BOOK 9: CHAPTER 28: ON A MOONLESS NIGHT

Cassius Flint stared through the handheld telescope at the island in the distance. It was wreathed in dense fog, though he knew that was something of a mirage. After a week spent in Ironshore, he knew his target, inside and out. He’d spoken to multiple men and women who’d been on that island, who’d felt the treasures it held. He knew it better than anyone else on the planet.

More importantly, he also knew that the owner was away. He’d watched the Druid – alongside the two other most powerful combatants in the city of Ironshore – use the Spires, and with his own two eyes. If they were going to strike, the time had come.

He glanced to his left, then to his right. Breeze had contracted two other ships for the job. Hundreds of bloodthirsty pirates, all with a reputation for ruthlessness. A hundred yards to starboard was the Laughing Jackal, captained by Pierce Lambert. Flint didn’t know the man’s background, but he’d seen him kill for practically no reason, and he had a penchant for taking slaves.

None of those lasted long before he tired of them and threw them to the sea monsters.

The ship to port was quite different. Much larger, and far better armored – it had once been a U.S. Naval Ship, and it had been reoutfitted with some sort of ethera-based engines and cannons. Pound for pound, the Widowmaker was the most dangerous thing on the water, and they specialized in taking down powerful monsters.

But like everyone else who berthed in Bloodrock Bay, they were not above piracy. The way their captain – and presumably, the crew as well – saw it, Earth had been invaded, and it was their job to kill as many of those invaders as they could. The profits were secondary.

That was why Flint had been surprised that they’d agreed to the job at all. The only reason he could come up with was that Breeze was offering a veritable fortune. Money, after all, trumped personal vendettas against settlers.

Still, aside from offering his input into the battleplan, Captain Reynolds had not really spoken to anyone else. He clearly thought himself above them, which meant that Flint and Lambert were more than ready to turn on him at the first opportunity.

Of course, Flint wouldn’t mind taking Lambert and his crew as well. All the better if he could get both ships for his burgeoning fleet. At present, it was only in the planning stages, but when he got paid for the job, he intended to amass an armada to rival anyone’s in the world.

Maybe he’d even build his own country.

King Flint definitely had a nice ring to it, and in their new world, it was more than possible to make that dream a reality. But first, he needed to take care of business.

“Signal the Widowmaker.”

Boris raised a hand and shot an ethereal flare into the moonless night sky. A second later, an explosion of power echoed – both in terms of sound and energy – rippled across the sea. Flint watched as seven balls of roiling ethera slammed into the beach, obliterating the enormous, truck-sized crabs that were its guards. Limbs, bits of shell, and rock went flying even as Flint commanded, “Ramming speed.”

“Ramming speed!” Boris shouted.

The oarsmen, already in place, put their backs into their task, and the Sea Serpent leaped forward. Another volley from the Widowmaker smashed into the beach, finishing off the rest of the crabs while the Laughing Jackal mimicked the Sea Serpent’s maneuver. A note of pride clutched at Flint’s chest as he realized that his ship outpaced the other, and not by a small degree.

The Laughing Jackal was much larger, though, and it hosted a crew of nearly three-hundred men, making it a true threat to any enemy in its sights.

After only a few moments, the keel of the Sea Serpent bit into the sandy beach. The second his men leaped free, he used two abilities. The first was Stabilize, which would hold the Sea Serpent in place. Normally, he used it in lieu of an anchor, but for their current task, it was perfect.

Next, he activated Pillage.

Pillage

Enhance your sailors’ attributes on land. Potency based on core strength. Duration dependent on Regeneration attribute. Current: 17.3 minutes.

Flint felt his ethera drain as both abilities took hold. His reserves were sufficient to keep it going for the full duration, but he only had space for one more ongoing ability. After that, he would become little more than a bystander. Still, he followed his men, disembarking the Sea Serpent as they gathered on the beach.

No crabs had survived, but through their scouting efforts, they all knew just how numerous those monsters were. They remained on guard, ready for a response.

Nearby, the Laughing Jackal finally beached. Flint felt a swirl of ethera that announced their captain’s use of similar abilities to his own. Though, once again, he knew they fell short of what he could accomplish.

Soon enough, nearly four-hundred men – all bloodthirsty and ready for battle – had gathered.

“We don’t have long,” Flint growled when he was joined by Lambert and his first mate. A woman, of all things. Doubtless, she’d gained that lofty position through her feminine wiles. Otherwise, it just didn’t make sense – not to Flint, at least. He drew his cutlass and pointed inland. “The target is about three miles that way. Kill anything you see. Take anything that seems powerful.”

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“We know the plan, Flint,” Lambert said in his effete voice. He was a thin man with a perfectly groomed beard, and he looked like he was play-acting as a soldier. “Everyone’s got their packs.”

Every sailor had been equipped with specially made packs that could hold almost three times their normal volume, which meant that, collectively, they were worth an absolute fortune on their own. But they were necessary if they were going to get what that damned elf wanted.

The plan of attack was simple. The first stop was an alchemical garden on the west side of the island. They were intended to plunder everything they could see and kill the Alchemist – if he was there. Breeze had stressed that last part, even saying that the gnome in question was one of the primary targets.

Once they’d finished the other Alchemist, they were supposed to tear across the island to what Breeze called a grove. There, they would find the real treasure. They were meant to take everything they could carry and burn the rest.

Then there was the tree.

Breeze had equipped ten men with purpose-built axes that would let their wielders mimic some of the abilities of a real Lumberjack. Taking down that tree and bringing it back was the most important goal. If completion meant losing everything else, then that was fine by Breeze.

“Let’s –”

Pirate’s Intuition saved him. Before he even knew what was happening, he dove to the side. Many of his men did as well – they had classes like Pirate or Marine, which gave them some ability to sense oncoming danger. For most, it was not fast enough.

A dozen abominations of wood and vines burst free of the trees and fell upon the pirates. Flint saw one man take a sharpened branch through the chest. Even as the wood burst free of his back in a shower of blood, the Pirate Warden scrambled backward. He didn’t stop until his hands hit the surf.

By that point, the pirates had begun to recover from their surprise, and they used their numbers to hack through the monsters. It wasn’t easy. They were no low-level creatures, after all, and though most of the pirates were equipped with heavy swords meant for chopping through rope as much as hacking through limbs, dismembering the monsters took multiple blows.

The weight of numbers was undeniable, though.

And even if nearly twenty pirates went down, they managed to handle the threat.

When all the monsters had been reduced to splinters, Flint found his feet and ordered, “Take their bags! We don’t have time for this!”

His men did as they were told, though he received more than a few sullen looks from the other crew. He ignored it – for now, at least. He knew enough to recognize that their relationship, such as it was, would eventually end in battle, though. Probably after they’d been paid.

Soon enough, the entire group was marching into the trees. The problems didn’t end at the beach, though. More than once, sailors were attacked by trees and other plants, and it took a concerted effort to fend off the monstrous foliage. The worst was when what looked like a normal – if exceedingly large – flower erupted into motion and closed its petals around the Laughing Jackal’s first mate. By the time her people cut her free, her skin was gone – dissolved by some sort of acid.

Soon after that, one man went down when a squirrel the size of a beagle ate his face. A few more pirates were crippled when a bunch of foxes – some of whom had multiple tails – ripped through their ankles, severing their tendons. When they hit the ground, a troop of monstrous rabbits rammed their horns into the fallen pirates’ heads.

There were more tree men, too. A lot more.

So, by the time they reached the alchemical garden, their numbers had been slightly diminished.

Out of breath from repelling the latest attack, Boris muttered, “This place is a fuckin’ nightmare, cap’n.”

“Count?”

“Thirty more dead.”

“Shit,” Flint growled. “Let’s get –”

Just then, a beam of silver light slammed into Boris’ face. His head exploded only a second later. A few shouts and flashing lights announced that he wasn’t the only one who’d been attacked. And it wasn’t difficult to find the culprits, either. A trio of deer, one of which had a rack spanning more than six feet and glittering like crystal, stood nearby.

Then, the creatures attacked again, shooting moonlight from their foreheads.

Lambert used some sort of ability, erecting a wall of ethera that blocked those attacks. But the shield shimmered, sending ripples of energy in all directions. “Kill them!” he shouted.

The pirates charged.

The deer turned to flee, but a thrown hatchet hit one of the does in the hindquarters, and she stumbled. The pirates were on her in a second, hacking into her fallen body with glee.

That’s when another tree-man appeared. He was much larger than any of the rest, and he moved with a grace the others had not possessed. Instantly, Flint knew this was a much more powerful enemy. Likely the island’s master.

Which meant that if they killed this monster, then the other attacks would probably stop. Fortunately, Breeze had prepared them for it. Each pirate’s weapon had been coated in a specifically brewed poison meant to hinder just such a creature.

Flint shouted for everyone to attack, and the pirates responded. However, killing the thing was no easy task. It flitted from one root to the next, impaling sailors with every passing second. At the same time, another dozen tree men raced into battle, adding to the chaos and killing other men.

But there were still more than two-hundred pirates left, and this creature wasn’t nearly strong enough to kill them all.

The first pirate to land a blow nearly severed the thing’s leg of twisted roots, slowing it down and allowing even more attacks to fall. In only a few seconds, it was buried under the weight of heavy cutlasses, machetes and axes.

Before they could finish it off, it disappeared, though, practically melting into a nearby branch and retreating to who knew where.

Flint let out a curse.

Another twenty or thirty men were dead.

He didn’t care so much about the losses – not for those slain pirates’ sake, at least. Rather, he lamented the reduction in carrying capacity. The less loot they took, the less money they would make.

Though he supposed that it also meant that the bounty would be split fewer ways.

That thought greatly mollified his concerns.

Now that they’d dealt with the monstrous threats, they at least had a short reprieve in which they could do what they’d come to do. So, Flint – alongside all the others – turned his attention to the garden. There awaited a wealth of natural treasures, each one pulsing with dense ethera.

However, a single figure stood where none had been before.

At first, Flint took it for a scarecrow, albeit a strange one. That only lasted until green flames lit up the darkness, wreathing a giant scythe and flowing down the figure’s body. A second later, a skull appeared on the man’s head, covering his face. From that skull grew flaming antlers of verdant fire.

Instantly, Flint knew that they’d found the island’s true master. Elijah Hart – once the highest-level man on Earth – stood before them.

The Pirate Warden didn’t hesitate to activate his final gambit:

Blood and Plunder

Imbue your crew with unnatural strength, increasing their attributes by a vast amount and robbing them of their self-preservation instincts. Potency based on core strength. Duration based on Ethera attributes. Current: 68 seconds.

Red light erupted from his men’s eyes, enveloping their bodies. For a moment, they didn’t move. Then, the bloodlust took over, and they saw their enemy standing in the center of that garden, just waiting on them. They sprinted forward, while Flint backed away. Perhaps they could distract the man long enough for him to escape.