Deathless

Deathless Chapter Twelve: Seapoint

Chapter Twelve: Seapoint

Seapoint, a small harbor that lay on the coastline of Northern Arlenia, had a long and illustrious history. Its sister, Southport, on Southern Arlenia, had forever been its partner. Trading ships sailed through the treacherous Archipel Islands, a collection of isles teeming with bandits, pirates, and, as the legends say, sea serpents the size of twenty galleons.

Seapoint had once been filled to the breaking point with merchants, tourists, and traders, all hailing from the South, from Oronthurin, the Capital of the South, Austerus, a city nearly cut off from the rest of Arlenia by the hulking mountains of Southreach. The marketplace had been filled with conversation, laughter, and the never ending shouts of merchants and shopkeepers.

However, beyond that, it was said that in the founding days of Arlenia, when it was then known as the Iron Island, named for its rich metals found in Arlenia’s many peaks and mountain ranges, Seapoint had been the main headquarters of Borran occupation in the island. For in the early days of the empire, the island had been divided among the two great empires in Serenar, Borras and Luartia.

The scribes of old wrote that in the War of Liberation, Raldthor, leader of the Arlenian natives, conspired with the Luartian governor, Agresor, who agreed to grant them their independence if they would have their aid in expelling the Borrans from Arlenia.

The climactic final battle of the War of Liberation took place in the Red Bay, when the natives, sailing in tiny rowboats, defeated the Borran navy with Raldthor’s impeccable strategic genius. Raldthor had used the rowboats’ speed and maneuverability to maneuver through the colossal Borran warships and ram the ships’ steel heads mounted on their bow into the warships’ hull, sinking them instantly.

Using this tactic, Raldthor had crushed the Borran navy and made way for the Luartian transport ships to deploy soldiers on the shoreline. The siege of Seapoint had thus begun, with the Borrans vastly outnumbered. Within a month’s time, Seapoint had fallen, the remaining Borran refugees had fled northwards, and Luartia had granted the Iron Island their independence, on the condition that they still remain, technically, a “colony” of the Luartian Empire.However, these days, mighty Seapoint did not seem like the great capital city of the Borran Empire in days of old. The walls that had been razed by the Luartian troops still lay where they had once stood, in ruin. The governor of Seapoint had left them there, in the outskirts of the city. She had decided that the walls would provide at least some small protection from enemy attack.

Since the governor did not possess the resources to rebuild the walls, and since the days of the Borran occupation, the town had shrunk far inwards, she had seen no need to demolish the walls. So there they lay, in utter ruin, when once they had dominated the shoreline, towering sentinels of a mighty coastal city.

However, the harbor, instead of being filled to bursting point with trading ships, was now populated by Imperial warships, the remnants of the imperial navy.

For the Navy had been pushed to their breaking point long ago, in the fifth year of the war, by the rebel navy. The city of Ictus in the south had been known for their brilliant shipwrights, who were known for producing the best warships in the least time. After Ashmur had conquered Ictus, he had tasked the shipwrights there to build him a vast navy, with which he would sweep the thunderous Imperial navy from the seas.

For in those days, the rebel advance was stoppered by the fact that Ashmur had no ships, and the Imperials had been able to stop their forces from conquering coastal towns and villages. It had been a struggle for Ashmur to even conquer Ictus, since it lay along the Frustum River, a river stretching from end to end of Southern Arlenia, essentially slicing the isle in half.