Free Web NovelChapter 105: Obsidian Varnish
Gravel kicked up against the stable posts as Kane swung onto the sturdy roan gelding.
Thora caught her own stirrup a split second later, tossing him his leather reins with a sharp flick of her wrist.
"Ride," she ordered.
They took the narrow cliffside trail at a full, reckless gallop.
Leaving the suffocating air of the Sylvandar manor behind felt like shedding a suit of lead armor.
For two miles, there was only the sound of pounding hooves and the biting ocean wind tearing through their hair.
Thora kept her eyes fixed on the treacherous slope, but her voice cut clean over the galloping roar.
"The mute girl’s wearing a ring," she called out, leaning into a sharp bend.
"Kessa says her pulse feels like a dying sparrow. We are running an orphanage now, Chief?"
"The ring bought the cedar, Thora," Kane rumbled back, keeping his center of balance low over the gelding’s mane.
"That’s the entire transaction. Look at the kid, she’s a cracked teacup. The Empress required a signed receipt for forty warships, and I gave her one. It is ink on parchment. It isn’t real."
"And the white knight?" Thora asked.
Turning her head, she gave him a cool, thoroughly observant side-eye.
Her dark braid whipped over her shoulder.
"The whole entryway smelled of winter pine and sweat when you walked in," Thora noted, her tone dangerously casual.
"You didn’t put your teeth in the Princess, but you definitely put them in someone."
’No point in spinning noble lies to the one person who actually knows what my blood smells like,’ Kane realized.
Holding his horse steady alongside hers, he met her gaze without a single flinch of hesitation.
"I lost my grip," Kane admitted bluntly.
"She threw her holy paladin status around inside the guest suite, and I snapped back to put her on the floorboards. It got messy against the plaster. But my belt stayed buckled. I didn’t take her."
Thora didn’t look away.
Her fingers stayed loose on her reins, her posture dropping its usual sarcastic armor to genuinely test his footing.
"Why?" she asked softly. freewebnovёl.ƈom
Reaching across the dangerous gap between their racing saddles, Kane caught the back of her neck.
His large palm cupped the familiar, corded muscle warmly, his thumb stroking the sensitive line behind her ear.
He applied just enough pressure to let her feel the steady, unshakeable certainty in his grip.
"Because when the high-borns finish their little tea parties, and the imperial gold dries up, I’m still just a gladiator standing in the mud," Kane rumbled low, his eyes locking onto hers as the horses thundered forward together.
"And you are still the one holding the other axe. The paladin is a sharp sword, Thora. But you are the arm swinging it. I don’t forget where my real house is."
A slow, satisfied smirk reclaimed her face.
"Was it good?"
"Not even close when compared to you."
"As long as you keep coming back."
"Always."
"Can you save the princess?"
"We’ll try."
Bumping her boot hard against his stirrup, Thora let out a genuine exhale.
"Good. Because if you started acting like a polite Milfheim lapdog, I would have to drown you myself. Now pace up. Your new fleet is about to get burned."
Cresting the high grassy bluff overlooking the fjords, the expanse of the gray ocean opened up below.
Tucked securely inside the deep, forested coves sat the forty pristine Milfheim war galleons.
Their white cedar hulls rocked gently in the incoming surf. Standing on the very edge of the precipice, holding the rolled red ambush flags, was Commander Kaelia.
"Report," Kane instructed, swinging down from his saddle.
Kaelia didn’t waste time on formal bows.
Handing him her brass spyglass, she pointed straight out toward the gray horizon.
Three miles out, twelve clumsy Menual cargo vessels were slowly turning their broadsides toward the empty stone watchtowers.
Mounted on their clunky wooden decks sat crude iron pitch-catapults, their tension arms cranked back to the maximum.
"The sea breeze is pushing inland today," Kaelia warned, her red brows knitting together as she looked down at her pristine fleet.
"If Morvak’s vanguard gets off a single volley of Greek pitch before our ships clear the narrow cove mouth, the fire will bottleneck us against the rocks. Pristine cedar burns very fast, Lord Kane."
’She’s right,’ Kane calculated, lowering the spyglass.
’A bottlenecked pitch fire turns my forty-ship armada into a giant floating bonfire before we even hit open water. I need to cheat the physics.’
"Keep your flags rolled for another minute," Kane told her.
"We are losing the tide—"
"I said wait," Kane repeated calmly.
Bypassing the standard skill trees, he opened his mental sub-menu and pulled directly from the ten thousand gold coins Queen Sylva had deposited into his name. freeωebnovēl.c૦m
[Bloodfang Market]
[Sovereign’s War Cache: Accessed]
[Category: Naval Fortification]
[Selected Item: Abyssal Resin Lacquer (Fleet-Scale)]
[Cost: 5,000 Gold Coins]
[Description: A dense, sub-oceanic alchemical sap. Instantly coats linked wooden vessels in an obsidian, non-conductive skin.]
[Grants 100% immunity to mundane thermal combustion for 12 Hours.]
’Five thousand gold just to paint some cedar,’ Kane smirked internally. ’Worth every single coin.’
Selecting confirm sent a strange, oily shhhk sound rippling across the quiet coves below.
Kaelia gasped, taking a sudden step back from the cliff’s edge.
Starting at the waterline of the flagship, a wave of glossy, obsidian black bloomed across the white Milfheim cedar.
It spread like creeping ink, racing across the linked mooring ropes and swallowing all forty vessels in a matter of seconds.
The elegant matriarchal galleons transformed instantly into pitch-black, unburnable ocean predators, absorbing the midday light like open voids.
"What in the Goddess’s name did you just do to my wood?" Kaelia breathed, her pale hands trembling against her sword hilt.
Reaching over his shoulder, Kane drew Mjoldr.
"I fixed the math," Kane smiled, a ruthless spark dancing in his eyes.
"Drop the red flag, Commander. Time to eat."
Crimson silk fluttered against the gray sky as Kaelia released the pole.
They marched into the sea.
