Chapter 17
We finally reached the makeshift barriers that blocked the gap between the palace walls and the shoreline. I sent a quick message to the defenders using Clarion’s Call.
The cavalry has arrived. Anyone thinking of a heroic last stand, think again and save your ass. There is plenty more shit to do and none of you are off the hook yet.
Message sent, I activated Dragon’s Leap, pushed off from the ground, and soared over the barricades. While still in the air, I expelled a charge of Dragon’s Breath and unleashed a cone of frost on the incoming patch of ground. The burst of cold cleared out a spot for me to land safely as the mercenaries instinctively dove out of the way.
The Goresteel Greatblade appeared in my hands, and I went to work hacking and slashing at those too slow to get out of my combat arc. A screaming orc warrior with two deep gouges under his eyes was the first to react to my presence and charged back into the fray, only to be skewered on the end of the greatblade. With a boot to his chest, I yanked the weapon out of the bloody wound and the orc toppled backwards with a gurgled whimper.
“It’s a gift,” I muttered, quickly launching two Chaos Missiles, one to either side of my position.
They whizzed off to their targets twenty metres away and detonated, blowing chunks out of the earth and knocking mercs to the floor. The spell use and aggressive leap into the midst of the enemy had the desired effect; it opened a gap that the crewmen following me could pour into. Fang Mei and Crynn were two of the first to clamber over from our side of the barricade and set about making their presence felt. I returned to it myself and soon the pair had fought their way to my side. Their cutlass and daggers claimed blood and lives along the way.
Danny bounded from the top of the barricade with a mighty bellow not far to my right and came hurtling down, warhammer in hand, like a murderous meat train, uncaring of what he crushed in his fury. Everywhere I peered, up and down the line, the mercenaries reeled back in shock at the sudden arrival of fresh reinforcements who also happened to be a bit stronger than the average soldier they’d been fighting thus far.
Unfortunately, we weren’t the only ones with backup. A second wave of merc attackers further back unleashed a series of bellowed battle cries and rushed forward. The few ships MacDonald had been unable to disable had almost reached the frontline too.
“Where is that mammoth prick,” I grunted to my imp. “I thought he’d been bitching about a lack of real competition.”
I took out my displeasure on a black-bearded dwarf berserker. There seemed to be rather a lot of them in this merc army, a good quarter of their troops, at least.
With a precise sweep, the Greatblade scythed through his grotty beard, and it dropped to the floor followed by a gallon of blood that flowed from the tear in his throat. The dwarf dropped his axes and clutched at the mortal wound in his neck desperately trying to keep the precious lifeblood on the inside without much luck.
Fang Mei swept in behind him and lodged one of her dragon teeth daggers in the back of his skull and ended his miserable existence.
“Kill stealer!”
The pretty cambion woman winked at me with a big grin on her face. “Love you,” she giggled and then slinked back into the battlefield in search of her next victim.
Regardless of the situation, I had half a mind to follow and give her a taste of her own medicine when something else drew my gaze up above.
A green figure flew across the sky from the direction of the palace walls.
“Jackson?”
And then all hell broke loose within the enemy lines. A hellscape wreathed in emerald flames.
From his gliding position Jackson unleashed a torrent of sorcerous green blaze down upon them of a breadth and intensity that I could barely comprehend. A wave of green fire engulfed the approaching second wave of mercenaries and the few remaining mobile ships. They licked close to where our people were fighting but stopped short a few feet from our forwardmost position. Jackson exerting control.
How much mana must he be expending to create a field of fire that large?
It wasn’t like he’d diluted the lethality of the flames either. Being at the tip of the arc battling their way through the enemy, I could feel the furnace-like heat radiating from the intense conflagration. Without armour, it was enough to singe your eyebrows.
The blast of heat was followed by screams and the scent of burning flesh that emanated from the firestorm and turned my stomach ever so slightly. I forced the revulsion from my mind, this was not time to rest on our laurels.
Up above, the inferno sprouting from Jackson’s outstretched fingers sputtered and petered out and he visibly sagged in their air.
“Crynn, run interference for me.”
The Acheronian woman shifted position and put herself in the path of the fighters in front of me while I disengaged from the melee. I took a few steps back, rocked back on my heels and then pushed forward to build a bit of pace and then used Dragon’s Leap to carry me up and over those in my way and into the heart of the dying firestorm. Things that had been set aflame continued to burn and the air remained arid and hot but without Jackson fuelling the fire patches of earth had become flame free.
As I dreaded would happen, the floating figure of Jackson wobbled in the air at the same time the flames he was generating started to die down.
Using Herald’s Burden was the only explanation of where Jackson could get enough mana to cast such a huge effect. Even so, a blanket of flame of such magnitude and intensity had to have tapped him to the bone.
The mana exhaustion from such a singular expenditure would be immense.
The mantle which had been spread out stiffly, rippled and fluttered as the focus of its bearer faltered and failed. When consciousness abandoned him, Jackson dropped like a stone into the heart of the battlefield.
It wasn’t the fall that worried me, Jackson hadn’t been that high and his armour would mitigate the damage down to a bit of sore bruising at worst. No, it was that he’d barely been able to lift a finger to protect himself and the merc survivors would doubtless be highly motivated for vengeance and tear his wiry frame to pieces at the first opportunity.
It was a race against time, I dodged burning wreckage and smouldering bodies, sprinting to where Jackson’s prone form lay in a heap on the ground.
Dragon’s Leap wouldn’t be much help, I could run faster along the ground than I could soaring through the air. It didn’t help that the breathed air was hot, near scorching, and cloyingly thick. An aftereffect of Jackson’s widespread burn. The grass and vegetation all around were shrivelled and blackened. Larger clumps were still aflame or that could have been the bodies of mercenaries caught up in the conflagration and unable to protect themselves.
I arrived at the site of Jackson’s tumble from the sky in the nick of time.
Standing over his prone form was yet another dwarf, whether he would have been black-bearded or not I could no longer tell as all the facial hair had been burned away. He looked more like a short bald man than a dwarf.
The scorched dwarf had a spear in gauntleted mitts and had already stabbed the downed sorcerer in the abdomen while bellowing a litany of curse words in his direction.
The enraged dwarf pulled the spear tip out with a wet schlock and raised it high for the coup de grace. “Die ya fecking firebug!”
He didn’t get to finish a second downward thrust, a series of icy throwing knives sprouted from his throat and chest, conjured and hurled from my fingers. My aim had become pretty good after many, many hours of practice. The icicle daggers weren’t enough to kill the dwarf, but they did draw his attention away from Jackson and at the incoming corsair clad in black dragon scales.
Wisely, the dwarf decided against sacrificing his life in the name of vengeance and stumbled away from Jackson readying himself to ward off the new threat. He pulled the ice blades out and raised the spear, interposing it between me and him.
The dwarf’s caution alone wouldn’t have saved him in the long run. I reversed the Goresteel Greatblade and brought the serrated edge down on the haft of the spear just below the socket. Pulling it back roughly, the blade’s effect seriously damaged the spear’s durability and left it in a shoddy state of disrepair. Ready to crack.
Before I could take advantage of the situation, I was forced to duck and roll away, coming to a stop in a position to guard the downed Jackson. A huge, metallic spiked ball attached to a chain had been hurled in my direction. Rather than the mace head falling to the floor, the chain retracted and pulled the massive weapon back to its owner. Emerging from behind the wheel of the forwardmost ship came a very angry-looking elephant man.
The figurehead of the ship matched the Loxodonta features of the mace-wielder identifying it as his ship.
Darik Scargiver looked more elephant than a mammoth now. Much of the thick brown hair I’d seen in the reports about him had been singed to the roots and exposed the leathery skin beneath. It was difficult to tell if it had been grey-covered as it was by the blistering of burns.
“Carter! You show yourself. Finally!” he bellowed.
The dwarf looked between me, the angry mammutodon, and his damaged spear. This mercenary didn’t have the two tusk-shaped scars under his eyes so presumably he wasn’t one of Darik’s. Regardless of whether he was or not, the dwarf merc decided being elsewhere was in his best interests and started to run as fast as his short legs would carry him in the opposite direction of the battle.
From the periphery of my vision, I could see that he was not the only one.
Jackson’s blanket of fire had killed or badly wounded many and that was enough to convince the survivors, most of whom who fought for profit, not honour or a cause, that it was time to call it a day. They fled back to the beaches where they came ashore not knowing that Marena’s Mercy had already dealt with most of the fleet which had remained on the lake.
I didn’t know how the few ships that remained afloat and in range fared against Brant and the small bay fleet. Anastasia hadn’t sent me any messages suggesting it had all gone wrong. They were unlikely to find safe transport away from the combat zone.
Darik raised his two trunks and trumpeted out the mammutodon equivalent of a war cry. His big, rounded feet pounded into the torn-up ground, each step eliciting a slight tremor in the ground from the sheer bulk of his body. He probably didn’t weigh as much as an actual adult elephant did, but it was a closer run thing than I cared to admit.
Remembering Quixbix's warning from earlier, a quick plan formed.
First, I slapped a charge of Shattering on Darik to nullify some of the protection of his very large suit of plate armour that he moved in like it was no heavier than cloth and followed that up with two Chaos Missiles. One targeted at his legs, the other at his torso. The impact of the magical attacks crackled loudly and while they weren’t powerful enough to put Scargiver down, it did interrupt the flow and progress of his charge.
Then I did something I doubted my opponent expected. I hefted Jackson onto my shoulder and pegged it back towards the Shattered Storm’s lines. Completely ignoring his unspoken challenge for single combat.
The elephant-man must have thought I was some kind of honourable muppet.
“What are you? Some kind of coward? Face me!” Darik screeched at my back, and I felt more than saw the huge mace head on his weapon fly through the air and collide with the ground at the back of my heels. A close shave indeed, I wouldn’t want to have my ankles broken by that thing.
“Nope,” I grunted in answer, not that he could hear me with the growing distance between us. “I’m just not stupid enough to do what you want.”
If Darik wanted me, then the bastard would have to come to me instead. The unanswered question was whether the buzzing wasps of anger in his mind were riled up enough to be the stupid one.
Heading back to our lines was not without some risk, though.
The mercenaries currently fleeing the battlefield were the surviving elements of the second wave. Jackson hadn’t enveloped those fighting on the frontline, too many of our people might have been caught up in the jade firestorm. I had to stow the Goresteel Greatblade and revert to a conjured ice scimitar. Jackson might be wiry, but he still took up too much room on my shoulder to wield a sword two-handed. To clear the way, I used up a couple more charges of my coif’s breath weapon and before I knew it the southeast corner bastion of Stormwarden’s Palace loomed above me.
Piper, who had unsurprisingly been keenly watching my progress had shifted her position from the southern gatehouse and sent one of her creeper vines reaching out towards us. I could see the concern and worry on her face. I’d not been able to perform a deep dive on Jackson’s condition. His breath was shallow but steady. He was alive and hopefully would stay that way. Herald’s Burden could complicate matters though. He was not supposed to use it when the boosting group were in such peril. Luckily for him, most of the original defenders have been air-lifted by his girlfriend to safety.
“Torin, thank you,” Piper called down once she’d hauled Jackson’s prone body up to the safety of the battlements and hugged him tightly. She popped a healing pellet under his tongue to dissolve.
“Eyes behind you,” LT screamed from the battlement and pulled Piper and Jackson back. A blast of lightning left his fingers and arced over my head.
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I span around and resummoned the Goresteel Greatblade and was just in time to dodge the incoming mace-head. My head and shoulders flowed out of the way Neo-style and the spiked sphere a bit larger than a basketball zipped through the space where my head had been and smashed into the wall with thunderous force, cracking the block and showering chipped bits of masonry into the ditch.
Darik Scargiver had taken the bait and followed me but the distraction of seeing Jackson to safety had almost cost me dear.
“There is nowhere to run now, Carter!” Darik roared and retracted the mace-head. It snapped back with great velocity and the mammutodon swung the weapon in a wide arc; it collided with a couple of legionaries who had tried to engage him and knocked them away coughing up blood.
The infuriated mercenary only had eyes for me. I think disabling his ship had offended him deeply. Technically, that had been Jackson but if Darik wanted to place the blame at my feet, it suited my purpose down to the ground.
Shana now would be an excellent moment to show off what you’ve got. I thought to my elite assassin using Clarion’s Call.
Whether she’d had an eye on the unfolding events or simply reacted quickly to my prompting, an arrow infused with dark-magic-laden poison lodged behind the large flapping ear of Darik when he advanced towards me. From up above, LT let loose with magical bolts he could produce and Nazz got in on the action when one of her oversized crossbow bolts connected with Darik’s chest and punched through the breastplate of his armour.
That got the Scargiver’s attention, and his attacking frenzy stuttered out. He hadn’t expected to be this vulnerable. A gift like Shattering keeps on giving until it runs out and then I just add another charge.
It probably occurred to Darik for the first time then that he was in serious deep shit.
“To me, to me, Company to my side and then fall back!” he screamed with genuine concern and pulled the bolt free from his chest.
I popped a mana pellet, blasted him with another Chaos Missile and ran head-on at him.
A few of his surviving people responded to his orders and tried to coalesce around their leader, but some were taken down by my corsairs and too many others weren’t part of his company and ignored the command. Meanwhile, Shana did not let up from where she had positioned herself. I was grateful to feel through our shared bond that she hadn’t risked leaving the palace walls.
Darik backed away, with me advancing, cutting down anyone who tried to block my path and eventually, we entered the scorched area. To the left, where my crew poured over the barricades, the mercenary line had completely crumbled. Those not on the run were being put out of their misery.
The Scargiver started to run out of people to sacrifice to delay my inexorable advance and then faced the treble whammy of Crynn and Danny cutting or battering through his last few standing soldiers down from the left and Fang Mei who had got behind them and surgically excised those who were clearing the path for retreat.
Soon, Darik was the only one left standing. A dozen black-shafted arrows sticking out from various parts of his body including one of his eyes that had been left a bloody ruin. “I…I surrender…”
His breathing was heavy and laboured. The mammutodon was strong but didn’t have the stamina to go with that strength. We had worn him down to the edge of exhaustion. Shana’s dark-affinity poisons that coursed through his veins helped greatly with that.
The old mercenary could barely lift his mighty mace which had caused so much damage to my people.
“You break into my home, threaten my citizens, and you expect mercy?”
“Not mercy,” he gasped. “Expedience. I’m just a merc for hire. Your real enemy is the Dominarius Consortium, not me. I have two centuries of experience; a stellar track record and you have a powerful negotiating position. I can build you an army, and kill your enemies, all you have to do is let me live. Sign me to your canon or I will sign a Framework contract, whichever you prefer and then I am yours to command.”
It was a tempting offer.
Darik Scargiver would be a strong and powerful ally.
My eyes met with the crew members who surrounded Darik. I didn’t see any particular resistance in their expressions. I was their Captain, and they trusted me to make the right decision. However, there was one other person who had pushed forward to be here for the Scargiver’s fall.
Calum MacDonald stood on the perimeter. He was covered in blood and soot. There were obvious life-threatening wounds all over his body and the man should have let Piper evacuate him up the palace walls as she had with all those who had fought during the defence from the beginning.
The look on his face was one of abject disgust at the mere thought I’d let this pig live.
“What say you, Calum? After what he’s done, does he get to live?”
“It’s not my decision to make.”
“I didn’t ask you that. I asked what you would do?”
“He killed thousands of good people and threatened to do worse to those who survived, I would gut the piece of shit.”
“You heard the man,” I announced to the growing circle of corsairs. “Gut the piece of shit.”
The crew moved in. Swords, axes, and spears pierced Darik in every vital spot he had left. To give credit to the man, he gave Calum a nod of respect and didn’t beg or cry. He simply accepted that today was his end.
When it was done, I walked over to Calum and threw his arm over my shoulder. We’d rarely had a chance to talk one-on-one. Now was as good a time as any. “You look half dead, man. But you did a fine job, I owe you my thanks.”
“I didn’t do it for you, but for the people who live here.”
“You don’t like me, do you, Calum?”
“Not particularly, Torin, no.”
“Fair enough.”
“You were too dependent on the shield,” he said suddenly, shifting the conversation. “With the world the way it is, there should have been a secondary line of defensive structures inside. This could have been much worse. The mercenaries were disorganised and lacked discipline. They attacked as individuals and not as a coordinated army.”
“Agreed.”
Calum was right, we’d concentrated our work crews on Grand Rapids and other places that didn’t have a shield generator. It proved to be a grave error with serious repercussions. “Will you stick around and do the honours?”
“If that is what Regina requires of me.”
Not exactly an enthusiastic response and one that killed the conversation, there wasn’t a lot else to say. We walked back to the palace in silence until the end when I deposited Calum on a stretcher. “Would you really have let him live if I hadn’t been here,” he asked as I turned away.
“Probably not,” I admitted. “He would have been useful, but this wasn’t a Doyle situation. Darik’s crimes were committed directly against the Shattered Storm. And there is a limit to my forgiveness. Expedient or not. Maybe if he had something beneficial to offer more specific to our current problems, but not for some nebulous possible future benefit.”
“Thank you for the honesty.”
“Heal up, Calum. You’re too useful to let die. Oh, and stop giving Trisha the cold shoulder. She’s still your friend and you’re being a proper dick. Get over yourself already.”
I skipped away from him before he could snap back an indignant reply. Hopefully, my parting words would sink in later and he’d let Trisha mend the rift between them.
As much as I wanted to relax and celebrate a hard-won victory, the Command Centre had to be my destination. We still had issues to deal with and I needed to know had badly this invasion had hurt us.
Chapter 18
Shana hopped down from the wall when I passed through the open gatehouse that had now been cleared of obstacles. She embraced and kissed me deeply on the lips. Her face was filthy and smudged the sweat, soot, and blood all over my face. Although to be fair, I probably left as much muck on her as she did on me.
“That was close,” Shana whispered when we broke the kiss.
There was no need to add too close to the end of the statement.
“Where is Jackson?”
“Piper has taken him to the hospital wing. You got to him just in time, another close shave. His friend, the cleric Tommy, checked him over before they left and said he was deep in the red, but he’ll live. He’ll be out of commission for a few weeks, at least.”
Quixbix had confirmed as much on the way back to the palace. Health damage can be healed, usually, but there was no quick fix for the effects of over-exerting your mana. Certainly not to the degree Jackson had. His selfless act has saved a lot of lives today and would have the knock-on effect of saving many more tomorrow, and in the days to come. But it also robbed the Shattered Storm of a powerful asset during this critical period. And me of a close friend to watch my back.
I took Shana’s hand in mine and led her back into the palace. On the way, we ran into Mia and the trio carrying Dash. The fawn bounced and hopped with exuberant energy between their legs, unaware of the death and horror that soiled the earth on the other side of the walls.
I placed a quick kiss on my son’s head before Mia could pull him out of reach.
“You’re covered in blood and grime, Torin,” she snapped in exasperation. “You can’t get that on the baby. It’s unsanitary. Go wash up and join us in the creche for a proper reunion.”
It didn’t escape my notice that Shana didn’t get the same admonition from the protective Latina woman who handed Dash over to her without a qualm. This was a battle I could not win and was better not to fight.
“Would that I could. The immediate crisis is averted, but we’re just about ready to lurch right into another.”
“I saw Susan on her way to the hub when we left the Shattered Temple complex. She should be there already.”
“Good to know. I’ll visit you the moment I get a chance.”
Mia moved in to hug me until she got close enough to sniff me and pulled back. “Bathe first…thoroughly.”
I headed off with a wink and a grin, my spirits raised despite the dark day behind us. The five women with the cradled baby and fawn in tow disappeared up a wide staircase to the accommodation levels.
The Command Hub was as hectic as when I left a few hours earlier. Our epic victory had done little to reduce the plethora of issues that demanded attention.
Susan nodded gravely as I swept into the room, a Framework tablet in her hand. “Torin.”
“Susan, what can you tell me about events that I might have missed.”
“We aren’t in a position to give you a full inventory yet, but these are the highlights. The shield is back up, and the disruptor devices the attackers used to maintain a hole have been destroyed. Manually reinserting the missing pylon and returning the field in that section to full strength will take longer.
“The main mercenary attack force is in full retreat. A little over four thousand made it out of the shield’s range before the disruptors failed. Half that number again is trapped within the interior. It’s mostly those I warned you about before the battle, the groups that slipped away from the main mercenary army. The 3rd Legion from Grand Rapids are hunting down those stragglers as we speak. For that reason, we haven’t given the citizens the all-clear to leave their homes or shelters yet.”
I nodded my agreement at the precautionary measure. There would be a few that chafed at being told to remain inside, there always was, but it was for their own good.
“The fight out on the bay is over for now,” Susan continued. “Brant and his people captured several of the remaining ships, but four have fled, they are being harried by Storm Raider as best as it can from the depths. That makes a total of nine escapees when you add in those ships that took off earlier. It’s unclear whether they will try and rendezvous with the retreating mercenaries to pick them up. Once the runners found that their original beach incursion point was compromised, they headed for the far south of the island instead.”
“As angry as I am, it might be better if they did get away, otherwise, we’re going to have to hunt them down and we’re already smarting from this conflict as it is.”
“I agree. Especially as there is more bad news. The scout ship we’ve got shadowing the fleet from Wisconsin has reported back. They are still on the way. Their transport barges are slower than the merc warships, but they will be capable of making landfall before dusk. Either here on the main island or at either of the two Fox Islands to the south of us.”
“Damn it. I’d almost forgotten about them. Is it too much to ask that they’d turn tail and run away.”
It was at this point that Doyle interposed his advice into the conversation. “It appears our earlier assumption that the Wisconsin faction is acting independently of Darik Scargiver and his assault is likely accurate. If they were in contact, then Scargiver’s failure would surely have been fed back to them by now. Their lack of armaments makes them particularly vulnerable and turning back while we are still occupied in a clean-up operation would be the most sensible option.”
“Perhaps they know how badly Storm Raider is damaged.”
“That is possible,” Doyle admitted. “But nobody knows better than Hudson Reed what only one of your dungeon ships can do without even surfacing. And if Hudson knows, then the fragment does too. Short of confirmation that Storm Raider and Marena’s Mercy have been destroyed or permanently disabled, the continued voyage makes little logical sense. Unless they are ignorant of what has happened here.”
“I suppose it doesn’t matter. They have to be dealt with and I’m assuming Marena’s Mercy is all we have to handle the situation.”
Susan nodded, confirming my suspicion. “None of the seven ships we had in dock came out of the encounter unscathed. Had it not been for Brant and the splinter ships, they would have been overwhelmed. The merc vessels were built for combat in a way that these were not, and it showed. None of ours were sunk, but only four are still seaworthy and in any state to accompany you, but how useful they would be is questionable.”
“No, better to keep them back in the dock for repairs in case something else rears its head while Ana and I take care of the Wisconsin flotilla.”
“There is a silver lining,” Doyle pointed out. “Many of the ships brought ashore have been disabled not destroyed. And those we’ve sunk in the bay can be retrieved and probably repaired. We have the raw materials to forge a formidable war armada, we just need to carve out the time and opportunity to bring it to bear. Today has been a wake-up call, exposed that there is much we still don’t understand about the capacity of other Darkwyrlders, but we can be all the stronger for it.”
I couldn’t help but huff a disbelieving grunt.
Time to get our shit together?
The way things had been unfolding it would be a cold day in hell before we caught a lucky break of that magnitude.
***
An hour later I was back on the Bridge of Marena’s Mercy. The splinter vessels had re-docked and Anastasia had worked her magic to slough the filth from my body automatically. I’d never admit it to Mia, but she was right, it did feel good to be clean.
The ship powered through the murky, cold lake water and passed North and South Fox Island to intercept the Wisconsin troop transports.
“We are in range of the fleet, Captain,” Nazz called out from a pilot station. “There is no indication that they’ve detected our approach.”
“Prepping the torpedo tubes,” Anastasia practically cackled with her usual enthusiasm for mayhem and murder. “Targets acquired.”
I raised a hand into the air. “Wait!”
The moment the hulls of the transport vessels had popped up on the screen I’d felt a tingle in my fingers.
Preternatural Insight had activated.
The skill had been unusually quiet of late and had been ever since the risk-laden encounter with the fragment via the secret channels that connected us. When it had almost egged me on into an early grave. I’d even started to wonder if the skill had been deactivated despite it still being listed on my character sheet.
That possibility evoked both a positive and negative reaction.
The negative was that the skill had been incredibly useful over the last year, not having it would make me weaker and remove a distinct advantage.
The flip side was that the skill had been created by Ashli for its use once it gained a foothold back in this dimension. Who knew what other pitfalls the skill created, lurking in the aether, just waiting for an opportunity to sucker punch me.
And this wasn’t something that Dean or Violet could help me workaround, they were completely blind to the skill’s existence, writing it off as another glitch in the system left behind by Ashli’s shoddy coding. There were certainly flaws in several of Ashli’s designs, but the clever bastard had used that to disguise its malicious updates to the Framework.
The skill had warned me against acting rashly against the fleet. But was the skill’s sudden reactivation for my benefit or the fragments? There was only one way to find out.
“Take us up to periscope depth. I want to get a look at them from the air.”
Anastasia pouted in disappointment but knew better than to make a fuss in a situation like this. There was a time and a place for games of independence and rebellion, and she’d become adept at identifying one from the other. The only spankings she received these days were those she pretended not to want.
Marena’s Mercy rose smoothly from the lakebed that the ship had been skirting and halted a dozen feet from the surface. A thin rod extended from the tip of the crow’s nest and broke through the surface tension with a soft plink. The rod was thin enough that it would go unnoticed by all but the most keen-eyed. It wasn’t a true periscope, but we didn’t need it to be. The nature of a dungeon ship meant we just needed to get any part of it into a position where it could ‘see’ and that would feedback information back to the viewers here on the Bridge.
Nazz was the first to say something. “What are they doing? Is that some kind of Earther communication? If so, it doesn’t seem very efficient.”
“In a manner of speaking,” I answered in a low tone, peering at the unexpected scene in front of me.
The lead four ships had several men clothed in Wisconsin colours standing at the prow. Each hefted a large white flag that they were waving in a constant figure-of-eight formation that had to be tiring given the size of the white cloth they were waving and the stiff breeze that whipped at them. No sooner had I thought that than one of them stepped back and handed the apparatus over to a deputy, who stepped up and took his place.
“The white flag means they are trying to surrender.”
“Or they want us to think they are,” Anastasia pointed out. “Lull us in with their fakery and then bam, hit us when we least expect it.”
“Hit us with what?” Crynn genuinely asked. “The ships are virtually unarmed. Above and below.”
“Sneaky mages below decks or weirdos who make deals with otherworldly entities. Don’t forget the shit the Hellhounds pulled with that whirlpool, Torin. Those barges looked fucking harmless too and then before you know it, I’m being sucked into an Archfiend’s ass.”
There was a part confused, part horrified expression on Crynn’s face at Ana’s modified recitation of history.
“They tried to pull us into a nether demesne, not his ass,” I corrected her. “And we didn’t get sucked in, did we. I killed the summoners before that could happen.”
What Anastasia said was true, though, and there was no reason to trust a fragment inhabited Hudson. However, I didn’t get the feeling that he was here. “Can you feel any of the same wrongness you felt in the Crypt Keeper’s Tomb? The fragment absorbed the corruption from within that dungeon. If it was here, you should be able to sense it.”
Ana rolled her eyes a little before finally admitting. “No, I can’t feel anything like that, it’s probably not here.”
“Then I think it's worth taking a risk that they are on the level. Search the old-world frequencies. If they are flying a white flag they might be trying to contact us via radio.”
Anastasia closed her eyes and then opened them a moment later. “You’re right,” she confirmed with a sigh. “They are broadcasting a surrender. Somebody called General Howson wants to talk to you.”
“Okay, send them a message, let them know I’m willing to talk but on my terms. And get in contact with Regina and see if she has anyone on staff who knows this Howson from before the Darkwyrlds. Give me a feel for the measure of the man.”
After the acknowledgement message was despatched, we sent one of the splinter pods to the surface remotely. That way we could bring this general back to Marena’s Mercy for a parley without showing ourselves.