The shields! Bolster the shields! Yorun, Makewright and Captain of the Ciphers Venture commanded, control rod in hand. The wind was against them now, and his ship was losing powersoon they might all fall into the acid below, but not if he had anything to say about it! Samul! Godwik! Mainsail-haul!
His Wooden Golems pivoted smoothly, oiled joints bouncing smoothly with the turbulence as they carried out his orders.
This is unnatural, Tzfell said amid the chaos. She stood between trotting Golems, scurrying Gnos, and flinching, fledgling Chanters, calmly regarding the tentacle above. Her bald head glead even in the dull winter light, shimring with geotric patterns etched into her skin. As a Dwarf, the tentacle was easily three tis her height in length. It flexed against the barrier generated by the Manaships engines, barbed hooks and suckers grappling and almost digging into the magic. It is hanging on despite our speed, and I cannot Analyze it.
Neither can I, admitted the statuesque Elda. Her beautiful face was pinched, but only comparatively. They both looked to be carved of stone. This may require more effort than we expected.
Yorun scrambled across the tilting deck, hands digging into the deck as he tried to reach their group. Sorcerers! Can you not cast this thing away? Its destroying my ship!
It is our ship, Captain Yorun, until youve completed your service, Tzfell said, her deanor as calm as if she were discussing things over tea. Do rember our deal.
I rember! But Im not much use dead! he snapped back. And this ship aint useful to if its crushed!
Move your Golems and your fellow Gnos to safety, captain. We shall deal with this, Eslda stated. She was sweating, but her expression was just as eerily calm as the other. The both of them raised their hands as the shields quivered. Quickly, now.
Yorun threw up his hands in defeat and grasped the control rod hanging from his belt. It glead once again as he shoved his Will through its matrices. Spellforms flashed into being, spinning outward on near-invisible lines, straight into the cores of his creations. Corsairs to stern! Drop lines and take shelter!
The mont the words left his mouth, the entire shiphis shipjerked to a stop and threw him into a tumbling roll. Yorun cursed and tried to right himself, but it was drowned out by the sound of shattering glass as the ships barrier collapsed. From above, the nasty beasts tentacle fellright atop a huddled group of younglings.
Look out! he shouted, and his control rod flared.
Two Corsairs leaped across the deck, their wooden and tin limbs outstretched, and tackled the younglings out of the way as the hooked appendage ravaged the deck. One Corsair Golem rolled to safety, arms cradling one of his apprentices and a youthful-seeming Chanter, while the other was split in half at the waistbut not before its arms scooped around two more of his apprentices.
Yorun gasped, relief flooding his very bones. Youngling! Get my apprentices down below!
The Chanter in training nodded furiously, her curled locks bouncing, before she and the remaining Corsair hurried away with his apprentices between them.
Yorun got to his feet, his core chugging along inside his chest as his Skills tried to marshalonly to stutter to a stop as he saw the wreck ahead. My ship!
The first tentacle had smashed into the deck too, but its sheer mass had torn open a huge hole in the planks, made worse now by its frenzied thrashing. Splinters filled the air and wet, gurgling screams emanated from sowhere over the railingwhere an acrid smoke and sizzle caught Yoruns attention.
Weve landed in the water! Sorcerers! We need lift! he shouted.
Blood and screams t his words, as more tentacles erged from the sizzling brine to slap their jagged lengths against wood and sail and line. Golems were smashed, slicking the decks with viscous oils to mingle with pools of dull blood. Magic burned in the air, flashes of light, shadow, fla, and ice impacting the monsters mottled limbs. Claws of force and spears of air stabbed at its rubbery flesh but only resulting in more tentacles rising from the sea.
It iseating our Skills! a Sorcerer cried out. The main deck was sward with the robed n and won, all of them singing. Nothing we do is making a mark!
From the rear of the battle, Yorun saw the truth of it. Spell after spell struck the writhing, lashing tentacles and were turned into wisps of vapor or cascading liquid. The Mana from the broken spellforms didnt simply dissipate eitherthey were sucked up by the monsters hungry limbs.
What are you? Yorun gasped, unable to catch his breath as everything hed spent his fortune on unraveled around him.
The ship rocked, tilted to its side as the creature roared again. Yorun fell again, his small limbs no match for the blood-streaked deck. He fetched hard against the railing, driving a wheezing exhale from his lungs as he dangled precariously over the churning acid-waves below. His eyes widened in horror, pain forgotten, as the misbegotten shape of the creature was partly revealed. AHH!
Dozens upon dozens of eyes stared up at him through a veil of sickly green, the smallest the size of his head and the largest bigger than the tallest of his Golems. They burned with a lamp fla orange, and whispers surged in Yoruns Mind.
DESCEND.VIOLATOR.
DESCEND.
Sothing grappled him, caging his limbs among his vestnts like a swaddled babe, and Yorun thrashed.
Be still!
The voice shook him, literally vibrating his chest and head like the tolling of a gargantuan bell, and Yorun went slack. He gazed up and back at the withered form of the Sorcerers leader as she held him tight against her bosom. Mauvim.
What is? he began.
The Dread is compelling us all. You must not listen. Her voice was leather on steel, and it carried a force of pure command that he recognized from his ti in the Neeran Fleet. She was bent and walked with a knotted cane, but the force of her Will was palpable.
She set Yorun down, and his legs felt like jelly. He locked his knees and clenched the rail, but refused to look over the side again. What do we do? The creature is too strong.
We persevere, she said, before snapping her fingers. A sound like a ballista bolt rang out, and the very air rippled. Elda! Tzfell! Attend. She turned those fingers toward the water, where more tentacles lifted in response. In challenge. It is a Bloodbeast, and it is not yet done.
Faster than the Gno could track, more hooked tentacles whipped up and over the guardrail, slashing into the sails and rigging before descending in a hurricane of wet devastation. It was t by the crooked stance of an unbowed Sorcererand a song.
A cage of solid light and gleaming white tal surrounded the tentacles, arresting their montum mid-swing. Thunder crashed, a song of triumph weaving through the roar of waves and beastYorun staggered back, his Spirit overwheld.
Sing the shields!
A renewed effort spread, and the strange, unnatural magic of the Chanters supplanted their terrifying reality. A visible shield striated with light ford around them, slicing through countless vile, mottled appendages like butcher knives through cattle. Ichor rained down, eating away at his precious ship before the Sorcerers could burn away the Bloodbeasts segnted flesh.
A horrid bellow shook the ship, and waves of acid erupted up the sides of their newborn shields as the creature reared back. Yorun clenched his jaw, fighting against his rising gorge; a fight others clearly lost all around him. The creature was twice the size of his ship, its body long and covered in pebbled skin, rust-red scales, and putrid yellowed flesh. Hands and arms stretched out, Human-seeming save for their terrible length and disgusting number. Dozens of them lined the bottom of the Dread, outnumbered only by the barbed tentacles that festooned the sides of it as it rose on thrashing fins. Spines rose from its back and orb-like head, glowing with a virulent green that traced across its form like uninterrupted fla.
Sing! Mauvim ordered.
The Dread screeched, a sound made of a thousand voices. Orange and green Mana burst in all directions, smashing into the reinforced shields with enough power to pitch Yoruns entire ship backward. They rode the swell, held in place only by the clutching grasp of the tentacles on their starboard side.
Yorun fell, clutching at his ears. Chanters fell to the deck, eyes and ears bleeding, screaming. Tentacles, hundreds of them, rose from every conceivable direction, filling the fog-ridden air until they all but blocked out the sun.
It has us! Were dood!
GET DOWN!
The Dread twisted, wheeling its unveiled maw toward the shore. It screeched, maw wide open, as a bolt of blue-white lightning blasted into its face.
Lightning and fire spun outward bashing into their shields until all Yorun could see was chaos. When it resolved, there was a figurea Humanfloating above the waves. He was clad in only dark green trousers, thick silver bangles around his ankles and wrists, andhis skin wasnt skin at all. Not Human. Yorun pushed himself up. Thatsthats the Autarch. The man from the stories, himself.
The Dread was not done, but it clearly did not want anything to do with the Autarch. It lurched to the side, an orb of condensed acid blasted out of its hideous maw. An orb that was half the size of the ship. It scread through the air, burning the sky itself as Yoruns stood transfixed by sudden, certain death.
The Autarch raised a single hand. Hand of Catalcysm, he mutteredand the world sang.
The orb burst, scattering in a great arc around the Autarch before it halted entirely. The man curled his claws and the strears of acid shot backward. Right into the Dreads huge, unblinking eyes.
It screeched, the acid boring sizzling holes in its hide, and the Dread dropped back into the water.
VIOLATORS!
Who are you talking about? The Fiend asked.
VIOLATORS WILL BE DESTROYED!
The Autarch went stiff, before he looked back at the ship. At Yorun, whos stomach dropped and threatened to rip out of him entirely beneath that gaze. The Autarch turned away, facing the Dread again. They are welco here. Stand down.
Yorun had a mont of stunned disbeliefsurely this behemoth would not simply go away? And yetit did. The waves parted, and the Bloodbeast sank below, until its lamp fla eyes were swallowed by the deeper dark of the Bitter Sea.
Welive?
Well that was rough, said the floating Autarch. He floated before Yoruns ship, his mouth wide in a smile and his arms open. Inviting. Hi. Im Felix Nevarre. Welco to Nagast, mbers of the Cantus Sodalus.
Whatever the Sorcerers replied with was lost to Yorun, because he could not take his attention away from the Autarch. He knew why the stories called him the Fiend, now. His eyes. Yorun swallowed, and found his throat painfully dry. His eyes burn. Like flas.
Like the Dreads own.
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