Solyrian Conspiracy - C M Raymond & L E Barbant Read online

  But Parker had plans of his own.

  He fell backward and dropped the spear, letting Vitali’s momentum carry him overhead. The catman landed hard on the deck. He tried to roll to his feet, but the Unlawful pitched severely, and he couldn’t stop himself from slamming into one of the ship’s outer walls.

  Vitali caught his breath. He looked out over the vast valley forest below them and saw something that made even less sense to his mind than the flying ship.

  A small army of people clinging to the sides of that ship. And climbing.

  He heard a gentle thud as first one arrow, then another and another embedded themselves in the Unlawful’s hull. Thick ropes hung from the arrows, and Vitali’s keen eyes could make out small figures quickly ascending.

  He turned around to find a smiling Parker, who was currently spinning Vitali’s knives.

  “Wanna trade?” Vitali asked.

  “Why,” Parker said. “Don’t you think you’re as good with a spear as I am with these knives?”

  “No, because I don’t know how to shoot the damn thing, and we’re going to need it. We’re under attack.”

  Chapter Three

  Karl burst onto the deck, hammer in hand and quickly assessed the situation. Parker and Vitali were back to back, currently holding their own against a half-dozen fighters in long, dark clothing. They wielded short spears and small shields like Aysa’s, and they knew how to use them. But despite the coordinated effort of the attack, they seemed to fight as individuals rather than as a unit.

  Which meant they’d be no match for Team BBB.

  Karl quickly floored a man running toward him, then spun to take down another. As he did, a shadow passed overhead. He looked up to see a woman with wings soar above him.

  “Bloody hell.”

  A second later, the woman and her wings had burst into flames. She screamed as she sailed over the edge of the ship.

  He turned to see Hannah emerge, red eyes glowing in the night.

  “It looks like we’re having a party, and I wasn’t invited.”

  “Yeah, well, ye always ruin the fun.”

  Hannah smiled and hurled a spear of ice into a man climbing over the rail of the ship. “People like my party tricks.”

  “I assure ye that guy did NOT like yer tricks.”

  Several more shadows passed overhead, but as Hannah’s fireballs torched the large wings, something strange happened. The people attached to those wings let go and landed on the deck, spears at the ready.

  “They’re using some sort of damn kites.”

  “Manmade wings…brilliant,” Hannah said, her silver knife zipping around her like it had a mind of its own.

  “Attacking this ship? Not so much. Where the bloody hell are they comin’ from?”

  Hannah looked toward the mountains. “One way to find out. You good up here?”

  “Aye,” Karl said. “The boys and I will be fine. We’ll hold the deck and keep ‘em from gettin’ inside. What are ye gonna do?”

  Hannah smiled. “I’m going to go crash a party.” A flash of light lit the deck, and then she was gone.

  The spear-wielding pirates stood back in awe, but the confusion didn’t last. They saw that the only thing standing between them and the door that led into the Unlawful was one tiny man…and they were clearly unaware of the existence of rearick.

  Karl tightened his grip on his hammer. It felt good to stretch his arms.

  The pirates fell before him. Their outfits and weapons were good for boarding a flying ship at night but bad for taking down a battle-hardened mountain-dweller bearing a hammer. He could see Vitali and Parker still working as a team as they slashed and stabbed the would-be thieves. Those two young men could tangle with the best of them, and Karl was beginning to think this night would be over quickly.

  Until a mountain of a man landed on the deck.

  Most of the pirates were short and lean, and this man easily stood taller than the rest. He nearly rivaled Aysa for height, and his arms bulged under the dark fabric.

  Karl didn’t see the kite that had carried him, but it must have been huge.

  The trespasser didn’t hesitate. He hurled his spear like a missile. Karl barely got his hammer up in time to block it. The pirate smiled a broad toothless grin as he pulled two axes from his belt. “You show some spirit, little man. I will show you the kindness of killing you before I throw you from this ship.”

  “Aye, and I’ll show ye the kindness of cleaning me hammer before I ram it down yer throat.”

  The pirate charged, moving strangely fast for his size. Usually, a hammer like Karl’s was made for breaking shields and caving in breastplates, not parrying a two-handed attack, and the pirate whirled and hacked with his hatchets like he had used them to cut down hundreds of men.

  But hundreds of men didn’t hold a candle to Karl.

  Using his short stature to his advantage, he aimed his hammer low. The pirate was quick on his feet, but all it took was one unexpected lurch of the ship for Karl to sweep those quick feet with his hammer. The large man shook the deck as he fell.

  Before Karl could move in to finish the kill, a half-dozen fighters with spears descended upon him, pushing to get through the door. As he fought back against the fray, Karl caught a last glimpse of the huge man as he limped toward the edge of the ship and pulled himself overboard.

  “Next time, ye oversized pirate dipshite.”

  Chapter Four

  Hannah landed in the middle of an old pine forest. There were men and women running in every direction, working on loading giant ballistae. The large mounted crossbows lined the valley floor, firing bolt after bolt toward the Unlawful. Thick cords traveled behind, giving the fighters a line to climb.

  She couldn’t help but smile. It was the exact plan her team of resistance fighters had once used to steal the ship from Adrien, but these poor souls wouldn’t be nearly as lucky as they had been. No one seemed to notice Hannah, so she decided to change that. She knelt and drove her fingers into the soil, and within seconds, trees around her were exploding, raining shards of bark, limbs, and needles like shrapnel down on the army.

  That caught their attention.

  “I’m going to give you one chance to pack up and get the hell away from my ship,” she shouted.

  Two men with bright yellow sashes across their chests, obviously commanders of some kind, stared at her, then at each other, and finally at their men. They barked an order, and two dozen fighters ran toward her.

  “Have it your way.” She shrugged.

  These people obviously knew how to fight, but they were in no way prepared for Hannah’s blend of magic and martial ferocity. She moved through the attacking force like she was cutting grass. Within minutes, twenty people lay dead or dying at her feet. The lucky ones were cut down by her knife or impaled by melting spears of ice. The unlucky ones were broken by her bare hands.

  There were some advantages to having the blood of a goddess running through your veins.

  The two yellow-sashed commanders stood back in fear as Hannah took a menacing step toward them, but to their credit, they didn’t flee. Instead, they readjusted their attack. Two ballistae swung in her direction.

  “Fire!” they shouted in unison, launching missiles thick enough to level a castle wall.

  Hannah caught the bolts, one in each hand. She closed her eyes and forced her magic into them, using her physical alchemy to change their makeup, along with the physical structure of the ropes running from them back toward the commanders.

  Hannah opened her eyes and smiled.

  “You wanted fire? You got it.”

  Flames burst from her hands and raced along the magically altered ropes. The two men had just long enough to imagine their fate before the flames reached the ballistae. An explosion ripped through the side of the mountain, sending men screaming, with flames licking around their bodies. The whole army turned to stare at Hannah and the damage she had wrought.

  A hundred spears pointed tow
ard her. She merely drew her knife and smiled.

  The blood of the Matriarch came with many, many bonuses.

  Chapter Five

  “This is almost too easy,” Parker shouted as he used his magitech spear to shoot down another hang-glider. “It’s like hunting pigeons.”

  “My people use nets for hunting birds,” Vitali said as he ended a man with a fluid motion of his knives. “Not that strange machine you call a spear. And besides, there isn’t much honor in shooting down pigeons.”

  Parker laughed. “A bad metaphor, then, because these pigeons have spears of their own, and they’re trying to kill us. Luckily, my spear is way better than their impotent sticks.”

  As Parker laughed his way through the melee, a woman on a hang-glider dove toward him. Most of the fighters dropped from their kites and fell on them, but this one was smarter. She angled her kite low and directly toward him. He turned his spear toward her, but at the last minute, the Unlawful lurched, a shift that didn’t affect the air-born attacker. Parker stumbled and the woman slammed into his shoulder, sending him reeling.

  The next thing he knew, he was over the edge.

  Parker screamed as the side of the Unlawful raced past him. He reached out to grab one of the ropes hanging from the ship, but his hand missed by inches.

  This is it, he thought. I’m finished.

  He closed his eyes and waited for the ground, but it never came. Instead, a sharp pain cut through his shoulders, halting his fall.

  He turned to see a furry hand with sharp claws sinking into his arm.

  “Why is it that I’m always saving you from falling to your death?” Vitali asked as he hung from the rope. “Do Arcadians not know how to hold on?”

  Parker laughed, mostly out of relief. “It’s definitely an oversight in our education. Good thing we have a Lynqi on board.”

  Parker slung his spear onto his back, and with Vitali’s help, he was able to swing over to the rope. Then the two started the long climb back onto the ship.

  “We had better hurry,” Vitali said. “Karl is on deck all by himself, and it doesn’t look like this attack is slowing down.”

  Parker followed Vitali’s eyes downward toward the valley. He could see black-cloaked figures climbing the rope behind him.

  “Maybe I can do something about that,” Parker said. He pulled his spear back out and held it against the rope. “See you later.”

  With his spear as a crossbar, Parker slid down the rope, using it as a zipline. The face of the first fighter he met was priceless as his boots slammed into it.

  Chapter Six

  Vitali stared in awe as Parker barreled through a line of climbing invaders. Everywhere they went, strangers assumed Vitali was an animal, but every human he traveled with was ten times as wild as he had ever been.

  Continuing his climb, he soon reached the hull of the Unlawful. Vitali wondered how the pirates continued their ascent after reaching the end of the rope, so he watched as an attacker on a line a dozen feet from him pulled two small knives from his belt and used them to climb with.

  Vitali smiled as he bared his claws. Nature had given him a better way.

  His plan was to reach the deck and help Karl any way he could, but that plan fell to pieces as he saw the invaders attempting a new plan. They were cutting a hole directly into the side of the ship. Vitali made a beeline for that spot, clinging tightly to the hardened wood with his claws. Another large dip by the Unlawful nearly threw him, but he redoubled his efforts when he realized what the ship’s erratic movements meant.

  The pirates had reached Aysa.

  He had to move fast.

  Vitali judged the distance, then leapt toward the nearest rope. With one hand he grabbed tightly, and with the other, he used his knife to hack at the cord beneath his grip. The ten men or so climbing beneath him plummeted to the ground, but Vitali had no time to worry about them. Cut loose from its anchor, the rope he held swung wildly in the wind. Vitali kicked his legs out, using his momentum to angle him toward the open hole in the hull. He came in fast and a little low but managed to clear the distance with one last leap. His claws grabbed the edge of the ship, and he pulled himself inside.

  The hallway before him was dark, but with his cat-like eyes, he could see it was empty. He ran, forsaking his normal caution when he heard the sounds of a fight below deck. Two turns and he was inside the cockpit, watching as the one-armed Baseeki tried to fight off three invaders while simultaneously piloting the airship. Her whirling bolas kept the men at bay.

  “The first one who tries for these controls gets their jaw smashed to bits!”

  From the look on Aysa’s face, it was clear she meant it.

  Vitali decided not to waste the distraction Aysa offered. He dropped one man before he was even aware of the Lynqi’s presence, but the man’s death rattle gave away the game.

  A woman with shoulders broader than Karl’s turned toward him with her shield up and her spear pointed out, a smart defensive position that made sense in the tight confines of the ship’s cockpit. Vitali preferred fighting outdoors, where ample space gave him room to work his speed and agility to his advantage, but he could kill inside easy enough.

  The woman stabbed at him, hoping his unarmed body would fall to her spear, but Vitali was ready. He dodged, then pounced, using the exact move he had tried on Parker just minutes earlier. But this woman was no Parker, and Vitali’s knives found their home.

  Practice makes perfect, he thought.

  As she fell to the deck, Aysa used her bolas to disarm her attacker before smashing the hard metal balls into the man’s face.

  “Nice move,” Vitali said.

  Aysa nodded, grinning. “Thanks for the assist. Any more of them out there?”

  Vitali checked the hall, then shook his head. “Looks like they’re giving up.”

  Aysa laughed. “That tends to happen when people run headfirst into the living, breathing hellfire of a broad that is our boss.”

  Chapter Seven

  Hannah walked around the forest, making sure the attacking army was neutralized. If there were any threats left, they weren’t showing their heads.

  Her fireballs tended to have that effect on people.

  As she stepped around the shattered remains of a ballista, a man’s body slammed to the ground in front of her with a thud, his body denting it. She wondered idly if she had thrown someone into the air, but then she looked up and saw Parker falling right behind him.

  Hannah reached out, willing her magic to slow his fall. It worked just enough so that she could catch him before he hit.

  He stared at her in shock before looking down at the way she cradled him in her arms like a newborn.

  “Not my most manly moment.”

  “I’d have to agree with you there,” she said, setting him on his feet. “Why were you falling out of the sky, anyway?”

  “I, uh…” Parker looked at the dead bodies surrounding her. “I came to rescue you.”

  Hannah leaned in and kissed him. “My hero.”

  Sal thumped to the ground a second later, nearly taking them out as he landed.

  “And where the hell were you?” she said. “There were killers on kites. We could have used a flying dragon of our own.”

  Sal bowed his head in mock apology, but Hannah could tell by the way his tail wagged anxiously that he was still enjoying his kaffe high. She laughed as she scratched behind his ears. “Your addiction is getting in the way of your duties, big guy.”

  “I don’t know.” Parker smirked. “I think I see pirate-flesh in his teeth. All hopped up on kaffe? My guess is he did more damage than you.”

  “Is that right?” Hannah asked, scratching harder. “Man’s best friend, right here.”

  While she tended to her dragon, Parker poked one of the dead bodies. “Who the hell are these guys, anyway? Is there someone with a grudge against us in these parts?”

  Hannah thought for a second, then shook her head. “There is now, but they’d h
ave to be pretty freaking stupid to try anything else against us. My guess is they had scouts who marked our airship from a distance, then simply waited for us to arrive. This valley is the perfect ambush spot.”

  Parker nodded. None of this was too shocking. A vessel like the Unlawful was something of a rarity in Irth, and everywhere Team BBB went, people either fled in terror from it or tried to take it from them. Hannah simply chalked it up to the risks associated with air travel.

  Parker picked up one of their spears and tested the balance for a second before dropping it to the ground. “You want to investigate further? They probably have some sort of village or base nearby.”

  Hannah considered it for a moment before shaking her head. “Does it make me a bad hero of Irth if I say no? I’d say we taught them a mighty powerful lesson today, one they’re not likely to forget anytime soon. Let’s just get back to the ship.”

  Parker smiled. “I can’t speak to your ‘hero of Irth status,’ but I think it makes you human—regardless of the Queen Bitch’s blood in your veins.”

  Hannah smiled, then gave Parker another kiss. “Sweet talk like that is all I need from a man.”

  They climbed onto Sal’s back, and she could practically feel the dragon’s smile as they flew back up to their floating home.

  Chapter Eight

  “Drink up, rearick. You look like you need it,” Aysa whispered as she poured mead into Karl’s large wooden mug. She patted his shoulder several times, giving it a little squeeze on the last.

  Since Aysa had joined the BBB, they’d been at each other’s throats, but everyone, including the two of them, knew quite well that their banter was only a reflection of a deep and abiding affection they had for each other. Karl was the father Aysa never really knew, and she was the daughter he would never have.