Chapter 42.2- The Seadragon's Roar

Because if he thought mocking me about Corlys, a man whose death I had gotten over a long time ago was going to give him the chance to take the advantage here, then he had another thing coming.

I took my stance and waited for him to come forward.

“I’ve been killing men since before you were born, boy”

“And now I will kill you. Are you coming or not? Or are you going to turn and run outside? Igneel really hopes you choose that option. He wonders what you taste like, you know?” I taunted. I watched his face carefully as he considered his options. One man lay dead at Ben’s feet now. It was only two others that remained, keeping him busy. He must have known that it was only a matter of time until Ben killed the other two, and he had to have known that if his chances against me weren’t already slim enough as things stood, they would get even slimmer once Ben was free to get involved in things. So he had to attack now if he wanted to have any chance of winning.

And so he did. He rushed at me with a roar at his lips. He jumped at the last second, adding the extra strength of the jump to his lunge. I stepped backwards, allowing his blade kiss naught but air. He landed and stabbed out with the sword again. I deflected it to the side, and blocked the next attack straight up with my stolen sword. We strained against each other and it took him only a second for him to know he was outmatched in that particular battle.

He stepped backwards, moving from the contest of strength. He slashed out, I moved forward, deflecting the attack and then attacking with my other blade. He stepped backwards. My left sword went for his feet, and he was forced to jump backwards. I took advantage of the imbalance to land a straight slash across his chest. It was a shallow thing, not likely to do more than hurt, but it was still first blood in my favour.

I smirked in my opponent’s direction, giving a come hither gesture. And to his credit, he came. He advanced slower than before this time. Each step followed the other in a slow march forward. Every exchange before this one, I allowed his lead, make the first attack, and I focused on counter attacking by taking advantage of the imbalances he had to create to attack. It was an effective fighting style, but it was not the one I spent day after day practicing, in the sun, in the rain. That one was far more aggressive.

I closed the distance between us, my footsteps quick, light, and sure. He managed to dodge away from my first slash. He blocked the second with his sword. By the third, I had knocked his sword out of his grip, and by the fourth, my blade was buried in his chest. I pulled it out, allowing the body fall against the floor, before turning to see the last man’s head fall to the floor from Ben’s blade.

“My Lord?” Ben asked, pointing his blade at the man that had surrendered.

“I accepted his surrender, Ben. It would be in bad taste to kill him after doing that” I said.

“These men….they broke guest right” He said.

“Indeed. And most of them are dead for the audacity. This man will answer every question I have completely honestly or he will join them in the seven hells shortly.”

“I’ll say everything, milord. Anything you need to know, I swear it on me Ma, milord”

“See?” I said, gesturing to Ben.

“He’s going to be a good little boy. Because he knows that if he annoys me then he’ll die so painfully that men will sing songs about it for a generation.” I said, watching the way the pirate swallowed.

“Yes, milord.”

“Now, to start things off, who was Stevron selling my limestone to?” I asked.

“Tyrosh, milord. He was sending them letters about cement, milord. They said they wanted the stone to see if they could make it themselves and he was telling them how to do it.”

“Stevron knew little about how to make cement” I pointed out.

“He was trying to figure it out himself, milord”

“I see. And what did Tyrosh need to offer to buy off one of my captains?” I asked.

“I don’t know, milord”

“You’re not a very god informant are you?”

He began shaking his head, almost panicking. “I can’t read, milord. But I know where he stored the letters from Tyrosh, milord”.

“Why didn’t you start with that, Declan? Let’s go see that then.”