Bloodsword: War of the Leaf

On Silvered Wings, . . .

They came hurtling out of the sun, five crescent moon shapes that moved without a sound as they sliced through the sky horns first, gleaming dully in the sunlight.  Then, with the merest whisper they streaked by overhead in loose formation, close enough to see the strange whorls and patterns etched into their alabaster skins.  They could also see that the crescents were man-high at their thickest part and three or four times as long from horn tip to horn tip.   

Close enough to see, that is, if anyone had been paying attention.  But, after an achingly long moment of stunned silence at the sudden and absolute destruction of the Dawn Princess, the pirates turned.  They had to forget the Princess’ heart and keel, of gold enough to have taken her crew across the vast reaches of the Eastern Meridian and beyond, over the Cold Horse Flow to the mouth of the Kardell Straits and to her final resting place here.  And, with desperation born of nothing to lose, they doubled their efforts against the surviving crew of the Cloudwalker.   

Shouts of fury joined howls of pain even as pieces of the Princess continued to drop into the water, and steel clashed against steel as the struggle was renewed.

But the flying crescents didn’t remain unseen long!  Even as they lazily rolled over and turned back to where the Walker bobbed in the swell, several crew and pirates both caught sight of them.  It was either out of the corner of their eyes, or looking past an opponent as they shuffled back and forth on the gore-covered, body-littered deck, swords flashing as they attempted to cut and avoid being cut.   

Tev grimaced as he knocked a stocky sailor’s blade aside and ran him through the heart and then kicked him off the sword with his boot.  As the body fell to the deck with a wet thud, the tall human found himself momentarily alone.  And thus he was in the perfect position to watch the five half moons roll over about 5 leagues distant to the west.

  “Eh?  What, in the name of the First, . . .” He muttered softly, squinting to make the crescent shapes out.

Then, much to his surprise, two of them barrel rolled and plunged horn first into the surging sea.  The remaining three wheeled and suddenly accelerated towards the Walker.

  “Scales of the First!”  Tev hissed, eyes widening as he watched the crescents leap towards them.  Then he frowned as he saw the horns suddenly flickering with a strange light.

  “What sort of strange magic is this?”  He whispered huskily, the surging battle around him forgotten as he stared skyward.   

With the sound of death’s own whispered greeting, the sails were slashed to ribbons by great scythes of pure light.  Then, with a harsh, grinding ‘crack’, the second mast was sliced in two.  In the next heartbeat the jagged stump splintered as the top of the mast, weighed down by a mass of rigging and sail, not to mention four pirates, twisted to the side.  It slowly ripped free of the tenuous hemp web that held it in place to drop to the deck below.  An elven crewman had just enough time to look up with stunned shock on his face and emit a thin squeal of pure terror before the jagged end punched through his body and into the deck beneath.

  “Maker!”  Tev breathed, eyes wide with shock.  He had been standing only two paces away from the elf that was crushed!

With a hand that seemed to be moving as if it were in quicksand, he brushed at the blood splattered on his face as what was left of the crewman’s body twitched gruesomely beneath it’s burden of seasoned wood.  Then, with the snarl of parting rope, the harsh scream of canvas tearing and the shriek of dying wood, the other masts were falling, as if trees cut by a giant woodsman’s axe to tumble untidily onto the already red-flowing decks below.

Tev’s head snapped around and up as a sharp whip-crack of sound announced the first mast’s demise and he was in time to see the massive spar of wood shatter about a third of the way to the top and begin to drop, knocked off center by some strange force.  A shot of pure adrenaline raced through the big human’s body at that sight and he bolted forward with a speed born of desperation, aided by the icy chill that now spread through his body like the fingers of an advancing avalanche, lending strength and speed to tired muscles.  

With a roar and the ‘crack’ of wood, the great mast fragment punched into the deck, just missing Tev’s feet as the lean pirate dove at the last moment.  He rolled hard over the debris and body covered deck and skidded to a halt just before falling through a gap in the gunwales to the heaving sea below.   

Hearing the mast fall to the deck just behind him, its burden of sail and rigging right on top of it, Tev scrambled quickly to his feet.  And, at one look at the devastation that was the mid deck, he whirled to his left and made for the forecastle, pushing aside a Solavar sailor that stumbled blindly into his path.

As his foot hit the first step on the ladder, Tev heard a strange ‘whooshing’ sound.  Glancing over his shoulder, he was just in time to see the two crescents that had plunged into the sea, suddenly emerge, one after the other about a half league off the ‘Walker’s stern.  Rolling upright, they streaked towards the limping ‘Walker, running parallel to her long axis, horns flickering with deadly light.   

From where he stood, Tev could see a trail of splashes racing towards the ‘Walker’s damaged stern and quickly put the facts together.  ‘Those flying things are some how firing that ‘light’ out of the horns and it’s ripping everything apart!  Including the Cloudwalker and most likely the Dawn Princess.  Dragons!’  His eyes widened.

‘Those things are going to hit us!’

In the time it took for Tev to draw breath, the light, with a roar and a bright flash, leapt across the water and ripped into the Cloudwalker’s listing body, blowing massive holes in her already weakened hull, shattering the helm and obliterating most everything else.  With static ‘crunches’ of power, the explosions began marching down the length of the ship, punching holes in the Cloudwalker’s decks as they came, flinging debris and bodies in every direction.

Tev needed no further encouragement.  Even as the mid decks disappeared in a fury of exploding wood, sound and light, he stepped to the front rail and, in one smooth motion, dove to port into the dark, swelling sea.  As he hit the water, Tev felt a ‘crump’ of shock as the explosions reached, then tore apart the forecastle.

Going deep as the ‘Walker began her death throws above him, he kicked hard, before rolling up towards the light and clawing for the surface.  Breaking through with a loud gasp, he looked over his shoulder at the sinking vessel just as the crescents were coming in from the west in loose formation to pound the ‘Walker with several more blasts that tore massive holes in her starboard side.  Then they went over and, with a deafening explosion, Captain Kaluus’ pride and joy joined the Dawn Princess on the bottom, shattered into a million pieces in the blink of an eye!

Tev blinked rapidly at both the salt water in his eyes and with the flash of light that accompanied the explosion.  Kicking to keep afloat, he spit out seawater as it slipped into his mouth while he bobbed in the water, trying to see past the red afterimages that now took up most of his vision.

Thus blinded, he didn’t even see the chunk of timber that suddenly dropped out of the sky onto the top of his head, the world going black after a flare of stars and blinding pain.

His last feeling was that of sinking.

Sinking, deeper and deeper, and deeper.

Then the Third Dragon rose up off her bed on the bottom of the Meridian and, opening wide her vast maw, swallowed him whole into the warm and wet depths of her lightless belly and reality vanished.

                                  

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