Chapter 83: Book 1: Chapter 29 (Part 1 of 2)

We set off without delay, as we would have to sail back around the mainland to get back to Lake Michigan. I wouldn’t put it past Regina to send a group out to the Ionia prisons to gazump my plans, so haste was called for.

I had received fifteen hundred XP and three Tokens of the Bound for signing Trisha to the Canon and would be getting plenty more if things worked out in the manner I hoped.

We got some shut eye as Marena’s Mercy sailed through the night and we made port at roughly six in the morning. We hadn’t been at the quay for more than ten seconds before Quixbix was buzzing in my mind.

<No activity on the markets, but there are several alerts from the shield generator. Several people have tried to go through the shield but have been repelled. They started their attempts at accessing the town at the southern end of Stormblade Harbour near the fortress but worked their way around until they hit the northern shoreline.>

“People, not monsters?” I asked him for clarification.

<Yes, people. A group of half a dozen or so, the alerts aren’t very specific. All I can tell is that it is the same group that has tried to enter several times.>

“Okay, everyone,” I yelled, getting my crew’s attention. “There are other people on the island, and they have tried to get into the town whilst we were away. We had best check out their last known location, which is basically where we planted our flags yesterday. We can eat breakfast on the way.”

We trooped through the town, past the Back Market building into the northwest quadrant of Stormblade Harbour. We knew when we reached the edge of the shielded area as the generator utilised black crystal pylons. These pylons had similar handprint sensors as could be found in the generator dome itself.

If you had the proper permissions, you could lower sections of the shielded area or allow those not currently recognised as citizens of the community to pass through without being repelled.

In the northwest quadrant, there was a strip of land a little less than half a kilometre wide in between Font Lake and the shoreline. This was the spot where our visitors had last tried to enter the town limits a few hours ago.

We didn’t have to search the are to spot the group.

The bedraggled bunch were huddled up against the shield line near one of the pylons halfway between the island lake and the shore. They had constructed a rudimentary hide to conceal themselves with broken pine tree branches wedged up and around the pylon. This only obscured them from the front, and we could see them clearly from our side of the shield.

“Oh, my goddess,” Shana exclaimed. “They’re just kids. Well, most of them.”

Shana’s observation was correct. The cowering group was made up of five, maybe six adolescents, none older than fourteen if I were any judge, with a single exception.

One of the missing prisoners was with them, not Marco, but one of the others whose name I couldn’t remember. He’d found clothes somewhere, though they looked a little small for him. From his position, the goon looked like he was supposed to be the lookout, but he was slumped over, fast asleep.

Regardless of the group’s seeming vulnerability we drew our weapons or prepared magical attacks.

We passed through the shield; we weren’t harmed but there was a mild shock-like sensation. Nothing painful, but enough to draw a shiver down your spine. I could have disabled this section of the shield but had decided to play it ultra-safe until I knew what was what.

I had our party encircle the impromptu hide before making our presence known. Anastasia wrapped her whip around Luca’s goon and when she yanked him out of the hide Jackson pulled the branches away. The pile of young people had been in a state of exhaustion driven sleep, but the sudden commotion woke them.

There was some panic, a bit of screaming, and one of them, a young girl who was perhaps eleven, dissolved into heaving sobs as she wept with fear.

Frightening them like this might seem cruel but it quickly established they were unarmed, and unless they were world-class actors, exactly what they seemed to be. A bunch of petrified children who had been through hell over the past couple of weeks.

“Shana, Jackson, see if you can calm them down,” I instructed them.

Shana put her bow away and the two of them approached the youngsters and tried to comfort them, asking questions, like what their names were, in a calm manner. The kids quieted down swiftly, but I think that was more from nervous exhaustion than anything else. Their clothing was ragged and filthy and their eyes haunted.

I left my lover to the caring duties while I focused on someone entirely less pleasant or welcome.

Anastasia had yanked the prisoner a dozen or so metres away from the young ones and dragged him behind a large tree, out of their sight. When I joined her, she had forced him face down on the earth with her right boot on the back of his neck. Ana was cackling maniacally and there was a trail of fluid, almost certainly piss, trickling down from his crotch.

I analysed him quickly and confirmed his name was Desmond.

“Talk!” I barked at him and lowered myself on my haunches by his head.

“I didn’t touch none of the kids, I swear. You can ask ‘em. They’ll tell ya’,” Desmond gasped, panic-stricken, into the dirt his face was pressed firmly against.

You are reading story Corsairs & Cataclysms at novel35.com

That hadn’t been what I asked.

That it was the first thing he thought of spoke plainly of a guilty conscience. Maybe he hadn’t done anything he shouldn’t have done to these youngsters, but he as good as confessed he had to others. I didn’t feel the need to press him any further on that subject, though. Desmond had just volunteered to become dungeon food. But that would come after, first I needed some information from the scumbag.

“I believe you, Desmond. Tell me what happened after you ran away?” I said, keeping my voice neutral. “Explain how you met up with those kids over there and how you ended up back here.”

“Yeah, yeah, man. I’ll tell you everything. Whatever you need,” he blurted out, snot and spit dribbled from his nose and mouth and mixed with the woodland detritus.

“Ease up, Ana,” I suggested to the viciously grinning blonde. “Desmond here is cooperating, aren’t you Desmond?”

He nodded as best he could, which just smeared his filthy effluence all over his face.

Anastasia scowled at me for a moment but shifted her booted foot off his neck and rested it between his shoulder blades instead.

Desmond propped himself up on his elbows and coughed up some more gunk. I waggled my finger in a circle indicating he needed to get a move on.

He eyed me fearfully and then started yapping. “Yeah, right, so, um, after blondie here cracked her whip and sent us packing, I followed Marco. We was running fast and bein’ chased by those fishy fuckers and lost sight of the others so I don’t know what happened to them.”

“We do,” I interrupted. “Continue.”

“Right,” Desmond mumbled and then cleared his throat. “Yeah, so we ran and ran. We lost those fish fucks once or twice and managed to catch our breaths, but they kept finding us. Must have been a few hours after we was let loose, and we had to be close to reaching the other end of the island and I was starting to worry.

“Marco was a little ahead of me and then, bam, something big and hairy fucking clotheslined the poor bastard and sparked him right out. I trips up when I see that, and I think I’m done for. I see the thing that’s hit Marco. It has to be seven feet tall, got horns like a goat and a mouth full of sharp fucking teeth.”

I heard Quixbix’s sharp inhalation of breath in my head at Desmond’s description. Which was odd because he doesn’t breathe, but he made the sound anyway. He didn’t interrupt but I was sure he’d have something to say when Desmond finished his sorry tale.

“That’s when the fish fuckers come charging in behind us. They take one look at the goat monster, and they forget all about me. They is roaring and gurgling at each other and then there are more of the goat-men coming out of the trees and it’s a full-on fucking war between ‘em.

“I scrambled aways from the fight. Got back up to my feet and that’s when I see them. The young ‘uns, that is. There are a pack of them making a run for it. Found out later they’d been rounded up by the big goat dudes you see. Them and a bunch of adults who couldn’t leave with the kids for some reason. The kids ain’t sure why.”

“Anyway, I followed them, to make sure they got away, right.”

I had to fight the urge not to laugh in his face. There was zero chance Desmond followed the children to protect them. The cowardly piece of shit no doubt hoped any chasing monsters would be occupied slaughtering the children once they caught up with them and allow him the opportunity to get away.

“Don’t know who won the fight,” he went on. “Or what happened to Marco after that. We ran until we hit the shore. The kids were a bit wary of me that first day. They holed up in one of the summer homes for the night and wouldn’t let me in.”

Desmond seemed quite offended at the youngster’s display of tacit prudence.

“Next day rolls around, and they are getting hungry so I tells them about you and your ship and what badasses you all are, so eventually when they hear what sounds like the goat dudes searching for ‘em they agreed to follow me along the beach. Only once we gets to the bay we can’t pass through. So, we wandered around the lake and tried up here but no dice neither. By then it’s getting dark, so I built the shelter and we hunkered down for the night while I watched over them, and well, you know the rest.”

They were fortunate we had killed all the Pestilence Monkeys in the area recently. Although I was unsure why they hadn’t encountered anything else on the island. I’d expected there to be more spawning crystals, maybe they were all in the lake.

I grunted and stood back up. “Ana, drag this sorry excuse for a man back to the ship and throw his ass in the Brig.”

“What? No! I did what you asked,” he begged. “I protected them kids, I did. I should be rewarded.”

Anastasia simply kicked him in the side of his head to shut him up and he slumped to the ground. Her whip pulsed with a sickly purple light as she drained his Hit Points and then she followed my orders, literally, and dragged his unconscious body away. Another reminder that she was much stronger than she looked.

“Don’t drag him past the kids,” I called out to her, and she waved her hand in the air without looking back to acknowledge my words.

You can find story with these keywords: Corsairs & Cataclysms, Read Corsairs & Cataclysms, Corsairs & Cataclysms novel, Corsairs & Cataclysms book, Corsairs & Cataclysms story, Corsairs & Cataclysms full, Corsairs & Cataclysms Latest Chapter