Night guild 2, p.21
Night Guild 2, page 21
Leaving the shadows to interfere with the pirates without his assistance, Ronan grabbed the power that was in the shadows and drew it into himself, setting up the powerful magical maelstrom that could power his own spells.
He cast the stealth field over himself, so that nobody would be able to see him clearly, and then he rushed into the midst of the pirates. He laid about himself with his sword, knocking down pirates and pushing them out of the way with a barge of his shield as he closed in on Captain Rylic. As he slipped up behind the Captain, sending power into the shadows to help them confuse those around him, he raised to sword for killing blow. But at that moment, a pirate to the captain’s side saw him, despite all his efforts.
“Beware, Captain! Behind you!” the pirate yelled.
Captain Rylic whirled, his sword raised, looking for the threat. Ronan lifted his sword to catch the descending blow from Captain Rylic’s massive cutlass. Rylic’s blow rang against Ronan’s blade, but then he bore down on Ronan, using his superior size and weight to push Ronan back into the press of the pirates.
This was not the kind of fight Ronan was trained for.
Captain Rylic raised his sword for another blow, and Ronan knew that his life hung in the balance. In a flash, all became clear to him. If this was not a fight he was trained for, then the answer was to change the rules of the fight. Instead of using his sword to meet Rylic’s blow, he dropped the tip of his blade and switched it into his left hand as he stepped nimbly to one side. The captain’s sword hit the deck and sank inches into the wood, and in that instant Ronan reached out a hand to grab Captain Rylic’s throat.
This was a move Ronan had practiced a thousand times, but nothing prepared the pirate captain for it. Rylic’s eyes went wide as Ronan’s fingers found his windpipe and dug in. It was a terrible way to kill, and it was far from the method of choice for an assassin, but it was grimly effective for all that.
Ronan bared his teeth as he felt the captain’s windpipe being crushed in his clenched fist, and he saw the captain’s eyes bulge as blood suddenly gushed from the man’s mouth and ears. Ronan let go of the captain’s throat and as Captain Rylic stumbled backward, Ronan stepped in and slammed his own sword through the captain’s throat.
The captain stumbled backward and fell, his life blood gushing over his clothing and the deck around him. As he fell, a great wail of distress went up from the pirates.
“Captain!” they yelled. “The captain has fallen! All is lost!”
Ronan looked around for Diana, Eric, and Tanya.
They were still standing, and Tanya and Diana together had rallied and reformed the villagers, leading them for a counterattack against the pirates, but now the fighting stopped as everyone took in the twitching corpse of the captain.
A small, dark man who looked like a native Twelve Islander was rallying the pirates.
“Back to the ship!” he shouted. “Back to the ship, you lot! The captain would want us to fight another day! Bring his body!”
The pirates needed no more encouragement than that, and they showed themselves as nimble at escaping as they had been at attacking. They grabbed their captain’s body and the other fallen pirates and flung themselves back onto their ship, leaving the villagers in possession of the field of battle.
A cheer of victory went up, but Ronan looked around, realizing suddenly that it was not enough to kill the captain. They had to finish this once and for all. There was no point in letting the ship and most of the crew get away, even if they had killed Captain Rylic. They had to put an end to this. Already, the dark little man had taken command. Most of the pirates were still alive, and they were quickly unhooking their grappling hooks as others unfurled the sails.
Ronan looked over the water and saw that the catapult ships had finally entered the fight. As they came on, two of them released stones from the catapults that were set on the decks. Stones flew up over the sea, one of them hitting the deck of the pirate ship and knocking over a fighter, and the other splashing ineffectually into the water. The crews began to reload.
This will never do, Ronan thought. I need to take action here, otherwise these pirates are going to get away.
Only a handful of the pirate crew had actually died, not including the captain. They were clearly not prepared to fight on without Captain Rylic, but undoubtedly some other man would rise to take his place, and the Scattered Isles would not be safe for long.
Ronan considered his options for a moment, and then realized what he had to do.
Without hesitation, he dropped his sword and stripped off his armor. Under the armor, he was still wearing his assassin’s blacks, and as soon as the last of his chainmail and leather lay on the deck he leapt up over the side of the ship, hitting the water with a smooth, perfectly executed dive.
He knifed through the water’s surface like a missile, plunging into the green silence of the sea. He opened his eyes and looked around. The underside of the pirate ship was right next to him. Swimming with powerful, confident strokes, he pulled himself through the water toward the back of the pirate ship. As he did so, another stone from the catapult ships crashed into the water not far away from him. He heard the impact through the water, and glanced up to see the stone, around the side of his own head, plunging downward into the depths below in a shower of bubbles.
It would not do to be hit by one of those stones, he thought.
Changing direction, he swam downward, underneath the keel of the pirate ship, and then came up on the other side until he floated a few feet below the surface, his hand on the barnacled underside of the pirate ship.
At least from this angle, he thought, I will be protected by the body of the pirate ship from any more friendly fire from our catapults. Even as he had the thought, another stone plunged into the water on the other side of the ship, not far from where he had just been.
The pressure to take a breath was increasing, but he still had a few seconds to work with. He flipped open the pouch on his equipment belt that he had noted before setting out and pulled out a small ceramic globe. He smiled. Something told me I may find a use for this today.
It was like the flash bombs that he used to stun enemies in internal spaces, but with a twist. It was, in fact, one of the devices that Diana had based her firework smoke bomb on, the one she had used so effectively as a distraction back at the Malachite temple.
This one, however, was not designed simply to make a display. It was a powerful explosive, and it was designed to work just as effectively underwater as above the surface.
Working quickly, Ronan pulled off the small piece of cork that covered the spike in the side of the small ceramic globe. Then, he pressed the spike against the wood of the ship’s hull and pushed in, hard.
The sharp spike sank easily into the wood, and Ronan placed his hands over the bomb. With only a few moments’ worth of breath left, he closed his eyes and spoke in his mind the spell prayer that activated the explosive. “By the Night God, use this device to bring fire and death to my enemy.”
It was a simple form of words, but immediately, Ronan felt the will and magic of the Night God flowing through him into the small device. He turned, flipped himself over and pulled hard for the surface. A moment later he broke through into the air, wrenching in a deep breath and striking out in the direction of the Sea Swift.
Even as he did so, the pirate ship caught the wind and gave a great lurch, the water around its bows churning as the ship pulled away from the Sea Swift.
A great cry of victory went up from the decks of the Sea Swift as the pirate ship began to flee. Ronan turned over in the water and looked back at the ship that was now making rapid headway away from the scene of the battle. The villagers had won indeed. They did not know yet just how complete their victory was, but in a moment they would.
Suddenly, there was a muffled boom, and water fired up in a great blast from the area near the stern of the fleeing pirate ship. The pirate ship lurched forward, then back, and then with terrible speed began to sink.
“Lower the small boats!” Ronan heard Captain Thomas shout as he began to swim back toward the Sea Swift. “They are sinking! We must take as many prisoners as possible!”
Ronan reached the side of the Sea Swift and looked up. He reached out with his thought transference technique, found Eric’s mind, and leaned on it. I’m in the sea at the back of the ship, he sent the thought to Eric. Drop a rope and get me up.
A moment later, Eric’s face appeared over the edge of the Sea Swift’s rail. Then he vanished and reappeared, accompanied by a rope which he dropped into the water beside Ronan.
Ronan grabbed the rope and quickly climbed hand over hand up the side of the ship.
Ronan leaped over the side of the boat and landed on the ground. His hair and head were wet from the sea water, but the rest of his body was dry, the magical shadow garments resisting the effect of the water entirely. Captain Thomas was giving curt orders to put out the Sea Swift’s two little boats and pick up as many of the pirates as possible, but Tanya stood gazing at Ronan and his two friends with a small smile.
“So,” she said quietly, as Eric and Diana helped Ronan on with his armor again, “perhaps my request for aid from the Night Guild did not go as unheeded as I thought.”
Her eyes ran up and down Ronan’s black-clad form and lingered for a moment at the silver half-moon pendant that hung around his neck. She had been trained in the Twelve Isles, and she knew well what she was looking at.
“I would have preferred,” Ronan said quietly, “to have remained in my armor for this whole fight, but it seemed necessary to make a final end of the pirate ship.”
“Oh, I agree,” she said. “And if you just put your armor on again and cover up that very flattering black outfit, I’m sure there’s no one else here who will make the connection. I won’t spread the story about; you may be sure of that. Some mercenaries with a grudge against pirates helped us, that’s all there is to it.”
“Thank you,” Ronan replied, shrugging into his leather jerkin and doing up the belt. “That would be best for everyone.”
Tanya’s eyes lingered for a long moment on Ronan’s face, then she shook her head, smiled, and turned away. “I’ll help with the prisoners,” she said.
It took a long time to get all the prisoners on board and secured. They were tied with ropes at one side of the ship, where they would not get in the way of the crew. Thirty-five had survived the battle and the sinking, and none of them seemed particularly inclined to fight on. The small man who had taken command, it seemed, had drowned, and Captain Rylic’s body had gone to the bottom with his ship.
The villagers emptied the pockets of the pirates and made a good haul, but they did not otherwise mistreat them.
The villagers had lost two of their own number in the fight, and three were wounded, one badly. He probably would not survive.
That was the reality of battle, however. The two who had died had known what they were letting themselves in for, and Tanya said that they would have been happy to know that their sacrifice had succeeded in putting an end to Captain Rylic and the pirate threat.
Ronan was less than happy that villagers had died in the attack, despite what Tanya said. However, it was very hard to imagine a situation where nobody would have died, and after all, if the assassins had not been there to steer the course of events, the story of the pirates and the Scattered Isles might have ended with more villagers dying and a continued career for the pirates.
Still, it was a melancholy moment for Ronan and his companions when they took the two unactivated dragon eggs from the bags and moved to the spot on the deck where the blood of Captain Rylic, his crew, and that of the villagers was mixed together on the deck.
It was impossible to be discreet about it, but as it happened no one paid them any attention. Probably, none of them had ever seen a dragon egg before. They took the two eggs that had not yet been activated and knelt together on the bloody deck.
Eric laid his egg in a pool of congealing blood on the deck, and Diana did the same. Immediately the blood around the eggs lit up with bright, pale blue light, the light flickering like fire across the dark surface of the thick liquid.
The eggs themselves began to glow, lit from inside like paper lanterns. Though the afternoon was still sunny and bright, the eggs shone with a sudden, awesome luminescence. The veins on their surfaces shimmered and glowed even brighter, and the blood on the decks began to be pulled toward them.
“Ronan,” Eric said suddenly, “the other egg, the black and silver one. Bring it out and place it in the blood.”
“But it has already been activated,” Ronan said in surprise, though he grabbed the egg out of the bag as Eric suggested.
“It only took a little blood during its initial activation,” Eric said, his voice sounding thick as if he was half in a trance. “It can take more. If it takes more battle blood, the dragon will be stronger when it hatches.”
“Dragon?” Tanya said, coming up just at that moment.
“No time to explain,” Ronan said, feeling a little chagrined that Eric had been overheard. He placed the black and silver egg in the blood, as Eric had suggested.
Immediately, it began to draw in the blood from around itself just as the other two were doing. Bright light shone from inside it, and the silver lines glowed like fire.
“They are…dragon eggs!” Tanya said. “You have dragon eggs, and you are activating them in the battle blood, just like the old legends!”
Ronan glanced up at her, too surprised for the moment to be concerned that she knew what they were doing. “You have heard of this technique before?”
“Yes,” she replied. “My mother told me stories about the activation of dragon eggs. They were plunged in the element that they had an affinity with, bathed in blood that was spilled in battle, and animated by the spirit of a willing ghost. The stories were always very heroic, especially the finding of a willing spirit. I always thought it was nonsense, and that dragon eggs couldn’t actually be activated. I thought they were just fossils, relics of an older era…” she trailed off as the bright light from the dragon eggs flickered across her face.
“It would be best if you went on thinking that,” Eric said quietly, “for the moment at least. As you have already guessed, we have a mission that is bigger than saving the Scattered Islands from pirates.”
“Yes,” Tanya said, nodding her head slowly, “I see that now. But I don’t think you fully understand yet. I said I thought my mother’s tales were just tales, but that was when I was only a child. I have been around the world a bit since then, and I have learnt that legends often have a grain of truth to them, and sometimes more than a grain.”
She looked at them for a long moment and seemed to be making her mind up about something. Then she nodded and took a breath.
“I know something that can help you,” she said. “You’ve helped me, and I want to give you something in return.”
“What do you mean?” Ronan asked sharply, looking up at her as his egg absorbed the last of the blood on the deck. There was something fateful in her voice.
“Just this,” she said. “I know where there is another dragon egg.”
Chapter 14
At that moment, Captain Thomas came over. “I see you have an interesting device for cleaning blood from a deck there,” he said, glancing distractedly at the eggs that the three assassins were now packing away.
“Thank you for doing that,” he continued. “It’s a nasty job, and there is nothing like a bloody deck to make a ship’s crew nervous.”
He glanced again at the dragon eggs, then glanced away. Ronan was pleased that aside from Tanya, none of the crew or the prisoners showed any interest in the eggs. Captain Thomas had made his judgment of them as nothing more than a clever device for cleaning up blood, and he dismissed them. Ronan was perfectly happy to allow him to continue in this mistaken judgment of the situation. One new person suddenly being aware of their secret mission was quite enough.
“I would ask your advice,” Captain Thomas said. “My ship is not equipped for a long voyage, nor is it well equipped for the storage of prisoners. We can go back to Twin Mountain, but no further, and I confess I am at a loss as to what to do with these prisoners after that.”
“We should deliver them to the Council in Twin Mountain,” Tanya said. “They will have the means there to look after the prisoners safely, and the Scattered Isles are technically within the jurisdiction. It is within the power of the Council at Twin Mountain to decide on the fate of the pirates.”
“Good, good,” Captain Thomas said. “That will do well. Very good. Will you and your villagers come with me to Twin Mountain City and help me to deliver the prisoners there?”
“Of course,” Tanya said. “It is the least that I can do to thank you for your help in this dangerous adventure.”
Shortly afterward, the Sea Swift got underway. It did not take long for them to get back to Twin Mountain, and when they arrived, they found that the news of the battle had already reached the city.
A fishing vessel that had been nearby had seen the whole thing, and the fisherman had returned to the city and told everyone the news. There was a party of well-armed guards sent by the council who had come down to the port and were waiting for the Sea Swift to come with her prisoners.
They were met at the dock by the council marshal, the man who was in charge of the city guard, and he quickly and competently took over the command of the pirates. They were led off the ship in a line and loaded onto carts that had been brought for the purpose.
“I am very glad to hear of Captain Rylic’s death,” the marshal told them. “There has been a bounty on his head for some time now. If you want to come up to the council meeting house, we can get the payment of that bounty arranged.”
Tanya gestured to Ronan. “It should go to my friends here, who led the attack. It was this man who killed Captain Rylic. I saw it happen.”
