Finally, the fires grew too hot; Pandesian soldiers, in full armor, trapped by the flames, leapt from their ships into the waters below—and Duncan led his men off the ship and over the stone wall, back to the harbor side. Duncan heard a shout and he turned and noticed hundreds of Pandesian soldiers trying to follow, to pursue them off the ship.

As he stepped down onto dry land, the last of his men to leave, he turned, raised his sword high, and hacked at the great ropes binding the ships to shore.

“THE ROPES!” Duncan yelled.

Up and down the harbor his men followed his lead and severed the ropes anchoring the fleet to shore. As the great rope before him finally snapped, Duncan placed his boot on the deck and with a great kick, shoved the ship away from shore. He groaned from the effort, and Anvin, Arthfael and dozens of others rushed forward, joining him. As one, they all shoved the burning hull away from shore.

The flaming ship, filled with shrieking soldiers, drifted inevitably toward the other ships in the harbor—and as it reached them, it set them aflame, too. Men leapt from ships by the hundreds, shrieking, sinking into the black waters.

Duncan stood there, breathing hard and watching, his eyes aglow, as the whole harbor soon lit in a great conflagration. Thousands of Pandesians, fully roused now, emerged from the lower decks of other ships—but it was too late. They surfaced to a wall of flame, and left with the choice of being burned alive or jumping into a death by drowning in the freezing waters, they all chose the latter. Duncan watched as the harbor soon filled with hundreds of bodies, bobbing in the waters, crying out as they tried to swim for shore.

“ARCHERS!” Duncan yelled.

His archers took aim and fired volley after volley, aiming for the flailing soldiers. One by one they found their marks, and the Pandesians sank.

The waters became slick with blood, and soon there came snapping noises and the sound of shrieking, as the waters were filled with glowing yellow sharks, feasting in the blood-filled harbor.

Duncan looked out and it slowly dawned on him what he had done: the entire Pandesian fleet, but hours ago sitting so defiantly in the harbor, a sign of Pandesian conquest, was no more. Its hundreds of ships were destroyed, all burning together in Duncan’s victory. His speed and surprise had worked.

There came a great shout amongst his men, and Duncan turned to see all of his men cheering as they watched the ships burn, their faces black with soot, exhaustion from having ridden through the night—yet all of them drunk with victory. It was a cry of relief. A cry of freedom. A cry they had been waiting years to release.