The Destruction of Black Port (Part 2)

There were thirty merchant ships and fourteen military vessels in Black Port, with more than enough room to evacuate thousands of people in the city.

However, not all of the ships docked were willing to wait when they heard the alarm bells.

Six merchant ships had departed immediately and were halfway out of the bay.

The docks were overflowing with terrified civilians, with many trying to push each other out of the way and clamber onto the boats. Many fell into the waters and struggled against the cold, dark waves around them.

The soldiers on the military vessels had tried to descend their ships to help protect the city, but they were stuck as the crowds tried to force their way on board.

“Let us through!” Their commander roared. “We have to-”

Someone threw a rock at him.

The soldiers drew their swords and raised their shields. Some even pushed a few members of the crowd onto the ground.

“Let us on already!”

“Hurry up, before we’re killed!”

“Take my baby, at least! Please!”

“Good people, we will but first you must-”

The commander spotted a cloaked figure floating above the city. The figure unleashed a fireball into the back of the crowd, setting many ablaze who desperately dove into the sea.

“Raise the anchors! Archers, take down that mage! The rest of you! Get as many of these people on board as possible! We depart in three minutes!”

***

At the gates, Olaf and a hundred of the city watch were fighting a losing battle.

Despite their best efforts and valour, they weren’t strong enough to endure the undead who swept through them into the city. The skeletons that got through broke into people’s homes and cut down everyone they saw, whether they were man, woman or child.

Olaf struggled to stay standing.

The long night shift, the constant fighting, the bleeding lacerations across his arms and chest.

He almost dropped to his knees five separate times, but he steadied himself on the nearby buildings, slowing taking in everything around him.

The fleeting battle.

The screams of those trying to flee.

The piercing sound of iron cutting flesh.

Is this…the Great Disaster? He ground his teeth together as he cut another skeleton in two. What can…men do…against…this?

Two skeletons leapt at him. He parried the first blow, but the second landed.

A blade stabbed into his stomach as another slit his throat.

As Olaf fell flat on the ground, the last thing he saw was the undead horde massacring the men he’d called brothers.

***

Only three ships remained docked at Black Port.

Thousands had escaped on the boats, but tens of thousands had been left behind.

Those still in the city tried to climb onto the remaining vessels, but those were promptly sunk by a barrage of fireballs.

Most of those left on the docks leapt into the sea, trying to swim away, but the skeleton archers hunted them with ease.

Those who had been too scared to swim were brutally slaughtered.

With every death, the city grew ever quiet until, at last, there were no humans left alive.

Then, the dead simply stopped moving and stared at the fleeing ships.

The liches landed and did the same.

They didn’t attack, nor scream or move even slightly.

They just stared until the last ship was out of sight.

Once it had vanished, the Lich King David had appointed started resurrecting the corpses in Black Port.

The rest of the liches joined in and in just a few hours the undead army had grown to seventy-thousand strong.

***

By the time news reached Themis and the rest of the city, Black Port was no more.

Within a week, there wasn’t a single person in thew Holy Empire who didn’t know of the horrors of the attack.