"Pillar In The Storm: Chpt. 1" by Jacob Bowdin

Pillar In The Storm: Chapter I

The constant and even patter of rain lay at the back of Johan’s mind as he stared out of a portside view port.  The steady rain dripped down the slanted wired-laced glass and slightly obscured his vision as he glanced up and down the shoreline of Isadar‘s mainland.  He nodded in satisfaction and turned back towards the interior of his ship.  The crew maintained their work as they had before, not minding their commander’s occasional appearances.  With three levels above the water, Johan had a lot to look after.  Taking one last glance out the port, he walked to the starboard side and gazed at the island he was charged with protecting.  The towering walls, overshadowed only by the watchtowers that towered even higher, were slick with rain in the pale moonlight.  The only torchlight that could be seen at the moment was atop the watchtowers, to help the ships around the island navigate in the light fog.  A warship was little good if it ran a ground on what it was supposed to be protecting.

The Siege Ships, by the grace of The Father Of Waves, Saylin, were the main reason that The Pillar had stood as long as it had.  They were the only three surviving naval ships from the Age of Light.  The others had been damaged and used as scrap to renovate those warships that were still functional.  Through the years they had run out of what few ships there were.  The rebels, still no more than unorganized barbarians, were never truly able to do much damage to the water bound craft, but the little they did with each raid took its toll over the span of time.  Luckily the masons and engineers of The Pillar had improved their ideas, and skills, creating a better ship with each refurbishing.  The fleet of what was once hundreds, reduced to a mere dozen by the rebellion, was now three.  Three of the most magnificent feats of labor Isadar had seen.

The island that housed the Pillar was essentially a rough triangle.  The Pillar was a great city, spanning miles on the island, and surrounded by a vast wall.  In the center of the city was the heart of the fortress, a temple and keep dedicated to The Father Of Waves, which was impregnable and safe behind the walls that no human could ever think to climb.  Outside the fortress lay the houses and markets, the smithies and other industrial necessities that any city needed.  In the middle of the smithies lay the fenced off mouth of the mines.  A natural cavern and tunnel system ran far under the lake, and lead to ancient deposits of ore.  During the Age of Light, ore was mined from the mountains, easier than navigating the caverns, but the times forced the miners to stay on the island.  A bit further yet and there were the farms and parks that gave the city natural life.  Everything was packed together, but arranged in patterns that allowed efficiency.  Even most rooftops had something occupying them.  All the hustle and bustle went straight to the city walls that protected the fragile life within.  Past the wall of The Pillar lay nothing but sheer cliffs and crashing waves.   A solitary dock serviced the three great Siege Ships.  The length of timbers stretched out from a huge pair of ironclad doors, which stayed sealed until a ship needed service.  That was the only weak point of the whole wall.  Even the city drains were too small for a man to fit into, and barred with think shafts of metal.  If anything made it past the great ships, the city guard would be able to cut it down from their high towers before it neared the walls.  The Pillar lived up to its name, and thanks to the maritime warriors of the Siege Ships, it had yet to be tested.

Turning from his view of The Pillar, Johan looked about the great ship, listening to the creak of the wood as rolling waves from the lake slid along his ship’s hull.  The Siege Ships were truly an awe to behold.  Each ship was 300 paces long and almost as wide.  The flat deck was plated with the purest iron and rode a mere pace above the water.  The ships themselves had three levels.  Each one high enough for a man to stand double, making the ship about 12 paces from the deck to the top.  Each level was shaped with sloping sides that slanted inward at a slight angle.  The ships resembled a step sided, cut off pyramid.  On each level: port, starboard, fore and aft, there were view ports, or archer slits with a pace to either side.  During down time such as this, there was an archer at every other slit taking guard duty, but in times of battle every window had bowmen armed with powerful crossbows.  Each port had an insert of glass, a recent discovery, which could be slid down once the latch was released, allowing the archers to shoot out.  With such numbers of archers each Siege Ship was capable of laying down wave upon wave of metal-tipped bolts from any side, punishing anyone on the receiving end.  On the very top of each ship, was a quartet of great slings, or trebuchets.  These powerful and long-range weapons were capable of hurling rocks or a mass of small metal balls over vast distances, doing damage to many targets at once.

However, underneath the great warships was the most important thing, the hull and propulsion.  Great amounts of timber had been hauled from the trees raised in farms on the isle to create enough buoyancy to float the armored ships.  The hulls extended under water almost as high as the decks extended above.  The Siege Ships did not have to worry about depth luckily, for the lake around the Pillar was almost as deep as the seas themselves, even the river that brought in water from the sea seemed to be endless in its ebon depths.  In the belly of the ships lay the very drive that allowed them to move. 

Long had the navy depended upon sail power.  However, with the isolation and time given to the Legacy by the rebellion, their engineers had come up with an innovative and effective means of propulsion: air.  An intricate work of tubing and valves allowed the engine teams to drive the ship with a system of levers.  One team operated the ‘push’ and one operated the ‘pull’.  When the pull team pulled their lever up, air was sucked in from one of a few vents on the second level.  Then, when the push team pushed their lever down, the air was expelled though the tubing below water, creating a jet of air that moved the ship forward.  When at rest, the valves shut and kept the water from flooding back in.  Of course such a large ship would require many pushes and pulls, so the teams operated in shifts.  Teams from the fore station, which worked as a braking/reversing system, would go to the aft, which was the forward drive system, and the drive teams would go to the starboard or port side, which operated as left and right turning mechanisms, and the turning teams would go to the front.  This rotation would take place many times during the day and night so no team got overly tired.

Of course, all of these intricate designs needed repair once in awhile.  On-board workers could fix some things, but other problems were more dire.  When extra work was needed, a small boat would come with mechanics and engineers from the sole dock on the Pillar, or the ship would dock itself depending on the problem, and the repairs would be completed at which point the mechanics would return to the pillar and leave the ship to its defending. 

With one Siege Ship stationed of each point of the island, the Pillar truly seemed as if it were untouchable.

Commander Johan smiled with the pride he always felt when he stopped to think about his ship and its duty.  He had been to the temple in The Pillar, but Johan still felt his three ships were the best tribute to their god.  After all, Saylin had seen them safely through countless battles.  The S.D.S, Siege Defense Ship, Implacable was his, the flagship for the trio that held The Pillar in their hands.  He was on the northern tip of the isle, while the other two ships, S.D.S Stalwart, and S.D.S. Tempest were on the Southeastern and Southwestern points respectively.  With the range of their slings, there was no patch of shore or water that was untouchable by the three ships.  The commander stopped his daydreaming for a moment and made his way up the aft ladders to the third deck.  Here the rain was more intense, without a deck above to muffle the noise.  Johan smiled.  The rain always soothed his nerves.  It was better, at least, than the hail of arrows and rocks on the ship’s thick armor that was occasionally endured, none tonight luckily.  Johan stepped over to the fore view port that over looked the low bow.  Out in the mist of rain he could barely make out the shoreline.  It was dark, which was good.  No campfires or torches, which would mean another warlord raiding party.  They had even gotten bold enough to try and send small boats to board the Siege Ships.  Even if the boats made it to the ironclad ships, through the arrows, and rocks, they would have to contend with the on board marines.

Johan grimaced at the thought of the clans.  They were barely worthy of the name.  Such a bitter and divided group they were.  There were four warlords now.  There had been more than double that, years ago, but the fighting took its toll.  Unfortunately all it seemed to do was make the surviving rebels tougher and more determined.  They were fanatical in their faith.  Apparently, the harder they fought, the more Kayos would reward them in this world.  No mention of what happened to those who fell in battle, apparently the Warrior only wanted to keep those who fought well enough to live.  The rest were sent to the abyss, at least Johan knew the Father Of Waves cared for his warriors who fell; Saylin would not let his faithful linger in the hells below.  Johan still considered them rebels, no matter how much time had passed.  The clans, or more accurately tribes, used metal weapons, and had archers as well.  No crossbows, but they had effective longbows and javelin throwers as some of the unfortunate repairman had found out over time.  The rebel tribes also had siege weapons, rudimentary catapults and over-sized versions of bows that launched huge spears across great distances.  Nothing really to threaten the Siege Ships themselves.  Sometimes the tribes managed to set fire to their catapult ammunition which did create some problems for the siege ships, but only if the fire got inside.

            The commander stood at the closed port for some time more, letting his thoughts wander.  It was a quiet night; he didn’t anticipate an attack.  The rhythm of the rain seemed to ease his thoughts.  They were dark as of late.  We are the pinnacle of society, and here we sit.  The gods themselves once blessed us!  Yet these barbarians, these animals, trap us!  He shook his head at the thought.  To Johan, the rebels, barbarians, whatever they were called didn’t matter, were little better than animals.  They squabbled and fought for power among themselves.  Their foolishly righteous campaign for freedom had plunged the land right back into the war it had been rescued from.  They should all be enslaved.  How could they compare what they had now, to the glory that had reined during the Age of Light?  Johan continued staring out the port, he caught a glimpse of S.D.S Tempest through the mist.  He smiled at the floating shadow, a great mass of dull metal and timber, given a crown by the row of great slings and pair of signal lights, atop it.  The rebels would never break them.  Not with the Siege Ships defending.  If only they could figure out a way to break out into the rebels.  Or maybe return across the Great Sea.  He laughed in his head at that thought.  No one had crossed the Great Sea since his ancestors’ fore bearers.  It was a foolish hope.  He sighed.

Johan turned as a flurry of activity caught his ear.  A lower Deckman was retrieving a pigeon from its cage, a recent message from another ship, Stalwart by the pigeon’s band color.  The signal lights, torches encased by a wire and glass cage, pointed the siege ships out in the night, but it also allowed them to communicate by pigeons in the dark, the birds knowing the look for a certain number of lights.  Johan’s Implacable had a single light, Tempest had two, and Stalwart had three.

Johan stepped up to the cage and looked down at the crewman  “Well Deckman, what news from the bird?”

The Deckman unraveled a piece of parchment from the case on the birds back and bowed, handing it to the Commander.  Johan skimmed over it and sighed.  “Fetch me Lieutenant Ural, and prepare a pigeon to relay this message to the Tempest.”

As the lower crewman saw to the message’s departure via a fresh bird, and ran to find the ship’s second-in-command, Johan looked to the fore port again.  He squinted and tried to look a bit harder.  It looked as if a small glow had appeared over the crest of the shoreline.  To early to be the sunrise, he hopped it was a distant camp and not another raid.  As Johan turned from the port, Ural climbed up the ladder with the lower crewman on his heels.  Ural saluted, glancing a closed fist off his chest and made a short bow.  An accepting nod from Johan and Ural looked up again.  “You have news sir?”

“Indeed Lieutenant, I just received and relayed a message that Stalwart has a leak in her timbers.  She is docking with haste.  We now have to cover her lay of water with Tempest and I fear it is ill timing, another raid is coming from the east.”  Johan nodded as Ural peered out the window at the growing glow on the shore.  “Aye Sir, I shall make ready the battle orders.”  Bowing again, Ural waited for Johan’s return bow to slide down the ladder, already shouting orders. 

Johan took a position at the port side view port as Implacable’s crew adjusted her angle so the broadside was presented to the where the oncoming raid would emerge, some 600 paces away on the shore.  The rain continued to drum against the armor of the ship as crewmen began readying the slings to send the fist volley of rocks over the hills to slow the raiding party.

Implacable gave a slight tug as the first sling let loose its missile.  Soon three more tugs followed as the last slings let loose, sending hundreds of pounds of rock hurtling over the hillside.  Johan watched as the rocks disappeared over the crest, and hoped each one took a few of the cursed rebels to the abyss.  He strode over to the starboard side just in time to catch Tempest slowly swinging about and moving around the far end of the island to cover the open side left by Stalwart, in case there was a second raid from the west.

Moving back to the port side, Johan saw the first rank of whichever tribe had come out this raid come over the hillside.  The projectiles were being hurled from the slings as fast as the munitions crews could hoist them up from the lower decks.  Huge chunks of rocks followed by showers of smaller rocks pounded and pelted the advancing ranks.  The first line of rebels was completely bowled under into the sandy shore, but the rest kept coming.  Johan finally saw larger dots trying to move along the outskirts of the battle, boats no doubt trying to get to the water and reach the Siege Ships.  He smiled as he heard Ural yelling at the sling crews to adjust and crush the boats before they hit water.  As a few of the ranks of rebels reached the waters edge, Implacable’s archers let loose their volleys.  Whole patches of the tribe’s warriors fell to the water pincushioned under the arrows; however, there were always more to replace them.  A few boats had managed to reach the water despite Ural’s shouting, and Johan could see the small silhouettes of the first arrows coming from the tribe’s side.  As the flight of missiles began clanging off the hull, Johan stepped to the ladder and climbed up to the iron-shod upper deck, taking his time.  The under officer of the level below him stood at the ladder, ready to pass on any orders to Ural, two floors below.  Each level of the ship had an under officer who oversaw the individual fighting and passed orders from the Commander to the Lieutenant.  Johan looked out over the expanse of water between his ship and the attacking tribe, the whoosh of the great slings occasionally rising up from either side of him.  A squat armored tower, with sides slanted like the rest of the ship, stood in the middle of the top deck, the rounded roof and thin vertical slits housed a looking glass, and enough space for one person to enter and rotate the glass.  Johan stepped up the short ladder and brought the looking glass over the shoreline, the waves of barbarians jumping into his view as if next to him.  Johan noticed some of the archers bringing torches from over the hill.  He shouted to the under officer who awaited behind one of the angled shields that gave the upper deck crew some protection.  “Inform Lieutenant Ural he is to concentrate fire on the archers.  We cannot let a fire arrow get in one of our ports by chance.  Leave the boats, hold fire on them until I give say.”

            The under officer leaned over the opening to shout down, relaying the orders.  As she fell silent a pause came in the waves of bolts that reached out to the shore and the small boats in turn.  As soon as the pause came however, the bolts leapt out again, raining down on the enemy archers like a storm of metal.  Johan looked to the under officer of the upper deck again, the young woman in charge of the slings.  The women may not serve in the land forces, but the three-ship navy made use of their skills.  Johan swore a female officer was better, calmer usually, and better vision, they made excellent healers as well.  His under officer bowed when she saw him looking.  “Commander?”

            “Officer Kein, hold the slings until I give leave to fire.  I think we shall break this rabble soon enough.  No need to waste more stone.”

            The officer bowed again, and turned, shouting orders with surprising ferocity for her size.  “Cease slings!  Cease means now you witless loon!  Kayos take you if you don’t learn to obey!”  One of the men at the sling got the rough side of her tongue as one last chunk of stone flew out.

            Johan turned back to the battle as she advanced on the unfortunate soldier.  Indeed, he could see the last lines of bowmen scrambling back up the sandy dunes to try and escape the rhythmic pulse of crossbow bolts.  A few of the groups carrying boats were dragging, or simply abandoning them on the shore, a few were sitting in the water, not sure where to go since the order to fire solely on the bowmen left them wondering why the bolts went over their small boats.  Apparently with the retreat of the shore bound barbarians, Ural decided those in the water shouldn’t escape.  A final wave of bolts lanced into the small cluster of boats in between Implacable and the shore, punching through flesh and wood alike.  In a few moments nothing on the water or the shore moved.  He smiled grimly, for another battle had been won.  Yet, he couldn’t help a small icicle of worry that began forming in his heart.  Something had been too easy about this raid.  Johan turned to the west and frowned, the city was framed by a crimson glow. Surely the raiding party couldn’t be that large on the Tempest’s front.  Johan shouted down to the open hatch by the ladder to the under officer.  “Inform             Lieutenant Ural to bring Implacable about and bring us into line with S.D.S Tempest.  I want to see how she is faring.”  The icicle continued to grow.

            “Yes Commander, at once!”  The officer turned down shouting the orders to the next officer in line.

Johan could hear Ural passing them onto the lower decks for the drive teams.  The sling officer looked to him as he turned back.  “Keep the slings ready.  I want to be prepared just in case.”  The officer bowed and walked among the waiting great slings, giving the orders in a normal voice instead of shouting.  Johan stood on the slightly raised platform, both feet planted and hands clasped at his back as Implacable smoothly began a slow turn on its axis.  The great siege ship began to slide forward as the bow pointed to the west.  As the city wall slowly gave way to open water, the icicle became a wildly wriggling worm of fear.  Johan simply couldn’t shake the feeling that something was wrong.  Tempest should’ve crushed the barbarians by now, even covering for Stalwart.  The red glow seemed to pulse with laughter as shadows flickered on the edges of the light as Implacable moved closer to the tip of the island.  He only hoped that The Father Of Waves had not finally withdrawn his hand like the other gods.  It was time to see what there was to see.