Michael Chatfield
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Ilus Rises: Chapter 3
🕑 Added 2024-01-01 12:00:07 +0000 UTCChapter 3:
Mya hummed to herself an old sea shanty as Mesurial creaked happily under her feet.
Even with a much reduced crew we’ve put on a pile of speed.
“You ever thought about travelling the realms as a trader? Always in need of a wind singer and water glider like yourself,” Mya said.
“Thought about it, but never been free to do so,” Desari said, expertly weaving water and wind together.
It was an art to see her guiding the water and wind. Something that only the most skilled were able to do, giving them thrice the effect for half the cost.
Valter stepped out of the hold, he’d shed all of his armor but his helmet.
“All cannons are loaded, their corks removed, hatches are unlocked and ready. I shifted some of the ammunition around to be ready to reload.” He carried out two crates that she knew would take two strong men to carry and put one on the deck.
“Why the helmet?” Mya asked.
“Ceilings are low and it sucked hitting my head all the time.” Valter walked down the upper deck and put another box down.
“Guess that’s only fair,” Mya said.
“Don’t think he’d do the best below decks,” Desari said.
“Nope, I don’t think that he would.” Mya’s mouth twitched. “Though it would be somewhat funny hearing him swearing at the decking and probably bending it out of place when he moved. You’d see him walking through the ship by the deck rippling.”
Mesurial creaked in displeasure.
“I wouldn’t actually let him do it and like him for sneaking you snacks now?”
The ship creaked again.
“And Petor, Mesurial you’re going to gain weight that way!”
“Beasts on the horizon!” Petor called from above.
“Well this is where things start to get interesting. Desari how long do you think that you can keep this up?”
“Four or five hours at current pace, without potions.”
Mya tapped the rungs of the helm. “What speed they coming at Petor?” She yelled.
“Spyglass is saying fifteen knots!”
“Horizon of thirty five kilometers, moving at Thirty two.” Mya muttered. “Make ready, twenty minutes till engagement! Trim lower sails to clear sightlines! Petor get down here!”
Sails were drawn up and away as Petor clambered down out of the rigging and back onto the deck.
“Remove the caps on the upper deck. I’ll fire as needed, you’re going to be on reloading. Remember, bristle brush to clean, then powder, then a wad and then a cannon ball. Load some up in your storage devices.”
Petor took out her spyglass and waved it at her.
She put her boot on the helm between the spokes and opened her hands.
He tossed it up to her and headed for the ammunition lockers.
Mya opened up the spyglass and checked ahead.
“We’ll hit them with the cannons as we pass them, then I want you to smooth out our passage and hurl as much winds into the sails as you can.”
“On it,” Desari said.
This was not going to be a stand up take them down fight, she could fire the cannons, but reloading them with just two novices was going to take time. She’d get one volley per deck, maybe another half volley on the upper deck for a second.
Might have them take the rear guns and reload those to deter anything that tries to turn and come after us.
She kept watching the horizon as her mind worked the problem and her different actions.
Her spyglass stilled as she moved with the deck, a comfort she’d missed on the land. It was little comfort now as she saw a beast crest the waves ahead.
“Well that is one ugly fucking fish.”
All tentacles convulsing together to send the beast shooting through the water.
There were dozens of beasts, serpents, mantarays, humanoid.
Two crashed into one another, devolving into a fight, the water rumbling with their attacks.
Mya closed her spyglass and stored it. “Well we stirred up some shit. Looks like a contest of ugliest shit dragged out of the seabed.”
The startling fact was their size, most of them half the size of Mesurial. These weren’t no simple beasts.
These are the kind that you could bind and wrap a doomcutter around.
“Ten minutes! Make ready!”
***
Petor squinted against the spray, the beasts cresting the waves, close enough he could start to make out defining features.
The waiting, it stretched, the cannons were ready, he stood at the bow of the ship, cutting through the water, the ship’s speed something to be felt as Mesurial cruised faster than he thought ships were capable of.
A cry rose from the beasts, one, then a half dozen then two dozen.
They jostled one another, coming into fights that frothed the seas, blood of different hues coloring their battlefields. Eager to claim their prizes.
Dunno if I’ve ever had a group of somethings so excited for me to die.
Not the greatest feeling that was for sure. If they wanted a chunk out of him, they were damned well going to pay for it.
“Hold steady!” Mya called, her voice clear and steady, as if she was standing right next to him. “Petor, if you can draw in power, dump it into the ship.”
“Understood.”
“We’ll hit them with the port and then the starboard, reload the upper deck’s guns only!” Mya continued. He knew that pre-battle cadence, cementing actions into troop’s minds right before the clash.
“There are rammers behind each of the guns, use the bristle one to clear out the cannon. Then shove in a bag of powder and round shot.”
Each and every gun was runed and enchanted like the one they’d used against Berox. Cannons that had harmed a god’s champion. A champion that was more god than champion at the time.
Glad I’m behind them instead of infront of them.
“Time for some hunting Mesurial,” Mya’s voice was a whispered promise.
The beasts were just tens of meters away.
Hatches slammed open on the port side of the ship, rope moving through pulley systems as the cannons runes lit with power and pushed out.
Mya’s cannons tore through tentacles, animated water and bodies, green, blues and red spread through the water as krakens were laid waste to, beasts of tentacle and fish, eels of different kinds.
Ice rippled through the water turning into a spear shaped iceberg that crossed their rear.
Pressurized streams of water left paths in the water or hit it with the force to impact like meteors would strike the ground.
Water rained down on the ship.
“Storm clouds are gathering,” Desari said.
“Little rain won’t hurt us.” Mya said.
“The elementals are calling them.”
“Well, that changes things. Keep out the damn rain!”
The ship jerked and skewed.
Planks grated and groaned, through the mast he could feel the ship moving. Distinclty aware that it was a multitude of parts, pieces of wood all pulled together to create the warship she was.
Petor gripped the rope in his hand tighter, its roughness digging into his skin. His other hand resting over a bristled cannon brush.
Desari couldn’t smooth out the waters completely with the beasts this close, the Dommcutter shifting randomly.
The beasts cries climbed to a new frenzy.
“Port cannons! Rolling barrage! Second deck, fourth, first and third! Then we roll to Starboard!”
Sails shifted as the ship swung out to the starboard side, presenting the portside and its cannons.
Cannons fired in a wall of noise, powder and force.
Petor went deaf as thunder filled his ears, his chest rung with the shots, terrified and elated at the same time. The barrages ran from the bow aft and from aft to the bow each shot hurling the cannon backwards, its violence reverberating through deck and up Petor’s boots and legs.
The smoke fell behind them with the speed.
The cannon balls glowed with white runes as they struck out.
Cannon balls sent up gyesers of water where they impacted in the tens, they crashed into the beasts, tearing them asunder with the crack of broken armor and bones, the slap of penetrated flesh.
Cries of victory turned into ones of pain and surprise as they learned a new truth. Their prey was not one easily consumed.
Dozens of beasts died, under Mesurial’s fire.
Didn’t like that did you?
Petor grabbed up the brush and moved to the nearest cannon, clearing out the remains and setting to reloading it.
He drew in the ambient mana suffusing the place and drove it through his boots, the runes around him glowing.
“Turning to port, Starboard ready!” Mya called in a song-like cadence.
Petor moved to his second cannon, the first covered in a blue glow as it winched itself forward.
Attacks struck around the ship and against her hull. Lances of pressurized water that cut into the wood.
Petor reloaded a second cannon as the last one on the port side fired.
The ship shuddered from an attack that ran through her keel and up her timbers.
Ice cracked under the ship as vortexes tried to pull her off course.
Mesurial creaked as she came around, attacks hit her rigging sending ropes and blocks raining down, holes appeared within he sails.
The sun changed position as he moved to his third cannon.
Smoke doused the area, his eyes itching and burning as he shoved powder into the cannon using the bristle brush, then dropped in a cannon ball and rammed it down with the end of the bristle brush.
His world had become reloading the cannons and shoving mana into the ship as fast as he could draw it in.
***
Desari looped her hand around the nearest railing, fighting the seas and commanding the winds.
“Starboard side! Fire!” Mya yelled beside her.
The cannons unleashed their terrifying broadside, the smoked making Desari cough and her eyes water.
“Ah fuck! I missed the smell of the powder I did! Nothing like a barrage to burn the nose and raise the spirit!” Mya cackled.
The cannons ceased fire, the smoke clearing through the decks.
“Full sail, full oars, bring her port and steady! Mister Petor, Mister Valter, I have gun runners barely out of their swaddling that could load faster than yah!”
Through the smoke Desari could see the enclosing ring of beasts now had a hole in it.
Dozens of seabeasts polluted the waters with their blood. They were all around them now.
Mya was mad, mad as even the worst of professors within Ilus.
She stood upon the tallest deck of her ship, as if it wasn’t tilted nearly horizontal to the water as she turned the helm.
“Trim that fore sail!” The sail slowly started to shift. “Not the same without a trained crew, no it ain’t.” Mya clicked her tongue as the wheel spun.
“Pile on the wind and smooth those seas!” Mya yelled. The ship leveled out, cutting right through the middle of the beasts she’d laid into with her cannons.
Desari drew on her connection to Irshon and to the water, guiding the rough waters away from their path, letting it surge at their rear to push them forwards.
Twisting the winds she empowered and strengthened them. Cooling the air behind and warming that ahead. Wind fell, cold and heavy, to crash into the waters, and into their sails.
“Full sail! Full oars!”
All the sails that had been drawn up, dropped back down, filling with the wind.
Mesurial cut through the waters, the chum of dead beasts.
“Soften them up and plow right through.” Mya looked ahead, wisps of her hair whipping around under her hat, her hands held behind her, almost relaxed.
Mesurial crashed through the rough waves.
“Port and Starboard barrage!” Mya called out.
The cannons fired right along the line of beasts, raking those up and down the line.
More blood spread in the water. Beasts turned on one another for an easy meal.
They gathered their speed an increased it, Desari parting the winds and waters ahead of them as the wind rushed to fill their sails.
Wood creaked and groaned. Barrels were hurled out from launchers on the rear deck, bobbing in the waters behind them. The launchers readied themselves again. Mya moved amonf them, dropping in new barrels that were launched after them.
“Desari, any more wind for us?” Mya called out.
“I can do more, but won’t we be going too fast? It could break the oars below?”
“The damned down there can handle it. Mesurial’s barely stretching her legs, the canvas is sagging!” Mys snorted.
“Okay,” Desari put more power into her wind spell, hurling it against the sails.
“Mister Valter, Mister Petor, load every other cannon and then move to the stern or rear as you landies like to call it. I believe I’ll have need of your new found skills.”
Cannons belched along the rear of the ship.
“Hold fire!” Mya called.
She clicked her tongue, looking back.
“What’s wrong?”
“Nothing, they’re eating one another and killing the weaker ones, though most of them are still heading in the direction of Irshon.”
Desari looked back.
The water flattened a mist running off of it, Mesurial shuddered.
“Brace!” Mya yelled.
Desari looped her arm through a length of rope.
The wall of mist slapped Mesurial, her sails, pulled forward, the masts groaning and creaking in an alarming way.
Noise filled her world as the mist hit like a thousand needles. Detonations sounded out. The stinging mist faded as Desari looked over.
“The hells was that?”
“Irshon,” Desari said.
Flashes of light over the horizon eclipsed that of the sun.
“The tops of the waves were cut away, to make it smooth and the damn mist hurt. Didn’t he say he was weaker?”
“Aren’t we weaker after we died.” Desari looked at her. “Even if we have less power, we still have all of our knowledge. Irshon has only continued to learn and grow his libraries.”
Mya looked at the lights illuminating the horizon. “A damn dragon turtle.” She shook her head and looked ahead. “Just what kind of craziness have I got myself into.”
“Says the woman holding a warship in a bottle.”
Mya snickered and patted the helm.
“Cannons are loaded!” Petor yelled up.
“Well start reloading the others, never know what might happen out here in the seas,” Mya called back. She used a roped to secure the helm and pulled out Irshon’s maps, securing them to a nearby table.
Desari relaxed her hold over the winds and the waters, smoothing out and redirecting both in a way that would allow her mana to refill.
Why would they keep charging towards Irshon?
She snapped her fingers.
“What is it?” Mya asked.
“Why they’re charging Irshon. They have to know he’s strong but they’re still willing to rush at him. The wave of power that was released when we entered the plane. It was fueled with energies from the other planes.”
“I’m sensing that’s a big deal but I don’t understand why,” Mya said, using some tools tied to the desk to check the maps.
“At convergence points where the planes connect to one another, that’s where you can find the strongest elementals. They’re natural gathering points where elements are stronger, elementals and people of the planes trade in all kinds of goods. It means that they are also places where there’s conflict. Whoever can get there first and claim a territory close to where one can pierce the plane’s barriers, is set to increase in power rapidly.”
“And we’re headed right for one of these points?”
Desari watched Petor and Valter moving along the deck, reloaded the cannons and placing the corks back on their ends.
“Just so.”
“May we live in interesting times,” Mya said. She checked the maps and a compass, then moved to the helm, loosening it and bringing them onto a new heading.
Desari checked her core, the essence swimming within, yellow heavily speckled green. Not much longer.
Back in the material plane she could summon her elementals once more, offer them a new contract. They had power, they had position and they’d given it up to hopefully repair her soul.
