An angel’s road to hell

85. Of explosions, transformations and a little bit of success

Cassandra Pendragon

A few minutes later I was staring up at one of the flying stones, blood slowly dripping from the corpse behind me, filling the room with the heavy scent of death. Up until now it had been easy. I had chosen the ship to our left and Viyara had levitated me over, still hidden behind Erya’s magic. Once I had been beneath the hull, I had shrugged off the concealment and used my wings to crawl along the thick planks, their weathered surface harsh against my skin. Nobody had been able to see me from above and I had had to be only a little careful to stay out of sight of the neighbouring ships. Every few metres I had gingerly pushed a wing inside the ship and used my second vision until I had found the stone chamber. One lonely pirate had been on watch, struggling to stay awake in the pressing heat. I hadn’t hesitated. A shower of sparks later he had sunk to the ground silently, his heart and lungs pierced by torrents of light, which had brought me to where I was.

The room had a similar design to what I had seen before. Suspended in midair the flying stone was connected to a series of strong metal rods that continued on into the ship, forming its skeleton. The heat was channeled from the furnace next door through a pipe that bathed the stone in a stream of hot air, guaranteeing the necessary temperature. Sweat was running down my back and the rich smell of burning wood assaulted my nostrils. I strained my ears to hear anything over the rumbling of the furnace and the hiss of hot air but no alarm reached me. I hadn’t been noticed, yet.

I pushed the dead pirate in front of the door and made sure it was locked, feeble a protection as that might turn out to be. My wings slithered over the stone and I used my second vision to search for anything that struck me as odd. Since I didn’t understand any of the enchantments it was a doomed endeavour from the start but I hoped I might spot how the spells might differ from the ones I had encountered before. I didn’t. The whole thing was completely alien with a decidedly dark tinge to its energy. The spells were more complex and somehow appeared sturdier, the lines of powered that formed them more condensed. Ah well, I hadn’t expected to know what I was dealing with anyways. Like last time I was just going to punch a couple of holes into the matrix of the stone, shred the enchantments around it and run like hell, straight through the hull and towards the ship Erya was on.

“I’m in front of the stone. Where are you?” I sent a tentative thought in Viyara’s direction. Her reply came instantaneously:

“Nearly there, I can’t get inside without causing a ruckus. I’ll transform on the outside and smash the whole segment to bits. There are some feeble spells worked into the wood but they won’t stop me. If necessary I’ll just rip the stone out of the ship. Let’s wait until we hear from Erya, then we can go to work.” It didn’t take long, maybe 5 minutes or even less, but nervous as I was each second was drawn into a minute while I listened for a sign if I had been discovered. To somewhat occupy myself I searched through the chamber, staying well away from the sea of blood the dead pirate was lying in by now. My experiences on Boseiju had instilled a bone deep weariness of turning my back on fallen enemies, though, so I kept him in my line of sight. If even a single muscle twitched I’d tear the body to shreds.

I didn’t find anything particularly interesting, some tools and schematics for the mechanical parts of the chamber and a communication crystal. It wasn’t active and probably to be used in emergencies to alarm either the captain or the designated acolyte. I stayed well away from it, as well.

Just when I was about to start worrying Erya’s thoughts brushed against mine with the familiar tingle I had come to associate with her using the focus. Viyara’s presence followed swiftly:

“Pete and I are set. There are seven acolytes aboard our ship, 3 of them on deck and 4 in their cabins, alone. We can easily deal with those and I prepared some spells that should keep the others occupied for a while. Now that I have been close to one I can tell you what they are as well. They’re very sophisticated golems, grown from the soul of a victim. They aren’t alive, their astral bodies as well as their life force were consumed in the process. They’re constantly taking in what they lack from their surroundings which makes them devilishly hard to damage with spells, as they can absorb almost anything that’s thrown at them. That’s also how they can cast, by the way. They don’t fuel their spells with their own energy but manipulate what’s already around them. I’m going to fill their cabins with gas, there are quite a few natural ones that eat flesh in a heartbeat. They’ll be reduced to goo in seconds. I think I can handle the ones on deck as well, but, as much as it pains me to admit, I wouldn’t mind both your help. You can just tear them apart physically, their abilities be damned. They won’t see you coming, I’ll make sure of it.”

“We’ll be there as fast as we can,” Viyara replied for both of us.

“Good luck, I’ll see you soon.” I extracted my mind and flared my wings, it was time to act.

The silvery blue torrents of energy danced through the air, a shower of sparks ignited wherever they tore through an enchantment or the other. Silver, red, yellow and purple lights danced across the walls and along the stone before my wings cut into it. Energy surged through various safeguards and an alarm shrilled, once, before the spell formation that fuelled it crumbled. Acrid smoke rose from tiny craters the rupturing enchantments had torn into the stone and its casing and faint lines appeared all over its surface. With a final twist I made sure I shredded even the last bits of magic that still clung together. The fissures immediately flared with red light and a deafening crack reverberated through the chamber when the stone was blown apart. A wild surge of energy crashed into me while I lost my footing, gravity gone the moment the ship fell freely.

I tumbled backwards, the world around me turned into a mad display of colour, flames and shrapnel. Before I was thrown into a wall or peppered with stony fragments I raced along the silvery paths in my mind and vanished. A roaring thunderstorm of magic burst from the ship and turned it into a flame spitting spinning top while it sped towards the waves, more than 2 kilometres below. One of the side masts nearly struck me square across my stomach when it rushed past but with a violent contortion I managed to get out of the way. A second later the last flailing ropes soared past and the ship was gone, becoming smaller with every breath I took. It carried with it a choir of desperation, one I was becoming awfully familiar with: the voices of men who knew that the end was neigh. There was no stoicism, only pure, undiluted screams of panic.

With an effort I tore my eyes away from the death trap the ship had become and surveyed the scene before me. Viyara had been even faster, her gleaming, snake like body slithered through the air, below her a ravaged carcass of burning wood and mangled metal plummeted through the sky. She had made good on her words, the flying stone was still intact and hovered by her side, the cooling rock slowly losing buoyancy. Her claws had torn deep gouges into its surface and broken metal stubs still showed where it had been connected to the ship. Wooden splinters covered her claws but she seemed unhurt, an impression that was quickly supported by her turning in midair and sending a jet of golden light interspersed with motes of silver after the already beaten pirates. A fiery sphere swallowed the stern and hungrily gnawed at the sails, the wind from their fall providing an endless stream of fresh air to feed the flames. The ship had turned into a blazing meteor on its final voyage towards the ocean.

Viyara’s huge, golden eyes met mine across the distance and we simultaneously focused on the last one flying. I recoiled in surprise when I saw what Erya had done. The masts, the planks, the steering wheel, basically every piece of wood on the third ship had started to move. Blurry faces and gnarled limbs snapped and clawed at every thing in range with the strength of a falling tree. The sails were slowly drifting towards the deck, the rigging ripped and shredded by claw like extensions that had grown from every wooden surface. Further down the hull, a sickly yellow gas was pouring from several portholes. It didn’t appear to damage the ship but wherever one of the desperately fighting pirates on deck came close to one of the clouds, his skin started to blister immediately. If the poor sod was unlucky enough to tumble through a swath of the stuff completely, amidst the obligatory hacking and slashing to keep the wrath of nature at bay, he’d fall to his knees on the other side, his skin and most of his muscles gone.

The animated parts of the ship were mostly focused on the three acolytes that stood back to back in the middle of the deck. Admittedly, if a pirate came too close they’d crush him instantaneously or throw him at the golems directly but the reaching tendrils and gnawing maws were directed towards the unmoving group at the centre. They stood there like statues in the eye of the storm, the conjured elementals withering away as soon as they got close to them. And the longer they weathered the onslaught the brighter the runes carved into their skin glowed.

Suddenly a visible stream of energy, sparkling with red and purple light slammed into them from above. Utterly surprised I frantically searched for the source and quickly traced it to the ships we had destroyed. The thick torrents were still pulsing towards the acolytes even though several hundred meters separated them by now. A sinking feeling spread through my stomach. We hadn’t damaged the golems enough to prevent them from channeling their power towards their brethren but I only spotted five beams. At least we had reduced their number. With three of them still standing, probably with access to the energy of another five, I thought we’d be able to manage.

I winged forwards weaving teleports into my flight. The ship was maybe a hundred meters to my right and 20 above me. I covered the distance in less than a second but that was still enough time for the acolytes onboard to change, dramatically. They had absorbed every last ounce of power they could gain from the willingly offered sacrifice and violent lights raced around their bodies, their runes aglow with power underneath the dancing sparks. Tendrils of energy crawled along their limbs and sunk though their skin, their muscles swelled and the runes flashed brightly before they dispersed into a thick blanket of energy. For less than a heartbeat the golems were completely hidden behind a glowing wall.

The pirates on deck were fighting with the courage of the doomed, attacking the supernatural forces that had taken control of their ship in a frenzy when Viyara’s looming shadow fell onto them. Screams and curses washed over the deck and the light around the acolytes blinked out. What had been three humanoid shapes was now moulded together into an utterly alien abomination that only faintly resembled something living. A swollen head with eyes of crackling, ruby energy was surrounded by a ring of runes that pulsed with power and floated freely through the air. A short neck was connected to a square torso with overly long, spindly arms and legs. The thing was much taller than each of the golems had previously been, combining their mass into one ugly accumulation of flesh. It crouched low, its flat nose sniffing the air. An eerie howl escaped its overly large mouth, racing through the sea of enchanted wood like a shockwave. In its wake Erya’s spells broke and the elementals either caught fire or crumbled to dust immediately. A haze of magic rose from the destruction and with an eager command the creature started to pull swath after swath into itself. With a thought I flashed across the last meters and appeared behind it, my wings raised to strike.

I pushed everything I had into the attack until my wings burned brightly enough to form a single arch of power that descended on our last foe. There was no resistance when I brushed aside the feeble barrier the floating runes had become. Effortlessly I cut through the hastily raised arms of the creature, its hardened bones providing no more protection than its magic. The enchantments around its head and torso were annihilated when I cleaved the last acolyte in two. It dropped to the ground, first the severed arm followed by the body, half of it to the left, the other half to the right. Not a single drop of blood spilled from the cauterised wounds while silvery flames still gnawed at the edges. I remained still, my wings extended in front of me and my tails spread to keep my balance. Slowly I looked up, the sheer amount of energy that was rushing from my core made my eyes shine brightly and allowed the web of silvery lines across my body to shimmer through the rags my shirt had turned into.

A deafening silence greeted me, only interrupted by the loud crash and accompanying tremors with which Viyara landed behind me. The few pirates who were still alive on deck stared at me and the dragoness with open mouths, the retreating vines and branches allowed them a moment to breath. They twitched visibly when the door to the lower floors flew open with a bang and Erya and Pete strutted out. With a flourish Erya bowed to the stunned group of survivors:

“Ladies and gentlemen, this is a high jacking. If you could kindly stop quivering in your boots and point me to the highest ranking officer, I’d be forever grateful. If you don’t, well, I’m sure it’s become quite obvious by now that we don’t mind a little violence. Oh, only those you can see count, the ones below deck are… shall we say preoccupied. Not to worry they’re still breathing and so will you if you just play along.” At the same time I heard her voice in my mind:

“Thank you, I’m glad you came. I wouldn’t have wanted to face that thing on my own. Its scream alone tore through my magic like a hot knife through butter.” I suppressed a satisfied smirk while I straightened and retracted my wings.

“Always. You still have the seed you took from me. I can’t allow it to get damaged, now, can I? And I guess by now I have also become somewhat used to your smart mouth. Speaking of which, they are moving.”

Quick as our mental exchange had been, the pirates had still had the chance to surreptitiously glance at one another and make sure that neither aggressive masts nor swaths of poisonous gas were around. They hadn’t dropped their weapons yet but they hadn’t made a move towards us either. After a couple of seconds one of them sheathed his cutlass and took a few steps forward.

He was a lanky fellow, with greasy blonde hair, mud brown eyes and a nick in his ear. He had a shallow cut underneath his right eye and from the way he favoured his right foot I assumed he had taken a hit or two on the other side. His tongue brushed quickly over his brittle lips while he tried to focus on Erya but his gaze darted back to me and over my shoulder more often than not. A moment later he had scrounged together enough courage to speak up. His voice was hoarse and quite a bit higher than I had expected but then again, that could have also been due to the looming, golden head with teeth longer than one of his arms.

“Uh, that’d be me. I’m Clovis, on board for close to 14 years. I’m not the captain or anything but the boys listen to me and I’m the oldest one up here. I think I’m speaking for everybody when I say: we surrender.”