Blood Gate Boxed Set

by K L Reinhart

  “Elf! What are you doing!?” Terak heard Vorg the Unwanted behind him roar. There was a heavy thwack as he batted another burning missile spearing toward him.

  Terak didn’t answer, but leapt the stairs to the central deck, rolling lightly as he had been taught to do, springing up in time to dodge another burning arrow.

  The assassin jumped to one side, and yes, once again the magic missile didn’t correct its course or swerve toward him.

  It’s not that they don’t come for me, but that I am hard to see in their magic, Terak thought. He bounded over one stilled body and then hopped, kicking out and reaching up to grab one of the sail ropes held loosely against the mainmast.

  “Ugh!” Terak’s fine-fingered hands slipped for a second, making his palms burn, but he let the pain be as the Book of Corrections had taught him. Don’t dwell. Don’t seek it out. Just get on with it! He even remembered the advice of the bullying weapons master of the Enclave, the Chief Martial, as the elf seized the next hand of rope. He felt his palms burn as he pulled himself upwards.

  Terak had a few advantages. Not just the fact that he had been trained by the Enclave to be tough and had experience climbing up and down the frozen cliffs of the Tartaruk Mountains, but also that he was an elf. He was lighter than most humans, and there was a grace and agility to his limbs and joints that could put a human to shame.

  The elvish assassin found his feet against the mast in moments. He climbed up the rope quickly, kicking out with his feet to swing one way and then the other to avoid each of the flaming arrows that threatened him. He reached just below the level of Lord Falan in a few moments, as Falan was kicking wildly in his panic.

  “Falan!” shouted Terak. He stretched up with one hand to grab a booted ankle to slow the human’s wild swinging. With a thump, the lord crashed against the mainsail mast and clung to it for dear life.

  But he can’t stay up there like that! Terak knew, hurriedly climbing the opposite side of the mast to Falan’s level.

  “Falan, get down! Get under cover,” Terak hissed, looking over his shoulder for more of the flaming, magic missiles.

  “I can’t–the mainsail!” The human lord’s face was a picture of determination.

  “I’ll do it!” Terak insisted. “It’s better that the kingdoms of man have at least one surviving monarch!”

  Terak didn’t wait for the argument, but kicked with his legs and reached with his hands to leap-frog up the mainsail mast. There was a stifled growl of anger underneath him. When Terak spared a look, he saw that Falan was doing his best to swing and lower himself down as quickly as he could, without breaking his neck.

  Right. Terak gritted his teeth and continued to climb, suddenly surrounded by the voluminous cream-white of the billowing–and smoking–mainsails around him. Half-cocooned as he was like this in the drifting skirts of The Lady, at least the magic missiles that sought him out thudded into the sail rather than his back.

  Although that makes my eventual job harder. Terak groaned in consternation.

  “Ah,” Terak realized a big flaw in his plan. He may be a highly talented assassin, as well as an elf able to do things that many humans couldn’t, but that didn’t mean that he was in any way an airship sailor.

  The elf had forgotten to bring any water or seize any of the buckets of sand that skirted the edge of the decks for just this purpose.

  Terak continued to climb, pausing only to grab one of his long-bladed knives from his belt. He bit down on its steel with his white teeth. I’ll have to cut the sail down, he thought. He wasn’t sure just how bad that would affect The Lady’s ability to fly. He had seen the air galleon reef some of her sails and still move through the air by some magical means of propulsion.

  It won’t crash her at least, will it? Terak hoped.

  He realized he would have to start at the bottom, though. Cutting the sail away from the top would make it fall onto The Lady of the North and set her on fire

  The elf relied on his knees and hands to skid and slide painfully back down the mast to where the curtains of mainsail ended. He could smell smoke by the time he reached it. When he looked up, he saw that the entire mainsail was almost engulfed in a wreath of gray smoke like its own personal thundercloud.

  There! He saw the thinner crossbeam of wood that held the end of the sail down. Without thinking, he allowed himself to slide the rest of the way as he leaned out, catching the crossbeam as he went past, and—

  Gotcha! Terak had swung himself upwards, just like he might do in an Everdell tree, to half-straddle the beam. He wasted no time in sawing away at the first of the knots.

  It took a few moments for the thick hemp rope to fray and separate. Suddenly a heavy, smoking wall of canvas battered against Terak’s back.

  “No!” The weight of the mainsail was a lot heavier than the elf had presumed. It felt as if Vorg had leaned against him. Terak was pushed, his hands and legs losing their grip.

  “Ach!” Terak released his hold on the beam ahead and instead reached up to grab the edge of the mainsail as it flared outwards. It took the tiny form of the elf with it, clinging onto its edge.

  Terak felt his stomach lurch and his whole body swing upwards into the open air.

  “Ixcht!” the elf swore. He reached the apex of his swing and started to fly back downwards, attached to the end of the sail. Straight toward the crossbeam.

  With a grunt, Terak grabbed the edge of the sail and pulled himself higher, past the corner, hanging onto the outer side as he lifted. His legs and his arms screamed.

  The bottom of the sail slapped the edge of the crossbeam with a crack like ice splintering.

  Terak climbed, hand over hand, knees clenched against the fabric. He could clearly see the flames now, with the sweeping action of the sails only fanning them to race faster. He was a little over halfway up the sail when he felt the material start to tear and give—

  Come on, come on, come on! He urged his body to be stronger and to move quicker. To any of the watching humans (and orc) below, the elf moved with an unnatural grace and speed, but he was still racing against the flames.

  A sudden jolt ran through the sail, and Terak felt himself suddenly slide down. One of the top rope ties had burned and snapped, and the entire, flaming sail was now held on by only one metal ring and hemp rope tie. Fragments of smoldering sailcloth were lifting from the sail like malevolent fireflies.

  But Terak had reached the top crossbeam. His silvered arm, healed by the Aesther spirit known as Hyxalion, grabbed onto the smooth wood and pulled.

  “Oof!” The elf was clinging to the beam with thighs and one hand, as the warm winds of the southern lands tore at his hair. He breathed and spared a look downwards.

  The orange, ochre, and brown plain lands stretched all around them like a frozen sea. There were humps and rises, boulders and creeks. But what occupied Terak’s vision was the cloud of the burning arrows swirling and darting around the air galleon like a flock of strange insect-creatures.

  The plains below were a mess with the blackened crater marks where the cannons had pummeled the ground. Smoke was pluming up from where The Lady’s fire-throwers had launched clay pots filled with flaming liquids. There were still figures down there, and they were still firing at the sweeping air galleon.

  “Terak! Hold on!” The elf heard Lord Falan shouting, as he was gesturing with big arm sweeps at the boatswain at the wheel. The ship’s wheel already had a trio of bodies lying at its base, and the last remaining sailor there looked small as he pulled hard on the spokes of the wheel—

  For The Lady to start to lurch to one side, tipping violently.

  Terak held onto the crossbeam as the plains below started to rise, almost becoming a wall to one side of him, but he could see what Lord Falan was trying to do. He was trying to make the sail fly away from the rest of the boat when it was finally released. Terak set his mind on it now, growling as he half-clambered, half-swung to the final metal hook and rope, to slash down savagely with his knife.


  One blow was enough, with the weight of the full mainsail pulling it taut. The heavy threads burst apart and started to unravel like a spinning toy, before, with a snapping noise, the flaming mainsail was released. It flared free over the plains, a new, burning cloud that tumbled and billowed as it rolled toward the ground.

  But with the sudden release of the mainsail, The Lady of the North had far less control over her already disrupted flight. The ship fell lower toward the plains, racing barely fifty feet over the dirt, listing badly.

  “She’s gonna go down!” Terak heard the desperate cry of one of the sailors below and another scream as a man tumbled over the railings, a flaming arrow in his chest.

  All the elf could do was cling on and hope that the young helmsman knew what he was doing.

  The very helmsman who was now falling from the spinning wheel, Terak saw, with two of the magic missiles embedded in his chest. The wheel was starting to spin faster and faster, completely out of control. At the far end of The Lady, the gigantic sail rudder was waving back and forth erratically under this chaotic direction–not catching the air, utterly useless.

  On either side of The Lady, the side fan-sails, looking like bat wings made of more of the cream sailcloth, were snapping outwards, revolving on their complicated cog-wheel joints. The Lady shuddered and lifted for a moment before dropping another ten feet.

  But they were racing away from the attacking Benuin, Terak realized. Their unsought-for speed was carrying them away from the expanse of the plains and toward the gorges and uplands of the Vandra Mountains. The Benuin were nothing more than stick insects once again far behind them, but the cloud of their fiery arrows still followed them, trying to apprehend the boat.

  “Grargh!” With a roar, Terak saw the giant shape of Vorg bound across the deck and stagger as one of the magic missiles found his arm. It didn’t stop the orc for a second as he reached the far part of the deck, leapt up to the wheel, and seized it with both of his black-clawed, mighty arms.

  Even Vorg the Unwanted had trouble restraining the wheel, however. His hands slipped, and he half-knelt and leaned against it to pull the rudders and fan-sails back into order.

  Scraaape! Terak’s chest rebounded against the crossbeam that he was clinging to for life, as the hull of The Lady skidded across the dirt before bouncing back up again ten feet into the air. The air ship was sending up sprays of dirt on either side and shuddering with the rocky outcrops and boulders that smashed into its hull.

  With another roar, Terak saw Vorg stand up, wrenching at the wheel as he did so. The Lady started to level out, and the huddled airmen and women were no longer holding onto the railings and each other to stop from being thrown overboard.

  Thock! Thock-thock! More of the Benuin’s magical artillery hit the decks and deck-houses of The Lady of the North. Most found nothing but wood for their flame, but a few still managed to find human flesh.

  “BRACE!” Vorg was bellowing loudly, as Terak lifted his head to see what it was the orc was warning them about.

  The air galleon was screaming forwards on shuddering fan-sails, barely twenty feet above the dirt, and straight toward a cliff.

  “BRACE ALL HANDS!” Lord Falan took up the cry. Terak saw sailors and soldiers grab onto each other and anything that was nailed down for support.

  Vorg was growling and swearing as he attempted to turn the wheel of the rushing air galleon against its fate. Terak was once again thrown to the side on the crossbeam far above them as The Lady started to turn.

  But it was too little and far too late. The Lady’s hull hit the dirt once again and started to carve a line through the earth toward the plains.

  Vorg was shouting, still attempting to pull on the wheel.

  The Lady of the North, miraculously, started to turn, grinding against the rocks of the world as it skidded toward the approaching cliff.

  Oh Ixcht. Terak suddenly realized just how perilous his position was, some fifty feet up from the deck, clutching onto a spar of wood that would probably snap and send him flying as soon as they hit the rock walls.

  The elf didn’t think, only reacted. He dropped his dagger and used both hands to swing from the crossbar, leaping to the mainsail to hit it heavily. He slid downwards toward the deck as The Lady attempted to skid. The air galleon was setting up a wave of dirt and pulverized rock, as Terak let himself slide and slip down the mainsail mast. His soft-soled boots thumped on the deck below, just as a shadow eclipsed him.

  It was the cliff wall that The Lady had been skidding to avoid. She had failed, and as wood and gray stone met, the stone won.

  3

  The Enclave, Tartaruk Mountains

  Many, many leagues to the north, the black-robed human known as Father Jacques, the Chief External of the Enclave, shook.

  “Willow herb, diamond root . . .” he muttered to himself, his voice thin and wavering even in his own ears.

  “Hyurk!” a sudden, hacking cough swept up through his body, making the once-stocky man hunch and double over his old workbench.

  The Chief External of the Enclave, a man who had no public role or title, but who had been chosen by the fierce Magister Inedi to oversee the “quiet work” that the Enclave undertook, had a balding head and once had a thick, curling, and dark beard. His eyes used to be bright in such a way that could spear a stupid question before it even left his pupil’s mouth. Once he had a ruddy, healthy complexion to his skin, albeit often marred by the tiny traceries of white scars owing to his work.

  Now, however, the man’s strength and broad shoulders looked slumped and his skin sallow, with deep shadows around his eyes that no longer shone with mirth or wit.

  “Oh dear.” Father Jacques braced his hands against the workbench. One of his hands clearly displayed the four fingers and nub of one other that he had lost to an orcish warband many decades ago.

  The scroll that he had been working on, as well as the fine glass plates with the ground herbs he had been attempting to prepare, were now spattered with the blood of his lungs. His careful work was ruined. He would have to start all over again.

  But Father Jacques didn’t move for a long moment. His dulled eyes drooped and half-closed before they snapped open with apparent effort. He felt so very tired, but he knew that he didn’t dare sleep.

  “Father?” said a voice from the door to his study, and the once-strong man had trouble raising his head to look.

  It’s the girl, he thought, although it was his ears that had recognized Journeywoman Reticula’s voice, not his eyes. He waited for his vision to stop doubling, and focused.

  “What under the Stars are you doing here!” he barked with an echo of his old gravitas. He knew that Reticula had been recently brought up to journeyer status–the first designation after novitiate and acolyte where any member of the Enclave could be considered good at what they do– What annoyed Father Jacques right now was that Reticula was supposed a member of the regular Enclave, the world of Fathers Hospitality and Martial and Arcanum.

  Not here, the man thought with an echo of his old pride, in the secret workrooms of the secret order-within-an-order.

  “Magister Inedi sent me,” Reticula stated simply, as she stepped forward into the room, pausing to look around it. The Chief External wondered what it was she saw when she first regarded this place. The elf Terak had been agog at this space, that was at once chaotic and organized in its own way, and completely nothing like the austere and bare functionalism of the rest of the “public” Enclave.

  The workroom was really a narrow hall of sorts, or two stuck together, as it was L-shaped, owing to the fact that it was secreted in an out-of-the-way confusion of roofs and eaves high up in the Enclave’s fastness of the Black Keep.

  There were ancient and scarred workbenches along the sides of the walls, carved from thick planks of the Everdell trees. There, Father Jacques (and Terak, later) had decanted and ground many herbs and potions, poisons and curatives. There was the wooden practice dummy to one side
of the room, with scars and dents where both bare fists and small blades had been used in practice.

  High along the walls and under the thin windows were shelves filled with crates and chests, bags, books, and something else—

  “Ratachook!” A small, incredibly fast thing scuttled along the high shelves, weaving in between stoppered jars filled with strangely-colored liquids or behind caskets with heavy bronze and magical locks. The creature halted its crazed dash at the edge of the shelving, peering down to look at this new intruder into its home with apparent interest.

  “Oh!” Reticula said, taken aback at the subtle oddness of the thing. It looked no bigger than a rat, perhaps, with a long, prehensile tail, a quivering snout like a shrew, and deep brindle fur. But what was so strange about it were the giant emerald eyes that seemed to shine in the dark.

  “Frebius, leave the Journeywoman alo—hyech! Ach!” Father Jacques attempted to berate his little companion, before suddenly huddling over as more of the coughing spasms erupted through him. The proud and once-capable man attempted to cover his mouth, but it was no good. There was now a new layer of blood flecks and spittle all over the curative that he had been trying to create.

  Useless. Father Jacques wheezed for breath. Every lungful felt like he was swallowing sharpened nails. A wave of anger swept through him. “Useless!” He stated, banging a fist down on the workbench and making the glass plates and jars jump. If he had much more strength in him–enough to fuel his impotent rage–then he knew that he would have been tempted to sweep the entire scattering of implements and rare herbs clear from the bench to crash against the wall.

  However, even that felt too taxing for his weakened body right now.

  “It is as the Magister thought.” Reticula breathed in worry, crossing the space quickly to approach the Chief.

  “Stay back! Hyurk! Foolish woman—!” The chief was attempting to wave Reticula off with one arm. To his dismay, the young twenty-something woman casually put her bare hands on his own and eased them down with much more ease on her part than should have been the case.