Return of the General's Daughter

The crowd pressed tighter along the shoreline, their faces wan and hollow in the dying blaze of the sunset. The orange light cut across the bay like a wound, painting the sea in fire. From the mast of the merchant ship, Pamela hung like a broken banner. Her cries, raw and ragged, tore through the salt-laden wind, a child's voice unraveling against the vast indifference of the ocean.

Lara stood rigid, fists trembling—not with fear, but with fury so sharp it scorched her veins.

"She is bait," Alaric murmured, his hand brushing the pommel of his sword, voice taut as a drawn bowstring. "They want us to come for her."

Lara's jaw hardened. Her eyes burned. "Then we'll give them what they want," she said. "And rip it from their hands."

They withdrew behind the curve of a fisherman's hut, beneath the rows of palms. There, in the shadows, Lara's family and comrades gathered close: Alaric, her father, her brothers, and their allies. and planned their attack.

The Norsemen were warriors of the land, not the sea—but Lara was no stranger to battle on the water. In another life, she had fought where waves were as deadly as swords.

Their plan came quick and ruthless: a decoy charge from the front to draw the Zurans' eyes, while Lara, Alaric, General Odin, and a hardened Estalian commander would slip in from the east with skiffs, striking where the enemy thought themselves safe.

The rest of the combined forces of the Phoenix Legion and Estalis naval forces would attack from the front.

As Asael barked the order, the Legion surged to the docks. Armor hit the planks with clatters, boots were kicked aside. Speed, not weapons, would win them the chance. Fishing boats and rafts were seized, ropes hacked loose. Galahad vaulted into the prow of a skiff, Gideon right behind, their men a tide of resolve at their backs.

The boats pushed into the bay, oars biting into the black water. Every stroke brought Pamela's small figure into sharper relief—her wrists bound cruelly above her head, her body twisting in the sea wind.

Meanwhile, from the south, five skiffs cut silently through the water. Painted in muted blues and dusk-grays, they seemed like phantoms, invisible to untrained eyes. Lara and her strike force wore black garb, their shapes swallowed by the gloom, eyes fixed on the merchant ship ahead. Its hull gleamed like polished stone, lanterns glowing as malevolent eyes. Shadows prowled its deck—Zurans, patient as wolves and waiting.

The ship loomed larger, its hull black as obsidian, lanterns glowing like malevolent eyes. Figures moved along its deck—silent, disciplined, waiting.

A ripple ran through the water. Lara's instincts screamed.

"Down!" Asael roared.

The first volley struck—arrows tipped with flame. One boat went up instantly, men thrashing in the water, their screams drowned by the hiss of burning pitch. Asael's boat rocked violently as arrows peppered its sides.

"They'll sink us before we reach the hull!" a soldier cried, raising his shield against the rain of fire.

Nicolas and Logan, on a boat, protected by soldiers with shields, took out their bows and arrows, retaliating. After every arrow released, a scream would be heard from the big boat.

On the southern flank, Lara's fury snapped like a whip. "Row!" she bellowed. "Row as if your life depends on it—because hers does!"

They surged forward. At last the skiff slammed against the ship's flank. Grappling hooks flew upward, biting into wood. Lara was first to climb, hauling herself over the railing with a snarl.

The deck became a battlefield of shadows. Zurans in black leathers slipped from the darkness, blades glinting in the lantern light. They moved with the silence of assassins, their faces veiled.

Steel met steel in a storm of sparks. Lara's sword cut a path through them, her fury a living flame. Behind her, Alaric fought with grim precision, each stroke measured, efficient.

But Pamela's cries still cut above the clash—high, terrified, echoing.

"Sister!"

Lara turned—and her blood froze.

She turned just in time to see the true horror of the trap. Ropes creaked, pulleys strained. The mast groaned, ropes shrieking as it lowered outward, Pamela bound and dangling above the sea. The Zurans weren't killing her. They were lowering her into the waves—to drown her before the eyes of the city.

"No!" The word ripped from Lara's chest like thunder. She carved through two men, only to be slammed against the railing, steel pressing to her throat. Above, Pamela screamed, the mast creaking lower.

And then she saw it.

The crowd on the shore. Hundreds of eyes fixed on the ship. Not just watching the fight—but watching her.

This was never about killing Pamela swiftly. It was theater. A public crucible meant to twist the Legion's symbol of hope into a spectacle of helplessness.

If Pamela died before the eyes of Lavista, the whispers would harden into truth.

Lara took the coiled rope out of her waist. She secured one end to the base of the mast and with incredible speed, she ran on the mast that was being toppled.

Her soldiers threw themselves at the ropes, blades hacking, hands bleeding. Alaric cut his way and guarded the area where Lara's rope was anchored.

"The thought they can break us here, but they are very wrong" he murmured to himself as he trailed the figure running at an awkward angle like it it was flat ground.

"But we will not break." Alaric's eyes blazed. "Not tonight."

Together, they surged forward, their blades carving a path toward the pulley. The Zurans fought like shadows given form—fast, relentless, inhumanly disciplined. For every one they cut down, another stepped from the darkness.

And still the mast creaked lower. Pamela's feet brushed the spray of the waves.

Lara's lungs burned, her arms heavy. She drove her sword into the pulley, splintering wood, snapping rope. The mast jerked violently, Pamela swinging back toward the ship, shrieking in terror.

The Zurans hissed, their plan unraveling.

"Pam!" Lara cried.

The mast jerked, Pamela swinging wildly back toward the ship. Lara hurled herself onto the rigging, seizing the little sister in midair. Together they crashed into Alaric's chest. Pamela's sobs buried into his armor as the Legion roared triumph, steel ringing like thunder.

Cheers erupted from the Legion—but too soon.

A horn sounded from the merchant ship. Dark sails unfurled above them. And from the fog beyond Lavista Bay, three more ships slid forward, their banners of white skull over black, swayed with the breeze, taunting the people on the shore.

The trap was not the mast. It was the bay itself.