by Jez Cajiao
I kicked it savagely, my foot slamming into the wound; then I stabbed out, driving the blade into it and out the far side to slam into the wooden decking below. The crunch of bone and sizzle of dark blood was loud enough to hear even in the midst of battle, as the death scream of the DarkSpore rose to join the others around me.
I spun back, sweeping the naginata through the air and taking a DarkSpore that had been approaching from Grizz’s blindside, then spun again, searching for another enemy before sagging in relief. Tang was dispatching the last with a fast swipe of both blades, which freed its head from the body, before slamming his right blade into its skull, piercing the deck below the creature with the force of the blow.
I checked on my team, realizing the others were panting too, with Miren and Stephanos standing near the open door to the wheelhouse, firing their arrows in defiance of what I’d told them. I grinned and lifted my weapon in thanks, acknowledging the arrow that had distracted the Sporeling. Yen groaned under the strain of building her spell so long, and then I heard Tang shout. Our momentary reprieve was over, as another wave cleared the railings and attacked.
The next few minutes passed in a blur. We stabbed and thrust, moving as fast as we could, and not one of us was uninjured by the time we’d cleared the deck a second time, just in time to see another wave clearing the sides of the ship.
“I can’t hold on much longer; it’s too big!” Yen screamed.
“That’s what she said!” Grizz shouted back, slashing his dagger through a cloud that lunged at his face, it filled the air with a high-pitched buzz, crumbling into ash that floated away on the breeze.
“Why did you have to teach him that?!?” Yen screamed at me, her eyes bloodshot and red-rimmed with stress.
“Sorrynotsorry!” I shouted back, lifting my left hand to cast a spell, and cursing as my lack of fingers, or a hand came back to haunt me.
Again.
“For fucks sake!” I shouted, booting a Sporeling in the face to drive it back, and grunting as Grizz spun past, disemboweling it almost casually, even with his little blade.
“Seriously can’t hold it much longer!” Yen called out through gritted teeth, and I swore, seeing her arms shaking violently. The giant Flamespear that she’d created was now pulsing an angry red and white.
Then I felt it, a change in the air, almost like the static when Grizz and I were randomly slamming the manastones into the holders.
“Grizz!” I shouted and held the naginata out. He grinned, pinned the Sporeling to the deck with his dagger, and left it there, taking the naginata from me as I started to cast.
“Oh, yeah!” he shouted, spinning around and around, the blade flashing and glowing blue as he channeled his only spell, Iceshield, into it.
Clearly judging from the effect that it had on the DarkSpore as he tore through them, it imbued the weapon with Ice, rather than a shield, so that was a relief.
The ship that the SporeMother rode on bobbed closer, and I glowered at it as I felt the ship shudder and creak ominously beneath our feet. A loud cracking noise came from somewhere below us as the ship shifted.
“That’s not good!” Grizz shouted, and I grunted in agreement before taking a last look at Yen; she’d sunk to one knee and was on the verge of losing control entirely.
I scanned the repurposed manaengines as fast as I could, locating the biggest, and the one most surrounded of them, as the one that Giint had been working on.
There were Sporelings, undead, and DarkSpore crawling across it and the floor nearby, burying the stunted trees and fungus deposits that littered the ground under a black, creeping tide of death.
“Hold on; just two more seconds!” I shouted to her, then finished my casting of Fireball and hurled it at the biggest and angriest glowing collection of manabombs that the gnomes, primarily Giint, had made.
It tore through the air, taking out a falling DarkSpore on its way and leaving a smoky wisp of soot behind to mark its passage, before slamming into the pulsing engine.
The impact seemed to freeze the world for a long second. The Manaengine itself let out a little puff of blue-white steam, like dry ice when something disturbs it.
Then there was a second wave as the air shimmered around the engine, sucking inward. It lasted less than a second before it reversed direction and slammed outward with explosive power.
The nearest Sporeling and undead were vaporized, the DarkSpore simply ceased to exist, and the entire section of the barricade was blown outwards in a blast of splinters that destroyed dozens more.
The explosion set off a chain reaction of further detonations as the rest of the manaengines went off, entirely shredding the wooden sections of the barricade and sending huge chunks of metal and splinters of wood flying in all directions.
Mainly, though, they went outward.
The closest ship, having just landed on the other side of the barricade, was shredded, then crushed, as a slab of thick metal over eight meters long and five wide collapsed atop it, snapping the deck like a twig. Flames burst out of the manaengines on its own sides.
The two ships just beyond that were driven into the ground as well, as if by the hand of an angry toddler-god.
The fourth ship, the one that the SporeMother squatted atop, was hurtled backward, and the shield that protected it, and her, was riddled with splinters, before finally shattering. The helmsman that hunched behind and above her, was taken in the chest with a ‘splinter’ that was at least two foot long and six inches across.
I saw him being hurled from his feet in a spray of blood as the SporeMother screeched in fury and pain at the destruction of her forces, and I screamed to Yen.
“Now!”
She heaved her arms forward, collapsing limply on the deck. She was left with barely enough strength to squint through the mana-migraine at the bolt of destruction she’d thrown.
It slammed into the side of the enemy ship and hit an engine, making it explode. The ship that was already reeling went crashing into a collapsed building.
The SporeMother was hurled unceremoniously from her hiding place and out into a patch of sunlit ground, the snap of one of her great legs audible even at this distance as she screeched in fury and pain, frantically scrabbling to escape the searing light of the sun.
Our ship, the Interesting Endeavor, lurched and shuddered again, then unexpectedly leapt free of its earthen constraints. The creaking and cracking sounds rose in volume as we lifted into the air.
We slammed into the side of the building, careened off, and lurched forward again, before twisting and firing all the engines at once.
Where we’d been frantically holding on for dear life mere seconds before, now we were slammed to the decking and pinned there by the force of the acceleration as we hurtled upwards.
I heard the SporeMother screeching in pain and fury below us, the noise dwindling as we soared higher at insane speeds, headed straight for the roof…
Chapter Thirty-One
The pressure of the acceleration keeping us pinned to the deck lessened suddenly, and we veered to the left with a lurch, before slowing and tilting alarmingly to the side as we curved around to line up on an opening in the overhead cover.
The ship lurched again, as far too much power was rammed to the engines, and we drove forward at top speed. The sides and roof of the cavern seemed only inches away, blurring as we passed them, and then we were out, erupting into brilliant sunlight as we passed through a magical haze that had seemingly been diluting it.
I staggered to my feet and made it to the railing, gazing back at the Sunken City we’d left behind.
We were climbing still, angled up at a thirty-degree climb that made me want to hang on for dear life, but as we soared, I saw the other ships. Four of them were still in the air and in sight, with a pillar of sooty smoke and flame rising from the hole we’d just fled from, =I saw a flash from below that I had to assume was one of their fallen ship’s engines exploding.
I grinned down, then warily
regarded the four remaining ships. Two were larger than us, and clearly built for war, with soldiers manning the decks and a huge cannon attached to the superstructure at the front, while the other two were quite different.
One was a merchantman, if I had to guess; a fast one, judging from the collection of engines, though unarmed and unarmored. But the fourth… she was a new design.
The black ship was long and lean, with a single cannon facing forward, built into the deck in the middle at the bow, with an additional row of four more on either side.
It had a raised deck at the rear, sheltered by a canopy that blocked the sun. Rows of metal plating protected the sides, while four engines to a side were superseded by a huge one at the rear, providing both tremendous lift and maneuverability, I guessed.
Of all four ships, only one was facing us as we rocketed out, and thankfully it wasn’t the black one. If we’d been really lucky, it would have been the merchantman, but we weren’t that lucky.
We continued up, thankful that the ships had all been low down, even as shouts and cries rose from behind us.
A hail of arrows and crossbow bolts peppered the decks, but in seconds, we were out of range, and I breathed a sigh of relief before moving to check on the others.
Grizz, of course was fine; a few scratches and scrapes, a bruise or two, and that was it. In typical Grizz fashion, he’d been in the center of the fight, and had been injured the least.
Yen had several long cuts from the Sporelings that had tried to reach her, but she was shakily sitting up against the railing now with Grizz’s help and drinking a pair of potions, one mana and one healing, so I had faith she’d be fine soon.
Tang, on the other hand, was leaning heavily against the railing on the far side of the deck. As I got to him, he slumped down, grunting in pain, and lifted his left hand up from where he’d had it pressed to his side. It was covered in dark blood, and more was spreading quickly from the six-inch-long, three-inch-thick splinter that was sticking out of his side.
“Tang!” I slid to a halt next to him, catching his arm and helping him to lie flat on the deck. “I told you to tell me if you got hurt!” I snapped, looking the wound over quickly.
It was deep and long; the thinner metal of the lower side of the cuirass, usually made up for with a chainmail covering, was holding the splinter in place, with broken links of the chainmail digging into the flesh.
I swore, trying to judge the best way to remove the splinter from the wound as he looked up at me and forced a grin.
“That bad… eh?” he asked weakly, and I saw the tell-tale way the blood bubbled as he coughed. My suspicions were confirmed by the tearing gasp he let out as he sagged back.
“You’ve punctured your lung,” I explained gently. “This is a shitty time to have to do this, but I can’t leave this in you; I’m gonna have to get it out.” I did my best to project an aura of calm, one that I totally ruined by turning my head and bellowing for the others to get their arses over fast.
I’d seen firebolts and magic missiles hurtling around during the fight before, and I just damn well knew that Arrin had been using magic; we’d needed him then, but Tang really, really needed him now as well.
“Arrin, get ready to heal him. Grizz, I’m going to need a hand getting this out…” I said, inspecting the splinter. It was wedged in tightly and looked to be something like oak. The damn thing was solid in a way that lesser woods like pine just weren’t, or he’d have simply taken a damn bruise and a dent in his armor.
“Well, I don’t know how you did it, my friend…” I said, shaking my head and distracting Tang as Grizz got ahold of the splinter. “… I mean, seriously, how the hell do you get through so many fights without so much as a scratch, only to be taken down by a glorified twig?”
“I just…” Tang started to say, when Grizz yanked hard.
Tang screamed and passed out, even as Grizz yanked again, and swore, pulling his dagger free. Thankfully, it was a normal, uncursed one, I noted absently, and he went to work, forcing the metal back, before giving a final tug and pulling the wood free of Tang’s side.
Arrin had already hit him twice with healing spells, and as his second one landed, I released my ‘Battlefield Triage’ onto him as well. My eyes glowed as I searched Tang’s body, finding the spell augmented in infinitesimal ways by my new ‘Greater Examination’ spell and the information crossover.
“Okay…” I muttered, focusing the spell, and beginning the arduous task of rebuilding the lung that had been nicked and the kidney that had apparently been detonated in Tang’s side. “I’ve got good news and bad…” I went on as Arrin hit him with a third general healing, feeling the spell take some of the load off me. “Good news is, you’re going to live… because I’m sure as shit not training a new goddamn bodyguard,” I said, mock-glaring at Tang, who’d started to come round again and was now pale and sweating.
“Bad… news?” Tang whispered in question.
“Well, you’re going to be a bit fucked for a while…” I admitted, having seen the level of damage further up inside of Tang’s body. I’d originally hoped it was a small area that was affected, but it wasn’t. The impact of the wood on his side had driven links of chainmail into him, and the main, solid part of the wooden splinter had done terrible damage to his kidney and lung, but the real issue, and one that would take time to heal, was the dozens of smaller splinters, and fragments, and the fungus that had coated the wood, which had apparently spread off in all directions inside of his body.
It was like an infection-laden shotgun had gone off in his side, spreading its load in as far as it could, and the fact he was still alive at all was down to Arrin’s general healing.
I couldn’t let him continue with it, though.
I stopped him before he could do a fourth heal and shook my head, then turned to the others.
“I need him inside and out of this wind; I need a lot of light, and a shit-ton of mana potions.” We got up, crouching down around Tang, and taking a limb each.
“Sorry, buddy,” I muttered. “On three: one, two… three!” I heaved him up with the others and we carried him, whimpering, and leaking copious amounts of blood, over to the wheelhouse.
Yen shoved the door open, and we staggered inside, finding Jian seated at the controls, with the wisp hovering next to him, explaining something. The walls of the room were coated in a mist that flowed and billowed, but showed extremely rough images of the world around us.
One part of the black ship, lifting as the others were behind us in a pursuit course, was massively magnified, making it almost impossible to see anything else of the ship, except for the occasional movements of others as they crossed a particular section of the deck.
“There!” Yen directed, weariness filling her voice, and we started towards the map table that she’d nodded towards, Stephanos and Miren, who’d clearly been helping Jian, leapt back and stripped the table of everything, making room for us.
We dumped Tang down as gently as we could, making him pass out again, and I downed a mana potion before casting ‘Battlefield Triage’ again. I stabilized him first, then started seeking out and manipulating his insides, forcing flesh to knit and organs to regrow in specific patterns. I tried to force the splinters out, along with the contaminants, rather than healing the body around them. I found myself having to redo areas that both Arrin and myself had already healed in our panic… grimacing as I drew a dagger and started to cut the seemingly healthy flesh, knowing that if I didn’t get it all out, there could be terrible repercussions later.
“What can we do?” Yen asked, fear and exhaustion filling her voice as she looked down at her friend.
“Nothing,” I said shortly. “Just defend the ship. I can’t help out there if I’m going to save him.”
“We can do that,” she said, straightening and looking around. “Miren, Stephanos, with me. Grizz, you and Arrin as well. Frederikk, you help Jax, and come get me if he needs me; beyond that stay out of the goddamn way,�
�� she ordered weakly, taking charge. “Jian, do you know where you’re headed?” He nodded, gesturing to the front wall.
I glanced up before returning to my work, having seen the fleet in the far distance. I continued working on Tang as Jian explained his reasoning.
“I’m making as good a speed for them as I dare, but I can’t go all out. We’d drain the stones, and the ship might not hold together long enough. All we can hope right now is that the fleet sees us and turns back to help, as they’d make mincemeat of those assholes, now that there’s half of them gone,” he said darkly, turning back to the wisp. “So, the core charge level in engine three is six percent lower than it was? Is that an error, or…?” He asked, having already dismissed us all from his mind.
“Ty’Baronn,” I heard Yen say suddenly, and the demon looked up at her from where he crouched sullenly against the wall. “How far will your plasma attack reach? Can you hit the ships?”
“Not for three more hours,” he said in a bored tone, and she growled in frustration.
“Fine; you can damn well keep watch, though,” she said gesturing out of the door. The demon looked at his master, who waved absently at him to go, and he scowled, following along.
I heard the door bang shut behind them, and then I lost all track of time again, focusing in on the wounds Tang had taken.
Periodically, I would stop, drinking another mana potion, then starting back in. Rather than most healing I’d done before, where it simply took a huge amount of mana and *boom* it was done, this required finesse and patience, healing sections slowly as I forced the splinters out, but keeping him alive at the same time.
Those were two things I had little of at the best of times, but for a friend, I’d damn well make sure I learned them, I growled to myself internally.
I finally sat down after almost an hour. The constant cycle of using all my mana and then replacing it with potions had drained me to the point that I was shaking and having difficulty concentrating.