Into the Storm

by Christopher Johns

  Our path and rate of travel over the last couple days had seen us moving well beyond Eldarna’s territory into open waters that were neutral territory. This had been a designated area for the creatures of the oceans to come and meet others of their kind for mating rituals or other reasons. This could be for anything from schools of fish to tertles like Eldarna.

  It was afternoon and we rested, the fur along my arms and the back of my neck stood on end.

  Something changes the weather, father. Kayda warned me from the sky. Our bond opened up further, and I could feel the change in the atmospheric pressure around us.

  Eldarna, who hadn’t spoken to us in days, called out, “They… come!”

  We listed forward as the giant tertle came to a stop in the water.

  Tony and Mertle, that’s what Bokaj had called her, not me—blame him for the weird name—waved to us and wished us luck as we booked it to the ship.

  “Calling an audible here, we have no clue what’s coming for us,” I bellowed to the others as we ran, speaking aloud so that Vrawn and Odany could hear me too. Thinking of it, I cast Water Lung on everyone, then added to my previous thought. “Boys, we’re taking the fight to them. Vrawn, you can fight too, but I need you to stick closer to the ship so that Odany is safe.”

  “I want to help!” Odany cried out angrily. She had been learning to fight too, and she was definitely a strong caster.

  “You will be!” I snarled, her interjection only keeping her from hearing the rest of the plan. “You’re going to help keep the ship mobile so that we can keep harassing whatever comes at us with ballista fire. Balmur, you want to handle that?”

  “Got it.” Balmur sped past all of us. His dexterity was the highest of all of us, and we struggled to even keep up with the dust he left behind.

  “I’m going to be providing whatever help I can.” Bokaj pressed forward, his stride only slowing to pass his message. “But I may be doing song buffs this time around.”

  “Be open to suggestions,” Muu said as he ran by. “Don’t just play the hits.”

  The two of them sped off in the same direction, and I looked to the others.

  Jaken grinned. “I’ll be in the thick of things.”

  “Same!” James hooted as he sprinted past me. Bea followed him closely, carrying Odany and Vrawn on her back, her red eye glaring angrily at me. Even under the effect of the dragon’s anger, she still loved the two ladies more than me.

  “We communicate the whole time,” Yohsuke ordered. For those who can’t hear me because you jackasses ran ahead like assholes, communicate during everything. Got it?

  Who is you? Muu asked teasingly, and we all rolled our eyes.

  “Eyes in the sky?” Yohsuke asked me, flicking his head up as we ran. I nodded and shifted into my eagle form and lifted up into the air as it grew steadily more turbulent with winds threatening to topple me where I flapped my wings.

  I strained against the winds buffeting my body, bending my wings painfully. I opened my mind to Kayda and found her flying above the majority of the turbulent winds. You going to be okay?

  She screeched and responded coolly, I am in my element, father. They will regret attempting to take my birthright.

  My beak quirked at the corners in an attempt to smile.

  Banking toward the left, I found my way toward the ship and the roiling waters before it and Eldarna.

  I landed on the ship and shifted back to fox-man form so I could look over the others who were there. Odany and Vrawn huddled behind the mast away from the winds.

  “It may be a good idea to figure out how to nullify the winds, Odany.” I said and growled at her so she could hear me over the din of the aerial onslaught.

  “I will try!” She howled and closed her eyes. Suddenly Sylphy and Dusty popped up, her smile growing. “They’re going to help.”

  Rather than screeching angrily at how she can do that, I just nodded once and moved toward the bow of the ship where several shapes and creatures were breaking the surface. Humanoid figures carrying tridents and rough-looking weapons pointed our way. Then a larger figure burst from the ocean, several smaller things surfacing with it.

  “Welcome to your death!” The creature cackled in common so that all could hear. “You ruin our plans no more!”

  I rolled my eyes, this was definitely a general, he continued on in his tirade. “My sister was right in sending us here as swiftly as she did, you’re weak, and your friends will not stand a chance against me!”

  I smiled as Kayda fluttered over his head and sent me the information that made me smile.

  He’s only level 41. I passed the word through our earrings, and I laughed as the others did.

  “He’s in for a rude awakening then.” Yohsuke climbed over the side of the rail and grinned at me.

  “Well, no reason to give him or the other guys a chance to get any kind of plan together.” Jaken frowned. “Let’s get going at ‘em.”

  Kayda struck first, but a gout of flame ate away her lightning as a large figure dropped from the sky. A copper-colored dragon flapped his wings in a tempo that allowed it to take a place next to the larger creature in the water.

  “I think they sought to end you more swiftly, Baranzil,” The dragon droned lazily, looking at a clawed hand. “Good thing sister sent the two of us as she did. Treacherous little beasts, aren’t they?”

  “Yes, Breggil, they seem to be,” the massive creature rolled his bulbous eyes. “This kraken body is a vast disappointment, but the oceans will be mine, and we will drown the world. I envy your draconic form and your apparent level. Come, time to kill them and take this world for our own and our master, War.”

  As soon as he turned his eyes back to us, a projectile slammed directly into it and zapped him for about 10% of his overall health. A tentacle rocketed toward us from the water, and Jaken leapt up to deflect it with his shield while shouting, “Game time!”

  Two more projectiles launched from the ballista toward the copper dragon, and it ducked under them with ease. The ship dipped dangerously, the sound of splintering wood surprising me. I turned and saw the others looking into the sky and figured out that Muu had taken to the sky to live up to his self-styled class.

  “Let’s get to the killing,” Yohsuke grinned and dove over the side of the ship, and I followed suit.

  Bea, keep Odany safe! I ordered her, she barked her reply loudly, and I grinned as I dropped down onto one of the weirdly humanoid fish people who tried to stab my best friend as he fought two others.

  I grabbed him with my left hand, the slick thing almost slipping from my grasp before I stabbed my right hand fully through the back of the tough skin at the base of his skull. I grabbed his spine and ripped it back toward my body and tossed the corpse aside.

  Yoh dispatched the two in front of him. “They’re low level, but there are a lot of them. We need to be cautious. AoE spells need to abound, if anything.”

  I got the hint and turned while pulling Magus Bane out to attack the monsters that had thought themselves sneaky enough to come after me. I slashed them and bashed them, wondering when something more exciting would happen when the world shattered around me. The sound of explosions from Yohsuke and Balmur attacking almost covered the thunderous kabooming of the cannons. Each blast toward the massed creatures and scattered them handily before the ship was moving away from our position swiftly, trying to get into a more favorable position possibly further from us and danger.

  There were some of the creatures attempting to board it, but Vrawn kept them from making it onto the deck. More lighting crashed in the sky, and I saw Kayda fighting with the dragon, the two of them whirling in the air, the dragon painfully gripping her.

  I’m going to go save Kayda! I roared to the others.

  A stupendously loud crash echoed out from in front of me as Muu landed, he grunted under the pain from it, but luckily he didn’t take fall damage if he landed on his feet. “I’ll come with you. No one fucks with my niece.”


  I sprinted forward and leapt up into the air, shifting into my draconic form, green highlights along my black scales flashing through the lightning that had started gathering in the clouds. A thud on my back between my wings let me know Muu had come along for the ride.

  I snatched up one of the fish-men in my clawed hands and lifted his struggling figure into the air fifty, a hundred, two hundred feet before dropping him like a sack of potatoes.

  “Here’s hoping he doesn’t evolve and grow wings!” Muu whooped, and I found myself grinning.

  Kayda looked to be doing better at fighting the figure off as the lightning built around her, but he was dogging her for every flap of her wings. Her beak was bloodied, and she looked slightly tired. I could tell that her mana was low, and I didn’t dare risk adding rain to the mix and giving the sailors an even harder time.

  Aerial combat between dragons is usually deadly, your best chance at coming out on top is to allow the bird to take his attention and to tear his wings. The guttural voice of the dragon’s instincts echoed in my mind. Her sacrifice will win the day.

  “I sacrifice nothing!” I roared back at it, surging forward even harder than I had been before. It tried to grapple control away from me, but I opened my mind to both Kayda and Bea, and their presence helped me beat back the monstrous will.

  I began to get snippets of information from the dragon’s instincts, as if I were tearing bits of how to move from the incorporeal voice, my wings beating harder as I used my longer neck and tail to assist me in navigating through the air.

  Get me close, and I’ll get on his back and take care of him, Muu ordered me. I liked that plan more than the dragon’s and sped along.

  Kayda, shock him again if you can, baby. Then get to the ship and lay low to heal.

  She acknowledged me with a screech of her own and clawed at Breggil’s face just as multiple arcs of electricity crashed into him from the nearby clouds.

  He cried out as the elemental energies fried him, his health dropping by about 12%.

  Breggil Lvl 54

  That wasn’t as concerning either, why were these guys so weak? Melvaren had been stronger than them. Hell, a minion had been too.

  Breggil dipped in the sky, his wings not working so well, and I got an idea. I shifted into my fox-man form and rolled, grabbing a confused and slightly startled Muu by the arm. I’m not going to have you jumping and missing.

  I cast Regrowth on Kayda before shifting into my dragon form again to close the distance between us and Breggil. I tossed Muu on his back as I bit into his neck from the side. Kayda dipped below us in an attempt to flee, and the fight was truly on.

  Claws skittered across my scales ineffectively, Muu and I stabbing and gashing where we could, wings, back anything in reach. A sickly green energy covered Muu’s holy spear before it stabbed into Breggil’s body six times before I could blink. The dragon roared in agony.

  We’re winning! Muu cackled delightedly as I grabbed the other dragon’s open mouth with my clawed hands and arched my neck back, inhaling. The stored breath and intent mixed with the glands in my throat as I exhaled and spewed poison into the other dragon’s open maw. It choked him, and his chest began to expand as his own breath weapon charged.

  Muu was there instantly to wrap his legs and arms around Breggil’s snout and yanked it shut with a giddy shout of, “I saw this in a cartoon once!”

  With nowhere else to go and the particles of my poison still in his throat, the gas ignited, and a burst of smoke emanated from Breggil’s throat. Most of his life was gone by now, and his wings were shredded, our descent to the water imminent.

  “Come on!” I urged Muu, pointing toward the ship and the others.

  Eldarna fought the kraken called Baranzil valiantly but seemed to be having a rough go of it for some reason. His bloodied beak attempting to bite at the tentacles slapping him and sucking him into the creature’s grasp. I could see a couple of spots along his shell had been blackened and saw what looked like some kind of casters around his body standing on the water and touching him.

  Muu jumped lightly and cleared my back as Breggil fell further toward the water, his health at a quarter, and plummeting. “I’ll go help from the ship!”

  “I got a plan!” I called and flapped over toward where the kraken fought the tertle. I shifted and fell slightly, then grinned and took my newly acquired tertle form. My body was nowhere near as large as the island-sized Eldarna, but I was at least half his size and heavy as fuck. And plummeting toward the kraken!

  I collided with him, my head and neck pulled into my shell protectively, and I felt him slide out from beneath me so as to avoid the majority of the damage, but the water beneath me wasn’t so bad when I was this size. I peered out into the deep, and hundreds of fish-men swam through the water toward us. I shifted, bounced out of the water, and onto it like it was land, and booked it up onto Eldarna’s shoulder.

  He was hurting, and before I could cast a healing spell, the kraken rocketed out of the water, catching him on one side of the shell and launching that side over the other.

  I lifted up into the sky and changed into a dragon, watching as the kraken dragged his dying brother out of the water and into the air, he was in the final dregs of his health now and rather than trying to heal him, the kraken opened his giant, beaked mouth and consumed him bite by bite.

  None of us collected any experience from that, but he did. His level jumping up twice, his wounds closing before our eyes. Over his formerly squid-like skin, a shimmering coat of scales burst forth.

  “Oh, what kind of home-brewed bullshit is this?” I roared more to myself than anyone else.

  The kraken just lifted his tentacles triumphantly, calling out to the world, “My brother’s sacrifice means a lot, but it will pay off when all of you die!”

  Then, water boiled before his face and a whirlpool opened up, the hundreds of fish-men that had been coming to try and kill us all floundering and fighting for their lives to get away from his greedy gullet to no avail. Screeches and cries of anguish met our ears as they died in his jaws. Their lives fueling his gain.

  We need to get the fuck out of here—now! Yohsuke warned us, I turned in time to see him getting onto the ship.

  I glanced down on the water and saw James running against the ever-widening current of water being sucked toward the general. I arced from the path I had chosen for my flight to the ship and pumped my wings powerfully toward his struggling form. I lashed out with my leg, and he grabbed on to it with ease, kicking one of the fish-men who tried to join him away from us both.

  Once you guys land, all of us are accounted for, Odany is already gearing up to help us get the hell out of here, Balmur yelled into our heads.

  Already the ship lurched toward what I hoped would be our destination and getting there through the rising cloud of spears thrown from those lucky few survivors of the gluttonous rampage of Baranzil.

  Six of the little bastards got lucky, scoring my wings to the point that my right wing tore slightly, and my equilibrium was askew. Rather than landing fully on the deck of the ship, I had to shapeshift into my humanoid form, smash my right shoulder on the rail and deal with hitting the mast with my gut to boot. My forward momentum carried me around to the other side of the large wooden stop, my pained groaning only abated by a healing touch on my injured shoulder.

  “Thanks, man.” I smiled weakly up at Jaken and stood with his help, his sure strength bolstering me a little.

  The ship lurched forward as Odany cast her spell, and the sailors brought their full skill to bear so we could try for a clean break. I hated to do it, but I watched as the kraken grew to an immense size, lifting Eldarna’s shell slightly and sending his tentacles into it to drag the creature out from his hiding place.

  “We have to go back and protect him!” Odany cried, her tears of anger and indignation surprising me. “He helped us fight he should get to live!”

  “There was no way we could take all of those fish-men and the
general on top of that,” Jaken tried to comfort her, but she wouldn’t listen and clung to her idea.

  Finally, her tirade had been enough, and Captain Holly marched over to her and lifted her in a single hand, laying the other across Odany’s cheek in a brutal open-palmed slap to get her attention. The wailing child hushed and stared in open horror at the feline woman who had tears in her eyes.

  “We bought his sacrifice!” Her voice sounded rough even to me, and I didn’t know her as well as her crew did. They all looked distraught, but their eyes were glued to their Captain. Their leader. Their hope. “He knew he would face something he might not be able to beat someday, and that was his duty to himself, and the ocean! The ocean is harsh, what it gives—it takes back as easily!”

  She dropped Odany, a rush of wind from Dusty stopping her fall as Captain Holly looked about the ship as if daring anyone to speak out against her. “I plan to survive. I plan to earn my money and mourn the loss of a friend by surviving this journey so that I can keep my word. Anyone who plans to stand in my way can walk the damned plank. Aye?!”

  Her crew snarled back, “AYE!” Their fervor doubled as they scattered to do their best to keep us afloat and on our way.

  Odany and I made the ship go as fast as we possibly could. Her gusting winds filling the sails, and my occasional use of the water to drive us further by manipulating the waves to give us a little headway. We all took turns sleeping in shifts, I plopped onto the cot and passed out immediately. The entire time I slept in a pitch-black, coma-like state, I wondered if we would get away. If that bastard hadn’t gorged himself on his followers and started our way.

  Luckily, I was able to get some rest, because there would be little more from then on.

  Chapter Twenty

  “Kraken, hard to port!” A shouted warning shattered my peaceful rest, my bleary eyes shaking as I tried to make sense of the bright light around me after sprinting outside the room into the hall with the door to the cabin open already.