Ehrir created nearly two dozens of steel spears with relative ease. Meanwhile Nalia, according to his plan, stopped using her Conquering. The pirates didn’t fall down anymore, but that didn’t give the enemies a significant advantage – after the level of destruction Varhel brought to their ranks the chance to surely win this battle had slipped away. Of course, Nalia could continue overpowering their souls, but she had to concentrate greatly to carry out her part of the plan.

Varhel was still flying above the frigate, but he was wasn’t using magic anymore. Instead he just watched the fight waged below him. And it was one hell of a fight, indeed. Without the chance to destroy his own ship accidentally, the old man was going at it with everything he got. Flames and lightning bolts were surging in waves from his body and turning everything in his vicinity into ashes. That angered Hildos greatly and he answered that seemingly mindless destruction with highly focused attacks. They could easily devastate the older sorcerer and he had to use a great amount of his power to create shields again and again. They were getting destroyed easily and Hildos didn’t even have to create defenses himself – his speed was superb and he was easily evading them with well-timed jumps in all directions.

Varhel watched this nightmarish spectacle in silence for some time before he saw that Ehrir was creating weapons. He flew back to the galley. His wings transformed into hands again as he landed.

“When we are gonna do it?” he asked straightforwardly.

“Well, I am ready. A few spears more or less don’t matter. But you should ask Nalia.” Ehrir started lining up the weapons on the handrail. It was an easy task – the storm had calmed entirely and no pirates were daring to come at his direction with Varhel besides him. While he was engaged in the task he heard the brother and sister talking somewhere behind him.

“Can you do it, sis? This seems like a pretty hard thing to do… at least to me.” When he was speaking to Nalia, Varhel’s voice was not the same as usual. It was sweeter and far softer, filled with a deep feeling of caring and love.

“I’m sure, Varh. You’re not good with Conquering, so you don’t understand. It’s pretty easy, I just… I need a little more time, okay? My concentration has to reach its highest for this whole thing to work out.”

“Take your time, sis. Nobody’s rushing you. A couple of minutes aren’t important.”

Ehrir gritted his teeth when he heard those words. Every minute was important even when the battle took this unexpected turn and Varhel knew that. Sevrian had a better chance now, but that didn’t mean he was going to win without his disciples’ help. Hell, he said it himself, after all. Only time could tell the duel’s winner.

Ehrir’s emotions quickly shifted from anger to just an undefined lack of calmness. Still, he understood Nalia. He had told her to take the needed time in the first place back when he was still explaining the plan. He could only passively watch from the side for now. Well, not so passively. He created a bunch more spears during the time it took Nalia to fully focus.

When the three of them were finally ready to engage in the next phase of the plan, the pirates’ frigate was already badly damaged by Sevrian. The ship was engulfed in smoke and flames were covering big parts of its deck, while others had collapsed. The question wasn’t when this entire thing was going to sink… It was when.

The fact that the frigate was being destroyed just made Ehrir even more impatient, but luckily Nalia got ready. The trio had to execute the next part of the plan perfectly if they wanted to succeed. And exactly this was the hard part.

“Okay… Varhel, grab some of these spears and fly to the frigate. You can throw them at random, but, as I said, you have to be quick and aim for the pirates’ torso or head. Nalia, when it comes to you…” Ehrir briefly explained the role of everyone (although he hadn’t much work for himself after the spears’ creation). They only nodded as answer.

“We already know this stuff!” exclaimed the young woman. “Shall we begin now? Keeping all of this soul energy so tightly can get pretty tiring pretty fast.”

“Yeah… Well, let’s go.” As soon as Ehrir uttered these words, Varhel quickly transformed, but this time he didn’t just get wings. His lower legs turned into bird’s ones. It was a grotesque sight, but he could certainly stand on them. And they looked deadly, with massive shiny black claws and thick bones just underneath the gleamy, rough looking skin. Those things were fully capable of ripping flesh and taking lives. But they weren’t going to be used for that now.

Varhel grabbed a couple of spears with his claws. It was a strange to say the least, but it would work according to the young man’s own words – he said (numerous times, actually) that he was perfectly capable of throwing weapons with this transformed legs, and with good accuracy. Ehrir could only trust him.

Nalia’s brother flew off to the enemy frigate, but he was slower this time. It took him a few rotations around the burning masts of the ship to speed up decently. After this he sank into the abyss of fire and smoke that obscured most of the things going on upon the deck.

Ehrir swallowed. His vision was deeply obscured. His sight was useless. And the countless noises coming from the duel made the chance to hear something important non-existent. He had to believe in Varhel. Somewhere behind him Nalia was quietly praying to some god whose name was unknown and strange-sounding to the Undone One. Could he pray too? But… to who? Hasthan, the Lord of the Unliving? The All-Seeing One? The Crescent Master? All of these names sounded ridiculous and meaningless to him. Varhel could take care of the problem without his prayers.

Still, relief was written all over his face when the winged silhouette of the young man ascended from the smoke and came sweeping by with incredible speed. He grabbed another two spears and was gone before Ehrir knew it.

“It’s going good so far!” His shout sounded as he disappeared again.

This process of him going back and forth between the ships repeated several times until the total number of spears was drastically lowered. When only four of the weapons remained Varhel slowed down a bit and started talking frantically.

“He’s used to my patterns by now. He won’t expect what’s coming next. Sis, you hear me?”

“Yes. I’m more than ready.” Nalia had put on a serious, cold expression, the same one as when Ehrir first met her. It looked as if she was some distant alabaster statue.

“Then let’s proceed”, said Ehrir as he gave another pair of spears to Varhel.

The young man just looked straight at Ehrir without saying a word for a second.

“I’ll do it! I already said it before – have faith in me!” A faint smile appeared on his face, but his tone was serious and hard as stone. He quickly flew off and it took him more than a dozen rotations around the whole frigate to get to the desired speed. It was indeed mind-blowingly fast. After that he descended into the smoke qne started shouting with voice imbued with magic.

“Master! Would you create a strong gust of wind after a few moments?” He yelled at the top of his lungs and the empowered voice pierced Ehrir’s ears.

The answer didn’t come in an instant. And, instead of a voice, a powerful winds just surged out from somewhere within the cloud of dust and ashes. They cleared it out rather quickly and the devastated deck of the frigate was laid before Ehrir’s eyes.

Most of the ship’s upper half was simply no more. It was missing and the rooms of the lower deck could be easily seen even from a distance. Both of the sorcerers looked far worse than before – with torn clothes and numerous wounds on their bodies that ranged from burns and cuts to bruises and scratches. There was no clear winner between the two and no one looked like they had an advantage currently. However, the smile was finally erased from Hildos’ face. He was breathing heavily and half of his face was covered in blood.

Sevrian was standing at about ten feet from him. Just perfectly far away for Varhel to do as intended.

The young man flew straight toward the pirates’ captain, but he didn’t throw the spears right away.

“You think this will work, boy? How many times do I have to evade this damned things for you to…” Hildos was already leaping to the right when he suddenly went quiet. A second later he was down on the deck – or whatever remained of it – with both of his palms struck by the spears. The massive steel weapons had sunken deep into his flesh and pierced the wood below it. An animalistic roar of pain came out of the pirate’s mouth. His face was a bit paler and a single drop of blood fell from his nose.

“Well, it was enough in the end, wasn’t it?” Ehrir said after turning to Nalia. She had a tired but relieved expression on her face. At the same moment when Hildos tried to evade Varhel’s weapons she had bombarded him with a very concentrated ray of Conquering. It was enough to slow his reflexes enough for the unusual attacks of her brother – who had aimed for the vital parts of the body until that very moment – to strike down the captain.

“I’m going to drink half the alcohol on this ship after we’re done with this…” muttered Nalia.

“Just don’t forget that you owe a bottle of… eh, whatever it was”, said Ehrir after smiling. The battle – no longer than half an hour, probably – had finally ended. He had to rest a little bit. He felt like shit in the moment.

On the frigate Sevrian was walking towards Hildos with a delighted expression on his face. Different kinds of attacks were still emitted from the captain’s body, but they were weak – the physical pain and the Conquering of Nalia were both responsible for this. The old man’s pale shields were blocking them off completely and with ease.

“It was a nice fight, captain Hildos, I have to say that… But it ends here. Do you have anything to say?” Sevrian had put on an emotionless expression.

“Yeah…” the captain smiled widely. “Fuck you!”

Those were the last words that Hildos ever uttered in this life and they resonated loudly and clearly through the entirety of the two ships. After just a second a powerful blow of lightning left the famed captain of the Pirates of the Purple Flame in a charred state. The pirates on the galley’s deck looked at this event with shock in their eyes before they began dropping their weapons and surrendering.

The battle was over.