Sailing Ether Tides

Sailing Ether Tides

Ch: 25 Purple Haze

On a slow, deep bend in the river, Amy called the halt for the day, a quarter mile from the outskirts of a small, riverside town. They could just hear the chime of sixth bell, as she nosed MissAdventure right into a mossy clay bank for a moment so Maya and Frank could disembark and scout.

Amy reversed out of the sticky clay with an effortless flex of her Will and scooted over to collect her team for the evening ritual, depositing the boys ashore a few minutes later.

They had a fine view of the river from the alder and willow lined meadow, once the tiny compound was established and the boats were moored up on the dock.

Rolf, Angie and Ester clattered up a few minutes later, looking exhausted and very pleased with themselves.

Angie slipped from Rolf’s lap, where she always perched, on a specially designed and crafted saddle; one that allowed her to enjoy riding in her husband’s arms all day…

But now it was certainly time to enjoy not being in the saddle, a point Ester made by shivering all over, flinging a light mist of sweat over everyone within two yards around.

“Right, dear! Let’s get you groomed and into the baths.” Angie gave the giant unicorn a good scratching under her chin, while Rolf got busy with her tack.

The whole mob swarmed the houses and garden, in an excited, gabbling mess… Exactly the kind of busy, chaotic, bustling home the Ward kids had grown up in.

“Ah… That’s the stuff.” Wilf muttered, sinking down onto a stool in his workshop for a good long evening’s relaxation...

Amy sighed as Frank, Rio, Maya and Otho the dog, Ivy’s gigantic, red haired canine familiar, all headed off into the woods, foraging with Dannyl. They disappeared quickly in the bright, golden afternoon; no doubt hoping to find something tasty and dangerous for dinner. Wilf and Tallum had, of course, vanished down into the shop for some much needed quiet time with their crafts; Wilf especially had been getting twitchy lately.

That left Angie, Becky, Ester, Ivy and herself at loose ends for a couple hours…

“Shopping in the village?” Amy suggested cheerfully. “I think they’re having some kind of celebration.”

“We should check the job board while we’re here…” Becky murmured with a smile for the tiny white bird perched on her shoulder, whispering in her ear. “We should stay here a day or two, Jules and Grace are coming upriver behind us… so is Gabbie.”

“Ooh! Sweet!” Amy chirped and giggled at the news then began doing a quick inventory of their stores, with her magical internal system doing most of the work. She sketched out a quick shopping list while the others got ready, idly watching the antics going on atop the town’s low wall. The ruckus from the town was really picking up as the small party of ladies prepared for a gay afternoon’s outing. They were waving flags and blowing horns pretty excitedly…

The party of fair damsels skipped down the river road, accompanied by sirs Rolf and Kermal. The two young lords were dressed in common clothing and bearing shortswords to satisfy their knightly duty to go forth armed, even at a market festival.

“They really are carrying on…” Kermal remarked, as the celebrants atop the town gate became even more excited.

“Rolf… I smell something icky…” Ester complained softly, just as a crude arrow bloomed from Becky’s right shoulder, accompanied by a small flight of short, flint tipped shafts that failed to find flesh.

#

Dannyl, Maya and Rio slipped through the woodlands in silence, stalking the glades and meadows, in hopes of finding something tasty to bring home, while Benny, Frank and Otho roamed in a group collecting spring herbs and mushrooms.

The forage team was having far better luck than the hunters, who had yet to startle anything from the woodlands, neither had the foragers… no deer, skunks, badgers or even squirrels moved through the quiet, pleasant forest.

Frank gently cut another handful of wooden crown mushrooms from the fairy ring he’d found under a wide spreading oak. Acorns littered the ground as well, undisturbed by any small creatures for a few days at least, to his eye. The pickings were pretty good, even so close to town, almost as though no one had been out gathering for a few days…

“Guys…” Rio’s voice interrupted Frank’s ponderings with quiet urgency. “There’s goblins in these woods. Let’s form back up and head to the house. I’ll let the…”

“Goblin attack on the road.” Amy’s cold, calm voice interrupted, overriding the comms array with her own gift for speaking through shadows. “Unknown numbers, but they have at least a few archers. Becky’s hit, we’re holding for now.”

#

“I should have worn my robes…” Becky hissed, as Kermal gently cut the crude rawhide lashings holding the flint arrowhead to the shaft.

“It went through the meat of your armpit, love… this is going to hurt.” His quiet voice cut through the din of battle as he worked with furious intensity and great care.

“Careful with that, Kermie…” She gasped softly, as he slipped the slightly crooked shaft back out of the wound in her shoulder, ignoring the clash of arms all around the pair. A moment later, her small, dark hands took the ends of his completed bandage from him as she whispered: “Go get ‘em, Kerms.”

#

Lickspittle sighed contentedly through his ragged, blackened teeth, gusting a whiff of charnel filth over his gathered warband. His skirmishers had already thrown the humans into a panic, clustering in a tight circle on the road… neither of the males and none of the women were outfitted for war, with just a pair of swords between them. Time for some delightfully easy pickings at last!

The human town had buttoned up tight at their first sight of his mighty warriors, snatching up their delicious children, livestock and pets before the Blackened Root tribe had been able to do more than raid a few chicken coops and carry off some sheep.

His small team of Liggzerz withdrew back into the woods, their flight of liggz had only struck one of the females… and the small one in bright blue seemed to be armored, under the shiny coat she wore…

He sucked a morsel of nicely aged sheep heart out from between his back teeth and chewed thoughtfully savoring the rich, half putrefied sweetness, as his skirmishing Kiggzerz lowered their stone tipped weapons and charged from the underbrush. This was going to be good!

#

Amy swept a half dozen crude arrows from her bright blue naval coat and leapt to the right, as a score of short, gray-green humanoids, dressed in armor of rawhide and bones charged from the roadside brush, thrusting with stone tipped spears at sir Rolf.

His shortsword clashed, clattered and sang out a few sharp chiming notes, hurling sparks and three flint spearheads and one greenish hand off into the bushes in an exchange that left the small creatures shaken. They formed up in a ragged cluster, just out of reach of the small blonde man’s short weapon, considering their next move…

Ivy slipped around to Rolf’s left, as Amy moved into position, her hand on her sabre-hilted belt knife. The small blonde mage clutched a stout walking stick of knobbed blackthorn in her trembling, shaking hands.

#

Lickspittle roared with rage as three small humans in normal clothes ripped his skirmishers to bloody rags in just a few horrible moments.

The little blue one drew out a short knife… and just kept drawing, until she held a long, shining blade of curved steel, set in a guard of shining bell brass. She lashed, slashed and stabbed her way through six of his warriors without even getting anything on her shiny blue coat…

The goblin warchief raised his stubby ram’s horn and blew a short, sour note. The command rang out through the woods, sending all his force into the battle. One human girl was not going to…

The little blonde girl in pale green skirts used a walking stick to bash the brains from his second, Glaggath’s skull, showering the nasty stuff all over Kekkheef and Fliglull, his two steadiest veteran warriors. They were looking less eager for the fight, now that they were coated with the bigger gobbs thinkin’ stuff.

The girl snatched up poor Glaggie’s prized, stone headed club in her free hand and began a mad, furious, whirling dance of death through the flanks of his warband, reaping them like wheat.

Things were not going as Lickspittle’d expected, but the sound of low, thudding drums and skirling antler pipes rose behind him. At least his shaman and cultists were more reliable… Their poisons and sorceries would turn this around soon.

He turned his full attention back to the battle, as his elite warriors entered the fray, Stone headed whomps and jagged, flint tipped kiggs, thirsty for human blood.

#

Ivy spun, bashing a spear aside, shattering the shaft in the process. She liked this goblin’s club… the young mage decided, as another of the green creatures slumped to the dusty baked clay of the road, with his head even more misshapen than before her contribution.

A good thirty more surged from the woods at the doleful squawk of a primitive warhorn. These wore more layers of hide and bones and one or two bore simple shields. Larger, better equipped and far less hesitant than the first wave, these warriors were the core of any gobbo warband.

A savage whoop from Amy drew her gaze; there were at least twenty five more, closing in from the woods on her side of the battle as well, along with a few more hesitant arrows, launched from the treeline.

Ester hovered over her fallen friend, glaring furiously at the raiders. The three combatants smiled grimly at the line of goblins, forming up just out of reach. Kermal joined the human line on the River Road, their backs to the waterside and town, with at least sixty visible foes closing in. Crude, primitive music sounded from the deeper thickets, drawing the attention of darker forces and buoying the spirits of the notoriously flighty gobbos.

“Good sized warband…” Rolf muttered to Kermal, as he shook blood and other things from his shortsword. “Ester, look after Becky until…”

Rolf cut off suddenly, as the town gate, a hundred yards down the road creaked open and ten men in farmer’s homespun, carrying woodcutting axes and pitchforks charged down the road, whooping and yelling at the tops of their lungs. The gobbs backed into a tighter knot, bristling with crude spears and javelins, huddling close while their chief’s warhorn honked at them to attack

.

“Well, that’s a pleasant surprise!” The young knight barked, as the villagers rushed up and joined their line, brandishing their weapons with as much ferocity as anyone could hope for.

“Gods, people… Get your arses in motion, we’ll hold them off while you get into town!” The largest villager shouted at the small group, standing firm on the blood spattered road. “They have witches and dark magics too!”

“So do we. We’re mostly Adventure guild members, between contracts. Do you hear that?” Rolf asked calmly, as the townies huffed and puffed into formation.

Faintly, under the noise of the furious gobbs and the dull hooting music of the witches, off among the trees, something sweeter and more musical was slowly gathering…

“Here come our heavies, as well.” Kermal muttered to the panting farmers and townsmen.

“I love the hustle and courage you’ve displayed, my friends… But these fellows have chosen poorly. Team Ragamuffin will be all over them before they can get…”

From up the road, where the moored boats and cluster of improbable houses lay, two large, armored figures were flying toward the battle, astride some kind of silent, two wheeled mounts. Only the whirr of gears and a dreadful, Shing Shing heralded their approach. Their strange mounts vanished, as both large, heavily armed and armored men barreled into the suddenly very nervous, massed goblin infantry with a terrible crash.

“Gentlemen,” Amy spoke firmly and with absolute confidence, while her uncle and brother began their work. “Please watch over our injured comrade while we mop the floor with these little jerks.” Something about the little lass in fancy pirate dress rang out across the battlefield, drawing every eye and ear to her commands.

With that, the brightly costumed girl led her elders into the melee with a shivering, crystalline cry of pure bloodlust on her lips, lifted higher by the music now clearly and loudly playing from deeper in the woods.

Born ta raise hell,

Born ta raise hell,

We know what we’re doing

and we do it real well!

The townsmen stood on the blood and corpse covered roadbed, guarding the girl who was woozily climbing to her feet, her arm bound and in a sling, while the weirdos did horrible things, to the driving beat of raucous, violent speed metal screaming from the deep woods.

#

Lickspittle realized that the music was different, after the girl began her chant… Enraged by their failure to dominate the battle and buoy his warriors’ flagging courage, the chief spun around, glaring at the thicket where his shaman hid. He squinted his sun blinded, red rimmed eyes at his coven of witches.

“Windshrike…” He snarled at his witchdoctor. “Why aren’t you working your arts?”

#

Maya and Frankie slipped through the woods behind Dannyl, silent in their soft hunter’s gear, while Rio and Benny went with Otho to join the main battle on the road. As one, the trio halted outside a dense thicket of alders, the source of the atonal, alien music drawn from primitive pipes and drums.

“I’ve seen this before. They’re trying to call in a spirit of the deep void to help them… some minor demon.” The older warrior whispered. “Maya, get ready to do your thing. Frank, watch our backs while we do the wet work, be ready to take over the spells.”

Dannyl whispered under the low notes of the witches’ musical workings he pulled a long knife and a hatchet from his harness and smiled. Between eyeblinks, they vanished among the scrawny saplings and thick underbrush.

Alone, Frank began laying out his ritual space, cordoning himself off with strands of braided silk, strung from nearby saplings and shrubs.

With an almost audible chime that he felt in his bones, his construct closed, giving him a sense of the living beings and active magical workings in the local area. Every leaf in every tree became a subtle part of his own Animus, as his life force flowed through the roots of the entire forest. Without breath, he began fingering the proper notes on his flute, the soft puffs of air from his fingertips providing the only sound needed for this dark, quiet song of life’s endings and peaceful rest. With steady and constant effort of his finely honed force of Will, young Fank inveigled his own music into the hooting noises of his foes. With gentle care he slipped his senses through their convoluted spellwork, following the threads of real power to their source; a few poor animals’ souls, bound and tormented to draw in something vile from beyond.

With a slow, deep breath, Frankie turned the music, and the ritual on its head. Spells of restraint, imprisonment and torment became a soft peaceful voice, guiding the tortured souls home to rest and be reborn.

#

Maya was almost invisible, once among the shadows and trees, her lithe, supple movements drew her through the dense woodlot like a will-o-wisp, silent and dangerous. At the center of the thicket, where a mighty tree had once stood, several small green and gray men played crude skin drums in a semicircle, enclosing three partially feathered female creatures dressed in the rags of human clothing, still bloodstained from their prior owners.

One played a flute carved from a human femur, another held a human skull pipe, the man’s contorted face and scalp still clinging to the grizzly instrument. The third held a rattle of fingerbones and a child’s skull, keeping time under the direction of a bat winged, brown furred humanoid, clinging to a moldering, insect riddled tree stump.

The bat creature was busy, carefully mutilating the corpse of a small dog with a flint knife, working to draw in a bloodwing wraith for a few precious minutes of carnage.

The werebat shaman, his three stonefeather harpies and all six of his goblin cultists were slow to realize that they were under attack, as two dark armored humans fell on them with terrible speed and ferocity.

#

Windshrike, the blood warlock, was a professional, which made this failure even more embarrassing! ‘This must be some failing of the goblin cultists…’

He thought grimly as he struggled to salvage his ritual. Trying to get decent results from goblins was a losing proposition anyway, he reflected. ‘Shrike glanced around this ritual site, to see which of the little shits had broken formation to nibble on one of the sacrifices, that was usually the problem.

The werebat warlock barely had time to look up from his grisly work, before the small woman’s slim dagger pierced him through the belly and up into his diaphragm, silencing any cry he might have attempted.

#

Lickspittle’s eyes took a moment to adjust to the cool forest dimness… His precious coven was sprawled on the leaf litter, bleeding their lives into the thirsty soil, when his eyes refocused.

A small, ginger human male in dark leather armor grinned down at the goblin chieftain from a bough high up in an oak tree. “They left you for me…” He sighed happily, as a long, strange serpentine thing uncoiled from his hand to slither through the canopy with a soft rattling hiss. “...Terrible, what you did to that poor dog. That’s why I’m taking this personally, just so you know. Otherwise I’d have let the kids butcher you.”

He hopped down from his perch, his long, ominously twitching and slithering weapon stretching out across the short distance between them.

Lickspittle snarled and drew his badge of office, a real steel sword of human make. He thrashed the short arming sword side to side furiously, cutting at the air in a manner that always intimidated his foes, as he backed away from this human and toward his warriors on the road.

The human followed him in a leisurely stroll, smiling horribly all the while. “Your warband is finished…We took your archers before the spellcasters, now my kids are… Well, you’ll see.”

They crossed the treeline, the man still casually pursuing him through the woods, until bright, cursed sunlight blasted his huge sensitive eyes, as he peered at the battle unfolding not far away…

A small platoon of armored humans had come from somewhere, wading into his warriors and thrashing them to bits with terrible momentum.

In the brief glimpse he allowed himself, a slim, dark female human bashed one of his warleaders across the skull with her long black iron flute, scattering teeth, blood and brains all around. A scant few yards off, a giant in heavy steel lobster plates and a bullhide and steel kilt swung a warclub around his head; with no less than three crumpled goblins still wrapped around that terrible, bronze studded log.

Another pair of giants, one in red and the other in green carved a bloody path with spear and warhammer, dancing with each other to the thundering music, as together they pureed a dozen of his best warriors.

“Now look to yourself and despair, goblin. I’ll be thrashing you within an inch of your miserable life.” The ominous, small man whispered, as a woody clatter and hiss sounded from the leaf litter and weeds at his feet.

Cowardice warred with desperate fury for just a moment, before the muscular green humanoid leapt at his tormentor with a wild, ululating scream of rage.

He slashed and flailed his sword wildly, with his eyes closed in the prescribed manner, using the highest level goblin martial arts with consummate skill.

With the swiftness of a striking adder, the man’s strange wooden chain weapon lashed out of the weeds and undergrowth, catching him in its coils in mid air. As he thudded to the ground, his sword clattering off onto the road, the man smiled happily at him.

“Mindless aggression… classic.” Dannyl murmured to the trussed up goblin chief. “We killed your witch doctor by accident, my sweet Maya loves doggies. Hopefully you will have some answers for us, otherwise…” He shook his head sadly and sighed.

“Well, that’s too awful to contemplate right now… Let’s watch my kids finish cutting yours apart, shall we?” He took a seat on the creature, still neatly wrapped in several coils of sturdy, thorny, wooden chain links.

Lickspittle watched in horror, as a massive silver unicorn rampaged around the perimeter of the battle, trampling and skewering his fleeing warriors and whinnying with equine delight. The humans on the field were just as terrible, hurling the bodies of his underlings aside to land in bloody, sprawling disarray.

By the waterside, a huge red gold dog mauled and savaged the few who tried to sneak away down the reed choked banks; he dragged them out screaming and shook them into limp, ragged heaps; dropping the corpses among his previous victims, scattered all around.

A dozen of his remaining warriors turned and bolted for the woods, stampeding their way in a tight cluster, lost in animalistic spear wielding, desperate, terror stricken flight. The man seated on the chief stood and unbuttoned a wooden case slung at his hip. Letting another long, slithering chain slip out into the grass; this one made of gleaming, thorny links of sharpened bronze.

Still holding the handle of the chain imprisoning the goblin chieftain, he flipped his metal weapon lazily across the grass at the approaching warriors, who remained determined to skewer and trample this lone human and escape.

A sudden, fierce, metallic roar cut the already noisy battlefield, as all of the charging goblins fell to the weedy roadside verge in a spray of bloody chunks and severed limbs.

“You’re caught in my training weapon… even so, I’m having to really concentrate to avoid turning you into a pile of loose meat.” The man said pleasantly, as his metal weapon shook all over like a wet dog, then rolled and thrashed in a patch of clean grass, to get the blood and remnant flesh out of its links.

#

“Otho! Bad boy! Don’t eat that!” Ivy scolded her mutt, who snuffled in disappointment and abandoned what was left of a harpy with a soft grumble of complaint.

“Yeah, well if you roll in anything gross, you’ll be sleeping outside for a week, buddy!” She shook a tiny, pale finger at the massive dog.

“I don’t care if Liam lets Audrey eat goblins… I won’t have it.” She waved at Dannyl when he strode into the battlefield in the midst of her tirade.

“Get anything out of him?” She asked, once the dog was suitably chastised.

“Nah, he was just some punk who thought he’d start his own tribe. They came down from the badlands and hooked up with the werebat and his coven in the wilds, probably just coincidence.” He settled down into a crouch, looking over the would-be chieftain’s sword.

“Nice work, this. Pretty new as well. No maker’s mark, but it’s a decent sword.” He eyed a few other real weapons in the pile of junk the kids were collecting.

“Do you think, maybe someone has been supplying the gobbs?” He asked softly. “I’ve been seeing more and more of them lately, and more with real weapons and tools.”

“What, like a plot or some kind of scheme? Are you sure you aren’t imagining it?” Ivy gave him a stern look.

“Ward has much the same worldview Gary had when he showed up… Suspicious, sneaky and always looking for the hidden trick or trap in every kindness.”

“Yeah, but remember those sprayers and the bags of algae stuff the pirate ghosts had?” He murmured softly.

“They were ghost pirates, Dan.” She grumbled. “I remember… I couldn’t read what the bags said.” She growled angrily and continued sorting through the ‘spoils of battle’.

It amounted to a few daggers and kitchen knives, a woodcutter’s ax and a few dozen flint tipped spears and javelins. The chief’s sword landed in the pitifully small pile of goods, beside an only slightly larger pile of scrap metal.

Ivy still held the stone headed mace she’d looted from a fallen goblin elite, idly spinning and twirling the surprisingly well made weapon in her hand.

“Find something good?” He asked, professional interest sparkling in his eyes.

“I dunno, I’ll have Wilf and Becky look it over when they are done with the witches’ instruments.” She murmured.

“Feels good though.”

She glanced over to where Amy and Becky were holding court with the excited locals. “We should get things buttoned up for the night, soon. I’m worried a party might pop off.”

“Too late.” Dannyl muttered gleefully, as a work crew came stomping out of town and started gathering the corpses, while shooting nervous glances at the tall, silver horned equine still patrolling the treeline.

“...Come on over for a garden party, bring the family…” Amy was chirping and bouncing about like a songbird in springtime, pestering the headman relentlessly.

Frankie and Maya had Becky in hand, leading her back to the houses, her arm in a sling.

#

“...some kind of intoxicant…” Becky mumbled sleepily, as Frankie put her to bed, under the worried gaze of her husband. “I’ll be fine in a couple hours.”

“It’s a drug preferred by slavers and flesh peddlers.” Frank murmured as they closed the bedroom door after themselves. “It lasts a long time and can become addictive with continued use, mostly it’s a soporific.” He frowned darkly.

“Redleaf requires real alchemical knowledge to produce and it has a distinct smell that tells users and producers out in civilized lands.”

“You think someone supplied them? For what? To capture human slaves?” Kermal asked softly. “They are too… impulse driven, rapacious and cannibalistic to be manageable.” He shuddered at the thought.

“Maybe so…” Frankie muttered darkly.

#