Chapter 403: With What Precious Things We Carry
The clipper had ceased its movement. Nature had snapped her sails and cracked her hull. Had made the emergency wards light up the sky in distress, while the anti-leak wards seemed to do nothing at all.
Fuck, Val thought, before springing into action.
"Pilot, bring us along the Rorqual! Cut across the Bitch if you have to! Port one-five-zero!"
"Will’so!" the pangolkin man shouted, wasting no time to start turning the wheel.
"Signal the Bitch not to help us," she shouted to the bosun. Jumping down, she ran one deck below, bellowing with enhanced volume, "All magics, prepare to rescue! Cargo priority!"
In short order, she and a squad of seven mostly-enhancer mages were climbing the rigging or waiting as needed. The looks on their faces were determined, but few were concerned. After all, most of them had been slave-mages like her. Most had come to her as rookies - barely trained enough to be muscle. With few exceptions, she’d beaten and raised them up to strength herself, and their confidence made her feel a small swell of pride. They knew to focus on the fight.
Only one person is dying today," Val thought. For a moment the warm swell became a different sort of fire as her hidden thoughts rose. She shut it down, hard, with a well-practiced hold on the apathy she needed to hold for other people’smav lives.
Her ship was sturdy, fast, and always in good repair because she met laziness with violence. She would survive. For at least as long as the storm kept the monsters deeper below.
The cut in front of the Bitch’s path seemed very close, but a lucky wave allowed the Queen to sail past without a scratch - though for a moment Val anticipated the Bitch’s foremast might strip the rearmost rigging. The moment each mage or maven was in range, they leaped according to their capacities, and Val was the first with her magic-enhanced strength.