Chapter 43
Sava’s pain nearly crushes me through the kin bond. With a roar the dragon drops from the sky. Roiven falls more slowly, the wind buffeting him up but unable to slow his familiar. She’s too big.
The terror pounding through him turns my stomach to stone.
The fear is for Sava, not himself. There’s nothing like a familiar bond.
I understand now what Torain said when he told me the familiar is like your split self.
He doesn’t just love Sava; she’s literally part of him.
As the kraken, strange though it may still feel, is part of me.
Sava hits the water and thrashes, roaring again in pain. Rancor fires another shot. It misses her, barely, as her head twists in the water.
We have to stop them. To save Sava and Roiven.
Roiven is still airborne. He’s flying on the wind, toward Rancor, as if he can single-handedly take down the ship and stop it from firing on Sava. His magic might be strong, but Rancor has three knights.
And Sava… she’s afraid as her head goes beneath the surface. She’s injured. She needs help.
I can’t let Roiven’s familiar drown or take another blow from a Hellion.
“Can you get her away from here?”
Yes. We can retreat.
“No. I need to help Roiven,” I protest. If Hafgúa can get me onto Rancor’s deck and then get Sava out of the line of fire, the two of us…
I feel the kraken’s reluctance, a great hollow fear inside him. He’s lost a bonded before. He would rather see me grieve than see me dead. Sava and Roiven mean little to him.
I can’t see Sava anymore. She’s drowning.
And in Roiven, the responding grief and fury are so vicious that I can barely keep my own head.
He knows he’s going to die on Rancor, and he doesn’t care.
He’s going to fight until the very last breath.
He wants to make them pay for what they did to Sava.
Rancor’s prow brightens again, about to fire another shot into the water where Sava sank.
Roiven lands on the deck, vanishing from view.
I don’t need to beg my familiar. The kraken is in my mind, and he can feel the things I’m feeling.
We surge through the water. I rise up into the sky, wrapped in his tentacle, and Hafgúa deposits me onto Rancor’s deck.
And then he’s gone, wrapping himself around Sava and dragging her away from the fray and toward the nearest spit of land.
I will be very vexed if you are injured.
I thud onto the deck, my knees cracking onto Rancor’s familiar wood. A gust of vicious wind scours across the surface, knocking back the ship’s sailors. I hear a scream as someone goes overboard.
Roiven roars, the sound pure rage and pain. He stands with his back to me, the wind blowing his hair in all directions, drawn sword in hand. Rancor has three spears and three knights, and all of them are facing Roiven. I recognize Gamelin and Evonder, two of the Empire’s most elite.
And Harfor, cloaked in the blue glow of Rancor’s glory, charges with her gold-washed sword drawn.
I recognize her even though she’s wearing her new full armor, that I only saw at the Bluff.
The barbute helmet only leaves a T-shaped opening to show her eyes and the grimace of her mouth. My throat goes tight.
Roiven spins to the right as Harfor slices down with her sword. The witch turns to shoot lightning at Gamelin. It crackles from his palm and but connects with the ship’s rail instead of the knight he was aiming at.
The attentions of all three knights are wholly captured by the witch.
Their connection to the ship keeps them grounded as the storm swirls around us, the wind so strong I struggle to rise up from my knees.
The wind steals tears from my eyes and makes my ears ache from the volume of its blustering.
The sky darkens and churns. There’s a vortex building.
Another bolt of lightning shears through the sky.
This time, it hits one of the ship’s three spears.
Harfor’s blue glow falters. For a moment she’s just a woman in a metal suit, without any of the Hellion’s power backing her.
Rain splatters down around us. Harfor stumbles back, her armor no longer protecting her from the storm winds. Gamelin charges, covering Harfor.
It’ll be hard to get close to Roiven, and his lightning has temporarily removed Harfor from the fight.
I don’t know if the spear he struck is down, or if it will come back up.
But with all three ship’s knights distracted by Roiven, I might actually be able to take out the other spears and stop their ability to channel the Enchanted.
I stop trying to fight the wind and instead run away from the battle, down the length of the ship, towards the line of huge masts stretching up into the air.
One of the old Hellions draws close along our side. From the corner of my eye I can see a knight racing across the older ship’s deck. When he reaches the ship’s rail, he launches off and leaps the forty-foot distance between the ships, dragging gods know how much power from his Hellion’s spear.
I keep running. And then Kaelor lands behind me, the wooden deck splintering beneath his metal feet on impact.
He follows me towards the spears and away from Roiven’s fight, moving faster than I can in his enchanted armor.
I spin to face him before he can strike me in the back.
Kaelor’s sword slices in toward my gut. I try to block, but the angle is wrong.
I only manage to slow the blow before the blade nicks my skin, scoring a half-inch into the side of my waist. With a grunt of pain, I lash out with a blade of fire that makes the knight stumble back.
Kaelor draws his second sword, wielding a blade in each hand.
Kaelor strikes again and I barely block it, my arm shaking. My left arm just doesn’t have the stamina or the precision that my right one did, even with the help of Hafgúa’s power. Kaelor’s other sword slices in and I have to duck and spin to avoid it.
I can’t hold my own without magic.
I drag on Hafgúa’s power and point it not at Kaelor’s body, where his armor protects his body, but at the left hand sword as it comes back towards me.
The blade burns red with heat, then collapses into molten liquid that burns into the deck of the ship.
The wood steams and smolders. I block another strike from the knight and shove a fireball toward his chest. He absorbs it into the blue glow, unharmed and unbothered.
Kaelor’s remaining sword spears straight towards me.
I block, but my grip isn’t good enough, and he knocks my blade free from my hand.
I duck and run, sprinting toward the center of the deck. The sailors scatter, unwilling to confront me. The knight is on my heels, about to strike. I reach the first spear mast.
Kaelor strikes as I duck. His sword cuts into the wood, the strike powered by the Hellion hard enough that it sinks deep and sticks.
The spear begins to burn as I shove as much fire as I can into it.
Kaelor tugs once, then lets go of the weapon and lunges at me.
I shoot fire from my hand as I stumble back, but I miss the opening in his helmet.
Kaelor tackles me and I slam down into the wood. His body is heavy, and plated with metal, giving me no areas to jam my knees. I’m trapped beneath him.
He pulls back an arm and punches me in the face.
I feel my nose break, cartilage cracking as blood pours out.
I reach towards Kaelor’s chest and force a bolt of fire straight through him, drawing on Hafgúa’s immense power to make the blow brutal and fast and unstoppable.
He collapses on top of me as it bores a hole through his chest. I kick him off, wriggling free from his weight, and stagger upright.
Blood streams from my nose and my waist bleeds heavily from his earlier sword cut, but I can’t bandage myself one-handed. And Roiven’s fight is only down to one knight. He’s killed the others.
Roiven twists and lunges, his eyes locked on Harfor.
She’s back in the fight. My old friend stumbles back, her eyes going wide as the spear I attacked is consumed by flames.
She must have keyed to that one after Roiven’s lightning knocked her first spear out.
I can’t remember ever seeing that frightened look on Harfor’s face.
But whether or not the damaged spears are usable there’s one spear fully intact, and Harfor is already connected to the ship. She won’t be down long.
I should help Roiven. But I don’t know if I can stomach facing Harfor.
I stumble back towards them, grabbing my sword where I dropped it, the wind getting more intense with every step I take.
The green dragon dives in close, then banks away from us, ready to strike if it needs to.
Another crack of lighting comes down, but it misses the ship and hits the water.
With another yell, Roiven hacks sideways at Harfor. The knight skips back again, letting the wind push her instead of fighting against it.
Harfor bursts into light, glowing so blue it hurts to look at her.
She’s switched spears, and she’s pulling so much power from it the Enchanted must be dying by the dozen.
I know in my gut she’s about to do something terrible.
It’s more power than anyone can hold onto.
My teeth rattle in my gums as the acidic death magic roils over the ship’s deck, dark smoke smudging the sky around us.
A burst of power leaves Rancor’s cannon and shoots up toward the green. His wings beat as he narrowly dodges it, then rises further away. He won’t have an easy time interfering, when Rancor is old and wise enough to keep an eye on him herself, without needing to split Harfor’s attention.