Bone Lord 4, стр. 46
Zhenwan looked down sadly, for the first time in our long conversation. The new cult did seem like a strange problem, but one that I felt I should deal with, even if it didn’t have anything to do with the Blood God. It wouldn’t suit my ideals of justice to let a man who sent his giant reptilian pets out to devour whole villages walk free and unpunished.
I was still eager to learn more about the Dragon Cult and the Dragon Goddess, on the chance that they might lead me to the Dragon Gauntlet. I’d have to wait until I got to Yeng before I was able to get more information on that though. And before I could set foot on Yeng, there was the Transcendent Sails Fleet to get through. Now that I had my own kraken, it was a battle I was looking forward to.
I looked up from these thoughts and saw that Zhenwan had fallen asleep again. As I turned to leave, the cabin the door opened, and Rami-Xayon stepped through.
“He’s just fallen asleep, if you were coming to ask him any questions,” I said. “Let’s talk outside the cabin so we don’t wake him.” I couldn’t help but feel like I owed Zhenwan, even if I had saved his life. The information he’d given me could prove valuable in my quest.
“Ah, a pity. There is much I want to discuss about our homeland,” she said to me as we left the cabin and quietly shut the door behind us. “It seems that the land has fallen into chaos since I was last there.”
“From the sound of it, things are pretty bad,” I said. “Are you looking forward to being home, or not so much?”
“It’s always a deeply painful thing to see one’s homeland destroyed,” she said with a sad sigh. “I can only hope that my family have been spared from the disasters that have befallen Yeng.”
“You haven’t told me much about your family.”
“We haven’t had much of an opportunity. I don’t speak often of them because we never really saw eye to eye. Unless you count my twin sister. She’s also an enjarta.”
“Twins, huh…” I said. All sorts of possibilities involving another stunning woman who looked just like Rami-Xayon popped into my head.
“We’re identical twins, yes, and we’re both enjartas, but in all other respects, she and I are quite different. She’s... well, like a much more wild version of me.”
This twin sister was sounding more alluring with every passing moment.
“She sounds like fun.”
Rami-Xayon narrowed her eyes, staring at me with a mildly suspicious gaze.
“Fun, irresponsible, two sides of the same coin,” she said dismissively.
“Am I detecting some sibling rivalry here?” I chuckled.
“Perhaps a little,” Rami-Xayon admitted.
“I look forward to meeting her. Do you have any other siblings? What do your parents do?”
“No other siblings. My parents were enjartas too, but they left active duty when my sister and I were born. Instead, they became trainers of enjartas. They have a small fortress hidden in some vast bamboo forests among the hills a few days’ journey south of the City of Jewels. When we get to Yeng, I must travel there immediately to see if they have been affected by all the chaos that has ravaged the land.”
“Of course,” I said.
“Thank you, Vance. I’m very close to my parents and have missed them greatly during my time in Prand.”
“Just a little Transcendent Sails Fleet standing in our way.”
“You say that like the biggest naval battle in decades will be a minor inconvenience.”
“I’ve got a kraken; they haven’t,” I said with a grin. “I know who I’d be putting my coin on.”
Chapter Sixteen
The next morning, my party and I were discussing battle strategy when I got a signal from my kraken. The creature could detect the presence of a great many ships coming straight for us. The Transcendent Sails had had the wind in their sails and were going to intercept my ships.
In the coming battle, I was going to use my pirate ships as well, even though they were smaller and less robust than the warships I’d commandeered. The advantages that came with their small size were speed, agility, and maneuverability.
I also had another trick up my sleeve: fire. Fire, combined with wind, makes for a rapidly spreading conflagration, and with both me and Rami being able to use Wind power, we could set half the naval fleet alight within minutes. This was because I was planning to sacrifice one of my pirate ships, turning the vessel into a fireship.
The pirates were working on it right now; they had pooled together all the tar from their ships and the captured warships, usually used for repairs and maintenance, and combined it with large quantities of oil and rum (which they were reluctant to waste, but I’d promised them a lot more once we got to Yeng). This made for a very flammable, very sticky mixture. They were painting the entire deck and mast of the intended fireship with it, and once they were done, they would paint the sides of the ship with it too. They had also reinforced the hull from the inside with all the spare wood we had and the rest of the tar, making the ship a lot more difficult to sink.
I had kept some of the flammable mixture aside to make fire arrows for my zombie and skeleton archers and crossbowmen, who would be stationed on the two remaining pirate ships. These ships would travel at full speed around either flank of the enemy fleet, raining down a storm of fire arrows onto the ships, while the fireship smashed right into the center, burning with its furious hellfire. Then, from below, my whale would ram holes in hulls and my kraken would crack whole ships like nuts.
Just to get a good look at the approaching fleet, I sent