Aetherios System: Whirlwind

Chapter 66: On The Lam

The cave was barely large enough to cram them all inside. Damp stone pressed against their backs, the air thick with the stink of sweat and blood. Harsh whispers bounced from wall to wall, colliding with the orchestra of deep breathing.

“They’ve got Dragon-Blood-One,” Tom-Tom hissed loudly as his tail twitched and trembled with a blend of panicked fury. “Why did we run? We should’ve stayed. We should’ve fought!”

“We wud all be dead, or in chains if we de tha',” Doran snapped back. His face was pallid in the dim glow, a thin sheen of sweat matting his bald head and dripping down into his beard. “Ye think Alex wud’ve wanted tha'? He told us to run.”

“Yeah, he told us because he was already getting the shit kicked out of him,” Garret whispered harshly. His normally playful eyes were rimmed red. “You saw what those Urhara bastards did to Henry and Holly. What do you think they’ll do to the others they took? We just left them to die.”

“Quiet,” Myrae cut in, her words far harsher than her usual calm cadence. She pressed her glowing hands over Lance’s chest, knitting flesh and bone together with practiced care. Beside her, Allie worked her own healing spell into Doran’s twisted and broken ankle while whispering soft encouragements that the dwarf barely heard.

The argument surged on anyway, Eric and Kate joined in, starting to butt heads like rams in too-tight a pen.

“We can’t just wait around,” Eric growled. “We need to hit them before they move their prisoners. Take out their guards, sabotage the ship, or something, anything.”

“You think rushing in will help?” Kate was cold. She paced about, her blonde hair stuck to her forehead with dried blood. “That’s suicide. We need information, and to regroup, maybe even—”

“Oh, here it comes. The coward’s retreat. Always thinking of yourself.”

“I'm not thinking of myself, I'm thinking logically. Better than charging blindly and getting all of us killed.”

The space quaked with their rage, the others pressing tighter against the walls to avoid the aetheric auras flying between the two squad leaders.

Lance was the one to intervene. Without a word, he raised his arm and the stone at the cave’s entrance shuddered and sealed shut, an earthen slab slamming down like a guillotine from above. The darkness it created was absolute, until Allie exhaled and conjured a faint orb of light.

Lance huffed before leaning his weight against the newly formed wall. “You two are so obsessed with being the one in charge, that you don’t give a damn about the people who actually matter. Our friends are in chains, again, and all you can do is argue about who gets to lead and make the plan.”

Both squad leaders stared at Lance angrily. Kate’s jaw clenched. Eric’s fists tightened. But neither of them spoke.

The only sound in the cave was Tom-Tom’s quick, shallow breathing. His frills quivered as he sniffed about, his nostrils flaring open and closed rapidly. “I smell something,” the kobold whispered.

The air suddenly quieted further in response to his declaration. No one in the cave moved, and no one dared to breathe.

Then came a sound, faintly at first, then undeniable. The sound of a rustle of leaves, and the whisper of brush being disturbed. Distinct footsteps moving just beyond their slab of stone came shortly after.

Inside the cave, they all waited like still shadows, each held their breath until it felt like a lump of stone in their throats.

Two Urhara guards padded back and forth across the slope below the slab. Their boots whispered on the stone, armor clinking idly. One complained about the rations and the other grumbled about the boredom of “hunting duty” when there were cushy berths waiting on the main deck. They were bored, a little sloppy, and exactly the kind of complacent the Worldstriders needed.

Through a hairline crack Lance had created in the earthen slab, Kate watched the guards’ backs. She mouthed a count—three seconds—and gave a barely perceptible nod. The area erupted at her signal.

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As they all poured from the cave, Eric and Kate split, moving like practiced predators. Allie’s orb winked down to a dim ember, throwing their silhouettes long. Tom-Tom bounded forward with a soft hiss, his eyes shining bright and fierce. Garret and Devon took the right flank, sword and rifle ready respectively.

The first guard spun when a flash of movement clipped him across the jaw, Kate’s elbow, a practiced strike that rattled his brain and blurred his vision. He staggered back with a curse, then Eric finished the movement with a low sweep that sent his legs out from under him.

The second guard reached for his horned spear, but Tom-Tom dove upon him with teeth flashing at the guard’s ankle. He went down with a howl. Garret slammed a gauntleted palm into a third guard’s chest, sending the man unconscious with a single, furious blow.

It was brief and ugly as battles went. Spells flew, one of Devon’s engineered flash-runes went off and left a ringing pain behind a guards’ eyes. Ghrukk rushing to help Selkie take down a straggler guard that had tried to run once the fighting started.

By the time the dust settled, no guard could stand. They lay bound and blindfolded, each breathing shallow for now, with their injuries more bruising minor cuts than life threatening. Kate crouched, inspecting the uniforms of the prisoners in the lowlight. The guards were not small men, they were tall, just about average size, give or take an inch. They wore heavy boots and reinforced leather jerkins with the Empire’s sigil stitched on the breast in compact detail.

“About Lance and Allie’s size, yeah?” Kate said, eyes flicking to Lance as she tugged aside a strap to check a seam on the armor.

“Think so. And... I think we found our way on the ship.” Eric said.

Kate glanced up, meeting his grin with a hard nod. “If we can get enough of these to disguise everyone, maybe. We can lure more patrols when they come to check the area; make it look like a supply pick-up? We can grab uniforms, identification badges for us all. Then we get back aboard quietly with no one the wiser.”

“Allie, can you patch them enough to walk?” Devon asked.

Allie moved to the nearest guard, her hands already weaving light-mana to knit torn skin and staunch bleeding. “They'll be fine,” she said. “If they wake before we’re gone I’ll put them back on their asses easily enough."

Tom-Tom pressed his snout into Kate’s hand and whuffled.

“We should get the little lizard a medal,” Garret joked.

“We don’t have all night, they’ll notice the missing sentries,” Lance said, ignoring Garret's joke and focusing on the threat.

Eric nodded in agreement. “We move camp then. Once we are ready again, we can split into two teams: one stays and draws in patrols. The other ambushes them and goes for the uniforms.”

Kate’s agreement was a hard grunt.

They worked fast. Selka slipped out of their little cave-camp first, ghosting along the ground to take a position further down the path, while Devon and Garret readied diversion charges: small, noisy glyph runes designed to explode with the sound of falling crates and clanking chains. Allie wrapped nimble bindings tightly around the unconscious guards, tying knots that would impress any sailor. Tom-Tom scurried about in the forest outside, scouting the approach path the soldiers had made with tiny, urgent sniffs of his nose.

Kate stripped the captives of their belts and pouches like a surgeon removing bandages, with efficient, practiced hands. In a minute they had the uniforms and a few other items. Three spare jerkins (one was far too torn to be salvaged), as well as a set of armor, a pair of boots, a pass-chit with the Empire’s sigil, and a small, stamped medallion that announced a bearer as “Security Support, Andreia; taken from each of the soldiers.”

They dressed quickly, slipping into the Empire gear. It was awkward at first for the Worldstriders, the sleeves length and over all style cut was unfamiliar, and the collars for the armor were tight. But the uniforms did their job, they hid the bloodied clothes underneath, and lent to them the anonymous look of Urhara soldiers doing their rounds.

Kate tested the sturdiness of the medallion between her forefinger and thumb. “We gotta do this clean as we can. No bloodshed or flashy spells around the ship, and no fighting unless we’re forced to as a last resort.”

“Right.” Eric’s voice was a whisper at this point, “Once everyone has a uniform, or at least enough of us, we will try to get aboard. Then we find Alex and the others, and we get out as fast as we can.”

The plan itself was a bit risky. If they began gathering too much attention, leading too many soldiers on them, they might not be fast enough to be able to escape a second time. Not without Alex providing a distraction. Not with the many injuries they were still dealing with from the chimera queen. But it was the best plan that they had available, so they all decided to go with it.

They melted into the low light of dusk, two covert teams moving like the embodiment of night itself. One, to draw the patrols toward their camp, the other to ambush them and take their belongings. On top of all this, was Selka who was already out in the forest starting some mayhem to keep the soldiers guessing about their motives and movements.

As they moved together, Kate’s hand found Tom-Tom’s head and gently squeezed his lone remaining ear once before patting him on the snout. His tiny body trembled in response, happy for the contact. Kate knew he liked the gesture, seeing Holly do it before. The kobold looked up at her and smiled appreciatively, but his eyes were bright with a savage, loyal hope instead of gratitude.

Somewhere up above, the arcane ship sat oppressively large and alien against the sky.

Below the ship, down on the ruined flank of a mountain, a wounded band of fighters made their move.