Quelya - Chapter 3: Repel Boarders

 Chapter Three: Repel Boarders

Turok burst onto the deck, sword in hand and fire of the righteous in his war cry. He briefly considered the damage his magic might do to the ship, but put his trust in Kuyutha and Bahamut. Speaking the divine language of his ancestors and the great wyrms who watched over them, he charged into battle and smote a pair of praedaren with a mighty clap of thunder that issued forth from his raging yawp.

    Galaine charged in behind him, armed with a spear and shield, skewering a third shark in the shoulder and taking a position behind his lord.

    One of the praedaren at Turok’s feet was still breathing. A hideous goblin shark in a black leather vest that accentuated his wiry, muscled frame, he twisted with a jolt and snapped at the dragonborn’s sword arm without standing. He then rolled just out of reach and drew a dagger with his left hand. The carver with a hole in his shoulder charged at Galaine, grabbing the squire by his neck and running him through with his cutlass.

    Turok bellowed in fear and rage, and thrust his sword into the carver’s mouth and out the back of his head. He wore a scowl of anger and sorrow when he looked at the fallen dragonborn, but there was no time to mourn. He whirled on a charging shark just in time to parry her blow, and roared the rage of his ancestors in her face.

    All around them, he could hear the sounds of similar battles, obscured by the abundance of cargo. The ships were close enough for the rest of the sharks to swing over, but something was slowing them. Turok parried another sword blow, and then a third rattled against his armor. If he survived this fight, the flesh beneath his scales would be bruised and sore. The shark that tried to bite him threw his dagger at Turok’s head, but the blade went wide and clattered against the deck.

    The dragonborn parried another few blows and maneuvered himself into an advantageous position. He inhaled the salt air and the smell of death and battle, gunpowder and blood and with a roar worthy of the great dragons of Io’s Blood, his breath struck the air and erupted in a crackling bolt of lightning that shot through three of his attackers.

    On the praedaren’s ship, the assassin and Alina were fighting back to back now. The sharks had quickly picked up that Dox wasn’t one of them a she’d been forced to resort to straight combat. With a dagger in each hand, she parried and dodged most every blow while Alina weaved her magic around them and bled a few sharks with her long blade.

    The massive blackfish with the gaping maw and the air of authority shouted at them all, “you deal with these two!” He leapt up onto the rail with a rope in hand. “The rest of you, with me! We need to get on that ship!” And he was over, swinging across the gap between the two boats and slammed onto the deck of the Reizoko with the finality of a conquering warlord.

    The two ladies lost sight of him then, overwhelmed as they were with an entire gang of shark men, each more fearsome than the last. They fought bravely, and they fought well, but by the time the Maw returned victorious, the pair of them were unconscious and bleeding on the deck.

    It was the Maw, the massive blackfish, who felled Turok. The dragonborn was fending off a pair of goblin sharks, he slit the belly of one and slammed a mailed fist into the hideous protruding nose of the other, but failed to turn around in time to stop blackfish’s greatclub. It caught him across the side of his skull and buried him in the dreamless black sleep of the defeated.