Tyras shouldered the stocked pistol and inched the door open. The lower deck was the largest and deepest deck, no less than ten meters ceiling to floor, which gave the transport airship the appearance of an ugly bloated fish. Tall crates and storage containers littered the worn metal floor, a few forced open to allow a deluge of frozen fish and dry ice to fall upon the disappointed pirates. The stairs didn’t go straight down, instead, they led to a metal catwalk which gave access to a bulky steel instrument panel which controlled the large metal crane overhead. It also had an overview of almost the entire deck so the operator could see what they were grabbing and it was practically three feet of solid metal and gears. It looked over the entire wide chamber like a minstrels’ gallery over a ballroom, their energetic or somber song dictating the way the guests danced.
And next to the instrument panel was a crate of dry ice recipients, probably left behind by a careless worker. Blessed be the torpidness of Bestia Sapiens
Tyras led the way, pistol in hand, crouching down and moving with an easy, loping sneaky stride, not making a sound yet traversing the catwalk as quickly as a brisk walk with his long spidery limbs. The catwalk was not illuminated, the gas lamps thankfully turned off, yet the floor below was bright and clear. They could have perhaps picked a few of them off from there, but once the initial shock wore off, they would shoot for the obvious muzzle flashes and keep them pinned down until the other pirates could flank and take them out.
No. This maze of brass walls and wooden crates was a trench. And the best way to assault a trench was directly.
He signaled Achlos to set the sack of flour and other objects down. The pirates seemed now to have stopped their quest to ascend and assault, but rather were now waiting for the foreboding voice on the telephone which had seemingly slain their comrades to come down for them. This suited Tyras just fine.
The lion opened the crate of solid CO2 and retrieved one of the jar-like canisters. Then, undoing the rope the crate had been secured with, he tied the jar and four cigar-sized firecrackers to the sack of flour. He then tied the firecrackers’ fuses together like a dynamite bundle. Then, very carefully, he opened the can of dry ice, cold wisps of frozen steam trailing out.
“Pour.” He told Achlos. The moose then tilted the hot water into the can. Instantly, it began to bubble and sizzle, ice-cold steam billowing out alongside scalding drops of boiling water in a volcanic reaction, the thick cold steam quickly almost reaching the ceiling. Tyras quickly squeezed the lid back on, thin trails of the numbingly cold substance trailing out, the can sizzling and bubbling with foreboding. Tyras smirked up at his companion.
“I believe I have forgotten my matches in my locker, could you-” Achlos lit the fuse before he could finish. Then, heaving the sack and steaming can, he threw it into the center of the maze of crates.
“What the Gehl was-” A pirate’s exclamations were cut short by the explosion, the firecrackers sending multicolored cheerful sparks as they detonated, though they were quickly overwhelmed by the milky wall of ice and flour which rose to quickly cocoon the entire room in its cold, thick embrace. Coughing and frantic swearing could be heard. This was the time to strike, just as the surprise of an unknown factor was being processed.
“Mount the gun by the control panel. Lay down suppressive fire as the smokescreen recedes. Do not fire there, there or there.” He quickly pointed out the hostages’ locations.
“You’re going in alone?” Achlos asked with some bewilderment. Tyras replied with his by now, well known smirk.
“You said it yourself: You laid down suppressive fire as the Scout Raiders moved in on the enemy trenches. It is time to repeat that very exercise.” Without any further ado, he vaulted over the metal railing, landing with nary a sound ten feet below, disappearing into the abyss of dusty ice like a hunter in the fog.
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The eland antelope cursed as he shivered, trying in vain to keep his double barrel shotgun steady. Byblos hated this land. He hated the cold and thick, thorny forests. He hated the snow which seared his savannah-acclimated fur and skin. And above all, he hated that tiger bastard, Vallus. He cursed the day he’d agreed to join his gang, but being wanted for murder in the Bizerbi Empire offered him little choice. ‘Just one more score, you’ll get your share, then you can piss off, get a new identity and start a new life. Easy enough, just some timorous airmen on a ragtag ship.’
Sure. Said timorous sailors had now apparently killed or apprehended most of their gang, which left them here, in the cold underbelly of the ship, now blinded and freezing in this new mist.
They were coming.
Byblos tried hard to control his breathing, to not show any fear in front of the brown wolf who’s name he’d forgotten, remembering only his bravado and cavalier attitude towards danger. “Come out, come out, wherever you are,” the canine said in a sing-song voice, twirling his dual revolvers, oblivious to the mortal firefight they would soon be in.
Shouts of confusion and footsteps were heard all around as his comrades were blindly skulking around in the white mist. He hated that he couldn’t tell if the footsteps belonged to the other pirates or to whoever it was that killed the group on the middle deck. Who were they? How many of them were there? Were they battle-hardened veterans or just burly sailors with a chip on their shoulder?
This entire heist had been doomed to fail. Vallus had thought that robbing some provincial bank who happened to be transporting some noblewoman’s jewelry now made them capable of airship hijacking. But he’d always been too much of a coward to voice any dissent, especially since Vallus threatened to report him to the authorities as a fugitive whenever he gave the slightest hint of discontent.
The Fakonans had a saying: “The coward will fight the hardest battles.” And now, in a maze of frozen mist, seeing the eyes of predators in every dark corner, the shotgun a leaden weight in his arms, he felt it through and through.
The wolf vaulted over a crate and aimed his revolvers in a dramatic pose he must have seen in a penny dreadful to a figure barely visible a few yards off into the mist. Byblos’s heart climbed into his throat and thumped against his esophagus. They’d stumbled into a few others in the cold fog before, they couldn’t risk just opening fire. Byblos calmed down a bit when he saw the figure was tall and with white fur. It was that vain bastard, Vallus.
Wait… he seemed a bit too thin to be Vallus.
“Boss?” inquired the wolf, still not aiming his pistols away. “Is that y-” He was interrupted by a trio of deafening shots, echoing off the tight confines, forming themselves into two dark spots in the wolf’s light armor, the third piercing his skull and covering the crate behind him in a crimson pool.
Byblos screamed and emptied both barrels of his shotgun to where he remembered the faint figure standing, his ears ringing from the powerful report. Shit, shit, shit, he was deaf, he wouldn’t be able to hear him… He flicked his shotgun open and the two spent wax cartridges ejected automatically, but his shaking hand dropped the two fresh shells. With a whimper, he bent down to retrieve them. A powerful, merciless hand pulled him back, another driving into his ribcage with enough force to snap bone. He then felt a predator’s wicked sharp claws carve into his leg, tearing flesh with the ease Nature had designed it for. Byblos screamed.
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“Help! Heeeeeeeelp! He’s killing me! Someone!”
As the scream echoed through the deathly pale, turning into ice that ran down the pirates’ backs and froze their limbs, a thickly armored burly black bear, cursed and fired off a trio of shots to where he thought their comrade’s attacker was. The response was the thunderous tumult of a machine gun, bullets fragmenting mere inches from their heads, forcing them to hit the deck.
“Sapistia’s quim! How many of those ratbags are there!?” He growled, turning his aim to the general direction of where the shots had come from and emptying the rest of his six round magazine.
“Are you quite done wasting ammunition and giving away our position?” His smaller beige jackrabbit companion growled. “You won’t score any hits in this mist. We’d better just regroup with the others and wait for the smoke to clear.” He led the way with a short lever-action carbine.
The rabbit tried to maintain his cool, reminding himself that fear was merely his mind overreacting to danger, which made him alert but ran the risk of making him freeze up or take some rash action when conflict came. It didn’t work. If only the brain could truly comprehend written theory without practice.
“Help me! Heeeeeeelp!” Their companion screamed again. That meant he was still alive. Whoever their attacker was hadn’t finished the job, which meant he was trying to just kill them all. Probably a cop who happened to be onboard. Every kill would have to be justified. At least, in theory…
He marched on and saw two other figures faintly appearing into the mist like the genies of Eastern folklore. He aimed his rifle for them, ready to fire. However, he then recognized them as his companions from the general bulk of their armor. No one on the other side of the law wore such improvised protection.
He lowered his weapon, allowing himself a sigh of relief. The two companions, both bighorner rams, gave a restrained wave. They were following the natural instinct of sticking together during a crisis, but the rabbit did not like this, so he positioned himself to be partially protected by a crate.
“Right, mr. Smartypants,” one of the two large herbivores grunted. “Now what?”
The lapin opened his mouth to reply, right before four bangs echoed. The rams’ kneecaps exploded in front of him as they fell forward like marionettes with their strings cut, screaming in pain as they scrambled for their fallen guns, the final shot sounding off before the first man fell, a faint tall phantomatic figure behind them like a Grim Reaper swinging its scythe.
The rabbit and bear instantly returned fire, the ursine having to receive a bullet to the shoulder before he jumped for some scant cover himself.
“Help us! Gods-damnit don’t leave us here!” The rams sobbed, their dark eyes begging and welling with tears of agony.
Their wails coalesced with their mysterious attacker’s first victim pitiable cries and the still burning echo of the gunfire in his sensitive ears. He kept his lever action aimed for where he’d seen the killer’s figure, yet he’d now disappeared. He looked back into the maze of crates, where he was greeted by nothing more than the same cold tendrils and blood-curdling screams flogging his senses.
The lapin tried to force some calm into himself with rational thought. The bastard would be trying to flank them. He wouldn’t stay in the same spot. And unlike his empty-headed partners in crime, he had actually made a mental map of the labyrinthian cargo hold. He imagined what he would do if he were his attacker… then, once he decided that, he aimed for the general area and fired off a handful of shots, working the lever action as quickly as he could.
He heard the sound of a body slamming against wood and saw crates balance precariously nearby. He grinned. He hadn’t hit the wretch, but he’d pinned him down. He signaled for his larger bear companion to move in. A hail of machinegun fire from above made them duck for cover as the rounds chewed up metal and wood. Their enemy’s partner couldn’t know exactly where they were, yet his bursts were deadly accurate, only missing the rabbit due to his minute size, tiny shrapnel from the floor cutting his face, and one round punching through the bear’s metal armor and nicking his hip. The ursine screamed in agony and cursed as he fell to one knee.
Just as the lapin was about to help his companion, the weight of an anvil fell upon him and he was knocked into a crate, his head swimming as he pushed his bloodied, splinter-filled face away from the cracked wood. Through the haze he saw his companion struggling against a taller yet far slighter white-furred figure. Through sheer strength, the bear tackled the thinner man to the ground and wrestled his stocked pistol away from his grasp, turning it back to shoot. The lithe feline lashed out with his fist against the injured shoulder, causing the first shot to miss as his massive opponent shrieked in white-hot pain. The white lion was not done, digging his claw into the injured shoulder with a sickening wet squelch then freeing his knee enough to strike the shot hip, causing another agonized half-roar, half-scream.
Gritting his teeth, the lapin crawled for his rifle, grabbing it then whipping back to the melee. He was just in time to see the one-eyed lion back on his feet, behind the crouched bear as he blindly shot the stocked pistol behind him trying to score a lucky hit, until that large, slender hand clasped into his neck and tore into it with its razor sharp claws.
Then, he wrenched his claw forward.
The small prey screamed and squeezed his eyes shut as he heard a sound similar to wet paper ripping, then felt a warm spray of liquid on his face.
This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.
Then, primordial terror tearing into his heart like a hundred scalpels, he blacked out.
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Vallus grit his teeth as he pointed his massive .570 caliber golden revolver for the sound of yet another one of his crew screaming at death’s door. Whatever was taking his men out was not doing it only with a gun, but quite literally tearing them apart with blades and claws. Something he’d learned on the streets of Ignis-Dava was that knives, clubs and claws were way scarier than guns. Any wimp can pull a trigger, but seeing a claw plunge into someone triggers that well-concealed yet always active primitive part of your mind that remembered the growls of predators, the sound of fangs chewing bone and the knowledge your scent was being followed by a faster, more powerful beast.
He just never thought he’d be on the receiving end of it.
“Grab those hostages! Whoever this do-gooder is, he won’t dare attack us if we’ll blow the civvies’ brains out if he approaches.” He hoped his low, growling voice covered up just how unconfident he was in that assessment.
His three remaining men, two puma twins and a bulky steppe horse, coerced the hostages to stand up and go in the center. They still feared him more than whatever was out there. For now.
“Listen up, you fuckin’ shagbags! We see even a hint of your gibfaces, these yellow bellies die! You hear us!? So either land this giant jollocks hunk of shit and let us go, or we kill these bastards, then take another ten of you down with us! So what’ll it be?” He yelled out into the cold mist. The fog was abating, and from what he’d been able to deduce, there were two attackers, one down in the hold itself, the other providing suppressive fire from above. And once the smoke cleared, the pirates' superior numbers and firepower would turn the tide.
The ship was eerily quiet as soon as the final syllable left his throat. Nothing save for the white noise of the still growling engines of two linked ships, the screams of his men turning into pitiful moans of pain and fright and the more present heavy breathing of his men as they nervously scanned their surroundings with their gun barrels. The tiger fought the growing urge to swallow. The fog was abating. So far the scoundrel picking his men off had used that to his advantage, which meant that now he’d change tactics.
“Bannio, Borillus. Guard the hostages.” He nodded to the feline twins. “Cappalix, on me.”
The burly horse followed close behind, his large pump-action shotgun pointing through the dissipating icy smoke. Among the constant little bangs and pops of the engine, there was one tiny imposter patter of silent, large paws around west of where he was now. Quietly, he signaled Cappalix to take the left flank. The equine nodded and moved up, cringing at the tiny metallic rattle his shotgun gave as he raised it to his shoulder.
Both men jumped as eight consecutive bangs rang out in a far corner, whipping around. Gunshots, clearly. Yet those did not sound like the booming rattle of the MG or the sharp crack of the pistol he’d heard. No, this was fainter, without a supersonic whang, like a small improvised explosive. Perhaps a little .22 caliber pistol? Was this a third opponent?
Whipping back, he scanned the grimy wood and brass corridors behind him. The shooter had to be nearby, and he’d have heard him if he’d tried to run. Picking up the pace, he turned a corner towards a small door which he’d seen earlier lead into a tiny kitchenette. No doubt the shooter was hiding there in ambuscade, there was nowhere else to go that didn’t go straight past them.
Not bothering to get closer, he simply squeezed off two shots from his behemoth of a revolver through the thin aluminum door, each boom reverberating like artillery shells in a trench, waiting for the sound of a body collapsing. It never came. Frowning, he pointed towards the door giving Cappalix a pointed look.
With a shake of the head which tried to mask a fearful gulp, the horse obeyed. Vallus frowned as an unknown scent, previously masked by the flour in the mist, made itself known. Was that… cooking oil?
As the door opened it revealed the empty two square meter room, with an oily pan on the fire, eight torn up spent shell casings sizzling mockingly away.
“Oh, you motherf-” The tiger was cut off by gunfire mid-sentence as Cappalix grunted in pain, two shots connecting with his armored torso. Vallus cursed and returned fire, the handcannon punishing his thick wrist as it took a chunk off a crate a hazy figure was crouching behind before it ran off.
Vallus smirked sadistically, his golden fang glistening in the faint light. “You dirty rat.” He growled.
“Boys, forget the hostages! There’s a cockroach in my soup that I want squashed right gods-damned now!” He yelled loudly enough that the twins could hear him. He knew there was also a second attacker, but the smoke had cleared enough to see that the position the MG fire had come from was now empty. No doubt he was also hiding around the crates, out of ammo. The bastards were theirs. Cappalix followed close behind, clutching his torso. His armor had done its job, but he had at least two busted ribs.
The smoke had by now completely abated, a fur-raising chill in the air, the faint scent of flour and white particles sticking to the crates like an icy glaze on a paved road being the only evidence it had ever existed. He ignored the wails and desperate cries of his deathly injured crew. If they survived, they survived. And if not… well, that meant a bigger share for those left.
The twins were within sight now, sweeping left and right to check for the intruders. Vallus allowed himself to calm slightly, and only now did he realize how hard his heart was hammering in his chest. If they were all together, he couldn’t pick them off one by one.
Suddenly, a blur appeared straight in front of Vallus, running across the corridor, only managing to spot a collar to identify it as a person. Instinctively, he fired off a shot for the shape and he grinned in satisfaction as he heard an agonized cry and saw a spray of blood. But it hadn’t been the foreboding blur that he’d hit.
The shape turned into a crumpled airman’s overcoat as it fell, and beyond it, Bannio was on the ground, sobbing in pain as he held what was left of his shoulder.
“Fucking coward!” Vallus howled, tearing off in hot pursuit to where the coat had been thrown from. Borrilus was helping his brother up.
Several wild shots tore up wood and bent brass as he advanced. That meant he was close, and his opponent was getting desperate. His comrades returned fire, suppressing the rough position of where he must have been. He fired off his last shot, gouging a jagged hole into the wall, a lithe figure fleeing.
“We got him on the backfoot, boys!” he ejaculated jubilantly. “Corner the sonuvabitch!” He holstered his revolver, and drew a heavy wicked sharp boarding ax.
Vallus and Cappalix went straight ahead, while the twins flanked to the left. Bannio needed only one hand to shoot and his legs still worked. Oh, he’d take his time with that whoreson…
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Tyras sprinted to the far end of the cargo hold, where a large mostly unused space was dedicated to a single desk and a few chairs for both bookkeeping duties and an improvised break room. He’d done what he could, and took six of ten out of the fight before a head on confrontation became inevitable.
Despite only using his Sight through thick fog, far less taxing than walls, his nose was bleeding again from the prolonged strain on his Forte, yet he forced himself to take one final look through the rafters above. He smiled at what he saw and released his powers, calmly placing his pistol on the table, replacing the sword into his cane, then popping a cigarette out of his silver box into his mouth, looking as harmless as he could.
Four men emerged from the shadowy maze of cargo, gun barrels trained on him, a brawny white tiger with a formidable ax in the lead, about the same height as Tyras, but many times more broad. His ugly brick-shaped chin scowled at the smaller, blood-soaked feline as his three underlings kept their weapons trained on him, unsure of what to do. The tiger snorted.
“You’re tellin’ me y’all were scared shitless of this lil’ wimp?! Are you serious?” He barked out a laugh and his three men laughed uncomfortably with him. But they all still stared in horror at Tyras’s gore-covered claws and avoided his half-dead gaze.
The tiger ceased his laughter and approached menacingly, twirling his ax. Tyras just kept smoking, leaning on his elegant cane, if not for the blood looking like a gentleman awaiting the electric tram.
“You’re the one that’s been killing my men?” Vallus growled dangerously.
“They’d have happily done the same to me. And it may interest you to know, they’re not all dead. I only give mammals what’s coming to them.”
Another bark of laughter followed, joined by the awkward, frightened giggles of the three bandits.
“Well, we’re all real fuckin’ humbled by your holy judgement, your highness!” The tiger gave a mocking bow, then glared dangerously at the lion. “Do you have any idea what we’ll do to you?”
“If your little gray cells are capable of the slightest reasoning, the answer would be to lay down your weapons and surrender.”
This time, the other three eagerly joined their chief in hollering laughter.
“Pray analyze your situation,” Tyras said dryly. “Most of your men are dead or horribly injured. The airmen overwhelmed those on the upper deck and they’re probably descending right now. You doubtlessly took out the wireless telegraph by shooting it before boarding, but the crew have doubtlessly fixed it by now and wired the authorities. Fighting would get the rest of you needlessly killed and there’s not sufficient time to retreat back to your ship. Consider this offer very carefully, Vallus Gaesum. For it’s not only your life, but also that of your remaining men.”
Vallus gave a proud snicker. “I see you heard of my exploits. I am flattered! You read in the papers how I carved a peeler’s head in with this very blade?” He raised the ax almost reverently. Tyras saw the fiery glint in his eyes and the hardening of the muscles. He knew what was about to happen.
“Closed casket affair for that copper it was. And so will it be for you!” With a snarl, the gleaming ax was brought down.
Tyras ducked aside, the heavy tool hacking through the table behind him as if it were cheese.
Just then, three loud, almost musical banging chimes were heard from forty meters away, one following the other like a machine gun. Yet all that Achlos held as he jumped from the rafters was the little dragonbone revolver, the vibration of the cartilage giving off the queer toll. The three henchmen’s heads were carved into bloody caricatures almost simultaneously, each collapsing to the ground in turn as the muzzle flashed thrice as it fell to the ground.
Vallus couldn’t resist turning for the gunshots for only a fraction of a second, quickly realizing his mistake and swinging a blind fist for his opponent, yet it was too late. Tyras was no longer there, his cane swinging upwards into his groin with a painful crack and the lit cigarette simmering into his nostril. The tiger yelped as he fell on his knees, raising his ax before it was grabbed by sinewy, powerful hands and twisted backwards. The tiger instinctively tried to twist along with the unnatural distortion to his limb, yet he could only do so much, and before long, the wrist snapped as muscles and tendons gave way.
He screamed in agony just as Tyras yanked the ax from his limp hand, and struck the flat of it against the tiger’s temple, his stocky shape sprawling on the floor, out cold.
Tyras breathed hard, letting the ax clatter heavily to the ground. He stepped over the dead bodies of the horse and two puma henchmen and approached the moose as he was struggling to get up. He’d just downed three men with perfect headshots while in the air from some forty meters away in less than a second. He’d heard stories of soldiers with the Chrono Dilation Forte, but never seen it properly in action. Yet it had taken its toll.
Achlos’s eyes were unfocused, his snout bleeding freely from something that had nothing to do with the fall. He was too weak to get up on his own before the lion helped him up.
“My... my apologies, Lieutenant,” He panted with a weak smile as he leaned on his companion. “I didn’t obey orders to stay behind to lay down suppressive fire. I jumped into the trench.”
“Insubordination acknowledged,” Tyras grunted out a laugh as he carried the heavy weight of his exhausted comrade. “And acquitted.”