Skyworld Book I

Chapter Five - War In The Clouds

Dent took the stairs three at a time. Rocketing out of the portal, he saw Parnoh sliding down the rigging and hit the deck with a graceful somersault.

Flipping into a standing position, the sailor pointed aft and shouted, "There, coming up fast below us!"

Dent leaned over the railing and sure enough, a ship, nearly twice the size of the Wind-Runner was rising up through a cloud, it's twin sails moving it at twice their cruising speed. Atop the high forward mast was a flag with black crossed swords over a blood red field. Not exactly the skull and crossbones Dent was familiar with, but the similarity was close enough to spell their unfriendly purposes.

The deck lurched to starboard as Princess Althea pulled the wheel hard attempting to fly an evasive course. At the same time, a huge ball of fire shot past the ship's hull only a few feet from Dent's position. The heat was unbelievable. Luckily the roaring meteor missed both the ship and the sail and continued past them into the heavens.

"Fire-bombs!" Parnoh identified, joining Dent at the railing. "If one of them hits the sail, we're lost!"

Professor Romaine, holding his skirt up so as not to fall on his face, raced over to join them.

"How many?" he asked while looking down.

"One," Parnoh supplied.

"They're using fire-bombs!"

"How?" Gideon was still gripping the railing as the deck suddenly shifted to port.

"Catapults!" Romaine replied, his own balance threatened. "See!"

The pirate ship was getting close enough that Dent could make out the activity on the deck. There, almost directly below them, several men were using a wench to pull down a long, spoon shaped wooden pole. In the saucer end of the catapult was a giant boulder covered in some kind of dark syrup. As the men tightening the rope coil were locking the bowl into place, a sailor brandishing a flaming torch come forth and touched it to the huge rock. Instantly the boulder was ablaze, then the rope spring was cut and the pole went up like a jack-in-the-box, hurling the fiery rock.

"Hard to starboard!" Gideon screamed as he calculated the missile's trajectory. The princess jerked the heavy wheel in the opposite direction and once again the still rising boat twisted over.

Seeing the fire-ball swell up at him, Gideon knew they weren't going avoid it completely.

"Jump!" He grabbed Romaine's collar and dove to the deck. Parnoh did likewise. There was a loud smack against the side and pieces of hot debris rained down upon them. Dent looked up to see the man-made meteor caroming off the hull, having hit it's curved surface at an angle.

"Damn, that was too freaking close!" He pushed off the deck and pulled the professor to his feet. Parnoh was busy stomping out the burning pieces of the smashed railing. A huge five-foot gap, where they had been standing, was gone.

"Thank you, my boy," Romaine muttered, collecting himself. "You once again saved my life."

"Thank me later, professor. Any more of those things hit us and we're all going be fried chickens."

At the helm, Althea was holding her stance, legs apart, arms tight on the wooden spoke. "Gideon! Parnoh! To the rails! Tell me where they are!"

Right, thought Dent. The ocean ships of his world never had to contend with enemies that could quite literally sail all around them, side to side and above and below. A skipper in this world had to depend on the eyes of his crew.

"Gods of Toper, we are doomed!" Parnoh exclaimed as he pointed towards the bow. A second pirate vessel, a duplicate of the first, was dropping out of the sky in front of them.

"Sneaky bastards," Dent cursed. "It was a set up all along. Get us running away from the first hunter right into the teeth of the second."

He raced back to the forecastle, passed a concerned princess and went to the aft railing. The first privateer was rising straight up for their unprotected bottom. He could make out the catapult hurrying to fire another fire-bomb.

"Where are they?" Althea barked, craning her head back. "Coming up from beneath us?"

Smart woman. Dent ran to her side and wondered just how brave she truly was. "Yes, they are. And with that other one coming down on our bow, we're pretty much caught in the middle with nowhere to run."

"I will not give up so easily," the martial beauty declared, a feral sneer on her lovely lips. "A princess of the House Corveir does not run away from pirate scum."

"I'm glad you said that, lady. Are you willing to try something bold enough to maybe stop them?"

"Tell me!"

Dent looked over the deck. Parnoh and Romaine were both at mid-ship, looking to the oncoming brigand at their front. Any second a new fire-bomb would be riding up their butt.

"Shut off the elornium band and drop us!"

For a half second, the golden hued pilot stared at Dent as if he were mad, then a nasty smile played over her face. Without further prompting, she indicated the massive wheel. "Here, take this while I cover the dampers!"

Dent stepped in and grabbed the wheel. Althea grasped both damper switches, paused and grinned again. "Tell them to brace themselves," she said, meaning Parnoh and the professor. Dent cried out, "Grab hold of something solid, we're going down!"

The professor's reaction was one of shock and then realization at what they were about to do. He dropped to the deck and wrapped both arms around a railing post. Across the wooden planks, Parnoh did the same.

"GO FOR IT!" Gideon yelled over the whooshing wind.

Althea pulled the handles down. Twelve massive shutters to either side of the hull slammed shut and the entire ship shuddered. Then it dropped.

Like the massive tons of wooden and steel she was, the Wind-Runner went straight down. Her giant, square sail was buffeted to and fro, unable to stay the forces of gravity on the ship's bulk. Althea, unprepared for the unexpected lurch, was knocked off her feet as the deck fell out from under them. Gideon, seeing her fall, released his left hand from the wheel and reached back just in time to grab one of her hands. Then his own legs came off the deck and he was anchoring them solely with the grip of his right hand.

The Wind-Runner hit something solid and again shook violently. Both Gideon and Althea smashed to the floor just as a loud crashing roar bellowed out of the ship's hole. The mast, thought Gideon, refusing to release his hold on the wheel, despite the pain shooting through various part of his body. We landed on their mast.

Suddenly the planking at mid-ship erupted as if an explosion had denoted beneath the deck. Then a massive beam shot into view and rose twenty feet before stopping. They were skewered on the pirate ship's mast.

The Wind-Runner gave another massive groan and then dropped along the enemy's pole another six feet. From below arose all kinds of crunching sounds as their ship crumbled the enemies' sails. They could also make out agitated voices accompanying the destruction beneath them.

Dent was starting to regain his feet when a black shadow swooped over them in a flash. He spun about and saw the second enemy ship's back side. As he had hoped, their unexpected maneuver had caught them napping. Unable to slow their ramming charge, the pirate vessel overshot them and was now desperately trying to stop its forward momentum.

Dent guessed it would take five to ten minutes for a ship of that weight to slow down and make a corrective change of course. Not a whole lot of time, but then again, it was better than nothing. They had that long to do something before that second ship re-entered the fray. Gideon only wished he knew what.

Black smoke began to seep over the rails to both port and starboard followed by dozens of panic induced yells. Rushing to the side, he looked down at a scene from Dante's Inferno. The pirate ship they were impaled on was afire with fast spreading flames. They were devouring the top deck at an incredible rate. The impact with their ship must have knocked the bomb free before catapult crew could spring it. The results of that catastrophe clearly evident as dozens of men scrambled up the cruiser's rigging to escape the voracious fire. Dent watched in horror as several fellows trapped on a bow section tried to hang off the ship's sides only to finally weaken and fall away to their deaths.

As much as he wanted to feel sorry for them, he could not. Their tragic fate was a direct result of their own savagery. Live by the sword, as his grandma's good-book use to say, and perish by it.

Gideon's philosophical reverie was short lived as steel hooks came flying up over Wind-Runner's side and embedded themselves into her deck. Each was tied to long, thick ropes. Grappling hooks! Seeing the lines go taunt the second they dug into the deck, he pulled out his sword and prepared to repel boarders.

"Look alive," he shouted, jumping down off the forecastle in one leap and rushing for the nearest line. "We've got company coming!"

As Gideon hacked at the cable, a scar-faced pirate appeared at the rails climbing hand over hand, a curved knife held in his mouth. Seeing his rope being severed, the freebooter pulled the blade from his teeth and brought it back for a quick throw. He never completed the motion as Dent's third chop cut the line and the man disappeared backward into the black smoke, his last scream trailing him to perdition.

With no time to savor his victory, the scientist-turned-adventurer went to work on the next hook. Parnoh, steel in hand was also busy a few yards away, as half a dozen new grappling claws materialized like snakes and bit into the deck.

God, how many of them are there? Dent cut his second rope and went after a third. Meanwhile, Prof. Romaine, wielding a rigging pin, stood ready by the railing behind them. As another buccaneer reared his ugly face, the old man tapped him none too gently across the scalp with a loud pop and watched him disappear.

"Come on, you scallywags! I'm ready for you!" he challenged, waving the pin around. "Come and get it!"

Gideon found the sight amusing and it reminded him a bit of how his mentor would often intimidate a class of undergraduates with his blustering posturing. Many of the professor's students suspected his bark was much worse than his bite, but none of them ever had the nerve to test that assumption.

For all their frantic efforts, several raiders managed to vault onto the Wind-Runner. On the forecastle, Althea rushed to meet them, her sword eager to taste fresh blood.

After seeing her skills on the jungle beach, Gideon was confident enough in her prowess to ignore her contest and concentrate on his own. Three other rogues had made it over the railing and were facing him and Parnoh, swords at ready. Seeing them close up, attired in loose fitting pants and sandals, the pirates were all big men with powerful physiques. Two of them were shirtless and their hard bodies were covered with garish tattoos of demons and monsters. The third brigand, wore a sleeveless vest and sported a goatee over his pockmarked face. He wore a red kerchief around his thick neck and when he smiled, his mouth revealed several black gaps.

Damn it, I'm fighting in some alien version TREASURE ISLAND. As he ducked under a sword swipe from the first pirate, Gideon ended his literary musing. If one of them shows up with a peg leg and a talking parrot, I'm jumping over the side.

Once again his mind and body become one as he allowed his fencing skills to take over and the battle was joined in earnest. To his left, Parnoh engaged one of the shirtless brutes, leaving the third boarder unattended. Ah, the joys of being outnumbered all the time. Dent blocked two more hard slashes and countered with a quick lunge that stabbed his opponent through the stomach. The fellow made a gurgling cry and fell back just as Dent ripped his blade free. The last pirate was coming at him from the right, not allowing Dent time to retake a defensive stance.

As he fended of a quick thrust, trying to regain his footing, Gideon's back leg hit one of the steel grappling hooks. It tripped him and he fell flat on his back. The air knocked out of him, his head swimming from the impact to the hard wood, he watched helplessly as the merciless knave moved in to finish him off.

The pirate's razor sharp cutlass came at his face in a blur. Gideon blinked and there appeared another blade in front of his nose, deftly catching the pirate's edge and stopping it. Both the pirate and Dent followed the line of the sword up to Princess Althea. Before the villain could react, Althea backhanded him across the face with her left hand. As the man rocked back from the blow, she whipped up her blade and sliced his jugular. A fountain of red sprung out, splashing over Gideon as well as Althea's tunic.

"Curses. This was my last clean shirt," she complained and then glanced down at her dazed ally. "Well, are you going to lay on your back all day? There's still more of those rats to clean up!"

Watching her shapely backside running to regain the upper forecastle, where more invaders were popping up, Dent jumped to his feet bemused. Oh yeah, I'm in love. Man, am I in love.

Another pirate appeared where the professor was standing and was immediately christened with a loud knock. Parnoh also had made quick of his opponent but then watched in dismay as more grappling lines came flying over both sides. Thick, cloying black smoke boiled up all around them and Gideon realized they would soon have an even greater problem than the pirates.

"You two hold the fort," he instructed Parnoh and Romaine and jogged up the six steps to the upper deck to help the princess. Another three men had climbed aboard and while two were trying to gain their footing, the princess was dispatching the third with a brutal cut across his torso from shoulder to crotch.

Gideon jumped to her side. "We've got to get the ship out of here before the fire reaches us!"

Althea looked back at the protruding mast sticking through the Wind-Runner's middle. "What if she cannot break free?"

"Then this is where we die, beautiful!"

Althea rewarded him with a dazzling smile. "I'm not ready to die yet, Gideon Dent."

The two privateers were on their feet and attacking. Dent stepped in front of them and parried their blows while the princess returned to the controls.

She cranked the shield handles and elornium panels opened with their usual loud clatter. The Wind-Runner trembled and started to pull against the stake that impaled it. Feeling the deck shutter under his feet, Dent said a silent prayer. Come on baby, rise!

Planking creaked and the entire hull seemed to strain against the snags of the mast that held tight. More brigands appeared and were hastily fighting a beleaguered Parnoh and Romaine. Billows of ash-laden smoke began to envelope the ship like a blanket of darkness.

Eyes smarting from the sooty stuff, Dent kicked out and caught one of his adversaries in the belly. When the man doubled over, he finished him with a hard punch to the back of the head.

The ship shook again and slow but steadily began to rise up. The black pall slipped away as the Wind-Runner climbed higher until it ripped free of the offending mast and was clear.

"Eeyahh!" Dent's enthusiasm got the better of him. He finished his last opponent with a flourish of lunges; the last of which penetrated the man's inept block and left him dead via a hole in his chest.

Going to the aft railing, he was barely in time to see the pirate cruiser burst into a monster fire-ball that swallowed her completely. Through the black smog, he watched her drop until she was gone from sight.

Hastily surveying the ship, he saw that Althea was controlling the crippled ship's ascent by a Herculean effort. The wheel was virtually useless due to the powerful air draft sucking through the hull top to bottom. Meanwhile Parnoh and Romaine, although holding their own, were sorely pressed by the last four invaders to have gained the deck.

Charging past the princess, he gave her a quick salute, to which she replied, "We have to lower the sail! I can't steer her like this!"

The wind coming out of the ship's middle was attacking the sail from below and causing havoc in the process. The canvas sheet buckled and snapped, pulling at its rigging like a caged animal.

Dent reached his comrades and joined the fight anew. Within minutes the pirates had joined their fallen brethren and the crew of the Wind-Runner returned to the task of saving their ship.

"The cross beam lines," Parnoh pointed with his blood- smeared sword. "We have to cut them!"

"Got that!" Dent and Parnoh, now used to working together as a team, took up their places and simultaneously cut the ropes that held the top cross-beam. With a mighty sigh, the white canvas sheet came folding down on itself in an uneven heap. Immediately the ship's rocking ceased and Althea was able to steady her.

They were still climbing, but now in a slow, controlled flight.

The princess and her crew were weary, but relieved. That they were still alive was a major miracle.

Then, as if all their valiant struggles had been for naught, another fire-bomb hit the bow with an explosive impact sending them all to the deck.

"What the bloody hell?" Gideon looked up at the forecastle. Princess Althea was using the wheel to pull herself back to her feet while facing the skies behind them. There, coming at them from an overhead vector was the second pirate cruiser.

The princess locked her gaze on the incoming ship and planting her feet shoulder's width apart, waved her sword over her head in some kind of ritualistic pattern. Then she lowered the point until it was aimed at the enemy.

"Come taste my steel!" she challenged.

Gideon sprung to his feet and ran up the stairs to take a stance at her side. When he got there, she looked at him with a cool glimmer in her eyes. "So, Gideon, warrior from a strange realm, have you any other tricks?"

"Only this one, princess." He took her in his arms and kissed her. Althea, at first surprised, resisted, then returned his embrace with ardor. When they broke, she had to take a deep breath.

"I don't think that will save us," she said.

"No, but it was something worth dying for."

Side by side, swords out, they faced their final moments.

The pirate crew was arming another fire-bomb and at this range it would be impossible for them to miss. Without looking back, Gideon assumed the first bomb had already ignited a blaze at the bow. The buccaneers had merely to deliver the final coup-de-grace.

Well, thought Gideon, this beats dying in bed.

The pirate ship was almost on them when its sails suddenly mushroomed into orange flames.

End Of Chapter Five