Looming Shadow: Journey to Chaos book 2

by Brian Wilkerson

  “Right back at ya, loser!”

  The orderfied barrier concentrated the stolen mana and fired it at Eric. It cut through his barrier and slammed into his stomach hard enough to knock the wind from him. Eric was forced to lean on his staff for support. The boy fist-pumped triumphantly.

  “Ha ha! And those old farts said my training was incomplete. I’m already strong enough to beat mages.” He stepped forward and extended his hand. “Now I’ll take over your mind and add you to our stock. A sellstaff is sure to be easy.”

  A hatch opened near him and an orc stepped out of it. Seven or eight feet tall and broad with muscles, he cast a shadow over the ordercrafter like Flying Whale did to Albatross IX. Despite the cold, he wore short pants and short sleeves with only a jacket to ward off the chill. Even his head was as exposed to the elements as the rest of him because it was truly bald. The boy wet himself under the orc’s stern glare, but then he put on a show of bravado.

  “You can’t hurt me either, you dumb brute!”

  The orc gently placed his hand on the kid’s orderfied barrier. He didn’t try to break it. The boy’s knees knocked despite his taunts and barbs.

  “Those who are empowered by Order the First Born are feeble before Lady Chaos the Matriarch. In her name, bow down.”

  Like flipping a switch, the second layer disappeared and the boy was left with his personal barrier. His shiver had nothing to do with the cold. The hand passed through his barrier and landed on his head. It was big enough to encompass his head entirely.

  “That was a basic anti-ordercraft spell. If you completed your training, it wouldn’t have worked on you. Now you’re dead.” To Eric, he asked, “You all right? Civilians shouldn't be here.”

  “Mercenary. Be grateful I'm not charging for this.” He pointed his staff at the outlaw and braced himself. The impact made him grit his teeth, but his barrier successfully defended them both from a stray missile. “Or that.”

  “A mercenary, huh?” the outlaw said. He removed his hand. “Then you shouldn’t have any problem with his Tuhjso now that he’s lost his benefactor.”

  The boy did nothing but raise his personal barrier, which Eric pierced without difficulty. Swinging his weapon around, he bashed his opponent in the head with the shaft of his staff. The boy went down. Eric righted his staff and brought it down on his opponent’s exposed throat. The boy coughed and muttered about how he wished he’d completed his training.

  “You can’t stay on your feet; go to sleep! Thunder slumber!”

  An electric charge surrounded the boy’s head and his eyes closed. Eric kicked him in a few places, like the stomach and groin, to make sure he was asleep. Then he searched his pockets. He found an opened packet of gum, a wallet with nothing in it but an Official Liclis Ordercrafter License, and a key ring with twenty identical keys on it.

  The orc chuckled. “You really are a mercenary.”

  By now, the slavers that Eric wiped out with his mana beam were coming too. The orc stepped between them and Eric, and in the process, stepped on and crushed the sleeping ordercrafter’s head.

  “But you lack the killer instinct to succeed at the job. Orc Law Number 0: Resist Order at all times and thwart him whenever possible.”

  None of them dared get within arm’s reach, so instead, they fired mana bolts, which bounced off his barrier like spit wads. His personal spirit was simply that powerful. One of them cast a spell that generated lightning and fired like a bolt out of heaven. He grabbed it, spun around, and threw it right back. The enemy mage dropped dead on the spot, his body sizzling.

  The orc showed all his teeth and declared, “I’ll grind your bones to make my bread!”

  The rest dropped their weapons and raced for the sides of the ship, slipping and sliding all the way. When they reached the railing, they jumped off.

  The orc laughed out loud. “We got droppers!”

  A crewmate fired a hydraulic hand out of Flying Whale's hull and grabbed the falling slavers. Then it tossed them into the Whale's mouth. “Waste not, want not, right?” He nudged Eric and the human was knocked off his feet. “Sorry; forgot you were a soft-skin.”

  “Nayr!”

  Both human and orc raised their heads to see a small girl with butterfly wings floating down from the crow's nest. As she descended, a screen of light flickered from the tower and five of the deck's turrets. She landed on Nayr's bulky arm and pried his hands open, revealing second-degree burns.

  “You may have hard skin, but you need to stop chucking lightning!”

  “You need to go to the infirmary,” the orc said, closing his fist. She pushed it back open and spread a stinky green cream over it. “Stop that. You're needed more there.”

  “If I don't treat it now, it'll get infected, and you'll be no help to anyone,” the fairy countered, “Stop acting like a tough guy.”

  Another stray missile hit him square in the back, but he didn’t do anything but grunt.

  “It’s not an act.”

  The fairy groaned. “See what I have to work with? I'm Tolv Skycrest, guardian of Flying Whale. Thank you for helping my partner.”

  She jumped to the other arm and Nayr reluctantly opened his fist.

  “Eric Watley, novice of the Dragon's Lair. Pleased to meet you.”

  Eric shook hands with her.

  “I'm Nayr Oceanseal, raider of Flying Whale.”

  Eric offered his hand and Nayr showed him the gunk on his own. Eric awkwardly retracted.

  “For future reference, a guy like you shouldn’t fight ordercrafters. Orc Wisdom #3: A strong orc recognizes when he is weak.”

  “You should take your own advice,” Tolv muttered, crawling up his arm and pulling herself up by his ear. “Idiot.”

  Nayr retaliated by shaking his head. She held on by said ear until he stopped, then took her place on his bald crown. Eric felt a warm spot building in his heart.

  They're like a younger version of Laharg and Malize.

  While Eric and the orc dealt with the ordercrafter on the deck of the Flying Whale, the “cleaner fish” chased the enemy mother ship.

  Its engines blazed blue light and fire as it desperately tried to outrace the much larger ship. Its escort ships formed a different sort of barrier by engaging the cleaner fish in dogfights. They darted back and forth over the sea in brutal combat. Slashing with mechanical claws at melee range and then hammering with tempered barriers, they strove to knock each other below for the creatures of the deep. From a distance, they shredded enemy fuselages with spell charges. The cleaner fish broke through the slaver’s ships and Flying Whale closed in on its prey.

  Suddenly, the slaver’s exhaust flared golden-brown and the ship rapidly accelerated. The cleaner fish couldn’t keep up. They fell further and further behind as their bounty pulled away.

  “All hands, brace yourselves!” blared an intercom. “This is going to get rough!”

  Inside the bridge, Raguc lifted his left hand above his head and his tattoo glowed. The griffin symbol projected itself on the open sky, and the griffin inside the seal raised its right claw and cawed. In response, a tremendous gust of wind blew over the deck and Flying Whale lurched forward.

  The air ahead of them was hazy with golden-brown smoke. The cleaner fish avoided this chaotic exhaust by flying around it, but Flying Whale dived straight through. A series of barriers activated over the ship as it entered the cloud until the ship was doubly encompassed. Eric activated his own to be safe. This stuff could be worse than a garden-variety mana cloud. I don’t want to take any chances with this stuff.

  There were things in this cloud; airborne creatures that appeared to drift in and out of reality. Their physical bodies constantly shifted in every conceivable way. Looking at them made Eric’s eyes sting and his head throb. Their otherworldly noises made his ears hurt. Despite all the barriers, they put terror in Eric’s heart. A minute later, Flying Whale exited the cloud and saw the mother ship they were tailing steadily lose altitude. It was being ravaged by
its own engines.

  Limbs of varying substance had grown out of the engines and now they flailed erratically, damaging the ship and each other. A deep-throated laugh boomed through the intercom.

  “Crew of Flying Whale, prepare to feast!”

  The ship opened its great mouth and put on a burst of speed. The slaver mother ship dropped faster and so the Whale dived to meet it at the water. A gust of wind appeared out of nowhere to propel it backwards and into the maw of the outlaw’s ship. Then its jaws closed around it.

  Inside, the outlaws scrambled to kill the monster growing out of the slaver ship’s engines. Kallen raced to take part, but an orc was already there, doing the bulk of the work. He slashed off limbs, shielded his crewmates, and utilized a mysterious power out of his right hand. It glowed with eldritch light and warped the area around his hand. By pointing at the engine, he used it to inhibit the engine monster’s growth.

  Kallen drove in anyway and struck an exhaust port with her crystal. At once, the chaotic energy left the engine and dove into her crystal and into the grey light inside. It flashed golden-brown and a same color aura appeared around Kallen herself. She put her left hand between her eyes and muttered, “Chaos is with me.”

  The aura vanished and the grey light dimmed. Without its chaotic power, the engine monster stopped growing and ceased mutating. The orc delivered the killing blow, then turned to her, and said, “Thanks, soft-skin.”

  “You’re welcome, violent brute.”

  The orc then tore open the door to the ship and led the following raid. They found enemies and killed or captured them, depending on the level of resistance they encountered. The captain was a little harder to bring down, but he was ultimately cuffed all the same. All the captives were then marched out and thrown at the feet of Captain Raguc. The whole excursion took only ten minutes.

  “Give me the subjugation collar keys.”

  “I don’t have them,” the defeated captain replied.

  Raguc kicked him in the gut. “You have a Bodin class fighter carrier, a full complement of fighters, and a very nice suit. Therefore, you can’t be run-of-the-mill slavers; you have to be elfin slavers. If you’re elfin slavers, then you have to use subjugation collars to keep your cargo under control, which means you must have keys.”

  “Captain Raguc!” an outlaw shouted from inside the slaver mothership. “We’ve cracked the cargo bay! They’re coming out now.”

  She gestured out the door and twenty elves walked out. Every one of them wore dirty black tunics that never reached beyond mid-thigh and red-gold orichalcum collars that covered their necks entirely. Runes written into the later glowed faintly with the same light used to subdue the engine monster. It was the same power used by the anti-mage Eric fought. It was ordercraft.

  “Keys, please.”

  “I don’t have them.” Raguc placed his cutlass next to the man’s neck. “Really, I don’t! I’m not an ordercrafter! I can’t use them.”

  “Where is the ordercrafter, then?”

  “He was in one of the ships that scrambled earlier. He said he was going to board your ship, take over your mind, and make this ship our new HQ.”

  “Wow,” Raguc said with his arms crossed. “It sounds like his ego is bigger than my ship.”

  The slaver captain shrugged and smiled uneasily. “You know, teenagers are already arrogant as it is. Give them the Power of Absolute Control and they’re insufferable.”

  “His service was cheap.”

  “Yes, it was.”

  “And you skimped on crew training.”

  “Yes, I did.”

  “And you’re ugly.”

  “Yes, I am.”

  Raguc laughed. “If nothing else, then you are an honest man.”

  Attracted by the commotion, Eric, Nayr, and Tolv descended from the entrance hatch and jumped into the landing bay. The former’s winged feet slowed his descent and he landed softly and without a sound. The latter simply landed on his feet and took all the impact through his legs and spine. For this, his partner criticized him while expressing concern for him.

  “Captain, I’ll add a fourth point; his training was incomplete.”

  “You fought him?” Raguc asked Nayr.

  “I killed him. His only abilities were negating simple spells and using subjugation collars.”

  Eric held out the keychain. “Are these the keys you need?”

  Raguc accepted them and went about unlocking the collars. Meanwhile, Kallen approached Nayr to get a better look at him. Then she did a double take.

  “Nayr? Is that you?”

  Nayr’s face broke out in a grin. “Kallen! You’ve gotten even uglier since I last saw you.”

  She laughed. “You’re as blunt as ever. Tolv, you must have offended The Trickster to be saddled with such a partner.”

  “Definitely. It’s a pain watching over this idiot.”

  “This must be why Jessie mistook my ship for a slaver’s; The Trickster wanted us to reunite.”

  Nayr laughed. “Then, for once, I do not want to knock his teeth in. Since you’re one of the uglier humans I’ve met, humans must consider you fetching. Is there anyone in that ship with you?”

  “I’ve had a few admirers. How about you?”

  “He still mooning over this ‘Ariel’ girl.”

  “Shut it, Tolv.”

  “My little sister?”

  “She made that up. I haven’t crushed on your sister since we were kids.”

  Tolv smirked. Nayr face-palmed. Kallen, by contrast, looked worried. It didn’t look like sisterly protectiveness so much as genuine concern. It was clearly distressing for both sides, so Eric changed the subject. Besides, he wanted to puzzle it out on his own.

  “Sooo…Where are you headed now?”

  “Ataidar’s embassy in Acemo,” Nayr quickly replied. “After we get our bounty, it’s off to a scrap yard to sell off their wrecks and repair our own. You?”

  “I'm on my way home.”

  Home for Kallen, Nayr, and Tolv were their flying metal animals and so they were always home. They didn't feel Eric's longing. For him, home was a cozy little apartment in Roalt, the capital of Ataidar. He was still days away and not getting any closer.

  Once all the elves finished thanking Raguc for their freedom, they were escorted to the guest quarters while their former captors were escorted to the brig. Then the good captain talked with a cleric to confirm the bounty they were supposed to claim and how this boosted the community’s income relative to the expenses of repairing its craft. Finally, having noted Nayr and Tolv talking with Kallen, he offered to give her a ride to Acemo’s southern border.

  “There’s a war going on between it and Liclis right now. It’s something about monsters or civil rights or trade barriers or something.”

  “It’s straight-up conquest, captain,” the clerk said.

  “I don’t care what the cause is as long as we can make money off it. Anyway, you’ll be safer in my flying fortress than your golden dinghy.”

  Kallen scowled. “Albatross IX is not a dinghy.”

  “I call it a dinghy because Wiol forbids me from plundering dinghies because people who fly them are generally not worth the effort. If you insist that it’s not a dinghy, then I’ll have to reconsider.”

  Kallen tensed, then exhaled it all. “Fine, it’s a dinghy.”

  Raguc turned around with his hands clasped behind his back. “I’m glad we could agree. By the way, my daughter is a fan of yours. Do you mind giving her your autograph?”

  “You’re a father!?” Eric explained.

  Raguc looked over his shoulder at the young mage and he gulped.

  “She’s a lucky girl.”

  “Oh, sure,” Kallen said. “What's her name?”

  Tasio appeared between them, carrying a little girl in a pink dress. She jumped out of his arms, ran to Kallen, and glomped her. The older girl smiled and patted her head. Eric shook his own, but couldn't resist smiling too. Then Emily rushed from her observ
ation platform and tackled Tasio. Pinning him to the ground, she demanded, “Tasio, send me home right now!”

  Tasio blinked. “‘Bend the gnome night plow’? Kallen, I think your sidekick inhaled some of the chaotic exhaust.”

  Without warning, he disappeared. Emily looked around for him but didn’t find him. A cage appeared above her head and clattered to the ground around her. Tasio’s head emerged from the bars in front of her. He said, “Do you consider me your jailer?”

  “Yes.”

  “Jails are full of people who committed crimes. This is because they have done something wrong. You have done nothing wrong and so you are not a criminal, which means you are not in a jail.”

  The bars melded together and created transparent screens of many locations both urban and wild. Emily recognized them from the many traveling pamphlets in her desk drawer. From all of them came a single voice, like someone speaking over an intercom: “Thank you for flying with Trickster Help Service, where we make dreams come true.”

  It took a moment for Emily to process what Tasio said, and when she did, she screamed.

  “You kidnapped me because I said I wanted to travel!? Well, I don’t anymore, so give me heavy-duty help and send me home!”

  “A kidnapping is resolved with ransom. The way out of jail is to post bail. A lock will only open with a key. A child safety cap needs an adult.”

  “Milard, please humor her,” Kallen said.

  The travel screens vanished and Tasio, in his floating guise, appeared next to Kallen.

  “Okay, but only because it’s you asking.”

  He ruffled her hair and floated over to Emily. He sat cross-legged in the air and placed his right hand on his left arm. From his “skin,” he pulled down a chart of Noitearc. It was a tree with fruit of three colors: golden-brown, granite grey, and zebra stripes.

  “There are more colors, but only these are relevant for this discussion: golden-brown is Chaos, grey is Order, and zebra stripes is neutral. This is the territory involved in the First War. Neutral zones are basically de-militarized. Both sides agree to stay out of them, and if they go in, they face numerous restrictions on their actions. One of mine is that I can only reveal myself to someone asking for help.”