image [https://i.imgur.com/9JnFmXw.jpg]
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With the ships in closer proximity, the balance of power turned drastically.
Rathulin’s Star rained down crossbow and ballista bolts onto The Rogue Wave, embedding them in the planks of the deck and hull, and in the bodies of some unlucky souls who didn’t take cover in time.
Pirates hid behind railings, crates, and wooden shields they’d erected on deck to provide cover for just this kind of engagement. They kept their cool under fire, and waited for their moment to strike back.
The initial rain of bolts was swiftly followed by roaring magic missiles and fireballs, conjured by war-mages who lined up on the galleon’s deck to coordinate their arcane assault.
Some of the spells splashed harmlessly against the pirate mages’ defensive wards, but enough made it through that the whole ship shook with their impact.
The ship’s railing in front of Fig ripped apart in a magical detonation of flame and force, sending arm length splinters flying through the air and exposing her position to the enemy sharpshooters.
Fucking magic!
Fig swore and scrambled backwards, narrowly avoiding a bolt that pierced the spot where she’d been crouching.
She fled across the main deck to a lone lifeboat that was lashed between two of The Rogue Wave’s masts, praying that she wasn’t about to have her head blown off.
She dove into the cover of the lifeboat and found Dorian also hiding there, alongside a squad of armed pirates.
‘Why the fuck are you still up here?’ Fig shouted at Dorian over the cacophony of screams and flying spells.
‘I wanted to see what a real sea battle was like,’ said Dorian, clutching his notebook to his chest and flinching with each spell that went off nearby.
‘You’re going to get slaughtered, you idiot!’ Fig cursed.
She risked a glance out of cover and saw a team of the war-mages were standing together on the deck of Rathulin’s Star, casting a spell in tandem.
That’s not going to be good.
White jackets with red and gold trimmed sleeves distinguished the war-mages from the other Dynasty sailors, who wore simpler blue uniforms. The group of magic users had their arms raised, and from the heavens they conjured a vast tornado of fire, taller than the main mast of either ship.
‘Oh, fuck!’ Fig yelled.
A rush of air, like a sharp intake of breath, flowed across the waves to feed the tornado, before it swept down and swirled across the water toward The Rogue Wave, burning with all the war-mages’ fury at their loss of The Sunriser to Mirabelle’s incendiary shots.
Fig stumbled back in a panic, holding up her arm to shield her eyes.
The heat and radiance of the approaching tornado of fire filled her with the urge to dive into the waves. Better to risk the long swim to the shore than burn up in that hellish inferno.
Just as the spell was about to engulf The Rogue Wave in flames, a shimmering barrier of force wrapped around it and smothered it as casually as one might snuff out a candle.
High above Fig on the main mast’s top platform, the Alfir pirate mage with flowery tattoos drained a large ether-crystal and nullified the war-mages’ fiery assault with a powerful defensive ward.
The group of war-mages redoubled their assault, firing spell after spell at The Rogue Wave, but the flowery mage wove wards with unfaltering precision. He smothered their attacks with deft spellcraft, finally giving the pirates an opening to retaliate.
Mirabelle’s crew sprang from cover and returned fire on Rathulin’s Star with astounding accuracy. Dynasty soldiers tumbled from the galleon’s decks and platforms with crossbow bolts lodged through their bodies, and Fig even saw a war-mage fall back with a bolt through the eye.
She’d been in lots of battles, fighting alongside mercenary bands, town guards, even Dynasty soldiers a couple of times, but rarely had she seen a fighting unit operate as efficiently against a larger force as Mirabelle’s crew. Fig just hoped it would be enough.
The Rogue Wave’s officers called out priority targets, while infirmary runners made sure wounded pirates were dragged below deck where they could be treated.
‘Come on, we need to help them!’ Fig grabbed Dorian by the arm and pushed him towards the medical teams. She followed and helped a short woman who’d been struck through the leg with a ballista bolt, as she tried to crawl through the hatch down to the infirmary.
Bright flashes of ether-crystals being drained lit up the decks of both ships as they circled each-other, and the imperial war-mages and pirate mages fought for arcane supremacy.
Despite being outnumbered three to one, the cadre of pirate mages were punching above their weight in startling fashion, and holding their own against the odds.
The flowery mage single handedly held off most of the magical attacks coming over from Rathulin’s Star with the skill of a defensive savant, while Grisson, the long haired Rossak, and the old Mardin woman with prune skin, returned fire with such a dizzying array of arcane attacks that Fig could barely follow what was happening half the time.
Rick stood up on the quarterdeck, sending off blasts of magical force that tore chunks out of Rathulin’s Star, and out of the Dynasty soldiers firing on the pirates. Fig watched one of Rick’s attacks blow up an enemy rail mounted ballista, ripping off the operator’s arm with the impact. Another punched a hole in the lower decks, letting water flow in and flood the hold a little more each time the waves lapped up the side of the galleon.
Damn, the kid’s becoming dangerous.
‘Glad he’s on our side,’ Fig muttered, passing another wounded pirate into the hands of a waiting infirmary assistant.
Whatever training Rick had been doing while she was recovering from her injuries, it had clearly paid off because he was casting spells much faster than before, without seeming to tire as he had in the temple.
The ships were less than a hundred metres apart, jostling for an advantageous position on seas that were growing rougher as the wind picked up.
The Rogue Wave was faster and more manoeuvrable, but the sheer manpower and magical arsenal of Rathulin’s Star meant the pirates were fighting an uphill battle.
There was little Fig could do but try to avoid the flurry of spells flying back and forth between the ships. Magical warfare was so far beyond her that she felt like an ant watching a clash of giants.
She fell in with a squad of crossbowmen on the forecastle and helped them reload their weapons between shots, keeping the pressure up on the Dynasty sharpshooters.
It was working, slowly but surely.
The pirates’ crossbows were slower to reload, but more powerful, and their bolts flew better in the high winds at sea making them perfect for picking off Dynasty officers and anyone who tried to coordinate a proper firing line on the deck
Despite their numbers, the Dynasty soldiers were being forced onto the back foot, and struggling to maintain return fire as their bowmen kept dying before they could pick their targets.
One of the war-mages also went down in a spray of blood that splattered across the pale uniforms of his peers.
Fig tracked the angle of the shot back to The Rogue Wave’s mainmast platform, where Mirabelle knelt at the flowery mage’s side, reloading her strange Garrel made gun with swift sure movements.
A few seconds later, she raised the gun and fired again in a single smooth motion, with just a breath to sight down the barrel.
Another war-mage crumpled to the deck.
His fellows panicked and turtled up, surrounding themselves with a magical shield against projectiles, but that took their focus off the rest of the battle and the pirate mages mercilessly exploited the opening to start attacking the Dynasty crew with renewed fervour.
Grisson yelled and splayed his hands, and dozens of lashing tendrils of water rose around Rathulin’s Star. They harassed the crew and started dragging Dynasty soldiers overboard, drowning them in the rough ocean between the ships.
The old Mardin woman with sagging skin, swung her runic staff and sent forth a spectral blade that fully severed through the enemy’s mizzenmast, crushing a squad of soldiers as the vast structure collapsed and swung erratically from its flapping rigging.
Seeing the havoc being wreaked upon their crew, the war-mages dropped their shield and tried to retaliate, but another two of them quickly fell to Mirabelle’s shot and a well aimed blast from Rick.
The crew of The Rogue Wave sent up a cheer, feeling the battle turning in their favour.
Fig could hardly believe it. They’d significantly damaged the enemy ship, and broken the magical superiority of the enemy force without losing a single one of their own mages.
Then she saw Rathulin’s Star turn hard into them.
The huge galleon closed the distance and crashed into the side of The Rogue Wave, sending up a chorus of screaming sailors and splintering wood.
Fig and all of the pirates around her were flung from their feet as The Rogue Wave lurched from the impact.
She slid across the deck on her back, only stopping when her shoulders hit the portside railing.
Grappling hooks and lines flew down from the higher deck of Rathulin’s Star, and bound The Rogue Wave in place so the pirates couldn’t push off and escape the boarding manoeuvre.
The Dynasty force, reeling from the loss of their magical superiority, had decided to use the only remaining advantage they had over the pirates, their overwhelming numbers.
Fig staggered to her feet, holding Whisper and the loaded hand-cannon Mirabelle had entrusted to her, as dozens of shortsword wielding soldiers in breastplates and gambeson swung down ropes onto The Rogue Wave’s deck and engaged the pirates in brutal melee combat.
The pirates bravely held the line and fought to cut the grappling ropes, but the Dynasty soldiers were better armoured, and their sheer numbers threatened to overrun the defences.
You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.
‘You’re up, Fig!’ she heard Mirabelle call down to her, ‘Don’t you dare let them butcher my crew!’
Fig nodded, filling with battle jitters as her blood rose to an overwhelming surge.
Finally a fight where she could actually make a difference!
The rest of the battle faded away as her focus narrowed to just her opponents on the deck of The Rogue Wave.
She was going to save her hand-cannon shot until she really needed it, so she dashed forward, ducked under a clumsy swing, and thrust Whisper through the exposed underarm of a Dynasty soldier who had just raised his sword to cut down a wounded pirate.
The man shuddered and coughed blood, then his knees went weak and he fell to the ground.
As she ripped her blade free, Whisper’s enchantment charged up and the whole sword thrummed with eager energy.
Time to do what you do best.
Fig spun and took the head off the next closest soldier with a single enchanted blow.
Whisper recharged.
The next man died with a three inch diameter hole punched through his heart from Fig’s magical sword thrust.
Whisper recharged again.
She could hardly have asked for a better scenario for Whisper’s enchantment. The soldiers’ armour and weapons raised in defence meant nothing against the power of the blade’s severing strike, and her unfortunate test run with the Ragon’ta had taught her enough about the enchanted sword’s capabilities that she fought with care and precision. Not a single attack was wasted.
In five seconds, seven of the boarders lay dead around her. In twenty, she’d single handedly cut their numbers in half. Each magically empowered strike was a killing blow that flowed seamlessly into the next.
It must have been terrifying to watch. She felt terrifying. Splashes of blood covered her arms and face but she couldn’t stop grinning at the awesome power flowing through her sword.
The other boarders started falling back, then running in terror as she vaulted over the bodies of the recently dead and advanced towards them.
The pirates rallied around her, bringing the fight back to the Dynasty soldiers and cutting the grappling lines wherever Fig had cleared the way.
Then a tall war-mage in full plate armour leapt off the deck of Rathulin’s Star and crashed down in the centre of a squad of pirates to Fig’s right, crushing one man under its weight as it landed in a crouch.
Shit, that’s a Mageknight!
The armoured mage had a red pauldron with gold engraving to denote its rank as one of the war-mages’ elite. It spun and cut into the pirates surrounding it with a long sabre, fending off incoming blows with a shield that had the Dynasty’s blazing sun insignia emblazoned on the front.
A row of six glowing red ether-crystals were embedded into the armour’s breastplate. In fact, the entire suit of plate armour looked enchanted, etched with focusing runes and glowing with arcane radiance.
The ether-crystals flashed, and a wave of force projected out of the Mageknight’s shield, blasting the two remaining pirates from the assaulted squad overboard.
‘Just my fucking luck,’ Fig cursed.
The Mageknight turned to face the rest of the pirate force. The ether crystals on its chest flashed again, and one of them winked out.
Fig threw herself to the side as three gouts of flame erupted from the tip of the Mageknight’s sword and incinerated a trio of unprepared pirates who’d been fighting the other boarders behind her.
Mirabelle’s gun rang out overhead, but the shot just glanced off the Mageknight’s armoured helm in a shower of sparks.
Damn, just as tough as she’d heard. Inside that enchanted armour the wearer was almost impervious to conventional weaponry.
But would it stand up to Whisper?
Fig ran in before the Mageknight could fire off another spell, deflected a strike from the sabre, and slipped the point of her blade through her enemy’s guard.
Elite and magically powerful as the Mageknight might be, she was still the better duelist by far.
She aimed Whisper’s severing strike at the Mageknight’s shoulder, looking to take off their arm in one clean blow.
Whisper’s charge flowed out with that familiarly intoxicating surge of force, but to Fig’s dismay the blade clattered harmlessly off the enchanted armour’s pauldron, and she was forced to fall back, sidestepping a swipe from the sabre that would have opened her from neck to navel if it had connected.
Fuck. We can’t cut the armour.
How are we supposed to kill this thing then?
She saw the Mageknight’s golden eyes glaring at her from the narrow gap in the helmet’s visor. The ether crystals on its breastplate flashed once more and Fig dove for cover behind a big coil of anchor rope as a gout of flame washed across the deck where she’d been standing.
This isn’t remotely fair! Why don’t we have magical armour?
‘Because I’m not stinking rich enough to afford it,’ Fig groaned, and rolled away as the Mageknight’s armoured boot slammed down and snapped a plank where her head had been.
‘Auusvartun!’ she heard Rick shout.
Seeing her in trouble, he’d come down from the quarterdeck and stood with his hand outstretched at the edge of the melee.
A bolt of magical force flashed from his hand and crashed into the Mageknight, knocking it off balance and giving her a second to climb to her feet.
Rick launched another blast at the Mageknight, but it raised its shield and the ether-crystals on its breastplate flashed, reinforcing the shield with a blue aura that dissipated the magical attack harmlessly.
Blast after blast fizzled against the shield, doing no real damage, but forcing the Mageknight to focus on defence for a few seconds while the regular pirates fell back to find safer opponents in the melee.
Two more of the ether-crystals on the Mageknight’s breastplate went dark as their charge depleted. There were only three left.
The Mageknight flung its sabre at Rick, who broke off his attacks and ducked behind the main-mast for cover.
Before the Mageknight could take a step forward or cast a spell, the great burly Rossak mage, with his long braid dancing behind him in the wind, ran in and tackled the armoured figure around its knees, lifting it off its feet and pitching it headfirst down into the deck with a great crash.
Fig watched in awe as the Rossak knelt over his fallen opponent and hammered his fists down into the armour, not giving the Mageknight a second to breathe.
Wisps of red mist trailed from the Rossak’s knuckles, and from his toned muscles as they strained under his red and green skin, some kind of enhancement magic?
The Mageknight’s raised shield buckled and warped under the onslaught. With his bare hands, the Rossak mage crumpled it up and tossed it aside like a ball of paper.
The enchanted armour itself proved impervious to whatever magically enhanced punches the Rossak was using, but Fig could hear groans coming from the Mageknight as the impact of the strikes reverberated through the metal.
The ether-crystals on the Mageknight’s breastplate flashed, and a wave of force blasted the Rossak mage back, slamming him into the mainmast where he lost his footing and sank to one knee, breathing heavily.
Whatever he had just done seemed to have been incredibly taxing, because the red mist rising from his skin dissipated, and he couldn’t get back to his feet.
Another crystal on the Mageknight’s breastplate was dark.
‘Auusvartun!’ Rick blasted the Mageknight again, and without its shield to disperse the effect, it went flying back and hit The Rogue Wave’s railing.
‘Heretic!’ the enraged Mageknight screamed at Rick.
Now that’s just mean.
The rest of the battle around them seemed to be in stalemate, with the boarders from Rathulin’s Star still pressing the attack, and Mirabelle’s pirates holding their line. Everything hinged on how much of their time and energy it took to kill this fucking Mageknight, if they could.
They needed to end this quickly.
‘Hit it again, Rick!’ Fig shouted, and ran towards the Mageknight.
‘Auusvartun!’ the next blast crashed into the Mageknight’s raised arms and rocked it backwards, keeping it pinned against the railing.
It leaned forward, steadied itself, and fixed its visor on Rick as the last two ether-crystals on its breastplate flashed and drained.
The flowery mage above them summoned a shielding ward to defend Rick, just in time.
The shimmering barrier strained against a white hot ray of radiant energy that erupted from the Mageknight’s outstretched gauntlet. Some of the power of the spell reflected off the shield and carved burning furrows through the deck of The Rogue Wave, and sailors from both ships who got caught in the ricochet were incinerated, but the shield held.
Fig slid in front of the Mageknight as its spell died and the last two ether-crystals went dark.
She jammed the barrel of her hand-cannon against the thin gap in the armour’s visor, and saw the Mageknight’s golden eyes go wide with terror, right before she pulled the trigger.
Bang!
The Mageknight’s head rocked back as the shot ricocheted around inside the enchanted helm turning the wearer’s head to mush that leaked out of the visor for a moment before the Mageknight’s limp body toppled backwards over The Rogue Wave’s railing and into the ocean.
The crew of The Rogue Wave cheered, and redoubled their efforts to fight back the boarders.
Fig looked down at the smoking hand-cannon, then up at Mirabelle on the platform above, who saluted her with a grin before placing a shot right through the temple of the last war-mage aboard Rathulin’s Star.
And with that, the battle was essentially over.
With the pirate mages’ unhindered help, the crew of The Rogue Wave repelled the remaining boarders, cut themselves free of the grappling lines, and cast off from Rathulin’s Star.
The war galleon had lost two of its masts, the rigging was on fire, and the hold was filling up with water from the damage to the hull, despite the best efforts of the remaining crew to control the flooding.
Grisson and the other pirate mages blasted a few more holes in the ship for good measure, and they sailed away as it slowly sank out of sight beneath the dark waves, leaving only a crowd of Dynasty sailors treading water and clinging to pieces of wooden debris from the battle.
Fig watched over the aft railing as they started paddling for the distant coast of Sedalia.
Some might make it, most probably wouldn’t.
Mirabelle joined her at the railing, looking back at the wide ring of bubbles rising to the surface from the recently sunken ship.
‘I wish you could have saved that suit of enchanted armour. It’s very useful to have one of those,’ Mirabelle said.
‘Sorry,’ Fig said as she turned and gave the spent hand-cannon back to Mirabelle, who clipped it to her belt.
‘Some of those sailors will survive and tell their superiors about the battle, and everything they can remember about your long-gun,’ Fig said.
‘Oh, I’m not worried about that,’ Mirabelle said, wiping the residue of powdersmoke off her face with a handkerchief, ‘I want them to know what we did here. I want them afraid that it will happen again.’
‘So what, all those people had to die on both sides because you thought this battle would be a nice little addition to your reputation?’ Fig struggled to keep the strain out of her voice as she gripped the railing, ‘We could have outrun those ships and avoided all of this.’
Mirabelle paused and turned to her, ‘What I do is ugly business. I didn’t think I still needed to explain that to you.’
Fig looked away, her jaw clenched, ‘It was unnecessary.’
‘What do you know about it?’ Mirabelle said, arching her eyebrow, ‘Really, Fig. What the fuck do you know about what is necessary for me to do. I work every day to protect my island. I have responsibilities, something you seem to flee from at every opportunity. You rejected the chance to be a part of something bigger and more important than yourself, and you still think you have the standing to be a moral authority about the battles I choose to fight. No, Fig. No!’
She pointed at the soldiers swimming for the shoreline miles away, ‘When I kill, or sink ships, or, yes, build my legend to frighten my enemies or bring support to my banners, I have a good reason for doing it. As I recall, you were the one smiling like a maniac while you cut down all those soldiers on the main-deck, so I’ll not be taking morality lectures from you, thank you very much. You’re here killing my enemies for no better reason than that you’re getting paid to do it. That’s the choice you made, sellsword!’
Mirabelle spat the last word and stalked away, scowling.
Fig rested her head on the railing and waited a while as the wind carried the smell of smoke away across the water.
Do you feel like you handled that well?
‘Fuck you,’ she said.
A short while later, Rick approached her.
‘You ok?’ he asked.
‘...Yeah,’ she said, straightening up, ‘You did well back there, held your own and saved my ass against that Mageknight.’
‘I was shitting myself the whole time,’ Rick said, ‘but it felt good not being helpless… Dorian made it through the battle, by the way. He called it an “enlightening experience”. I think he’s below deck writing about it right now.’
‘Fucking, of course he is,’ Fig massaged her brow, ‘How does he keep surviving all this shit?’
‘Maybe the Aspects are figuring out how to annoy you in particular,’ Rick smiled.
‘Well they nailed it,’ Fig said, 'Come on, there's lots to do.'
The pair went to help with the cleanup after the battle.
The Rogue Wave was in bad shape.
They’d lost some canvas and the deck was burnt up and scarred from all the fire magic, but the crew were already making repairs and patches.
By the end of the day they were back on course, heading up the coast to the mouth of the Allura River and the resort town of Loverlock that awaited them beyond.
[End of Chapter 18]