by Jez Cajiao
“Ah, fuck. No, please, Flux, don’t do that,” I said as I reached down, grabbing his arm, and hauling him to his feet. “There’s been a misunderstanding here, one that nearly ended with me killing one of your kids. Let’s just make sure that doesn’t happen again, first of all; other details, we can sort out later.”
“My apologies then, Lord, and my thanks for your understanding. We did not know this land had been claimed by the surface dwellers, nor that the ship was yours. The younglings should not have left the depths; they knew the council was debating exploring the ship, and they decided to try to be the first. Youth is foolish, and now we have this tragedy.” Flux said, shaking his head and setting his tendrils bouncing. I noticed they had colorful beads attached to the ends, while the rest of his body was covered in tight blue-black leather.
“Tragedy?” I asked.
“Five came to the ship; apparently, three stayed to explore, while two went to examine the tracks in the forest. Now only the youngling which you freed and his clutch brother, who came to get us, survive. It is a tragedy.”
“We only saw three of them,” I said, and looked up to Lydia, who turned and disappeared at my look before popping back up a few seconds later.
“This one is still breathing as well, Lord Jax,” she called out, and Oracle immediately flew over to her, calling out behind to me as she went.
“I’ll heal him, don’t worry.”
“So,” I said, “We’ve got three still alive so far; what about the two that went into the forest?”
“I will call for them, but the others reacted as badly as they did to your appearance because they had lost contact with them already. Please, a moment.” Flux held his head up high, standing straight. I realized he was taller than I thought, nearly six feet when standing as straight as he could, and I felt a sudden spike of a headache as he did…something.
All my people backed away, grimacing, or drawing weapons, and I shook my head to clear it as…whatever Flux had done wore off.
“What was that?” I asked, and he spoke without turning, the tendrils around his head reaching out in all directions like a lion’s mane.
“My kind can speak through the water at great distances. While this works in the air, it is… imprecise, as a way to speak… I am sorry if this caused you discomfort; it is simply a deeper noise than you are used to hearing…” I thought for a second and snapped my fingers, grinning at him.
“It’s sonar! That’s how you see, isn’t it!” There was a long pause, but eventually Flux shook his head in reply, the tendrils still waving.
“I don’t know this word, but…there!” The tendrils on one side of his head suddenly went stiff and he twisted around to look higher up the valley away from the shore. “There! I felt it; one at least still lives!”
“How far?” I asked Flux, and he squared his shoulders in determination.
“A mile, two? I have not dealt in surface measurements in a long time, and even then, I was poor at it. It is difficult for many of my kind to go so far in the air; our bodies need the water. I will go, as will Cheena. That must be enough.” At the mention of the name, the second creature stepped forward, nodding its head, and I nodded in return.
“Was your youngling taken by the goblins?” I asked, and Flux nodded slowly.
“Most likely, yes. There are no other creatures in the valley, save the goblins and the cave trolls that we know of. Cave trolls would have killed them and eaten them immediately, not taken them alive. The goblins have a camp somewhere further up the valley, but that is all we know, so it fits.”
“Do you know how many there are of them?” I asked, and Flux shook his head.
“We have no idea; they arrived sometime last winter, and in that time, have tamed a family of cave trolls. There will have been losses from that, but goblins breed like the vermin they are. There could be dozens, or hundreds, or more. We have no way to tell.”
“Well, we do have one advantage…” I said, turning and looking out over the water. The others turned to follow my gaze, and we could just make out the warship ‘Agamemnon’s Wrath’ as she came around, still searching the lakeshore.
She was a mile or so out, and coming in at speed, having clearly seen that something was happening, a wide wave built before her as she raced towards us, water rippling out from the backwash of her engines.
“This is your ship?” Flux asked, and I nodded, a smile on my face. “I see…perhaps we can come to an arrangement?” He queried; his head tilted to one side. “The goblins have taken your crew from this ship, as well as my own younglings; perhaps we could make a deal to rescue them all together? We do not have much gold, but can pay in other ways for your assistance… fish, metals; there are also some amongst us that can craft items that are popular amongst the surface dwellers?”
“We can do a deal,” I said, frowning as I looked around. “You said there’s trade between you and the ‘surface dwellers’, but I don’t see any villages or…”
“Ah, no, Lord. We used to trade with the cities to the south, but there were…disagreements about value. We chose to leave several dozen years ago and migrated up to this lake. Our goods, however, were popular until then.”
“What kind of goods?” I asked curiously.
“Foodstuffs, armor such as I wear, some carvings… we also had a Runesmith, but age has robbed her of the ability now.”
“Age?” I asked quickly.
“She can no longer feel the shape of the world; without that sense, she cannot form her magic into the correct shapes. In the last attempt, her apprentice nearly died and she herself was gravely wounded.”
“Have you got healers?” I asked, a hope coming to mind, if I could recruit these people…
“No. The gift of magic is a rare one for my kind: we have had no healers in the pod for as long as I have known.”
“Okay, and this is going to sound rude, but what exactly are you?” I asked.
“Tia’Almer-atic is the name we use; surface dwellers generally just call us Tia or Mer,” Flux said, shrugging unconcernedly at the vagaries of the surface dwellers.
“Okay, thanks for that. Right…your people and ours are being held by the goblins, so we’re going to get them back.”
“We can talk about suitable rewards for saving your younglings later, but for now…” I said, looking up toward the hull of Decin’s ship above us. I’d felt Oracle cease to use our mana, and a second later, she flitted down to me, landing on my shoulder, and inspecting Flux before looking up at the railing overhead. Lydia moved back slowly, her hand on the hilt of her weapon as the largest and most heavily armed Mer appeared at the railing. It looked confused, as much as I could see from the body language anyway, but when it saw Flux, it quickly clambered down the side and strode over, going down on both knees before him. I realized he didn’t have any weapons now, and I looked up to Lydia, who raised her hands, showing all four were with her.
“You, I expected better from!” Flux snapped at the creature that knelt before him, and its head lowered even further. “Return to your chambers…we will speak later!” Flux ordered, and the Mer got up and started walking quickly toward the water, pausing only when I called out.
“Lydia, is everyone okay? No damage?” When I got a shouted affirmative, I went on. “Well, no harm, no foul. Throw down the weapons.” Lydia paused at that, before slowly throwing the weapons down onto the ground one at a time. The young creature had been armed with two short spears and four long knives, almost short swords. The knives, like the spears, had no cross guards and looked very alien in that they had a strange bend in them: at about halfway up the haft, they kinked slightly to one side, and Flux caught me looking with interest.
He slowly drew one of the long knives with exaggerated care from the sheath at his side, passing it over to me. When I inspected it more closely, I realized I couldn’t tell if they were actually from an animal or man-made, but they looked like they’d be deadly in a fight either way.
The p
oints were long and sharp, but behind the tips, on the backside of the blades, they had a scalloped design, with small ridges that looked designed to saw flesh. Lower down, the kink appeared to be a reinforcement that made it easier for their shaped arms to pull the weapons out, causing maximum damage.
“Nasty,” I commented, passing the weapon back.
“Effective!” Flux replied with a little shake of his head and a low ‘buzz’ that reverberated the air around us. I shrugged and gestured to the weapons Lydia had thrown down.
“I think they’re all his…”
“You would return him his weapons?” Flux asked and I shrugged again.
“Yeah, of course; as I said, no harm, no foul, I am sorry about the little one, though, I kinda kicked it pretty hard before I realized it wasn’t a threat.”
“Who attacked first?” Flux asked me intently.
“I really don’t know which of your younglings, but it was one of them. We were exploring the ship, looking for the crew when a…member of our group called out to me. The next thing I knew, knives were flying.”
“Small blades? Thrown weapons?” he asked, sounding angry, and I nodded.
“Yeah, short throwing knives; looked like they’d hurt.”
“If they were coated when they cut you, you’d not be standing here now.” Flux said with controlled fury evident in his voice. “The throwing knives are called ‘Ashik-tor’, and they are to be used in the direst need only, due to being coated in a deadly poison. That they used these weapons first? I fear they have brought more dishonor to our pod than I felt possible.” He barked something at the figure that had stopped halfway to the water, and the Mer quickly ran over to the weapons, picking them up and returning to stand behind Flux and Cheena, rather than heading into the water as it had been ordered previously. “This foolish child will now earn back his weapons threefold, due to this dishonor, or he will never again return to the pod!” Flux snarled at him before turning back to me and going down on one knee again. The other two did the same, and I started to step forward to help him back up when Oracle stopped me. She grabbed a handful of hair at the back of my head and yanked sharply. I barely managed to avoid swearing.
“Don’t…this is important to them,” she whispered, and I cleared my throat, swallowing my irritation.
“Flux…we can… ah, we will talk of the dishonor later…okay?” I said, I had no idea what he wanted or expected, and we didn’t have time for this shit right now.
“Very well, Lord Jax. We will earn your forgiveness this day,” he said, coming to his feet and snapping at the others to do the same.
Oren brought the warship to a halt a dozen feet away, appearing quickly at the edge of the railing to look down at us.
“Yer done found more followers already, laddie?” he called down. “Ah saw ‘em kneelin’. Damn, tha’ be fast work! Whut did I miss?”
“It’s not like that!” I called up to him, “Get your arse out of the way; we need to use the map in the captain’s cabin.” I said, striding over to the side of the ship and grabbing ahold of the rope ladder that was quickly thrown down. Flux followed me, at my invitation, and a few minutes later, Flux, Oracle, Oren, Lydia, and myself were gathered in the captain’s cabin, encircling the magical map I’d seen there earlier.
I’d spread it out across the table, and Oracle touched the activation rune, channeling a little mana into it to bring it to life.
Instantly, the map shifted from a flat drawing three feet by two, to a 3D representation of the same place. The major difference was that now we could zoom in on our location and expand it, making the valley we were in and the lake fill the map.
“Okay, where do you think the goblin camp is?” I asked Flux, and he shifted the perspective slowly, obviously having difficulty with it for a few seconds until he was happy with it. Once he had it centered over where we stood, he shifted it around and waved his hand in a circular motion over a raised area further up the side of the valley.
“I think…here. There was an old ruin up there somewhere; we found it when we explored, but it was deemed unsafe, and too far from the water. We left it, but knowing goblins, that’ll be where they’d live given a choice.”
I zoomed in, finding the controls a mixture of using a giant iPad and a little mental prodding. Once our view hovered over the area, all we could see was a series of trees, higher than some others, but lower than many. It looked like a normal hillside to me, except…
“Is that a road?” I asked the room in general, catching sight of a line of smaller trees that followed a straight path. Looking closer and twisting the map around, I could see what appeared to be straight lines of stunted growth that ran… south toward the sea, and north toward the Great Tower, where it loomed in the distance.
“That would mean…that was probably one of the Waystations!” Oracle said excitedly. When we all just looked at her, she huffed in disappointment. “The Waystations were built to help people moving to and from the Great Tower. When the Tower was first built, this whole area was under the Night King’s control, but the only way to this side of the continent was through Terin’s Pass; the mountains shielded the land beyond that."
"The Tower was built here to watch over the pass and secure the eastern side of the continent. When the Waystations were first built, the land here was wild, creatures roaming and killing, so they were secure places that people could rest. They stopped being used so much after the Legions started pacifying the land.”
“Well, sounds like th’ Legion missed a few wee beasties!” Oren muttered, getting a dark look from Oracle.
“That’s enough,” I said, holding up one hand and looking around the room, “Does anyone have anything else to add?” There was only silence, so I went on. “Okay, then, we can get everyone on the ship, then we can do a quick flyby over the camp, see if we can see anything, then we’ll back off and come up with a plan. Any issues?”
“B’sides th’ goblins knowin’ we’re comin’ iff’n we do tha’, ye mean?” Oren said, then held up his hands when I glared at him. “Ye told me t’ speak up iff’n I disagree, laddie. Well… I’m tellin’ ya, tha’ plan will no’ work. I already flew over; iff’n we go again, they’ll know we’re comin’. There were nothin’ to see when we passed over afore, or th’ map’d look different now.”
“Fuck,” I muttered eloquently, realizing he was right.
“I suggest we scout it on foot, Lord Jax. Goblins are notoriously lazy and stupid. They may not have scouts at all, but if they do have scouts deployed, we can find them.” Flux said confidently.
“You’re sure?” I asked, and he nodded. “We can sense their hearts beating at closer range,” he said simply, and I grinned, realizing just how hard that would be to hide from.
“Then that’ll work, but we’ve no idea how many there are up there… Oren, there are no clearings between here and there, just solid forest; that right?” Oren just gestured at the map, as though to tell me to look at it. I glared at him. “Then in that case, the ship can’t help us in the fight, or at least not yet. Can you get Decin’s ship flightworthy?”
“I can have th’ engineers look ‘er over… canna see any issues meself. Most looks fixed, but I’ve no been on ‘er yet…” Oren said, looking out of a porthole at the ship and shrugging.
“It’ll take us a good few hours to get up there, I’d think. Once we’re there, we’ll scout out the area, and see if we can get to the crew and Flux’s younglings. Then a few more hours to get back down here. So… if you can’t get the ship in the air in, say… four hours, get everyone back on here and take off. We can always fix the other ship later if need be. If we need you to use the cannons to support us, then I’ll either send Oracle to you or shoot a firebolt up into the air as we retreat. Otherwise, be ready to pick us up.” Oren nodded, then spoke hesitantly.
“I could come wit’ ye, another fighter’d be…”
“And who’d look after the ships?” I asked, cutting him off. “No; thank you, my
friend, but you’re needed here, and we’ll be okay.” I considered my words for a second before adding, “Unless of course it all goes to shit, in which case we’re going to need you on the ship even more than with us, as we’ll either need support or an escape…” I shrugged, then clapped him on the shoulder. “Seriously, you’ll be the most help to me, and to Decin, on the deck of your ship, but thank you.”
I scanned the room, a collection of grim faces looking back to me, and I nodded to them in return.
“I’d like a word, before we go?” Oracle piped up, and I smiled at her. Her attempt at seriousness was a bit strange, but hell, so were we all at this point.
“Okay, if nobody else has anything they need to say?” Lydia raised her hand, and the others paused on the way to the door.
“Well… the three idiots, Lord; what do we do with them?” she asked hesitantly, and I immediately saw the problem. I could force them along with us, and they’d be essentially cannon fodder for the goblins, which would potentially save one of us, or even prove useful…although I doubted that. More likely, though, they’d get in the way, give us away at the worst point, or run when we needed them most. I couldn’t risk it.
“Give them a sword each and the pack of food we put aside for them, then turn them out. I don’t care where they go, as long as they choose a direction away from us and the Tower, and not towards the goblins. Point them towards Himnel and let them make their own choices.” Lydia nodded her head and left the room, drawing Oren and Flux with her, and I just knew I’d have to explain this to Flux. There was no way it looked good. I turned to Oracle and blinked, startled.
The door was swinging closed and she was blurring to her full size, my mana dropping appreciably as she did so. This time, she’d shifted to long black hair again, rather than her usual blonde tresses, and she wore a simple white blouse, denim shorts, and sandals.