“Yes!” she shouted. “Exactly! Where were you keeping this one, Breena? Let’s go. My ship’s maybe not as fancy as yours, but I built it to handle a good bit of magic before breaking. Just pour all the Water and Air magic you can through this thing. Morena, can you sail?” she asked, turning back to Val.
“A little,” my Vietnamese sister admitted. “Just send me mental instructions if I start screwing up.”
“I can do that,” Via nodded confidently. “Now let’s go! Follow my directions!”
She turned without saying anything else, because she didn’t need to. She sent directions through the mindlink at a rapid pace, pushing the magic to its very limit as our brains absorbed her commands. It was a lot to take in, but pretty soon, Val was darting around grabbing lines and rigging, and Breena and I were blasting the sails with Air magic.
Via began muttering spells as well, and I felt another water current begin to flow directly under our ship. It lifted the small craft slightly while somehow our sails shifted to more effectively catch the wind. Our little boat suddenly took off, blasting through the water at speeds we would have had difficulty matching even while going all out on the glyph ship. I heard the timbers creak dangerously, but Via had assured us the vessel would last long enough for our boarding action.
The Hordeship was still trying to correct its course in order to bring its ram back into play against my caravel. They didn’t adjust to their course in response to our second ship’s sudden increase in speed. Judging by Via’s excited reaction pouring through the mindlink, they wouldn’t have enough time to avoid our own charge. I had no time to try to figure out what was going through their captain’s mind, but Via’s desperate gamble seemed to have been spot on.
Next part is tricky, she sent quickly. Jump forward on my mark.
Breena flew onto my shoulder as Val and I took a running start. On Via’s signal, we leaped off the front of her boat. She leaped with us, spinning her whip around her head and chanting a water spell I hadn’t heard before. A moment later, a powerful blast of water propelled us high into the air, actually overturning Via’s breaking vessel. We adjusted our flight to drop onto the Horde ship’s deck, Val landing to my right, Breena still perching on my shoulder, and Via crouching in front of me.
Oh. My. God, Teeth gasped unhelpfully in my mind. Dat—
We are in the middle of a fight, I snapped as I tore my gaze toward more urgent matters. Stop making us stare at her hips, you horny idiot!
I wasn’t looking at her hips, Idiot replied. I was looking at—
I tuned him out completely as I finished taking in my surroundings. We were completely fenced in by a variety of Horde. At least half of them were the familiar wrinkled Ilklings, antlered wretches, and the dog-eared Miscreants I had encountered in the Woadlands. They seemed to be nothing more than expendable crew. The other half were a new breed of Horde I hadn’t seen yet—some scaly, finned humanoid that dripped a thicker, greener oil from its webbed claws. My mindscreen identified them as a previously unclassified Horde, now named Scum. They had fishlike faces with retractable fangs, which they bared at Via as she wielded her magic whip and began skillfully slicing through them with a surprising amount of strength.
Near the bridge, where I assume the captain normally waited, was another Malus Earthborn of medium build and grey-green tinted skin, and one of the largest Spawn I had ever seen, at just over ten feet tall. The monster was lean, wrinkled, and horse-faced like the rest of his kind, but judging by the oil-stained robes he wore, instead of the standard filthy loincloth, he had to be one of the more advanced Spawn.
I was already moving, summoning the Horde cleaver and bisecting a handful of Wretches around me. The remaining nearby Horde leaped away in terror, but out of recognition instead of fearing the brutality of my attack, like I had expected.
“Traitor-prince!” The Spawn screamed in a high, cracking voice. “The traitor-prince is here and not dead!”
“Deceived!” Hordebeasts all around me cried out. “Tricked! We have been tricked!”
“You have been false!” the Spawn shrieked at the nearby Malus Man. “And now our birth-home is in danger!
“Calm down!” the Malus asshole shouted back. “We’ll kill him now!”
What the heck is going on? Via sent as she sliced through a patch of Ilklings.
Long story, I replied as I cut my way through a Miscreant and headed toward the prow, where I could make out three more horse-headed Spawn waving traces of red energy through the air. They appeared to be preparing to fire on my caravel, but the cries of the Horde’s favorite name for me caught their attention.
“Kill him!” the chief Spawn behind me called. “Pin him down and save our Pit and kill the traitor-prince!”
“Yes,” the Malus clown said. “That’s all you need to do. Just swarm him and pin him down. You have the bodies for it.”
“No!” the Spawn shouted. “Not fast enough! Too risky! Throw everything at him! All of you!”
“That’s what I just said—”
I didn’t catch the rest of the oblivious liaison’s speech, as every screaming, filthy murderbeast tried to tackle me at once.
One of the new Scum leaped directly at me, trying to bear me down with his larger mass. He was supposed to be only a little weaker than the average Horde Mongrel. I caught him by the throat, squeezed viciously, and hurled him into a pack of charging Miscreants. While they attempted to disentangle themselves, I swept my Horde Cleaver around to tear through another pack of medium-sized beasts.
“Via! Val! Breena!” I shouted as I kicked in the chest of another Wretch. “Go for the mages in the front!”
“He speaks!” The Spawn shouted. “He speaks near the little ones! Save them! Blow him up right now!”
“What?” The Malus middle-manager said. “No! Don’t! You’ll damage the ship—”
“Kill the traitor-prince!” the Spawn crowding the forecastle shouted, just as an entire mob of Miscreants swarmed me. The horse-faced monsters finished forming their burning dark orbs and immediately threw them right at me.
There were now at least six human-sized Miscreants grappling me. There would have been more, but the three women who had boarded with me began desperately stabbing, slicing, and shooting the rest. I threw one back, kicked another overboard, and dropped the Horde cleaver in order to punch a third in the face, who promptly let go as soon as he heard his own skull crack.
Before I could fend off the other three revolting assailants, the caliginous fireballs exploded in our midst.
I screamed. My friends screamed as well, though not as loudly. They were hurt, but they had not been at the center of the blast. The three Miscreants still clinging to me writhed and fell away.
I burned. The fire poured through my script wards, through my armor, through my active and passive magic defenses. My nerve endings screamed as the flame went straight through my skin, my flesh, the center of my bones, and I swore I felt it go for the marrow inside.
Father, the filthy fire begged as I screamed again. Give us father. Please…
My children, Aegrim said, his voice dark with insidious hope. You remember me…
Father, the fire replied as it worked its way deeper into the cells inside my bones. He hurt us, Father. He changed us. Please fix us. Make us normal again.
Just kill him, my children, the Dragon of Affliction whispered back. And I will find a way to make you well again. I promise.
No, Teeth growled, I will not let this be.
The fire seared even more fiercely, but it began to draw out of my marrow. It began to congeal as it traveled toward a central point in my chest.
He has changed even you, Pain said to my own dragon. Because it is impossible for any of him to be great. I regret his birth, and every moment after it. He is a waste, and therefore, so are you. This power can no longer be yours.
Liar! Teeth roared. You are done taking from me!
I felt the fire transfer to my core, then up into my lung
s and the mana channels in my arms. Teeth wrested control of my arms and voice, acting immediately.
“STOP!” he shouted, and I felt my teeth itch from his use of my throat. “TAKING! FROM! ME!”
His words had hit the perfect pitch to produce Song magic, specifically the pitch of ‘fear’. The Horde fire fused with my magic, blasting its way out of my mouth and into the ears of the nearby Horde. Dozens of Hordebeasts fell to their knees, screaming and clutching their ears, begging forgiveness, before their heads exploded in a burst of smoky flame. The Ilklings and Wretches ruptured even more spectacularly, their entire bodies popping like balloons of fire. The Spawn and other Hordebeasts farther away managed to survive, though they still shrieked in agony and bled from their eyes and ears.
Not enough, Teeth growled inside of me, as I tried to regain control. I have to get it all out. Before it kills us.
Our hands flashed in two directions, one toward the prow of the ship, one toward the Malus man and large Spawn. We slashed out a dangerously quick, rough series of glyphs to empower, widen, and duplicate other spells.
Careful! I shouted at him. The deck was already a wreck from the fireballs and monsters combusting. Breena and the others are still out there!
I know, dumbass! Teeth snarled, They’re behind us!
He had moved quickly, while most of the deck was still reeling from our sonic attack. He aimed our stored fireball toward the remaining Spawn huddling at the prow, and aimed a lightning bolt at the Spawn and Malus man taking cover by one of the ship’s masts. The last of the Horde fire channeled out of both of our arms and infused the spells. Our fire and lightning both took on a dark red tint as they exited our hands before they passed through Teeth’s glyphs and began widening, intensifying, and duplicating. The glyphs were unstable and nearly detonated themselves, thanks to Teeth’s rough work, but they tripled the power, width, and quantity of my spells.
The Malus idiot had just enough time to open his eyes and observe the amount of power I had just generated, at least double the force that had been cast against me.
“Holy shi—”
To his credit, all he did was stagger when the first giant lightning bolt impacted his chest, though he jerked a little when that bolt exited his body to strike the Spawn next to him. A split second later, the bolt that had initially struck the Spawn chained over to hit him, lifting him off of his feet. The third bolt sent him jerking, smoking and screaming into the air, causing him to fly a couple dozen feet before landing in the water below the ship.
The Spawn had not taken my attack nearly as well. As soon as the first bolt struck him, the horse-faced monster collapsed to his knees.
“NOO!” the monster screamed as the lightning burned into him like fire. “I AM BEING CHANGED—”
Before he could finish screaming, the rest of Teeth’s magic tore him in half.
Behind me, the front half of the deck exploded.
The hull had been armored on the outside, but none of that protected the ship from any of the fireballs on deck, and Teeth had just launched three new projectiles that were even more massive than the ones that had just exploded on me. Hordebeasts and giant metal-plated planks of wood it flew through the air in burning chunks. Two of the three Spawn fell as half-melted corpses, but the third held on just long enough to lock eyes with me from across the boat.
“Traitor-prince…” he gasped, as his mouth and throat began to bubble. “Hate… you…”
The monster let out one final sigh, and then fell silent.
I wrested control back away from Teeth, and he didn’t fight me for it. His consciousness just sort of slumped, and it felt like half of my brain had gone to sleep, or was about to.
The other half of me still felt like it was on fire.
Despite feeling the fire burn all the way to my bone marrow, the outside of my body was fine. My flesh didn’t slough off, like the monsters I had just immolated. My bones didn’t blacken. My skin was still attached, despite the fire passing right through it. I looked perfectly fine, despite half of the deck being a smoking ruin, with small fires here and there.
It was my insides that were doing all of the screaming. My throat. My mana channels. I felt as if someone had mistaken me for a formula race car and poured nitrogen into my system to supercharge me, and that it had almost worked. It was hard to breathe, and even harder to realize that I was having trouble breathing. Everything alternated between numbness and searing pain, as my veins had become recently-fired missile tubes.
What the hell happened? I asked Teeth. He didn’t respond at first, but I kept asking him. It was all I could do now. I had fallen on my hands and knees, too hurt and too dazed to get back up.
Went right through us, Teeth finally muttered drowsily. It was meant to be our magic, so it went right through us. But we’ve become anathema to it. So it can’t decide whether it wants to kill us or be wielded by us.
Looks like it decided to try both, he concluded, his voice heavy with exhaustion . Can’t talk anymore. Thinking hurts too much.
This was bad. I couldn’t have possibly wiped out every single Hordebeast on this ship. My vital guard was too busy making my scorched heart beat to finish the repairs on its own. But within the next minute, blissfully refreshing healing magic washed over me, and I was reminded that I was still part of a team.
“I’ve got him!” Breena shouted. Through the mindlink, I could tell that the others had been wounded, but they had been knocked clear, and that Breena’s Wood magic had already helped them recover. I felt frustration over her inability to get to me sooner warring with the fact that rushing into all those intense explosions would have just gotten her hurt or killed.
“What just happened?” Via asked as she and Val knelt next to me. “And why do they keep calling him a traitor-prince?”
It’s super, super complicated, Breena sent quietly over the mindlink. Hold up. Gotta heal his circulation.
Why would they even call him a prince? Via demanded. And this isn’t the first time I’ve heard them chant that name. Are you telling me it has to do with him, all these years?
Yes, I chimed in, wincing as I made eye contact. Head hurts. Explain later. We safe?
Yeah, Wes, Val answered for everyone else. There were a few Horde in the back, but no more Spawn. We were able to handle the rest. You kind of blew up half the ship though.
We probably won’t sink yet, Via sent. But we need to hurry. You’re sure you can help the people in the Pit?
You grabbed Ball-ee again, right, Val? I answered, still tired, but understanding Via’s concern over the Pit victims.
Of course. I told you that earlier, remember? She sent to me. Or maybe you don’t remember, because you almost blew up. Concern rolled out from her. That was scary.
And it wasn’t supposed to happen! Via sent angrily. The whole point of the plan was that they wouldn’t risk throwing magic on their own ship! But they were willing to risk sinking it just to kill you faster!
Ow, I sent back. Via’s thoughts were really loud.
Sorry, she whispered, then I felt her realize that she probably shouldn’t be talking at all and winced.
Breena’s healing magic finally began to work. I felt Wood and Water spells repair whatever channels the Horde magic had used to move through my body. At the same time, though, I felt completely drained of mana.
“There you go, Wes,” Breena said, sounding exhausted. “I’ll need to do some more work on you later, as well as figure out what exactly happened. But for now, your vital guard should be repaired enough for you to move around. You won’t be able to regenerate your mana and stamina pools, though, so be aware of that.”
“Thanks, Breena,” I said as I slowly rose to my feet. I still felt tired, and Teeth was still quiet, but it would do for now. I took a step forward, and almost fell over.
“Vertigo,” I said quickly to everyone’s concerned looks. “We need to get to the Horde Pit inside the ship. And we’d better assume there are more monsters to deal
with.”
“Or we could just wait for your reinforcements to arrive,” Via said carefully, looking at me with a concerned expression. “You know? That ship you brought with you?”
The fires behind us had finished burning out. The disgusting Horde fluids coating everything had prevented the fire from completely eating up the ship. There were still giant, gaping holes everywhere on deck, but the fire hadn’t been able to burn through it to the level below. I saw Breena and Via fire off a few Water spells at some smoldering patches just to be sure.
Val tried to find a good spot for me to rest, but the whole ship was burnt and disgusting. Eventually she settled for pulling a bedroll out of her bag and laying it down for me to sit on. I waited there, my insides still aching, until the caravel pulled up alongside the half-scuttled ship. I watched the door leading into the ship’s hold warily, suddenly realizing that a massive oar crew meant that there were probably more Horde below deck, assuming that they hadn’t come out during the combat earlier. The fact that they hadn’t emerged afterward was disturbing, although all of the explosions could have scared them off.
The glyph caravel pulled up alongside us. Grappling hooks and boarding planks linked the two ships together. Breyn, Petal and the Testifiers led a small crew of Scholar-marines across.
“What happened?” Breyn asked as they filed onto the still-smouldering planks. “You cut off from the mindlink suddenly. And we couldn’t reconnect with you.”
“What?” I asked, confused. “I just used it earlier with Breena and Via.”
Can you hear me now? I sent, testing my connection to him.
Yes, now, he replied with chagrin.
That was weird, I thought. Maybe it was because of our distance, or the Horde fire, or just Teeth taking control. I’ll have to try and figure it out later.
After that, I explained most of what happened. Breyn stopped me when I started to describe how my insides had burned up.
Lighting Distant Shores (Challenger's Call Book 4) Page 37
