Chapter 14 - The Duel upon the Iron Deck
The impact shook Rowan’s bones, throwing him across the scorched oak timbers. Sylva landed hard, pinned by the massive magnetic winch that dragged her down against the iron deck plates. Valerius stepped over the wreckage, his whalebone armor blackened by soot, wielding a broadsword etched with dragon-slaying runes.
""Your mother was weak, boy,"" Valerius sneered, his voice dripping with venom. ""She believed beasts and men could share the world. Look around you! Power belongs to iron and coal, not flying lizards!"" He raised the heavy blade to plunge it into Sylva’s exposed throat.
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Rowan leaped forward, brandishing the tide-glass lance. He deflected the strike with a ringing crash of sparks, his smaller frame sliding across the rain-slicked deck. Valerius laughed, swinging a heavy backhand that struck Rowan’s shoulder, knocking the lance from his grasp. But Rowan did not cower. Remembering the lessons of the wind and the wild cliffs, he rolled beneath the tyrant’s heavy kick and drove the obsidian dagger Maren had given him straight into the hydraulic release valve of the magnetic winch.
The pressurized steam erupted in Valerius's face with a deafening hiss. Blinded and screaming, the warlord stumbled backward over the broken railing just as the flagship's ammunition hold detonated below decks. The massive explosion split the dreadnought in two, pitching Valerius into the hungry ocean below, swallowed by the vortex of his own burning creation.
