by E. C. Jarvis
An explosion blasted through the bowels of the ship, splitting wood from frame and rocking the entire structure. Cid flew through the air, plummeting towards the door which had slammed shut. He crossed his arms across his face and gritted his teeth, bracing against the inevitable.
One last explosion echoed in the darkness, and he forgot to say a final prayer.
CHAPTER TEN
Something wet caressed the side of Larissa’s face. She groaned out loud and opened her eyes to darkness. She lay face-down in a muddy pit, her arms outstretched above her head, fingers buried into sloppy wetness. Rain splattered the side of her face. Clumps of mud caught beneath her fingernails as she tried to move. At first, her body didn’t want to respond beyond a wriggle of fingers, pain flowing from head to toe. She coughed, the metallic taste of blood rising in her mouth and a sharp shot of pain erupting from her chest. With another groan, she gave up on the idea of moving anywhere fast and let her head flop back into the mud, the heat from her body doing nothing to warm the cold wetness of the ground.
Muted sounds of explosions and gunfire reached her ears from above, and she remembered the airships, the battle, and the dramatically unplanned exit from the RDS Eagle.
“Holt?” she asked, her voice nothing more than a squeaky whisper. No response was forthcoming. How far had they fallen? Twenty feet? Thirty? There was no doubt she had broken bones from the way her body felt and the pain pulsing every time she tried to move. All she could do was wait, laying in the rain, until her ability to heal fixed her body.
Eventually, she managed to move both arms and carefully pressed down on the squelching mud to push herself upright. The sky was filled with fast-moving, dark outlines of airships. She rolled onto her backside and stared up at them, quickly picking out the Eagle, distinctive in its size and style from the weathered and worn pirate ships pursuing it. They’d sailed on, leaving Larissa behind and with no way to get back aboard.
“I may have misjudged the distance,” a gravelly voice came from nearby.
“Holt,” she said as she patted at the ground in the direction of his voice. Light from one of the pirate airships cast a slight glow on the ground, and as it turned in the sky, she noticed a distinct crater in the mud and crawled towards it. A vague outline shimmered, and slowly, Holt returned into view. He lay face-up, legs bent at awkward angles, bright red blood pouring from the back of his head and mixing with the grey mud beneath.
“You’re hurt. Here, let me help.” Larissa picked his head up and set it in her lap, lacing her hands together across the open wound.
“Too many broken bones. I won’t last long. Please, go. Run to Sallarium City and don’t look back.”
“Shh. I can fix you, and when I’m done fixing you I’m going to flog you for dragging me off the ship after I’d expressly told you not to.” She glanced up at the skies—the battle raged, cannonballs flying, shots erupting, people falling from the decks of the enemy ships as the sharpshooter Marines took them down. At least three ships lay dotted on the grounds surrounding them.
“They won’t win. Vries is outnumbered. I didn’t want you to die trying to save the others. What are you doing?”
“Healing.” She pulled her hands away. They were covered in blood, but the flow had ceased. “Can you tell which bones are broken?”
“Ribs, legs…an arm, I think. You can’t fix all of it.”
“You just watch me.” She set to work, half watching the battle, flinching every time a wayward ball flew in their direction, holding her breath each time she saw a new hole punctured in the side of the Eagle, all as she focused on fusing bone and closing wounds on Holt’s body.
“You left the Anthonium with Sandy.”
“I didn’t have time to tell her what to do with it, but I guess she figured it out.”
“Hmm,” Holt said, his eyes focused on her. He seemed oblivious to the battle going on overhead.
By the time she worked the last rib with her aching hands, her head throbbed with pain at the exertion of healing so much at once.
“That was the last piece,” Larissa said.
“It’s remarkable you could fix any of it at all.” Holt sat up and rotated his arms and torso, then reached to the back of his head to check on the wound there.
“No, I mean the Anthonium. I don’t have any left.”
“There’s nothing that can be done. It isn’t as if it’s easy to come by, as you know. I’m all right, Larissa. I have strength enough to get you to the city.”
“I don’t want to run away to the city. I want to help.” She stood and reached out toward the ships. “Did you see that?”
“What?” Holt grunted as he stood beside her.
“I think I just saw someone climbing down a rope off the Eagle.”
“Perhaps a cowardly Marine found the rope I’d tied on and decided to escape the mess up there.”
“Unlikely.”
“Why?”
“Because I’ve never seen a marine that fat.”
She took off, running as fast as her feet would allow across the unsteady ground, rain pelting her face. Her heart beat time in her ears and the battle noises grew louder and more desperate as she approached. Another pirate airship plummeted to the ground ahead, its canopy torn to shreds. The ground beneath her feet shook with a rumble as the craft smashed into the earth, but she didn’t slow her pace. If the fat form had been Friar Narry, there was hope the others would follow, or perhaps they had already escaped the ship. A figure appeared in the corner of her vision, and she realized Holt was running by her side.
Just as they made ground towards the ship, a flash erupted in the sky above. An arc of lightning coursed across the canopy of the ship, followed by an eruption of flame. Larissa skidded to a stop and Holt gripped her arm, trying to drag her backwards and away from the plummeting fireball. Embers and sparks leapt out in all directions, catching the surrounding ships. Another two were already making unsteady descents, their rotors shot out, hulls blasted open.
“Cid,” Larissa whispered, then launched forwards again, intending to catch up to the ship before it hit the ground, but Holt pulled her back and wrapped his arm around her shoulder, holding her to his chest.
“Don’t watch,” he said, trying to turn her face away from the vision, but she could not stop watching. The flames stretched up towards the dark night clouds; even the constant deluge of rain could do nothing to quell the fireball. Bodies jumped left and right from the deck of the ship as it neared the ground, people throwing themselves overboard in desperation. Finally, the structure of the ship smashed into the ground, an almighty blast rumbling beneath her feet, the balloon canopy nothing more than a ball of bright orange flame crashing down, covering one half of the hull. Anyone left on board would struggle to escape.
Larissa finally turned away, burying her face into Holt’s shoulder and clawing at his back with her hands. As much as her mind wanted to do nothing but cry and scream and mourn the incredible loss of life she had just witnessed—which she was powerless to stop—something in the distance caught her attention.
Far across the city, a long airship turned in the sky, facing away from all the chaos and the death. It was difficult to see in the dark of night, but Larissa noticed it all the same, mostly for the uniqueness of the design; it had no canopy and was held in the air by two rotors turning at an incredible pace. It was not the ship they had used to return from Eptora, which meant only one thing—it was her ship, the pirate ship with all of Cid’s tinkering, fueled by an Anthonium reserve and stolen from Eptora by the one person who was responsible for every death and horrid thing that had happened throughout her life.
“Covelle,” she whispered as her fingertips dug further into Holt’s skin.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Larissa stared at the departing airship as it disappeared in the sky, two more outlines seeming to follow in its wake. All of this could have been prevented if only she’d let Holt kill her father back in the Blue Mountains of Eptora
instead of hesitating. She felt Holt lean his head against hers. In spite of her protesting, he had saved her life with his choice to leave the ship, though it was little compensation for the loss of so many others, especially Cid and Kerrigan. She turned slowly, keeping hold of Holt, not wanting to let go in case he too succumbed to death. The Eagle had landed hard, the entire lower deck squashed beyond recognition. The canopy still burned but had covered the entire back end of the stern. The bow of the ship appeared relatively unscathed at the upper decks, though the fire was quickly burning everything in sight and working up the deck.
“We have to help,” she whispered as she saw men trying in vain to escape the deck, some of them working together to haul bodies over and down to the ground. She shifted, attempting to move, but was pinned in place as Holt stiffened his muscles.
“You have a chance to escape,” he said, looking down at her. “If you go over there, they will capture you again and we’ll be right back where we started.
“Vries…”
“The Admiral may no longer follow protocol if he is alive, and if he is not, whomever takes his place in charge may not look upon you kindly. Especially not after this.”
“I know…but they have found Vries…” She forcibly removed herself from Holt’s arms. A voice at the back of her head acknowledged what he was saying, and agreed with his comments, but her legs had other ideas as she raced forwards.
Scores of men slowly trudged away from the wreckage, two of them carrying the Admiral through the mud. She passed an odd-looking pair of people a little farther out—Friar Narry and Sandy—and her heart thumped a little harder at seeing them. Perhaps everyone had escaped the brig. Still, she didn’t stop until she reached the Admiral.
“Admiral,” she called. The body swung as the two Marines carried him along; his chest was mottled with blood, a great gash leading up to his neck. “Stop. I can heal him,” she yelled to the two men carrying him.
“Get away, you witch.” The man carrying the Admiral’s legs let go and swung his fist across her face, punching her with enough force to send her straight back down into the mud.
She shook it off, the pain lasting only a moment, and as she turned over, she saw Holt flying over her legs and launching into the Marine with full force. The two men punched and wrestled with one another as the man carrying the Admiral’s arms let go, dropping him to the ground to go join in the fight.
Larissa’s eyes rolled. All around, she noticed small groups of people fighting. Marines battled pirates who had emerged from their own fallen ships. Swords clashed, pistols fired, bodies grappled in the mud. Utter chaos descended around the burning wreckage.
She crawled forward, ignoring Holt, who seemed perfectly capable of fighting two men on his own, presumably still fueled with strength from the Anthonium shot. While she knew he wouldn’t last long at such a pace, she intended to take advantage of the distraction.
Admiral Vries was on the verge of death, blood pouring from his wounds. The rise and fall of his chest as he took final breaths seemed laboured. Larissa began with the biggest wound on his neck, unsure if she still had the strength to heal such a cut after healing both herself and Holt. The headache blooming across her forehead pulsated angrily as soon as she reached out to him, but she refused to give up. Fingers spread across his neck, her hands grew slick with sickly hot blood, and she struggled to maintain her grip. She concentrated on the slash, visualising knotting the muscle back together, invisible stitches forming in her mind, heat cauterising flesh piece by piece. Slowly but surely, the wound healed under her touch, though it took longer than expected.
Sounds of fists smashing into flesh and bone, swords clashing, and pistol shot faded into background static. Though Larissa was vaguely aware of Holt nearby grappling with someone, she didn’t dare stop to look up.
Finally, the Admiral opened his eyes and looked directly at her, his face a pale shade of grey. “My men…will you do the same for them?” he asked, his voice gravelly and shaking.
Larissa looked up. Holt had knocked one of the Marines to his knees, though the fight with the other had turned into a larger brawl of men fighting to the point where it almost looked as though Holt and the Marine were working together against a group of pirates.
Two pairs of boots landed in the mud beside her, and a body slumped down, a man doubled up and groaning. Larissa noticed the problem right away. He had a large wound bleeding down his back and clutched at his chest; he’d been shot. She grabbed hold of the man, barely thinking about what she was doing as she placed one hand over the exit wound and battled at his hands clutching the entry point. When he finally gave in and let go, she set to work.
By the time she had finished healing one Marine, she looked around to see a group of other bodies in varying states of distress piling up around her. Vries was up on his knees, and had stripped off his shirt, ripping it to pieces as he tried to tie strips around wounded arms and legs of the Marines nearby.
“Go on, heal them,” he yelled to her.
“I can’t heal them all.”
“Do what you can, please.”
Holt was nowhere to be seen. She had wanted to save Vries—felt the need to save him for some reason—but now she just wanted to leave. The flaming canopy disintegrated entirely, though the ferocious heat from the fire now spreading throughout the rest of the downed ship did not abate. If she’d been entertaining any notion of climbing aboard to look for Cid or any of the others, that idea had gone quite literally up in smoke.
“Miss Markus, Larissa…please,” Vries said as he laid a hand on her arm.
As yet another body was laid out in the mud behind her, she took in a deep breath and silently told the headache to go away. Not that it did much good.
She turned in the mud, her entire body caked in a layer of brown-grey dirt from top to toe. She scanned the collection of injured men spread out around her, as if she were a one-woman hospital capable of performing healing miracles on the entire crew. The injuries ranged from cuts and scrapes to missing limbs and crushed bones. All of them disappeared from her mind when she saw one body in particular. Different from the rest, dressed in odd Eptoran clothing with gnarled, knotted red hair on his head, Cid stretched out nearby, unconscious. A great, bloody gash split across his forehead.
“Cid,” she breathed as she stumbled towards him, already concerned that it was too late.
“Captain,” he murmured as she knelt beside him.
“Shush, let me heal you.”
“Bloody hell.”
CHAPTER TWELVE
A glint nearby caught Holt’s attention as he ducked a punch; a sword lay half-buried in the mud. He slammed his fist into his attacker’s chest and followed with a punch to the throat. The man hit the ground with a grunt, and Holt vaulted over his prone body. He rolled sideways and grabbed at the sword, extracting it from the ground, and immediately swung it across his body to deflect yet another attacker. Since entering into the fray, the numbers of Marines and pirates on the ground had increased steadily, and it was fast becoming an all-out battlefield.
In the craziness of the milieu, the fighters couldn’t tell which side Holt was on, and so he found himself fighting both Marine and pirate alike, no matter how much he tried to avoid battling with those he considered his own. He couldn’t exactly stop them mid-fight to reason with them or prove he was on their side. The battle disintegrated into nothing more than a mess of fighting, small groups of people battling amongst themselves, with no strong leader to coordinate the Marines into formation. If he had their backing, he would have pulled back to gather them together into a cohesive unit. Every attempt he made to collect a group of men together quickly turned on him, leaving him no choice than to plough on regardless.
Bodies lay strewn about; severed limbs dotted the ground, already half-buried with kicked-up clumps of mud. The rain persisted, though the cool air did nothing to dampen the ferocious fire of the downed RDS Eagle, its carcass turned to a bright orange ball of flam
e. The rain seemed equally unable to cool the heated blood running through Holt’s veins. He ducked punches and swings from swords, barely flinched when a bullet grazed his arm, and drew blood from the necks of any man foolish enough to get close. Sweat poured down his face, the salty tang of it playing on his lips.
As yet another body fell at his feet, he paused, turning. He’d moved farther away from the burning wreckage, and a sea of fighting people had closed in behind. He could no longer see Larissa. Something pulled inside his chest, as though a hand had tightened around his heart. As much as he tried to ignore the pain, the worry, and to stop himself from panicking, it wouldn’t go away as he trudged back towards the spot where he’d left her to heal people.
A great weight landed on his back and sent him crashing down to his knees, mud splattering in all directions. Something heavy clunked the back of his head, and black spots danced across his vision. He fell farther forward, controlling the movement, then spun around at the last second to flip the attacker onto his back. The sword fell from his hands, and a flash of a blade caught his attention as the heavy thug tried to slash his throat with a dagger. He grabbed at the attacking arm, pinning the body beneath him with his own weight, angry grunts of frustration ringing in his ears.
Holt shifted to the side and let one hand drop. He curled his fist into a ball and shoved his elbow into the ribs of the man beneath him. The man groaned, and the pressure on the threatening dagger released for a moment. Holt took advantage, barrelling round, throwing his weight into the arm, and sinking his teeth into the wrist of the hand holding the dagger. The man screamed, and the blade released, falling into the mud. Holt turned and smashed his fist into the face of the man beneath him; the man was almost twice his size, a great hulk of a body, and if it had been a pirate, Holt would have grabbed the dagger and slit his throat, but the uniform was clear. The Marine lay stunned but not knocked out. Holt grabbed the dagger, unintentionally clutching a handful of mud with it, and stood up, backing away.
