They folded camp quickly, and once again Threadbare was in the middle of the pack as they trudged upslope. Many of the crew were moving easier, having leveled in the dungeon and increased their stamina.
Though there had been no orders or requests on the subject, Threadbare found himself more or less in charge of their new “guest.” One of the pirates had unwound her bindings, leaving her arms tied, and handed the resulting leash to him. He'd had Renny take it, because he thought the difference in height between the Celia illusion and his own grip might cause problems if too many people saw him holding a rope.
For her part, Midian seemed content to walk and peer around. Her eyes were luminescent in the darkness, shining a robin's egg blue. Occasionally she hummed a melody he hadn't heard before, one that shifted around so much he wasn't sure if it was a single song or an assortment of tunes. In any case she seemed happy, and was no trouble as she followed him up the trail.
The only trouble came when the mountain air rumbled, a blast of sound and fury rolling down the slope, as a flash flickered in the distance.
“Thunder?” Threadbare asked, though something sounded off about it.
“Nay,” Anne called, as the pirates drew swords and moved into a jog. “Cannon!”
Another blast split the sky, and this time the flickering revealed shadows in the night. That was definitely coming from where they'd left the Cotton Tale. Threadbare picked up the pace himself, and waved a paw at Renny. “Come on!”
That said, the pirates had the speed that only bunny beastkin could muster, and soon the golems were in the back of the pack. They were joined by Glub, who slowed to match their pace and cast them a look. The fishman's leather lips moved, and Threadbare heard the wind whisper in his ear.
“Hey boss, you sure we want to help, here? Our job is easier if that ship is sunk.” Glub asked.
“I'm not sure about that,” Threadbare said, and then he frowned as he heard a familiar bellow shake the peaks. “Oh dear. Those must be matterhorns.”
“Aw shit, not again,” Glub said, so loudly that Renny shushed him.
The motion reminded Threadbare of something he'd been forgetting. “Invite Renny to Party,” he said, as the first wave of pirates shouted buffs, and charged toward the floating, buffalo-like beasts that were starting to swoop away from the ship and fly down to meet the interlopers.
Renny has joined your party!
“People believe there are four states of matter,” Midian said dreamily, as the leading beast bellowed and wind literally blew several of the pirates back down the hill. “But those are only the most observable ones. There are many transitive and subtler expressions, if you know where and how to look.”
“Party Whisper,” Muttered Glub as soon as he saw Renny was in.
Glub: Okay, what do we do here?
Threadbare: Renny, how well does your illusion hold up in a fight?
Renny: Pretty good, since fights are confusing and busy anyway.
Threadbare: Could you make it look like Glub isn't doing anything so he can help too?
Renny: I'm sorry but no, that's way too hard. As it is it'll only be really good if you tell me what you're doing before you do it.
Threadbare: Oh, that's okay then. I'm going to try to save people.
Renny: I meant in more detail than... oh dear.
Threadbare ran toward the line, pausing to check on the groaning crewbunnies on the ground as he did so. Two of them had been blown back and momentarily stunned, but the others were already rising and staggering back up the slope.
The monsters were matterhorns, he saw. Specifically, these were all gasserhorns, the airy beasts which could fly in long, leaping bounds
From what Threadbare recalled, after talking with his old party after the last fight, the gasserhorns weren't as strong as the solidhorns, but they were faster and still had a pretty sizeable strength.
Fortunately, he was both very small, and had a few tricks to get even dodgier. Subtle tricks, that probably wouldn't give away his powers to Anne and the pirates.
“Guard Stance twenty-six, Flex, Flexible Pose,” Threadbare said, and he felt his posture shift as he moved and contorted, pulling in a little more tight, turning as he ran to present more of his side to his enemies, rather than the broadness of his front facing.
Your Guard Stance skill is now level 27!
Your Flexible Pose skill is now level 6!
The trio of skills also had the side effect of increasing his raw agility. So when he outpaced the crewbunnies in the second charge, he drew a lot of attention, and distantly he heard Anne shout “What? Whoa! Hold on there princess, fall back! Belay that!”
Upslope, the cannons on the Cotton Tale crackled a long, ripping roar of flame and smoke and dirt exploded from the mountainside. But the gasserhorns bounded lightly away, all three of them, and Threadbare saw with a glance that they were aiming to slam down in the middle of the line below.
Did you know this story is from Royal Road? Read the official version for free and support the author.
Threadbare squinted between the settling gouts of dirt and snow, took quick stock of where everyone was, gathered his stubby legs beneath himself—
—and leaped.
The gasserhorn in the lead didn't see him coming. It barely felt him, too. Threadbare just didn't have much weight to him, and its armor was enough that the only visible effect to the bear's attack was a forlorn red '6' rising into the moonlit sky.
But Threadbare hadn't been trying to do damage. He'd just been trying to close the distance and grab hold before it hit the ground.
And now, with his paws full of fistfulls of matted, cloudlike puffy fur, he found his way under the enormous beast to a very sensitive spot indeed, poked his head out to check the gasserhorn just above and to the right of it, then gave his current target a very, very uncomfortable poke in a very, very sensitive spot.
Then he leaped off and ran for all he was worth.
Your Brawling skill is now level 77!
It took a second for the gasserhorn to register the pain.
It took another half-second for it to react.
But when it did, it did not disappoint.
The buffalo-like beast, full on half the size of the Cotton Tale, twitched to the right to get away from whatever had stung its balls.
Right into the path of the next-highest gasserhorn.
Instead of coming down on screaming bunny beastkin and squashing them flat, the two gasserhorn crashed to the ground, one under the other, bellowing and kicking and ripping into each other for a percieved attack, while the third one aborted its dive and bounded upwards again, eyes wide and wondering what the hell its prospective mates were up to.
“Get upslope!” Anne yelled, as she sent pistol shots after the descending beasts. “Rally on the Cotton Tale before they turn! And Cecelia ye best be alive or I'll kill ye!”
Renny and Glub followed Threadbare up the hill, and joined the crew clambering up to the deck of the ship. Stormanorm and Harey Karey were already there, tossing muskets and shot to each pirate that arrived, as Anne stood on the prow, reloading her own guns.
And it was only when Threadbare looked to the empty leash in Renny's hand that he realized that they were short one elf.
“Where's Midian?” Threadbare asked, then remembered that his friends really shouldn't be talking around the crew. Fortunately, Glub's Party Whisper skill was still in effect.
Threadbare: Where's Midian?
Renny: What?
The little fox looked to the empty leash and harness.
Renny: Oh no!
Glub: Check it out man! Over by the 'horns.
And there she was, just behind where the gasserhorns were slowly getting themselves turned around, struggling against the air currents of the slope and getting reoriented for another attack run. The elf stood their cheerfully with her hands clasped behind her back, ears twitching as she tilted her head from one side to the other.
“Oh bother,” Threadbare breathed, and headed toward the side of the deck.
He almost made it to the rope ladder down when he heard a series of thumps next to him, and looked over to see Anne straightening up from where she'd leaped to intercept him. “Nay,” Anne said. “Ye can go below, but ye'll not be leaving us now.”
“She's alone out there,” Threadbare said.
“By choice, by the looks of it. Nay, leave her. The gods touched her with madness, the gods will look after her. And besides,” Anne said, motioning Threadbare back toward the center of the deck with one pistol, “I want to see what she can do. I want to see what I'm bringin' into me home.”
Threadbare frowned. “All right. But if she falls I'm going to go and try to save her.”
Anne grinned a lazy golden grin. “That'll be an interesting day,” she said, tapping her pistol against what she thought was Cecelia's head, as the phantom sound of metal rapping porcelain rang out.
Threadbare went back to the center of the deck, and waited.
He didn't have long to wait. As the cannons roared and sent lead into and around the gasserhorns they finished their turn and started bounding back toward the ship...
...until a flash of blue light split the sky.
A wall appeared right in front of the lead gasserhorn, and it slammed into the unmoving plane of force with a THUD that made all of the crew wince.
“Wizardry!” Anne said, approvingly.
The other two hastily paddled their legs in midair, one managing to only clip the side of the wall of force, the other just dodging under it.
Another flash of blue licked out, and popped that one in the nose. It bellowed, and arrowed downward, straight toward Midian.
“Cannon are reloaded and shifted forward mom,” Stormanorm barked. “Just say the word!”
“Wait for it...” Anne said, eyes fixed on the elven mage.
The Gasserhorn opened its mouth and vapor spewed out, and Threadbare expected to see Midian's broken body flung off the slope and falling into the valley below...
...but instead she simply wasn't there.
Threadbare looked around frantically, but the gasserhorn's Loudcloud skill washed over the slope, and the bellow shook the earth so hard the Cotton Tale shifted on its ledge. The pirates clung for dear life, and Threadbare used the distraction to whisper to his party.
Threadbare: Did anyone see where she went?
After a second, came the reply he'd been hoping for.
Glub: I see her! On your left, towards that rock that looks like a dwarf.
By the time Threadbare found her, she was sitting on the rock, kicking her feet back and forth. He couldn't make out her face at this distance, but her body language showed a total lack of concern for the rising, angry, and battered gasserhorns that had completely lost interest in the Cotton Tale, and were now circling above her like sharks eyeing a treat in the deeper waters.
“We'll never have a clearer shot, Captain!” Stormanorm called, holding the rope of one of the cannons.
“Not yet,” said Anne, unlimbering a spyglass and setting it to her eye, tracing runes on the side that lit it up with a strange green glow. “Wait for it...”
Gasserhorns weren't normally herd animals.
They weren't even predators, when you got down to it. They drifted in the high places of the world, bounding from peak to peak to hunt for the lichens they liked to feast upon, and staying in places where their mobility, immunity to the harshness of gravity, and devastating wind attacks could best protect them from the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune.
They were not used to being among other gasserhorns, let alone coordinating their attacks.
But when the first one bellowed its rage and dropped like a stone toward the thing that had offended it, the second one followed its instincts and its companion down, and the third one blasted Midian with a gale-force wind, they did a credible job of teamwork quite by accident.
Threadbare feared the worst. He looked away; he couldn't watch.
As he did so, his button gaze fell on Anne.
Anne, who had her eye glued to the spyglass.
Anne, whose mouth was open in shock.
Anne, who for a second, for a brief second that Threadbare wouldn't have caught if he hadn't been staring straight at her, shook with fear.
The second passed.
The explosion of wind and the two charging gasserhorns hit the slope so hard that stone and ice and snow bloomed upward in a peeling cloud.
And Anne folded the spyglass with an audible snap, turned to Stormanorm, and said “As soon as ye get a clear shot, fire the cannon.”
“We don't have eyes on the elf, captain. Ye want her to be collateral?”
“She won't be,”Anne said, simply. “It's over. Lady Cecelia, if you'd be so kind as to start rebuilding me engines?”
Threadbare collected the bag of engine parts from the pirate who'd been tasked to carry it, but as he went the cannons belched fire and shot, and he couldn't help but spare a glance back.
The gasserhorns were in full retreat now, leaving only a crater in the center of things.
And to the side of the crater, walking calmly away with her hands in the pockets of her robes, Midian strode toward the ship without a care in the world.