by Charley Case
“What do I do once I’m there?”
Mila was shaking slightly, and not from the cool air flowing through the vents, Finn guessed.
“Just wait for me and Penny to get in there, then you can drop down behind them and hit the two red buttons on the main console. They’re the emergency shutdown for the engines. It’ll take them an hour to get them back up and running. By then, we should have the situation under control. The guards below Lithor and us are their only combatants, so the rest should give up pretty easily once we take care of those guys.”
“Okay, I can do that.” She peered down through the grate at the dozen armed Kashgar. “Are you two going to be okay?”
Finn gave her a smile. “We’ve faced worse. We’ll be fine. Just wish me luck.”
She moved suddenly, throwing her arms around his neck and kissing him full on the lips.
Finn’s eyes widened in surprise, but before he could kiss her back, she pulled away.
“Good luck,” she whispered and scurried off down the narrowing vent.
“What the fuck?” Finn said. He touched his lips, then smiled.
Penny slapped him on the back of the head. “Chi shi?”
“I know I didn’t kiss her back. I was shocked she did it at all!” He grinned. “That’s all the more motivation to get through this and show her what a proper kiss from a dwarf is like.”
Penny rolled her eyes but nodded. She was ready.
Finn griped Fragar and whispered the power word before kicking the grate open and dropping into the passage.
Chapter Twenty-Four
Finn dropped to the deck and roared. The closest Kashgar tumbled backward over the crate he had been sitting on, a look of absolute fear plastered on his face. The three behind him, while shocked, were quicker on the uptake, and snapped open their riot batons, electricity crackling down their lengths as the figures holding them charged.
Finn felt his blood begin to boil as he let his berserker rage flow free. He leapt forward, tackling all three charging men with his arms open wide. Two of the electrically charged batons slapped against his back, making the muscles tense and spasm, but his momentum was enough to take all three to the ground. He pushed up and punched the man in the middle hard enough that his head bounced off the deck plating, knocking him out cold.
The Kashgar on the right swung his baton again, hitting Finn in the arm and numbing it, but not enough to keep the dwarf from bashing the flat of Fragar’s blade into the attacker’s nose, sending out a spray of blood. The third man’s head nearly got chopped in half, but as Finn swung his axe, he was hit in the chest by a small, fast-moving bubble that exploded and sent him flying backward off the men under him.
He saw Penny swoop from the vent and keep close to the ceiling, heading further down the corridor, before he smashed into the wall and fell to the floor. Finn was on his feet in the blink of an eye, running full speed back into the fray, his chest throbbing, but only dully aware of it in the back of his mind.
The Kashgar that had fallen off his crate was now up and began unloading a pistol in Finn’s direction. Luckily, fear made for bad aim, and Finn was able to get close enough to swing Fragar and take one of the man’s arms off before he could be hit.
Launching himself into the air, Finn planted a knee into the face of the man he had been blown off of, and a crunching sound let Finn know that the man wouldn’t be getting back up any time soon.
The ringing sound of rushing blood muted the sounds around him, but a scream made Finn focus on the back line of the quickly recovering guards. He saw one of the casters holding his hands to his face, and blood was oozing out from where Penny had raked her talons over exposed flesh. A burst of flame caught another’s arm on fire, and he fell into the man beside him.
Figuring Penny had the back line busy for the moment, Finn found closer targets.
Four Kashgar were pulling up rifles, while the remaining two held out their hands and began to cast offensive spells. Finn threw Fragar at the closest man with a rifle, burying the blade in his chest and knocking him into the man behind him, sending both to the ground, one dead and the other tangled in his compatriot’s body. The two casters let loose a flurry of small bubbles that shot past the two remaining riflemen and began exploding against Finn’s arms and chest. He roared again, his bloodlust powering him through the barrage, but not without taking serious damage.
His shirt and flesh were torn and blasted away in small chunks, sending splashes of blood onto the walls and Kashgar alike, but Finn kept on coming, his boots pounding on the deck plates in an inevitable drumbeat of war.
“Lamh meatailt.”
Finn’s voice was hoarse, but the words rang true as the corridor filled with the smell of pine. The floor glowed purple before it warped and stretched, forming a hand that grasped one of the caster’s legs at the thigh and clamped down hard enough that the bone broke before it yanked him down and locked into place, becoming inanimate once again.
“Gunna salainn.”
Finn’s second spell blasted large salt crystals from his palm and into the chest of the other caster, the impact picking him up and throwing him against the closed doors to the bridge.
The two remaining riflemen opened up at point-blank range. Finn was able to get close enough to grab the barrel of one of the rifles and yank it from the Kashgar’s hand, pulling the unbalanced man into the line of fire of the other rifleman, who put several rounds into his friend’s back before he let go of the trigger.
Finn used the rifle in his hand like a club and broke the jaw of the last rifleman with a swing that would have made Babe Ruth jealous.
Penny had taken out the three in the back with either flame or talon, or both, and was now flapping her wings and closing in on him.
The blood rage was making him see nothing but red, and his leg hurt like it had caught fire and was being dipped in acid at the same time. He looked down, barely registering that he had been shot three times in the left leg and was bleeding from a dozen or more burned craters pockmarking his chest and arms. The berserker rage gave him unnatural stamina and strength, but even that had a limit.
Dropping to one knee, Finn reached around to the back of his harness and fished out one of the healing potions, but his fingers were too numb to pull the stopper, and he fell forward, the vial spinning down the corridor. He blinked, but his vision was darkening from red to black. He did his best to get up but was only able to roll over onto his back and stare up into the lights.
The last thought he had before the blackness overtook him was that the damn Kashgar had even fixed the flickering lights in the hall.
Mila crawled through the tight vent, not knowing how far she had to go but determined to be there in time. Her elbows scraped along, getting abrasions even through her hoodie. She could barely move, but she needed to do so quietly, or she’d be found out early. Stubbornly, she made steady, slow progress.
Her lips still tingled from where Finn’s beard had rubbed against them, a constant reminder of her impetuous action. Now that she had time to think about it, she wasn’t sure it had been the right move at all. They barely knew each other, and he wasn’t even human. Though, technically, she was a Peabrain, but she still wasn’t entirely sure what that meant. The last thing she wanted was to scare Finn off as she tended to do with most guys.
She hadn’t been paying attention to how far she had come until a small furry gray spider came rushing at her, waving its little front legs in warning.
She stopped moving and cocked her head at the little guy, who paused a few feet in front of her, waving her off. The spider's behavior reminded her of the moth from her room before the four men attacked the condo.
“What is it?” she asked him.
She had received warnings from insects throughout her life, but she had never seen a spider act so directly, obviously trying to communicate.
The little spider pointed to her right with both arms. She turned her head to see what he was on about and suck
ed in a sharp breath.
On the side of the vent was a mark that she could just make out when she looked at it from the corner of her eye. She recognized it as magical, but if she tried to look directly at it, it faded from her view. She swept her eyes across it a few times and caught glimpses, but that was it.
“I can sort of see it, but I don’t know what to do about it. Hell, I don’t even know what it is.” She turned back to the little spider, who was now dancing back and forth. “How am I supposed to avoid whatever it is?”
She leaned in to see if the spider was trying to signal something more complicated, but it just stared at her, swaying.
She sighed and tried to think of what Finn would do. She stopped that line of thinking when she realized he would probably just ignore it.
Instead, she thought about what Penny would do. That didn’t lead anywhere for the opposite reason; Penny was far too advanced with magic for Mila to try to emulate.
An idea of her own popped into her head, and she wiggled until she could get her hand into the pocket of her tights. She had a receipt in there from when they had gotten gas on the way back from an earlier trip to the Anthem.
She struggled to move well enough to fish it out, but she finally managed, after scraping her arm on an exposed screw. She wadded the receipt into a tight little ball, and using only her wrist and fingers, threw it at the mark—which turned out to be much harder to do when she couldn’t look at it straight on. On her third attempt, the small wad of paper hit.
The mark flashed brightly for a second before discharging a blue flame that vaporized the ball of paper before it hit the ground.
Mila’s eyes were wide with fear, and she shook when she realized what that spell would have done to her. She glanced at the wall, sweeping her eyes back and forth, but saw no sign of the mark. Either it was a one-time-use spell, or she was too frightened to see it anymore.
She decided that once this was all over, she was going to start taking magic lessons from Danica and Penny. Right after she learned Penny’s language, if that was even possible.
She glanced down at the spider, who was doing a victory dance, and smiled. “Thanks, little buddy. Was that the only one, or are there more?”
The spider waggled back and forth, which she somehow knew meant there were no more traps.
She moved her hand forward, extending a finger until it was within arm’s reach for the spider. “Put ‘er there, little guy. You just saved my bacon.”
The spider fist-bumped her before running back down the vent.
“Well, that was cool,” she said to herself, starting to shinny forward again. “Guess I have a little guardian angel in here with me.”
Her confidence was at an all-time high as she inched forward, right up until the point that the bottom of the vent was torn out from under her, and she fell the ten feet to the floor of the bridge.
She would have groaned from the impact, but the wind had been knocked out of her. She struggled as she tried to get up. A hand reached down and grabbed her by the collar, lifting her into the air as if she weighed nothing. She blinked tears from her eyes and stared into the face of Lithor, his one good eye narrowed and full of contempt.
“You think you can sneak up on me after setting off one of my traps? How stupid do you think I am?” He shook her as if she were a puppy who had pissed in his shoe. “Now, where is that giant buffoon you’re so fond of?”
Mila was about to spit in his face and tell him to go fuck himself when she was interrupted by automatic gunfire coming from beyond the door. Then there was the sound of someone hitting the metal doors hard and sliding down them.
She and Lithor stared at the sealed hatch, waiting for something to happen, but there was just silence.
Lithor sneered as he turned back to her. “Looks like he met some high-speed lead. It’s a shame, really. I was hoping to slit your throat in front of him, but I’ll just have to save you for later.” He pulled a wicked curved knife from his belt and lifted it to her throat.
“Sir! Should I check to see that the men are all right?” someone behind Mila said, alerting her that there were others on the bridge with them.
Lithor sighed and ground his teeth but looked past Mila and addressed the other. “Not yet. Get us moving. We need to get out of here before the Mistress finds out we’ve moved up the launch. She would not take kindly to us stealing her new ship.”
The ship began to hum from deep within its bowels, a feeling of power not unlike the one Mila got from her Hellcat when she punched the gas and rocketed down the highway.
Lithor glanced to the left, distracted by movement and wanting to see the launch from the viewscreen, even though he still held the curve of the blade to her throat. She could make out from the corner of her eye that the ship was rising through the ice cave and picking up speed. A few seconds later, the Anthem shuddered, and huge chunks of ice began to rain down as they broke through the ceiling. The bright, clear day nearly blinded her, even making Lithor blink a few times.
When he saw they were clear of the cave, he turned back to her, his smile evil and slightly too big. “Goodbye, little mouse. You have been a pain in my side for far too—”
The double metal doors screeched and groaned, warping in their frame and opening a hole in their middle. An axe came hurtling through the gap and took the pilot in the back. He slumped and landed on the throttle controls, jamming them forward.
The ship lurched as its speed increased exponentially.
Chapter Twenty-Five
Finn sucked in a breath, then began to choke on the liquid in his mouth. He felt a small hand holding his forehead down and resisted the urge to fight it.
“Shiri chiri,” Penny cooed, urging him to drink.
He gulped down the rest of the vial she held to his lips and felt the magic doing its work. He also knew it wasn’t going to be enough for his dwarven body and fished out the second healing potion. Penny stepped back, and he sat up to down the contents.
He felt the small craters on his torso and arms closing, but slower than he would have liked. He was still covered in blood, but at least he was alive, and in a few minutes, he would be fully healed and ready to face Lithor.
“Thanks, Penny.” He gave her little arm a squeeze. “Once again, you saved my life.”
She shrugged like it was no big deal and puffed a smoke ring from her nostril, but she was smiling with a touch of pride.
That was when the Anthem powered up her engines and took off.
The ship was well designed, and the movements were slight compared to the forces in play, but Finn knew those movements better than anyone.
“Oh, shit.”
He scrambled to his feet and raced to the bridge’s double doors. He pressed his hand to the control panel, but nothing happened.
He tried again, but still nothing.
“Shit. They’ve locked us out and changed the codes.”
“Chi squir?” Penny suggested, flapping up next to him.
“No time to go around. I’ll have to break the doors down. Stand back.”
He took a couple of steps back, then pulled Fragar from the chest of the rifleman he had thrown it into and held his free hand toward the door.
“Fosgailte arsa mi.”
The door began to glow with purple light, and bubbled slightly, as if it were heating up. When the magic had its hold on the door, Finn balled his fist and jerked his hand to the side.
A screeching noise filled the passageway and the door warped and twisted, finally splitting open in the middle, making a hole large enough for him to fit through.
He saw someone at the controls of the ship, and reacted, throwing Fragar as hard as he could. The axe buried itself in the man’s back, but when he fell forward, the ship sped up, making Finn stumble.
“Fuck. Didn’t think that one through,” he admonished himself before charging for the gap.
“Watch out!” he heard Mila scream as he was about to go through the opening.
Unable to change his momentum and stop, he instead dove for the bottom of the opening and felt the hairs on the back of his neck stand on end as a bubble passed over him, right where he would have come through. It exploded on the bulkhead. The blast sent him tumbling, but he managed to roll to his feet just in time to see Lithor, holding Mila by the collar, level a curved blade at his face. The magic was already gathering, and he was not able to scramble out of the way.
Suddenly, the golden blade of Gram shot through the material of Mila’s hoodie, and stabbed Lithor in the stomach. The mage screamed and threw her to the ground, turning his blade toward her and loosing the spell that had been meant for Finn.
A bubble six inches across flew from the dagger’s tip and slammed into her chest, exploding and sending her flying back to smash into the wall and crumple to the floor.
Penny shot past Finn and Lithor, landing beside Mila.
Finn felt his rage take him, but glancing out the viewscreen, he could see hundreds of tiny bubbles flying up from the ground and attaching themselves to the hull of the Anthem. The Huldu were staying true to their word. His ship wouldn’t last another minute before they set those bubbles off and destroyed it.
Another spell shot from Lithor’s dagger, making Finn dive to the side. He rolled up next to the pilot’s chair and pulled Fragar free, using the flat of the blade to deflect the next incoming spell. It ricocheted off and blew the navigation console to scrap.
Finn knew they had one chance to get out, and turned to the main console, his eyes flickering over the controls. Finding the button he was looking for, he slapped it. A door on the other side of the bridge, close to Penny and Mila, slid open, revealing three bucket seats with harnesses. Finn took a bubble to his side for his trouble, blowing fresh skin and fabric away, and making him growl in pain. Another spell hit him in the chest, knocking the wind out of him and opening a new wound.