by Deck Davis
His mind tried to form an explanation. Was it a plane of some sort, but decorated to look like a ship? No – it was way too big. This was an actual ship, no doubt about it, except it swam in the air rather than on the sea.
He should have been surprised to see a sea vessel descend from the sky, but he and surprise and parted ways a long time ago. Instead, he spun the blades in his blade switcher on his wrist.
It was a leather and metal contraption that held three daggers at a time, allowing him to switch between them in less than a second and lock his desired blade into place. Depending on the dagger he chose it gave him some tactical flexibility, but not only that, the way the gears clicked and the snap as a dagger locked into place sounded cool.
Right now, he had three daggers loaded, each of them hard earned in his adventures in this world. Lifedrinker drained hit points from his enemies, Darkness had a chance of blinding them, while his Flicker dagger sometimes inflicted fire damage as well as normal knife damage. His choices of blade were complemented by his special Bladefighter class, which he’d combined into Blademage, mixing melee attacks with spellcraft.
All in all, it gave him choices when it came to fights, but only when he knew who he was fighting. Right now, all he saw was a ship. Were there people in it? Were they hostile?
There was a creaking sound as Longtooth drew back his bowstring and held it tense. Flink ran her hand over her spear, extinguishing the glow. Larynk, weaponless, took his sphere from his leather rucksack. Even in the gloomy fog, the bright galaxy and cosmos-like lines fizzled across it.
Charlie locked Lifedrinker into place in his bladeswitcher. He checked his mana – good, a tiny bit had regenerated. Enough for one spell, so he’d need to use it carefully. Now, they needed to see who their guests were.
A hatch opened on the side of the ship, and a sloping wooden ramp was lowered down to the ground. Men and women walked down it. Like their ship, they looked a little like pirates, with the long, dreaded hair and scarred skin. The way they walked down the ramp was cocksure; they strutted down toward the ground like this planet, and everything in it, belonged to them. They joked back and forth among each other. Charlie couldn’t hear the words but he heard their laughs, which were rough and dirty. This was a crowd he didn’t want to get mixed up in. If these guys walked into a bar, he’d finish his drink and leave.
Some carried swords and shields, but others had more curious weaponry. A few of them held giant, space-age looking pistols.
Suddenly, his blade switcher didn’t seem so good. He’d never seen anyone with guns in this world before now, and they seemed out of place. The disadvantage it left him at was tremendous; the only thing that could spot a bullet would be an Ice Shield spell, but he couldn’t cast it faster than the speed a bullet would travel at.
If it came to it, he had Fire Arrows. It wasn’t the most lethal spell, could if he cast a dozen arrows, maybe he’d get lucky and hit a few of them at once.
Larynk must have been sizing up their pirate-like guests too. “The portal’s five hundred metres behind the ship. No point trying to sneak around them, because they know we’re here. Best thing to do is the one thing they’re not expecting.”
“Which is?” said Charlie.
“Hit ‘em head on. Run at them with everything we’ve got, and surprise them, and then run past.”
“That’ crazy,” said Longtooth.
“I’m not talking about a fight to the death. Charlie can hit them with a few fire arrows, you can use your bow a little. Enough to make them cautious. We don’t need to run far, after all. Once we reach the portal, we’re out of here.”
Charlie nodded. He couldn’t think of anything else worth trying. They couldn’t go back because all that waited in that direction was the sea. If they tried going around the ship, they were just adding more distance to get to the portal.
“Gully,” he said, “Climb on Apollo’s saddle. We don’t want you slowing us down with your…uh…bad back.”
Gully grunted and walked over to Apollo, who dropped to his haunches to let the old man climb on him.
“Are we all ready?” said Larynk.
Before anyone could answer, a woman leapt from the ship, skidded down the ramp with her feet, before dropping into a roll when she hit the ground. She was six feet tall, with a ridiculously long pony tail that twisted all the way to her ankles. On her back was a sword that looked too big for her, hell too big for anyone, yet her jump from the tall ship indicated that the weight didn’t bother her.
She walked toward them, her hips slinking side to side in a way that entranced Charlie, and he couldn’t take his eyes off them as she approached. It was only when Larynk punched him on the shoulder that he focussed on the situation and readied his Lifedrinker dagger.
Up close, the woman had a pale face dotted with freckles. She sipped from a metal canteen, and the stench of alcohol wafted from her.
“I’ll cut to the bones of it,” she said, her voice strong and authoritarian. “Larynk, come to the Pantheon with me, and I’ll let your friends live.”
“Mia,” growled Larynk. “I heard you’d died.”
“Really? I wish someone had told me.”
Two pirate men ran toward Mia. One held a scabbard that buzzed with blue light, while the other wielded a magnum pistol, except with a green bio-mass writhing around the chamber. Their skin was tanned and rough, and one had covered his neck in tattoos.
“What are we waiting for?” the tattooed one said. “Kill ‘em.”
Charlie flashed his blade. “Try it.”
“You know what our deal was,” said Mia, her ponytail swishing around her ankles when she moved her head. “No killing today. There will be plenty of time for that later.”
“You promised.”
“I said no. Don’t make me-”
“You promised!”
Mia rounded on her unruly pirate and delivered a slap that made Charlie wince harder than he’d ever winced in his life. He’d gotten one slap from a woman in his life – a misunderstanding – and it hadn’t sounded half as hard as this.
He backed away from Mia now, close to Apollo. He’d never been as attracted to, and scared by, a woman more in his life.
“You’re a long way from home, Mia,” said Larynk. “And you don’t know what you’re getting yourself into.”
“Funny. I’d say it was you who was lost, Corn God. There are a lot of people who want to talk to you in the Pantheon. I’ll say it again; come with me, and I’ll let your friends live.”
Larynk glared at Charlie. It was just for a split-second, but Charlie guessed his meaning. There was no way he’d go with her to the Pantheon.
“You’re working for the demis, aren’t you?” said Larynk.
“I have a few employers. You know that. Come on, my marble darling. Let’s skip all the unpleasantness; just get on my ship.”
Charlie had no intention of boarding a space pirate’s ship. The portal was behind the hovering galleon. If they could get to it, they could leave the planet and then travel through the celestial tunnels to Larynk’s planet. But with a giant pirate ship and dozens of blood-thirsty pirates in their way, their odds didn’t look good.
“I’m not coming to the Pantheon,” said Larynk. “But you can send a message for me.”
Mia smirked, and the expression creased her face and made her freckles stand out. “Which is?”
“This.”
Larynk raised his sphere. Energy buzzed around it, zaps and spurts of multi-colored light. “Pusra,” he said, and then pushed the sphere forward, sending a pulse of blue waves out of it.
The waves rippled into Mia, the men next to her, and then crashed into pirates behind them, knocking them to the floor. When they hit the galleon the waves dispersed, fading into the charcoal sky.
Mia was the first to her feet, and she drew her huge sword quicker than Charlie had expected.
Charlie slapped Apollo’s rump, and the chimera charged forward with Gully on his back
. The rest of them followed suit, taking advantage of the dazed pirates and fleeing past them. They ran beyond them, rounding the giant pirate ship.
“Let them escape and I’ll hang the lot of you,” shouted Mia, sparking a clamour of voices and activity from her crew.
Charlie’s thigh burned as he ran. The healing potion had numbed him until now, but it hadn’t healed fully yet, and he felt the barely knitted wound begin to tear. Agony swept through him, and he huffed as he tried to run through the pain.
With the pirates shouting behind them, they finally reached the portal. There, Charlie stopped, shock spreading through him.
This wasn’t a portal. Up close, away from the dense fog, he saw what it was now; a giant, sky-scraper sized corn cob.
Larynk kicked the ground in frustration. He shook his fist at the sky. “Damn it, Chummilk, you bastard!” he said.
“Larynk? What the hell is happening?”
Anger tore through Larynk’s marble face. “Chummilk removed the portal. He must be working with the demi-gods. He knew we’d try to come to the portal, and they must have sent Mia here to capture me.”
“But she’s a person, right? You’re a god. How can she hurt you?”
“I’m a god with no sphere power. I just used the last of it. And she’s not a person…not exactly.”
The pirates ran toward them now. One of the front runners raised a gun, but Mia reached him and put her hand on the barrel, forcing him to lower it. She fixed her sights on Larynk and walked forward, hips swaying, the moonlight seeping across her sword.
Great. They were trapped beside a giant piece of corn instead of a portal, and a dozen pirates were marching toward them.
“It looks like they want to capture us rather than kill us,” said Longtooth. “That’s something, isn’t it?”
Larynk wouldn’t take his eyes off the pirate hoard. “You think being captured by Mia is preferable to death? You’ve got a lot to learn.”
“Well I’m not just gonna stand here and wait,” said Charlie.
He checked his mana. It had replenished pathetically slowly; he could cast just a single spell.
Nope – it was no good. This was it for them. With just their daggers, spears, and Longtooth’s bow, they were no match for Mia and her pirates. He could resign himself to something, at least. If Mia and her band wanted to take him, they’d have to work for it.
A whooshing sound came from above them. The mist parted to reveal the front of another ship; a flying galleon, smaller than the pirates’ ship, with a mast billowing in the wind. This one had a name printed on the starboard side; Thunder Struck. It was a col name, but Charlie was concerned at seeing his second flying sea vessel in one evening, and even more concerned with who was flying – or sailing – it. More pirates? Santa Claus? Amelia Earhart?
The ship swooped down in front of them and hovered. A figure appeared and leaned over the deck. It was a man with a golden face, with skin made of metal. A long, trailing coat blew behind him, the collar flapping against his metal face. He dropped four lengths of rope over the sides.
“No way,” said Larynk, staring up.
“You know this guy?”
The pirates shouted threats and obscenities as they sprinted closer. Some waved their swords in the air, whilst others were more serious in their pursuit, running with determination written on their faces.
Six booms sounded one after the other. Above, the golden figure held a pistol in each hand, and the muzzles flashed as he shot at the pirates, sending tiny blue bolts of mana-charged balls through the air.
Three pirates fell. Another took a bullet in his chest and he stumbled back. Mia walked on regardless, not even flinching at the bullets. There wasn’t a trace of fear in her.
The golden-faced man called to Charlie and the others. “Are you getting on, or what?”
The metal-bodied man gestured at the ropes of his floating boat, and then blasted more blue bullets at the space pirates.
Chapter Four
Charlie clambered up the rope, every pull a burning reminder that he really needed to get in shape. His aching muscles took his all the way back to gym class in school, to being forced to climb a rope to the roof of the gym hall and failing and having to slink back down the rope while his classmates watched. He couldn’t fail today, because he either reached the ship or surrendered himself to a group of not-so-nice pirates.
He collapsed onto the deck of the boat. His arms ached, his thigh stung. He lay on his back and stared up at the night sky, a smear of black broken only by the distant and burning stars and suns in the galaxy beyond.
“Everyone on board?” said the metallic voice.
Larynk grunted with effort at something. “There you go, old man,” he said. “That’s the last of us.”
“Then let’s go.”
The ship took into the sky and the stars loomed just that little bit closer, though still light years and lifetimes away. Pirates? Alien planets? Flying ships? Ho had it come to this?
A face loomed over him, and the space sky was replaced by an angry half-gnome. “Thanks for the help,” said Flink. “Don’t worry; we got Gully onboard.”
Guilt met with his aches now, mixing into a cocktail that he could do without. He knew he should have helped Gully, he should have made sure the others got aboard before hitting the deck, but he wasn’t perfect. He was just a guy out of his depth on a strange planet.
When he got to his feet, he saw the planet grow smaller beneath them. It made him feel sick. He was out of his element here, caught between being thankful that the ship, and the golden faced man, had appeared to help them escape, and the sensation that a boat shouldn’t have been able to fly in the sky.
His stomach lurched, but he held in his nausea and breathed until it left him. He turned to face the others, where he saw Larynk pacing back and forth along the deck. This bothered him; it was the first time he’d seen Larynk look worried, and if Larynk was out of his depth, then what did that make Charlie?
He pulled himself together. He had to be strong, but not just for himself; he had to keep it together for Flink and Longtooth, who he’d dragged into this whole mess.
Apollo appeared beside him and nuzzled his mane against his good thigh. The chimera wasn’t as exhausted as the rest of them; instead of climbing the ropes, he’d merely leapt aboard the ship.
“Hey buddy,” he said, scratching Apollo’s chin.
Flink leaned over the side of the deck and vomited. Longtooth scuttled around the deck, fascinated. Larynk, on the over hand, paced around with his fists clenched.
“God damn Mia. What a bitch. She’s working for the demi-gods.”
“I’m guessing there’s a history between you two,” said Charlie.
“Mia has a history with every god, trust me. And there’s not a god who’d be glad he met her.”
“You might consider thanking me at some point,” said a metallic voice.
The golden-faced man had joined them. Up close, Charlie saw that his whole body was made from metal, though only his face was gold. On it, red lines spread along the gold, showing what appeared to be eyes, nose, and a mouth. They weren’t real, of course, but it seemed that the red lines formed expressions on his face. He wore a long, trailing brown coat. He held twin pistols in his hands and had two long katana-like swords were in sheathes on his belt. He looked like a mixture of a western gunslinger and a robot.
“Of all the demi-gods I expected to see here…I didn’t expect you, Crosseyes,” said Larynk.
The golden demi-god shrugged. “I get around, you know that.”
Charlie felt panic stirring in him. He flicked a dagger into place on his switcher. “He’s a demi-god?”
“This is Crosseyes. And yes, he’s a demi-god. But don’t worry about him; he’s not with the others.”
“Does someone want to tell me what’s going on?” said Charlie.
Larynk nodded. “Let’s get everything straight. Crosseyes here is a demi-god. Mia and her pirates wer
e his crew, once.”
“And they’re demi-gods too?”
“No. But Mia hopes to be. She was human once, but now she’s a kind of interstellar bounty hunter. She does all the nasty jobs the gods and demi-gods don’t want to get involved with, and in return, they extend her lifespan. For every job she completes, she lives longer than any human should, and she wants to be a demi-god one day.”
“And they must have ordered her to take you to the Pantheon,” said Charlie.