved further, until he briefly saw the barnacle-studded underside of the magecraft it had been attached to. And then the ram rolled over and away, falling out of sight. A low groaning noise began at the front of the ship, moving to amidships, fading away before it reached the stern.

Ignite joined the rest of the crew in rushing to the rear of the ship, searching the waters.

Nothing but black ocean greeted them.

A Perverted Path to Victory - Chapter 90 - TheSharkPerson (2024)

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