one guy, and kicking two more over the side, then charged after the rest.
It was inevitable that some of ’em were going to start firing back, and I almost flinched myself overboard as a bolt glanced off my blade and nearly took my nose off. I hit the deck with more whiffing past me, and by the time I rolled back to my feet I was alone in the middle of the deck with the whole ship reloading and aiming at me.
I leapt straight up, screaming like a school girl, and a handful of bolts zipped under my feet, but a bunch more followed me, whizzing past my ears and sticking in the balloon over my head. I landed on the foredeck and charged another knot of shooters, my back tingling, expecting to be a pincushion with every step, but instead, all the crossbow guys started shrieking and falling and turning toward the rail.
Whew! Part two of the plan was a go. The pirates were finally firing from the mesa, shooting grappling-hook bolts over the rails and picking off the guys who were trying to pick me off. Now we had ’em in the crossfire. I attacked the crossbow guys from behind as they took cover behind the rail, and the pirates pegged ’em when I made ’em break cover. The poor fuckers were like chickens in a dog pen, they didn’t know which way to run.
But just as the pirates started hauling on their hooks and I figured we had it in the bag, the door to the under-decks slammed open and a bald-headed, buzzard-beaked priest with an extra fancy robe strode out with six paladin spear carriers for an escort and a motherfucking wand of blue fire in his hands.
He aimed it at me and the world stopped like someone had hit the pause button. I stopped. He stopped. Everybody stopped. The only thing I could hear was the blood pounding in my neck. Then he spoke. He sounded like a juvie school principal giving a lecture.
“I have orders to spare you, demoness.” He swung the barrel of his white plastic Casio-looking gun toward the mesa, where Kai-La and Burly and all the rest were still reeling in the ship. “But no such orders for your friends. Surrender or they die.”
I’d seen one of those pop guns in action before, so I knew he wasn’t bluffing. It might look like a vacuum cleaner tube with some Christmas lights on the side, but the fucking thing could carve a mountain in half if you wanted it to. It scared the living piss out of me. On the other hand, I could see it in his beady little eyes that I scared the living piss out of him too. Maybe I could bluff him.
I took a step towards him, sword low but ready. “And how many do you think you can kill before I cut you in half? You wanna try it? You wanna take your shot?”
He edged back, eyes twitching from me to the pirates and back, as his guards stepped in front of him, spears leveled. “You would not risk it. Your lover is among them. You—”
With a sound like a fastball hitting a catcher’s mitt, a crossbow bolt appeared in his shoulder and he shrieked and fell and dropped the wand.
“Ha! Nice shot!”
Score one for my pirate pals, and more bolts started to thud into the deck all around him as the crew on the mesa reeled the ship into close range. A bolt took out one of Beaky’s paladins. The others were ducking and backing away.
I sprang at ’em, hoping to finish ’em off and get a hold of that fucking zap gun, but they were a lot tougher than the guys I’d cut down earlier, even under fire, and kept me back with some fancy spear work, stabbing and backing and stabbing and backing as Beak-Nose staggered to his feet with the wand clutched to his chest and ran for the foredeck.
“Hold her! The wand must be saved!”
I had no idea what he was talking about, but I tried to go after him anyway, leaping high, dodging wide. No dice, those spears were everywhere. If I wanted to get past ’em, I’d have to go through the hard way. I turned all my attention to breaking the paladins’ line, chopping through their spears, bashing ’em back, kicking their knees and
It was inevitable that some of ’em were going to start firing back, and I almost flinched myself overboard as a bolt glanced off my blade and nearly took my nose off. I hit the deck with more whiffing past me, and by the time I rolled back to my feet I was alone in the middle of the deck with the whole ship reloading and aiming at me.
I leapt straight up, screaming like a school girl, and a handful of bolts zipped under my feet, but a bunch more followed me, whizzing past my ears and sticking in the balloon over my head. I landed on the foredeck and charged another knot of shooters, my back tingling, expecting to be a pincushion with every step, but instead, all the crossbow guys started shrieking and falling and turning toward the rail.
Whew! Part two of the plan was a go. The pirates were finally firing from the mesa, shooting grappling-hook bolts over the rails and picking off the guys who were trying to pick me off. Now we had ’em in the crossfire. I attacked the crossbow guys from behind as they took cover behind the rail, and the pirates pegged ’em when I made ’em break cover. The poor fuckers were like chickens in a dog pen, they didn’t know which way to run.
But just as the pirates started hauling on their hooks and I figured we had it in the bag, the door to the under-decks slammed open and a bald-headed, buzzard-beaked priest with an extra fancy robe strode out with six paladin spear carriers for an escort and a motherfucking wand of blue fire in his hands.
He aimed it at me and the world stopped like someone had hit the pause button. I stopped. He stopped. Everybody stopped. The only thing I could hear was the blood pounding in my neck. Then he spoke. He sounded like a juvie school principal giving a lecture.
“I have orders to spare you, demoness.” He swung the barrel of his white plastic Casio-looking gun toward the mesa, where Kai-La and Burly and all the rest were still reeling in the ship. “But no such orders for your friends. Surrender or they die.”
I’d seen one of those pop guns in action before, so I knew he wasn’t bluffing. It might look like a vacuum cleaner tube with some Christmas lights on the side, but the fucking thing could carve a mountain in half if you wanted it to. It scared the living piss out of me. On the other hand, I could see it in his beady little eyes that I scared the living piss out of him too. Maybe I could bluff him.
I took a step towards him, sword low but ready. “And how many do you think you can kill before I cut you in half? You wanna try it? You wanna take your shot?”
He edged back, eyes twitching from me to the pirates and back, as his guards stepped in front of him, spears leveled. “You would not risk it. Your lover is among them. You—”
With a sound like a fastball hitting a catcher’s mitt, a crossbow bolt appeared in his shoulder and he shrieked and fell and dropped the wand.
“Ha! Nice shot!”
Score one for my pirate pals, and more bolts started to thud into the deck all around him as the crew on the mesa reeled the ship into close range. A bolt took out one of Beaky’s paladins. The others were ducking and backing away.
I sprang at ’em, hoping to finish ’em off and get a hold of that fucking zap gun, but they were a lot tougher than the guys I’d cut down earlier, even under fire, and kept me back with some fancy spear work, stabbing and backing and stabbing and backing as Beak-Nose staggered to his feet with the wand clutched to his chest and ran for the foredeck.
“Hold her! The wand must be saved!”
I had no idea what he was talking about, but I tried to go after him anyway, leaping high, dodging wide. No dice, those spears were everywhere. If I wanted to get past ’em, I’d have to go through the hard way. I turned all my attention to breaking the paladins’ line, chopping through their spears, bashing ’em back, kicking their knees and
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