The boat's motor sputtered, spitting water into the air before grinding to a halt on the sand. Rinvar jumped out of the vessel; his boots dug in and grated on a mix of sediment, seawater from the lazy and receding current, and fine bits of what looked like flakes of charred metal. Burned-out pillboxes were draped with two banners: one of the nine-headed serpent wrapped around a sword, and the other: a blue and red flag with a rose surrounded by eight beasts of myth. A Navy officer stood at attention and extended a salute to the investigator.
"Welcome, Captain Melvich." The officer waited for Rinvar to salute back and continued speaking, "We did not expect that you would arrive here before the Schild family representative."
"I like being early – or I believe I do." Rinvar walked alongside the Navy man. His attention was diverted to the sound of crumbling masonry nearby. The keening crunch of metal wrenched from what was left of a small gun bunker almost made him reach for his ears. "You are quite busy here lately."
"Admiral Feuerstein's orders. He insisted that there could be hidden facilities on the island." The officer made a short glance at the other men on the job and resumed his focus on the path ahead. "We thought we were making progress, but all we have seen are caved-in tunnels so far."
"Heard anything about who will take part in Lord Cecil's search from the family?"
"None that I am aware of. Should we treat this as a sign that the stubborn nobles are beginning to trust us? Highly doubtful. Who knows? The only thing the Schild Clan has done so far is to retrieve Lord Cecil's weapons."
"They are more likely to start on a different lead. You can never tell with those old families."
"Agreed, Captain." Both men stopped before the remains of what could have been one of the main gates to the compound. Shells left incomplete circular holes in the upper area where the doorway was held. The occasional whistle of wind passed by the hollowed-out pillars; it was a haunting flute that sang the doom of the Gray Fox's massive fortress. The officer then stood before Rinvar, asking:
"We're here, Captain. Do you need me to be around?"
"I can do this fine. Besides, there are plenty of others around in case I need help."
"Understood. Feel free to see me if you need anything else."
"Are men in the Navy this dry?" There was a nod, followed by an exchange of salutes, and finally, Rinvar watched the Navy officer return to the beach installations.
Rinvar sat beside a shattered gun emplacement that used to overlook the conquered fortress's eastern flank. There was a hole right under where the gun barrel used to be; a weak scent of burnt ammunition could be traced to the interior of the broken husk. A Navy ship must have struck first, before the gun could return fire. The shell tore through the turret, igniting the magazines. Ammunition cooked off in a single, blinding fireball, blasting the turret's roof apart. The gunners suffered a fiery death—those vaporized instantly were the fortunate ones. The rest burned as they were hurled from the wreckage. Rinvar saw it fully: the pain of flames that gnawed into clothing and through flesh, its scent that was somewhat close to overcooked meat but worse, and the screams right before their souls abandoned the incinerated vessel.
He had seen this before—too many times. Usually from the other side. The stench of burnt flesh still clung to his mind, no matter how many battles passed. Hesitation got men killed. He knew that better than most.
It wasn't exactly the time to wallow in such thought, Rinvar thought to himself. He looked at the charred structure one last time before he stepped on the uneven stone path that led to the fortress's interior. The investigator passed by a trio of docked supply ships whose ramps were still connected to the ground; these were probably meant to stay on the islets to collect salvageable machinery from the Gray Fox's abandoned facilities.
Rinvar's view of the conquered fortress was polluted by shell craters and more destroyed gun emplacements and bunkers. The northern face of the facility took the brunt of the attack, with all its defensive installations annihilated. Patches of black from the soot of burnt rock and deformed metal were found on places where many smaller-caliber guns used to be. Some parts of the wall had their firing ports transformed into uneven holes and displays of charred artillery pieces.
The wind raked through Rinvar's fine brown curls as the patrol ships pushed out to scout the islands. His eyes followed their low superstructures and steeply angled hulls before the distance between him and the ships reduced their figures into weird polygons. Rinvar entered the biggest break in the fortress wall where a steel door used to guard the entrance before it was taken down by the advancing government troops; its uppermost left and right sides had ugly, round scars made by precise naval artillery fire. He always found Albertan ship guns wonderful, and these holes were proof of their accuracy.
He felt for his rifle strap, which was beginning to slacken away from his shoulder, easing the leather restraint back up as he passed by the first facility building. Rinvar had surveyed its interior before he stepped out of the facility and found nothing of use inside; the only knowledge he had after leaving the place was that it was supposed to be the Gray Fox's barracks. The Albertans had cleared the entire facility of its gun cache, although Rinvar found a metal case overlooked by the inspecting soldiers and was still considering whether he should surrender the article or keep it to himself as a trophy.
The second structure was the most badly-beaten building among the compound's sections. Reports from battlefield recorders said that when the defense of the first and third buildings failed, many of the syndicate men took refuge inside and fought to the last man. Whatever the building housed could not be recognized, but it would have been a supply depot of sorts, based on the destroyed food crates found at the building's basement level. It kept a mostly unharmed fa?ade, but the destruction was done inside by the remaining fighters who opted to burn the place rather than surrender to the Albertan assault forces.
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Again, Rinvar decided not to venture inside the area; the scent of burnt wood, oil, and metal had lingered for some time and mixed with rotting food matter and possibly traces of those who perished inside the facility in its defense. It made the air only tolerable with a filter mask guarding the nose and mouth.
At the farthest left was the third building – the only structure that was kept safe from the destruction done by either attacker or defender. It was the facility's generator housing that centralized the fortress's power source. The fortress once ran on eight crystal reactors—until the Albertans dismantled them. Now, four smaller generators powered the outposts, a makeshift solution for an unfinished occupation.
A burnt tower at the heart of the compound stood erect and was still overseeing the other four doomed buildings. It had an almost perfect cone, if not for the large hole at the top level that looked like a giant had taken a bite out of the tower. Rinvar knew no ship gun that could be positioned at an extreme angle to damage the building. Aside from the warship logs having no record of any shells that reached the eighth level, the damage was still too small to be inflicted by such weaponry; the whole tower would have collapsed if one of the main naval guns struck it. The interior was burned down just like the second facility building; only the metal casings of various machines were salvaged and were pulled out to be brought to Blaurosen for further study. He passed by the conical structure and took a look at a few soldiers who exited from it. They were not that important, he thought; their uniforms were not the usual blue of the Albertans, but theirs were rose suits with blue lining that belonged to those of the Capital. Rinvar rubbed the bridge of his nose and moved on.
He stood in front of the most controversial building of the entire fortress compound – the site where the commander of the attacking forces fell to the fleeing syndicate members. Its destruction was different from the other buildings that were captured during the assault. The place was blown up, but the explosives were not planted around its foundations but were belted only at the ground level. Soldiers who encircled the facility structure recalled that it was the last to be destroyed when the Albertans stormed the compound. Rinvar saw the third and fourth tiers of the structure intact and settled at an acute leaning angle. Troops who did initial inspections had to stand diagonally to survey the halls filled with large, shattered glass cylinders. These machines were too broken to be reassembled, but a largely intact device was found and brought out of the oddly standing building. One of the Albertans standing guard paid him a salute after seeing the captain's insignia. Rinvar saluted back; he was not too comfortable with standard military etiquette after years of participating in undercover and plainclothes operations, but wearing the medals and seals had its benefits.
He entered the place through a square hole cut by Albertan engineers the day before the investigator arrived at the Schweiglands. The floor, being in a rough thirty-degree alignment, was a challenge to cross and forced whoever would go inside to tread carefully. A short belt of lamps guided their way inside the broken building; this was a makeshift lighting system the military devised since sunlight could not break through the ruins. Near the back of the compound was the chamber, which was said to be the last place Cecil von Schild fought in before he was defeated by syndicate stragglers. It has not been completely cleared of the struggle that took place inside. Rinvar saw a saber that collected dust at the far right edge of the chamber; a rifle's muzzle poked out between large pieces of rock behind them. The rotting smell of its ill-fated wielder trapped inside crawled out of the gaps, clinging right up to the captain's nose with a stubborn grip.
His attention was drawn to an area at the rear center where a panel was mounted on the wall. Rinvar pushed the buttons and the sole lever on it, only to realize later that the original power source of the facility was on its way to some other place and that the new power source was not connected to the fortress's circuits. The investigator felt for the floor, where, after dusting, fine grit traced a shallow depression that ran at a ninety-degree angle before the trail was cut by a huge stone slab that was originally part of the ceiling.
"I'll need a crowbar... no. Three pickaxes would be better." Rinvar ordered the Albertan sergeant who watched behind him. "And bring four spotlights too. We might come across someplace underground."
Rinvar barked the order. Three men moved in, swinging pickaxes. Stone and mortar cracked under the blows, dust swirling. Chips flew dangerously close to Rinvar's eyes. A large enough section of the obstruction was dislodged, revealing what the investigator expected.
It was a mechanical trapdoor that shared the dirty-green color of the floor. The men jammed their picks into the trapdoor's seam, muscles straining. Metal groaned. One crack. Another. With a final, wrenching pop, the lock snapped, and the door yawned open into the dark. Two soldiers with handheld spotlights entered the underground passage revealed to them; pistols were pulled out of their holsters. They navigated through the dark tunnel until a faint light was seen at the end of it. Rinvar and his company reached an underground port where a tongue of the sea slept inside a wide cave. The investigator ran to the mouth of the cave, only to find an unrestricted Arentz rolling in its calm pace. From here, he began wondering how the Gray Fox and his men escaped the Albertan force.
The port could not house a decent-enough ship to be kept hidden from the Navy, as well as be large enough to allow all of the stragglers to flee the besieged island. Boats were out of the question since the random current can steer the crafts right into the muzzles of awaiting navy guns. They must have swum through the current, but the broken ropes tied on makeshift docks suggested that sea vessels of sorts were used.
What kind of vessel did they have to allow them to escape without being detected by the sea patrols, which were moving around the Schweiglands as early as the first minutes of the attack?
"Hmm... from one problem to another. Any records of drowned men picked up on the shore, Sergeant?"
"Nothing picked up by the patrols. Lots of broken bits. If they did, the waters would have fed them to the monsters below." It was the quick answer to Rinvar's inquiry.
Rinvar sat down on a rock near the cavern mouth, allowing the spray to moisten his face. He stared at the open waters, trying to figure out if the sea could answer the riddle of the Gray Fox's escape. If the escapees chanced upon an opening provided by the patrols, there was no way they could have slipped from the nearby warships that were shelling the syndicate stronghold. The investigator set his rifle stock against the ground, capping his palms at the muzzle's end and placing his chin above it.
