Snakes and Ladders-27
Previously on………
Okay…I take a breath and built up my own power.
I hear them freak out and panic when those mooring things sizzle and pop and the boat starts to bob and move just floating on it’s own and I concentrate and let loose and slam my spell semi into the right side boat-wing thingy and the ship goes spinning in a fast circle in the hall hitting people, cargo falling off, people falling off before it gets wedged nose to tail sideways in the hall.
Then I’m in Final Fantasy meets Star Wars as spells are going up and off and arrows are flying and blasters are opening fire in the dark here from both sides.
Illisia casts some thing and this knights buckler made of energy and golden light with all these glyphs and symbols hit my arm and latches to it.
I pull my sword and fire it up and it does this energy whine as it does like a hawk cry at its prey and I run into the fight taking hits to the mage shield.
I’m not sure why but I yell. “Drop your arms in the name of the king!”
And Now……………
Chapter 27
All that got me was about five blasters pointed at me and fired on I duck and crouch behind my shield and I’m trying not to scream and it’s hard. I’ve been through some stuff but I’ve never been a cop or a soldier and having all that firepower leveled on you is terrifying.
There’s some chanting and another shield springs to life in front of me just as the one protecting me gives shattering into shards of light.
I can’t stay a sitting duck like this so I let out a yell and charge into them.
Seven or ten more hits to the new shield and three or four to my armor and I can feel the heat with those radiating through to my skin and then I’m up close and personal and I try and shield bash one of them and I miss since he’s so quick and I get sneaky enough that while they’re watching me do that I cut through two of the blasters…
Holey cheese…it cuts right through them like a lightsaber…wow that’s.
Scary but kind of awesome.
I’m brought back to reality by the “Shing.” Of drawn steel and they come at me with sword that look like mine in like the design of blade at least actually both sides have blades that look like a Japanese sword had been crossed with a long thin scimitar.
Definitely a lot like those swords used by the elves in the LOTR movies ironically. There are more weapons than that too like a lot of those sorts of fancy renaissance styled swords and some of the bigger knights blades too and other weapons.
It all gets really dangerous really fast and I’d have been in a lot more trouble if I wasn’t using the plasma sword. The guys that I’m facing aren’t hobs or orcs but these guys are real sylvan fighters and men-at-arms and knights even and they’re faster than me and they’re a heck of a lot better than me and if it wasn’t that I’m burning they’re blades even with defensive parries not counting my attacks I’d be a goner by now.
I am getting my ass kicked pretty good when you add in all the other stuff getting through like the punches and the kicks as they’re using this sylvan fighting style that reminds me of dancing with armor and blades and I’m not getting all that many hits or rather attempts to hit them back really.
Mostly I’m just trying to survive…and get myself close to that big heavy blast door.
~Shaya…beloved anytime now! ~
~We’re almost through, do not twist your underpants!~
~Twist my…did you just tell me to not get my panties in a bunch?~
~Uhm…yes.~
~(Dragon-snerk.)~
I think I just gave the one’s that I’m facing a pause because I just giggled a little. It’s the first time that I’ve ever heard a dragon do a snerk. In case you want to know what that is well a snerk is this little cute snort that happen it place of a laugh.
I do that a lot especially when I giggle and the thing is I’ve actually always giggled even as Bear.
What’s so funny is Bhlaze has no idea what he just did…I think he caught that from me.
I duck a sword and block another with mine and actually press back wriggling my blade edge along his and it’s working it burning and scoring and pitting the heck out of his blade completely wrecking it and he looks pissed but scared too…he’s very scared this blade will burn him.
And that’s when he’s watching me sword too much and I pull a Captain America and punch him in the face with my shield.
That sends him arse over teakettle and I turn to face the next one and there’s a spark coming through now even more through the blast door from Bhlaze cutting through and its arc welder bright so I move as best I can to put it at my back and make this guy hampered by looking at it.
Sylvan better than human eyesight that’s got to hurt.
It’s definitely an advantage though one that I need as much of a bad guy that these guys are they’re still elves, still way older than me and a lot more experienced that I am or might ever be…I’m using my flame blade and the spell shield and he’s using a curved knife like those Nepalese ones from home and a sword and even with the welding light we’re dancing as they put it blade to blade knife to shield and I’m just trying to stay alive.
Sweat, my muscles hurt and I can feel my body burning from all of this again despite the potions and the breather. No one tells people just how much energy you burn in a fight? Add armor and swords and…
My shield flickers as his dagger scrapes a cut through the energy tip coming through it an inch and breaking the spell and cutting into my armor and the bracer and into me…sharp, beyond sharp because it was like cutting through butter.
Move girl!
I’m ducking and bobbing and weaving as much as I can to avoid getting sliced by that dagger of his and his sword isn’t anywhere near as dangerous as the dagger that dagger doesn’t scorch or pit with my blade hitting it either and it doesn’t help he’s adjusting to the light, and me.
We clash again and again and he stares at me.
“What are you?”
“Tired…” I shove him off me only to have his step in with a series of swings and cuts and we lock up again.
“You’re not of us, what thing have they summoned?”
“News for you bub, I was brought here by Shai-tan and Mohad…too bad for you lot and that traitor Lyam.”
“King Lyam’s the rightful ruler! We will fight the usurper and his witch forever.”
“Dorian’s the Peace King, he was chosen by their father. And the queen’s a good woman!”
I’m a bit defensive even though I don’t really know her but she saved me, she healed me soul out and transformed me…I’ll always be in her debt for that.
“A deluded man driven insane by the war!” We clash again as he get’s pretty mad at the stuff I’m saying. Blade to blade over and over and I jump back rolling in a reverse tumble from that nasty dagger taking a chunk out of me and I resettle with my sword in a two handed stance.
“Chosen on their fathers deathbed, to save the realm.”
“Witched by Dorian’s whore, just like you.”
“I’ve witched no one idiot.”
We clash again and two handed’s working better with me using the firebrand to block all of his incoming attacks over and over. It’s a lot easier to concentrate just using one weapon instead of too.
I’m looking for an opening.
“You whores all think that you can be here, that you can just walk into the world of men and play by your own rules and not ours and not suffer for it. Just like the queen of whores…she should’ve stayed a temple drudge cleaning up at her betters.”
It figures, another so called man threatened by someone coming along and giving others equal rights to those that’ve been put on.
“Oh well then you’ll really hate me bucko, I did really care for being a man the first time I lived and this is a whole lot better but I’m still not going to be chained down by someone just because he takes a pee standing up.”
He looks really freaked, and yep mad too.
“Abomination! Creature! Evil! You’re the Spawn of the witch queen just like Illian!”
I’m defending myself and there it is an opening…my chest, he seems intent on cutting me there and it’s leaving me an opening, an angle of attack sort of.
I don’t even know it it’ll work but I take his sword hit onto my armor…not letting him hit me but using my armor to parry his swing and I roll into his body as he’s bringing in the dagger and I reverse my hold on my sword driving and burning a hole through his stomach.
“Un…natural…whore…” He gasps out before falling over and I step away and I pant.
I…oh…I see something that looks like a control booth? I stagger over to it and it’s kinda like a toll booth but the window in ir see’s outside the blast doors.
~Shaya?~
~Yes Love?~
~I think I’ve got the door controls.~
~Look for a scale.~
~Scale?~
~Yes, most likely.~
I takes a few minutes but I find a slide looking control and there’s a medallion looking button that looks like it belongs on a sound panel in a studio. I push it up to the top.
~Nope, that the lights.~ It’s gone bright in here and as such some of the terrorist/separatist fighters turn their weapons on me and start riddling the thing full of holes.
~Shit!~
~Wren!?~
~I’m fine but it’s cutting it close!~
I try a few more things…there’s movement above with cranes in the roof and then there’s a pop of massive sparks and there’s a hole in the blast door and Shaya’s through with her swords busy as she’s dancing her way through the enemy fighters.
Two swords she moves like a martial arts master as well as any knight, tumbles, rolls and she turns all the time.
There’s others rushing in too and someone’s headed my way and he passes me his blaster rifle and he takes the controls over and I’m firing…whoa…five starbursts at a time into the enemy.
Like little stars of white light and sort of that mixed with a Star Trek teensy photon torpedo kind of things. They burn though…holes in people and armor and leave marks in the dirt of the cave like a shotgun slug might.
Dragons, swords, elves, energy weapons and alien technology.
I’ve lived this in my head one detail or another for most of my book reading life.
Flash Gordon, John Carter, Wren Phoenix.
Is it wrong that as messed up and bad and scary as this all is that part of me.
Part of me is home.
The doors come up and there’s this huge roar from Bhlaze and then there’s streaks of more of these weapons that I’m firing and arrows from the rangers and there’s a big final push by the enemy and our sides melee fighters pull back letting them get hammered by the firepower we’re packing.
There’s a scream of shock and pain as I see Illisia get blown off her feet from the deck of the wedged airship. She hit’s the ground with a hard bounce and she coughs up blood and we’re all running to her and I’m no healer, I’m running for the airship and a few others are with me.
Up the rope nets and then the deck and I can feel this wave of majik sort of explode out of there and pull back?
I have Kyte with me all of a sudden as I do a cop-movie shoulder roll into the hold.
There’s several elves there and two are wearing leathers and robes and one looks like a knight but he’s wearing black shiny form fitting armor and he’s a very pretty blonde elf.
Not pretty like girly but like elf movie star handsome. He turns as we come in and I fire and he snaps a hand out forming a grey energy shield like the one that I was using earlier taking my shots and Kyte runs sideways along the wall trying to flank him as I pull my sword and fire it up.
Then there an hole in the air like the vortex from the old show Sliders and the others are getting away through it and Kyte and I come at him at the same time and she’s snarling at him calling him. “Jere!”
He pulls a sword with scribbles and mage symbols of it and I didn’t see the swing just sort of knew block!
Sparks fly like a welders shop and he rolls, spins like Shaya off my parry so fast it’s amazing and his shield blocks Kyte’s twin swords and pushes off her with using that to add to the wheel kick he lands in my chest and I hit the hull of the boat.
He fire a couple of energy bolts into me from some wrist top derringer on his sword arm. Spins from me as the pain’s hitting me and there’s a fast exchange between him and Kyte and he’s not just a blur of sword and shield but he’s tossing in snap kicks on her and they clash with a thud and he fires the wrist gun again and she gets her head out of the way pulling back from him and he drops and sweeps her legs like a Jedi break-dancer and he’s already turned and up before she’s down falling and he’s saying something at the same time and…it’s like a movie…and a bad…scene at that…because he kicks her in the bed before she falls totally too fast not to be magic and he swings on her.
She get’s her blades up in mid-air after being kicked but the force he hits her with slams her into the hull again. She screams and spits blood as she hits one of the framing ribs.
The others with us jump him and they can’t touch him any more than the orcs could with Shaya…he’s too fast and too strong and too skilled…he’s too…
It’s barely enough time for me to get my breath and who was with us is either dead, dying or maimed.
I swing on him two handed good and fast…as fast as I can attacks. I’m going for his side to other side shoulders, arm, head…he blocks each time a shower of sparks and him trying to shoot me again and taking kicks…He’s nowhere near as strong as what’s normal I can feet the hard powerful kicks through my armor and they make me wobble inside…He swings his shield and the spell hums and I duck but he catches my helmet and there’s a power tool sound and I feel something at my forehead and I drop to a knee he goes for a kick to my head and I fire my sword with as much magic as I can feed into it to block and…
I look…sorta did that instinctive wince blink thing anticipating impact.
He gives me this nasty look with a smile too before he jumps backwards into the gate getting sucked away.
Or he was looking at Shaya who’s glaring at him and I can feel it in my bones…she want’s him…she want’s to tear him a new one.
There’s this flavor of psychopath in her thoughts about him.
But she got here too late.
She’s pissed as the gate closes with a “Shuuup” sound.
No, we don’t follow.
“Shay?”
“Jere… His name’s Jerek Thistle, Captain of Lyam’s guard and one of….one of my old friends so to speak as Illian.”
“Oh…”
I stay on my knee’s but head over to Kyte. She’s still breathing but it’s bad.
“We shouldn’t move her without a professional healer or something Shay.”
She nods and drops to check the others getting Bhlaze to send in healers and then I’m with her and we’re…I’m using my sword…I’m cauterizing wounds, limbs that he severed and it’s minutes I know but it seems to stretch out and then there’s people in here with us and none are Illisia…
“Illisia?” I ask Shaya.
“Alive but in worse shape than Kyte.”
“What’s next?”
She shakes her head. “Nothing, everything…we won, we routed them and took out a major weapon with the war-bats and the troops and resources here.”
“So were done?”
“No…I can’t…I need to see this through.”
I sigh…and fall from my knees to my butt. “So…we don’t leave this to the others?”
“I can’t afford it Wren…frankly I need the win here for the crown and this new me and to show people where my loyalties are.”
I look around and they’re allies but they’re people and people talk. They’ll say things that went down here.
“We need help Shaya.”
“We do, I need to get some manpower here.”
“You need to be here, to be seen doing things and handling this.”
“Wren?”
“Bhlaze and I’ll go. We’ll go to Rampart and get troops.”
“Wren you’re exhausted…”
I cut her off with a long sweet kiss and she kisses me back and we sort of stand up onto our knees and keep it going and falling into the refuge of US and our link our love and feeling that, being able to shut out the bad shit even for a few moments is so perfect…so amazing and strengthening.
We break the kiss and sigh at each other and stare into each other eyes and she nods.
“I’ll be quick.”
“You’d better.” She smiles at me in the way that I’ve always wanted to be smiled at.
I kiss her again and we both help each other up and she walks me out of the hold entrance and Bhlaze is waiting for me.
“Ready Big guy?”
~Not remotely but nevertheless we need this done and this far in I’d not wager a message spell would get through.~
“Well let’s get going the faster there, the faster we’re back.”
~Aye.~
I mount up and Shaya helps with going over the main straps and I kiss her one more time before we’re out the blast doors at a trot then a fast gallop run across the little valley here before launching off of it.
It’s surprising to find out that we’re up near the top of these mountainous hills. When we went in from the bottom of the place. It’s a little like waking up when someone else is driving and you self orient to where you’re at now.
But it sort of falls away with the world as Bhlaze catches a current and banks us higher over the dark thick and dangerous wilderness here and we’re up in the sky heading Eastwards towards Rampart fortress.
I feel him drawing on his reserves and I see the world sort of stretch out…literally as his powers seem to reach and reach and reach until I can see the fortress at Rampart and then we snap there in The world lurches into a stop or a near stop and there’s a crack of light, this fissure of light like a cut in the world in front of us then the air filled with somewhere else.
The world is lit up in this blue white light that washes everything out, and is silent, the only sounds are ours. The wing beats and the creaks of the leathers and the saddle. We head flying through the fissure of light and as we pass the edges of one place into another it becomes this streak of everything in between here and there. It all took less than a minute I figure but it’s burned into my heart it takes my breath away with just how amazing this is.
Rampart is just ahead this elfin built city on the edge of the cliffs that lead to the Darklands below and it’s a wonderful and welcome sight.
“We call in big guy?”
~Aye.~
He does this sound as he does this sort of deep whistle sound that’s like an above water whale note.
It’s kind of beautiful and surprising since I didn’t know that dragon’s…
~Aye Erendae we sing too.~
“Oh…that’s awesome.”
~Indeed I am.~
That gets me laughing and then sitting up as the elf horns are calling us to safety.
Comments
Darth Jere!
Eek! Now that is a bad guy! He knew when it was time to make an exit, but not before kicking our girls all over the deck. I hope Illisia and Kyte makes it. I like them two!
Of course we just know a return match with Darth Jere is coming.
Just wow, Bailey!
Hugs
Grover
Darth Jere...Wren might use that Grover.
He's dangerous being a trained knight and like Shaya knows the same knightly martial forms and being Sylvan he's also a mage as well or capable of battle magics like agility boosts and speed and strength magics.
Not only did he kick their asses he did get the others out of there.
But still...they took the Sith-elf base and they broke their garrison...still sort of a win.
*Great Big Hugs*
Bailey Summers
Awesome!
More of the great battle... That Jerek is a bad ass. At least they took out a lot of Lyam's forces and resources, even if the top traitors got away.
Now to rest and heal up, and look for clues where they went or where else they have hideouts...
*hugs*
Lisa
Yay! Thanks Lisa!
It was a good way to end this section of things as far as combat goes but still a lot of things to do and deal with including the investigation of things in detail and dealing with the wounded and the prisoners.
Jerek is a nasty piece of work that did willingly the thinks that Illian hated doing as he lashed out at the world.
*Great Big Angel Hugs*
Bailey Summers
Flash Gordon, John Carter, Wren Phoenix.
what a hell of a group. another great chapter. Jere may be hot shit, but he did not fight his way through the whole mountain. there will be a reckoning i'm sure.
well done, thanks
No he didn't, he was pretty much fresh in the fights.
Which is why he beat Illisia pretty much because she was just as exhausted as everyone else. But bad guys don't play fair do they?
*Hugs and Howls*
Bailey Summers
But you have to beware
the smart bad guy. Jere knew when it was time to leave. He fought a withdrawal saving the people and resources he knew would be needed later. Knowing he had the advantage of being fresh while they were battle worn, he used it ruthlessly.
Then after he'd done what he needed to do, he simply left.
Okay maybe he did taunt them a little, but since he's destined to be a recurring baddie, that's to be expected. :)
Hugs
Grover
Smart enough that they did a whole lot of bad before discovery.
There's nothing like a ruthless smart bad guy and one that knows Shaya when she was someone else and for sure he'll use that too.
*Great Big Hugs*
Bailey Summers
That fighting was intense, at
That fighting was intense, at least despite those who escaped Wren and co won a major victory. I wonder what's next, lets at least hope they get some RnR before further battles. Liam will be major P**sed at the losses incurred on his side.
Great story as always, looking forward to more.
Big hugs
Lizzie :)
Bailey's Angel
The Godmother :p
Yes Lyam will be very pissed at the losses.
I might have to give his POV just to intro people to him. There will be lots to do before there's RnR Shaya needs to see things through here to the nitty gritty because if she doesn't she'll hear about it from her detractors.
Really glad you're still enjoying this.
*Great Big Angel Hugs*
Bailey.
The Godfather;)
Bailey Summers
Hiiii-yaaaah-choppy-fireball-to-da-gizzard!
Awesome chapter, sweetie! Had a total D&D flashback reading these past couple additions hehe
The story seems to be seriously heating up with action, all of it immersive.
Cheers for my favorite author! Love ya Bailey = )
*Many Hugs*
Jen
LOL Awesome comment Lynx!
I'm really glad that this is still going and that I was able to come back to it after losing Wren. There's definitely more to come and I'm hoping that people will still enjoy this story.
*Great Big Hugs*
Bailey Summers
dragon song
boy, I'd like to hear that ...