Chapter 791: Great Call(1)
Blake stood atop the mast of his flagship, wind tugging at his hair and cloak as he looked down upon the sea of masts that bristled like a forest of spears. Forty-two ships answered his call, their sails furled but their hulls heavy with men and steel, ready to cast off from the port of Harmway.
Six thousand and two hundred Free-men, blades at their belts and hunger in their bellies, ready to embark one of the greatest raids the world had seen in a century.
"What a time to be alive!" he roared, the cry rolling from his chest like thunder, carrying over the docks and the restless crews.
The middle sea had once groaned under the shadow of two giants, Romelia and Azania, but both had toppled, crushed beneath their own weight. Their empires splintered, their crowns cracked, and their legacies left bleeding in the sand and oil. Where there had once been two immovable walls, there was now only an open horizon, waiting for a man bold enough to seize it.
And Blake would be that man. The star of the Confederation. The scourge of tyrants. The protector of the old, sea-born ways of freedom.
When he had summoned the Free Captains to rally beneath his banner, they had answered in greater number than he had dared hope. More than half of those who had fought against the Imperial Armada now flocked to him, drawn not only by his fire and silver tongue, but by the promise of gold.
Azania had long been a land whispered of as a trove of riches, yet for generations it had remained beyond the reach of their raiding hands. The old sultans had kept a navy strong enough to hammer fear into the hearts of even the boldest Free-men. But now? Now the Sultanate devoured itself in civil war, its fleets moved to besiege the rebel cities.
The Free Captains needed no greater excuse. They had the sea before them, and Azania, ripe and soft as a fruit, for the taking.
All they needed was a man to rally around.
That was the tale Blake told them when he announced the great raid, and it was true enough. But his deeper reasons were not for the ears of common men.
No, in truth it was the words of the witch that had planted the fire in him. She had spoken of debts owed to the one she prayed to, the god to whom she fed the smoke of bulls and cattle. Blake had listened, though more out of curiosity than reverence.
Yet he could not deny the strength he had gained since, the way his arms had swelled with power enough to crack a man’s neck in a single grip, the way the winds seemed to bend to his sails whenever the witch’s chants followed him.
And there were the prophecies. Always turning to his advantage. Always whispering of triumph yet to come. The last pointed toward Khairo, the jewel of Azania, where a crown was said to await him, half the payment, perhaps, for the services the Fire demanded.
But Blake was no fool. He knew better than to fall to his knees like a whipped dog. He spat over the waves , sneering at the thought.
Gods were parasites. Tyrants in invisible chains.
He liked them better when he did not have their breath around him.
This one he served? It promised power, but would also took freedom in return.
He had seen it in Khairo’s sultans, men who wrapped themselves in ash and flame, burning their people alive in monstrous rites to a sun that demanded obedience. What did such faith bring them? Nothing but weakness, waste, and submission.
And now even their God’s ire—now that was funny.
But not for Blake.
He would take the strength, take the victories, take the winds the Fire sent him, but he would never bend. He was his own man, a free man, and no god would ever have claim to him.
The witch might whisper her prayers, the Fire might grant him gifts, but Blake knew the truth. They were tools, nothing more. As long as the flame burned in his favor, he would feed it kindling. But never devotion. Never submission.
The day would come when he stood in Khairo, a crown upon his brow, the city and all its wealth at his feet.
For Blake was no servant. Not for god nor for men.
"OI, YA BASTARD! WHY DON’T YOU COME DOWN AND GREET A FRIEND!"
The voice was like rolling thunder across the deck, and Blake didn’t need to be told twice. With a wolfish grin he slid down the rigging, boots striking wood with a heavy thud before striding across the gangplank. He embraced the mountain of a man waiting for him, his oldest comrade-in-arms. The man’s arms were like iron bands as they clapped around Blake’s back, nearly lifting him off his feet.
"It’s been too long, Kroll," Blake murmured, his grin softening into something rare, genuine warmth. "Far too long."
"Aye," Kroll rumbled, pulling back to look him in the eye, his teeth flashing white against his beard. "I’ve been craving this day for an entire year. You and I, side by side again, sailing toward the greatest raid this wretched world will ever see!"
Blake’s smile widened "I’ve been waiting since the day we cast aside the Treaty of Break-sea," he said, recalling those bitter, bloody years when his greatest concern had been how to unite the fractious Confederation against the Romelian fleets.
How small that seemed now, compared to the prize before him. Once he had worried only about survival of his house. Now he worried about crowns.
Kroll’s gaze swept across the port, over the forest of masts and the restless thousands crowding the ships. His voice dropped lower, more thoughtful. "You’ve come far, my friend. More than any Free-man I’ve ever known.
You’ve rallied the captains, broken the chains of the empire who tried to bind us. You took Harmway, made it our own, and then stood against the full weight of the Imperial Armada and sent them crawling back to sea. And now look..." He gestured at the fleet—forty-two ships at anchor, all waiting for Hardgut’s word to set the horizon aflame. "All this, gathered under you."
Blake did not answer at once.
Kroll frowned, as though sensing the weight beneath his silence. "But remember this, Blake. Great and worthy deeds are like fire, they give light, but they also draw shadows. The higher you climb, the sharper the envy you invite. And there are plenty who already curse your name."
Blake’s jaw tightened, though his smile did not falter. "You mean to inform me of something, old friend?"
Kroll exhaled through his nose, a sound halfway between a sigh and a growl. "Aye. Many whisper that you’ve grown too dangerous. Too powerful for one man to hold. They grumble that you called for this raid without bowing to the Calls. You act without permission..."
Blake’s laugh was sharp, a bark of defiance. "Bowing? Was freedom not the very pillar of our way of life? Wasn’t the whole damn Confederation built on the right of a man to act as he willed?What’s this?We traded a crown of a king, to that of some old men on dusty rocks?"
He spat on the sea.
"That it was, freedom is our pillar" Kroll agreed, though his eyes did not soften. "But it’s not the principle they fear, Blake. It’s the numbers. More than half the fleet that fought at Harmway now sails under your banner. That terrifies them more than any emperor’s navy ever did. "
"Temporary service," Blake corrected coolly, his tone like steel wrapped in silk. "They are not under my service, they simply accepted to follow me in this raid.
Just until Khairo is ash and ruin. Then every man sails home fat with plunder. Nothing more."
He lied.
"Perhaps," Kroll allowed, though his great shoulders shifted uneasily. "But men rarely believe in nothing more. Ambition lingers like smoke. And whether you like it or not, they see you reaching higher than any Free-man has before.
That’s enough to turn admiration into fear."
Blake studied him for a long moment,the thought was dangerous , he tried to dispell it but he could not, "Do you think I’m dangerous?"
"Of course you are." The answer came without hesitation, without even a flicker of doubt. Then Kroll’s expression softened, and a rare, almost tender smile crept into the roughness of his face. He clapped Blake’s shoulder with a hand like a smith’s hammer. "But I know you too well to think you’d ever turn your fangs on your own people. You may be dangerous, aye,but not to me, and not to ours."
The tension in Blake’s jaw eased, the iron coil within him loosening. His smile returned, rare and unguarded. For a fleeting moment, the storm inside him stilled, quieted by the only voice left in the world that still spoke to him with true warmth.
And then the thought crept in, unbidden. Would even Kroll accept what he was about to do?
Surely he would. They were like water and salt, inseparable, bound together by nature itself. Blake tried to imagine a world where he and his oldest friend stood on opposite sides of a blade, but the image refused to form. No matter how far his mind reached, he could not picture it.
He let the thought drift away like foam on the tide, only for Kroll’s booming voice to drag him back.
"I’ve a surprise for you, old fish."
"You know how I love them," Blake said, a grin tugging at his lips again, this time warmer, more boyish than he’d shown in months.
Kroll chuckled knowingly. "Aye, I know. And I think this one will please you more than most. Among those who’ve answered your call, there’s someone you’ll want to see."
With that, the giant swung his arm wide, gesturing past his guards toward a figure Blake had overlooked in the bustle of the port.
The grin on his lips faltered. His chest tightened.
There, standing a few paces away, was the last thread of blood he shared with anyone in this world and yet the least he wanted to see.
His brother.
His last brother.
His maddened brother
Cain.