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17 - Prepare To Repel Boarder

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Suni

“Prepare to repel skirmishers!”

The words rang in my mind from somewhere distant. They were quiet, echoing. I heard them, but hardly understood their meaning. All I remembered was fumbling the flint and steel, Theo’s look of indignation, and the words that’d followed.

“You’re useless. Why are you even here?”

And she was right. I’d been utterly useless. Had hindered more than helped, and then we were falling. The sky rushing past, my stomach feeling like it would burst from my throat. And then it’d all stopped. Ended in an earth-shattering crash as we’d all broken into a thousand, thousand pieces on the ground below. A quick and painless death.

Or so I’d thought.

The pain reverberating through my body insisted otherwise. It radiated from my shoulder and back, throbbing along to the beat of my heart. Every few breaths it was interspersed with shooting cramps that rolled from one muscle to the next in torturous waves. Something in my chest was probably fractured. One hand was worryingly dead. Blood coated my tongue.

A groan slipped from my throat and the world burned white as my eyes flicked open.

Something wet was running down the back of my head and as I reached up to find out what it was, I was distracted by several finger-length splinters of wood buried in my forearm.

“Blasted komodo,” I said, then yanked the first splinter out and yelped as pain flared in my arm.

“Blasted skyships.” I pulled another out, hissing through my teeth as it tore free.

“Blasted Far Wild. Blasted Bospurians. Blasted everything.”

When the last splinter was free, I sighed, then leaned my head back. Just for a moment. Needed a rest. Darkness flickered at the corner of my eyes as I eased them shut, exhaustion taking over.

I just needed a moment...

“Prepare to repel skirmishers! Get your asses up!” Elpida’s voice shook me awake. I pulled myself into a sitting position despite the protests of my throbbing back, and looked around.

I was on the deck of the Stormcrow, though deck hardly seemed an applicable description anymore. A “loose scattering of barely held together boards” seemed more accurate. All around me the ship was smashed and broken, entire sections of it reduced to nothing more than kindling.

Breathe, Suni. Breathe, I told myself, sucking down shaking lungfuls of air. I pushed my feet under me and managed to make it mostly upright.

Keep breathing, steady now.

The Stormcrow had come down on the prairie, and not all that far from where the Panagia had first touched down. The very beginning of its debris field was less than fifty paces off of our starboard bow.

I looked around, scanning for corpses. And I found them, except they weren’t corpses. Darn near looked it, though, through the dust and dirt and blood smeared across them all. But they were moving. Moving meant not dead.

Sergeant Kyriakos was closest to me, one hand held to his head as he leaned back against the lone, still-standing section of the ship’s rail. Blood ran between his fingers, and his uniform was ripped and torn in several places, including one decidedly bloody sleeve, but he seemed otherwise alive.

A pile of debris stirred on the right and then Senesio rose out of it. He dragged Leda out with him, slapped her awake, then sat down with a heavy breath.

Senesio had saved me. The thoughts came rushing back. First with the komodo, then again when the javelin-charge had thunked into the deck right in front of us. He’d tackled me, thrown me out of the way while I’d been too shocked to react. If not for him... I reached up to my burned hair. Well, a bad hairdo would have been the least of my concerns.

“Senesio,” I said, moving toward him. My legs were like jelly, but growing steadier with each step. “Thank you. Just... thank you.”

He smiled, then sprung to his feet, graceful as ever. Were it not for the blood and soot stained across his clothes, he would have looked entirely unharmed.

“Always happy to be of service,” he said, then set about patting dust from his coat. “That was thrilling, wasn’t it?”

“Prepare to repel skirmishers!” Elpida yelled, dragging those nearest her to their feet. “We’re not out of this yet.”

I furrowed my brow at that, until a shadow fell across the wreckage of the Stormcrow. I looked up.

“Don’t know what else I expected.”

The ship that’d sent us careening to the ground hadn’t stopped there. It’d followed us down. Without the sun silhouetting it now, I could get a good look at the thing. It was slimmer and sleeker than any skyship I’d seen before and, squinting, I could only make out three engines on it. Two in the back and one on the bow.

Needlethroat, the name on its side read. I frowned at that, then looked for the flag that all ships flew to identify their empire or kingdom. Unsurprisingly, the Needlethroat flew none. But that was a concern for another time. The more pressing matter was the javelin tips gleaming in the sun as the vessel eased itself lower and turned broadside to us. It looked to have only half as many ballistae as the Stormcrow, which was an altogether formidable amount considering our present state. Worse, additional crewmen were at the rails, preparing to lower rappelling ropes.

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“Ready yourselves!” Sergeant Kyriakos shouted as he pulled Theo to her feet.

“They’re holding... position?” Leda said from the back of the ship.

What? That didn’t make any sense, but as I looked I saw she was right. The Needlethroat had stopped. It was just hovering there, a hundred or so paces away, and another forty above the ground. But why? We were exposed and vulnerable. Odds were our ship didn’t even have any ballistae still intact. So why not attack? Why not finish what’d been started?

The questions nagged at my thoughts, but if the attackers were going to give me more time to get ready, then I wasn’t going to complain.

Something clinked at my foot and I looked down to see a sword half-buried in an overturned stack of crates. I pulled it free and gripped it tight. I’d held one a few times before, but never with the intent of using it. Now, however, there wasn’t any other option.

“Shield... I need a shield... ” I mumbled, looking for what had become of mine. I’d lost it at some point during the chaos. Where was it?

I spun, eyes searching the rubble-strewn deck, but finding only splintered wood and other debris. It had to be nearby. Assuming it hadn’t been flung away during the crash, which, the more I thought about it, seemed quite likely.

And then I remembered where and why I’d dropped my shield. I remembered, and at the same moment realized why the attacking skyship was keeping its distance.

The thought froze the blood in my veins. Froze my feet to the ground. Caught the breath in my throat.

“Oh no.”

I’d lost my shield back at the wreck of the Panagia. Had dropped it when I’d fallen, running from the komodo. The same komodo that had been watching as we’d escaped on the Stormcrow. And the same komodo that, I realized, looking out across the prairie, was heading right for us.

It was no more than fifty paces away, tongue flicking excitedly in the air as it sprinted. Almost looked like it was gliding, legs swinging back and forth, throwing it across the ground far too smoothly and quietly for such a massive beast. No one else had noticed it yet.

The ice in my veins shattered as a wash of heat and panic surged through me.

“Behind us!” My shout cut through the air, catching the attention of those nearest. “Komodo! Behind us!”

The crew turned, then broke into a panic, tossing down their weapons and seeking the closest shelter possible. At the aft deck, Elpida and several others swung themselves over the stern rail, then disappeared out of sight.

After that, it was all instinct. I broke into a run, tripped, and near-tackled Gabar as I stumbled past him.

“Get below decks!” Gabar shouted, then darted towards a hatch a dozen paces away.

Senesio and Theo reached the hatch first. They dived headlong through it as they arrived, skipping the ladder entirely and thunking down to the next deck. Gabar followed, then Demetrias a stride after.

I made to do the same, heart beating wildly in my chest, but slid to a stop at the last moment. Someone was limping in the corner of my vision. Maritza, the helmswoman. She was moving too slow, far too slow. She’d never make it.

The komodo was nearly there now. I could smell it on the wind, could hear the great wheezing of its breath as it drew closer. There wasn’t time to think. Wasn’t time to hesitate.

I acted, turning towards the limping helmswoman. I darted forward and the whole world opened up around me, leaving me as exposed as a newborn. There was no cover here. Nowhere to hide. The hatch was in the opposite direction. The hatch. Safety. My sense of reason kicked in and froze me in my tracks.

I was no hero. Just an apprentice naturalist. Useless, just like Theo had said. Didn’t belong out here, just like Elpida had said. Wasn’t ready for this, just like Kamil had thought.

I don’t belong out here. I can’t do this.

I gave one last look at the struggling Maritza, then turned away.

“I’m sor—”

The komodo hit the side of the ship like a hurricane, ploughed into it and sent the whole thing tipping toward one side. I slammed down hard on my rear, then flailed my arms as I slid across the deck. I reached for the hatch as I slid past—close, so close, just within reach—but a tumbling Maritza crashed into me and sent both of us rolling past.

The Stormcrow fell back onto its belly and the deck righted itself, throwing Maritza and I a pace back the way we’d come.

And leaving us in plain sight of the komodo. The beast stepped one foot onto the deck and the ship groaned under its weight.

A hiss poured from the komodo’s mouth. A foul, rotting breath followed it.

“Get to the hatch!” I shouted, stumbling towards the opening and pulling Maritza with me.

We reached a waist-high rubble pile as the beast placed a second massive foot on the deck of the ship, then swung its head towards us, tongue tasting the air.

“Go!” I shoved Maritza forward and she stumbled the last few feet, then tripped down the hatch. The komodo snapped at the flurry of movement. Its jaws cracked shut just behind her as she disappeared into the ship.

I reeled back and ducked behind a pile of debris, sure the beast had seen me, sure it was coming for me next. It was so close I could have touched the thing. My heart pounded in my chest and I fought to control my breath, fought to slow it down, lest the komodo hear me.

In... out...

In... out...

Every breath felt like it would burst my lungs.

The komodo hissed again, but softer this time.

Pressed up against the debris pile, I couldn’t see the predator, but I could feel it. I had regressed to the simplest state of prey meets predator—sheer, frozen terror. It was so close it could snap me up with the slightest of movements. I scrunched down lower, doing my best to disappear into the debris between me and the beast.

Another hiss, and then silence. The komodo’s tongue flicked out into the air just above me. It whipped first up, then down, slapping into the debris. I slouched away, but the tip of the thing nicked my shoulder, slipped over it soft and steady. The tongue stopped there, one painful long moment resting on my shoulder, then withdrew. The komodo growled and the sound was so deep, so close, it reverberated in my chest. I swallowed hard.

The deck of the Stormcrow groaned as the beast shifted its weight, preparing to lunge, and I took a guess. What else could I do?

Sucking down a lungful of air and praying to the ancestors, I rolled to my left. As I did, the komodo’s head burst around the opposite side of the debris pile, jaws open and snapping at the spot I’d just vacated.

For a moment, time seemed to stop. I was halfway to my feet, the shoulder and ribs of the komodo all I could see. Thick, leathery skin, ridged and rough, stretching away to eternity. And then my eyes rolled down. Down, to the deck, and down to the hatch, a gaping opening into the darkness waiting just below the beast’s chest.

I ran. Straight at the komodo.

The sound of my boots on the deck caught the beast’s attention and it swiped its head to towards me. The movement forced the beast to shift its stance, and for a moment the hatch was wide open. All the invitation I needed.

I dived through the air, slammed into the deck, and slid the rest of the way on my stomach. The komodo reared up on one leg, stepping back almost as if startled, but I was already gone. I grabbed the edge of the hatch and pulled myself down into the dark below.

Safe. For the moment.