Windcatcher: Book I of the Stone War Chronicles (53 page)

Raylan walked along the handrail, pulling on a couple of the ropes. He was still able to pull the balloon down by hand, but the tension on the ropes increased.

It shouldn’t be long now.

Rohan came up to the deck. He had found a stash of arrows in the hold, which he and Kevhin were now distributing around the deck, for easy access. Harwin was sent down to assist Marek with the oven. Going to the deck above the cabin, Raylan again felt the ropes. This time he was not able to pull them down; although the ropes did slack, slightly, when he put his full weight on it, hanging.

Without warning, Raylan heard a shout come from below. At first, he thought it was someone below deck, perhaps a soldier who had woken up and removed his gag. But another shout allowed him to pinpoint the sound better, as he saw a small group of armored men move their way from across the plaza, where the small airships were docked.

Raylan jumped down and joined Sebastian on the main deck.

“What’s he saying?” asked Raylan.

“He wants to know what we’re doing with his ship…”

“He’s the captain? It’s still too soon, we need more time…stall him!” urged Raylan.

“How? He’s gonna see we’re not from here as soon as he reaches the mooring point,” said Sebastian.

The four soldiers were coming up the scaffold, which lead to the gangway.

“Let them come aboard. Tell him we received orders to get his ship ready to leave,” whispered Raylan.

He walked to the cabin and quickly hopped down the stairs. Gavin and Xi’Lao were still in the main hold.

“We’ve got a problem. The captain of the ship is here.”

“Do they know it’s us?” said Gavin.

“Not yet, but I don’t know if we can keep up the pretense.”

“How much longer until we can leave?” asked Xi’Lao.

“Impossible to know, but it should not take very much longer.”

Gavin thought, for a moment.

“Okay, so we just need to buy time. Xi’Lao, go to Peadar and prep every crossbow we have found, Keep them in the main hold. Before that, tell Marek and Harwin to work as if their lives depend on it, cause it probably will. We’re going on deck,” said Gavin, looking at Raylan.

As they moved swiftly up the stairs, they heard quite a commotion. The captain shouted at Sebastian, in Kovian, barely giving him the opportunity to say anything, in return. What he was able to say was clearly not satisfactory to the captain, as he jerked off Sebastian’s helmet to see his face.

As soon as the helmet came off, the four men drew their swords. The slave mark on Sebastian’s cheek was a clear giveaway.

The first arrow hit one of the soldier’s backs before any of them could attack. The soldier fell dead on the spot. Another arrow, shot by Rohan from the front deck, hit a second soldier in the shoulder. He spun around from the force, slamming into the deck. He immediately crawled toward the railing to get away.

“Stop them!” shouted Gavin.

But in the time it took Kevhin and Rohan to reload, the captain and the remaining soldier took a swing at Sebastian, forcing him to retreat away from their swords. Both the attackers made for the edge of the ship. The soldier stormed off the gangway, more tumbling than running, as the captain jumped over the handrail and landed heavily on the scaffold halfway down. Raylan heard the grunt from his impact. Both fleeing men did not waste any time licking their wounds, but made a run for the nearest cover, shouting, raising the alarm. Two arrows flew, simultaneously, and hit their mark, silencing them both; but the damage was already done.

Within moments, a sound of metal clanging carried across the bay, for the second time that night. It was picked up on several other points in the harbor, alerting the entire bay to a new danger. The chaos Galirras had created still had part of the armed forced preoccupied, but the downside was that the entire bay was already on alert. Reaction to the alarms would be swift and fierce.

Chapter 17

Escape

“We need to go, now!” shouted Raylan.

At the same time, Raylan felt the ship shift under his feet. The balloon was almost able to carry their weight.

“Gavin, do you feel that? The ship is moving…we need to get lighter! We need to dump stuff!”

Gavin rushed to one of the speaking tubes they had discovered while exploring the ship. It allows a person to shout commands directly to the decks below, without having to use the stairs.

“Listen up, everyone. We’re going to have company. Peadar, get the cargo door open and dump everything we don’t need out of the hold. Harwin, Ca’lek, help him. Xi, I need you on deck.”

A small group of soldiers came around the corner. Seeing the dead lying on the ground, they noticed the airship prepping for departure. Letting out a war cry, they rushed in with swords drawn. Both Kevhin and Rohan readied their arrows and took two of them down before the group took ten steps. Raylan was surprised to see the other soldiers did not even blink or slow down. They cared not for their fellow soldiers, even when all of them were picked off by flying arrows one by one. None of them made it to the ship.

At the same time, the cargo doors swung open. Peadar threw out buckets, armor, weapons and more from the hold. A deep
thump
announced one of the ghol’ms being toppled out by Harwin, Ca’lek, Richard, and Galen, who had gone downstairs to help. There was no way the four of them could have lifted the ghol’m, but it was close enough to the open doors to topple it over to the outside. The second ghol’m was also toppled over, but landed facedown inside the ship. It was so heavy it could not be easily moved anymore. The woodwork had taken a beaten by the impact of the ghol’ms, but they all felt the ship sway and move now that one of those heavy weights had been thrown out.

Marek still fed the oven in the lower deck. It would not take long now, figured Raylan. As if his thought was a final push, he suddenly felt the ship sway in a familiar way. It felt like the ship was in the water, bobbing as it slowly gained altitude.

Raylan saw soldiers come pouring out of passageways, and around corners, from multiple sides now—most of them carrying swords and spears. There were too many for the two archers to take down, even with the help of Richard and Peadar, who were now firing crossbows out of the hold through the open cargo doors. A dozen soldiers, with shields, now formed a row. Protected from the constant threat of arrows, the enemy soldiers started to move closer.

The gangway fell down, as the ship slowly lifted skyward; but the scaffold, to which the gangway led, was still high enough for soldiers to jump onboard. On the flank of the ship, a number of enemy soldiers were already climbing the side, much the same way Raylan had done only a short while ago. The only difference was that this time the balloon was not in the way.

Gavin spotted the first soldiers as they came over the handrail. He and Raylan moved on them immediately, but there were too many coming on deck to block Kevhin and Rohan from being attacked. Both archers had to break off their offense to mount a defense.

Raylan cut down his first opponent. He circled around another, kicking the attacker in the back. The movement shoved the soldier in front of Gavin, who struck the man down in one fluid strike. Raylan rushed to the handrail and gave another soldier, just climbing aboard, a heavy hit on the head with his sword hilt. The soldier fell backward, slamming into the ground. A hand clamped on the handrail as a new Doskovian brute tried to come aboard. Slashing down with his sword, Raylan severed the hand from its owner. The soldier disappeared from sight with a high-pitched scream.

Kevhin turned to face a soldier running at him, and stabbed him with an arrow in the throat. Putting the same arrow on his bow, he hit another soldier closing in on Rohan from behind. Rohan spun around with his dagger, stabbing another attacker in his armpit, which had been exposed after his attack. Both archers quickly resumed their attacks on the increasing number of soldiers coming at them over the plaza, but were interrupted constantly by new attackers. It seemed futile to fire arrows at this many men. It was like trying to stop water drops from hitting your face while standing under a waterfall.

A shock went through the ship as the ropes that anchored it down reached their full length. Unfortunately, the ship had only risen a few feet, which meant soldiers could still jump on board from the dock.

“We’ve got to get those ropes lose, or we’ll be stuck here,” Raylan called out to his brother.

But Gavin was too preoccupied by his fight with two enemy soldiers to hear him. As the soldiers struck from all sides, his brother swung his blade, furiously, to block the incoming attacks.

Raylan ran over to the handrail and cut one of the lines holding the ship to the ground. Another shock went through the ship as the tension on the rope disappeared and the ship tilted, slightly, into its new position.

Raylan saw a soldier, nearby, throw a spear. It landed with such power on the lower side of the hull that it stuck firmly into the woodwork. Another soldier ran up and jumped, pulling himself up onto the thick spear, before grabbing the wooden hull and climbing upward. Others immediately followed this example.

The cargo doors were under constant attack. Harwin acted as a formidable roadblock for any of the soldiers trying to climb on board through there. He had found a new shield in the hold and was happily using it to slam any soldier’s face, sending them crashing into the ground below, if they tried to come aboard.

Peadar fired off crossbows whenever Harwin gave him an opening to shoot past. While Xi’Lao and Ca’lek still focused on dumping things out of the ship to lighten it. In the meantime, Galen resurfaced on deck, using a newly found war axe with so much enthusiasm that Raylan wondered if he would clean out the entire deck all by himself.

Raylan ran toward the second anchor rope. In his run, he slammed into the back of a soldier attacking Sebastian, who used the opening to cut the soldier down with a powerful swing. Raylan did not stop. He dove at the second rope, slashing it with his sword. This time it took three swings before the rope broke.

Another jolt surged through the ship. Raylan saw his brother’s attackers stumble, for a moment, because of it. Gavin, who had been more sure-footed, gave a powerful kick to the chest of one of them, knocking the soldier over the handrail that was behind him. As the soldier went over the side, another attacker was dragged down with him from the side. Both hit a spear stuck in the hull on the way down. As it broke away, the impact violently spun their bodies around, before slamming into the ground.

A larger commotion at the end of the small plaza made Raylan look across. Multiple soldiers on horses came galloping around the corner. The horses were armored with metal plating on their heads and necks. These were not horses built for speed. Their build was broad and heavily muscled. These horses were bred to do damage on a battlefield.

Even from this distance, Raylan unmistakably recognized the person giving the orders on one of the horses.
Corza!

Corza sat on his horse, overlooking his soldiers extinguishing the fires. The dragon had fled off to the south, narrowly escaping capture by his men. It was the first time Corza encountered it in person, and he had to admit that the creature was impressive to see. A number of his soldiers even had to be executed, because they had panicked and ran. Corza had always regretted that the Stone King’s indoctrination methods were not one hundred percent successful. He shook his head.

No matter what we try, how much guidance or structure we give them, you’ll always find disappointing ones amongst them.

The executions were a simple and cost efficient way of dealing with those that developed the capacity to think freely and used that freedom to not follow orders.

At first, the dragon had been close-by in the air, using crates and barrels as projectiles. But before Corza had rallied his men—as well as his archers and crossbow soldiers—with netting, the clever beast had increased his distance. Starting some fires to create smoke cover, he had continued on to the more isolated ships, where the soldiers had less knowledge of what was going on and could still be taken by surprise.

But then the beast had come back, straight along the street they had deliberately left vulnerable. And they had been so close, too. The metal netting proved useful, but still needed improvements. It needed to be larger and his man needed practice…
or a different method to throw the net,
thought Corza.

When he saw the dragon get stranded, Corza had figured that was it. Spearmen would surround it on the small square where it had crashed. He was already galloping toward it with a number of fellow horsemen, each of them carrying a heavy set of ropes with hooks on them. They would throw the ropes over its back, forcing it down to the ground. Securing the dragon with heavy duty chains would be the final step before Corza would have his very own flying pet.

But by the time they were coming around the corner, he saw the dragon level a group of crossbow soldiers and then dart down the street, before taking to the air with a gush of wind.

He had sent out a group of three hundred soldiers, on horseback, to chase after the dragon, right away. Archers and spear men mostly, their orders were to track it down and capture it alive. In support, another five hundred soldiers had been ordered to comb through the woods and locate anyone who was not supposed to be there.