Chapter 19 A Pivotal Parlay
Flying The Coop
After the brief distraction of a giant hole blowing through their escape vessel, the witches rounded swiftly back on Kasha.
Behind her, Bes and Hamil ushered the children away.
The crew, with cutlasses clutched in hand, cautiously approached the intruders while Kasha swung her great paws at them.
She nearly got the best of the water witch.
He threw himself against the railing in an effort to dodge her alarmingly large claws.
His brown curls flopped against his forehead as he staggered, regaining his balance.
However, he did not take this barrage of attacks lightly.
With a curling lip, he drew five tendrils out of the water.
They whooshed forward, snaking around Eli.
The water witch clenched his hand into a fist, and the rope streams tightened, effectively binding Eli down to the deck.
If she hadn’t braced her paws, she might even have slammed against the planks.
“Get the boy!” the water witch barked at his companions.
The fire witch was still struggling against Kraken on the ground, however, and the air witch was doing her best to carefully step around him.
The water witch continued staring down at Kasha, his eyes narrowing as she struggled against her restraints. “You’re nothing but a big cat, Lady Elisara. Do not feel guilty when we take the boy. There is only so much one—”
“BAKAAAA!”
The warrior screech of a chicken broke through the man’s monologue, right before a flurry of wings, beak, and claws descended upon him. Scratching, pecking, and wing beating sent him stumbling backward.
“What… ARGH… the hell… is—” He at last seized the chicken by the neck. “Got you!”
However, this alarming attack had distracted the water witch from the much larger animal with the impressive teeth.
He had no time to react as the shadow appeared over him and Kasha’s great jaw closed around his head.
With a subtle flex of her jaw, the water witch went limp.
The chicken fell from his hand right before Kasha tossed his body over the edge.
She snarled and huffed at the body as though saying, Good riddance.
Rounding over to the fire witch, who was working to free herself from her own feline assailant, Kasha had lifted a paw to knock that witch overboard as well when a child’s yelp sounded behind her.
Swinging her head around, Eli spotted the air witch snatching up Luca. Hamil lay unconscious on the deck. Bes screamed at the witch, her arms still around Penelope.
Eli’s legs flexed. She would not let the witch get away with Luca, but before she could move, Tam appeared in a rush of black-and-silver aura.
His knife cozied up to the woman’s throat, his other arm wrapping around her body, pinning her own arms to her sides and forcing her to drop Luca.
The boy scrambled over to Hamil, grabbing his shoulder and shaking him.
That was all Kasha had time to notice before she heard the meaningful thud of a heeled boot getting purchase on the deck.
Heat gathered in the air over Kasha’s shoulder; her fur rose, prompting her to instinctively back away.
A stream of fire blasted past the front of her face.
Several of the Zinferan crew members scattered with shouts of alarm.
Tam yelled. He then disappeared and reappeared in front of the fire witch, with the air witch’s wrists still firmly in his grasp.
He unceremoniously delivered a chest-height kick to the fire witch, sending her into the sea.
Another boom from below wafted up to Eli, followed by a stinging, smoky scent.
The air witch struggled against Tam, fruitlessly, it seemed. That is until Eli noticed that Tam suddenly looked as though he wasn’t able to breathe. Tam responded instantly. The void appeared, and in the woman went.
By the time the void closed around her shrieking face, Tam collapsed on the ground, gasping for air.
Kasha shifted back to her human form.
Crouching beside Tam, Eli rested a hand on his back. “Are you alright?”
Coughing, he managed to nod.
“Holy… Gods… You’re… How… What… ?”
Eli looked over her shoulder at Hamil. He was sitting up, gaping at her as Bes knelt beside him. She was staring in just as much awe at Eli.
“Are you hurt, Hamil?” Eli called back, ignoring the shock on the Lobahlans’ faces.
Neither Hamil nor Bes seemed to be able to answer, so Eli shifted her attention to Luca and Penelope.
They were standing back warily near the crew members who had been forced away from the fight when the fire witch had joined the commotion.
They looked at Eli uncertainly, then at Tam, who was taking ragged breaths on the deck.
Letting out a long sigh, Eli held out her hand to the children.
Luca took a nervous step forward…
Then two more witches dropped down on the deck: a man who had to be another air witch, given that they were flying, and… Louise Riddel.
The Daxarian coven leader stared down her nose at Tam and Eli.
The air witch turned toward the children.
“Don’t you take another step,” Eli snarled.
Tam’s head came up, and when he registered what was happening, his eyes filled with blackness.
Louise Riddel frowned, but she didn’t falter.
She merely raised her hand, halting the air witch in place. She stepped over to Tam and Eli as the two rose to their feet. Eli’s attention homed in on the air witch in case he tried to sweep away Luca or Penelope in a gust of air.
Another resounding bang sounded, followed by yet another crunching sound that made everyone turn to find that the fishing vessel was barely above water. Five other heads bobbed just over the waves of the Alcide Sea. The witches that had been aboard the sinking boat.
Eli and Tam’s eyes swiveled back to the coven leader, who did not bother masking her ire.
“Captain! I don’t think we need any more help from the cannons!” Tam hollered without taking his eyes off Louise Riddel.
Captain Sun was oddly quiet, but Eli didn’t hear any additional explosions from the new weapon Jiho Ryu had designed. In the back of her mind, she had to confess that the cannons seemed to be a rather effective weapon to have aboard a ship.
“Lord Tamlin.” Louise regarded Tam. He straightened his shoulders, but his eyes did not return to normal as he beheld her.
Eli wondered if he was doing that on purpose.
“You will get off this ship, and if you try to come after my son again, I will not react reasonably,” Tam informed her stonily.
The coven leader rolled her eyes. “He is not your son, he is the devil.”
“Haven’t you heard?” Tam’s voice came out a whisper, but there was something strange about it…
Eli tried not to show her surprise when his voice echoed and warbled unnaturally around them all. At times it sounded like he was a breath away from her ear, and yet she could hear his words repeating and fluttering around everyone else on the ship.
Louise Riddel stiffened. Eli guessed she was struggling to appear indifferent.
“I have heard some say that you are the devil, but you will not fool me, Lord Tamlin. I know it is impossible for you to—”
Darkness swallowed the world.
Eli was unable to stop herself from jolting. Tam had somehow managed to bring not only himself into the void, but also everyone who had been on the boat near them—including some of the crew, Hamil, Bes, Penelope, Luca, and the other air witch.
How had he done that? He hadn’t even been touching any of them! He’d never been able to do anything like this before.
Luca and Penelope took advantage of everyone’s moment of confusion and fear, bolting straight for Tam and Eli.
Grabbing their hands, Eli found that their presence helped steady her once again.
“You can believe what you want,” Tam said, the reverberation in his voice only more powerful in the void. “And I can leave you here to decide whatever that may be.”
The coven leader’s breath hitched, but she held her ground. “You are not the devil.”
Tam shrugged. “It doesn’t really matter what you think. I hope you enjoy your time here in the void.”
Eli glanced nervously at the crew members, who were looking more than a little concerned that they, too, might be left in the vast darkness. She hated that she couldn’t outright ask Tam in that moment about what he was doing.
When the world outside the void snapped back into view, things were more than a little problematic.
During the time when the crew had been in the void, the sudden shortage of sailors had left it impossible to maneuver the large vessel, which had slammed into the partially sunken fishing boat and damaged their own hull.
“Lord Tamlin! Is everything alright?” Captain Sun was descending the steps from the stern.
Eli glanced over and found that the sailors had indeed returned to the deck, as had Hamil and Bes. The poor Lobahlan woman had already launched herself toward the railing to be sick, though it was a bit tough to reach across the tilting deck. Their ship was listing as it took on water.
“Dad?”
Luca’s worried tone drew Eli’s attention back to Tam, who was swaying on his feet.
Moving that many people in and out of the void without touching them must have taken too high a toll.
Releasing both Penelope and Luca’s hands, Eli slipped her shoulder under Tam’s right arm in time for his left knee to buckle.
“Captain Sun, can we make it to shore?” Eli asked as the captain reached them.
The Zinferan was eyeing Tam nervously, but after quickly wetting his lips, he managed to answer. “We might make it to the southern isles, but with the ship as it is, we cannot maneuver the rocks closer to Rollom.”
Eli nodded grimly. “Very well. Is there anything we can do to help repair the boat?”
“No, no. The two of you have already— Oop!” Captain Sun ducked and caught Tam’s other arm, holding him upright just as his other knee gave out.
Tam leaned drunkenly to the right.
“Dad? Dad, are you okay?” Luca moved in front of his father, fear bright in his eyes.
“He just needs to rest, Luca, alright?” Eli tried to sound gentle, but Tam was actually quite heavy, and her words came out more a grunt. The captain jerked his chin, ushering over a crewman who’d seemed in a stupor after the trip to the void. The sailor moved to help.
The two men continued to assist Tam down the stairs belowdecks, and Eli was about to follow them, but a rush of water hitting the deck made her slowly turn back around.
The witches that had been in the water…
Five of them appeared.
One lifted a hand, summoning up ten tentacles of water.
The fire witch, drenched from when Tam had thrown her overboard, burst into flames.
Then, once the blaze had dried her, she gathered two balls of fire in her hands.
Two of the other witches threw down fistfuls of dirt, and in the blink of an eye vines grew up out of them, flailing about in the air.
Suspicious green smoke poured out of the last witch’s mouth.
Eli pressed the children down the stairs behind her.
Damnit. I don’t know that I can take on five of them. She didn’t want to keep turning into Kasha. It was risky enough doing it once without knowing what it would do to the baby.
Regardless of her sinking suspicion that she was not going to win the fight, Eli stalked forward, her hands clenched into fists.
Some of the witches smiled coldly at her, some merely looked serious. Even if she told them she was a familiar, and according to Kraken, hurting her would break some divine law, they looked like they could suppress her without harm quite easily.
Letting out a long breath, Eli braced herself to shift…
When the witch with green smoke coming from her mouth spun rapidly in the air and vanished.
Instead, where she had been standing perched a black-feathered chicken.
Eli blinked, baffled.
The singing waver of steel snapped her attention back up from the chicken in time to see the fire witch fall to the ground with a knife in her neck.
Shortly thereafter, the blade was followed by an arrow launching itself into the water witch.
Another knife sailed through the vines into one earth witch’s chest, followed by another arrow to the other one’s eye.
All before anyone could catch a proper glimpse of their assailant.
Eli turned, slowly.
Standing a little to her right, with a compound crossbow resting on her shoulder and an almost bored expression, was the duchess.
As a human.
With Henrietta the chicken witch at her side.
Annika Ashowan stared down dispassionately at the witches littering the deck. “I think I’m a bit rusty. One of them is still alive.”
“Of course one is still alive! She’s a chicken!” Henrietta squeaked, flinching away from the sight of their fallen adversaries.
Annika Ashowan sighed. “The earth witch also still breathes. But we can leave her alive if you like. It’ll be my thank-you for helping.”
Henrietta glared.
“Your grace?” Eli could hear the faintness in her own voice.
Annika’s attention slid over smoothly to her, and a warm smile touched her face. “Sorry that I was a bit late. Henrietta needed to be persuaded.”
A gentle brush of fur around Eli’s ankles startled her. Looking down, she found that it was only Kraken staring up at her.
Then she remembered that the children had been right behind her.
They should not have witnessed the violence their grandmother had just doled out!
Eli sought them out, and instantly a whoosh of breath left her when she realized Luca and Eli stood farther down the steps behind Annika and Henrietta.
From their vantage point, they couldn’t have seen anything.
“Are you feeling alright?” Annika asked with a note of concern.
Eli swallowed.
Actually, she felt a little dizzy…
“I’ll be fine, I’ll just go check on Tam.”
Annika’s eyebrows twitched. “Tell you what. How about you take my arm and we both go see him, hm?”
Eli was starting to feel a headache coming on. Which was the only reason she didn’t grumble at the duchess’s obvious attempt at placating her like a child.
Instead, she accepted the woman’s arm and carefully descended the rest of the steps.
By the time she reached the bottom, Luca was already darting ahead down the passage—presumably to open the cabin door for her—surprisingly, it was Penelope who grasped Eli’s free hand.
As she walked, her body feeling a troubling mix of too light and too heavy at the same time, Eli did remember to be thankful for the fact that at least they wouldn’t have to worry about Kraken eating the duchess should they be a little bit late feeding him his breakfast.