Deathless

Deathless Chapter Twenty-Eight: Southport

Chapter Twenty-Eight: Southport

"Come on. This way," Vanya muttered as she led her companions through the crowded. streets of Southport. She had her cloak's hood up, pulled low over her face, so as not to be identified as a northern Arlenian, or perhaps even an Imperial spy. The rebels were on a vigilant watch for four Imperial saboteurs trying to infiltrate their territory, and would be well on the watch for anyone that looked to be from Imperial territories in the north.

Fortunately, the sole good news was that though the rebels knew that they were looking for four Imperial spies, they had no clues other than that, since all their information had only come from Thymil, whose knowledge of Iepenel's quest for the foursome had been hazy at best.

Still, though, one misstep, and Vanya and her companions could easily find themselves in rebel hands. She hoped that they had shaken the rebels on their trail when the rebel soldiers were foiled in their search on the Archipel Islands, but Thymil's information had placed the rebels back on their trail.

They had no idea how the rebels had managed to find the Flamebearer so quickly, and had she had simply assumed that they had simply known that the Flamebearer had been captured by the Imperials from the Red Bay. But that didn't explain why the rebels had pursued them to the Island of Spires.

She'd heard rumours while they were in Sizgodil that the rebels were trying to once and for all colonise the ever-elusive bastion of pirate activity in the Archipel Islands, and indeed, the last stronghold for piracy in the realm. The rebels had been trying to oust the numerous pirate gangs that had sprung up all across the Archipel Islands in the aftermath of the Pirate Uprising, grasping at the power once held by Captain Gamaal before his death by Imperial hands.

Ashmur had been mostly successful, managing to root out pirate crews and strongholds from majority of the Archipel Islands, but the Island of Spires, being the old stronghold of Gamaal's monstrous pirate fleet, had proved difficult to conquer, as the pirates, having extensive knowledge of the island's widespread rocky passes and tree-covered mountains and hills, managed to defeat the rebel war parties sent into the forest to burn them from their shelters.

Perhaps Ashmur was finally coming to the Island of Spires in force, instead of sending flimsy fleets to besiege the island, but arriving with an actual warfleet, with expertly made war galleys crafted in the expert shipyards of Ictus City, and the rebel pursuit of the foursome to the island had been completely coincidental.

Vanya did not find it in her to hope, and instead pressed on, with her fingers tingling at every suggestion of danger, ready to draw out her mace at first glance. Her eyes darted around every street, every alley, every alcove, seeking out any would-be rebel ambush. And indeed, in Southport, there were many such hidden alcoves and blind corners, which placed her, and Lindale as well, as was apparent, on edge.

At the moment, she and her fellow adventurers were walking through one of the poorer districts of Southport, which had been marginalised even before Ashmur had sacked it. Ashmur's army had decimated these areas even further, destroying their grain storages and markets, crippling their economic standing, as well as slaughtering a good amount of their population and taking what few belongings they had on them.

His forces had mostly spared the areas around the keep, where the esteemed Governor of Southport dwelt, along with the wealthier traders and merchants. Ashmur knew that he needed their support, and by extension, their silvers to hire more swords to his cause and swell his ranks even further.

In this area of the city, crime was rampant, and it was commonplace to find brawls and even clashes of crude iron and the occasional steel breaking out across the streets.