by Jez Cajiao
“Yen…” I said, wasting no time. “We’ve got a chance, despite the shitty condition of the ship, but we’re heading into the storm. No choice about it; defend the ship as best you can until things get dicey out there, then get in here or below decks. I don’t want to lose anyone, and we’re going in hard and deep.” I paused, reflexively, then sighed at the obvious double-entendre that shot right over her head, missing Bane all over again.
“Yes, Jax,” she said, nodding. “How bad will it get out there?”
“Bad,” Tenandra interjected, landing on the ship’s controls, and reaching out, slipping her hands into the nearest crystal and letting out a little gasp as she began to interface herself with it, before explaining. “We’re going to try to get the ship into the densest mana concentrations, so expect lightning, at the very least.”
“Right,” Yen said after a wide-eyed pause. “And… can the ship survive that?” she asked carefully.
“Probably not for long,” Tenandra replied distractedly, turning to me, and holding out a hand.
I understood what she needed instinctively and stepped in close, holding my hand out and feeling her tiny fingers rest on mine. Her hand both gripped my flesh and drew out mana that helped to sustain her in the bonding.
“What’s happening out there?” I asked Yen, and she shrugged.
“Not much. We basically fire off potshots at each other. The distance is too great for anything else. An occasional firebolt or magic missile is all we can manage; no bow can shoot with accuracy at that range, and when they try to use their cannons, Jian dodges.”
“Cannons?” I asked. “I’d not even heard them… not beyond the lightning one…”
“Then you’re lucky. Most of the time, they’ve fired a shot here and there, but the last twenty minutes, they’ve been trying a lot harder. I don’t think they dare go all-out. Cannons are just too unstable, but they don’t want us getting away, either…”
As she spoke, I felt the ship shift to one side slightly and a burst of power boosted the engines, followed by a distant scream of something hurtling through the air. I realized I’d felt this again and again, and heard the accompanying sounds, as well, but I’d dismissed them as unimportant, as I had been engrossed in saving Tang and in my alchemy.
I could see more notifications blinking for my attention, and I dampened them down again, resolving to deal with them later. I just didn’t have the time. As Giint came into view, running as fast as his short legs would let him, Frederikk and two others followed, screaming obscenities, and chasing him.
“Heeerrrre!” Giint said, a manic grin splitting his face as he darted behind me and dove under a desk, while I waved at the furious gnomes to stop.
“What the hell?” I snapped at them. “Stop right there!” I ordered as Frederikk yanked out a dagger, glaring at Giint’s feet where they protruded from under the desk.
“He…” Frederikk snarled, huffing as he tried to catch his breath. “He… took…”
“He went to get you at my orders,” I said, then paused. “He took? What did he… Giint!” I snapped. “Get your arse out from under there!” There was a pause, then Giint poked his head out and grinned maniacally at the three elders and me, all while frantically chewing on something.
“He stole your stash, didn’t he?” I asked them and covered my eyes with one hand as I tried to calm down, hearing their angry growls in confirmation. “Right. That’s my fault,” I admitted begrudgingly. “I ordered him to gather you as fast as he could. Giint, give them back the stash… whatever is left of it…” He looked up at me with an expression of hurt betrayal, clambering out and offering up with the compact stick to Frederikk, who snatched it and swung for Giint with a hasty fist. Giint dodged back, then lunged at him, grabbing the elder with both hands and nutting him, before reaching for a knife… and getting yanked back as I stepped in and grabbed him by the collar.
“Stop that, you crazy little bastards!” I yelled at them both, noting the way the other two elders stood back, calmly watching, while Frederikk scrambled for a dagger as well. The years of madness and constant fighting still had an effect on them, making them vicious for any reason. I grabbed Frederikk by the collar as well and shook the pair of them. “That’s enough! I said stop!” With that, the pair of them subsided, but I could feel the simmering anger ready to bust into life at the slightest spark again. “Tenandra, can you explain the plan so they can understand, please?”
“Of course… I’m not doing anything complicated right now…” she grunted, before catching my eye and nodding an apology. “So, I’m exiting my Core. Lord Jax requires you to create a set of mana collectors, spreading them about the ship to catch any ambient mana, and channeling it into a central node that the Core will form the heart of, then connect it up to the Manastones. Once those are in place, then I will recharge the ship directly from the storm. Do you understand? The manaengines you used before absorbed a small amount of ambient mana as well as using the manastones, so you know how to create them; all you need to do is place them around the ship…”
“Where?” Frederikk asked, his face alight with anticipation.
“The masts, the bowsprit, and atop the wheelhouse… and one… underneath,” she said slowly, as if expecting an explosion.
“Okay,” Frederikk said agreeably. “I recommend Giint does the receptor underneath…” He grinned evilly as the other two elders nodded and spoke up.
“I agree.”
“Best place for him.”
“You’re a bunch of bastards,” I said, but nodded when Giint looked to me for help. “Shouldn’t piss off the guys that decide the work arrangements, Giint, mate,” I grimaced, shrugging.
“Giiiiint going tooo diiie,” the little gnome said mournfully, then shrugged and casually slipped something from his pocket into his mouth, munching quickly.
Frederikk looked down at the stick of catnip he’d been given back before snarling and trying to reach Giint again; it was half the size it had been when he lost it. This time, I heaved them both through the air toward the door.
“Go sort it out, out there!” I snapped. “Tenandra, how long?” I asked, and she spoke up quickly, if distractedly.
“An hour, no more, until we hit the true edge of the storm; we’re already entering the fringe.”
“Get the work done in forty-five minutes,” I called to the elders, and the freshly-begun fight froze as both combatants looked at me in shock.
“We need at least a day; two!” Frederikk spluttered, and I grinned at him.
“Well, this ship will have crashed, and we’ll all be dead by then, so… no. You’ve got an hour at most; then you’ll have to work on it while it’s live.”
They gawked at me in shock for a handful of seconds, before scrambling and shoving the other aside as they struggled to their feet and rushed out of the room. The remaining two elders followed them, as all four started snapping and shouting at each other and summoning the gnomes from below decks to start work.
“How long do we really have?” I asked Tenandra, and she smiled placidly as she pulled more mana from me.
“About three hours, but they’ll do a lot more, now that they think they’ve got no time.”
“Jian, can we keep going that long?” I asked, and he grimaced in reply.
“We can, but at the speed they’re closing, we won’t be far ahead when the storm hits, not unless you want to burn through all our stored power…”
“No, this could still go tits up,” I said firmly. “Try to keep as much back as you can.”
“I’ll be able to help with that,” Tenandra said distractedly. “Once I’m bonded to the ship, anyway, but that’s at least an hour away.”
I nodded, and threw the Core to Yen, then pulled a stool close to the control panel, sitting and holding my hand out so that Tenandra could draw the needed mana from me directly.
“I’ll be out as soon as she’s done, but until then, you’re in charge, Yen, and make sure the gnomes do a
ll they can. Be sure to give them the Core when they need it.”
“I will, Jax; good luck.” she said simply, striding back out and closing the door behind her.
“Well, looks like we’re either fucked or free,” Jian said after a few seconds, and I grunted. The feeling of Tenandra pulling on my mana was like giving blood, but infinitely suckier.
“He’s trying to meditate, Jian,” Tenandra said, and I ignored the pair of them, closing myself down as much from the world as I could and envisaging my boxes slamming into place around me.
Constrained by a mixture of concern for the others, for the ship and myself, and the definite feeling that we were constantly on the edge of falling out of the air, meant that it took much longer than it should have for me to get my meditation up to speed again.
I reached the second box, the lid slotting in and my compression rate stepping up. Mana flooded into me, just as the door banged open again, making me start.
“We’ve got a problem!” Arrin said, and I gritted my teeth, trying to not shout at anyone.
“What is it?” I sighed, getting up.
“That black ship,” he said simply, and I turned, focusing on the deformed image of the ship as it edged ahead of the others, gradually picking up speed, while I tried to make out what was being assembled on the deck.
“You can see it clearly from above,” Arrin said, and I nodded reluctantly.
“Fine, I’ll go look; what’s your mana like?” I asked him, and he paused, looking at it.
“Uh… not bad?” he replied hesitantly. “I’ve got seventy left?”
“Then take over here as a living battery for Tenandra; meditate and see how you do.” I ordered, while deliberately not asking him about his mana usage. I just knew the daft sod had been lobbing Magic Missiles at the ships.
I strode past him on the way out and nodded to Tang, who still lay in a deep sleep.
“Give him the potion of Somnolence, it’s that deep blue one with the green flecks, then hit him with a ‘Cleanse. ‘He should be okay for now, it’s but best to keep him under so he can’t screw up the healing I’ve already done.” I ordered and Arrin nodded to me, squeezing my shoulder in reassurance as he passed by.
I left the room, shoving the door closed again, the swollen wood making it grate against the floor, and I held up a hand to brace against the storm’s initial onslaught, the wind having picked up a hell of a lot from when I was out last.
I snorted in amusement as I saw the frantic speed of the gnomes that raced everywhere, orders being shouted, arguments breaking out, and occasional fights. The elders screamed directions over it all, and the gnomes worked their magic, building totally new parts into the ship’s super structure, even as other stripped things apart. I saw pans and rusted weapons, kill-sticks like my own, and an occasional section of engine produced and torn apart, as others worked to integrate the parts.
I turned and clambered up to the next level; the short distance I climbed up stairs steep enough to almost qualify as a ladder, made all the more difficult by the gusting winds and only having one damn hand. Once I was on the upper deck, I made my way to the rear railing and looked out, easily able to spot the four ships that trailed us.
Arrin was right; even with the distance, it was a clearer picture from here, as whatever magic made it possible to see in the wheelhouse had distinct faults that were warping that ship.
I could see the black ship was in the lead, maybe five hundred meters behind us, with the cruisers on either side of it, and the merchantman bringing up the rear. Even the decking of the black ship was tinged black, as at least one mage worked to keep the sun from hitting its decks, while the sailors worked frantically, assembling what my brain tried to decide was either a Mangonel or a Trebuchet.
Either way, it was a problem, as a second SporeMother glared at me from under its own awning, with the tell-tale patches of mobile darkness and nightmare I just knew to be DarkSpore flitting around her.
“They’re going to use the catapult to bombard us with DarkSpore…” I snarled, and the others nodded in agreement. “Give me options…” I half-ordered; half-begged.
“Not many to give,” Grizz answered, and Yen nodded in agreement. “They’re too far out of range for the archers, and they’ve got more than we do, so that’s no good.” He nodded toward the dozens of men I could see milling around with bows in their hands on the enemy deck. “As to magic, well, we might be able to hit them, but they’ve got a shield, so we’ll probably waste it all getting through that, and then have nothing left to kill the DarkSpore. Our own cannon doesn’t have enough power to fire, not to mention being on the wrong end of the ship…”
“So, we can basically only fight them when they come to board us now?” I asked, and he and Yen nodded.
“Joy,” I said slowly, scowling at the ships that were slowly closing the distance.
“What should we do?” Miren asked me, and I glanced at her and smiled. She’d changed so much since she’d joined Lydia’s squad; truthfully, they all had. Her transformation had been just as clear and overt as Lydia’s. The Optio had gone from a half-starved slave that hated the world and believed everyone was out to get her, to a heavily muscled warrior-tank who stood tall and proud.
Miren had started out a waifish girl, barely out of childhood. Her combination of youth and her half-elven heritage combined to make her slim and almost weak looking, but now, she stood strong. She’d grown into a beautiful young woman in the weeks we’d been together; the constant leveling and point gains combined to make changes to her that would usually take years. She’d grown at least several inches, put on a lot of muscle, and definitely filled her clothes in ways that made me think Jian was a lucky guy, but more than all the rest was the confidence that she carried herself with.
She was still immature and girlish at times, the sudden recollection of her naïve desire to visit the ‘street of negotiable affection’ in Himnel jumping straight to mind. She’d believed it to be a place where you could get hugs and verbal affirmations… instead of the seedy place it was in reality. But she’d matured now to stand with a steely glint in her eye and a confidence that told the world that she’d take the best it had, and nothing less.
I knew as I looked at her, and then let my gaze carry over the rest of the group, that I could always rely on these people, even if it was a hopeless fight.
Thankfully, this wasn’t.
“Okay, people, stand down,” I ordered. “Have one on watch, and one to go get the others when it’s needed, but for now, until we either get to the Storm and lose them, or they manage to close the distance, there’s nothing to do, so go get some food and rest.”
Grizz saluted to me, the seasoned warrior showing through the ‘happy-go-lucky’ exterior he generally displayed as he immediately worked with Yen, setting up a rotation, then sending the others down below to rest out of the wind and making sure everyone got some food.
“What are we going to do?” Yen asked me quietly as Grizz shooed the others away.
“If they fire the DarkSpore at us?” I asked. “I mean, I assume that’s why they’re building that thing.”
“Yeah.”
“We dodge if we can, and we kill what we can’t dodge,” I said simply. “There’s not a great deal of choice in the matter; we don’t have the power reserves to outrun them. We can manage maybe one more burst of speed now, but Jian is saving that for when they fire on us next, so it’s a case of trying to keep ahead long enough that we can hide in the storm. If not, then we fight.”
“We’ve got less than an hour, the way they’re working,” Yen said grimly.
“Think they can keep it up?” I asked, and she shrugged.
“Depends on the men, really…” she admitted, backhanding Grizz without looking at him as he threw me a wink and opened his mouth to comment. “The Legion could do it easily, but they’re not Legionnaires, so who knows. Equally, they’re working on a ship that’s carrying that thing, so they’re either working i
n a flat-out panic, or they’re already possessed, so…?” she went on absently.
I nodded in grim agreement, turning, and looking ahead at the storm that was quickly building, having grown large enough to blot out the sky from left to right, with huge black and grey-green clouds towering over us.
I watched the flashes of blue-white lightning streaking through the clouds and shook my head in disbelief. The ‘storm’ ahead of us now would be classed as a national threat, something along the lines of a hurricane and a thunderstorm meeting and breeding insanity. As the thunder rolled and shook the world around us, the rain arriving right behind a blast of air that staggered us all and caused the ship to dip in the air.
“Damn, that’s cold!” I gasped out as the rain hit, the drumming sound loud even as the wind swept across the deck in a wave, making those hurrying below thankful that they were escaping it. The majority of the gnomes paused in shock, huddling together.
“They’ve never seen weather!” Yen said, her voice a mix of shock and horror, as we saw several gnomes break away and abandon their work, sprinting for the hatches leading belowdecks.
“Damn. Looks like I found my next job, then!” I cursed, hurrying to the edge of the upper deck, and clambering down awkwardly. The suddenly wet deck was made far more slippery as the moss and fungus that covered most of it became slick with moisture.
I fell down the last couple of steps, then pulled myself upright, rushing through the oncoming rain to skid to a stop beside Frederikk as he bellowed out orders, trying to return order, or as much as the gnomes seemed capable of, to the work at hand.
“How long?” I shouted to him, amazed by the speed of the wind and rain, having been told only minutes before that we were an hour or more away from the Storm.
“‘Til we can go below decks? Or ‘til it’s done?” He shouted back, lifting his hands and trying to block the rain from his face.