Using the momentum of my run through the cobbled streets, I smashed the bready spear into the face of an overzealous guardsman who made to tackle Funkworthy. The man fell, clutching at the side of his face where the bread had impacted, clawing at his mouth for crumbs. Ebenezer rolled over the bowed back of the fellow and continued our dash without missing a beat.
We sprinted down side streets and avenues, bringing us near the cliff face where the city fell away into the deep Aplubian valley. Once aligned with this edge, we took up a desperate pace as we sighted the bedroom blimp hovering close to the sides of the walls of the city. The sight was heartening and heart wrenching at the same time, as the thing was both close to us and also close to departing the limits of this part of the city and eluding our grasp. Funkworthy and I exchanged glances as we ran, and he nodded. Grimacing, we pumped our arms harder and picked up the pace to an absolute gallop.
Funkworthy pulled ahead of me slightly, but out of an alcove a guard made a sudden lunging grab for him. Ebenezer was too fast for that malarkey and, in a few bounds and scrambling grabs at masonry, quickly mounted a nearby flower stall, clambered on top of the thing and leapt on an overhead beam out of reach of the zealous guard. The beams overhead covered the impromptu market stall and, as he took to the ceiling to leap and bound from timber beam to timber beam, I set my own pace on the ground, my lungs burning with strain and my chest tight with sprint fatigue.
A rabble of soldiers rushed rudely on to the street to form a sort of solid Aplubian roadblock for me. I glanced to my side and, raising my left leg up to it mid-sprint, pushed myself off a street bollard and leapt into the air, spinning around in midair with my baguette extended at the end of my arm. The soldiers saw a tornado with a bread baton jutting out of it rushing at them, and by the time I had landed they had dispersed, flattening themselves out on the ground or depositing themselves in some big bins nearby. I took up my pace again and dodged deftly as a shadow above me fell to my right-an irate soldier.
A gaggle of lead-footed guardsmen were clambering on the beams after Funkworthy, who leapt and ran on the narrow slats like an impish child or a thieving street urchin. He paused long enough for a guard to wallop meatily down on the beam next to him and gave a slight shove to the man to send him crashing down before he ran off again.
“I didn’t check the broadcast today”, I called up to him. “Did it say it was going to be raining men?”
He laughed breathlessly as I ran round a corner, gaining inches on the pursuing rabble with every stride. Funkworthy leapt on a large fabric banner and let the momentum of his fall rip the thing in half and guide him back down to terra firma. In seconds, he was back at my side, arms pistoning and legs a blur of motion just like mine.
“Where is she?” I yelled over to him. In all the commotion I had lost sight of the ship. Had it eluded us? Had we passed it? I had dimly seen it dip below the walls of the city and out of sight, so there was no telling.
But no sooner had I asked the question than a shadow answered me. From the chasm to our left, the shape of the zeppelin surfaced like an ominous aerial whale with a bedroom inside it and cannons all jutting out of its gills. The balloon swam above the barrier of the wall to the side and inch by inch the cabin with its armaments climbed through the air to meet us. I heard Funkworthy curse under his breath as he saw the thing too and we both pushed our chins down into our chests and put our everything into the run. My chest felt like a furnace. My side burned with seven distinct stitches and my lungs felt like big sacs of internal tissue that had been rapidly filled with gases and then emptied over and over again. It was agony, but we pushed faster.
A rush of air caught my back and a sting of shrapnel licked at my heels before I even heard the boom. A shop front detonated behind us as balls ploughed into them at terminal velocity. I risked a look back. The ship floated behind, now levelling out with its cannons resting at the same height as us. It floated toward us and we wrung desperate metres from the ground, swapping sweat for distance.
Thoom! Masonry fell and there was screaming in the distance. A set of columns collapsed behind us, and the pinpricks of exploding detritus hit me in the back.
“You… have… terrible… taste… in… women!” gasped Funkworthy as we ran.
Whadoom! There was another blast and crescendo of destruction as she let off her guns. It was hard to argue the man’s point, I had to admit, though it seemed a cruel time to bring it up.
Sha-doom! A fresh gust of destruction bloomed behind us, but the sounds were getting distant and the acrid smell of gunpowder was less sharp in my throat. We were outstripping her zeppelin in this relentless dash. I glanced over my shoulder once more. It was powering its engines towards us, but there was no mistaking it-we had the edge in speed.
“There!” cried Funkworthy, pointing to a tower ahead of us. It was a tall spire of a building, a lookout post that sat at the edge of a sheer cliff that marked the end of this northern province of the palace city. Beyond that tower would be the void of the valley: a sheer drop and the unknown basin of Aplubia below us, and that was an obstacle we could not surmount. It was our chance. A spiral staircase snaked around the outside of it. If we could climb it before the zeppelin reached that point, we could jump aboard. It was a straight shot to the tower, the street leading right to it, but at this edge of the province the buildings thinned out and then stopped altogether. There would be nowhere to hide.
We ran.
We ran straight for that goal as the sound of thudding cannonballs chased us down the promenade.
We ran until our shadows were panting and leaning against a wall behind us, we ran until our veins pumped lactic acid and our legs were rubber poles. But second by second the cannon impacts faded into the distance and the tower that looked into the deep Aplubian valley stood before us, offering a staircase and a fall and a chance for redemption-in that order.
We stalled at the bottom of the stairs for a second. I gasped and ran a sweaty hand down my sweaty face, successfully redistributing the sweat from one surface to another. The zeppelin groaned after us, its guns silent for now, and on the promenade a cloud of angry running limbs chased towards our position.
“A climb…” Funkworthy gasped, “and that’s it. We can beat her! We can make it!”
“Not standing here we won’t. Come on, let’s get this over with!”
“My feeling exactly!” came the cry of an unfamiliar voice from above us.
I wheeled around to find that on the stairs of the tower sat an elegantly dressed Aplubian. He stood and gave a small parodic bow to me, and then reached into his pocket and took out a cylindrical tube.
“Let me re-introduce myself. I am Eduardo! I teach the art of fencing when I am not protecting the royal family!” cried the man. I remembered encountering the oaf in the banquet hall in the wake of the first queen’s explosion; he was a dapper brute but brusque and unreasonably distrusting of me. “You are the coward who took one queen from us and you intend to do so again. I tried to warn her not to welcome you, but now it seems I have the chance to expel you from this planet personally-expel you into the afterlife! You want to get at the fair Hydrangea? Well, you will have to get past Eduardo to do it, you swine!”
I looked up at him and back at the looming airship. “Eduardo!” I called. “Believe it or not, we are trying to prevent further bloodshed, and so I now ask you to step aside. I have no quarrel with you.”
“Ah, but I have a quarrel with you, Hardcore. You dangled my brother over the palace’s highest turret and demanded a confession!”
Funkworthy shot me another look, but there was no time to address it.
“Very well. I can see where this is going. You say you are a swordsman? Well, let’s have it.”
The man obliged and flicked a button on his cylinder. A green shaft of light shot from it and buzzed noisily in the air, like some kind of saber made of light. He twirled it expertly.
“Space....” It was a
warning from Ebenezer, who was eyeing the twin threats of the zeppelin and the mob of guards closing in on us. I had to move.
“Call that a sword? This is a sword!” I flourished my baton of bread at him, but unfortunately the sweat from my hand had soaked into the dough where I held it and it flopped in my hand in a gesture I tried not to see as symbolic. I tossed it up in the air and caught the other end.
“No, Captain, that is a baguette”, answered Eduardo.
“Touché! But it’s no less deadly! To you! En garde!
* * *
Chapter Eighteen!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Even Deadlier Confrontations
In which a pitched kraken battle takes its toll, Ebenezer makes a leap into the time-void and the Albino King rallies his troops.
I lunged. The tip of the baguette darted toward his mouth like a dart.
Fwoom.
In a blink, the spear of green light flashed before me and the fellow danced back a step, pacing back up the stairs with a smirk on his face. It was then that I saw it. The slice of loaf fluttered in the air before me. I put out my hand and caught it. It was perfectly toasted and the swipe was clean. That laser sword had cleaved the tip from my weapon and made it into the perfect place to spread some pâté, or maybe some cream cheese. I looked back up at him as he stared smugly down at his handiwork. This would not do.
I took a bite and flung the disc at his head like a throwing star or a pancake. He batted it lazily from the air with a swipe and I used the opening to lunge at him anew. He threw himself back up the stairs, repelled by my freshly toasted tip.
He had skill. And a laser sword. He could whittle my advantage down to toast in seconds. I had to press on. I charged up the spiral steps.
Ducking under a horizontal swipe, I straightened as it buzzed over me and struck another stab that landed in his eye. He fell back further and I closed the gap, thwacking him on the head with the baguette, but his arm swung back around. I just managed to fall back a step, dodging the blow that would have spilled my guts. I looked down. A slash had sizzled through my clothes, showing how close it had come to disembowelling me. I was aghast. That was one of my favourite jumpers.
“Alright Eduardo, now it’s personal!”
I let out a furious flurry of stabs and swipes at the swordsman. He dodged and parried them artfully, cutting sizzling crusts off the baguette with every fresh pass. He had the higher ground-being up the staircase from me-but I knew I was pushing him back. I looked at the bread. It was smoking and toasted golden brown, but it was hewn thinner than it should have been. I sensed an incoming stab and ducked my head, just missing the sizzling surface of the energy blade, but I felt a small gash open on my cheek.
First my beautiful jumper, now my beautiful face?!
I let out a howl and dove at the man, pushing him up the stairs as I swiped at him with powerful blows.
I kicked the face of the first guard who rushed up the stairs at me. His face-before it bore the imprint of the sole of my shoe-was an ugly mottle of determination and hate. Before he swung the baton at me, he snarled long enough for me to plant my toes into his forehead and push him down the stairs. He became a fat wrecking ball rolling down the spiral stairs, knocking his cohorts in all directions. I reached down long enough to pick up his baton and glance back up the stair.
Space was there ducking and weaving as the green energy blade cut the air around him in a dazzlingly deft display. It stabbed and he lunged around it, answering with a thud of his baguette. I saw him lunge up the stairs, and his opponent sunk back, now dozens of metres up the side of the tower. A sickening stab separated a couple of sandwiches worth of toasted bread from the end of Space’s weapon. He charged on regardless, zigzagging past a riposte and buckling the man’s swash.
I turned back to look at my side of the stair. A queue of angry faces and even angrier weapons were charging up at me single file, squatting low on the perilous ascent. I sent a blow to the face of the first man and he went sprawling from the stair with a shout, but in answer the men behind him doubled up and raised their weapons in defence. I swung madly at them, thwacking back and fore with my baton in powerful horizontal arcs, but for every man I beat off, another was there immediately, eager to take his place. I turned on my heel and bounded up a flight of stairs to where Space was still playing out his deadly dance with Eduardo. I hopped away from clattering blows that bit at my heels and as I turned around, whipping my weapon around with me, the soldiers were closer than ever. With my back to Space’s, we slowly walked up the stairs-he, with a toasted weapon, lunging at an expert swordsman, and me, backing away from a baying crowd and buying time with the metronome beat of my baton.
“Space!” I called.
“What is it?”
“I’m tagging you in!” I shouted and with my free hand I tapped him on the shoulder.
We knew what to do. I made myself small on the steps, crouching down. Behind me, he spread his legs out and jumped backwards. He sailed over my head and landed deftly down the stairs with nary a waver. He turned to face the crowd of Aplubians with his whittled stick of toast. I spun around and started my forward-facing ascent up the stairs.
The swordsman Eduardo smiled at me, gave a flowery bow in greeting and aimed a blow at my head. When I blocked his laser sword with my baton though, there was no shower of breadcrumbs. I returned his smirk with interest, batted his blade aside and gave him a jab of my own. He parried it, but the force of the blow threw his arm off to the side and I managed a glancing shot at his ribcage. He winced and repositioned his blade. I lunged again, and when our weapons clashed, we held them in place, pushing from each side as his laser sword hissed and spat and my baton smoked as its metal was tested. I broke the stalemate with a poke to his eye. He fell back and I charged. Almost to the top now, I thought.
But as the light of optimism filled me, I staggered to one side. The tower shook violently.
Thoom!
The zeppelin had finally caught up to us. She let out her cannons into the base of the tower, which shook and quivered and sent out a slew of powdered mortar, smashing brick like enormous dandruff from a shaken head.
I focused. If I was off balance, then so was Eduardo. I launched a desperate set of attacks on him, pressing the swordsman back as I spied the top of the tower beckoning behind him. He shook but his sabre danced before him, swatting my blows aside. Behind me, Space had his back pressed against mine as he quelled a stair full of enraged soldiers with what was by now a fairly thin breadstick.
The singed end of my yeast-based rapier wafted a trail of sage-tinged smoke before me as I retreated up the stairs.
It acted as a temporary wall, but as soon as the wind carried it off, the mass of angry faces that were so unfortunately in charge of the swinging weapons trundled on up the spiral stairs. I swung again and a billy club snapped off a nibble-sized chunk of the end. As it hit the stairs, another foot kicked it off the staircase. I saw it tumble through the air below us. We were almost at the top now. The cacophony of impact noises of baton on laser sword attested to the battle raging behind me, and I steered myself up to the top of the tower where those two combatants were dancing a deadly tango to the ancient rumba rhythm of violence.
I would have loved to have been taking on the swarthy swordsman in single combat, but at that moment I was charged with the slightly more problematic proposition of holding back a baying pack of soldiers and guards who had all simultaneously figured out that my bread weapon would pose them no danger if they smashed it to atoms with big sticks.
The group had turned into a many-legged, many-headed beast of one mind (I am speaking metaphorically, here, though I have bested several foes of that precise description) and they were wearing away my defences. Seconds earlier, I had been holding a bloomers-worth of bread, but a very violent attack had left me with a couple of croissants or maybe three pain au chocolat, and that was a very insignificant amount of breaded goods to be waving.
; Another blast of cannons below us rattled the tower like a child shaking its toy. A few guardsmen tumbled from the staircase’s spiral, but fresh meat filled the void instantaneously.
Now at the top of the turret, I was at the edge of a small rooftop garden that was serving as Funkworthy’s duelling ground. The stone stairs were the only entrance to the top of the tower, and I positioned myself at the top of that stair, fending off the guards as best I could. But the lash of the weaponry coming from them would soon, I knew, crumble my weapon, and I would be left with only my fists and feet to repel these rubes.
“Space!” I heard Funkworthy shout in despair.
I turned my head fractionally and a zinging flash of pain was my reward as a flail flew from the ranks of guards that now roiled on the stairs and struck my temple. I fell back, clutching the wound and feeling blood seep through my fingers. I kicked out and waved the breadstick, but the men were rammed together and they absorbed the force of my attack. It was like kicking an angry sponge jellyfish (I know, as I have fought several enemies of that description). They advanced further and the end of my breadstick was hewn cruelly off.
“Space!” Funkworthy cried again, a note of pain in his voice.
Damn it all.
I let out a ferocious punch that caught the faces of the first row, and turned to see Funkworthy. Eduardo was in a striking position, holding a ready blade over the kneeling form of Funkworthy, sneering an insult at him. I had to act.
The baton clattered a brutal melody of blows.
We had ascended to a small and fragrant roof garden, and on solid ground it became too apparent that I was far outmatched. On the ascent of the stairs I had lain enough violence on the man to make me think I had a fighting chance, but as soon as we reached our destination I had swung a decapitating blow at his skull and he was gone. Like the ghost of a ninja in the wind, he had evaporated from his spot and reappeared behind me in time to paddle a stinging sore against my buttocks. An insult! Very few assaults on the posterior are tactical, and as I turned to see the man dance off out of my reach, I saw he could afford to taunt me.
The Court of Crusty Killings: A Captain Space Hardcore Adventure Page 19