* * *
Daylen couldn’t help but laugh as he thought of what it would be like for pirates to attack a skyship that he was aboard.
No one else had noticed, of course—the pirates were still several kilometers above them—but it had certainly spotted them, for it was flying their way like a shotspike.
Daylen stood and casually made his way to the captain, noticing that Ahrek, who looked to have been deep in thought this entire time, had seen Daylen rise.
Ahrek met Daylen as he reached the captain.
The portly captain’s clothes looked much like his ship, a respected fashion that must have been expensive to purchase, but were now worn and tattered from continual use and neglect. The captain himself had neatly combed hair, but needed a shave.
“And what can I do for my esteemed passenger?” the captain said, who had been offering Daylen every possible courtesy thus far. Daylen suspected this was mostly due to his master’s mark, sunforged sword, and the staring crowds surrounding Daylen as he had bartered for passage.
“We’ve been spotted by pirates.”
“What?” the captain said with dread as he searched the skies. “I can’t see anything.”
Daylen pointed. “Right there to the left of that small cloud. Use your telescope.”
The captain did so. “Son of a Shade!” he cursed and turned to his first mate. “All hands on deck! We’ll outrun the bastards.”
“Not a chance,” Daylen said. “That pirate ship is a Hemmenlight switchback carrier. If it can reach even eighty percent of its max speed, it’ll be on us in minutes. You have no hope of outrunning it.”
“How can you blackened see that?”
“Trust me.”
“Told ya this was a bad idea,” the first mate said to his captain.
“Don’t start with me! We’re behind schedule because of your stuff-up, so if those pirates catch us, I’ll be sure to introduce you to them first.” The captain turned back to Daylen. “We should be fine. We’ll just have to break out the weapons.”
“No. Get everyone below deck. I’ll deal with the pirates.”
The captain and first mate looked at each other and then back to Daylen in dumb surprise. “Are you crazy, boy?”
“Don’t call me boy,” Daylen hissed. “I’m a Grand High Master of the sword. Now—get below deck!”
“If he is,” the first mate said to the captain, “he’d be able take a few of them out before they stick him and pry open the doors.”
“Fine,” the captain said. “If you want to kill yourself, go ahead. We’ll prepare a few surprises inside. Are you coming, Bringer?”
“No, I’ll be staying with my friend.”
“What, you want to die too?”
“We’ll be fine, Captain.”
“You’re both as blackened brainless as a beggar from Mayn!” the captain said as he left to get the crew beneath.
Daylen calmly walked to the center of the deck and watched the pirates approach.
Ahrek joined him, saying, “This is rather noble of you.”
“Not really. It’s not like I’m sacrificing myself.”
“But you’re risking your life.”
“As little light as these men have, I don’t know of any reason they deserve to die. As far as I’m concerned, they warrant my protection like anyone else. Regardless, it’s not much of a risk. Even without my powers I could have taken on a good number of these pirates; added with some tactical positioning, I might have even won. With my powers, there’s no contest.”
“You’re good with tactics?”
“Yes.”
“Even so, there’s always a chance of defeat.”
“I’m not an idiot. I know that, but it doesn’t mean I can’t be confident.”
“True.”
A few moments passed before Daylen spoke again. “So what’s your plan? Are you going to fight alongside me?”
“Only if I have to. My first act will be to try and resolve things peacefully.”
“Peacefully? These are pirates, Ahrek! They need to be stopped. If we scare them off or simply convince them to leave us alone, that still leaves them to hunt the skies.”
Ahrek sighed. “You’re right. So we need to make them surrender to us and then turn them in to the authorities.”
Daylen laughed. “The punishment for piracy is execution! There’s even a standing bounty for turning in pirate heads, so if you’re worried about the legal right I have to kill these scum, I have it.”
Ahrek frowned. “Yes, you have every right in the law to kill the men that are about to attack us; but please, if any of them surrender, show mercy. What if there’s some lost soul on that ship who’s only there because of bad luck? Don’t think of them as faceless pirates. They are still people, Daylen, and some few of them might be redeemed of the life they have found themselves in.”
“It’s a bit hard to tell who that might be when trying to stop them from killing me.”
“Not for us.”
“What?”
“Light, Daylen—look for their light.”
“Their inner light…” Daylen said in realization.
“You can be confident that any among these criminals that still possess a brighter light within has hope of redemption.”
“Would you say that about Dayless the Conqueror? After all, he supposedly had light within him.”
Ahrek didn’t reply right away. “No. There was no redemption for your father.”
“Well, I can’t argue with that.”
“Then we are agreed. You shall show restraint if you can?”
Daylen nodded. “Agreed.”
The pirate switchback was very impressive, decked out with outer armor and weapons, and it came in fast. Several men stood along the deck manning old-style harpoon shotspikes. As soon as the lethal looking switchback flew aside the Maraven, the pirates fired. The shotspikes launched forward with such great speed that they easily penetrated the Maraven’s hull. The ropes must have been fixed to darkstone pulleys, for the floor under Daylen heaved, but the Maraven stayed on course.
Daylen could hear the iron supports inside the Maraven groan, for the darkstone core was still spatially locked except for its forward movement. The entire ship would be ripped from the core before darkstone moved without sunlight.
Instead, the pirate’s switchback was pulled in toward the Maraven, which must have had its core unlocked along that axis, as otherwise it would have run into the same problem. The harpoons would have been pulled free, or one of the ships entirely ripped from their heart.
The switchback crashed into the Maraven’s side, causing another great heave in the ship—but, impressively, the Maraven held strong. As Daylen suspected, the ship was far sturdier than a casual glance would indicate.
Pirates jumped aboard easily, the two ship’s windshields merging their air pockets, meaning there were no dangerous wind currents between them.
They had weapons drawn and murder in their eyes.
A few of them were even armed with shooters. The others held either swords or the older and larger handheld shotspikes, which were the size of thick short spears. Daylen hadn’t seen those things in years.
These pirates have a better chance of flying without darkstone than having enough inner light for me to spare them, Daylen thought, but as Ahrek had asked, he reached out with his new sense.
Sure enough, their lights were faint indeed, about the same as many of the crewmen of the Maraven—the difference, of course, being that these pirates were trying to kill him.
Three of the pirates shot their spikes at him, one toward Ahrek.
Daylen’s heart leapt in fear—not for himself, but Ahrek.
The Bringer was far from defenseless, but even a master would find it very difficult to dodge a shotspike in flight.
Spikes flew about twice as fast as an arrow and with far more force behind them. Daylen’s speed and reflexes were already enhanced, so he dodged the spikes easily as they whistled
past.
Ahrek raised his hand before the third spike reached him and light flashed from it, materializing into a familiar-looking sunforged kite shield.
The spike hit the shield, which chimed from the impact and ricocheted off at another angle, where it arced and fell to bounce along the deck. Shotspikes were designed to disengage their internal drivers upon first impact so that they could be collected and used again.
The pirates hesitated at seeing Ahrek’s powers, and then charged toward Daylen—a good twenty-five men.
Daylen drew Imperious and walked to greet them.
Ahrek’s warning voice echoed on deaf ears as he cried, “Men of the skies, we don’t want to harm you!”
Daylen channeled two double bonds into his speed and reflexes, dodging the other spikes shot at him and then deflecting the first attacker’s blade with his gauntlet. He sliced the pirate in two as if he were made of paper with the sunforged blade while dodging three other sword strikes.
Daylen moved with truly supernatural speed as he felt for the light in his enemies, seeing their positions and actions as if seeing out from the back of his head. In seeing and thereby predicting each attack, he moved through the flurry of swords like a leaf on the wind, stabbing, slicing, and at one point grabbing the skimmer that hung from a pirate’s belt. Switching one bond to strength, Daylen pulled the levers and broke the safety lock, which locked the inner darkstone in place. As the switchback and the Maraven were flying at an incredible speed, the skimmer, now not moving at all, seemed to fly backward into the pirate’s stomach. The pirate cried out in pain and horror, for the skimmer nearly ripped through his entire body before carrying him to hit the back cabin wall, where it did rip through his body and the rest of the ship—though it was just as likely that the skimmer had broken into pieces after the first few walls it crashed through, releasing the darkstone and exposing it to light.
Daylen dodged and weaved as if performing an acrobatic dance, Imperious lashing out to dismember a pirate with each move.
Blocking a blow that came from behind with the sunforged bracer of his gauntlet, Daylen thrust his sword backward without even looking, seeing the pirate with his light sense as clear as day and running him through.
Daylen sensed another attack and easily dodged it—and even though he realized in that instant that this particular pirate was a young woman, he didn’t hesitate to take off her head. She had chosen a life of piracy, and had as little light within her as the rest of them.
As Daylen continued to fight, he spied a single pirate who thought it best not to take him on. He charged at Ahrek.
This is going to be interesting, Daylen thought as he kept his eyes on Ahrek, relying on his light sense to dodge and fight off his opponents.
Ahrek stood calmly, his shield having disappeared. As the pirate neared, Ahrek waved his hand like he was swatting a fly, and an invisible force suddenly ripped the skimmer from the pirate’s belt before hitting him with such power that it knocked the man entirely off the other side of the ship.
The moment he left the calm pocket of air made by the ship’s windshield, the powerful air currents blew him backward like he had been yanked by a hook, his cries of astonishment and fear echoing in the distance.
Huh. That’ll do the job, I suppose.
Daylen finished off the last pirate with a clean decapitation—there had been a lot of those. Those pirates he had run through held their bleeding bodies as they moaned in pain or tried to crawl away. Daylen finished them off before looking to Ahrek and, with accentuated mock concern and dramatic body language, said, “Oh, Ahrek! You just killed a man, whatever will you do?”
“Have I ever told you my opinion about sarcasm?”
“No, you’ve never mentioned anything like that to me before.”
Ahrek smirked.
“I almost had you, then.”
Ahrek quickly removed his smirk and cleared his throat. “Almost. Oh, and technically you’re wrong.”
“About what?”
“Me killing a man.”
“But you just did!”
Ahrek looked to the side and smirked. “No, I didn’t. Well, not yet at least.”
“What?” Daylen said, before connecting the dots. Almost laughing, he continued, “Ah, I suppose so, for the next few minutes at least.”
“I almost had you, then.”
“Not even close.”
Daylen leapt aboard the enemy ship, leaving Ahrek to stop any pirates who might try and board the Maraven.
Several pirates were in the process of cutting the harpoon ropes. Having watched Daylen dispatch those pirates who had tried to take the ship, they must have thought it a much better idea to flee. They ran as soon as Daylen hit the deck, several ropes still in place.
With lightning speed, Daylen took out the nearest pirate, then picked up his sword and threw it, skewering another. The next pirate was a young man who tried frantically to get below deck, but it appeared that the other pirates had bolted the door.
Daylen marched on the lad, but before his sword fell, he noticed something. The boy, who looked to be in his late teens, had an inner light that shone much brighter than a normal person’s—and a normal person’s light would have been odd enough to find among these scum.
Seeing Daylen, the boy grabbed two skimmers from his belt and used them in unison.
Daylen was almost too shocked to stop the boy, for using two skimmers took a remarkable level of coordination. The skimmers pulled the boy to the side and into the air at a great speed but Daylen caught him by the belt and increased his own weight and strength. The boy now had an anchor attached to him, and the two skimmers flew out of his grip—and then their ropes, which were attached to the boy’s belt, snapped free.
Daylen had spared the boy’s life by grabbing his belt; for if he had grabbed, say, the boy’s foot, those ropes would have ripped the boy’s belt free from his pants and nearly flayed his skin before breaking several bones; or if the belt had held, it would have ripped his leg from his foot.
Still, those ropes yanked brutally on the belt before they burst, and the boy screamed out in pain as his belt suddenly crushed in on his sides.
He fell limp, hanging from his pants. Daylen carried him to the edge of the carrier.
“Just kill me already,” he groaned.
“No.”
The boy tried to free himself but was too hurt for a true effort.
“We’ll talk later,” Daylen said and, throwing him into the air, he shouted out to Ahrek. “Catch!”
Ahrek promptly caught the boy with his own power and floated him to a corner.
“He might need healing,” Daylen called out, “but be careful, he’s a wriggler!”
Daylen turned and scanned the deck of the pirate ship. There were a few other pirates left, but one in particular stood out. He was at the ship’s helm, his arms folded, staring at Daylen with serious eyes. He wore a gold-trimmed tricorne hat and a fashionable justacorps coat of a modern cut. Under the coat he wore formal dueling garb, its cleanliness standing out in stark contrast to the rest of the crew, as with his discipline. This man had to be the captain.
What was most shocking about him was that, for a moment, Daylen thought he was looking at himself, for the man had blue hair under his hat in the exact shade as Daylen’s, and there was significant resemblance in the face. But the shock was short lived—the man was not some phantom doppelganger. There were significant enough differences in facial features, and though he was still very youthful to Daylen’s aged eyes, the man looked older by at least twenty years compared to Daylen’s new physical appearance.
The pirate captain strode confidently down the stairs to the main deck, taking off his coat and throwing it aside. He drew out a side sword and fixed a center-grip kite shield that had hung from his back, both sunforged, shining faintly in a transparent ruby red. No formal duelist would ever be allowed to use a sunforged kite shield in a proper duel, but this man was a pirate; fair play meant nothi
ng to him, and nothing gave as much protection as a sunforged shield.
On top of that, Daylen spied two shotspikes fixed to either side of the captain’s sword blade near the hilt. This man had made his sword into a two-shooter. Clever. Dirty, unprincipled, and illegal, but still clever—Daylen could see himself coming up with the idea. He would never use it in a duel, of course, but for battle he wouldn’t hesitate.
This fight was going to be interesting.
“I wonder how many of us bastards are out there?” the captain said as he approached.
“What in the Light is that supposed to mean?” Daylen said derisively.
The captain spoke in a mocking tone, “Can’t you tell? With how damn good you are with that sword, and with your hair and looks, it’s clear that we’re long-lost brothers.”
Daylen laughed at the absurdity of the comment. “You’re blackened stoned, mate. Yeah I can see some resemblance, but trust me when I say there’s no chance under the Light that we’re related. Seriously, what have you been sniffing?”
“Only the finest snuff money can buy, or I should say, sword can steal.”
“Whatever,” Daylen said as the two of them sized each other up, weapons in hand. Daylen was of course wearing his dueling gauntlet, but it didn’t offer nearly as much protection as a sun-blackened-forged kite, so in terms of arms, Daylen was outmatched.
The captain smiled, astoundingly overconfident. He had no idea who Daylen really was or the true extent of his skill. Still, Daylen was wearing his master’s mark, which didn’t seem to faze this man. Perhaps this captain was far more skilled than the regular slob, or he simply put too much stock in his sunforged kite and dirty spike-loaded sword.
Kite shield or no, Daylen knew that with his powers he could wipe the floor with this man, which is why he decided not to use them. Daylen was simply too much a duelist at heart, and honestly since fighting Ahrek a fall or so ago, Daylen had been craving another bout as good and exhilarating as that, and one that would actually conclude properly.
Shadow of the Conqueror Page 23