by Jamie Davis
She led the group towards the stern, looking for an access to the main deck. They reached the steep set of stairs leading upwards and Cari had to jump back. A slaver stood there, and he shouted a warning up through the hatch before turning to face her and the others.
She admired him for holding his position and remaining at his post against impossible odds. Even with her unfamiliarity with the scimitar, Cari still managed to finish him after crossing blades with him only a few times.
* * *
2,500 experience
* * *
She didn’t finish him off quickly enough, unfortunately. A line of slavers descended and came at her group. Cari started to join the fight when a massive figure climbed down the stairs. It was the orc she’d fought at the village.
He took one look at Cari, her face and hands bruised from her fighting and escape, and he grinned, showing his tusks in a fierce display meant to demoralize his opponents.
Cari had to admit it worked, at least in part.
She was going to have to power up and activate her burst of speed sooner than she’d wanted. There was no help for it, though.
Cari ducked under the first swing of the heavy falchion wielded by the Orcish slaver. His swing was somewhat confined by the low-ceilinged deck on which they fought. It gave Cari an advantage.
Her arm snaked outward and she slashed the scimitar’s blade across his naked chest. Blood welled up in the six-inch gash and he growled at her for drawing first blood.
Her power-up meter inched higher, but it wasn’t near full yet. She needed a few more successful attacks.
Unfortunately, her opponent had other ideas.
He swung the larger weapon down at an angle forcing Cari to leap to the side to avoid the falchion’s heavy blade hacking into her thigh.
The slaver let the blade sink into the wooden decking next to Cari’s feet and he swung his feet upward while holding onto the hilt executing a twisting double kick at Cari’s head.
She managed to get a forearm up to block the first kick but the second one connected with her forehead. She stumbled backward, shaking off the stars she saw as a result of the blow.
* * *
Health damage — health -8
* * *
The accumulation of repeated head injuries was starting to take its toll on her. Cari started feeling her thoughts slowing, making her a little groggy.
She pushed through the fog over her brain in time to dodge the next two attacks before she tried an attack combination allowing her to roll forward and slice into the big slaver’s side.
Cari saw the white bone of his ribs as she laid open a flap of skin. It was likely a painful wound but not necessarily a debilitating one.
That observation was proven correct when the orc twisted his torso to an impossible angle for a person so large and heavily muscled. It allowed him to land an attack on Cari’s back that sent her sprawling to the deck.
* * *
Health damage — health -10
* * *
Fiery pain seared her back. It was probably only a glancing blow and not very deep but Cari was already injured from the previous fights and she couldn’t take too many more like it.
She needed maybe to land one more good attack in order to power up. She still wanted to save it for when she reached the quarterdeck, but Cari realized if she didn’t, she likely wouldn’t survive to make it up there.
Rolling up to her feet, Cari stomped her feet forward as she executed two lunges at the slaver’s chest. He easily batted them both aside, laughing as he did so.
The way he found her attacks humorous inflamed Cari’s anger. She finished her triple attack by stomping a third time. This time, though, she switched up her attack, twisting the lunge forward into a slash across the belly.
The changeup caught the orc by surprise. The tip of her curved scimitar blade slashed a one-inch deep gash across her opponent’s abdomen.
The orc howled with pain and rage while she shouted with triumph as her power-up bar flashed in the corner of her vision, showing it was full and ready to engage.
A quick glance at her hard-pressed comrades made the decision for her. She had to use it now, or they’d surely lose.
Cari activated her burst of speed just as the orc charged at her with his falchion raised for a killing blow.
Once again, everything slowed around her as the countdown clock of sixty seconds began ticking down. Cari ran at the now slowed orc slashing three times as she went past.
The first opened his belly up all the way, exposing his innards, the second went high to slice open his throat where blood spurted out in an almost graceful arc. The final blow came around and down on the back of his neck, hacking through his spine and halfway through his neck muscles causing his lower body to become paralyzed.
His muscles lost all function and the orc dropped straight to the deck. He was dead before he hit the wooden boards at his feet.
* * *
4,500 experience
* * *
Cari didn’t slow her attacks, hacking her way through the slavers crowded around the stairs up to the main deck. Freeing up her beleaguered allies who’d been fighting a losing battle against their attackers.
* * *
2,500 experience
2,500 experience
2,500 experience
2,500 experience
* * *
She found herself standing at the bottom of the steps amidst a pile of bodies killed by her and the fighting slaves. Cari raced upward trying to force her way through the press of slavers at the top to get to the quarterdeck before she ran out of time and had to cool down.
More slavers fell to her blades as she ran past them, opening a path to the quarterdeck steps.
* * *
2,500 experience
2,500 experience
2,500 experience
2,500 experience
* * *
The clock ticked downward and, with only ten seconds left and six slavers lined up at the bottom of the steps before her, Cari realized she was going to run out of time.
Her comrades from below had just reached the top of the stairs and spilled out onto the main deck, trying in vain to keep up with her. She’d easily outdistanced them.
Making the only decision she could and still have a chance of surviving. Cari drove forward into the six slavers at the bottom of the quarterdeck stairs.
Two fell right away, sliced nearly in half from the combined force of her attack’s speed and the power of her enhanced muscles behind it.
* * *
2,500 experience
2,500 experience
* * *
She had five seconds left and four opponents.
Cari dove forward, bounding up and over all four of them, slicing down and across each of their throats as they stood in a line. It was a move she wouldn’t have believed possible if she hadn’t seen it herself.
Their life’s blood spurting from their laid-open necks, all four fell to the deck as Cari landed on the bottom two steps and the clock ticked to zero.
* * *
2,500 experience
2,500 experience
2,500 experience
2,500 experience
* * *
At the same instant the final digits of the countdown message faded from view, she collapsed in exhaustion, flopping down like a dropped sack of grain as the power-down period began. Her arms felt like lead weights dragged them towards the deck and she nearly dropped the scimitar.
All she could do was wait. The cool-down counter read thirty seconds. She heard a burst of laughter over the sound of the fighting all around. It came from above and behind her.
Craning her neck around, Cari found the source. The slaver captain saw her fall. He now stood at the top of the steps, looming above her, a sneer on his face. He knew he had her right where he wanted.
There was absolutely nothing she could do about it.
Chapter 31
; Rodrigo caught a glimpse of a speeding blur out of the corner of his eye as he thrust his sword through a slaver’s throat.
He ducked under the spray of blood and searched until he found its source. Just as he’d hoped, there was Cari. She’d somehow managed to invoke her strange magical ability to speed up her reflexes once again.
She’d spun up out of the hatchway, tearing through the slavers like a whirling tornado. Then she stopped and collapsed at the bottom of the stairs leading up to the quarterdeck. The exhaustion that followed her use of that magic had hit her.
“Stefan!” Rodrigo shouted and pointed in Cari’s direction.
The other lieutenant parried a thrust at his chest, following with a riposte attack that ended with six inches of his sword poking through the slaver’s back.
He searched for the source of the person who’d called him and then followed Rodrigo’s pointing finger. A simple nod followed. Stefan had seen her, too.
Rodrigo lowered a shoulder to shove a slaver out of his way and raced towards Cari, cutting down anyone in his path. He killed several slavers and took a few minor wounds along the way. He didn’t care. He had to reach Cari’s side and protect her.
Stefan battled through a mass of slavers at the other end of the deck, trying to get there, too.
Rodrigo hoped against hope that one of them would get there soon. The slaver captain had seen her, and he started down the steps in her direction, his scimitar poised and ready to strike.
Rodrigo swung his blade from side to side, kicking out at one slaver with his back to him, sending him sprawling to the deck.
He didn’t bother to finish off the slaver crewman, his focus intent on only one thing: getting to Cari before the slaver captain did. Stefan battled through the press not far away, heading in the same direction.
They were both still so far away from her.
It was too far. Rodrigo pressed himself forward even harder.
* * *
———
* * *
Cari somehow managed to lift her arm and bring the scimitar up in a guard position over her. It was a gesture of bravado and nothing more. She didn’t have the strength to actually parry a strike.
The slaver captain seemed to know this and he flicked his blade out, easily batting her sword out of the way.
Cari stared up at him as he raised the blade over his head and brought it down at her face. Her final thought was wondering if her parents would miss her.
The curved blade descended at her and then stopped, running into a barrier formed by two crossed rapier blades.
Cari looked behind her.
Rodrigo and Stefan stood there, bloodied and battered but both extended in a lunge with swords outstretched over her. They caught the captain’s blade before it could reach her.
The two then leaped over her to charge up the stairs, their swords a blur as they pushed the slaver captain back up the stairs with attack after attack.
The captain was an excellent swordsman, probably a master in his own right. He managed to deflect most of the blows from the two lieutenants and even get in a few attacks of his own.
Stefan fell to one knee as a sweeping slash took him in the leg and cut deep into his thigh.
Rodrigo’s left arm hung bloody and useless at his side, but he kept the pressure on the slaver.
Cari could see he was at the limit of his ability. The captain had him outclassed. Without Stefan to help him push the captain back, Rodrigo was now the one being pressed backward.
Some of the strength started to return to Cari’s exhausted body. The cool down countdown clock was in its final ten seconds. Each tick of the clock seemed to last an eternity as she watched the two lieutenants fighting and losing above.
* * *
…3, 2, 1.
* * *
The clock ticked to zero. Cari stood, wounded but with muscles she could command again. She raced up the steps.
Stefan was down now, laying on his side, trying in vain to rise.
Rodrigo had retreated all the way to the stern rail where he fought a desperate battle to block the incoming attacks.
He was losing.
Cari dropped the scimitar, happy to lose the unfamiliar blade. She bent down and scooped up Stefan’s rapier from the deck next to him and charged at the captain’s back.
Rodrigo fell to the deck just before she got there and Cari’s cry of fear for her friend warned the captain of her arrival.
He ducked and twisted around, delivering a vicious backhand blow carried by the momentum of his turn.
Cari’s rapier thrust at the back of the slaver’s neck missed when he ducked and she barely got the long knife in her other hand down in time to keep the strike from hacking into her side.
Damn, he was quick. She’d assumed he wasn’t that good since he’d opted to send the orc to fight her in response to her challenge. Now she realized he’d done it to provide some sport for himself and his crew. That was all.
She parried the next incoming attack and growled deep in her throat. She wasn’t going to let this pig hurt her or anyone else ever again.
Blocking another attack, she surprised her opponent with a spinning roundhouse kick to his head.
She felt the heel of her bare foot connect with the side of his face. It made Cari shout a primal cheer as she came around and landed.
It was Cari’s turn to sneer.
The captain spat blood on the deck, along with a few teeth. He wiped at his bloody mouth with the back of his hand.
“You’ll pay for that, girl.”
“Better men than you have tried to collect on that. They’re all dead now. Care to join them. You can tell them in hell how you were taken down by a little girl.”
The captain’s eyes narrowed and he bellowed something unintelligible as he charged at Cari.
* * *
Taunt engaged
* * *
What had been carefully coordinated attacks by the captain before turned into a rage-fueled frenzy of chaotic blows.
Cari backed up, parrying attack after attack while she waited for her opportunity.
It came when he slipped on a puddle of blood on the deck. His arms spread wide in a reflex to catch his balance and Cari made her move.
Executing a perfect lunge, Cari, the rapier’s blade an extension of her own arm, thrust her sword into the captain’s heart.
He looked down at the thin metal blade lodged in his chest, disbelief showing in his eyes.
“Say hello to the others when you get to hell,” Cari said as she lifted her foot and shoved him off her sword and over the ship's rail into the dark waters below.
* * *
6,000 experience
* * *
Cari turned to look for other threats, but the escaped slaves she’d freed had come up and overwhelmed the rest of the crew on the quarterdeck.
Down on the main deck, Cari’s crew from the Vengeance had the situation in hand as well.
Cari, her aching hands still not fully healed from her escape from the manacles, dropped the rapier to the deck and walked over to the mast and used the belt knife to cut the line holding the Sultanate flag. The green banner with a crescent moon and crossed scimitars fluttered down to the deck.
A cheer went up from the Vengeance and was echoed by the crew on the deck below.
“Cari, Cari, Cari,” they all called.
She raised her hand in acknowledgment then waved when she saw Helen watching her from the quarterdeck of the Vengeance.
As soon as the fighting died down, Trina emerged from the hold along with all the other slaves. Standing next to the teenager, holding her hand as she looked around wide-eyed, was Jaycee. They’d done it. They’d freed the real lost princess.
* * *
Quest completed — retrieve the missing princess
15,000 experience
Chapter 32
“Where to next, Captain?” Helen asked.
Cari leaned over the chart table in her cabi
n and stared down. Both the Vengeance and the slaver’s ship, dubbed the Freeman by the freed slaves who now crewed it, were damaged and needed to find a safe harbor for repairs before they were caught by a sudden storm at sea so common at this time of year.
She studied the chart and their position on it after she’d done some calculations. Standing, she rubbed at the aching knuckles on her right hand. Despite a day’s rest and another round of her regeneration ability, the hand seemed to remember the pain of broken and dislocated bones in her escape from the manacles. Every now and then, a dull aching pain flared up for a few minutes.
Cari pushed it away and stopped rubbing her hand, ignoring the pain. She stabbed a finger down on the coastline.
“Morton Creek.”
“Not Tandon?” Helen asked.
“No, Morton Creek is closer, plus we need a place to safely refit. We can make Morton Creek from here in three, maybe four days. It would take well over a week to get back to Tandon from here.”
“You know that is closer to the Duke’s center of power in the capital. If he gets word you’re there, he might send people after you, especially since he knows about little Janey’s true identity.”
“We need to call her by her true name.”
“Alright, but it’s going to be harder to keep Jaycee safe that close to the capital.”
“I know, but I’m hoping we’ll be repaired and back to sea before anyone arrives looking for us.”
