Demon blood festival of Kairouan part 5

Kassim docked his ship near the palace. The queen waited for this unknown ship to make contact with her.

"Thank you, unknown sir, for fighting those demons. You came just at the right time," the queen said with a smile.

"Oh, it was nothing. Demons are the bane of the universe and need to be annihilated as soon as possible," Kassim explained.

"It seems you are very knowledgeable," the queen said, surprised.

"A merchant captain has to be."

"Then why weren't you able to navigate to this city sooner.....We were sailing across the skies of the desert, hoping someone would tell us of this place," Udi said while looking pissed off.

"I told you, I wrote the name of this city on a piece of paper, but it was burnt while fighting the leviathan, whom we defeated thanks to us," Kassim replied.

"Doesn't excuse that you lost our luggage AND where we should pick them from. Unless we find Rufus and the others, that king won't pay us anything," Udi yelled.

Kassim looked embarrassed but then saw Rufus on the floor.

"Look, everything worked out well," Kassim said, with Udi not believing the luck his captain had.

Rufus ran to Kassim while the other came inside.

"Kassim, what are you doing here?!" Haley yelled in utter shock.

"Same thing I would say to you. It seems you reached here pretty well on your own." Kassim said, laughing.

"I am sorry to interrupt this nice reunion, but might you move your ship?" the queen asked Kassim.

Five flying gravity ships appeared behind the red fox. They were smaller but had rams on the helm and a smaller sail.

"I have to go and meet a prince..." she said before boarding one.

¨¨

The prince's ship reached above the clouds. Six other large gravity ships were waiting, each with around eighty cannons.

The prince's ship flew next to the lead ship and boarded it. The admiral of the mighty fleet was waiting for him.

"My prince, we have been waiting for your return and command, as ordered," the admiral said and readied all his men.

"Good, well then. Oh, change of plan, by the way. We will be bombing Kairouan until only rubble remains. How does that sound?" The prince asked the admiral.

"I...aaahhh...uhmmm," the admiral stumbled with a reply.

"Good, right? Let us get this show started. Commence the destruction of Kairouan," the prince ordered.

The admiral then pointed to the direction where the prince had flown from. A smaller fleet of galleys pushed forth from the cloud, with hundreds of oars rowing them forward. An iron battering ram was at the front with one sail per galley. On the sails were depictions of locusts with a burning sun in their background.

The lead ship had a larger battering ram, and in its front stood the queen Satifa. It was the fleet of the Saracen people, built in secret by the queen.

The prince's smile vanished a cold sweat flowed through his skin." Shit," he said.

The imperial ships still needed to turn sideways to unleash a barrage of cannon fire onto the flying galleys. Before they could rotate, two galleys rammed their iron battering rams onto an imperial gravity ship. Wood splintered, and cannons flew around inside the massive ship, killing many sailors and soldiers of the empire.

As other imperial ships were getting ready to fire on the flying galleys, a cloud of locusts attacked them. The imperial sailors and Varangians yelled as the locusts ate them alive, with the ship unable to fire their volleys. Sailors, in panic, unknowingly jumped off the ledge of the ships down.

"Admiral! Command the other ships to attack those galleys and get us out of here!" the prince yelled.

"But my prince, they will surely perish!"

"Yes, but we will survive and live. Do you not want to live?"

The admiral was overcome by fear and horrible death, being eaten alive by a swarm of locusts.

He then ordered two warships to move and commanded them to be rearguards. Without hesitation and zero remorse, the prince entered his cabin while his men and countrymen yelled in agony on the other battleships.

"Father won't be happy..." he mumbled to himself.

Queen Satifa saw that the lead imperial ship was leaving. She used her millions of locusts to guide her ship and commence chase, but cannon fire hit her ship, chopping down the mast.

Without question, the imperial ships were fulfilling their duty. They were ready to sacrifice themselves so that their prince could escape. Tens of cannons fired, and one galley was shredded into pieces. The Saracen sailors were cut down by cannon fire or by flying wood splinters. As one cannonball hit the gravity stone that was in the hull of the Saracen ship, the ship started to fall from the sky.

"Captain, get our galley to follow that lead ship! We can not let them get away!" Queen yelled.

"My queen, our fleet will be blasted apart if we continue this course."

The queen saw that two of her ships had already been destroyed. Even though they had caught the imperial navy by surprise, the overwhelming firepower of the dokkaebi cannons had been mounted on the imperial warships.

The queen looked at the fleeing ship that carried the prince away back to Aesis. She then stared at the two warships engaging her last ships that did their best to evade the cannon volleys.

"Captain, take us back and ram the left ship. I will take care of the other one," the queen ordered and jumped off the flying galley.

A swarm of locusts carried the queen toward the other imperial ship, flying her across the sky. She landed on the boat's helm with the sailors and Varangian soldiers terrified, like an angel of death was right in front of them.

"Your only sin was that you were loyal to the wrong person," the queen said right before she unleashed her locusts.