“But I’d wager that your Emperor doesn’t take to failure kindly,” he continued. “So it’s not going to look good for you when I send you back on that ship with a message to leave us be.”
His face, already white from pain, paled even more at the thought of the fate Dexter had laid out for him. “Kill me you unworthy human coward!” Duballin spat out at him.
Dexter just chuckled. He turned to the other elves. “Stand down or else.”
“Or else what, you’ll kill them? After proving you’re too much of a worm to do it to me?” Duballin raged.
Dexter walked over to Keshira and reached out until his hand was on the hilt of the sword driven through her side. His eyes searched hers, looking for a sign of fear. He saw nothing but blind acceptance of him. He yanked the sword straight out, pulling it free of her. He was a little shaken and felt weak kneed at the momentary pain that had flooded her eyes, but as he continued to look at her he saw it fade. He held the sword up and studied it.
“Keshira, are you alright?” he asked while his eyes focused on the sword. He did not want to look at her right yet, since his stomach still felt a little uneasy.
“Yes, Captain, I will live,” she said, happy to please him with an answer if not more.
“This is a nice blade,” Dexter said, swinging it and watching her blood fly off of it as though it was water rolling off of a duck’s back. It had an excellent balance to it and, if it could plunge through her magical skin so easily, he knew a very sharp edge.
“The sword is magical, Captain,” Keshira informed him.
“What? How do you know that?” Dexter asked, surprised.
“I can sense it, it is part of my powers, awareness of magic about me,” Keshira said. “He wears a magical ring on his finger and the pouch about his neck has some magic as well.”
Dexter blinked, surprised. He turned back to Duballin and stripped the three rings off his fingers, figuring she could tell him which one later, and yanked on the pouch, snapping the leather cord holding it. Dexter turned away from the defeated elf and looked at the still resistant prisoners.
“Keshira, the one in the middle, break his fingers,” Dexter said.
She started forward immediately towards the three elves. They tried to back away further but only the edge of the boat awaited them. They looked at each other as Keshira advanced relentless on them. Swords raised defensively they waited until she got close to them, then finally the one in the middle threw his down.
The others followed suit, though Keshira continued to follow the bidding of her Master. She reached out quickly, grabbing his arm and easily overpowering the elf. Her hand slid up his arm and clutched his closed fist in hers and she began to squeeze.
“Keshira, stop!” Dexter called out to her, glad his bluff had worked and fearful that it had almost not been a bluff.
She let him go and retreated. The elf clutched his hand, face pale with the pain the short bit of pressure she applied caused him.
“Kragor, keep an eye on them,” Dexter said. He glanced at Keshira and saw that the bleeding from the sword wound in her belly had actually stopped. He smiled and added, “Keshira, you too.”
She smiled brilliantly and turned to face them. Dexter watched her for a moment then shook his head. “Rosh, Jodyne, Jenna… with me. Let’s make sure they can’t turn around and come at us again.”
Dexter replaced the long sword in his scabbard with the one he had taken from the elf and then climbed up a rope onto the deck of the scout ship. Aboard it he saw two more bodies of dead elves. Apparently Keshira had met with considerable resistance. He glanced around and looked up to the turret with the heavy ballista in it.
“Rosh, get that thing down. I want it,” Dexter said, pointing at it.
The large man grunted and headed off into the ship to climb up on top and work on the mounts that had it secured to the deck. Jenna and Jodyne followed him inside, with any one of them picking up things along the way that they took a fancy to. Jodyne found the galley shortly and busied herself with taking what she could from them to bolster her own stores. Dexter reminded her to leave enough for them to survive on.
Jenna amassed a stockpile of spare weaponry, having to resort to filling a large canvas sack she found with the miscellaneous arms. She lugged it back to the front deck and let it sit there, then returned, searching for more. In the cargo hold she found the spare powder kegs, which she excitedly picked up and carried to the main deck one at a time.
While Jenna and Jodyne rifled through the ships stores, Dexter visited the bridge and studied the star charts that Duballin’s ship possessed. He made note of several of them he was unfamiliar with, taking them and shoving them into a leather scroll case. A few others that he was familiar with had some additional points of interest on them that he committed to memory. The only other item of interest was a locked strongbox in the bridge, but even after breaking the lock he found little that appealed to him save some letters to family and friends that spoke of Duballin’s journey and his various exploits for Emperor and country.
They made their way back to the Voidhawk, Dexter calling Keshira over to help move the heavier items from ship to ship. Dexter joined Kragor in watching their captives, both speculating softly to themselves about what might happen to the surviving elves. Duballin passed in and out of consciousness from the pain of his broken arm and other injuries, making his presence more of an amusement than a threat to the old friends.
When they finished, they forced the elves back aboard the scout ship, making the survivors carry their wounded leader. The corpses of the elves that littered the deck of the Voidhawk were similarly hoisted onto the deck of the scout ship, again at the discomfort of the elven sailors that had been captured. Sometime later they finally untied the ropes binding the two ships and pushed the scout ship free of the Voidhawk. With only four elves remaining, and one of them wounded, the elven ship limped away slowly.
Dexter gave the orders and brought the ship around to the derelict fighter that was flying through space. They carefully pulled up alongside it so that Jenna could board it and look for supplies. She acquired two undamaged casks of powder and, carefully handing each of the five glass flasks over singly, the alchemist’s fire still aboard the ship. With the volatile nature of it largely contained, Kragor went to work stripping the living wood of the fighter apart and storing it in the steerage section of the Voidhawk to use repairing the damage to the ship from the fight.
“Hell of a day, Captain,” Jenna said as the Voidhawk began to sail away from the scene of the battle and return to cruising speed.
“Aye, good fight,” Rosh agreed, nodding his head in praise as he finished tying down a line.
Dexter just chuckled. “I should replace Bekka on the helm. Rosh, we need to get you trained on that pretty quick here, methinks.”
A thump from below broke his concentration. It was followed by the roar of an angry dwarf. Dexter hurried down the aft stairs, followed by the other two, and chuckled when he saw a fuming dwarf holding the door to the cargo bay shut that they had locked the strange woman in.
“Rosh, you’ve got some work to do,” Dexter said with a chuckle, heading past Kragor and up the companionway towards the bridge.
“Me? But… what am I going to do with her?” Rosh asked, baffled as to how to proceed.
Kragor grunted, glaring at him until he came over and helped him secure the door. Jenna giggled and headed aft to her cabin, intent on inventorying their new weapons. Already the large ballista sat on the stern castle, waiting for Kragor to secure it to the hull. The other ballista in the other hold was scheduled to make its way to the forecastle at the first opportunity as well. Dexter was through running unarmed, he figured he would deal with the Federation when he had to, until then, the Voidhawk was no longer toothless.
Chapter 5: Missing Pieces
“Damn it, girl, I’m not your foe!” Rosh roared, pushing the young woman coming at him away from furiously.
She
spun away, then continued spinning and launched herself at him anew. Rosh bled from dozens of scratches on his arms already. The large man caught her and crushed her to him, immobilizing her arms so that he only had to deal with her snapping mouth. He dropped to the floor and fell on top of her, further trapping her so that she could not rock her head towards him in an attempt to bite out his throat.
“You gonna settle down and realize you can’t hurt me?” Rosh asked her as she continued to squirm beneath him. Her growl and renewed wiggling was her reply.
“She’s not right,” Bekka said from the doorway to the hold.
Rosh glanced up, then grunted as she managed to drive her knee between his legs. His crossed eyes caused Bekka and Jenna to laugh at his expense.
“What do you mean, she ain’t right?” Rosh demanded, fighting against the painful feeling from his groin to his chest that tried to rob him of air.
“There’s magic about her. Strong,” Bekka said, adding the last as she studied her from afar.
“That why she’s so strong?”
Bekka nodded. “I think, until it’s gone, that’s why she’s mad too.”
Jenna’s grin faded as she listened to Bekka’s observation. She glanced at the dark haired young woman critically, then stepped away. “Rosh, leave her locked up for now, I think I know something about her.”
Rosh grunted and managed to keep her subdued while he climbed to his feet. In a move that was filled with strength and empty of gentility, he launched her across the cargo hold and dashed to the door that the women had only just vacated. He slammed it shut behind him and had barely barred it shut when she crashed into it from the other side, clawing and hammering against the solid wood.
He looked at Bekka and Jenna and grinned. “She’s fast.”
Bekka smirked while Jenna just rolled her eyes. The elf turned away and headed towards the aft stairs. “Hurry up, I have an idea,” she called behind her.
Rosh glanced at Bekka, who only shrugged, and they both followed the arms mistress to the deck of the ship. On the deck she went to Keshira, who was manning the rigging sufficiently on her own while the Voidhawk sailed through space at cruising speeds.
“Keshira, do you still have the items from Duballin that Dexter gave you for safekeeping?” Jenna asked her.
Keshira paused and nodded. She had changed into fresh clothing to replace those tattered in the intense fighting with the elven wasp. She reached into a pocket and pulled forth the pouch and the ring that the elven captain had worn.
Bekka’s eyes narrowed as she stared at the ring. She nodded after a moment. “I sense the same magic about the ring that is merged with the girl.”
“What’s that mean?” Rosh asked, staring threateningly at the ring.
“I need to study them both more to know,” she said, reaching out and taking it from Keshira.
“Well get to it,” Rosh urged. “Captain ain’t going to be letting her take up air and space much more if she ain’t getting friendly with us.”
“I think you’re the only one that wants her friendly, Rosh,” Bekka said with a wink.
Rosh had the decency to adopt an offended look on his face as he muttered, “That ain’t what I was meaning.”
Laughing, Bekka walked away toward her quarters where she could study the ring in private.
Rosh found Jenna looking at him, an amused expression on her face. He scowled and walked off, heading towards the stern castle and the ballista mounted upon it. Jenna laughed as well, glad for the break from her thoughts, then went about her own business.
* * * *
“Rosh!”
Rosh came awake instantly, rolling out of his bunk and reaching for his sword. He saw Dexter standing in the doorway as he girded it about his waist. “Captain?”
“She’s making a ruckus and tearing up my cargo bay, you figure out what to do with her yet?” Dexter asked, jerking his thumb over his shoulder towards the cargo bay where, faintly, the sound of thudding and scratching could be made out.
“Well, um… sort of,” Rosh said, looking down that way. “Bekka’s got this ring–”
“I’m not for caring what she’s got,” Dexter said. “She’s busy with flying this ship longer than she ought to be. I thought you wanted to learn how to fly this thing?”
Rosh nodded. “Yeah, I do, just waiting on you to tell me when.”
“You start doing that, you won’t be having time for stuff like that either,” Dexter said. “So you need to figure out right quick what you’re going to do with her… or I’ll figure it out.”
There was a solid thud accompanied by the sound of wood cracking behind the smaller human. They both looked down the hallway to the door where, a moment later, the door to the cargo hold exploded outward. The broken fragments of wood ricocheted off of the far wall, but were otherwise hardly worth noticing compared to the shape of the girl that picked herself up from where she herself had bounced off the wall. Blood ran from her fingers and lips, adding to the macabre vision that stared upwards at the ceiling, then turned to face them.
“Looks like she figured it out all on her own,” Dexter muttered, reaching for his pistol.
She walked towards them rapidly, an eerie silence emerging from her. Dexter cocked the hammer and took aim just as she turned and scrambled up the stairs to the deck three at a time. He stared after her, confused, and lowered the hammer.
“Rosh?” he asked, at a loss to explain the strange girl’s behavior.
“I’m on it,” Rosh said, already slipping past the smaller man and hurrying up the stairs after her.
Dexter stared at the ruined remains of the door then shook his head and followed them up the stairs.
On the main deck Rosh was running towards her while Keshira watched impassively from the side. The girl was charging towards the forecastle, where Jenna was only now turning her attention at Rosh’s bellowed warnings. She saw the girl coming at her and cursed, then reached for her own pistol.
On the top step she faltered, crashing to the deck under the weight of Rosh. Jenna kept her pistol trained on them, but held her fire while Rosh tried to restrain the demonic girl.
She thrashed under him and managed to backhand him across the face. Rosh felt his jaw rocked by the stinging impact and felt a wetness as well, but he put it from his mind as he tried to control the girl.
“That’s it!” Dexter demanded, coming up on them. “Put her over the side, Rosh!”
Rosh grunted as a knee speared into his stomach. He rolled her over and managed to grab hold of her arms. Another knee strike, this one against his thigh, made him growl with anger. He lifted her up in a smooth motion and turned to the port side of the Voidhawk, ready to hurl her into the void.
“Wait!”
Rosh barely heard Bekka’s plea, coming up the stairs from the bridge as she was. He slowed his steps towards the edge and focused instead on dodging his captives repeated strikes with her feet. He made it to the edge of the ship and turned to look back at Dexter, who was in turn looking at Bekka as she emerged from the top of the stairway.
“Be at peace!” Bekka said, slipping on the ring and holding it up in front of her.
Rosh gave her a funny look and then covered himself quickly, realizing he had given the wildcat in his arms an opening to strike him. No attack came from her, instead she relaxed in his arms. Rosh turned to look at her, mouth agape in wonder.
He stepped away from the ship’s railing, where he had nearly tossed her over, and turned back towards them. “You mean to say that ring controls her?”
Bekka nodded, “I mean to say,” she confirmed.
“Is she safe?” Dexter asked, eyeing the formerly fiery tempered girl suspiciously.
“At the moment, yes,” Bekka said.
Jenna cursed and hurried down the stairs. She looked at the girl and cursed again before turning to Dexter. “I heard of such things, but they looked different then. They used monsters at the time, and called them slayers.”
“Can we skip to the part where this starts making sense?” Dexter asked.
“She’s a slayer? Slayer of what?” Rosh asked.
Kragor emerged from the aft stairs and stared across the deck, wondering what was going on. He held a piece of the broken door in his hand and stared around, seeing Keshira working nearby and the others gathered towards the bow. He overheard their questions as he walked towards them.
“How about you go back to where Rosh was getting beat up by a girl again?” Kragor asked innocently.
Rosh sneered at him, which made the dwarf chuckle.
“The elves would capture creatures… barely intelligent things that lived by tooth and claw, and ensorcel them. With magic they turned them into controllable weapons, and they would send them after whatever they wanted,” Jenna explained.
“Ere I left I had heard, through the network, that they were turning hunting dogs into slayers as well, using magic to twist, strengthen, and corrupt them,” she continued.
“Seems they moved on to people,” Bekka said, stepping closer and studying the placid girl in Rosh’s arms.
“So she’s a weapon?” Rosh asked, staring at her. “Don’t seem like much of a weapon to me.”
Kragor chuckled evilly before saying, “What’s that blood running from your face?”
Rosh scowled at the dwarf and shut up, realizing as he did so that his split lip was getting puffier.
Bekka giggled while Dexter was barely able to contain himself to only smirking. Jenna seemed not amused by it all, instead she was clearly bothered by the turn of events.
“The best thing we could do would be to kill her,” she said. “She was once a young girl, innocent too, probably. But now she has been twisted from what she was into this, an abomination that responds to whomever holds that ring.”
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