Eplidios - For Want of a Crown

**Iron Aquilifer** · March 31, 2018, 09:52 AM

This is to be my rewrite for A Born King - Act One. It has enjoyed a long life of dormancy, from when I was young and naive and had no real goals for it beyond to expand my word count. And as I looked back at it recently, analysing the strange choices I had made, it became apparent that I needed to overhaul the entire enterprise.

So below will lie my new reimagining of a story I once wrote.

CHAPTERS

**Iron Aquilifer** · March 31, 2018, 09:54 AM

CHAPTER ONE

The inevitability of the day was not lost on the crew of the Windward Steed. Death was coming for them on a northerly wind, flying red sails that loomed ever larger on the horizon. Though they dipped a hundred oars into the water, heaving hard against the ocean to give them just another hour of life, their chaser continued to devour one mile after the next without respite.

The hunter was like a shark ploughing through the ocean swell. Her fins were near two hundred oars of yellow hyrwood, cutting into the water with the ease of a bird taking to flight. Her crimson sails seemed so tall, so broad, that they blocked out the world behind them. Though mortal eyes could scarce separate charcoal sea from the sky’s black canvas, hers were glowing pits imbued with the spirits of the lost and the damned. The predator would not relent from the hunt, tasting honey-sweet blood on the salt spray that bracketed her narrow flanks.

The prize is near, she seemed to whisper, death with have its due.

Too far for the Windward’s crew to see, though they felt his eyes trained on their every movement all the same, Death watched as his quarry floundered. He stood tall and unshaken at the prow of his ship, a smile stretching so painfully wide across his face that the flesh seemed to contort like water to accommodate its spread. We have them, his mind cheered. We have them.

Death’s steed heard the victory in her master’s thoughts. She could feel it as sharp and biting as if it were her own lust. So keenly was his desire, so raw and intense his dream of sinking iron teeth into the Windward that even the gods could do nothing but feel it as their own. With beastial passion they hurled a gale behind the red canvas of Death, and with infallible vigor they drove the yellow oars into accepting ocean with renewed fervor.

“Ready bows.”

A howl erupted from the back of the hunter, the damned warriors of Death leaping to the prow wielding weapons seemingly enchanted with foreign magic. For the prey, faltering in their oar strokes at the last, it was as much a call to prayer as a church’s bell toll.

Elpidios took a lazy step back from the prow, allowing his archers to gain another precious yard of range on their target. With almost audible relish they notched their arrows, pulling the string back until it could go no further. Despite the poor light his bowmen judged the distance with a professional eye, raising their bows to offer the best arc as their platform rose and fell with the waves.

“Loose.”

The ranging shot tore into the shadows of the night, lost to eye and ear as they guided themselves towards expectant flesh.

“Notch.”

The command was echoed down the ship, Elpidios’ archers eager to let their profession answer the call to violent intent. Twenty bows found themselves raised towards the stars, iron headed arrows hungry to devour life.

“Loose.”

Elpidios clenched his fist as the first cries of pain tore through the air. Turn about, he willed of the Windward Steed and the gods that watched from above with bated breath. Let me have you.

His prey did not hear the demand, even as a second flight of arrows fell about its deck. A third volley was closely followed by a fourth and then a fifth, sending the enemy crew into disarray. But even as the paltry marine crew of the Windward rushed to answer the hail of arrows with a volley of their own, it was clear that their escape, that their survival to outlast the night and see sunrise, was the dream of a blind man.

And then, by divine hand or faltering courage, the Windward Steed began to turn. As if driven by madness, the prize lurched to present its flank to the chasing demons. Elpidios danced forward, pushing aside his bowmen as he leaned further towards the kill. He could feel the fear from its crew like morning dew. You fools.

“Ramming speed.”

He heard the drum beat from below deck even over the dying gasps of night-cloaked sailors struck by unseen arrows. It was the heartbeat of a stallion of the underworld, pounding into the ears of gods. Louder and louder it thundered until even his own words were lost in the backdrop of the drums, until the pace of his chariot became the rhythmic symphony of his own heart.

“Brace.”

For a moment, a single lingering heartbeat that was held frozen in time, the gods robbed the world of sound.

But it was only a moment, for the dagger prow of Elpidios’ warship sounded a thunder strike as it plunged into oak and fir and flesh. Onward it drove, splitting and rending and tearing. It did not stop for the cries of chained rowers, nor the prayers of their captors. They were the demands of mortals, and death would not listen to their plight. Deeper the black iron prow gorged, shredding open a seeping wound into the meat of the Windward Steed. At the last, with a final shuddering jerk, the hunter found itself wedged like an anchor into the flank of its prey.

“She is yours!” Elpidios called out, his hand raised towards the newly-made wreck. The prize he had swore two weeks previous to gift to them. “Feast on your treasure.”

Roaring like some jungle beast, Death and his minions reaped their due of the prize and her crew, the warriors surging aboard the Windward with sword and axe and black hearts devoid of mercy. A futile resistance was offered, Flendrian marines rushing to meet doom with shield and battle axe and a dream of the eternal feasting halls of the Old Kings. Elpidios and his men batted it aside, the deck of the merchant ship littering with fresh corpses as they surged on below like a tsunami of iron and blood. At last their lust could be sated, the days at sea turning martial duty into primal action. They became an unstoppable whirlwind, killing all who dared to test them. None would see happiness again.

Deeper the warriors went, cleaving through the rowers who had hoped to survive long past the capture of their galley. All thoughts of loot and ransom were lost, all dreams of personal riches cast aside in the heat of victory. This was to be their treasure, their reward for faithful service. And Elpidios would have it no other way.

Though his men waded further into the flooded lower decks in search of more prey to claim, their captain turned his gaze towards the prow. There, as was the custom of the Flendrian crew, he would find the quarters held for passengers too powerful or too worthy to be forced to inhale the stench of unwashed sailors on a voyage that could span the turning of the moons. There, he would find the treasure he had promised on a bent knee to claim.

“Get this door open,” he commanded, pointing towards the oak barrier which barred his entry into the guest’s lodging. All around him the cries and cheers and screams echoed a symphony that only a prince could revel in. On and on the chorus sang, as black water seeped between splintered wood to swallow the ship whole.

Two of his men set to work, hammers striking at the timber with zealous abandon. He had promised that the riches within would make them princes alongside him in all but blood, their names remembered in the long ballards of singers and tavern bards for a thousand years to come. To see their conviction as genuine as childlike hope, it almost made him guilty to have kept the lies going for as long as he had.

The cabin door burst open with a furious explosion of splinters, revealing a room that could have passed for a royal bedchamber. Stepping into the light of a dozen candles, Elpidios turned his eyes towards the prize he had lied and deceived good men into sailing half an ocean to capture.

She wore a dress of shifting emerald, once green, then black, then purple. It was finery queens would dream of, and kings wage eternal war to gift to their daughters. Each strand of it’s length was worth more gold and gems than could fill the hold of Elpidios’ ship, worth enough coin to buy an army of mercenaries for a warlord to carve out a kingdom that could last an age. It was dirt compared to the value of the flesh it embraced.

“Prince Elpidios,” the woman declared. There was no sign of confusion, no perfume of fear clinging to her. She addressed the corsair as if he were a chamber boy, her voice as strong as a king’s sentencing judgement upon his realm. “I had expected a man of your reputation would know that to keep a lady waiting is an act of the utmost impropriety.”

**Alwyn** · April 04, 2018, 05:05 AM

A great start for your rewrite! You create a powerful impression of the terrible threat which the crew of the Windward Steed are facing. I'm intrigued by the reaction of the woman to the sudden arrival of Elpidios and looking forward to seeing what will happen next!