Herald of Steel

Anoon watched the unfolding chaos surrounding the tilting ship and the falling bridge with a cold, shaken heart, his eyes even becoming a bit glazed.

This was not how things were supposed to go.

The fighting was supposed to have been a really easy and one sided affair. They would outflank the enemy on the bridge, attack, destroy them, and return back as heroes. Al

Simple as that.

But somewhere along the lines they had decided to defy Lord Parker's original orders, ignored their one last chance to cut loss and run, and then gotten themselves into this mess.

Thus a great sense of regret began to fill up this adjutant's mind, and he could not help but subconsciously turn to look back at Lord Bernard once again.

This man was both the originator of trouble- i.e. turning the ship to fight Alexander instead of reinforcing Lord Kite like initially planned, and also the man who tried to stop them from acting as saints by proposing to leave Achillas and just save themselves.

And it was this last point that the handsome man was eager to press his thumb on, as he turned his face from reddened and nasty to absolutely livid and twisted, something altogether much more grotesque.

Lord Bernard could be seen currently wildly waving his armored hands and shouting at the top of his voice, "You bastards! I will hang you for this! You hear me! So many of our men are dead…. all because of you. I will personally tie the ropes around your neck for this! Traitors and rebels to our family!

The lot of you!"

The fact this threat clearly reached Anoon even though it was almost stern to bow, i.e.- the greatest distance possible, really went to show the man's anger.

And if not for the fact that five armed guards surrounded him, the man would have long ago tried to run up and strangle Ser Robert and Anoon to death.

But since he could not get this sweet revenge that he so desired, he settled for these loud roars and hateful, furious glares.

While his guarding soldiers kept looking back at Anoon and Ser Robert for help, asking for their next instructions.

Should they let the man continue and spread morale destroying calls?

Or slap the man shut?

Given Lord Bernard's exalted status, these men could not have the guts to do the latter even if they were to be reborn ten more times.

Which was why they kept asking for permission from their boss.

However, the trouble was, given the current circumstances, the bosses were not sure either.

Should they stick to their current plan and try and appease Achillas even now? Or flip and come crawling back to Lord Bernard, head stuck to the ground begging for forgiveness?

With the events unfolding in front of him as is, Anoon began to seriously consider the latter, thus quickly gave the man a deep look, and decided to leave Lord Bernard to his own.

Lord Bernard's loud shouts and threatening demeanor worked to get him few friends, as no man aboard the deck had the time to even listen to the raving man in the first place.

They were too busy running like madmen trying to fulfill Ser Robert's orders.

And speaking of the man himself, the simple commander did not have as many knots in him as Anoon. So instead, he was fully focused on dealing with the rapidly deteriorating scenario in front of him.

For this, he first quickly ordered the captain to go help the drowning men, as they could be heard shouting,

"*Agghhh!* *Arghhh!* Save me! Save me! I can't swim! My body feels too heavy…. agghhh, aghhh!"

"Grab the ship! Grab the railing! Grab anything… ugghhhh… anything that floats… ugghhh!"

"Gods! The water is so fucking cold! It's freezing! Aghhh! It hurts!"

"Brother! That wood! Please share it! Please! I'm dying!"

When the capsizing decks hit the water, dumping all its contents to the treacherous sea below, for the men fighting on top, it was like being dumped with cold water over the head.

All of sudden, all thoughts of killing each other went out the window.

Instead, it became imperative that they banded together because a sinking ship was a very dangerous place to be around, even without the risk of drowning.

Falling riggings, chunks of broken masts smashing forth, wide unfurled sails floating down like giant cast nets, heavy barrels tumbling down, and even sharp weapons that had been discarded raining from the sky onto unsuspecting men, smashing, smacking, smothering, and slashing them.

Almost as many men died from these falling debris' as they drowned.

And so Ser Robert tried to beeline for the capsized men as fast as possible unable to ignore this plight.

However even before he made it halfway through, a second ship also went down due to similar reasons, the fighting men aboard refusing to rectify their vessel even when it kept on tilting and tilting,

Now there was twice the trouble.

While seeing these examples and noticing the horror of the drowning men, the fighting in the third and fourth ships finally went down, and the men became very concerned about their fate.

As for helping their comrades up, well even if they wanted to, where was the space?

So these men turned a blind eye to the screaming and pleading voices, pretending as if they could hear their plight.

It was a very cruel thing to do, to leave your brother literally to die just like that.

But what was the alternative?

Thus the best these drowning men could do was gather around these ships' hulls, grabbing onto the wood there to try and stay afloat, or if they were lucky clutch any rope or rigging that might have been tossed from the deck like a dog is tossed a bone, all the while praying for some sort of rescue.

They would not even mind if it was the opposing side that extended a helping hand, they would gladly take the surrender.

But Alexander was a long, long way away. So that was not happening.

And then to make matters many times worse for everybody involved, the bridge that they had been listening to cry, creak and groan for the last god knows how long, finally decided to give in, crumbling from the bottom and causing deadly waves around its epicenter.

The sight was quite a wonder to witness.

First of all, that one tall, grey stone pillar, which once looked thick and strong enough to hoist the world on its own, started to suddenly give itself away, spitting out its contents and tumbling down to the ocean like loose sand almost spontaneously.

Immediately following that, came the destruction of the section of the bridge that it directly supported, falling to the waters with a heavy rumble and creating tumultuous waves, each large enough to seriously rock all the surrounding ships.

This shaking soon intensified to much greater heights as these great waves were buttressed by the consecutive failure of two more sections one after the other, the great stone slabs being dragged along with each other and churning the waves to deadly heights.

*Splash*, *Splash*, *Splash*

So by the time this was all done, perhaps less than half of the actual bridge that the three forces had been so eagerly fighting over remained.

A number that was rapidly sinking with each passing second, as more and more small bits and pieces fell off proceeding with their larger brethren.

The sight of all this was undoubtedly horrifying for the unlucky Heeat soldiers witnessing it first hand from atop there.

Just imagine watching the platform you were on, some 30- 40 feet high up in the air, fall off one after the after, part by part, like some macabre version of Jenga.

You knew you were going to fall, but never knew just when.

It was a terrifying torture and each creak, snap, or click caused all the men to jump up and cry out in fright,

"Help! Help! Save us! We are going to fall!"

"Hurry! Hurry! Hurry! Please! It's failing! We are hear it!"

"We are going to die! We are all going to die! Ahghghhh!"

These men were in their last death throes, their tone desperate, their eyes filled with tears and despair.

Thus, to try and escape, many took the ultimate plunge while shouting for others to do the same,

"Jump! Jump into the water! It's safe! We can live!"

"Right! Take off your armor and jump! It's the only way!"

"Jump and live! Stay and die!"

And many did follow the advice, saying to themselves, 'Well it's better than standing around and doing nothing!', for they found the state of the crumbling ground they were standing on too frightful to bear.

And who could blame them?

Few could see any intact pieces of wood or stone larger than a finger beneath them unless it was stricken with numerous cracks.

Thus it was indeed prudent by some standards to take the plunge.

But the results?

Well, the fall naturally proved to be almost always deadly, killing all from the jump or due to the sustained injuries.

While the men below felt horrified to see this act of mass suicide, chilling their hearts.

Let us say no to piracy! Don't take part in a crime! Don't patronize thieves!

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