Even so, Lerial has his doubts about how much destruction he can cause. But any delay and anything that reduces the number of armsmen headed to Afrit is far better than fighting them in Afrit. He checks the position of the Heldyan galleys, but they have slowed, as if they are trying to determine where the sail-galley has gone. Next he tries to calculate how close they are to the outermost pier, and he thinks that they are less than half a kay away. He doesn’t want to be too close to the piers, but he also doesn’t want to have to strain too much.
So he sits in the bow, order-sensing and waiting, before realizing that one of the Heldyan galleys has shifted its course and is directly behind the sail-galley, if a good third of a kay back. How could that be, with the concealment? Following your wake, of course.
“Where are we, ser?” calls out Elphred.
“Less than half a kay north of the middle of the piers. Hold this course for just a bit.”
“Aye, ser.” Elphred definitely sounds worried and unhappy.
Behind them, the Heldyan galley is closing.
Lerial knows he can no longer put off doing something, either escaping or acting. The first question is where he should begin … on the ships at the piers … or on the shore. He swallows and concentrates on the fully loaded merchanter, creating a spaced line of order-chaos separations beginning just above the waterline on one side of the ship and angling them up and across the ship. Then he concentrates on the outermost vessel at the next pier, followed by the largest vessel at the westernmost pier. As he continues to place his separations, sweat begins to well up all over his body and ooze from under his visor cap down the sides of his forehead. Almost absently, he blots it away with the back of his sleeve.
He can sense a slight hint of light-headedness and decides to drop the concealment. As he does, he orders, “Turn west!”
For an instant, the return of full sunlight blinds him, and his eyes water. When he can make out things clearly again, he sees that most of the ships at the piers are aflame, but there are no fires ashore, although he can sense men and mounts moving in all directions.
He concentrates on focusing on the largest structure along the harbor front, setting three different order-separations. A line of pain feels like it has split his head, and he massages his forehead, then forces himself to uncork the bottle of lager and take several swallows.
“… the frig is he doing…?”
“… need to get out of here!”
Lerial is vaguely aware that several men are resetting the sail, while the others have unshipped their oars and are beginning to row. He glances back, his mouth opening as he realizes that the one fast galley is less than fifty yards behind them.
“Frig…” While he hates to spend the effort on something as small as the fast galley, he and the sail-galley won’t be around to do much of anything else if he doesn’t deal with it. He immediately concentrates on creating a tiny order-chaos separation right above the waterline at the galley’s bow, wincing at the jolt of fire that shivers through his skull as he does.
The entire bow of the pursuing galley explodes and a rush of flame sweeps back along the narrow vessel. Then water floods into the open stem of the craft, and it noses down and comes to a stop.
Lerial looks back toward the shore and concentrates on another set of order-chaos separations, this time dealing with more waterfront structures. Each separation is more painful than the last, and Lerial has to pause longer between each, occasionally taking another swallow of lager.
One ship, already flaming, abruptly explodes, and fragments of chaos and burning debris spray everywhere.
A chaos-mage, trying to hold shields against the heat and flames?
Fires now rage along all the piers, including parts of the piers themselves, and most of the buildings along the waterfront are now in flames, with thickening clouds of smoke billowing skyward.
Lerial realizes that he has done nothing about the merchanter anchored away from the piers. He concentrates once more—and the pain is so intense he cannot even move or see for several moments. When he can finally see, he has no order-sensing ability, but when he looks back, he can see flames across the midsection of the anchored merchanter, and before that long there are explosions, and the ship sags in the midsection, then begins to take on water. He looks toward the piers. So far as he can tell, every vessel at the piers has either vanished or appears to be in flames or sinking, if not both.
Lerial leans forward and closes his eyes for several moments, resting his head on the spray shield, then looks up once more. Clouds of black and gray smoke continue to rise skyward from the flames that seemingly fill the southern horizon, and the black-silvered mists of death flow out in all directions from the conflagration.
“Ser?” calls out Elphred.
“Head back to Swartheld … any way you can. I don’t think I can do much more.” More like nothing.
“… much more…?” murmurs someone.