26
Rusty, snapping steel heads shot up from the wreckage below like a storm of corroded owlbear-traps. Trailing hundreds of fathoms of rattling chains, they exploded out of the junkheap beneath to strike the Dark Cloud. Jagged, spiked teeth first hit hard, slewing the vessel off course, then sank in, shredding its armor and splintering wood.
Dark Cloud yawed wildly, listing first one way, then the other, as those rusted and flaking steel chains began winching the pirate ship downward. But the Cloud had defenses, too. A long row of ports opened up on both sides of the ship. Eldritch cannons of mithral and brass rumbled forth, already buzzing and crackling. Mounted on hinged, folding arms, shaped like snarling gargoyles, those cannons were aimed by the Dark Cloud’s phantom crew; powered by manna.
The eldritch weapons thundered to life. Fired again and again, blasting slivers of shining black ice that tore straight through those winching steel chains. Engines screaming, the Cloud fought to rise, but its stern was still anchored; still being dragged to the ground.
‘Captain,” said the ship, as Miche tossed Nameless into the rigging. He next used a levitate spell to lunge clear of the vessel’s slanted and juddering deck. ‘There are two rocket clamps locked to my keel, that I cannot reach,’ reported the airship.
“I can,” the elf replied grimly. Firelord shot back from the mast to re-enter Miche, then, making him glow like a star. A steel rocket clamp exploded to dust underneath Miche, struck by Glass-cat’s crossbow and… and some kind of energy beam from Marget’s mechanical arm. Both weapons fired continuously, defending the elf as he plunged amid thundering cannons and rattling, hissing steel heads. Their business to keep from striking him. His, to get down there and free the Dark Cloud.
Dodging yards of lashing chain, Miche dropped fast. He drew and ignited his energy-blade with one hand, while channeling flame with the other. Reached and swung down to the airship’s keel as utter nightmare erupted around him. More rocket clamps blasted away from the wreckage beneath. Hundreds more. There were sky-vines as well, snaking like barbed tongues from their barnacle roots on the Cloud’s torn plating.
Miche stopped thinking or feeling, except for the wild, heart-pounding joy of avoiding destruction while very much dealing it out. He whirled in midair, slashing through one rusted chain with his energy-blade. Its links were as big as he was, but fragile with rot and corrosion; just the zombie arms of a long-dead defense system. The chain burst into a blizzard of rusty sand all down its length, temporarily blinding him. Then a sky-vine’s barbed tip struck the elf, spinning him halfway around as it skittered on armor, seeking the flesh underneath.
Firelord roasted that groping, acidic tendril, burning it clear to its barnacle-root. Gave the elf vision, as well (in a manner of speaking). From a god’s-eye perspective, he could see all parts of an object at once and inside of it, too; watch it slide backward and forward in time. That helped a lot, once he’d figured out what he was looking at. Let him strike, not just now, but back then, or in moments to come. Better yet, he could aim clear past all of that dented corrosion to stab at his targets from deep inside.
The second rocket clamp was far astern, at the airship’s straining propulsion jet. A long way to go… but Miche was all at once there, as Firelord brought two points in space close together, somehow.
The clamp itself was a rusty and glaring trap-thing made up of wreckage and rubble. Larger than he was, by far. Its spring-loaded jaws had buckled the ship’s armor plating and splintered three beams sinking in. Its slitted red eyes fired hatred and mage-bolts. The noise it produced was a coughing and rattling laugh. Not for long.
Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.
Miche severed the closest link with a blast of volcanic fire, freeing Dark Cloud to rise. As the airship soared upward beside him, he unleashed a spell to banish that glowering head.
“Begone!” he sketched-shouted-thought, in Firelord’s voice as well as his own. “Back to the system that spawned you, Demon, with this!” Adding not just a spell but a segment of un-making code. Of stop. Stand down. No more.
And it did. All at once, everything flickered, juddered and then fell silent, except for that hot, gusting wind, the rumbling engines and his own harsh, rapid breath.
“I have learned, monster!” snarled Erron, speaking to somebody else, staring far to the north. “Your accursed code brought down my fleet and the shields, but it can be turned to your hurt, as well.”
He hung there a moment longer, shaking. Flaring with Firelord’s power and Erron’s wild rage. Then someone swung down on a line. Two someones, both very well armed and streaked with acid-burns. Marget and Glass-cat were suddenly with him, one hand clamped to their separate ropes, one foot in a loop at the bottom. The lines that they clung to were twined ‘round a leg for stability, leaving the other foot free to kick or push off with. Their crossbows were armed, locked on and ready… but not really needed. Not anymore.
“Old One!” roared the orc. “You have been taking your ease, here? Drinking and lounging as we fought for the ship, up above?”
Miche looked around at a healing and unburdened keel. Nothing. No clamps and no chains. Even the sky-vines were gone, and everything quiet, below. He inhaled deeply. Then, too proud to explain, the elf just extinguished his energy-blade.
“I knew that you had the situation under control,” he replied, smiling slightly. “Just, erm… concentrated on bringing down the wasteland’s defenses.”
“That is a mighty deed, Mrowr,” said Glass-cat, sparkling like a prism in a sudden ray of bright sun.
“Umph,” grunted Meg. “Scribbles and chanting. No fit work for a Free-person male. I may have to scrape your tattoos after all, Vrol-who-relaxes-while-others-do-battle.”
Miche’s smile broadened, turning mischievous.
“You’d have to catch me first, and that you cannot, swinging like soft, useless fruit on a vine,” he teased. Next, Miche used mage hand to shove her, causing the outraged orc to sway back and forth like a plum bob. Left her cursing and bellowing threats, giving his “sister” a jaunty wave as he launched himself topside.
Arced past the Dark Cloud’s hull while its cannons ground back into place and their covers slammed shut. The ship’s black shadow rippled like water over the tortured landscape below, seeming to pour over derelict vessels and cracked, leaning spires.
That weirdly smooth road was there, too, but it came to an end at something that looked like a large and bowl-shaped dry well, or… maybe some kind of docking site? There were certainly structures inside. Ladders, a gantry, five- or six-dozen sealed hatches. Right…
As the Cloud hauled Marget and Glass-cat aboard, as Nameless dropped from his sentry post on the rigging, Miche said,
“Bring us around, and then make a full stop, Cloud. I would like a closer look at yon pit.”
‘Aye, Captain,’ responded the ship, adding, ‘Some of the previous crewmen were roused by the fight. They request permission to manifest physically.’
Miche considered. More hands meant less watch-time, less unending labor… if they could be trusted, that is.
“Who are they?” he probed. (Bit skeptical, having seen oily clots of the dead staring back from Cloud’s railing and glass.)
‘No more than bound spirits, their names and past lost to time… but willing to fight at your side, Captain.’
Uh-huh. Probably a mistake, but…
“Very well. Permission granted, Cloud. Have them report to me as soon as they’ve formed up their bodies.” Then, switching topics. “We’ll give it a quarter candle-mark. If nothing else attacks in that time, bring us down to the docking-well. It might be a place where Gottshan puts in for repair and supplies. If so, we may just have found our way in.”
If the city still ventured here. If it came to a halt. If they were lucky, unnoticed and fast.
If.