BELLRAM

Suddenly, thunder roared through the walls. The cannons from the palace fired their charge in chains. The force of the weapons rattled the window and made the panes vibrate. In shock, Meia dropped her bottle again. The cannons were stationed almost on the same level as the room and the first one was right next to the tower. All the smoke passed by the window.

Meia was nervous, but her fear was contained. From the bed, she carefully pulled herself up by the window sill, just enough to see the sea. The ships were on their way to the harbour. It was a whole fleet. There were at least ten of them. All were small frigates with three masts and black sails.

The guns fired the next charge. The shots were in the direction of the fleet, but only stirred up the sea. The ships stayed on course for the harbour.

The next charge came down on them. One of the ships was badly hit and torn to shreds by an explosion, but nevertheless the rest maintained their course.

The attackers were surely pirates. They were insane to try to sail into the harbour. Kiras was the town with the strongest defences in the country. The guns were firing a lot and might not be hitting much so far, but the bigger guns from the wall had not even started firing. The soldiers were probably still preparing. The army was also not far from the harbour and the kingsguard was in the palace. The attack was sheer suicide. From the sea, one could not even fire back effectively. The cannons of Kiras were all much higher than the sea level and were firmly anchored to the structures. From the sea, one could only attack the ships in the harbour while being fired upon from land. How would one be able to capture anything in these conditions?

As expected, a second ship was hit. It was still mostly seaworthy, but part of the deck was on fire.

A moment later, the fleet started to turn away. They had probably realised that they would not make it.

The ships were all quite manoeuvrable. It took less than a minute before they were half-turned. The firing of the cannons did not stop. They certainly wanted to sink them before they could make a run for it. But most of the shots still missed. All the ammunition landed in the sea. The cannons from the wall did not fire either. The soldiers just stood around. One even smoked as if he had nothing better to do. The dockworkers had all fled by now. A few of the warships were getting ready to set off.

Meia watched back at the pirates, then she spotted a point of light flickering on one of the ships. What could produce such a light, she asked herself for a split second, then the answer came to her.

A sound became loud. It was like the stroking of a violin, but it sounded as if the instrument was being pushed to its breaking point, as if the strings were about to snap, as if it was a plea to stop. The sound grew louder and louder. It drowned the bells and then even the cannons. It was a sound that tore the air. It was pure noise. The window pane began to hum. Small mounds appeared in the juice. Meia felt her bones through her fingers on the window sill and saw the dust vibrating over it.

A moment was wasted. With all her might, she threw herself on the floor. She did not care if she hurt herself. She just wanted to get away from the window.

Just as her knees hit stone, the window pane exploded into tiny splinters. The mirror fell and shattered. The books knocked off the shelf. The table slid off the wall. The air pressure hammered in her head and pressed her flat to the floor. The splinters of glass from the window flew all the way across the room against the door. With effort, Meia clung to a table leg and crawled under the top to the wall. She pushed herself so hard with her back against the brick wall that her slipper snapped. The entire tower wavered.

Immediately the next explosion followed the last and another and more and more. There were no interruptions.

Meia let go of the table leg and crouched down. Since her hands were free, she also covered her ears, as the noise was unbearable. But there was no escape. It made almost no difference. Each shell sounded like a violin. Each shell got louder and louder as it came closer. Each shell penetrated her head with its sound and overwrote her thoughts. It was a flickering hum of tortured violins and each hum made the walls tremble.

Meia cried. All she wanted was for it to stop. Everything fell off the table. The impacting air pressure eventually tore even the lamp from the ceiling. The porcelain shade shattered near the door, but the shards flew all the way back to her pyjamas. The violins continued to play. The shells came without pause. There was no mercy.

Underneath all the noise, Meia heard a very big explosion. Shortly afterwards, the room filled with red light and a thunderous fireball rose at the window. That was the last time she looked up. She closed her eyes and hoped it would stop soon, and that the tower would hold, and that she would still be there.

It took an eternity. Meia did not know how long. Then the shelling stopped. The violins abruptly fell silent. The bells gradually died away. Still, it did not become quiet. Meia had a constant beeping in her ear and under the beeping she heard shards, fire, rubble and ash. She also heard shouts and screams. Were the pirates at the harbour? Should she run away? She would, but she dared not leave her spot. The shelling could continue. Presumably it would also be pointless to flee. The palace was the safest place in Jena. If she was not safe even here, then she was nowhere. But one place did come to her mind. Wiestahl was in the middle of the mountains. There was no harbour. There was no access to the sea. And there was nothing of value. Wiestahl was unimportant. If there was a war and the country fell, people there would probably only find out about the change of government from the newspapers.

.../ End Part