Herald of Steel - Chapter 1068: Arson (part-2)

As Remus’s men quickly lit each of their torches, to a distant bystander standing in the dark, it would have appeared as if numerous tiny suns were suddenly blooming themselves into existence, as the men materialized out of the shadow, looking as if they were teleporting into the place out of thin air.

And they soon got to work, with the biggest group choosing to target the ships, running up to jetties where they were anchored and using their large torches to try and get the wooden hull on fire.

While some of the more thrill seeking legionaries chose to climb their targetted ships, using ropes or ladders that they had brought with them, and then setting the more flammable things there, such as the linen sails and thinner planked decks on fire.

They did this because the hulls would naturally be made of much thicker wood and thus harder to set on fire.

And sometimes even after lighting them, the fires would fizzle out after some time, such as due to the sections being usually damp, courtesy of living so close to the water, while some even possessed a primitive fire retardant coating created made from tree sap.

Thus to make sure that the ships properly caught fire and not to half ass it, it was prudent to take these steps.

And some of the legionaries took this act to an even higher level, by placing a stacked mixture of coal, soft, flammable lint, and oil on the decks and setting that on fire, thus giving the fire initially some easy to use fuel to get it growing and ‘mature’.

It was like this that the hundreds of moored ships were set ablaze, with some having their hulls turned into a fiery glory, making the vessel appear like it was from Hell floating on a cloud of flame.

While others had their masts, decks, and sails turned golden and bright, with enormous plumes of smoke rising out of them, as if they were trying to masquerade as steamships.

And lastly, the most unfortunate ones were already coated entirely in the raging maelstrom, their bodies turned all black and skeletal as the fire consumed them, letting out joyous bellows of choking black smoke and frightful crackling and snapping sounds as the scorning temperature split and broke off various pieces of woods.

Thus, if one were to take a photograph of the current situation at the docks, the hundreds of ships burning together would have made it appear like the entire sea from here to all the way to the horizon was on fire.

It would not be wrong to call the scene a sight from hell.

And what were the various bystander’s reactions to all this you ask?

Well, the sheer heat and radiance coming from the fire did quickly alarm all those in the vicinity.

And they were horrified to see what was just now a ‘dead’ part of the city had suddenly begun to blaze with hundreds of various sized fires, each trying to get closer and closer to each other, constantly feeding and growing, growing and feeding.

“What in the hell is that!”

The first to respond to this giant inferno was naturally the various crews residing inside the ships, all of whom had their slumber shattered not by the currently intense artificial glow and warm breeze infiltrating into their abodes, but by the sheer ruckus Remus’s men were initially making.

So they bolted out of their rooms and as they came up to their decks to see what was going on, even before many of them could truly wake up to what was happening, they suddenly found themselves under attack, by a few hundred bloodthirsty arsonists.

The present crew from every ship clearly saw numerous shadowy men in armor holding large torches and running all around like madmen, starting fires everywhere as they went.

“Hey! What are you doing? Stop! No!”

“Don’t! We are still here. You are gonna kill us all!”

And no matter how they shouted such and many similar warnings, it of course went without heed.

From the top deck, it basically appeared as if they were under a siege.

“How could this be happening? Why is this happening?”

And many dispaired, unable to figure out Alxx’s reason for doing this.

Some even died during this, with a few being claimed by the fire as they failed to escape the ships before it was fully engulfed.

Others lost their lives with much less dignity, as due to sheer panic they shoved and pushed each other, taking deadly injuries in the process and slowly dying, such as by hastily trying to leave the ship by jumping aboard and missing the landing spot.

Even those that jumped into the water were not all safe, due to the various burnt debris floating around, and because of other jumping sailors landing on top of them, thus breaking their necks.

And lastly, a few were killed when they tried to stop the legionnaires from setting their ships on fire, usually in the cases where the soldiers boarded the ships.

But overall, the skeletal crew of the ships mostly managed to get away unscathed, as Remus’s men were not really interested in hounding the innocents.

Which was certainly admirable.

What was far less admirable was how they set fire to the docks alongside the ships too, taking the shops, storehouses, and even many of the nearby houses into the fiery inferno.

So that when Achillas’s men at last managed to get there, upon seeing the true size of the ongoing fire, they felt their eyes balls almost pop out of their sockets.

“How… how is this happening?” They all cried out in shock, trying to get into grasp of the true scale of the disaster, as they then furiously began to look for the culprits, wishing to barbeque them in that very fire they had started.

But Remus was of course nowhere to be found.

He and his men had long since vanished, bolting the minute they spotted the first shadows of the enemy, and was by now probably safely behind the lines.

After all, fighting 2,000 elite men with just 500 of his one’s own was just another synonym for suicide.

Hence Remus had blown the retreating horn the second his lookout spotted the large contingent of soldiers almost sprinting towards his way, their fear and fury apparent under the orange, warm glow of the raging fire even from that large distance.

Neither he nor any of his men wanted to have anything to do with them… at least for now.

While Achillas’s men, upon failing to apprehend any of the men responsible, suddenly found themselves unable to think of what to do next.

Because the unfolding disaster in front of them was too big in scale to contend in any way.

The catastrophe was already too advanced in its way, the fire by now having turned more into a natural disaster than anything man made, its fiery tendril already spread too wide and too far.

Furthermore, coming to this heated maelstrom aid was a cool breeze from the sea, which began to sweep the whole thing inland, thus fanning the inferno even more, and pushing it toward the city.

Hence, the flame grew even larger, first due to the fresh new injection of abundant oxygen by the breeze, and then by getting access to fresh timber and the flesh residing inside the structure made of timber, both ending up as its charred fuel.

The deadly combination of fire and wind pushed many of the citizens to their doom.

And it would be very wrong to think that this ‘deadly’ breeze had appeared out of thin air by sheer luck, for it was actually created by the fire itself.

It happened because as the maelstrom heated up the surrounding air, it naturally became hotter and less dense, thus rising up into the sky and leaving a low pressure in its place, which was filled by the cooler, denser air of the sea, hence creating this deadly combination.

A combination that the surrounding men were powerless to defend against, with even the most enthusiastic ones finding their voices dying down after only a few futile yelps.

Initially, they had cried such things as,

“Water! Call the men to bring water! We need water!”

“Bring the buckets. Hurry, people are dying.”

“Where are the wells? Locate the wells!”

“It’s too dark. Send the men to find them.”

But soon found that all this did absolutely nothing.

In front of the immense flames, these few liters of water at a time were not even enough to tickle it.

It was trying to use a water gun to douch a forest fire.

There was no stopping this and all they could do was pray and hope the fire tired itself out soon.

Hence the men could only do the next best thing- try to limit its expansion and rescue as many people as possible.

Which was exactly what they did for the rest of the night.

The 2,000 men, who were supposed to have sailed covertly to the other harbor and obtained a great victory for their lord now found themselves playing the role of firefighters, and they were even joined by many more men, the entire endeavor having lasted till the break of dawn.