Chapter 6 - Part 4

“You heard me!” she said. “Furl them up! Let them close the distance to where we can hurt them! Range is their friend, not ours, so long as that wizard lives!”

Her crew nodded and with a few swift motions untied the sails so that they rolled up. Small Potatoes was now drifting, carried on solely by inertia and the waves.

“Two hundred feet and closing!” Dennis yelled.

A grappling hook was fired from the enemy ship but splashed well short.

“Show us what you can do, bounty hunter!” Belliose yelled.

Delegado rushed to the back of the ship and began firing. He went for the lightly armored warriors first, using the regular arrows from the quiver that Belliose had given him. He picked off four men with five quick shots. The enemy crouched down, trying to avoid the deadly longbow.

“Why don’t you go for the ones in chain mail first?” Dennis called down.

“Because they can’t swim in all that heavy metal so they’re not as dangerous!” Delegado called up. “Keep an eye on that wizard and keep those alchemical flasks ready!” Belliose was steadying a crossbow, and ordering her people to hold fire. Their weapons did not even touch the range of a longbow in the hands of a child of Tharashk.

“You are good with the bow,” Equilibrium said.

“No kidding,” Delegado replied. “Get the first barrel up!”

“One hundred and fifty feet!” Dennis cried out.

“Close enough, then,” Delegado muttered. The half-orc took careful aim, and fired three more arrows. Three sailors manning the sails died, and their ship swerved and slowed a fraction.

The wizard appeared over the prow railing, holding a bloody, burnt shoulder, and he cast a spell. A swirl of barely perceptible energy swarmed over the back of the ship. It did not affect the psiforged or the nearest half-elf, but it caught Delegado dead center.

The half-orc staggered, his limbs drooping, his eyelids like stone. He was so tired.

“Wake up!” yelled Belliose. The half-elven woman was shaking Delegado’s shoulders. Crossbow bolts were being traded between the two ships. It felt like he had just that second closed and opened his eyes, but he was now lying on the deck, his bow and arrows a few inches from his outstretched hand. Dennis was hurling flasks, no longer calling out range, and one of Belliose’s human warriors was shivering up on the forecastle, his mind collapsed by magical fear.

“I am ready!” Equilibrium called, desperate emotion tingeing the psiforged’s voice.

Delegado jumped to his feet, grabbing his bow and arrows. The wizard sent three magical darts into the half-orc, pounding harshly on Delegado’s pectorals and chest. The half-orc ignored the pain, sending his second magical fire arrows into the barrel of lamp oil that was now hovering thirty feet above the enemy ship’s forward section.

The barrel burst open, and flaming oil landed on top of both the wizard and the men in chain mail. Their shrieks could clearly be heard, and the prevailing winds brought the smell of sickly roasting meat to the crew of the Small Potatoes.

“Wizard is down!” Dennis called. The halfling slammed a chainmail-clad warrior with a flask of alchemist’s cold, and the shock of cold after fire made the man fall over the railing into the sea. He did not surface.

“Get the next barrel over their rigging!” Delegado ordered the psiforged. As the crystal-covered construct complied, Delegado sent an arrow into the still form of the wizard, to be careful, and then started raking the deck to catch any of the other men still moving. Crossbow bolts from the crew aided him, and the enemy crew died quickly.

Delegado watched the last man on the vessel, a slim but muscular man with a violet-hued longsword. Delegado couldn’t be sure, but he thought a dim glow emanated from the man’s eyes. You’re not exactly human, are you? Delegado thought to himself. “Belay the oil barrel!” the half-orc yelled. It came flying back to the Small Potatoes as the psiforged obeyed. “We’ll use it on the next ship, there’s only one man alive there, not enough to run it! They won’t catch us!”

Belliose ordered the two remaining half-elves to secure the rigging and get the sails up again, and she sent Jak below to work the rudder by hand. Hal, the human who had been overcome with magical fear was standing, shaking his head, the fear apparently gone.

“I started to get better when the wizard died,” Hal explained, embarrassed.

“Never mind that,” Delegado said. “Secure Meddin so he won’t roll over and get injured worse! Dennis, how far away is the second ship?”

“Five hundred feet and closing,” the halfling shouted down. “No wizard, regular captain from all appearances, but the same crew and soldier component!”

“Your ammunition?”

“Three flasks,” Dennis answered. “Two acid and one fire!”

“Call range at the hundred foot markers!” Delegado ordered. “Then at one-fifty!”

“Bright Soul's Day is a bad day to die,” muttered one of the half-elves. “Who will sing paeans for us?” Delegado ignored him, except to grumble to himself. He could still smell Ois’ hair, and that alone kept him from punching the half-elf in the mouth and asking the man what the Flame would do to help them.

Dennis yelled down the four hundred foot mark not long after that. By the time the second ship got within three hundred feet of the Small Potatoes, Belliose was crouching on the deck near Delegado, rubbing the Khyber dragonshard and speaking urgently in a language that sounded like bubbles moving through a pipe. Delegado sent two arrows towards the enemy ship, trying to make them crouch. He actually hit a man in chainmail, but not very badly.

“Stay ready!” he ordered Equilibrium. The psiforged nodded, ready to make the oil barrel take flight again.

“The third ship is swinging around to our starboard!” Dennis called down. “It looks like they’re using some wind magic again, but I don’t see any scrolls!”

“Your mind-powers?” Delegado asked Equilibrium.

The psiforged nodded. “It is certainly possible. An Inspired of great mental power has been in charge of the pursuit of me for some time. She is probably the captain of the third vessel and the commander of this naval group.” He concentrated a moment, staring at the third ship. “And her crew appears to be using psionic devices.”

“What’s an Inspired?” Delegado asked, firing one of his human bane arrows. It hit a human warrior in studded leather armor who screamed horribly before dying.

“Two hundred feet!” Dennis yelled.

“You don’t want to know,” Equilibrium said, noting the third ship. “Just know that she is probably trying to get around you, to cut you off. She will not join the battle just yet, preferring that we spend our ammunition and power on the second ship.”

Hal had finished securing the unconscious Meddin. He came up and fired his crossbow. Despite the fact that the enemy ship was still well out of optimum range for a light crossbow he managed to clip one of the chainmail-clad soldiers in the leg.

“Nice shot,” the half-orc offered.

“Thanks,” Hal said. “I, um, found Meddin’s hat. I put it on him.”

“He’d appreciate that,” Delegado told him. He readied his fire arrow, locking his eyes on the approaching second ship.

“One hundred and fifty feet!” came the halfling’s call.

“Now!” Delegado yelled. A fired bolt from the enemy ship flew harmlessly to the left of him, missing by some ten feet. “The rigging, Equilibrium, now!”

The oil barrel flew through the air, arcing up to go above the enemy ship. Some of the enemy soldiers threw javelins or knives at it, but to no effect. It rose above the rigging and Delegado fired.

His shot wasn’t perfect, but it didn’t need to be dead center. The barrel burst as the previous one had, this time showering the rigging and sails with flaming oil. Two sailors working the sails died with horrible screams, while the man in their crow’s nest gagged and slumped over, overcome with heat and smoke. The Riedran ship fell behind rapidly, as its sails became non-existent.

“Two down and one to go,” Delegado said. Everyone hooted and cheered, even the psiforged, surprisingly.

Everyone except for Belliose. “I can’t get it to come out,” she told Delegado. “That ship’s wheel that was destroyed at the prow would have helped me control the elemental, but –” She grimaced. “It’s wounded and scared now, and not listening to me.”

“That Riedran ship is spending a lot of power to get after us,” Delegado said. “We have no more oil barrels, and little in the way of ammunition left. I’d keep trying if I were you.”

She nodded. Delegado turned to Hal. “You have any Jorasco potions on board?”

“Yeah, an emergency kit,” Hal said. “I’ll go get it and give it to Meddin.” He turned to go.

“No!” Delegado said. “We’re going to use it on the elemental.” Hal looked puzzled, but ran down to the hold. The half-orc turned to Belliose. “It will work on the elemental, right?”

“Yes,” she said. “But it will be a small patch on a small scar, it doesn’t have the power to restore such a large elemental fully.”

“It doesn’t have to, it just has to calm the elemental down, assure it that we can give it more if it gets us out of here,” Delegado explained. “Then you can get it to come out.”

“That’s good,” she said, a slight smile flickering at her lips. “I thought orcs were supposed to be dumb.”

“And I thought elves were supposed to be arrogant jerks,” Delegado responded with his own ghost of a grin.

“Final enemy ship approaching one thousand feet!” Dennis called down, spoiling the moment.

“I wish I had taken the time to learn one of those magical healing songs,” Belliose sighed.

“Wishing doesn’t build bridges,” Delegado said. He looked at her curiously as she went back to sweet-talking the elemental. “What can your songs do, other than make us feel confident?”

“That I can only do once a day,” she told him. “Otherwise I can do minor tricks, make small repairs, create a few moving lights, and conjure up a temporary flute. That’s it.”

“No fireballs for you, huh?” he said, massaging the places on his chest where the wizard had injured him with the magical force darts.

“I was a dilettante,” she explained. “I played around the bars in Fairhaven until my father asked me to become a businesswoman.”

“I bet you miss the bars in Fairhaven,” he joked.

“My favorite one was burnt to the ground by Thranish troops three years ago,” she said. She looked back at the dragonshard. “The elemental can feel the enemy ship coming at us, it won’t budge while they’re near, it’s scared of them.”

“You can’t make it more scared of you?”

“I’ve never slammed it with a fire spell,” she said. “I think honey will work better than vinegar right now anyway. Hopefully that Jorasco potion will get here soon.”

“Tell it some funny stories.”

“Elementals don’t have a sense of humor even when they aren’t bound into service.”

“Then tell me some funny stories.”

“How about the one where nineteen years ago a love-struck half-orc offered to buy me dinner?” she snorted, eyeing the approaching enemy ship.

“Maybe I’ll tell you some,” he suggested. His words made have been off-hand, but his tone was all business as he fingered his arrows.

“Let me get back to convincing the elemental,” she said. “We can trade tales later, assuming we survive.”

“Eight hundred feet!” Dennis yelled. “They’re pushing at their sails with crystal-tipped wands!”

“You can feel free to dive overboard at any time,” Delegado muttered to Equilibrium. He wasn’t entirely sure if he was joking or not.

“They would still try to kill you,” the psiforged told him. “They want no one to know of me.”

“Joy.”

“Seven hundred feet!” the halfling called down.

Equilibrium glanced at the bound hobgoblin, craning his neck to study the filthy, one-handed captive. “I don’t suppose –”

“No.”

Belliose was talking rapidly in the watery language now, but her face was growing desperate.

“Their captain is a woman, she’s spreading crystals on the deck around her!” Dennis called down.

Delegado took out those arrows that were tipped with adamantine, silver, and cold iron, and set to work. He fired them all, as carefully as he could, but the distance made his shots go off target. A few did slam into the side of the ship. He hoped he was making their enemy nervous at least. He was certainly nervous. If there was a wizard on that boat everyone on the Small Potatoes would be dead within minutes.

“Six hundred feet!” Dennis called down.

Delegado tensed, but no spells or mind-powers came their way. Next to him Equilibrium was speaking softly to himself. Was the psiforged praying?

“Five hundred feet!” Dennis called after another minute. “Hey, these guys just pulled out shortbows!”

Delegado hissed between his teeth. Equilibrium manifested a force screen, and the sailors did their best to maintain optimum sail configuration.

“Four hundred feet!” Dennis yelled.

Arrows were fired their way, falling short or to the side. The half-orc grinned humorlessly. They were firing their puny bows way too early. He waited, sighting a human bane arrow on the closest archer.

“Three hundred feet!” Dennis yelled.

Delegado let go, and followed up quickly. He went through the few remaining enchanted arrows he had, and then set about emptying the rest of the quiver of arrows that Belliose had given him. His powerful bow twanged relentlessly, the tight and thick bowstring that few besides him could pull punching each arrow forward relentlessly. The crystal wand wielders were the first to die, falling over in a slump. Their sailors were second, and after they fell the unattended Riedran rigging and sails flopped about, causing the enemy ship to begin to fall behind. Delegado’s last few arrows took out the light infantry manning the shortbows.

“I’m out!” the half-orc yelled.

“Their heavy infantry are still there!” Dennis called down. “Along with that funky captain!”

“But they can’t operate their ship now,” Delegado said. He slung his bow over his shoulder, patting it as he did so. “Range beats numbers, every time.”

“Well done, Delegado,” Belliose told him in between her promises to the elemental.

“Hey, the captain lady’s eyes are glowing!” Dennis said. “She’s bleeding from her nose and eyes!”

“She’s burning herself out,” the psiforged said. “Why?”

“Those crystals on the deck around her just flared with light and burned out!” the halfling added.

“Hal, where the f’test are you with that potion?” Delegado roared.

The enemy ship suddenly jumped in the water like a horse clearing a gate, landing within a hundred feet of the Small Potatoes. The soldiers in chain mail gripped the railing as their ship crashed down, steadying themselves with white-knuckled hands. Delegado could see their faces now, and they were not quite human. Their postures, their eyes, something about them was off.

“Stupid puddle-spinning beast!” Belliose snarled, punching the metal around the dragonshard. Delegado thought he heard Hal’s feet coming up from the hold, but he couldn’t be sure in all the commotion.

The female captain of the enemy vessel slumped to the deck, unconscious. Delegado thought he saw her body twitch, and then the body of the chainmail-clad soldier in the lead of the heavy infantry pack twitch as well.

“It jumped from her body to his,” the psiforged said, fear creeping into his voice.