[Voidknight Ascension] Chapter 256 – Ghost Pirates II

The fight against the pirates through the night was long and grueling. Despite how much Sam longed for rest, the thrill of battle pushed him on.

When the Wavedancer was trying to outpace the pirates, it was harder to keep his eyes open.

There were brief periods of respite where Sam’s arms could rest. Zahif, too young to fight but wanting to pitch in all the same, rushed around to bandage and offer meals to the weary fighters.

Though Sam could see the eagerness in him to fight, he was not stupid. The boy understood where he could best put his talents to the greatest use, and he did so without complaint.

Komachi had long since rationed her flagging MP. They couldn’t rely on mana potions to always keep her healing. With every level up, she gained more and more Mind. Despite that, it still wasn’t enough. Not to last a battle of attrition.

“Costs lots more if I gotta heal a ton of people,” she admitted before shutting her eyes to get a quick catnap in.

One of the sailors studied Komachi with concern. He had been trying to pick up the harp too, learning from a cat, of all things. So far, his healing magic was rather pitiful, but it was amazing all the same that somebody could learn a new style of magic from Komachi.

He wasn’t the only crew member learning to become a Bard.

At least when we’re gone, they won’t be without healers, Sam thought.

Though the levels flowed in, Sam was beginning to wonder if he would survive long enough to make use of them back home. He used the time between boarding attempts to assign his bonus points into Dexterity and Control.

A coarse hand clapped Sam on the shoulder. He looked up into the bearded, grave face of captain Galbast.

Something was wrong.

Sam followed the silent request back to the wheel, where the navigator quietly slipped aside to let the captain take over. The navigator nodded at the captain, answering a question that Sam could only guess at.

Judging by the captain’s glowering facade, it was bad.

“Ye’ve done the Wavedancer proud, son,” Galbast said, angling the wheel and calling out orders to the deckhands below. “But if the opportunity arises for ye to take one o’ their ships and break away…ye should do it.”

“I’m not abandoning the Wavedancer,” Sam told him.

Galbast chuckled. “Thought ye’d say that. Had to try, didn’t I?” He shook his head. “Now I sound like one o’ the damned Talmoori. Ye know that they won’t abandon a ship either? Not until it goes into the drink. They’ll stay and try to keep it afloat so long as they got air in their lungs.”

“We’re being herded,” Sam guessed.

He wasn’t a sailor, though the weeks he spent aboard Wavedancer had done much to wipe away the greater whole of his ignorance. If even Sam could guess what was happening, then it must be bad indeed.

“Aye. Remember when I said if our luck held, ye’d get to see the last time the Talmoori and the Empire had a scrap? Well, we’re lucky all right,” he said sourly. “I had hoped to pass the Eremat Cove many miles to the south so ye could spy the broken ships o’ the graveyard from afar. Now we’re to be getting an up close an’ personal look. If you catch my meaning.”

“They’re trying to run us into the graveyard of ships?”

“Ye must’ve noticed they’ve slowed their attempts to board us. Ye’ve spooked ‘em boy! Spookin’ the spooks must be tough, but they ain’t stupid. They’ve got more ships and more ghoulies to harry us.”

The captain looked slyly at Sam. “Ye can’t be flyin’, can ye?”

“Afraid not.”

Galbast shrugged his heavy shoulders. “Had to ask! Never know with ye Immortals.”

“I’m not–” Sam started to protest.

Galbast raised a thick hand to forestall him. “I know what ye say, but I also know what I see! I ain’t for exposin’ ye son. Have no fear. And even if I did, I think the Talmoori here wouldn’t bat an eye. They’ve a love for ye that I ain’t seen in a good long while. Ye’ve the making of a fine sailor and a finer captain, if you have the mind for it.”

“Or the time,” Sam said. Dawn was breaking, forcing weak fingers of light through the gaps in the stormy sky. He could just barely see the skeletal remains of ship masts and tattered sails flapping in the watery morning light.

“Aye.” Galbast was as fine a captain as could be based on what Sam heard from the Talmoori, but there was little he could do against a storm that had a mind of its own and an armada of ships arrayed against them.

“Why do they want the Wavedancer so badly?” Sam asked. “It doesn’t make sense.” He eyed the captain. Considering the likely chain of events to unfold, Sam figured he would just outrightly ask the question that had been burning since he arrived. “You’re not carrying a Lumanot, are you?”

The captain paled and then roared with laughter. “And ye say ye aren’t an Immortal, eh?! No, son. Our ship be grand, but there ain’t nothing outside the Empress, the Empire’s capital ship, that would be tasked with such a treasure’s keeping! Your guess is as good as mine, son.”

Sam found himself scowling.

On the one hand, he had hoped that the captain wasn’t holding out on him. Galbast seemed trustworthy, and Sam wanted to believe in him. If he had been holding out, then Sam’s task would have been a lot easier. Though he didn’t want to think of the moral crossroads he would find himself at.

If the Wavedancer did have the Lumanot, he needed to return it to the Proving Grounds. There would be a hard choice to make. Stay and save the Wavedancer and potentially let the Lumanot fall into the clutches of whoever was chasing them or flee and doom the crew who had taken him in and treated him like family.

Save a ship or save a world.

An easy task on paper perhaps, but Sam didn’t know if he would ever be capable of such dreadful algebra.

“Run it aground then,” Sam told the captain as he spotted the Eremat Cove fully. Sharp, jagged masts stuck out like broken bones. Ripped and tattered sails fluttered like rotten skin. Black spears of stone peeked out of the churning iron dark waters, ready to shred a ship’s hull to pieces.

“Ye’re daft!”

Komachi cracked open her eyes, studying the Eremat Cove with growing curiosity. She had no fear of this place. Even the pirates hadn’t scared her.

She loved the open sea.

Sam shook his head. “I have seen you at work and hear the praise the Talmoori heap upon your head when they know you are not listening,” Sam explained. “If you say you can’t get us through unharmed, then don’t try. But if you can, then I beg you to run us aground so we can face our enemies on solid ground. If anybody can do it, it’s you.”

Galbast’s dour expression belied the fire in his amber eyes. “Yer a worse influence than the booze in my cabin, son!”

“Give me a moment to get in position,” Sam told him. “I’ll do what I can to soften the landing, but I need you to use the prow of the ship like a battering ram.”

“She won’t take more than a single hit!” the captain protested.

“She will,” Sam assured him. “Just the prow though! I can’t spread myself too thin.”

Galbast grumbled. “Sure’n ye aren’t an Immortal, eh?”

Komachi looked up at Sam with adoration.

Sam didn’t have time to argue. The first of the ships was rising out of the fog ahead of them. Holding Komachi close to his side like a football, Sam leapt across the deck, swung on some rigging, and sprinted for the front of the ship.

“Machi likes football mode,” she said, strumming an instrument. Stacks of strengthening [Heroic Rock] built up. His footfalls pounded on the deck with greater impact.

The entire time he was drawing up the strength to use [Escha: Surge]. Purple-black flames roared to life in a spherical shell placed protectively around the prow of the ship.

As the first rotten planks of wood came into contact, they burst apart into motes of darkness and the ship sailed through the previously barricaded channel.

The Wavedancer shuddered as its hull scraped against the wood below the waterline where Sam couldn’t reach, but he had removed much of the barrier.

The ship sailed into the tight channel with sharp black rocks on either side. It was only through the well-earned skill of captain Galbast that they avoided a grisly fate in the deeper waters. Sam used [Escha: Scour] to blast away the webbing of rigging and tangled up masts that blocked their way to the shallows.

When Sam’s MP dried up, he took to using [Bloodbane] to blast apart the skeletal remains of two armadas that had fought to a standstill long ago.

The ship began to shake violently as the hull, with its deeper draft, scraped against the shallows ahead. Sails were furled and lines tossed overboard to various shipwrecks and black rock outcroppings.

Sam sagged with relief. The captain had done the impossible. The Wavedancer had run aground. Sam had no idea how they would ever extricate her, but that was a worry for another day. They now had a battleground.

“That went pretty dang gewd, Sam. Nice job!” Komachi sniffed the air intently, then wrinkled her nose with a shiver. “Wonder what we’ll find here.”

The air was much colder here. Mist drifted in ragged tears like it was trying to enshroud the entire ship graveyard from prying eyes.

The captain came up and smacked Sam so hard on the shoulder he nearly pitched right over onto the dark rocks surrounding the ship. “Ye blasted genius! I don’t know how you managed it, son, but when this is all over, I’m buyin’ ye your own damned ship!”

“If we get out of here,” Sam said, trying to forestall the thrill of excitement the captain’s statement gave him. Sailing the open waters? Fighting pirates? It could be his life.

He could have that. All he had to do was not return the Lumanot.

Or return to Raiko and my friends, Sam thought. He shook the worries away. “They’re still following?” he asked the captain.

“Aye. They care nothing for their ships, and they ain’t got our talent, so half o’ the damned buggers are sinking as we speak!” Galbast roared with laughter. “They thought they would have some easy pickings, but the Wavedancer is built of sterner stuff! Once we deal with the threats and batten down to weather the storm, we’ll be back out on the high seas in no time!”

Sam wasn’t so sure of that. Through the shreds of fog drifting about, he saw movement.

“Get the ship secured,” Sam said. “We need to get off and onto solid ground before reinforcements come.”

“Reinforcements?” the captain asked with a blustery laugh. “Lad, it’s going to take them ships hours to get through the channels even if they try to follow our path! And them that do make it won’t be in much state to be fighting. I’ll shave me beard off if half of them make it through.”

Sam shook his head and stood up. He pointed into the mist where more dark forms were gathering. “I’m talking about those reinforcements.”

The captain took out a spyglass and stepped up to the prow. He cursed under his breath. When he handed the spyglass to Sam, his normally calm and sure hands were shaking. “Mayhap I was a bit too sure o’ meself.”

The spyglass’ enchantment made the fog vanish before its lens, giving Sam a full view of the creatures rushing through the winding platforms of half-sunken ships and rocky pillars of black stone.

What Sam had thought was a trick of the mist turned out to be very real. Creatures decked in golden bands and scaled armor slithered toward them. Their upper halves were beautiful women, each wearing a king’s ransom in jewelry, but it was their lower halves that gave Sam pause.

Their lower halves morphed into the long body of a serpent.

When Sam looked back at Galbast, he answered Sam’s unasked question. “Lamia,” he said, his voice steeped in dread.