Chapter Twenty-four

Crimson Survival

Briley couldn’t see a damn thing. If she lifted her head to steer the ship, she might lose it, and so she simply held onto the wheel with one hand and her dagger with the other. Fighting back a crushing sense of despair, she suddenly realized there was still one direction she could set for them that wouldn’t lead into the mountainside: up. Up was safe.

As Briley flipped the lever to deflate the ballonets and send The Sapphire Spirit skyward, another bullet flew past them, fashioning a future scar across her bicep. “Shit!” She dropped back to the planks, fully behind the banister they were using for cover, squeezing her injury before her hand recoiled on her arm’s behalf. “That… hurt.”

Elias examined the red-stained rip in her white shirt and the gash beneath it, ensuring that a scar was all it would leave. Not that he could do much to help her. Flesh wounds would be the least of their worries if things didn’t go their way, and the odds were—well, Elias had never been a fan of odds.

“I sent us up.” Briley, who was looking a bit pale, pointed to the clouds with her uninjured arm and the tip of her dagger.

Elias could feel the ship rising, the pressure in his ears building as they increased their altitude. The adjoining vessels were rising together, though not with perfect synchronicity. The walkway came loose, slipping off the bulwark and swinging downward, smacking the pirate ship with a shrill creak and a crashing bang.

“Nice one, Briley,” Elias told her as she focused on her breathing.

With his pistol fully loaded, he was trying to determine where to aim his next shot. He had regretted the last one, and he wagered he couldn’t afford to regret the next. He had caught a glimpse of another pirate leaping onto The Sapphire Spirit as their gangway fell out from under him. That meant two of them had made it over, though Elias held no illusions about this being a fair fight. The other airship was still near enough for bullets, if not a bridge.

“Don’t come any closer!” he yelled from behind their cover. “You saw what I did to your friend!”

“That was dumb luck, you little shit,” a deep voice responded in an accent Elias didn’t recognize, or maybe it was just the way pirates spoke. “Aye, you’re still going to pay for it.”

At least that left no room for ambiguity. Elias didn’t doubt he could shoot one of them, but he was far less confident that he could break cover without getting shot in turn.

And then Briley had an idea. She retrieved their telescope from her pocket, whose role in this situation wasn’t immediately obvious to Elias, and tossed it away from them, giving it a strong backspin for added chaos. The telescope hit the planks—and landed out in the open—with a jarring clatter.

Briley’s distraction worked. They shot at the instrument.

Unfortunately, one of them actually hit it too. “God damn it,” Briley growled from between gritted teeth. Add it to the list of things they would need to acquire in Azir: a new telescope.

Elias attended to more pressing concerns. It was a short window before the pirates could reload their pistols and even less time if they decided to charge him. He didn’t waste the opportunity. He popped out from behind the banister, confirmed his aim was true, and took the shot.

His bullet struck the smaller of the two men, who fell backward onto the hatch doors of their companionway, a blot of crimson expanding across his chest like spilled ink.

Elias quickly checked the threat to his left, ready to duck, but they had gained enough altitude that the pirates still aboard the invading vessel could no longer take shots at him. The Sapphire Spirit’s deck was nearly level with the bottom of the other ship’s hydrogen balloon, which unlike the former’s, certainly wasn’t made of spider’s silk—not that he could do much to a balloon with a single bullet.

Also, he didn’t have a bullet at the ready. And more crucially, there was still one pirate alive on The Sapphire Spirit, and he was built like a bear. The hairy man also looked rather like a bear and, it turned out, charged like one too.

Elias’s best defense was instantly useless. The man would pummel him like an avalanche before he could so much as put a new bullet in the muzzle. Elias considered using his pistol as a club, but he didn’t want to destroy the precious weapon in the process.

And so he tossed the unloaded gun aside and kept his distance, dancing nimbly on his feet as the larger man stomped around on his. The pirate noticed a bloodied Briley recovering beside the ship’s wheel, vulnerable and seemingly armed, and turned his attention toward wounded prey. Maybe it was also bait for Elias, who wasn’t going to let that happen.

Briley kicked the man’s shin when he came too close, as Elias barreled forward with unexpected force. The pirate was ready for him, and yet the novice collector was stronger than expected, sending the bearish bloke staggering backward—though never losing his footing. He was probably twice his opponent’s weight.

Why hadn’t Elias put a bullet through this guy instead, he asked himself, rather than the much smaller man bleeding out on the deck? It was another shot he could have been smarter about, a reminder that aim wasn’t everything. So often quick decisions led to colossal consequences, but regret was a luxury he could only hope to indulge later.

The big man unsheathed his cutlass. Elias had no blade, and Briley was more or less wielding a letter opener. She wasn’t looking so good either as she stood up to create some distance between herself and the pirate. Elias knew Briley wouldn’t back down from a fight, but she was in no condition for one.

He could take this man, Elias convinced himself, blade or no blade. He was a collector. He was special. It wasn’t just aiming and shooting the sight had proven useful for. He had danced once, empowered by his gift, and he could dance again.

The story has been illicitly taken; should you find it on Amazon, report the infringement.

The pirate swung his sword as Elias rushed toward him, the younger man veering right as the blade cut left. He punched his hairy chest, and that too was like punching a bear. He punched again, then something struck his nose—the hilt of a cutlass—as the big man pulled back his arm too speedily for Elias. He stumbled backward, blood pouring over his lips and the back of his hand as he measured the damage and tasted iron.

“You’re tougher than you look,” the pirate said, circling him until Elias was standing between this sword-wielding animal and the edge of their ship, “but not tough enough.”

Briley, who was now standing out of view, seized the opportunity. She sprinted forward, tiny dagger in hand, and plunged its thin blade into their attacker’s exposed back. He straightened his spine with a high-pitched yelp that betrayed his stature. Briley stabbed again.

Elias ran forward with another punch before grabbing the pirate’s sword arm, attempting to wrestle the weapon out of his hand, once again revealing a surprising strength.

As this was unfolding, Elias caught a glimpse of the companionway hatch doors reopening with considerable difficulty, the weight of the smaller, deader pirate pressing down on them. Bertrand forced the doors open as the body flopped to one side. Young Mr. Fairweather was, to say the least, surprised by the unexpected sight of a corpse by his feet, though no less so by the bloody battle he witnessed escalating sternward.

With a bravery Elias hadn’t realized Bertrand had in him, his large blonde friend charged forward. Indeed, he was almost as large as the bear-shaped pirate. Still grappling his sword arm as their attacker swatted at Briley and her hungry mosquito blade, Elias spun the man around, positioning his back toward the bulwark. He pushed him.

It wasn’t enough to put him over the edge, and the pirate looked almost humored by the effort, but Bertrand—the heavy weight of Bertrand struck like an oncoming train.

The force of so much inertia and the man’s high center of gravity sent him flipping over the side and out of view. Elias ran up to the edge to see him fall, but he was already far below them, spinning and seemingly miniscule against the backdrop of mountains.

Bertrand collapsed to the ground and saw Briley bleeding. He crawled over to her, having apparently used up every last ounce of energy he possessed transforming himself into a human cannon ball. Despite his crippling anxieties and justified reservations, he had overcome his fear—if only for a second—and fulfilled his role as cannoneer dutifully.

Of course, they hadn’t escaped the proverbial fire yet. They were gaining altitude faster than the invading airship, true, but the parallel vessels were flying too close for comfort. The pirates could no long board them over their gangway, but Elias didn’t doubt they were resourceful.

He examined his friends with a heavy sigh: Briley with her bleeding arm, trying not to faint, and Bertrand, uninjured, but whose emotional pain seemed to manifest physically. Elias still needed their help.

He knelt down beside them. “Briley, our hull is level with their hydrogen balloon. Can you slow our ascent just enough to match their speed?”

“What for?” she asked.

“For Bertrand,” he continued. “He’s going to send a cannon ball through it.”

Briley nodded as Bertrand picked himself up. It was probably the least controversial plan Elias had ever concocted. He nearly told them to hurry, but there was no need. No one questioned the urgency of their survival.

As Briley eased their ascent almost imperceptibly, Bertrand stormed across the deck and back down the companionway, slowing his steady gait as he passed by the gory scene of Elias’s second gunshot victim.

Elias wondered if there might yet be a third as he began reloading his pistol, getting ready for something to go wrong, which was when he noticed a grappling hook biting into the bulwark. He had counted six men aboard their ship, three of whom had since met a grisly end. Still, that left three more.

He primed the flash pan of his pistol, snapped the frizzen into place, and fully cocked the hammer. He strolled over, gun arm outstretched, and peered over the edge. Five feet from the tip of his barrel, a man had planted his boots against the hull of The Sapphire Spirit, pulling himself up a coarse rope connected to the grappling hook.

It was an easy shot. A cloud of smoke erupted into Elias’s eyes, dissipating before the big reveal: he had made the man disappear. A splatter of blood painted their oak hull a garish crimson, red streaks running down the side of their ship. He didn’t look forward to cleaning that—or explaining it.

From his current angle, Elias couldn’t see any other crew members—only a dangling rope—as their deck was obstructed by their hydrogen balloon, which was still level with The Sapphire Spirit’s hull. Level with Bertrand and his cannon.

The blast was louder than last time, probably because Elias was standing right overtop it, as a cannon ball ripped through one end of their patchwork balloon and out the other. A single bullet couldn’t bring down an airship, but a cannon that close was another story. A better ship might possess compartmentalized pockets of hydrogen within its shell, in case one is ever compromised, or—if its owner had relics to spare—a spider’s silk skin, said to be impenetrable even to cannons.

But this was a shoddy pirate ship, and one now destined for the side of a mountain in the middle of nowhere. The vessel didn’t quite plummet like a man pushed overboard, but it did descend more quickly than would be advisable for a soft landing.

Bertrand and Briley joined Elias on the port side to watch the show. They were flying higher than normal, almost as high as they could fly, having accelerated skyward for many minutes, though Briley had since leveled them off. After all, their attackers were soon half a mile beneath them.

The distant sound of the defeated ship crashing against a bare-faced mountain carried through the empty sky like trees falling in a lightning storm. The ship skidded and toppled, tangling itself in rope and the remnants of its deflated balloon.

Elias turned toward the stern and the vessel that had been tailing them this entire time. The bastards would never catch up now. They seemed to accept the truth of the matter, descending toward their fallen comrades, presumably to see if any were still alive. Elias couldn’t say. Had he helped kill those ones too, he wondered, or had gravity pressed that trigger, wielded that blade? Perhaps not knowing was best.

Briley turned around with sudden purpose, dagger in hand once more. She marched over to the dead pirate lying beside the open hatch doors. She kicked his shoulder. He flopped onto his back. She collapsed to her knees and plunged her knife into his heart, then again, and again, until his blood was running down her forearm.

Elias said nothing.

Bertrand tried to object and choked on his initial response. His voice breaking, he calmly exhaled a tired complaint: “The man’s deader than steak, Briley. Please. Stop.”

Briley stood up, her blade hand dripping blood. “I’m not taking risks. Help me toss his body overboard, Elias.”

She started before Elias could offer assistance, forgetting for a second that she only had one fully functional arm. She winced and fell back to her knees, her dropped dagger skidding across the deck. “Fuck!” Her anger was a concoction of pain and fury.

Elias stepped forward. “Bertrand, help me lift him, will you?”

Manhandling a dead body was probably the last thing Bertrand wanted to do right then—or ever—but he did what he had to do, separating himself from the moment, trying not to look closely at the limp corpse as Elias lifted the torso and Bertrand grabbed the legs. As if the man were but a weighty, bony sack of trash, destined for the all-consuming sky.

They swung him like a swing—with a “one, two…”—until the body had enough momentum to fly over the bulwark. Not even Elias bothered to watch him fall.

Instead, he turned back toward the bow, searching for some reprieve in the calming ambience of twilight. They were finally through the mountains that had trapped them between life and death, and he could once again see the long, orange-tinted horizon of an airship sailor, waning like the embers of a doused fire.