Tarrin Kael Firestaff Collection Book 2 - The Questing Game by Fel ©

by James Galloway (aka Fel)

  "Just give the signal when you're ready. I'll fight." He extended the claws on his paw meaningfully.

  "I almost feel sorry for Sheba," Kern said in a grim chuckle, scurrying away.

  Yes, he was what he was now. He just didn't know what it meant, or where it would take him.

  But there were more pressing and immediate matters. The clipper had stopped shooting at them, obviously realizing that magic was defending their prey, but they were still coming. Sheba knew that Kern had magical defense, but she seemed unconcered about it. That meant that she had to have some kind of contingency for dealing with--

  The priest. He remembered that priest from when they were in Roulet. No doubt he would use his own magic in support of Sheba. Tarrin had no idea what kind of magical powers a priest had, but Sheba's willingness to pit her priest against the magic Kern commanded was obvious. That meant that he had to be a good priest.

  Dolanna couldn't do anything about it. A Sorcerer could prevent a priest from using magic, but she was totally occupied with maintaining the sheild of air that was protecting them from being mauled by the clipper's cannons. And Tarrin didn't know how it was done.

  A plan was forming in his mind. He rushed away from the stern and up to Binter, who was standing between Keritanima and the clipper, using his body to shield her. His massive warhammer was in his hand, and his expression was just as stony as usual. "Binter, a question."

  "What is it, Tarrin?"

  "How far do you think you can throw me?"

  Binter's black eyes fluttered slightly. "Well, I never thought to consider that," he admitted. "Judging by your weight, I would say a good ten feet."

  "In spans, Binter."

  "About twelve spans."

  Tarrin turned and looked out over the stern. "When the clipper attacks, what will it do?"

  "If she is interested in capturing us, she will try to come up alongside and secure us with grappling hooks," Binter replied. Binter was well schooled in myriad forms of combat, on both land and sea. As was only proper for the royal bodyguard. "If she intends to sink us, she'll try to come up and get her broadside to us. She'll be close to do it, so all her guns hit. No more than fifty feet--about sixty five spans."

  "So no matter what, the ship will try to come up alongside," Tarrin said. "And they'll be no further than sixty spans away." It would work. He'd jumped extreme distances before, and this time he would both have a boost and he'd be carrying a rope and grapple to snag into their rigging.

  No, there was a better way. A much more effective way.

  "Nevermind, Binter," he said. "I think I can do it without pulling you away from Kerri."

  "Do what?"

  "Sheba knows we have magicians aboard, and that doesn't scare her. I think it's because of her priest. I'm going to take that advantage away."

  "Tarrin, you cannot single-handedly take on an entire complement of Wikuni sailors," Binter told him adamantly. "Especially these sailors. They are all very experienced pirates, and that means that they are very good in a fight."

  "You have a better idea?"

  "Yes, I do," he replied bluntly. "Let's first see what they intend to do. If they try to sink us, we'll do it your way. If they try to board us, let's do it mine."

  Tarrin gave him a long look. "Alright, it's a deal."

  The entire complement of the Star of Jerod watched in tense anticipation as the black clipper approached from the stern. It was no longer firing, but Dolanna maintained the shield to ensure that they didn't catch them unawares. The strain of holding it for so long was clearly showing on the faces of all four of them, and Tarrin realized that they wouldn't have anything left after they stopped.

  The thought of his exhausted sisters, Dar, and Dolanna standing to face a swarm of angry pirates made his blood burn. No less than the thought that gentle Miranda would have to take up a weapon and defend herself from bloodthirsty brigands. They'd never make it that far, he'd make sure of it. He rushed below decks and picked up his staff, then secured it onto his back with a length of frayed rope. Then he returned above decks and found a coil of rope and a grappling hook, his face stony enough to make the concerned sailors get anything he asked for. Once he had everything he needed, he effortlessly and gracefully climbed the mainmast, getting himself up onto the highest yardarm. The sail attached to that wooden beam snapped and swayed in the wind, but Tarrin's feet and balance allowed him to walk upon it as if it were solid earth. He squatted down, his claws finding purchase in the wood, and tied the grappling hook to the rope. He snarled as his oversized fingers had trouble threading the eye of the hook with the rope, and he had to center himself and give himself human hands to do it. The pain of it only sharpened his resolve, and burning green eyes turned to look at the black clipper as it quickly advanced on them from the rear.

  Tying the end of the rope to his wrist, just below the manacle, he stood on the yardarm and waited. The wind snapped at his shirt and trousers, ruffed his fur, even pulled at his tail. From that high up, he could see the Wikuni on the deck of the ship, fur and feathers and scales of them visible to him as the animal-people efficiently maximized the wind with their many, many sails and caught up to the galleon at a very brisk pace. His sharp eyes caught sight of Sheba and her priest, standing by the helm just as Kern had done, and she was pointing around and shouting orders.

  "Tarrin!" someone barked from the deck. He looked down, and saw that it was Miranda. Sisska was standing beside her protectively, her huge axe in her hand and ready, but the other had Miranda by the shoulder, and she was pulling her away. "What are you doing?" When he didn't answer, he could even see the surprise in her eyes from that distance. "Are you crazy?" she demanded.

  Maybe he was. He wasn't really scared at what he had planned. It was more of a calm emptiness, a knowledge that he had to do it to protect his friends. He knew what he had to do, and he understood the danger involved. He wasn't about to let Sheba overrun them and either sink them or flood their decks with her pirates. He could take the fight to the clipper, and he was certain that with him on deck, they wouldn't be thinking about boarding the galleon. They'd be much too busy.

  The ship was a stone's throw away. At least for him. The men aboard had abandoned some posts and taken up weapons, and several men stood on the port side with grappling hooks in hand. Sheba meant to board. That was so much the better. The group of ten men at the bow with bows were the immediate concern, for the clipper wasn't too far from coming around the shield that Dolanna had raised, and that would expose the crew to arrow fire.

  It was time. He was within reach of it now.

  Exploding from the squat near the mast, he raced along the yardarm, grappling hook in his paw. When he reached the edge of it, he pushed off at an angle, sending him soaring away from the ship and towards the stern, some hundred and more spans in the air. That altitude increased as he rose in an arc above the yardarm, giving him distance away from the ship, and for a fleeting moment he felt as if he were flying over the waves. But the arc reached its zenith, and he began to fall.

  About halfway down towards the water, the grappling hook in his hand began to spin, and then was launched at the clipper. He was directly in front of it, almost perfectly in line with the bowsprit, and the fifty spans of rope that had been coiled in his hand zipped out and away as the grapple lanced towards the black ship. The grapple struck the foremast just above where the ropes holding the spinnaker sails were anchored. The instant it hit, he yanked on the rope, locking it into the rigging, and he tightened the slack with another tug, then grabbed the rope with both paws and heaved. The move caused him to careen towards the clipper in a sharp turn of direction, as his inhuman strength served to yank him towards the clipper.

  It was going to be close. Tarrin cut the rope tied to his wrist with a claw and pulled his staff from his back even as he twisted in the air, using his cat-given agility and innate sense of where he was in the air and how he was aligned with the ground--or the sea, in this case. The clipper had been
further away than he thought. He'd been aiming for the bow, but he was short. He adjusted himself for the bowsprit, the long pole extending from the bow to which the spinnaker sails and the stay lines for the masts were attached.

  The landing was hard, but it was successful. Tarrin landed right at the very tip of the bowsprit, but his force caused his foot to slide out from under him. He grabbed the sprit with his free paw as he tumbled past it, and his arm yanked slightly out of its socket as his claws drove into the wood and arrested his fall. The shock shuddered through the half-healed claw wounds in his stomach, gifts from the Were-cat female, but the pain only served to focus him even more on his task. He was back on the sprit quickly, staff in hand, and he could see the archers through the ropes tied to the wooden spar. Some of them had seen him land, and they looked astonished.

  There was no time to recover. Exploding from the crouch he stood in after climbing back onto the sprit, he charged directly through the ropes, cutting them with the claws on his free paw and sending sails flapping into the wind as he rushed up the length of the bowsprit. The archers began to call an alarm and turn their bows in his direction, but it was too late. He came off the bowsprit and was on the deck in a heartbeat, and two more steps brought him right into the midst of the archers. Only one had had the time to draw his bow, but the dog-faced Wikuni wouldn't have a chance to aim.

  Staff in paws, Tarrin cut the Wikuni bowmen down with savage efficiency, swinging the ironwood staff with his impressive might. Every swing broke bows and bones, crushed organs, even took the heads right off a couple of his enemies. His opponents didn't have weapons to counter his staff, and he killed them all before they had a chance to run, even to draw their cutlasses. The blazing speed of his attack combined with their surprise at his appearance to doom them, and the ten Wikuni lay dead within heartbeats of Tarrin's arrival on deck. "Repel the boarder! Repel the boarder!" someone shouted ahead of him, and Wikuni that had once been gathered along the port now charged to the bow to deal with Tarrin. They were disorganized, attacking as a group of men rather than an armed body, and Tarrin grinned viciously when he saw that. The faster ones were going to reach him before the slower ones, allowing him to kill them one at a time rather than have to fight them all at once.

  With an incoherent roar, Tarrin charged the armed sailors, and that made the lead Wikuni, a big lion Wikuni, stop dead in his tracks. Tarrin bored into him, knocking his sword aside and striking him with the forearm of his other paw, then picking him up and carrying him along. Tarrin heard the cracking of his ribs and the whooshing of air from his lungs as Tarrin picked him up, then used him as a living battering ram, slamming the Wikuni's back into the next closest Wikuni and driving them both to the deck. He was right in their midst then, and Tarrin's conscious mind was joined to his animal instincts, turning him into an effective, efficient killing machine.

  Staff whirling, he took on the entire group of Wikuni and their cutlasses. His inhuman speed allowed him to strike and defend in the same breath, and the fury of his attack had put the Wikuni back on their heels. One Wikuni cried out as he was caught right in the belly by a broad sweep of Tarrin's staff, and was picked up and hurled overboard as the Wikuni's body offered absolutely no resistance to the force of the broad swing. Tarrin kicked a man that tried to stab him as he recovered from his swing, then his tail snapped out and struck another Wikuni in the ankle when he tried to attack him from behind, spilling the beaked hawk Wikuni to the deck. The Wikuni were overmatched, surprised, and at a loss to deal with the invader, and Tarrin took full advantage of it. Soon enough the surprise of him would fade, and they would begin to cooperate to deal with him, so he had to do as much damage as possible before they put him on the defensive. He stabbed a Wikuni in the chest with the end of his staff, and the force of his blow plunged the weapon through his breastbone like a spear. Tarrin turned and swept the staff with the body still impaled on the end into a group of four attackers, and they were driven to the deck when the body came free and bowled them over.

  The Priest. That was the only reason he was here. Turning away from a trio of attackers, he swept another overboard with a negligent swipe of his staff and charged towards the stern. It was a fast advance, but the Wikuni moved to intercept him. He didn't stop, he simply knocked anyone that tried to slow him down out of the way. He cut a swath of destruction all along the port side, as Wikuni were tumbled over the rail and into the sea or literally trampled over as the Were-cat got them out of its way on its trip to the stern. Head down, ears back, he knocked another man overboard, then felt an icy line run up his left side as another slashed him with his sword as he ran past. The hit aggravated the claw wounds in his belly, causing him to stagger, and he stopped and turned on the sailor with a savage hiss and a snarl, then decapitated him with a single swipe of his staff.

  He had to spin aside as an arrow almost went right through his face. Another hit him in the back, just under the right shoulder blade. He dove out of the line of fire of the archers, who were near the stern, and paused behind the mainmast to snake his tail up, wrap around the arrow, then pull it out. It stung like fury, and a glance at the arrowhead showed him why. It was both serrated and barbed, to make the process of pulling it out as painful as possible. A gruesome arrowhead, there. Holding onto the arrow by the feathers, he spun around the mast and flicked it with a snap of his arm, sending it whizzing back down the deck with surprising force. It hit a bear Wikuni in the belly, but it hit sideways, making the wooden shaft snap. But it managed to surprise the Wikuni that were quickly being gathered near the stern to challenge his progress, who were being organized to deal with the inhuman attacker.

  They didn't concern him. The Priest was his only objective, and he stubbornly stuck to his plan. Sure, his presence was causing chaos, but that was only a side benefit. Eliminating that Priest was the primary goal. But the wisdom of just charging up on that priest, whom Sheba felt was enough to deal with the magic on Kern's ship, left Tarrin doubting the validity of his plan. He saw a couple more arrows whiz by from his hiding place behind the mast as he considered what may happen if he just ran up the deck. That priest may decide to use magic against him, and it would be crazy to walk into the jaws of a lion. Besides, there were alot of Wikuni between him and the stern, and he didn't relish having to walk through a gauntlet of steel and arrows to reach it. He needed a diversion, something to keep them off his back for long enough to get him to the stern

  The mast. Of course! It was worth the risk! Closing his eyes, he centered himself, prepared himself for what he was about to do. He had to do it very quickly. Reaching within to prepare himself, he then reached out, and touched the Weave. The raw power of High Sorcery seemed to respond to him, but the lesser concentration of magic in the region would give him the time to do what he needed to do before it could find him. Weaving together a simple weave of pure air, he focused it down to a line so narrow that it would do the sharpest blade proud. Then, with a broad sweep of his free arm and a growling cry, a gesture to help sharpen his concentration, he released it with all the speed he could put behind it. The effect was a blade of pure air, driven with all the force of the winds of a tornado, and it struck the mainmast right at Tarrin's shoulder level.

  There was a loud crack, like the cracking of a whip. The mast shuddered, and a thin, almost invisible line appeared. That same line appeared in a pair of crates behind it, and would have appeared on the necks of the three big cat Wikuni beside them, had not a fountain of blood erupted from them in an instant and sent their heads tumbling from their bodies. But their sudden demise was overlooked as a loud groaning heralded the shifting of the mast in the wind. It slid along its former length, the freed pole beginning to twist now that it found freedom, and the ropes and rigging suddenly went very taut on one side and went very slack on the other. Ropes began to snap and tear, making loud snapping noises like the breaking of branches, and the crow's nest swayed dangerously in the wind. Every eye on the ship looked up just as the mast sagged,
broke more of its rigging, and leaned dangerously over. The base of it slid along the smoothly sheared top of the lower half, skidding along that slick surface, until it slid over the edge. The entire mast dropped only a few spans at first, but the massive pressure it placed on the deck planking drove the mast through the deck, and it dropped almost ten spans into the ship. Tarrin scrambled away as deck planking buckled and ripped, snapped like twigs as the mast began to fall to the side, then turn on the rigging that still secured it that had not yet broken. It sent sails flying in all directions and ropes dangling like hanging moss from the spars and yardarms. Most of the Wikuni that were still in the rigging were dislodged by the mast's settling, sending them plummeting either to the deck, or for the lucky ones, into the sea.

  The mast tore free of all the ropes holding it up, and it crashed towards the stern like a falling tree, trailing sail and rope behind it. Sailors scrambled in every direction as Tarrin lunged aside, and the mast hit the deck. The entire ship shuddered, and deck planking caved in from the hole in the deck already made by the mast towards the stern. The end of the mast struck the sterncastle, shattering the left corner of it in a deafening collision that send wood flying in every direction. It came to rest laying against the mangled sterncastle, and Tarrin's brief glance told him that it would make a perfect pathway to get to the stern and that priest.

  Using the mast as cover, Tarrin began racing towards the stern as soon as the ship was stable enough for him to run. He kept the huge pole between him and the stern, keeping himself out of the eyes of the Wikuni as they shouted and milled around in total shock and confusion. At least until they saw him. When they did, they rushed him with bared weapons, understanding that the invader had somehow brought down the mast, and their very survival now depended on killing him before he could do any more damage. He found himself facing six Wikuni, all cat types, and they quickly moved to encircle him. One of them rushed in to skewer him with his sword, but a negligent flick of his staff sent the Wikuni sailing over the rail and into the sea. He found himself being attacked from almost every direction at once, evading sword slashes in quick succession, reacting sheerly on instinct and Allia's training. He moved like a blade of grass in the wind, bending, shifting, flowing out of the way of the reaping blades, as if he had not a bone in his body. He worked himself to a point where he could retaliate, and the Wikuni behind him crashed to the deck when his tail swept the Wikuni's feet out from under him. That tail snapped around and drove tip first into the belly of the Wikuni to his right, carrying with it enough force to fold the bobcat Wikuni around his tail and take his feet off the deck. Tarrin stepped back into the hole and squared off against the other four, securing his flanks against further attack when a foot came down on the fallen Wikuni's chest with enough impact to shatter his ribcage and cause blood to fountain from his mouth. Tarrin left a bloody footprint when he set that foot back down on the deck, and the other Wikuni paused to glance at the morbid condition of the body.