The Rawn Chronicles Book One: The Orrinn and the Blacksword: Unabridged (The Rawn Chronicles Series 1) (39 page)

The crew carried out his orders and fired another volley, but it went way off target as their quarry changed direction.

The Blacksword noticed that the
Jezzrion
had turned around and was about to bring the starboard catapults to bear on him. He changed direction so he was running towards the bow of the sky ship.

He linked a strong Pyromantic surge to the wind element and ran faster towards the cliff edge; summoning the element as he did so. Ten more strides and a two-hundred-foot drop would welcome him into its abyss.

He neared the precipice. He saw the
Jezzrion
fire. He leapt as he summoned a dense pressure wave of fluidic air behind him to lift him high into the sky.

Captain Plainer yelled with joy as all ten batteries of catapults shot burning-hot death towards the mountain, and directly towards the Blacksword.

It was to be the
Jezzrion’s
third and final volley.

Plainer’s smile faded as he witnessed the cloaked figure rise high in the air. The figure silhouetted against flame for an instant as the missiles slammed into the mountainside and merged into a massive, orangey-red fireball.

Even from her distance away on the
Raxion
, Jynn could still feel the vast amount of energy used to produce the wind element of that magnitude. She was amazed at how high the Blacksword jumped, and instantly saw his intention.

Her quarry was boarding the
Jezzrion
.

The Blacksword had timed the jump with precision. Even as he started coming down from its zenith, Captain Plainer saw him unsheathe his long, black-bladed sword. He held the weapon in front of him and it sliced through one of the thick cables, securing the starboard outrigger sail as the downward momentum carried him forward. He landed on the foredeck lightly.

The outrigger now flapped uselessly in the wind; the forward momentum was now on the main sail and the port outrigger, and this had the effect of sending the
Jezzrion
veering to port suddenly in a wide arc. The sudden change in direction sent everyone off balance; the helmsman tried to compensate.

The captain saw the Blacksword point, with his sword, at the Orrinn Tower. He clearly heard the sounds of Skrol being incanted, and the ship lurched upwards as the Wind Orrinn was ordered to produce more gusts.

Sailors near the bow rushed to attack the single invader. They carried cutlasses or hookspears. They circled him cautiously, and the Blacksword used the time to separate SinDex.

The Spears thrust towards him. He ducked and took one of the sailor’s legs off just below the knee with both swords. He jumped and somersaulted through the air, slicing through the heads of two cutlass-waving sailors as he passed by overhead, a dense spry of blood fountained over the other sailors to drench their tunics. When he landed, a crewmember with a round shield and chest armour ran towards him with a poleaxe. The Blacksword dodged the axe and used Dex to cut through the shield, amputating the crewman’s arm below the elbow.

The
Jezzrion
was moving higher and quicker now. Cold air and cloudy mountain peaks welcomed the ship as she passed close to the mountain edge. On its pirouette to port, Plainer saw the cliff edge get closer with every second, and he shouted frantic orders to the helmsman to decrease the Orrinn’s wind output.

The
Raxion
was closing. Jynn was not sure what was happening on board the other ship or why it soared higher, but she could clearly see that the Blacksword was cutting a path through the crew to get aft.

“Faster, get me closer!” she shouted to the helmsman.

Three more men dropped to the Blacksword. One sailor clumsily thrust his sword at the hooded man. His sword shattered on impact with Sin, and the Blacksword spun around, kicking the sailor in the chest and sending him screaming over the edge of the ship. His body spun like a five-pointed star as he fell towards the ground.

Six more cutlass-brandishing sailors attacked from behind. The Blacksword his left hand on the portside wooden railing and summoned the earth element. A twelve-foot long section of the railing exploded into thousands of large splinters, piercing any exposed parts of the sailors’ faces. They all screamed in pain as the stinging needles pierced their eyes.

Running onto the Orrinn Tower deck, the Blacksword hacked down two more sailors in his path.

The
Jezzrion
listed to port as she came around for another pass at the mountain zenith, which loomed dangerously close. Just before impact, the rising fear that the captain felt in the pit of his stomach at the fast-approaching mountain was subdued slightly as he saw the beauty of the triangle-tipped summit. A strong easterly wind blasted the powdery snow on its surface into a long, fine white cloud, clearly defined against azure backdrop of the evening sky.

The
Jezzrion
juddered as the port side scraped the mountain’s sharp edge just fifty feet below the summit. The hull ruptured and the catapult stations ripped out of their mounts as the hard ice and granite gouged a long line out of her lower gundeck. The manning crews screamed as the backdraft and tilt of the ship pulled them out of the gaping hole into the freezing air. Bodies and armament scattered down the jagged slope of the mountain.

During the moment of impact, the Blacksword jumped from the Orrinn deck onto the aft castle, the result of which made him the only one standing after the collision. He merged both swords together and brought it down onto the helm, splitting the steering pivot and wheel in two. This had the effect of putting the Orrinn into a neutral position inside its cradle. The
Jezzrion
slowly began to sink while still moving in circles to port.

Captain Plainer was the first on his feet and one of the last of the crew alive on deck. Pulling his sword from its scabbard at his hip, he attacked the Blacksword. The clash of weapons sounded clear in the thin air and heard by most on board the closing
Raxion
.

Plainer’s pig-like eyes were full of fear. He knew from the first stroke that he was no match for this skilled opponent. This was fact proved correct when the Blacksword leapt over him and sliced his back, severing his spinal column, as he landed. Plainer lost the use of his legs and fell against the helm.

The Blacksword looked around him. There, at the rear of the deck, sat the ground-anchor and chain coil. Both sky ships had three anchors, two aft and one stern, to secure them at sea or floating above land. He used a surge with the third element to lift the starboard-side anchor. It broke the securing brackets and part of the starboard railing as it wrenched free. It hung there, four feet above the deck.

He waited until he came in view of the
Raxion.