The city still screamed. Even after the thirtieth sunrise since its fall, the wails clawed their way through the alleyways like smoke from a fire that refused to die, given instead more wood to raise more flames.
The result was the stench of empire dying beneath their fleet.
Meanwhile down by the harbor, the fleet of the Confederation gleamed beneath a rising sun to a setting Empire.
Slaves, gold, silks, and whatever else could be pried loose from the corpse of Azania was put on ships. For the men aboard them, that was enough. They had come for plunder and blood, and they'd found both in blasphemous abundance. Now they wanted out, back to the free seas, before the only remaining army noticed what they'd done.
It was sensible. The Free-Men had always been raiders, never rulers. They struck, they feasted, They raped, burnt and then they just vanished. That was the way of their kind, wolves, not shepherds.
But wolves could not build crowns.
