Chapter XVII:
Battle on the Bloodfirth
Verity monitored the drowning men for any hint of vitality remaining under waves.
“Ten Thousand Years to our Champion, slayer of ettinslayers, slayer of the Groomslayer!” the vaighlings cried out in unison.
Ettin soldiers whooped in jubilation with the vaighlings, shooting off arquebuses into the air.
A golden hued ettin chuckling beside Verity said,“We did it, Commandant. We killed ‘em. Slayed them apes.”
Verity murmuring said,“Fetch my saber from the drowned ape.”
“Commandant? I’d rather not...I mean, dead bodies give me the creeps.”
Verity tossed the golden ettin overboard. Splashing in the water he cried,“Hey! I’m a superlative god! A 100 Star General of the Order of Azza!”
Verity turned to the others and said, “An apegift for you all: Kill this so-called General and fetch my saber and I'll grant you his Castle in Subohemia.”
A few ettinlings promptly flung themselves down to the red waters, thrashing at the waves, arms and sabers drawn.
The ettins scuffled, the golden one fighting well, till his head was offered up to the sea at the tip of a grey skin’s bayonet.
More ettinlings dove from the boat after the promised booty, vaighlings jeering in the same hoarse crowing.
Then there were fifty in the water, half the crew, diving deep below the blood-stinking water.
A pair of antlers emerged, held tight by a purple ettin.
Uthurs Quarter-tongue stared blankly up to the scarlet heavens, smiling. “I’m done. Finished. A million years of walking and now may I rest.”
His neck twisted by a purple ettin, Uthurs' body sunk into the sea.
“Not ‘im,” said the purple one, shaking his head. A vaighling general with four eyes sneered. “You’re wasting our time, Herrenhausen. Orbaulker wills we strike the heart of the castle tonight.”
“Orbaulker is a fool,” said Verity.
“A fool? He gave you a second chance and you spit in his face. You’ll be the next thrown into the maelstrom…mark my words, I can see your fate clearly...”
“He granted me? I granted it! I allowed it! Your words are poison, Morhel.”
“Which you drink lustily, ettinslave.” “I drink the word of truth. I am greater than either vaighling or ettin or man or god.”
“That’s what they all say," said Morhel, chuckling.
“Slayer of the ettinslayer am I! Behold! Behold his rotten corpse!” Verity, that creature of madness held an arm to the waters.
Still was the bloody sea, and still were the bodies who had leapt into its depths.
“Where are they, Lady Herrenhausen?” mocked the vaighling.
The soldiers stirred about the deck, murmuring. “Where is the argpaari*, Commandant? Did he survive your strike?” said the vaighlings in unison. [*"ape"]
Verity drove fist and foot through the four-eyed vaighling Morhel, till only a limp slab of skin remained of its carcass.
Verity turned to the others vaighlings as dozens flew off, forming a black cloud of plumage against the red sky.
“A second brother of mine you have slain,” they said together.
A pale, old vaighling stepped forward, red eyes aglow.
“Once you were forgiven, but twice is unthinkable.” Two more joined in his speech: “You harm one of us, you harm all.”
The thousand-vaighling cloud plummeted into the ship.
Few ettin soldiers stayed aboard. Those that held fast to the ship sloppily tossed pulver explosives into the raging swarm.
In an instant, ettin eyes and lips were gouged, faces deconstructed to their pre-operated iterations, hundreds reduced to skeletons.
A few plunged into the sea for a moment’s reprieve from the aerial assault.
The dark winged canards of malice and woe bit and ripped and swallowed up the masses of armored flesh that dared oppose their Father’s authority. The relentless droves continued amidst a few survivors; for not every ettin was an incompetent pawn, and those few who fought valiantly were only eaten by the vaighling-swarm after a hard fought battle.
Among them, the tall and mighty ettinlord “Ghost-hurler” caught his breath, spared only by a redirection of the vaighling attack.
He raised his diamantine hand cannon and fired. “Hellfire to you all! Hellfire pigeons! Hell-huh?”
He looked down to the waters to a stirring emerging shape and sheen.
Vaighling pelts piled on deck.
More and more the swallowing cloud trailed in its numbers.
The ferocious brood of Orbaulker realized too late what good their teeth and claw had on the pale thousand-needled armor of Mockwitch. Those with sense and fear fled, but it was still too late.
Without weapon, the Ettin Commnandant still struck the killing blow on all but a few of the fleeing beasts.
It was done.
Stained in their black blood, Verity Von Herrenhausen stood supreme on deck, Ghost-hurler only remaining.
“Commandant…”
Verity turned to the Ettinlord. “Speak.”
“I found your saber. Where's my castle?” said Ghost-hurler sheepishly.
“You found it?”
“Yeah...Found it. Down there.”
Verity looked down to the blood sea. Cradling the body of Quarter-tongue was Kurt, the scimitar still lodged in the heart of his armor.
“You…it was you who killed them? My soldiers?”
Kurt looked up, mournful. “Indeed I did. Verity. Please. End this. Turn back to us. Take your inheritance.”
Kurt held out the glimmering Tooth of the Weever. Wincing from its refulgence, Verity said,“Let’s talk, Eisenforst.”
“Talk like your sword in my chest talks?” said Kurt, grim-faced.
“I do not wish to fight with your race for the moment…or did you not see me just slay the horde of Orbaulker? No matter, come aboard. Ghost-hurler, grant him the ladder.”
“No,” said Ghost-hurler.
The Ettinlord stood firm, his cannon aimed at the face of Verity. He fired.
Verity doubled back holding her face, Etzel’s face. The veil concealed her shame of the alien visage no longer, no longer did it remind her of Etzel's handsome smile, so rare it was shared to her.
Nothing remained but her eyes, all else finally and unquestionably mutilated, all parts of her made a heaving mass of torment and diabolic surgery. She was free.
The Ettinlord fired again at the head, neck anywhere.
His cannon was a mountain-splitter, an object of the most decisive blow to a thousandfold enemy.
“Come on! Eat it, pfoxer! Eat. It.”
Errandghosts gripped Kurt by his arms and lifted him up to the deck.
Quartertongue’s corpse was likewise carried off towards the Bloodfirth Castle distantly visible.
“Herrenhausen, you still breathing? This mountain-splitter given to me by the Unghost himself! Told me it would come in handy sometime soon…told me to claim my crown. You hear me, Herrenhausen? Come on, face me, you faceless witch.”
“Enough, ettin.”
Kurt pulled the scimitar from the Eye and tossed it to Ghost-hurler's feet.
“Your prize, right? Take it. You want a crown, here is your key. But let me talk to Verity first.”
“You wanna talk? The time for talking is over! It’s been over! It was over when I tossed your friend Kalendros like a piece of trash into the sea.
The Unghost is triumphant! You wanna talk? Talk to the dead; you'll join them shortly.”
His skull split like a chopped melon, Ghost-hurler dropped dead.
Verity pulled Mockwitch’s scimitar dripping with ettinbrain towards Kurt, stepping on the remains of the Ettinlord.
“Yes, this is how we talk,” said Verity. How did she retrieve the scimitar? thought Kurt. It was on the opposite side of the deck…
“I can read your thoughts…yes, how did I so swiftly retrieve it? Have you not seen the rising shadow of the Unghost at my side?”
The scimitar came down towards Kurt’s head.
Deathbrand swooped, knocking it backwards, each swipe, jab, cut of the heir of Mockwitch barely missing Kurt’s quickore armour.
“That armor helps you little, Eisenforst...behold the power of the Eldermark Soul.”
The scimitar thrust up into the Weever’s Eye once more.
“Next, will it take your heart…fulfill my apegift, Eisenforst. Complete me.”
Verity tugged at the blade. It did not budge, like a limb stuck in hardened concrete.
Kurt shook his head in disgust.
“Are you oblivious to the puissance of quickore?”
Verity chuckled. “I trained for a thousand years in the Eldermark under the tutelage of Azza himself.
Do you believe your body can withstand my next blow?”
“My body, no, for it is body protecting me; but another’s. Do not forfeit your spirit away like this…please, Verity. Do you hear the cries of your child’s shadow among us? She’s begging you to stop...”
Verity’s eyes wavered. “Delusional ape…errandboy of the crooked ghost. I am the Superlative…the true superlative god of gods!”
Her fist came crashing down on Kurt’s shoulder, slamming him onto the deck. On his back, beholding a red sun rising above the Eldermark firth, Kurt struggled to breathe. “I’m so-rry, Verity…so-rry.”
“I am not Verity!!! I am go-...!!!”
Deathbrand skewered the soft center in the thousand-needles of Verity’s neck.
Its flames swallowed up the armor, flesh and the little humanity that still remained underneath.
Black liquid-pulver spurt from her mouth and throat.
With murder in her eyes, Verity Von Herrenhausen died upon her warship.