Chapter 237: Two – Befriend Them with Lasers

RavensDagger

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“Can we expect them to be violent?” Bastion asked.

“We suspect they will not stop themselves from acting violently against the little shard. They may even extend that violence to you, though they should refrain from killing you. The Crying Mountains have an amicable relationship with Wallwatch; we would not want to disrupt that over an internal matter.”

I translated that for Bastion even as I ran over to the bed and tugged the sheet off the top. It was a bit raggedy, but not that bad. A big red blanket made of woven cloth. “Moonie, I’m going to cover you in this. Maybe if we’re lucky, they won’t notice that we’re carrying you.”

Moonie bobbed up and down. “That seems amusing.”

I grinned as I tossed the covers up and over the cry, then pulled them snug around them. It didn’t take long to tie it all up in a bow around Moonie’s side.

“Good thinking,” Bastion said. “Mister... Blue, perhaps you should leave as soon as we’ve left. I’ll give you a signal. Try to keep them occupied for at least half a minute, that should be enough for us to get a good lead.”

“We understand,” the larger cry said. They hovered over to the door, while Bastion beat his wings and climbed closer to the ceiling.

“You might want to leave some silver behind, for the window,” Bastion said.

“Huh, why?” I asked.

“Close your eyes,” Bastion ordered.

I ducked my head and squeezed my eyes shut a moment before the window above exploded and sheets of glass rained down onto the floor. A few pieces thumped against my captain’s hat and my ears, but I flicked them away with a twitch.

“Let’s go!” Bastion called. He had his sword half unsheathed. I suspect he’d used the pommel to break the glass.

I nodded, hugged Moonie close, then jumped up and out of the top.

“Mister Blue, go!” Bastion said a moment before he flipped out of the room. The Walled Inn’s roof was all tin with windows cut into it for every room. I saw some flickering candle light from a few of them. They didn’t all get sunlight, not with another set of homes right above the inn.

I glanced up at the huge iron struts keeping the floor above in place. “Which way?” I asked.

Then something hummed behind me and I half-turned to see one of the cry floating up. It glowed, and before I could process, a scarlet laser fired out of it and right at me.

It met a crystalline wall that snapped into existence right in front of me. It was like a huge, spiky snowflake that bounced the laser off and allowed it to cut a slice into the inn room some metres away.

I gasped. That had been close. I could recall using Cleaning magic to kinda dissipate a laser before, in that Glass Dungeon, but this laser was faster... somehow, and I wasn’t expecting it at all.

“We are afraid that we cannot allow you to harm the broken shard, nor the soft ones,” came Blue’s crystalline voice.

“Let’s go!” Bastion said.

The sylph took off, heading not in the direction of the docks, but right towards the huge wall.

I eyed a few beams holding up the homes and structure above, then leapt out after him. “Bastion, the Beaver’s that way!” I said with a nod to the west end of the city.

“We need to lose them first,” he said.

Was it that bad?

I jumped, aiming for the roof of what looked like a shop. I never made it since Bastion rammed me out of the air.

I eeped, then gasped as a laser zipped by so close I felt my tail warming up. I pushed my cleaning aura out, hoping that it would at least dampen the attacks a little the next time they came so close.

We fell down a level, narrowly avoiding a catwalk before crashing onto a busy road, right in front of a bunch of people who gasped and squawked at our landing before them.

I rolled to my feet, ignoring the bit of discomfort from the rough landing. “You okay, Moonie?”

“Yes!”

“Come on!” Bastion said.

I patted down my skirt with one hand, hugged Moonie closer to my side, then followed after Bastion as he cut into the crowd.

It wasn’t really much of a crowd, which was unfortunate because I saw one of the cry flying closer, with a dozen snowflake disks around its middle that were glowing and sparking. It spotted us running a floor below, and dropped down to be on our level.

“Duck!” I called out before a pair of reddish beams snapped out and burned some holes into the wooden walls of the buildings behind us.

Most of the people on the street never even noticed, but some did, and they started to scream and run away, which got everyone else moving too.

“Up!” Bastion said. He pointed to some carts ahead with little tin roofs over them. They were selling bolts of cloth and some tools and all sorts of knick-knacks.

I jumped after him, running across the top of the carts, then Bastion leapt onto the roof of a nearby shop and I followed after him. The cry swooped down after us, but Bastion dropped down the opposite side of the roof and I followed him before I could get lasered.

There wasn’t much of a road here, just a narrow catwalk, a grated floor and some wooden rails overlooking the next couple of levels down the city.

“Faster,” Bastion said.

I took a few big gulps of air. I was in better shape than I’d ever been before, but this was still a lot of excitement for me.

Bastion pointed up a level once we were behind a fairly tall building. “That strut, then up there,” he said.

I squinted up, and saw the strut he was talking about. A big metal X that repeated over and over down the length of the city. Above that was another road, with a much nicer rail around it.

Bastion took off and flew straight up, sword coming out of his sheath.

I hopped up onto the rail, bunched my legs under me with a hefty chunk of stamina, then shot up to the strut above.

My shoe gripped onto the edge of the beam and I immediately launched myself up a level.

A glance back revealed Bastion flying in a quick loop around a reddish beam sent his way by the cry. Then he sliced a laser beam apart with a swipe of his sword.

I blinked.

That... wasn’t possible, was it?

“Go! I’ll catch up!” Bastion said.

I nodded and took off running.

The big advantage of Wallwatch was that there was always an easy way to know which direction was which. The huge wall was kind of impossible to miss, and it was more or less to the north of the city.

“Are you okay?” I asked Moonie as I ran ahead.

“Yes! This is exciting, if a little dark.”

“Oh right, sorry,” I said. I tugged at the blanket, at least until I uncovered the top of Moonie’s... body. “Uh, where are your eyes?”

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“Cry have no eyes.”

“Okay then,” I said. “Can you see now?”

“Yes.”

That was good enough for me. I could ask a whole bunch of questions once we were safer. I found a stairwell and then raced up to the top until we broke out onto the topmost floor of Wallwatch. “There!” I said as I saw the Beaver sitting pretty in the docks; the ship’s bright blue balloon was impossible to miss.

I skipped from roof to roof, then leapt down onto the wooden pier and landed with a heavy thump next to some sailors who recoiled in surprise. I called out my apologies as I sprinted for the Beaver.

Amaryllis saw me coming, and looked terribly unamused as I jumped up and landed in the middle of the port deck. “Now what?” she asked.

“We...” I took a moment to gulp in some air. “We need to run, a little. Fast?”

Amaryllis rubbed at the bridge of her nose. “The World hates me,” she said. “Awen!”

Awen’s head popped out of the hole at the back of the other deck. She had grease stains on her nose and looked a bit confused. “Yes?” she called back.

“Get everything ready! We’re heading out! Clive! Get everyone in position; we’re leaving right away. Broccoli, where’s Bastion?”

“Uh,” I said.

Looking up, I noticed a few red flashes in the air, and if I squinted I could make out Bastion weaving and diving in the air while a cry followed him, firing lasers that Bastion kept dancing around.

“Right there,” I said as I pointed.

“Oh, for the love of... put whatever that is away then get to helping. You’re the captain, you should be acting like it!”

“Yes, ma’am!” I said before darting to the back of the ship. “Hey, Moonie, I’m going to put you in my room for a bit. There’s a nice view out the window. Uh, try not to get into too much trouble, alright?”

“Understood,” the cry said as I practically stumbled my way down to the lower deck and squeezed past two of the Scallywags who were moving up.

“Trouble above!” I said. “All hands on deck!”

I stuffed Moonie in my room. It was a little rude not to give the cry the full tour, but there wasn’t any time for all that.

“I’ll be back once things quiet down,” I said.

Moonie bobbed up and down, which served to get that blanket to drop. “Thank you.”

I grinned, then clicked the door shut before racing back out onto the main deck. Everyone was running around, unmooring the Beaver and prepping him to take off. I saw Steve struggling with one of the ropes and rushed over to help.

The Beaver’s engine roared to life, and I saw Clive pulling on a few levers to keep us steady as we undid the last of the ropes holding us in place.

“We’re free!” Gordon called.

A building nearby exploded, and we all glanced over in time to see Bastion flying out of the fire on a direct path for the Beaver. He landed on the deck, boots skidding across the wood until he came to a full stop and panted. “We should go,” he said, calmly.

“Clive! Full reverse! Get us some height!” I didn’t know how high the cry could fly. Hopefully not as high as the wall, but I sorta doubted that.

“Aye, aye!” Clive called a moment before we started to pull out of our mooring.

“I’m going to go prepare the ballistae!” Awen said before she darted away.

I blinked after her, but decided we had bigger concerns.

Bastion swiped his sword along the length of his sleeve to clean it, then slid it back into its sheath. He looked uninjured, though his pant-legs were a bit singed here and there from what had to be near-misses. “That was some good practice,” he said.

“I hope the rest of us don’t need to practice that much,” I said.

The cry that had been after Bastion appeared by the docks, but we were already backing out pretty quickly, and there was a good hundred or so metres between us. Surely they wouldn’t...

I ducked as a red beam flashed out and cut a black line against the side of the Beaver’s hull. “Oh, shoot!”

Lasers didn’t have a range.

“Amaryllis! Can you do magic to protect us?” I asked.

She eyed the cry, then grinned. “Sure,” she said.

I had a bad feeling in my tummy a moment before she pulled her knife-wand out and pointed it ahead.

I wanted a shield. Instead Amaryllis fired a thick bolt of lightning that snapped out with a boom so loud and strong my ears flipped back and I was pretty sure she gave the Beaver a bit of a speed boost.

“Amy!”

“It’s proactive protection!” she said.

The dust around the dock cleared, revealing another crystalline snowflake shield. It dropped, and a red beam snapped out and punched a fist-sized hole into our balloon.

“Oh no,” I said. “Steve, Gordon! Get to that. Clive, more speed! Amaryllis, be a bit more proactive!”

Amaryllis cackled.

“But-but not too proactive!” I said.

The Beaver tipped backwards, rear pointing towards the ground a moment before the engine burped, stopped, then sent the propeller spinning in the other direction.

Amaryllis leaned off the side and flung magic back at the docks, enough to keep the cry busy shielding itself.

I couldn’t help but laugh as we took off and shot into the sky as fast as our little ship could manage. Not the ideal start to an adventure, but certainly an exciting one!

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