A Soldier's Life - 451 - Shadows of the Past

Chapter 451: Shadows of the Past

The brood mother stood over eight feet tall, a head taller than any other Nashasari. The leader only wore a thick belt over her dark green, scaled hide. Her reptilian features showed no signs of femininity; then again, all the Nashasari appeared androgynous. The brood mother’s golden eyes narrowed as she focused on our group, her sharp teeth bared in an angry growling hiss. In her language, she commanded her warriors and gestured with a black clawed hand. The heavy pause in the battle came to an end.

It seemed that eight Brotherhood mages had come above deck with the brood mother, and our chances suddenly looked unfavorable. We needed to cross from the stern to the bow of the large ship to reach the brood mother and her mage allies. With each second we sailed further from Sanctuary, our only chance for victory became taking over the ship completely.

Torandir, ignoring Fenlorian’s earlier orders, sent out waves of flame across the deck toward the brood mother. The flame consumed two Nasahasri sailors nearby, who were still dribbling snot from their olfactory cavity, but the fire parted to either side of a Brotherhood mage long before reaching the brood mother. The flame raced up the mast, and the sails began burning. At least the flames distracted a pair of Nashasari mages who attempted to keep them from spreading. Fenlorian didn’t discipline Torandir for disobeying him; instead, he focused on the fight wading into three archers and a warrior.

The morale of the defenders soared with the appearance of their leader, and they organized a surge toward us supported by their mages. The air crackled with aether as Baelira attempted to hold back a sudden onslaught of spells, but her ability to thicken the air was not an ideal defense. Fenlorian’s aether shield flashed from a magical attack, and the air heated uncomfortably around us.

I could only fight on. I blocked the heavy blade of a warrior, cut into the inner thigh, and came to cut his throat. The blood rapidly drained from the warrior, slickening the deck underfoot as he fought on briefly before collapsing. I slid on the blood-covered deck into my next opponent, just hip-checking the archer over the rail. With my back momentarily turned, aetheric missiles slammed into me, one burning deep into my thigh and another into my shoulder. I healed the muscle to keep fighting, but that mage was going to see my blade before this was over.

Thin blades of air whizzed toward our group. Although Baelira slowed them, she couldn’t stop them. I was forced to shield my vital areas as they swarmed us. My leather armor was cut in half a dozen places, and my flesh was parted in less protected areas of my body. The cuts were not deep and were quickly healed before I lost too much blood. Fenlorian was covered entirely in armor, but the others had to find a brief moment to drink healing potions. 

“We need to kill the brood mother!” Fenlorian yelled as the tide started to turn against us, with more Brotherhood mages focusing their attacks on us. We had too many Nashasari warriors and sailors to get through to reach the mages and the brood mother. We needed to thin them quickly. I moved away from the group and quickly cut down two archers who had almost recovered from their sneezing fits. I set an air shield in time to absorb another spray of aetheric missiles at me.

“Baelira, protect the High Sentinel!” I yelled as she had taken an indecisive step toward me. I was close to rails, and planned to go overboard if things got too out of favor. But by moving away from the group, I could also draw more attention to myself. Two warriors thought to pin me to the rails and quickly regretted targeting me. The first one sneezed a mist of mucus on me as magebane slid under his ribcage, while my shield prevented his sword arm from gaining momentum to strike me. I used the skewered body as a shield from more aether missiles targeting me before pushing the body into the other warrior.

The ship's deck began to tilt sharply as it turned. The sails burned unevenly, and no one was at the wheel to correct it. With the deck slick with blood, things became incredibly treacherous, and I took a brief breath to remove my ring of sustenance in favor of the ring of sure-footedness. I didn’t know how well it would work in these conditions, but the alternative was being thrown over the side.

The ring took my aether, and my feet felt firm on the tilted deck. The roll of the deck was actually a salvation in the fight as the Nashasari mages could no longer focus to draw their spell forms. They were limited to inscribed spells like me. The brood mother bellowed in outrage and I assumed she was telling the sailors to correct course. There was no way that was going to happen since we controlled the stern, and that was where the rudder was.

Although I was on an incline, my footing was firm, and I smiled evilly. I slipped past a Nashasari sailor, cutting his throat, and lunged toward a mage who was holding the rail for balance. He blocked with his arm, but magebane continued unimpeded through the arm and into his heart. His reptilian eyes looked shocked as I kicked him off my blade.

Checking on my own companions, they were also incapacitated, holding onto rigging and the mast as the ship continued to pitch. I could see Baelira’s incredulous expression as she watched me move freely on the nearly thirty-degree incline covered in blood. The Nashasari were essentially defenseless as I cut through them. Three sailors choose to jump overboard instead of meeting my advance. I quickly took out two more mages with hacks to their necks when the rigging on the sails suddenly snapped. Looking up, a brave Nashasari sailor with charred flesh had cut the sail free, and the ship was lurching back to an even keel.

As the ship settled, I cut down one more mage and was in striking distance of the brood mother. She was furious, with spittle flying off her razor-like teeth. She knew she had lost. A series of aetheric missiles hammered into me, and I put up my shield to protect my face and set an air shield to cover my lower body. I felt the deck thunder under my feet and knew the brood mother was charging me. She didn’t reach me as Fenlorian’s armor form intercepted her.

He could have the leader. I raced toward the annoying Nashasari mage who had been targeting me the entire fight with aetheric missiles. I passed Torandir coming to Fenlorian’s side, and there were fewer than ten Nashasari sailors and just warriors left on the deck. The Nashasari mage cast another round of missiles, but I was too close. The missiles burned holes in my shield as magebane cut into his hip. I lowered the shield to smile as the mage looked perplexed that he could no longer control his aether. “That’s right, bitch!” I removed his head after savoring his expression.

Turning back, Baelira was tending to the last of the archers, and there appeared to be only one mage left. The Nashasari all looked the same to me, but I think this was the mage who had diverted Torandir’s fire wave. I crossed the deck to kill him while glancing at the other fight.

Fenlorian’s sun blade struck the brood mother’s arm. Fenlorian looked confident that his blade would slice through the arm and into the body of the Nashasari queen. The blade was halted as it reached the bone. The brood mother’s other arm snapped out, engulfing the High Sentinel’s helm in her clawed hand. I couldn’t get to him in time and feared Fenlorian’s head was going to be crushed. The brood mother roared as her arm flexed and she squeezed.

The High Sentinel dropped, leaving his helm behind to escape. His hair was sweaty and matted as he looked determined to end this. He yanked the sun blade free, pivoted, and this time used all his power in the blow against the monstrous Nashasari. She once again raised her arm in defense, but this time the sun blade did its job. The arm was severed, and the blade left a thin slash on the brood mother’s torso. Fenlorian was recovering from another blow when a dark mist bled from the stump of the arm to reform.

The thick mist looked familiar. Something akin to the wraith concealed within the undead dungeon minotaur. No, this was more tangible. The brood mother started to grow larger, her snake-like body ripping along the scars and wounds she had received. As she expanded, Fenlorian attempted to reach her once more, but two Nashasari sailors pushed him back from the fight.

The flesh tore away from the Nashasari brood mother to become a hulking shadow—a greater shadow demon.

Torandir released a wave of flame at the creature; it was weaker in the daylight, but it brushed it off with a wave of a gesture from its hand. The intense flames were diverted, but the rigging in the bow was now burning too.

Fenlorian, briefly stunned at the demon’s appearance, cut down the last sailor in front of him and brought the sun blade to bear. Brilliant, blinding sparks came off where the sun blade struck. The shadow demon was not immobile and had superior reach with long limbs. Shadowy limbs battled with Fenlorian as he danced with the demon. His armor protected him more than once when he overcommitted.

My memory tickled me, and I think I knew where this demon came from. It had to be the demon that escaped the dungeon centuries ago. Now it made sense why the brood mother had been so upset that the dungeon had been destroyed. It had been planning to free more of its brethren.

The last Nashasari mage aether shield flashed as magebane descended. His defenses gone, the creature stumbled back and tried to flee into the stair below deck, but slipped on some blood. I clipped his leg with magebane as he scrambled on all fours, and that was all it took. Its body withered and dried out before my eyes. Whatever magic had been sustaining the Nashasari had been disrupted.

Torandir had coated his own blade in fire and had joined the fight against the shadow demon, but his attacks were much less effective. With the three of us, it was a very winnable battle. Before I joined the fight, Baelira yelled as she finished off the last of the crew. “Two ships are closing on us!” We were essentially dead in the water with no sails, and most of the rigging above us still burning. I looked to see that one ship was coming in from port while the other was coming up on the stern. Both decks were crowded with Nashasari.

I don’t know how long the fight had been going on, but we were almost a mile from Sanctuary with the seas relatively calm. Fenlorian glanced at the ships, helplessness on his face. Even if he defeated the shadow demon, he would lose. “Sink the ship!” he yelled.

Torandir understood, broke from combat, and directed flames into an opening in the hold. The shadow demon ignored the sun blade and rushed Torandir as flames spewed from his outstretched hands. I tried to intercept the demon as well, magebane cutting into the shadowy hide as he passed, and an air shield in its path, but I couldn’t stop him. The massive demon opened his arms and embraced Torandir, pushing both of them into the burning cargo hold.

Fire erupted from the opening as Torandir put up a brief struggle in the demon’s grasp. “We need to go!” I said, holding back Fenlorian. Torandir was already torn apart, but the hold was burning. The demon was trying to extinguish the flames but would likely fail. Baelira arrived next to me and helped me pull the High Sentinel back.

“We need to get into the water, Fenlorian,” Baelira said sternly. “We have done all we could.”

The High Sentinel seemed willing to sacrifice himself to ensure the demon’s destruction, but much of the stolen cargo was already burning and the demon with it. I dragged him reluctantly to the rails and waited while Baelira cast her water breathing spell on us, and we went over the side together out of sight of the Brotherhood ships. As I sank past the hull, I put a hole in the side with my dimensional space.

As the three of us sank in our armor to the sea floor, I suddenly felt very hungry.

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