by J M D Reid
“Not much,” Ary answered.
He closed his eyes and went over the plan again, picturing the fortified structure, its walls built right to the edge of a rather large skylet. A central keep rose from a bailey divided into several different yards by buildings and walls. Four large ballistae ringed the fortress, guarding north, south, and east, the west protected by the violent turbulence of the skyrift. Those weapon batteries posed a danger to the fleet and had to be eliminated before the three Autonomy warships could close.
That was the job of the marines with Minor Wind. Ary, Guts, and Zeirie would drop down onto the northern ballista and destroy it while Chaylene and her scouts provided cover. The Gallant’s marines would take care of the southern ballista while the Adventurous’s larger crew would destroy the two eastern ballistae. Once silenced, the three ships would sail in and drop the rest of their marines and the Zzuk auxiliaries.
Ary and the other advanced marines had the most dangerous job: to survive until reinforcements arrived. Flashes of Offnrieth’s docks sparked in his mind. We’ve trained to do this, Ary reminded himself. Chaylene will cover us from the air. The Dauntless will swoop in as soon as we clear the ballistae.
Whitesocks neighed again, stamping a hoof. Chaylene patted his neck and said with tender words, “I know. It won’t be long. You’ll be flying soon.”
He snorted in answer.
Theisseg, you gave me these Gifts, so I hope you’re on my side. I know you probably can’t do much, but watch over Chaylene and my men.
Ary didn’t even consider praying to Riasruo. She wanted him dead. Why would she help him?
The horn blared.
“Stormwall!” Ary roared.
Chaylene heeled Whitesocks. The pegasus galloped forward. His gray-feathered wings unfurled like banners in the wind. Ary’s ears popped as Chaylene manipulated the air pressure. The pegasus leaped off the back of the Dauntless. Ary’s stomach lurched as they dropped for three heartbeats. Then Whitesocks caught the air. He flapped hard, neighing as they soared through the violent winds.
Whitesocks banked. The grim walls of the pirate’s fortress loomed ahead.
*
The pirates swarmed the walls as the flights of pegasi from the Autonomy ships swept in. Chaylene sighted her target: the northern ballista. Pale-skinned men with black, shaggy beards aimed bows at the approaching fleet, others surging for the batteries.
“Archers on the right!” Ary called out.
Chaylene spotted them through her weapon’s scope.
Didn’t I deserve to live? asked the Vionese sailor.
She gritted her teeth, formed the bullet of pressurized air in the rifle’s chamber, exhaled, and fired. Her shot warped the air as it streaked towards the wall and missed the archer by a half rope.
“Come on,” Chaylene snarled.
She struggled to calm the excitement buzzing through her blood. She aimed again as she formed her second bullet. The archers knocked arrows. She ignored that. A bullet from Zori or Velegrin killed one as she focused. Whitesocks flapped his wings, lifting her rifle up and on target.
She fired.
Arrows hissed through the air as she killed her target. Whitesocks neighed as she leaned forward. He flew faster, passing beneath the streaking missiles. Forming her bullet, she pivoted. Exhaled. Fired. The fortress hurtled closer. More archers fell, the scouts firing faster than the Agerzaks could, forcing them to duck behind crenellations.
Lightning exploded past her face. The air sizzled. A burnt scent filled her nose. Ary’s thunderbolt smote one of the pirates manning the ballista. He flopped limp to the ground in a shower of sparks.
Whitesocks winged over the fortress. Pirates surged through the segregated courtyards, screaming and shouting. Chaylene banked Whitesocks over, firing as fast as she could to clear the defenders around the ballista. Zori and Velegrin flew tight behind her.
Arrows soared up in deadly arcs. Chaylene’s heart thudded as she guided Whitesocks with her knees. Her pegasus responded, obeying her commands. He turned tight. When this was over, he was getting two apples.
“Two more on the left of the ballista,” Ary called out as Whitesocks winged past the wall and back over the sky. The Storm boiled beneath.
Chaylene spotted the archers Ary had noted. She killed one as Whitesocks soared back over the fortress. Zori or Velegrin’s bullet felled the second archer. The defenders dead, Chaylene held up her hand as she banked, signaling the drop.
Ary moved behind her, jostling her as he seized the saddle’s quick release. Freed, he’d fall to the battlements, landing safely with his Minor Wind instead of being killed on impact on the hard stones fifty ropes down.
“Ready!” Chaylene called as they hurtled towards the ballista.
Whitesocks screamed in pain. His right wing folded, pitching him over, an arrow buried in his shoulder. The sky and fortress tumbled about them. Chaylene’s mind went blank as shock seized her.
“Whitesocks!” she screamed as they fell.
Her hands moved on their own, guided by her training. She yanked her straps as Ary hugged her with crushing arms. She fell free for a moment then jerked to a stop, held tight by Ary. They still plummeted with the pegasus, Ary partially strapped in. The courtyard hurtled towards them.
“Pull your release, Ary! Now!”
Their plunge slowed. She realized he used Minor Wind to slow them down. Ary screamed in pain. Still strapped in, all of Whitesocks’s weight dug the leather into his leg. Chaylene strained for the release, fingers wiggling.
The ground hurtled closer. They still dropped too fast to—
She snagged the release. Yanked.
Whitesocks fell away from them, neighing and screaming, his white-tipped legs kicking as he tumbled. Chaylene closed her eyes. He thudded into the courtyard below as she spun in Ary’s arms. Their descent slowed and then impact jarred up her legs. She grunted, spilling onto the stones of the courtyard.
“Whitesocks,” she gasped, tears stinging her eyes as she rolled away from Ary.
Her beautiful pegasus twitched, his body broken on the courtyard stones. He kicked, two legs bent at the wrong angles, and snorted. Chaylene crawled towards her pegasus. Boots thudded around her, men shouting. Ary screamed her name and then metal clashed against metal.
“I’m so sorry,” Chaylene whispered when she reached Whitesocks. She stroked his neck with her left hand. Tears blurred her vision. “Shh . . . shh . . . it’s okay. I’m here. It’s okay.”
She needed Ary. She glanced over her shoulder. He swung his sword into the blade of a pirate, hammering metal against metal. Sparks burst with each resounding impact. She shook her head. He couldn’t be fighting. She needed him.
Whitesocks needed him.
“Ary!” she choked out.
Whitesocks’s sighing whinny drew her attention. His black eyes focused on her. His pulse fluttered beneath her fingers. She stroked his neck, staring into his soul. His twitching slowed. She couldn’t look away, couldn’t let him die alone.
The pain retreated as he released a final breath.
“It’s over,” she whispered. “Just sleep.” Her body shook as his eye closed. “Sleep . . .”
*
Pegasi soared over the fortress. Nrein ducked as hissing bullets rained down, felling his pirates swarming the battlements. Flights of arrows soared into the sky in answer. Chaos boiled through the courtyard.
“Get your bloody carcasses on those ballistae!” roared Nrein as he strode through the mess. All their mutinous glances were swallowed by a new hunger. They had new prey to hunt. Nrein knew it wouldn’t matter. Whether he won or lost today, his crew would kill him. He’d make them all pay in blood and pain to take his place.
Autonomy or Agerzaks, they’d all bleed.
“Move it! I want the sky full of explosions. Blow those damned winged horses out of the sky. The guppies have wandered into our lair! They’re eager to be feasted upon! So let’s not keep them waiting!”
None of his pirates even listened. Panic screamed in their voices. It disgusted Nrein that the Sons of Agerz had become so weak. Once, we reaved the skies. Every nation trembled in fear of our blades.
He wondered where he should fight and die a proper Agerzak death. He wouldn’t piss his pants and cower in bed waiting for old age to waylay him.
A pegasus plummeted into the northern courtyard. The scout and the marine floated after. Nrein grinned, his heart thudding in his chest. Roaring, he charged forward, his greatsword in his hand. He would cut down as many of the damned Vionese as he could.
Today, Nrein feasted on the Autonomy.
*
“Come on, Chaylene!” Ary roared as he slammed his greatsword into a pirate’s blade, driving back the slimmer man. “We’re exposed. I’m sorry about Whitesocks, but you have to grieve later.”
Chaylene lifted up her tear-stained eyes, blinking as realization spilled over her face. Ary hacked again, driving back the man while trying to keep his wife in sight. She pushed herself up from Whitesocks’s corpse.
Bullets hissed down from above as Zori and Velegrin provided support. Ary slammed his blade down again, knocking back his opponent. The skinnier man stumbled, Ary’s greater mass impelling more power into his strikes. With a snarl, Ary had his opening.
He swung his blade low, passing beneath the Agerzak’s guard. The pirate gasped in shock as Ary’s blade slammed into his side, cracking ribs. Ary kicked the body off his blade and turned. More Agerzaks poured out of doors and tunnels into the courtyard. They howled like their kin had at Offnrieth.
Lightning arched down. Guts and Zeirie fell into the courtyard, discharging their thunderbusses. Agerzaks dropped, smoking. The two marines landed by Ary and Chaylene. Guts fired one last volley, striking a rushing Agerzak in the chest before he slung his thunderbuss and drew his sabre.
“Ary,” he nodded.
Zeirie fenced with an Agerzak wielding a bone blade. She deftly sliced through his weapon and cut deep into his torso with her metal sabre. “What are we doing, Adjutant-Lieutenant?” she asked as she ripped her blade free.
Before Ary could answer, Chaylene fired her pressure rifle and killed a pirate rushing at Zeirie’s back. The raider hit the ground in a wheezing gasp. The half-Agerzak marine blinked in surprise, then gave Chaylene a tight nod.
“Same plan.” Ary pointed at the ballista on the wall that thwunked as it fired a shot.
“Over there!” Guts roared, pointing at the crumbling stairs climbing up the bailey wall.
Chaylene fired her pressure rifle at an Agerzak bursting out of a hallway then shouted, “Let’s move it!”
Ary nodded and took the lead. “Keep behind me, Lena. Guts, Zeirie, watch her back.”
“Aye, Adjutant-Lieutenant,” Zeirie answered.
The four rushed across the courtyard while Zori and Velegrin fired from above, picking off Agerzaks. The fortress roared with shouts and pounded with footsteps. Ary and his marines needed to silence the ballistae so the ships could close in and drop reinforcements. He wanted the hulking Zzuk Auxiliaries standing at his side, facing the tempest of pirates.
A fiercely-bearded Agerzak burst out of a doorway before Ary, wielding a dark-gray greatsword. The pirate turned the wrong way, exposing his back. Ary didn’t hesitate. He swung his blade. The tip of the monstrous sword scored down the pirate’s back. The enemy fell belly first, blood spilling across his flayed open spine. Ary jumped over the dying man and raced up the stairs to the battlements.
“Move!” Ary roared as the enemy ballista fired again.
*
Pain burned down Nrein’s back.
The pirate pitched forward, his sword falling from his grasp. He hit the pavement as a group of three marines and a scout leaped over his body, racing up the stairs to the battlements. Disbelief roared through Nrein.
The bastard cut my rusting back open!
His Fleshknitting blazed as he growled in pain and humiliation. The blade had severed his spine. He couldn’t move his legs. He pounded his fist on the pavement against the agony, growling like a beast as he healed at a crawling pace. Flesh knitted, nerves regrew, and bones fused. To kill a Fleshknitter, you had to deal lethal blows. Stab the heart, sever the head, or cut a major artery so he bled out before his Gift repaired the damage.
Nrein’s eyes fixed on the large marine wielding an Agerzak greatsword. The bastard who had crippled him. From behind! The damned marines won’t even fight a man fair. He ground his teeth as the whore-spawned bastard cut down the three pirates manning the ballista with hard sweeps from his stolen sword. Then the big marine slammed his blade into the ballista, slicing the drawstring and the right arm.
Nrein could be patient. Sharks waited for the right moment to pounce. His enemy thought him dead. “You should have cut my head off.”
*
Estan observed the pirates’ fortress from the starboard side of the Dauntless. He clutched a coil of rope in his hand, its other end tied to the gunwale. Corporal Huson and Jhech waited on either side of Estan, with Messiench just beyond the corporal. The three Zzuk Auxiliaries waited on the port side.
Fear rampaged through Estan’s idea. Chaylene and Ary’s pegasus had been shot down. He had no idea if his friends had survived the plummet into the fortress. The northern ballista still fired. Huge detonations rocked the skies but burst short of the waiting fleet.
“Come on, Ary,” Jhech muttered.
“He will secure the ballista, Private,” Corporal Huson said.
Messiench snorted. “Of course he will. He don’t feel pain. You’ll see.”
Estan nodded his head. Ary has the Third Gift of Fleshknitting. But Chaylene didn’t. Estan’s hands gripped the gunwale as he leaned out over the side to gain a better view. Zori and Velegrin still circled, providing support for the marines on the ground.
That has to be a good sign.
Red flashed on the battlements. A big marine with an even bigger sword cut an Agerzak pirate down. Estan smiled as Ary charged a second pirate. Chaylene was right behind him, followed by Guts and Zeirie.
Jhech let out a whoop. “Carve ‘em up, Adjutant-Lieutenant!”
Corporal Huson nodded her head. “I knew he would make it. Get ready.”
“Yes, Corporal,” Estan answered.
“There’s the signal!” shouted a sailor in the crow’s nest. “All enemy ballistae secured.”
“Full wind!” Captain Dhar barked. “Marines and auxiliaries, prepare for insertion!”
“Yes, Captain,” Corporal Huson answered.
“Be ready to feather the Theisseg-damned pirates,” growled Chief Fossein. He commanded the deck in the Bosun’s absence. He stalked up and down the well deck. “Load your crossbows.”
The sailors manning the gunwales cranked back their weapons as the Dauntless swept in. They had the shortest flight of the three warships to relieve their marines. Ary, Chaylene, Guts, and Zeirie stayed on the battlements, fighting the pirates rushing up the stairs.
Estan’s heart drummed faster and faster. The sails snapped and billowed above. A flight of arrows streaked out from the fortress and pelted against the hull of the Dauntless.
“Return fire!” barked the chief.
Crossbows twanged, answering the attack. The walls neared. The Dauntless sailed for the courtyard Ary and Chaylene had fallen into. Estan tightened his grip on his rope, tensed, ready to throw it over the side.
“Slack wind!” barked the captain.
The Dauntless slowed. Her shadow fell on Ary as he swung his massive sword and cut down a bearded pirate. The ship cleared the wall. Dead pirates and the shattered corpse of Chaylene’s pegasus littered the courtyard.
“Deploy ropes!” Corporal Huson shouted as the Dauntless drifted.
Estan complied.
“Full wind! Hard turn to port!” the captain shouted.
Holding his rope, Estan threw his right leg over the gunwale. A gale howled down the ship, billowing the sails. He slid down the rope as
the ship picked up speed again. He hit the pavement with a bone-rattling thud. His sabre flashed out. Sailors on the Dauntless cut the ropes as the ship turned and banked back out over the sky to provide support. Pirates burst out of an archway and met the smashing clubs of the Zzuk. The blows reduced men to ruined meat.
“Stormwall!” Corporal Huson shouted, her voice shrill.
“Stormwall!” Estan answered, his blood pumping reckless energy through his body.
*
Nrein’s back had almost healed when the Autonomy ship burst over the wall, its shadow spilling across him. He scowled as ropes flew over the side. More marines and the hulking, blue-scaled Zzuki rappelled down to the courtyard.
Nrein gritted his teeth as he stood, his back a mass of fire, the last of his skin stitching together. A Zzuk swung his massive club, splattering the head of a pirate and driving the dead man’s corpse into the ground like he pounded a steak. The Zzuki hissed, its scaly body splattered in gore. A Vaarckthian marine raced up beside the Zzuki, swinging a metal sabre.
Shock punched Nrein. Then a vicious pleasure boiled his blood, feeding his anger. His vision dimmed to crimson as he focused on the whore-spawned bastard who’d defiled her. Turned her against Nrein and her people.
“YOU!”
Nrein charged. A Zzuki blocked his path, club raised. It hissed, flicking out a forked tongue. Bellowing with wordless fury, Nrein ducked the lizardman’s swing. Air howled over his head, ruffling his black hair. Nrein straightened. His sword pulled back in a defensive grip, blade pointed before him. His left hand adjusted down the long handle as he swung, changing his grip and giving him more leverage. He snapped the blade in a low arc right into the Gezitziz’s side. The brute’s thick hide blunted some of the force, but the weapon hacked deep into the lizardman’s flesh.
It hissed in pain.
Nrein ripped his sword free and stabbed, thrusting the point through the Gezitziz’s thick ribs and into its heart. The lizardman crashed to the ground, flopping as dark blood welled from its ruined chest.
“You!” Nrein roared at the Vaarckthian marine.
“Nrein?” gasped the Vaarckthian, bringing up his sabre.
Nrein swung and batted the slim blade from the man’s hand. “You polluted my sister!” he spat in Vionese. “You RUINED her!”
