Valor and Violence

“I haven’t seen much of you these last couple of days,” Leo shouted over the roaring wind.

“I’ve been otherwise engaged,” Ferez shouted back.

Conversation was difficult as they careened through the stone forest, scant feet above the churning sea below. Leo kept trying anyway.

“Rekindled the flame with the lady love, eh?”

“Flame the what?”

“The lady love!”

“No, she’s in the second wave. Come on Leo, we talked about this.”

Leo shook his head and refocussed on flying as a whirlpool in front of them abruptly collapsed into a titanic geyser. He swooped around it by the barest of margins, salty spray peppering them as they jinked through a final, dense cluster of spires and shot out into the Wail’s harbour. The pirates were waiting. Archers lined the dock, loosing an uncoordinated volley as the ballistae above launched their deadly payloads.

Ferez clapped his friend on the back.

“Phase two?”

Leo turned his head slightly and nodded, his hand signing out a rapid staccato of symbols as a shield of ice grew up from the front of the board. The first few arrows thudded harmlessly against the improvised assault vehicle as it climbed higher into the air, still screaming towards the fortress at incredible speed. About fifty metres from the docks, Ferez made his move, toppling backwards off the board into freefall. He took a split second to stabilise his fall then unleashed powerful jets of flame from his hands and feet, propelling him towards the ballistae in a screaming ball of flame as Leo changed course and dove headfirst towards the small army of archers.

Noticing the mages separate, the ballistae switched targets, tracking Ferez as he closed on them. The first war machine fired, the bolt hurtling through the air towards him. He laughed and threw himself into a roll, his fiery contrails twining behind him as he spun aside, the missile soaring harmlessly by. More bolts followed the first, but they were too slow to hit such a nimble target. He darted through the storm of lethal missiles, closing in on the panicking crews.

He crashed into the first ballistae platform in an explosion of flame, the magical assault disintegrating the siege weapons and hurling the crew over the edge. He looked down, watching the flailing pirates until they hit the ‘ground’. Most plonked into the water, instantly vanishing into the black water, while others slammed into the dock, one particularly unlucky slaver landing atop a squad of archers. The men went down under the flaming corpse and the fire spread to the wooden structure just as Leo made landfall.

His board exploded in a cloud of scything ice shrapnel, tearing through the assembled fighters in a spray of refracted sunlight and blood. He kept moving, charging into the disordered survivors in his terrifying suit of armour as water coalesced around the stump of his arm. Before Ferez could see what form the Resonance item was forging, however, the twang of another ballistae snapped his attention back to his own task.

He looked up in time to see another missile lance out over the water. It arced through the air to splash into the water just astern of the first longboat breaking out of the stone forest. It was still too far away for accurate targeting, but it wouldn’t be long until they were in range. Ferez crouched, summoning Talent to his legs, and jumped, an explosive boost propelling him up and onto the offending platform. A crewman spotted him and shouted a warning, the pirates abandoning their weapons in favour of bows and blades.

Ferez threw up a shield of flame, disintegrating the volley of arrows launched at him. Then, with a slight mental effort and a wave of his hands, he parted the curtain of fire to see his foes. Nine men, three charging with swords, five nocking arrows for a second volley. He formed his right hand into a fist and punched, the physical motion helping to conceptualise and channel his Talent as eight balls of flame erupted from the shield. They shot across the platform faster than the men could react, each missile exploding simultaneously against a lightly armoured chest. They couldn’t even scream as their torsos ruptured from the explosive force, bits of their upper bodies blasting chaotically across the platform.

With a grim smile, Ferez scanned the platform, checking for stragglers. He was alone, save for a few crackling spot fires and the scattered remains of the artillerymen. With a deep breath, he reabsorbed the rest of the shield back into his body. This battle would be hard fought, he needed to preserve his Talent where he could. He tossed a pair of fireballs at the remaining siege weapons and leapt onto the final platform, fire coalesced around his hands.

The fire dissipated as he dove aside, a lance of stone shooting past. He rolled to his feet, cursing his luck for running into Nezir already, but instead of the pirate king, he found himself face to face with a pair of nondescript mages. One, sporting brown hair, was chuckling as he straightened back up, while the other stared Ferez down with a scowl poking out from beneath a mop of raven black hair.

“Oh, thank the gods,” Ferez said, dusting his robes down as the mere mortal crews stared nervously between the three mages. “I thought I was going to be fighting your boss for a moment. He’s a scary man, if I’m being honest.”

“True, he is,” the Terran mage replied with a deep belly laugh, “but I think you should be more concerned about us at the moment.”

“I highly doubt that, whelp. Do you know in whose presence you stand?” Ferez asked, planting his hands on his hips and puffing out his chest.

“Yeah, the Crimson Blade warned us you would be back. High Mage Ahud, right? You’ve got quite the reputation.”

“I don’t suppose I’m notorious enough that you would just stand down and let me destroy that artillery over there?” he said, waving a hand at the ballistae.

“Absolutely not. You made a name for yourself batting runts that never learned how to stop suckling at the colleges’ tits. We, however, have nothing to fear from you.”

“Uh, huh. Tell me, though, why did you abandon your colleges and throw your lot in with Nezir?”

“Money, of course. And the freedom to do whatever I want to whoever I want.”

“Disgusting, but expected. And what about you?” Ferez asked, looking at the Umbrian. The man gave him an open-mouthed grin, exposing a gaping hole devoid of teeth or a tongue as a raspy laugh issued from the mangled orifice.

“Right. Crazy. Got it. Alright, I’ll make this quick then. I’m on a tight schedule.”

The Terran chuckled and sank into a deep stance, Talent surging through his body as the platform rumbled. A chunk of stone the size of a draft horse erupted into the air behind him, rising higher and higher. It was an impressive display of raw power, and Ferez whistled as his gaze followed the boulder.

Then his hand shot out to the side, wrapping around the Umbrian’s throat as the dark mage materialised at his side. With a pulse of Talent, Ferez immolated the fool, his flames overwhelming and quenching the pirate’s shadows before he could attack. A pitiable wail filled the air for a few seconds, before Ferez shot a lance of concentrated liquid flame from his palm, scything the blade left to right through the Umbrian’s neck, severing his head from the rest of his body. As the charred corpse collapsed onto the ground, he tossed the head at the feet of the Terran.

“You aren’t going to hit me with something that cumbersome. If you’re going to be the distraction, at least make it plausible.”

The Terran’s face scrunched up into an expression halfway between rage and panic as the boulder splintered into a dozen smaller shards. With a desperate scream, he hurled the earthen blocks. Ferez grinned and charged into the onslaught, rolling to the side to avoid one missile as it slammed into the platform, then firing off a sharp burst of fire to throw himself clear of another. He threw his hands behind him and let rip, rocketing towards the earth mage faster than the man could adjust his aim. Another jet of fire from his feet set him spinning through the last few feet of space between them before his enflamed boot crashed against the side of the pirate’s head. There was the barest hint of resistance before the skull evaporated under the assault and his foot passed cleanly through to the other side. He finished the spinning flourish and landed, facing the cowering ballistae crews.

“Boo!”

*

Ferez threw a Flash Bomb at the head of the stairs, blasting the pirate reinforcements streaming onto the Wail’s roof, then parried a rusty scimitar and booted its wielder in the gut. The scarred man folded in half from the blow, but another took up the assault before the former had even hit the ground. Ferez fell back a couple of steps and pivoted, spinning around a clumsy thrust and reversing his grip on his own sword. He rammed it through the pirate’s back, then immolated the first pirate as he tried to rise.

He doubled over, planting his hands on his knees as he panted. Corpses littered the ground around him, but still the tenacious scum kept coming. Shouting from the stairs indicated the pirates had already recovered from the Flash Bomb and were renewing their attempts to retake the top of the Wail. He hadn’t recovered his breath, but even so, he had no choice but to straighten up and limp towards the stairs, blade held loose by his side.

He exploded the head of the first slaver onto the roof, then darted forward, pushing the headless corpse into the press of bodies behind it. Following the improvised barrier into the fray, he laid about with blade and boot, kicking screaming men over the railing and severing vital blood vessels or, when that wasn’t achievable, limbs and heads.

Gods, I hope Ingrid gets here soon.

After his initial onslaught, the pirates recovered and slowly started pushing back. Step by step they forced him to the head of the stairs, then onto the roof proper. He incinerated a small group that tried to break around his flank, but the reprieve was short-lived as more followed in their footsteps, forcing him to retreat to the centre of the roof. The pirates surrounded him, but paused at the last moment, each man unwilling to become the mage’s first target.

It’s a good thing they didn’t know how low on Talent he had become. Ordinarily a crowd like this would be trivial for the high mage, but he had burned through a vast swathe of his power propelling himself to, and then up the Wail’s wall. If his back up didn’t arrive soon, he would be reduced to nothing but his blade. And outnumbered about twenty to one? It would be a short, sharp end to the battle for him.

A nervous pirate crept forward half a step, and on realising he was still alive, took another. Emboldened by the small victory, a few more pirates followed suit, pensive expressions giving way to the cruel smiles of sadists realising they have the upper hand. Before they could charge, though, they froze, eyes turning to the sky as their jaws dropped open.

Ferez turned, shielding his eyes. The gesture was unnecessary, as the massive vessel in the sky blotted out the sun. The bulk of the transport was a roughly cylindrical canvas like material with more traditional sails arrayed in a ring around its middle. Ingrid’s battle barge hung beneath it, suspended by a network of taught ropes.

Her clan’s innovation had joined the assault.

As Ferez stared, an army of men appeared at the railing, crossbows levelled at the crowd below them. The pirates panicked, tripping and shoving each other as they ran for the safety of the fortress, but they weren’t fast enough. Black fletched bolts rained down from above, barely any missing their mark as shaft after shaft found a target. The pirates fell in droves, some still trying to claw their way to safety even as their blood gushed onto the fortress’ roof. Thick ropes fell from the airship next, landing between the survivors and the staircase as heavily armoured Hauskarls slid down, shaking the roof with the impact of their landing. Half fell upon the fleeing slavers while the rest moved to the stairs, disappearing into the fortress in a spray of blood and falling axes.

With a weary sigh, Ferez plonked onto his arse, absentmindedly wiping his sword clean on a dead pirate’s shirt as the airship descended onto the Wail. More Skjar leapt onto the fortress as it touched down, followed by some of Leo’s marines. After a few seconds, Ingrid herself vaulted the deck guard and alighted delicately on the ground.

She had upgraded her armour to something befitting her status. The underlayer was a full suit of form fitting leather armour, dyed the colour of dried blood and reinforced with steel chain. Black steel plates covered her chest and legs, the metal accentuated with blood red swirls in the intricate Skjar style. The heavier plates were absent from her upper arms, leaving the shoulder joint able to fully articulate, though her gauntlets, extending all the way to her elbows, were about twice as thick as they needed to be for some reason. Probably to add weight to her blows when she was punching people.

Her head remained unarmoured, however. She left it bare, save for a jagged tiara of black steel inlaid with the same blood red ornamentation as her amour. The largest ruby Ferez had ever seen was set in the central spike, sparkling in the early morning sun. She cut a figure both terrifying and awe-inspiring as she strode towards him, and it took an undue amount of mental focus to keep his blood flowing to his skeletal muscles and not somewhere else.

As she approached, a gust of wind swept across the roof, sweeping her long braid into a mesmerising flourish, trailing behind the rest of her regal form as she said, “What the fuck do you think you’re doing? We don’t have time to be sitting around!”

“Huh?”

“Haven’t you checked on Leo and the fleet? They’re getting massacred down there.”

Ferez lurched to his feet and ran to the edge, looking over the side towards the docks. The fleet had landed, but their attempts to establish a foothold had stalled. More ships were approaching, but the stone forest was a bottleneck, slowing the rate at which reinforcements arrived. The pirates had seized on this and were throwing everything they had at the marines and Skjar, trying to push them back into the sea. The melee was chaos, small groups of Leo’s men and northern raiders fighting back-to-back, scattered about the docks as the pirates swarmed. Mages stalked from group to group, massacring the alliance forces while Leo traded blows with Nezir himself in the thick of the carnage by the fortress gates.

Ferez scowled. Because of course he was having a relatively easy time of it, Nezir was letting the top of the Wail go in exchange for stopping the fleet from landing.

“Ingrid. Cube,” he said. Ingrid produced a small brassy cube from a pouch at her waist and tossed it to him. He snatched it out of the air and greedily sucked the Talent out of it, the sensation of raw power coursing through his veins setting his heart beating harder and faster. He looked at Ingrid and nodded.

“Let’s go.”

The corners of her mouth turned up in a savage grin as they sprinted to the edge of the roof and dove headfirst over the edge.