It was pitch black and silent. Occasionally, the distant screech of an owl or the scream of a fox could be heard. Overshadowing all of that was the soft sound of waves crashing against the partly rocky, partly sandy shores south of Alessina. Victrix was looking at the warriors sitting behind him in the small boat. They were good lads. Some even had a lot of combat experience. The others not so much.
"In the end the saying is true: You become a veteran or a corpse", he thought by himself.
Some of the men who were – in an attempt to be a quiet as possible – carefully and slowly rowing seemingly sensed the gaze of their chieftain on them. One of the younger warriors locked eyes with him. It made Victrix proud to see that the youngster was alert but did not seem to be frightened by this whole situation. His name was Amhyr he believed. Victrixc placed one of his thick hands in a strong and fatherly, but reassuring way on the shoulder of the young warrior, locked eyes with him for a moment, squeezed his shoulder lightly and then let go and turned around looking forward to the harbor.
He could hear the sounds the other small boats were making. There were around 15 boats each carrying five to ten warriors. They were almost 120 men. Their goal was to burn some of the ships of the sea-people and then take the brunt of their expected counterattack without cutting them off from the other ships to allow them to flee.
A handful of warriors was to sneak into the palace together with the mercenaries to slay the leader of the sea-people, a man called Amendar. They were led be Laban and Coran. That was a risky gamble. Without slaying their leader, the sea-people would most likely stay organized and might with superior numbers and bigger combat experience be able to grind the Aermorikan warriors down. Therefore Victrix had placed roughly seventy man close to the palace which were not to encircle the palace but also attack some of the reinforcement of the sea-people coming out of the palace when everything would start.
The idea was to make up so many points of actions that they would have trouble reacting properly and would also feel like the force attacking them was much bigger than it actually was. The confusion of night, fire, noise and death would hopefully do its service. They drew close to their target: the harbor of Alessina.
Victrix looked at the right one of the wooden watchtowers which were guarding the harbour. A man was tossed from the watchtower and fell with an audible splashing sound into the sea and the started to float away. He looked up. On top of the tower a man was standing waving at Victrix. Then the man put on his head the horned helmed that the Sherdana tribesmen of the sea-people always were wearing and then turned away from Victrix, possibly to stand on the side of the tower facing inland to make sure that anybody saw that all of the harbour guards were still on post. Another splashing could be heard. Another corpse had been thrown from the other tower. The route was clear.
The boats entered the harbour. If this were a trap it would be now that they were entering it. If he were a leader of the sea-people, Victrix would simply have heaps of archers on the harbour walls and just shoot them to death. But he was sure that if his men who climbed the towers had seen any large amounts of troops they would have warned them somehow.
They arrived at the pier and started to leave the boats. Like he had told his men not to arise any shouting and to stay as silent as possible. They would try not to be detected until they had set at least a dozen of the sea-peoples ships ablaze.
They didn’t even manage to walk till the end of the pier when a small group of sea-people warriors came into view. They yelled something in their crude language at them, possibly trying to find out whether they were sea-people themselves. The pier was slightly shadowy because some ships lay left and right of them and blocked out some of the moonlight.
Victrix didn’t flinch and walked slowly toward them waving with his left hand which should be visible despite the bad sight. The sea-people seemed unsure for a moment and again the leader of the small group called him out in his language. Victrix decided he had to answer now, or he would be suspect. But since he didn't know the language of the sea-people he decided to answer in another way: with his battle axe!
He jumped a step forward and put a powerful strike against the leader of the small group. Sadly, instead of splitting his head he only cut him deeply into his left shoulder. The man screamed in pain and tried to step back while the other three warriors drew their weapons. One put a stroke at Victrix who only barely managed to raise his wooden shield fast enough to stop the blow. Was he getting old? Maybe. But tonight, he would fight!
The other men started to spring into action too and a javelin hit one of the sea-people warriors in the throat who dropped to the ground making gargle noises trying to breath while vomiting blood. The other two warriors turned around and tried to run away. So did their leader. But Victrix kicked him to the ground when he tried to free himself from his axe. The Aermorikans released a flurry of arrows and javelins at the two warriors. One went down after being hit in the leg by a javelin and was cut down shortly after. The other one managed to dodge all the bullets. Maybe by luck, maybe by the blessing of whichever gods he believed in and disappeared into the shadowy back alleys of the harbour.
"Shit!", cursed Victrix while he was cutting down the leader of the sea-people who attempted to beg for his life. This wasn't going according to plan. "Ok lads! We are going to get disclosed sooner than we expected them to do! Set some ships ablaze and then form defensive lines!" His men started to carry out the commands. "Ah. And don't forget to pick up all the arrows and javelins again. We’re going to need them all for sure!"
In the centre of the city no one was heard or seen. Only a cat was hissing once in the dark. From some windows the light of candles flickered in the night. Alessina was sleeping and so were the sea-men – or at least the warriors that were sneaking through the night hoped for it. Among them was a former palace guard that knew of a hidden entrance into the palace. It used to be an escape route and led from the rooms of the lord of the city through the garrison into the Old Town and ended behind the main temple of the city. They would use this way hoping that they could sneak through the garrison where the sea-warriors were normally sleeping. Then they would enter the rooms of the sea-king and slay him and raise alarm to make the sea-warriors leave the palace and flee to the harbour to get onto their ships. They were motivated and thrilled but knew the perils. Their plan could go awry in every possible situation. They could be seen in the city or march into a wild party in the garrison with 50 wild sea-men. Or the sea-king could just not be in his rooms but somewhere in the city, so that he would not so easily be killed. They knew they had to be on guard.
"Captain, are we really going with all these farmer boys into the palace?", Brendan asked. "Shut up. You think we can manage it on our own?", Laban whispered. "Maybe they could just guard – somewhere out of our way. And leave the adults do the bloody work!", Brendan suggested. Laban got angry. "Shut the fuck up. There, the temple!" Suddenly Brendan put up his arm and the company came to a halt. "There are at least three persons in the small lane to the right. We will probably run into them. Wait here!" Before anyone could say anything, Brendan began tottering into the lane, mumbling as if he was drunk. Soon they could hear angry voices talking in a rough tone with a strong dialect – sea-warriors, to be sure. Ten seconds later there was silence again, and Brendan came out of the lane looking content. "Four less to kill in an open battle. They are stupid like stones." He spit. "The way is clear now."
Slowly they moved to the back of the temple where they found a small gate that led into the basement of the temple. "The escape route goes under the temple. Within a few minutes we will arrive at the basement of the garrison. If we are lucky, we can get through it without any hassle!", the former palace guard said. "Or we just kill those bastards in their beds!", suggested Brendan. Coran quickly responded in disgust: "That's no option for us! We are noble warriors! We don't kill defenseless men!" Brendan was bored: "Maybe you won't, but I will. Try and get your city back with high nobility. Without us you would still be hiding in the woods, you gutless pussies!"
Laban was afraid that the situation could get out of hand. "For the last time, Brendan, shut the fuck up! And you, Coran: Stick your nobility into your ass, if you please. We fight as we fight, and we will not ask for permission. If you don't like it, go off and show us how you and your shining paladins do it in noble single combat. The sea-people are going to screw you! And now for the last time: move and shut up!" He opened the gate and sprang into the darkness.
