Chapter Ninety

Krissintha Arlonet Dar Ghelain glanced at Kitala Iwani, but all she could see was the infuriating laughing mask. She was sure that under the mask the woman was grinning ear to ear, and she felt like she was only an inch away from matching the painted tears on her own mask and start weeping. What the hell had she been thinking agreeing to this? Damn, familiars weren’t supposed to be the cause of their hosts’ deaths. Jump over to the ork ship? Like hell. Could she even do that? She had used Mana to enhance her movements before, made long jumps that would have been impossible for a human, maybe even for an elf — except Fenar — and she had been practicing with Kiwa more diligently than ever. But this? Come on! And why had the captain agreed to this? Because she was expendable in her eyes? Probably that: better a couple of spiritualists than a single marine or ranger, so it was worth a try.

‘You’ll be fine, boss, just roll when you land.’ Kiwa offered her support, probably sensing her trepidation and quite accurately so.

Another arrow panged off the Mana Armour around her as a new volley from the galley hit. A scream of pain rang out from somewhere near the bow, louder than the shouted orders of officers and the angry grunts of shield-bearers and archers. She looked, but only saw a couple of surgeons rushing in that direction.

The galley was getting closer — the crew working the pulleys were fast and determined. Krissintha gripped her sheathed sword almost unconsciously, the feel of the leather straps covering the hilt a small and familiar comfort.

‘I can do this,’ she muttered to herself. ‘I’ve done this before, I can do this.’

Of course you can. Kevin’s voice came. Use as much Mana as you need. Focus on landing right, I’ll deal with anything else until you get your bearings.

I’m Hank. Hank chimed in, but for what purpose, Krissintha had no idea. At least it made her chuckle on the inside — Kevin’s so-called brother was a weird one, but after the events of the past year, it felt like it was just another day as a spiritualist.

‘Misery! Get ready!’ She heard someone yelling at her, then the same voice barked orders. ‘Make some room for the godsdamned spiritualists you imbeciles!’

She turned to look where she thought Captain Fenar’s voice was coming from, but all she could see was the shield-bearing marines parting and making a gap for her to be able to make the jump from the Furious Fist over to the ork galley.

That’s about 30 paces. We can do this. Kevin stated confidently.

For a second, through the gap between shields, Krissintha saw the enemy ship clearly. Then the second passed, and the occupants of the galley took full advantage of the gap and arrows rained down on the spot.

‘Running start, boss, running start!’ Kiwa squealed excitedly like a girl before her first dance, walking towards the opposite side of the ship to get ready for that running start she was advocating for.

‘Fuck.” Krissintha exhaled and followed the battle-crazed elf.

***

This time Mana didn’t just tingle; it almost hurt. Krissintha wondered if she had drawn too much of it into her body — a familiar’s power wasn’t exactly easy to quantify, despite Kevin’s explanations about MP and EP and all that nonsense. It was something she had to do by feel, and control it by willing and wanting. Or was it because of her recent injuries? No. It would have been just her ankle and her arm then. Instead, the uncomfortable sensation of her bones wanting to jump out of her body was everywhere.

Kiwa tapped her on the shoulder; the signal to start running. Oh hell!

Run. Run. Faster. Jump.

Krissintha could have sworn the world slowed down — the elven officers yelling orders, the arrows whooshing from one ship to the other, the waves of the sea below. She sailed through the air, the Solace Navy’s pride and joy behind her now, the hellish ork galley in front and approaching. The monstrous, greenskinned creatures lifting their heads as they noticed them coming, elven and human slaves trying to aim their bows at them.

Then everything sped up again as she landed on the deck of the galley, rolling forward between two orks, the wooden boards creaking and cracking under her. She sprung up, trying to orient herself. The first thing she saw clearly were two of the nearest orks and an elf, all of them holding bows, and two humans who were dragging a huge bucket of arrows. And they collapsed. She knew exactly what had happened to them: Kevin. Strangely, she could barely hear anything, the thumps of the bodies hitting the floor muffled like everything else, as if hearing it through a thick door. Except for the voices in her head.

Gotcha! Kevin screamed.

Tasty. Hank commented.

Get on it, boss! Kiwa thought-yelled, and she didn’t wait for a reply.

Suddenly the sounds of battle crashed down on her, clear and chaotic, just as Kiwa shot forward, blue flashes of Tilry’s Mana enveloping her and her sword. She reached the next ork in an instant, burying her blade into his neck. The green brute didn’t even have time to react; he gurgled some panicked words, blackish blood squirting as Kiwa withdrew the weapon. The unfortunate ork collapsed to his knees, putting both hands on the wound, then fell down face first and didn’t move.

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Krissy! Krissy! Let’s get going! Kevin wailed, and he didn’t have to say it twice.

Krissintha drew her sword — one gifted to her by none other than Master Fenar — and she got to work.

They had landed near the bow of the long ship, and Kiwa was already making her way towards the middle. The eclectic crew of the galley seemed to be a little slow to comprehend what was happening.

The crew of the Furious Fist had the good sense to stop shooting arrows at the galley after Krissintha and Kiwa had jumped over — at least in the general vicinity of the bow — but the Righteous Wrath, which was on the other side, seemed to have missed or misinterpreted the flag-messages about this, and were determined to turn the ork ship into a giant hedgehog. Or perhaps they had got the message and decided the presence of allied spiritualists was an insufficient reason for them to give up the endeavour. Or Captain Fenar had left it out of their communications entirely. Krissintha wasn’t sure which was the case, but each of them seemed feasible. It was infuriating, even knowing that Kevin had no trouble protecting her.

Five elven arrows hit Mana-Armour with a strange, soft clang, snapping her out of her momentary musings. They clattered to the wooden floorboards, just as she pulled her sword out of the gut of a human slave, red blood dripping from the blade. Her first kill on the enemy ship. She had barely even realised that she had stabbed someone already. Master Fenar was right in saying muscle memory was just as important as clear thinking during a battle, if not more — even if her mind was slow to catch up, her body knew what to do. The man fell flat on his back, screaming and spasming, but Krissintha paid no more attention to him. He wouldn’t get up again. A shirtless elf, upper body painted dark green, his almost white hair sticky with something that looked like black grease, also fell, right on top of the still screaming man, displaying no evidence of having been struck — Kevin’s sixth’s kill. Or maybe seventh. And only after five seconds on the galley. Busy little spirit.

She looked around properly for the first time, trying to see where Kiwa was, and where the next enemy would come from. Her self-appointed bodyguard was already six corpses closer to the foremast than she was, some of the ork and human bodies in her wake riddled with arrows, some of them showing the signs of the elven spiritualist’s formidable sword-work. Orks, elves and humans were standing in lines along the guardrails at both sides of the deck, but only the closest ones were turning around to deal with the threat of the bladed whirlwind Kiwa was, the rest of them still busy exchanging volleys with the two elven ships.

Don’t fall behind! Go go go! Kevin yelled. I’ll watch your back.

Oh, we’ll eat them. We’ll eat them all. Hank purred like the happiest monster that had ever existed.

Krissintha steeled her nerves, gripped her sword, and followed the bloody footsteps of her bodyguard. A couple of orks in the port-side line turned around to attack Kiwa. The elf was fast and deadly, but the two orks were larger than what she thought was the norm for the creatures, and definitely tougher — even Kiwa’s Mana-coated blade failed to slice through their arms as the brutes protected themselves while trying to rush and ram into her. Krissintha caught up to them, jumping over dead bodies on the way. To her surprise, no-one else from the lines joined the two orks. A few of the slaves shot glances at them over their shoulders, but that was it — they simply carried on bringing arrows for their masters. Maybe they were confident the two, greenskinned boulders would be enough, or just thought shooting arrows at the enemy ships was more important than a couple of comparably tiny interlopers. Either way, it looked like Kiwa needed help.

The hell? Are these spiritualists? Kiwa’s angry thoughts came through the voice-chat as she jumped backwards, avoiding a wide swing of one of the ork’s one handed axe. The other one was right on his comrade’s heels with a broad-bladed sword that looked like a dagger in the hands of such a large creature, and neither of them seemed impaired by the wounds on their arms, even though they were bleeding like a fountain. Sword-ork lunged forward as Axe-ork got out of his way. Kiwa sidestepped the sword-strike and slashed down on the beast. Tilry’s power flashed blue as the blade scraped across his chest. He staggered a bit, stepping back to avoid getting struck again, still alive and well.

No, they’re just tough. Can’t see any spirits. What you see is what you get here. Kevin stated. Need a bit of help?

Krissintha arrived to stand next to the elf woman, just as the two giant brutes stopped as if they had frozen solid, and the next moment they were both on the ground.

‘Don’t fucking do that! They were mine,’ Kiwa screeched, the eye-holes of her jolly mask aimed at the air above Krissintha. She then lowered her head a bit, probably looking at her, and said, ‘Sorry boss, not you. Kevin.’

There’s plenty of souls here, leave a few for her. Krissintha sent the thought.

Oh yeah, oh yeah, we already ate like thirty of them rowers underdeck. Hank hollered happily.

Fine, I’ll ask before I do it again. Kevin said, sounding disappointed.

She sighed inwardly. This was absurd. To the spirits this wasn’t a life and death battle where they could easily meet a violent end. To them this was a buffet. What was she even doing here? How had she let herself be roped into this? Maybe Kevin wasn’t the real pushover here.

‘Why aren’t they coming?’ Kiwa asked, fuming.

Krissintha looked around, but apart from the bodies of the fallen orks and their slaves, it was just them standing in the middle of the deck, near the foremast. The enemy crew was ignoring them, their focus on the elven ships on either side of the galley. The Furious Fist and the Righteous Wrath were close now, only a dozen paces or so — an elf could jump over here now, even without using Mana. She could see the elven sailors clearly, throwing the smaller hooks over, trying to pull the ships even closer to each other, the galley-slaves hacking at the ropes with abandon, trying to prevent their inevitable fate. It wasn’t long now before either marines would come over to the galley or orks would start jumping over to the navy ships. Then not one but two Fenars would launch an avalanche of unkind words and more at her. She needed to find and capture the ork captain and thin the herd on the way before the first marine could set foot on this cursed ship. Whether she liked it or not, the only way to keep the Fenars happy was to let her overly enthusiastic and hungry familiars commit another atrocity by eating as much as they could.

Krissintha hefted her sword, re-adjusting her grip, then tried to wipe some sweat off her face only to realise that the stupid misery-mask was still there. She took a deep breath.

‘Alright, Kiwa, Kevin, new plan,’ she announced.