Project Empress 033

 [chapter 7 continued and finished]

***************

Roaring laughter filled the ship´s dining room. The table was a merry mess of half filled plates, islands in a sea of take-out boxes and pots. The air warm, smelling of the expensive and rare spices of the food. 

Read eared Cara had pushed her chair away from her place at the table as far as she could towards the wall were she tried to melt into the half shadow outside of the lamps glowing above the table. 

“She looked behind you?”, Natalie asked, “What was she expecting? A shy miniature container?”

Elisa shrugged. “I don’t know.”

Erika was looking at Cara with a warmth that Cara suspected was powered by pitty, she brought her plate close to her mouth, mumbling into her food. “It might have been a tiny parcel…” She cast a look around; Erika was still looking at her with motherly pitty, Elisa was grinning while mimicking the scene with her knife representing her and her fork looking around for the ‘stealthy parcel’. She gave a little snort, her eyes narrowing a bit as they moved on to Wolfram. He was very focused on his own food, moving it around with his fork as if trying to find a secret morsel under his vegetable heavy sauce, Cara did not miss that he was trying very hard to suppress a laugh. ‘Nice try… traitor’, Cara thought. Next was Natalie who was pointing at Elisa’s fork, laughing with tears in her eyes. 

Cara stood up and went for the door. She opened it, taking care that her cutlery didn’t fall to the ground. She had had quite enough humiliation for a day. As she moved out the room grew a bit silent. She turned back to the others, saying: “I hope you know that you are all”, she started looking at Wolfram, then went to look at Erika, followed by Elisa and ending on Natalie, “ assholes. Of varying sizes,”, a quick glance to Wolfram, who had the decency to keep looking at his food, all traces of mirth wiped away from his face. Cara looked back at Natalie, “but assholes nonetheless”, her eyes narrowed more. She slowly moved backwards out of the room, mostly to make sure she did not stumble on her way out, while appreciating that it allowed her to glower at the room for a while longer. She then turned around using her right foot to slam the door closed behind her. The door slammed shut with gratifying thunder. Cara took a deep breath and then left for the ships deck.

Outside it was dark, most of the illumination came from the almost full moon that had taken centre stage in the night sky, the Milky Way adding to its flair. The silver line was reflecting from the almost still water of the harbour. The only competition coming from the ship’s positional lights, which came a distant second. Cara was looking at the reflection of the water, eating with dogged determination. Her anger was doing a good job of pushing her hunger away, but the taste of the spicy food and the way that she couldn’t quite tell if it was still hot or if this was mostly the peppers doing their work kept her coming back for more. The burning in her mouth was also distracting her from the burning in her stomach. Besides, Wolfram must have spent a fortune for the food. Most of the spices in her food were incredibly rare. Earlier Wolfram had insisted that having everyone back alive and on their way to full recovery was worth more than money. He also added that the Hartmann Serafini’s may be one the suppliers of rare spices to Datlem, that was worth a discount. Still this must have cost them more than Cara used to earn in a week… Another reason to savour the food. Far away from the idiots below decks.

“If you come one step closer I am going to stab you”, Cara said, still looking at the reflection of the moon in the water below.

“With the knife or the fork?”, Natalie asked.

After considering it for a while, Cara answered: “With the fork”, her gaze wandering to the fork in her left hand. 

“Why?”

“Because its stabbier, it turns one thrust into four stabs. Very economic”, Cara said.

“That makes sense”, Natalie said, taking a step towards Cara. “Ow!”

“I warned you”, Cara said, her face neutral with a dash of murder. 

Natalie nodded, the fork still pressed into her skin slightly below the clavicle. “Fair.”

“Yes and there is more where that came from”, Cara added. “So could you please go away again?”

“I came to apologise”, Natalie said.

Cara didn’t answer. 

“I’m sorry. I didn’t want to make fun of you.”

“Could have fooled me.”

“Well imagining the tiniest parcel, hiding behind that ranger…” Natalie started to smirk, followed by loud, “Oww! Ouch! Arrgh! Stop it”, she said, moving away from the stabbing fork. “It is a funny mental picture. It’s not even about you.”

“Is it not?”, Cara asked, “Is it not funny how dumb Cara is for not thinking that people are cargo? Oh how dumb of her. Ho ho ho. Yes the idea that person could be seen as cargo, after I was kidnapped by pirates who wanted to sell me is ridiculous. Dumb little Cara.” As she spoke Cara moved forward, plate in her right hand, the fork in her left seeking out Natalie. Natalie for her part retreated blocking Cara’s attacks with her arms. 

“Oooowww!”, Natalie shouted, Cara had turned the fork in her hand attacking from above, keeping contact with the blocking arm while continuing to push the fork down until it found its place in Natalie’s upper arm. “Stop that.”

“You stop being an idiot”, Cara said.

“I’m trying…”, Natalie paused, looking at the fork that was now standing embedded in her arm. “Good move.”

“Thank you…” Cara said, looking at the fork. It slowly dawned on her what she had done.  She snickered. 

“Oh so that’s funny?”, Natalie asked, looking at Cara. 

“Yes.”, Cara said. “I mean, just look at it.” Natalie looked, still grimacing, her grimace turning into a smirk. “It kinda is.” The women looked at the fork for a moment, before the both started laughing. 

“Could you please pull it out again?”, Natalie said still snickering.

“Is it deep in your arm?”, Cara asked snorting. 

“It’s mostly stuck in my clothes… I hope. It still hurts though.”

“Good”, Cara said, gripped the fork and pulled it out. Natalie grunted. 

“Are we good now?”, Natalie asked rubbing her arm. 

“No. But we are better.”

“Anything else I can do?”

“Yes I’m getting cold. You could get me Miss Snuggles and a cup of tea.”

“I can do that”, Natalie turned to go back under deck. 

“Wait a second.”, Cara said, she finished the rest of her food with a couple of hasty shovels into her mouth.

“With the fork you just stabbed me with?”, Natalie said recoiling slightly.

“The blood of my enemies is the sweetest spice”, Cara said.

“Is it?”

“No not really. I didn’t think about what I was doing.”

“You could spit it out?”

“Never. ‘tis too good.”

“I see…” Natalie stretched out her arms leaning forward to get Cara’s plate and the cutlery.  

“Not the fork”, Cara said. “I will keep this one for now.”

“Why?”

“It’s for traitors large and small.”

Natalie nodded slowly, retreating from Cara. After she had put a good distance between herself and Cara she turned around mumbling something about rabies.

Cara turned away again, looking at the reflection of the moon again. 

A bit later Natalie returned with a large mug of hot tea and Miss Snuggles. Cara had sent her away as she wanted to be alone with her thoughts. No fork was needed this time. 

Natalie had just nodded, leaving Cara with the moon and the stars.

Cara was lost in her thoughts, she almost didn’t notice the Ruhig Blut coming alive if not for the red light on the side of the ship slowly growing a brighter. As the ship started moving Cara moved to the front. There she was the furthest from everyone else, with only the night for company. The ship was now slowly moving down the canal towards their next destination the Confederated Cities of Rhineland North, where the canal would meet the river Rhine. There they would turn south until the reached castle Benrath in Thusseldorp, from where they would then go towards the forge fortress Solingen. 

These things were not in Cara’s mind. Her thoughts had lost focus, framed inside the pain that was still worming through most of her body. She was mostly lost in the dark, facing down the canal where the stars in the sky met their reflection in the water. Cara wondered what kind of person she was. She had lived a rather sheltered life dreaming of adventure and like a miracle, adventure had finally found her. It had started much like she had imagined it would be. Until the pirates came. That had also been very exiting. At first. Then she had been tied up in a cramped little cell to be sold to god knew who, only to be freed and having to fight her way out of captivity. Which was also quite like the stories. Until the first person died… There was a lot the stories didn’t tell you about that part. The smell for one. Dead people, especially if they had been cut open had a very special smell. Something that Cara hoped she would never have to smell again. 

She had of course not killed anyone. Maybe she was naive like Elisa had said, however this was something she was not ready to do. Turns out bad people look a lot like perfectly normal people and they sound the same when they scream…

Also people had tried to kill her, they had wounded her, she had bled not because of an accident but because people wanted to destroy her. It was here where her thoughts became confusing. Stopping them had felt good. To do that she had to break her opponents. Mostly in spirit, but she felt things that felt a lot like limbs, if not breaking then at least cracking. That memory made Cara feel a bit sick, but what was worse was the tiger that was hidden behind that queasy feeling. There it was lurking ready to pounce and that tiger was elated to break her opponents. This beast inside her heart was also proud of her art. That she had defeated those who had stood in her way. There was this tiny bit in her that was elated by what had happened. That was the part which scared her the most. 

She noticed that her knuckles holding her now cold mug had turned white. Her whole body was tense. “Do you still love me, Miss Snuggles?”, Cara asked. Miss Snuggles somehow shifted around Cara a bit in what would count as a hug for a duvet. 

“Good. That means there is still hope for me”, Cara said focusing on the world around her again, where the first rays of the sun were slowly starting to reclaim the sky.

Project Empress 032

[Chapter 7 continued] 
On their way back to the ‘Ruhig Blut’ Cara was troubled by the conversation with the regionaria. But she kept her thoughts to herself for now. Natalie was her master after all and knew what she was doing. Right?

Back on the ship she was quickly distracted first by the enthusiastic hugs of both Wolfgang and Erika when she came back on board who for some reason were still all hugs and barely repressed tears seeing Cara alive and mostly well. Cara wondered why they were still so overwhelmed by her continued survival. The danger had passed, she had survived and was now back, safe in a civilised city, surrounded by friends. Where they friends? She knew Natalie for about a week and the Hartmann Serafini’s for a bit more than a day… consciously at least. But then, when it was time to act, when Cara had been in danger, when taking care of her was a burden, they stood with her, despite it having been easier to just leave her to her own fate. She was especially surprised by the love and care that she received from the captains of the Ruhig Blut as they were traders. In church she had heard over and over again that traders were suspicious people, who while beneficial to the people of the world, always carried the seed of greed, the ultimate of all deadly sins in their hearts. After all it was greed and how it turned the human mind into that of a degenerate demon that had destroyed the old world and had fed the fires of the tyrant lords that came after the fall. And yet, the Hartmann Serafini’s had been nothing but kind and generous to her. The world was a strange place. Which brought her back to Natalie who had also been nothing but generous to her, who seemed to be the one that was closest to this most malicious of seeds… Of course what Cara was doing was very close to the other seed of destruction, the seed of doubt that once it took root in your soul would turn you against your kin, both by blood and by merit, opening the gates to ruin. Now that she was outside her city, those sermons she had heard all her life began to sound far more foreboding than in the past, when she had wondered why anyone would ever be so dumb as to fall for such obvious traps. 

As these thoughts began to slowly spiral out of control, Erika appeared in her cabin, all broad smiles and kind words, moving her out of the cabin on deck to help with loading the new cargo. The rest of the day went by quickly, in a series of sudden instances of hard work interrupted by phases of slightly less hard work. When they went through the cargo for a last time that evening to make sure that everything was actually what it pretended to be, was present in the right amount and secured to its place, it was something that felt almost relaxing. 

It was all dark by now, a cold breeze coming up carrying with it the smell of the port. Cara’s body felt exhausted and hungry but her mind felt clear. Her doubts from earlier that had not vanished but turned into something more productive. ‘While I don’t understand what master Natalie is doing, she has never done anything to make me doubt her as a person’, she thought. “And the seed of doubt”, she told the water flowing through the canal in front of her, “cannot survive in the light of day and the fresh air.” After a second she added, “in the metaphorical light of day.” She looked up at the night sky, daring it to contradict her. The night sky remained unimpressed, but Cara thought that some of the stars were twinkling at her in an encouraging way. She would do what was to her now the obvious thing to do. Talk to Natalie. A growling in her stomach made her add an ‘After dinner.’ 

When she went to the small dining room of the ship she discovered to her dismay that the adjoining caboose was dark, cold and empty. There was also no one in the dining room itself. When she turned around she almost walked into Erika, who had somehow appeared out of nowhere. 

“Cara!”, she said, clearly happy to see her. “Food will arrive shortly. When we load the ship, it’s tradition that Wolfgang goes into the city to get us a proper feast.” She grinned as she said this, clapping Cara’s shoulder a couple of times. Cara did her best not to crumple under the friendly hammer blows of encouragement. It was no wonder that Erika was able to control the dead gods below deck…

“I’m going to prepare the table”, Erika said, “could you do me a favour while I am doing that?”

“Of course.” Cara said. 

“There is a last piece of Cargo that we have to take care off”, Erika said.

Cara’s smile was almost flushed away, it took all of her willpower to keep it in place. “Yes?”, Cara said, imagining having to direct another container into the already filled cargo hold, checking what it carried and securing it in place. She wasn’t sure she could get any of those steps done on her own.

“Don’t worry, this is the kind of cargo that takes care of itself. You’ll find it on the pier next to the ship. Bring it to cabin C. That is the one next to yours. 

“OK.” Cara said.

“Hey little ingot, haven’t seen you in a while”, Elisa Klein Cunningham said when she saw Cara descend from the ship looking for the cargo she was supposed to take care of. 

“Er… Hello Elisa, I’m also glad to see you”, she paused for a moment to look at the ranger. Elisa looked like a professional carrier in her sensible rugged clothes, boots designed to go almost literally toe to toe with the most hostile of environments. She was now also wearing a wide brimmed hat, together with her now openly carried blade staff. The blade was covered in a luxurious velvet covering and the steel ‘star over anvil, with crossed hammer and sword’ emblem of the forge fortress. Cara was impressed at how official and serious Elisa looked; she was even more impressed that the forge walker did not look like she had been in a life or death fight in her entire live, less only a few days ago. 

“I’m also impressed by how… normal?…you look”, Cara said.

Elisa’s eyes narrowed very slightly one of her brows quivering a bit. “I look,” she said, ”normal?” The threat carried in her voice flew right over Cara’s head.

“Yes, I feel like I was almost murdered by a horde of elephants.”

“Armed elephants”, she added after short pause, “mostly with clubs and a few with sabres.”

Elisa’s one eyebrow stopped quivering while her other eyebrow rose to join the first. “Elephants…?”

“Yes and you look like you just wandered out of some high academy or temple of science…”

“Ah…”, Elisa said, starting to nod very slowly, her eyebrows slowly returning to their original position but ready to jump into action the instant they were needed again. 

“Well I had a couple of days of rest and while I do not often crush a pirate fleet,” she added a small smile looking at Cara directly, “with help from my friends, that is part of my job.”

“That’s soo cool”, Cara said, “but I can’t get distracted right now. I have a mission!”

“A mission?”, Elisa looked around, dropping the large duffle bag, her now free hand moving towards her sword staff’s cover.

“Yes I need to find and secure the last piece of cargo.”

Elisa relaxed, so much so that entire expression of her face fell, her eyes rolling slightly… “Cargo…?”

“Yes, Captain Erika told me that there was still one piece of cargo left.” After she had scanned the dock for another container and not found one she stepped around Elisa to look if maybe some very small container or package was hidden behind the ranger.

“Does this ship also carry passengers Cara?”, Elisa asked sighing, her eyes completing their roll.

“Yes”, Cara said, continuing her search for the mysterious last bit of cargo. 

Elisa pulled her hand back from her weapons cover making a fist with it, shaking it very slightly. “And was there something special about that Cargo?”

“Special?”, Cara paused putting her index finger against her lips. “Erika said that it is a kind of Cargo that mostly takes care of itself and I should bring it to cabin C. The one next to Natalie’s and my cabin.”

Elisa’s brows knew this was their moment for rising high again. Her fist relaxing into an open palm swung in a graceful arc, indicating that a great revelation was reached.

Cara looked at Elisa, following her gesture into the dark of the docks. Elisa’s eyebrows managed to raise a little bit further while her hand fell limp to her side. 

“Cara.”

“Yes.”

“It’s me…”

“I know who you are…”

Before Cara could continue and after stopping her free hand to dart for Cara’s neck, she said, “I am the cargo Cara. I’m a passenger too.”

“Oh…”, Cara said still looking into the dark. She suddenly stopped, turning towards Elisa again. “Oh! Oooooh…”

“Yes little ingot… oh indeed…”  

Project Empress special. The story so far 2025 edition

The story so far

It is the year 20xx. The industrial world is no more. Neither are the warlord states that came after it.

Societies are slowly growing back on the ruins of the fallen civilisations that came before.

Cara Gibson Müller our protagonist dreams of becoming a sword master of the fabled historical martial arts styles. At the beginning of our story she is a hopeless student of the famous sword master Manfred Brumotti von Burg. Over 4 years of training but almost no progress.

Cara’s fate changes when she gets attacked by 3 ruffian. She does try to defend herself. She fails, but is saved by the wandering journeyman swordswoman Natalie Laukkanen Lapointe.

The latter had sworn to never take a pupil. Too much of a hassle really. But there will be a grand tourney soon, where a secret fencing manuscript will go to the winner. The catch, only a team of master and apprentice can take part. Natalie sees something in Cara so she decides to adopt her.

Natalie gives Cara a crash course in her Style to see if Cara has what it takes. She has. 

Natalie then goes to prepare some business entrusting Cara to Walter for the next training session. 

Walter Balogh Rayne is the owner of Bacchus’ Barrel the wine bar Natalie likes to hang out with her sword master friend and rival Robert Cavendish Gutierrez. 

Walter is an old war veteran who can vaguely remember the old days of the fabled European Union. The utopia Natalie wishes she could bring back. Walter who saw how the “utopia” fell and what followed, has a more down to earth perspective. 

He teaches Cara more about the fundamentals of fighting introducing her to the concept of animus. The force true sword masters can invoke to overcome their limits. 

And he gives Cara a refurbished computer book that she is to use to write down what she learns.

The next day Cara and Natalie go to see the lord bishop of Monasteria to secure the funding for their Cara’s training and their voyage to Vienna where the tournament is going to take place. The bishop duels with Natalie to see if she has the necessary skills. She has. So he offers her a deal with the opposite of the devil. They get the money and the bishop get’s the manuscript for the holy library of Monasteria, for the glory of good and the enlightenment of the people. 

With this deal done, Cara is officially the student of now Master Laukkanen Lapointe. 

As her former master Manfred hears about this he suddenly decides that Cara is a snake and a traitor running away from him to snatch the fabled manuscript for her self and get all the glory for recovering it for the bishop. 

Manfred decides that he will too take part in the tournament, by sending his right hand man and top student and now freshly declared master Eskil Feltis Gavenda and his new pupil and an as of yet unnamed young man, who happened to be one of the ruffians Natalie bet to a pulp earlier. 

Cara doesn't know anything about this. She is busy training and packing her things.

The last night in Monasteria, while waiting for Natalie at Walter’s bar, a bunch of students from Manfred’s appear declaring that Cara is now a Proditor Perfidissimus, a high traitor and demand from Walter that he gives her over to them. Walter hands them their arses instead as he is not only an army veteran but also a grand master of the historical martial arts. 

Cara flees with Natalie to the port, where they have bought passage on the MHS Ruhig Blut a free trader ship of the co-captains Erika and Wolfram Hartmann Serafini. They hope the ship will get them through the lawless lands of the Purgatory Gap from Monasteria to independent trade fortress Datlem and from there into the The Confederated Cities of Rhineland North, where they plan to get out to go to the legendary forge city of Solingen. 

Here in Soling Cara is supposed to get further training and more importantly new weapons from the forge masters of the city.

The HMS Ruhig Blut is one of the fastest freighters in the entire region using forgotten technology to reach incredible speeds, to push past and if must be right through the pirate gangs of the Purgatory Gap. 

Ship, crew and passengers are all prepared for combat. 

Everything seems to be going fine, but of course some pirates do mange to board the Ruhig Blut. A fierce battle ensues where Cara shows of her new skills that she has aquired over the last few days. She does pretty well, until the point where a pirate sneaks up behind her and all goes black.

She wakes up in the cargo hold of a pirate vessel inside a cage with no chance for escape. She has been caught by black sword pirates, who do not kill their prey as they prefer to sell them of as slaves.

Cara’s days of adventure seem to be numbered. 

However there is a stowaway with her in the cargo hold, the Solingen forge-walker Elisa Klein Cunningham, a special agent of the cit of forges, who had planned to use the pirate ship as transport but now sees her hand forced. 

Cara and Elisa have a slight dispute about what to do with the pirates, Elisa says kill, Cara insists of leaving them alive. While Elisa strongly opposes to leave slavers alive she grudgingly accepts Cara’s conditions, if only to get her to shut up and moving.

Meanwhile in Datlem an distraught and angry Natalie goes to see the protonotary apostolic regionaria Alperta the leader of the local independent church and de facto leader of the city fortress of Datlem to get her to help with saving Cara. 

The regionaria has better things to do, especially for civilians caught by pirates outside of her sphere of influence until Natalie mentions the tournament and the manuscript the winner gets. regionaria Alperta agrees to help if, when they return they give the manuscript to her to make a copy of the manuscript for the Datlem library. Cara agrees.

Meanwhile Cara and Elisa sneak their way over the small artificial ship island of the pirates, when freedom is almost with in reach at the edge of the island, they get ambushed. However Elisa is a formidable fighter using various different historical styles and weapons to dispatch her enemies. While Cara pushes herself through injuries and pain, fighting to survive. Freedom so very near. 

When they think that they have finally gotten rid of all the pirates in their way, they are stopped by the pirate commander Aurei von Brecksbach, who descends with unnecessary drama from the upper deck to confront our two heroes. 

A fierce battle ensues where both Elisa and Cara are pushed beyond their limits. commander Aurei tries to convince Cara to give up and join his side. Cara refuses and instead decides to attack the commander. Cara is overwhelmed and wounded by the fierce counter that the commander unleashes. It looks like this might be the battle that Cara will lose along with at least her freedom and probably her life. She knows however that she only has to withstand the onslaught for the time it takes for Elisa to join the battle.

Once she reaches the commander, the battle become more balanced. The pirate is still a formidable foe, who in the end is beaten by the wounded and exhausted warriors.

Natalie appears minutes too late to save the day with commandos from Datlem.

When Cara regains consciousness some time later she is back to safety in Datlem, where she learns that Natalie has made another deal with the devil, or rather a powerful representative of the church. Now they not only need to win the manuscript at the tournament but they also have to bring it to the regionaria of Datlem first, so that her scribes can make a copy “for reasons of safety and the greater good of mankind” before they bring the manuscript to the Lord Bishop. As she leaves voicing her feeling of walking into a trap where failure would lead to dire consequences, the regionaria tells her to focus on her growth instead of worrying about failure.

Which is the point where our story resumes this year. 

Project Empress 031

 [Chapter7 continued]

Cara woke up. She was still very cold and in pain. But she was in something close enough to a bed, rolled into something very much like a blanket. Several blankets actually. One was crinkly like the metal foil that you could still buy for ridiculous sums in antiquarian artefact shops. But on top of it was something soft and warm. She opened her eyes, as she drew the soft blanket closer to her. As her eyes focused on it she instantly recognised the soft sand yellow of it. “Miss Snuggles”, she said, tears suddenly filling her eyes. “You waited for me.”

“Hey”, Natalie said, her voice soft, “you’re awake”, she smiled at her.

“No”, Cara’s eyes grew wide, a sudden punch of grief striking her square in the stomach. “Not you too, master…”.

Natalie’s eyes grew wide, lying a hand on Cara’s shoulder. “It’s OK, you are safe, I’m safe. Even that weird stray woman you found is safe.”

“I beg your pardon?”, an aggressive Elisa said appearing in Cara’s field of view. The aggression instantly disappeared when she saw Cara. “Oh no, little ingot. What happened?”

Cara pushing back sobs said, “Aren’t we all dead?”

At this Natalie and Elisa looked at each other, the back at Cara. 

“What? No.”, Natalie said.

“Why would you think that?”, Elisa said.

“Because of Miss Snuggles”, Cara said. “She was cut to ribbons by the dumb blonde idiot, when he attacked me in Monasteria. And here she is whole. So I thought… that we are both in heaven…?”

“Miss Snuggles is not dead, Cara, neither are you.”, Natalie said, her voice soft and her smile warm. “Wolfgang had started repairing her, it was the only thing keeping him sane after we lost you when we arrived in Datlem.”

“So we are still all alive.”

“Yes, little ingot”, said Elisa.

Cara let that sink in for a minute.

“That’s OK then…”, she said, blinked twice and fell asleep again.

When Cara woke up she was in a softer, fluffier bed. Everything still hurt, but the pain had turned into a more numb, throbbing pain. Until she started to move, that is, then her leg, her arm and face flared up again. 

“Careful, cara mia”, Erika said. She sat next to the bed in which Cara found herself. She had been cleaning some kind of machine part, which she now lay away, putting it on the floor. “Are you thirsty? Hungry?”

“Yes”, Cara nodded. “Both.” How long had she been asleep? She was incredibly thirsty. Her eyes were so dry that her eyelids stuck to her corneas. That felt horrible…

“Here, drink first “, Erika said, giving her some water from a cup that thankfully had a straw in it. After she had emptied it, Erika put it away. “I’ll go get you something to eat.”

Erika opened the door. “She’s awake”, she said to someone outside. 

The someone turned out to be Natalie, who came in and sat down on the edge of the bed.

“How do I look?”, Cara asked.

“Like a racoon who played a key role in a brawl.”

“Did the racoon win at least?”

“Yeah.”

“That’s good”, Cara said, almost smiling. She did not notice that she had fallen back asleep until she opened her eyes again. A bowl of cold soup next to her on an improvised nightstand. Natalie was gone. This time it was Wolfgang sitting with her. He did not notice her, he was still busy repairing Miss Snuggles, who, as it appeared, still needed some more medical attention. 

“Hmblmn…”, Cara tried to say. She blinked.

It was a very slow blink because when her eyes were open again Wolfgang had turned into Elisa and Miss Snuggles was now back in her arms. The forge walker was focused on removing the burrs from the edge of one of her weapons. Elisa’s eyes darted to Cara.

“Am I steel now?”, Elisa said. 

“Not yet little ingot”, Elisa said, resuming the work on her blade. “But you certainly have felt the heat of the forge and the strikes of the hammer.” She paused in her work for a moment again. “You are on a good way though. You fought well. Behaved like a warrior too. There is already steel inside you, little ingot. Just keep going, You’ll be there soon.”

That made Cara happy. She smiled and fell asleep yet again.

“I was asleep for how long?”, Cara said, now sitting up in what she now realised was the lower bunk of her and Natalie’s cabin aboard the Ruhig Blut. A big bowl of stew in her lap. Next to her on the nightstand was an empty bowl which she had devoured in silence a few minutes ago. 

“Two and a half days”, Natalie said, passing her another piece of bread. 

“Dat makes no sense…”, Cara said stuffing  and chewing on her stew soaked bread. “I was just wounded.” 

“Yeah, but you were exhausted after the fight, you lost blood. Then you got a fever.”

“Fever?”, Cara shrunk back into the corner, her hands gripping her piece of bread and the bowl more tightly. Now that Natalie had mentioned it despite being wrapped in several blankets she was feeling cold. 

“Don’t worry. We treated your wounds, there are no signs of infection or sepsis. I’m not a doctor… obviously… but you seem to be OK. The actual doctors also don’t seem to be too worried. We are to keep an eye on you and if you get worse, then we are to worry. But right now you are doing pretty well.”

“The doctors?”, Cara said, finding her hunger again.

“Yep.”

“Plural?”

“Yes, the Regionaria insisted.”, Natalie said.

“Regionaria?” 

“Yes she is the sovereign of…”

“I know what a Regionaria is”, Cara said. “But why would the Regionaria of… Datlem?”, Natalie nodded, “…send physicians to take care of me?”, Cara asked, her eyes growing wide, bread and stew forgotten for a moment.

“Because you are a hero, Cara”, Natalie grinned. Natalie, now leaning back crossing her arms behind her head, seemed suspiciously self-satisfied. 

“How?”

“Well, you stopped the notorious slaver Aurei von Brecksbach. One of the demon-lords of the Purgatory Gap. Thanks to you, not only was this criminal apprehended, but thanks to you their organisation was struck a serious blow.”

“But Elisa…”

“Yeah the old toad is also very impressed by you”, Natalie said, waving her hand.

“Toad… wait impressed? By me?”

“She said something about turning piggy iron into steal or something like that.”

“Oh…”, Cara said. She continued eating.

“Also the Regionaria wants to meet you.”

“What? Me? Nooo…”, Cara’s bread fell from her hand into the stew.

“Ah… you worry too much. It won’t be that different from meeting the Lord Bishop”, Natalie said.

“There I could stand comfortably in the shadow. In this case she want’s to see me”, Cara said, trying to push herself further into her corner, “I don’t want to be seen.”

“Ah, don’t worry. I’ll take the lead, you just smile and nod. It’ll be easy”, Natalie said with a broad smile.

“Thank you for the introduction, Master Laukkanen Lapointe”, Regionaria Alperta said, a smile suggesting itself into her expression, bringing with it the suggestion that Natalie should acquaint herself with the virtue of silence for the time being. 

“I would like to hear from you, my dear”, she said, turning her piercing gaze towards Cara. The smile in the Regionaria’s face grew warmer, but with it it brought the hints of the last summer days before an early frost. 

Cara froze. “Errrr…”, she tried. “I… umm… I… there were the pirates and… well…” Fighting the pirate commander had been far less scary than this. 

With a languid motion, the Regionaria held out a hand. From the depths of her flowers a servant appeared, handing her a document, before vanishing into the greenery again. 

“My dear child”, she said with her face now radiating maternal affection. It didn’t really help Cara much. While she was impressed by how the Regionaria had flowed into this persona so seamlessly, with her voice embracing her fear and slowly dispersing it, that didn’t change that the Regionaria had a dragon’s eyes.

“I have already read the report and talked to other witnesses”, the Regionaria continued, the dragon behind her eyes carefully adapting to Cara’s reactions. “We already know of your great deeds. We just want to hear your version of things.”

“There isn’t much to tell”, Cara said. “I was locked up in a cage. Mistress Klein Cunningham the Solinger forger-walker freed me. Together we tried to escape. We were ambushed by the pirate commander. We fought. We won…?”, on this point Cara was still not quite sure. They certainly had beaten a couple of pirates and their commander, but was that really a victory?

“And then master Natalie and your most holy troops came and saved us…”

“It was you, however”, the Regionaria said, shifting her gaze as to not look her directly in the eyes, taking a slight step back, “who duelled with and beat the high criminal von Brecksbach.” She looked at her document for a second pretending to read it. “Twice.”

“Nnnn…yes?”, Cara said. “I did fight him. But together with forge-walker Klein Cunningham. The second time I mostly collapsed on him.”

“Because you were gravely wounded”, the Regionaria said. Again, casting a symbolic look at her document.

“So was he”, Cara said, slowly relaxing, now that they were talking about what had happened she felt more secure. Just telling what had happened was easy. 

“It says here”, again the symbolic scan, “that you, despite your serious injurie, crawled at least”, symbolic glance, “twenty metres, to stop him from what ever he was doing.”

“Well he was moving towards a cabinet. Why would you do that when you are wounded yourself? He mostly had blunt force trauma and it didn’t look like the locker held medical supplies”, Cara shrugged, “of course I couldn't be sure. But he had already cheated before.”

Cara paused for a second, now it was her who sought the Regionaria’s eyes. “And I was right. He had an ancient technology rifle. I could not let him use that.”

“And you stopped him by…”, this time the Regionaria didn’t even pretend to be looking at her document, “collapsing on top of him.”

“I had underestimated my blood loss”, Cara shrugged again, then smiled, “it worked though.”

The Regionaria waved the document away. As it left her fingers the servant had reappeared, caught it before it could fall, retreating again. Alperta turned to Natalie, who unclenched her fists before she had come into her focus, trying to fall back into her usual nonchalant bravado. She narrowly missed.

“I can see what you mean, Master Laukkanen Lapointe”, the Regionaria nodded. Turning towards Cara she said, “You show great potential Cara.” Cara’s face discovered some new exiting shades of red. 

Turning back to Natalie the Regionaria said, “And seeing that Lord-Bishop Waltharius has put his trust into Cara, it appears only natural that, for whatever our humble contributions may be worth, the free city of Datlem shall also back you and your apprentice for the upcoming tournament.” Alperta turned around walked over to her table, took a small crystal spray bottle and, still talking, started spraying her orchids with a mist of water. “After all I have a responsibility to cultivate all of the plants in The Lord´s garden. Especially when they are as promising as you”, she said, spraying an especially beautiful flower.

“This concludes our conversation”, the Regionaria said. 

Cara and Natalie both bowed to her, turning to the exit. 

“What happens if we fail?”, Cara said more to herself than the Regionaria.

She heard the smile in Alperta’s voice as she said, “I would not worry about that, Cara, right now all you need to do is grow.”

“Hmmm…”, Cara said, nodding, looking at the discarded pieces of plants and cut of branches lying on the floor.

Project Empress 030

 Chapter 7

Crossing Limbo

Cara didn’t fall unconscious. No matter how much she wished for it. The wound on her head added a piercing burning pain to her headache, which she herself made worse by pressing a piece of cloth onto the wound, which Elisa had insisted Cara do, while she was busy disinfecting, then bandaging Cara’s other wounds. That also hurt.

In the background Natalie was kicking a pirate with little conviction to bring him to put up a fight. She had, a few minutes ago, appeared like an avenging fury on the deck of the ship island, flanked by white and gold armoured soldiers of the church. When she had seen Cara in a crumpled heap, sitting in a pool of her own blood, her eyes had grown wide and she had charged to her side. Cara had looked up, blinked in confusion, waved saying “Hi, Natalie”, trying to smile through her pain. In that moment Natalie’s expression went through a quick voyage starting at surprise, going to relief, taking a detour over slight confusion, before settling in something that looked suspiciously like disappointment. 

“Hey, Cara”, she said. “Who did that to you?”, she asked, a slight gleam returning to her eyes. 

“Him”, Cara said, pointing at the unconscious commander lying on the floor. “He was very rude.”

“Was he…”, Natalie said, walking over to him, prodding him with her sword a couple of times. Von Brecksbach didn’t move. 

Natalie turned back to Cara. Cara was a bit confused, as Natalie appeared to be disappointed. “He was really good.”

Natalie smiled as she heard that. “Well done Cara, I’m proud of you.” But then her face fell again.

“I don’t understand your reaction or your face…”, Cara said, “What’s wrong?” 

“I came here to save you…”, Natalie said. Cara wasn’t sure, but the slightly bowed head, the pouting lips… was Natalie pouting?

“You did save us, master Natalie”, Cara said. “Ow!”, she flinched. Elisa had been busy checking her wounds. She had now started cleaning them.

“And who are you supposed to be?”, Natalie asked pointing her sword casually at Elisa. 

Elisa looked at Natalie’s sword raising her eyebrows. After a moment she said, “Who are you to ask other people´s names without introducing yourself first.”

“I just came and saved you from a horde of pirates, is who I am.”, Natalie said, her voice filled with a bit too much ‘come and get it’ for Cara’s taste.

“Really?”, Elisa said, standing up in one fluid motion, her hands pressing a bandage against Cara’s head and pushing one of Cara’s hands against it. While Elisa was almost a head shorter then Natalie she somehow manged to look so very slightly down on her. “We were doing perfectly fine and were about to mop up the rest, when you blundered in.”

In the background a few pirates started a counter attack against the church forces. The sound of combat flaring up again for a moment. 

“Yeah, I can see that.”, Natalie said, “Totally under control. Why don’t I call the troops I brought to save Cara back and leave you to it then?”

Natalie’s sword moved into a guard that looked relaxed but out of which she could strike at any moment, while Elisa’s left hand slowly inched behind her back where she had a large hunting knife. 

“This”, Cara interrupted, trying to stand up, with marginal success, “is my master, Natalie Laukkanen Lapointe and this”, as she was saying that, Natalie and Elisa, while still staring daggers into each others eyes, grabbed Cara under one arm each, pulling her up and holding her steady, “is solinger and forge walker Elisa Klein Cunningham. Who saved me from the pirates.”

“Did she now?”, Natalie said, smiling a tigers smile. 

“Yes and thanks to that it is only you who is late”, Elisa answered with a shark smile.

“Thank you so much”, Natalie said, her tone murdering the concept of politeness.

“You are welcome”, said Elisa, finishing it of.

“We are all friends”, Cara said horribly confused now. “Also could you please stop being weird, for a moment and help me? Everything hurts and I think I’m still bleeding?”

That stopped the strange scene that had been unfolding in front of Cara. They had carried her to one side of the deck where she could sit more or less comfortably resting against a wall. Natalie had given them a bottle of disinfectant and stalked away to look for ‘dangerous individuals’. Elisa had finished dressing Cara’s wounds and then walked over to the officer who had led the church unit and started talking to her. 

And so Cara was left with her pain and her inability to fall unconscious. Waiting. Not sure herself for what exactly. She tried to remember her fight with the pirate commander, but realised that most of the details were gone from her mind. She had been so focused on surviving that there hadn’t been much left in her to take note of what was happening. At least trying to remember it, picturing the situations that still were vivid in her mind, did help against the pain a bit. And the cold. She was starting to shiver, even if the sun was now high enough in the sky to shine directly on her and on the deck. ‘Strange’, Cara thought. 

She looked over to where von Brecksbach was lying. 

There was no one there anymore.

Cara blinked. Still nothing. She looked around and saw von Brecksbach slowly crawling along the deck. Towards a cabinet bolted to wall of the deck. 

‘This can’t be good’, Cara thought. “Hey”, she croaked. “What are you doing?”

The figure on the floor stopped crawling, turning around with groan to face her. At first the commander´s face turned into a grimace of disgust. But then he smiled. “You will see..”, he said with a voice that could only be made by rubbing to dry, brittle vocal cords together. “I’ll have the last laugh.” He resumed crawling.

“Hey!”, Cara tried to shout. But no one heard her. ‘Where is everyone?’. The deck was empty apart from her and the commander. 

So Cara did what she had to do and crawled towards von Brecksbach. She tried to walk. But standing up she got nauseous, her legs giving in under her. 

And so no one saw this slow race between a wounded Cara and a not quite crushed commander von Brecksbach. 

Von Brecksbach reached his goal first. With trembling hands he was unlocking a combination pad-lock when Cara reached him. Inside the cabinet was a rifle from before the fall. While even with a full magazine it would not stop the church army, it could kill many of them. Among them Natalie and Elisa. This thought gave Cara a little push of power. Her body was now mostly deaf to adrenaline’s call. But it was enough to pull her self up to her full, medium, height. Commander von Brecksbach took out the rifle, crumpling under its weight, bowing forward. Cara took her chance and fell on the commander, slamming him back into the ground. There Cara found the unconsciousness she was looking for. 

Cara woke up. She was still very cold and in pain. But she was in something close enough to a bed, rolled into something very much like a blanket. Several blankets actually. One was crinkly like the metal foil that you could still buy for ridiculous sums in antiquarian artefact shops. But on top of it was something soft and warm. She opened her eyes, as she drew the soft blanket closer to her. As her eyes focused on it she instantly recognised the soft sand yellow of it. “Miss Snuggles”, she said, tears suddenly filling her eyes. “You waited for me.”

“Hey”, Natalie said, her voice soft, “you’re awake”, she smiled at her.

“No”, Cara’s eyes grew wide, a sudden punch of grief striking her square in the stomach. “Not you too, master…”

Natalie’s eyes grew wide, lying a hand on Cara’s shoulder. “It’s OK, you are safe, I’m safe. Even that weird stray woman you found is safe.”

“I beg your pardon?”, an aggressive Elisa said appearing in Cara’s field of view. The aggression instantly disappeared when she saw Cara. “Oh no, little ingot. What happened?”

Cara pushing back sobs said, “Aren’t we all dead?”

At this Natalie and Elisa looked at each other, the back at Cara. 

“What? No.”, Natalie said.

“Why would you think that?”, Elisa said.

“Because of Miss Snuggles”, Cara said. “She was cut to ribbons by the dumb blonde idiot, when he attacked me in Monasteria. And here she is whole. So I thought… that we are both in heaven…?”

“Miss Snuggles is not dead, Cara, neither are you.”, Natalie said, her voice soft and her smile warm. “Wolfgang had started repairing her, it was the only thing keeping him sane after we lost you when we arrived in Datlem.”

“So we are still all alive.”

“Yes, little ingot”, said Elisa.

Cara let that sink in for a minute.

“That’s OK then…”, she said, blinked twice and fell asleep again.

Project Empress 029

[Chapter 6 continued and finished] 

The commander smiled, his brow furrowed, head shaking. “You killed a good man down there, little mouse, you will have to fetch a good price and work off the debt you owe him and his family”, he said strolling leisurely towards Cara. His sword was now resting lightly on his right shoulder.

“Family…”, Cara said. 

“Yep, wife, three children, two girls, one boy.” He looked at her, seeking to peer deep into her eyes. “Who will now grow up alone”, he said as he continued circling her. 

‘No…’, Cara thought, her eyes narrowing, ‘Not a circle, a spiral…’; to test her idea she moved away a bit, and he subtly followed her, very slowly closing the distance between them. Cara tried not to grimace when she noticed. 

“I didn’t kill him”, Cara said. 

“You did not? You did not help your murderer friend over there?”, he said his expression relaxing, while inching another bit forward. 

“I am strictly opposed to murder”, Cara said, wincing a bit remembering how she did actually help Elisa kill the pirate.

The pirate commander’s beaming smile returned to his face. “Wonderful, then we have something in common. You seem to be a smart girl. Why don’t you just give up. You’ll take no damage. Fetch a really good price and get sold as a high class slave. Win-win.” Again, the pirate moved closer, moving to her left flank, where her reach wasn’t as far, being left handed. 

“Hmmm…”, said Cara, stopping in her motion, watching Commander von Brecksbach from the corner of her eye as he moved into her left flank. Her sword with the hilt still close to her left shoulder, the tip pointing high into the air. ‘One more step aaaand…’

She let the tip of her sword fall to the left, as the pirate rushed forwards with a slash from above. “I decline”, she said as she drove the point of her sword towards her foe. Following her sword she drew it high to her left, her blade catching the attack of the pirate. 

At first, the force and weight of her opponent´s strike was close to overwhelming her, pushing the weak, front half of her sword, easily away. But as Walter had taught her, she trusted in her art and moved forward. As she did, the pirate´s blade slipped down her own into its strong, making the point of her sword snap back into the direction of the commanders face. 

With a “Whoa!” and eyes suddenly wide open the pirate commander closely evaded the tip smashing into his face. “Looks like the kitty has some claws.”

“This kitty has a sword”, Cara corrected him, swinging her sword around to attack the pirate’s arms with a raising slash, which he blocked. Cara kept pushing, moving the point around the block of her enemy, again seeking out his face. ‘If I can keep this up,’ she thought, ‘I can win…’

The problem was that the pirate commander had no intention of letting her have the initiative. As soon as he found a gap in her attack pattern he instantly pushed into it. First he went after her arms; as she blocked those attacks he instantly shifted towards her face. Now it was Cara who was on the back foot, guarding against the direct attacks as well the traps they often represented. 

While she had managed to trick the pirate commander once into walking into the reach of her sword, he did not underestimate her again, using his reach and skill to his advantage. 

Cara couldn’t close the gap between them having trouble with his strange style, which somehow could shift the direction from which the attacks came with confusing speed and force. Sometimes it seemed that the point of her opponent´s sword hat teleported to a new position, or the blade was moving in way that should be impossible for a straight piece of steel. 

 

Von Brecksbach’s expression had changed. From his wide grin, now he was calm and concentrated, carefully pushing Cara, wearing her down. Whenever he saw weakness in her defence he instantly pushed against it. 

Cara herself was surprised that she was still holding on. The lessons of Nat and Walter who had taught her to “think with the strong” and “let it just move to cover her” had been more effective than all her time under master Manfred.

And yet, she could not see a way out of this situation. She just couldn’t reach von Brecksbach. 

This became painfully clear when she tried to push forward again, to regain some initiative, when a secondary strike from the pirate commander struck her right forearm. She felt the blade push through the muscle, strike her ulna and make it bend inward slightly. The pain was instant and almost overwhelming, driving the air out of her lungs. For a moment, her body wanted to stop everything, cold sweat suddenly covering her entire body, making her grip slippery. 

‘No time…’, Cara thought, still trying to remember how to breathe in again, when the point of her opponent´s sword flashed past her defence towards her face. She moved her sword almost too late. The tip of von Brecksbach’s sword broke her skin, scratching it from her eyebrow all the way up to her hairline above her temple. Blood instantly started pouring over her right eye.  

Cara inhaled, the man in front of her coming back into focus. Pain and panic clawed at her, she pushed those back. 

‘Not now.’ The sword that had scraped her face was still moving past her. She was still alive and conscious. In front of her Commander von Brecksbach stood wide open, moving towards her arms extended. 

 As Walter said: “In combat, as long as you can, you keep fighting.”

‘I can go a bit further’, Cara thought as she crouched down, almost buckling. Gritting her teeth she held her position; her sword free again, she realigned her sword with the forearms of the pirate commander, while pushing herself forward, shifting her body to the right.  Now she was crouched under him, her blade held high behind her head, connecting von Brecksbach’s arms. Standing in a position not unlike someone chopping wood. She rose again, pushing the pirate up, following up with a motion just like chopping wood. Throwing the commanders arms forward and down. 

The pirate lost his balance, his whole body twisting to one side while almost falling flat on his face.

Cara wanted to follow that with a rising strike towards the pirate’s throat to throw him completely to the ground. Once he was prone it would be easy to just stab him until he lost the will to go on. For some reason though, night fell over the whole scene all of a sudden. ‘But the sun is still up…’, Cara wondered.

“Little ingot!”, Cara heard a somewhat familiar voice shouting, “You can rest later!”

‘Elisa?’, Cara forced the light back into her mind. 

In front of her the form of the pirate commander coalesced back into focus. Von Brecksbach was recovering quickly. A fierce murderous glint in his eyes. His sword, still hanging slack by his side, suddenly flew up towards Cara. Jean D’Arc, her own weapon, immediately moved up to intercept the attack, as if the sword had a will of its own. When it blocked the pirate’s strike, Cara felt the impact in her entire body. 

Von Brecksbach wasn’t finished. Pulling his sword high again, he started raining a flurry of blows down on Cara. From up above, form the left, the right. All Cara could do was try to stay behind her sword as well as she could. In the background she could make out Elisa starting to sprint in their direction. But she was still so incredibly far away. 

‘I just need to survive a bit longer…’, Cara thought. She almost slipped on something when walking back. She looked down. ‘Oh… my blood’, she thought and was shocked back into the fight when the tip of von Brecksbach’s sword narrowly missed her nose. The added adrenaline pulled her back into full consciousness. Von Brecksbach was now hammering strikes from his right and left into Cara to simply break past her defences. ‘He is wide open in the middle´, Cara thought. After she had blocked another strike and von Brecksbach withdrew his sword to launch his next attack, Cara jumped forward, almost slipping on her blood again, stabilising her fall by burying the tip over her sword in the pirate commanders solar plexus. ‘Armour!’, Cara thought. The moment she made contact she felt the resistance of something hard. Still, von Brecksbach’s eyes grew wide because of the form of the unexpected strike, staggering a few steps backwards before catching himself. The fire in his eyes reigniting. 

“I think I am going to smash away some more from your price for…”, he didn’t finish the sentence. Instead he gasped, eyes wide again stumbling forwards. Behind him Elisa’s sword staff clattered onto the deck. 

“Now, little ingot. Strike!”, Elisa shouted.

And Cara struck, swinging her sword with the full force of her motion, into the side of von Brecksbach’s neck, pushing her sword with her entire weight and following through with all the power that her legs still had left.  

Von Brecksbach fell side ways head first onto the deck. His head hitting the ground so far that it rebounded, meeting Cara’s second strike part way being smashed into the floor once more. The head and all the rest of the commander stopped moving. 

“Yessss!”, Elisa shouted. She was now standing over the sack that held her weapons, where she pulled out two awn sickles, which instead of smooth edges had serrated ones. “Run closer to the wall, so that the snipers can’t see you. We are almost done, we now just have to get rid of the rest of the pirates. 

“Yeah, that’s right you piles of recrement!”, she shouted, something very close to madness clouding her eyes. “Your commander is down. Now its time to harvest the rest of you.”

“The rest of them…?”, Cara croaked. Her exhaustion, the pain and blood loss were catching up on her. But no matter. She had to go on. So she turned around, moving close to the wall leading to the next deck, trying to keep an eye out for any more marksmen. As she looked up, she noticed that a new sun had appeared in the sky and then another and another. She looked around confused. Golden spheres of light where filling the sky around her. Those weren’t new suns… those were…

“Unknown pirate vessel, this is the holy fleet of Datlem, put down your weapons, surrender and repent your sins, or face heavenly retribution.”

“Heh…”, Cara said as she leaned on the wall, slowly sliding down the wall into a sitting position. 

Project Empress 028

[Chapter 6 continued]

Cara and Elisa exchanged meaningful glances.

The pirate commander shifted into a very low stance, his sword held almost at the height of his knees, the point shifting between Cara and Elisa. Time froze. 

Cara was still focusing on Elisa, trying to gauge what she would do next, while keeping a suspicious side-eye on commander von Brecksbach. 

Elisa on the other hand was fully focusing on their new target, her stance shifting ever so slightly. The only sign for Cara suggesting that Elisa was actively aware of her, was Elisa pointing with her lips towards the pirate commander.

The pirate rushed forward. Cara took a few steps back; she had not expected this kind of speed from someone in such a low stance. His long, fast steps evaporated the space between him and Elisa who was bracing for the attack using the point of her sword-spear as her shield, promising her nearing opponent a quick death if he didn’t stop.

Commander von Brecksbach didn’t stop, only holding on to his black long-sword with his left hand at its pommel and he struck a long slash against Elisa’s spear. 

The weapons clashed at each other. The pirate´s strange strike extending his reach significantly, crashing with force against Elisa’s weapon pushing it aside. 

‘The wide open wing!’, Cara thought here eyes going wide. She was surprised that such an unstable attack could be used in real combat. What the attack lacked in control and raw power it made up with reach and speed. It was enough to push the point of Elisa’s weapon away from the pirate’s line of attack. ‘I need to try that too!’, Cara thought before remembering that she was in the middle of combat. Admiring the enemie´s strange style was not the main priority right now.

It was almost too late when the present came back in focus. Having struck, von Brecksbach did not follow up his attack. Instead, he forcibly drew back his sword with his whole back; coiling back into a low stance again. As he reached the low point of his stance, he let his sword, now securely in both of his hands again, fly back past his shoulders. Again following up this move with his whole body, he flew towards Cara, closing the gap between them with a leap of a step. Rising up like a wave in front of Cara his sword high above his head, crashing down on her from above. 

Cara had hardly any time to react, pulling Jeanne D’Arc up, catching the attack in the cross guard and strong of her sword. But such was the impact of the strike, that it pushed her down, her enemie´s blade rushing past her defences coming far too close to her head. She stumbled back half a step, catching herself and turning slightly to the side, so that what power was still coming from the attack would go into the ground instead of her face. 

The attack that had crashed into her was fading, its power sliding past Cara’s sword. With the ebbing threat she could switch to a more secure stance, guarding her hands against a stab, the point of her sword seeking her opponents face. 

The stab that Cara was expecting never came. The pirate commander´s sword had somehow returned in a circular motion, back up high over the pirates shoulders. Cara had no idea how he had done that. What she knew was that, much earlier than anticipated, a new attack was coming from the same side from high above, her enemies blade somehow washing over her own defences. 

While she was starting to panic again, she remembered the advice Natalie had given her. ‘You are smaller than most fencers. Which is bad as long as your enemy is far away from you. It may not feel that way. But when someone larger than you attacks you, push back under the cover of your sword.’

Which Cara did, moving into the attack, wiping it away with her sword, she passed under her opponent´s attack, lifting her pommel towards his face as she emerged behind the pirate’s defence. 

Von Brecksbach shoved Cara’s hands away. Now she stood wide open. Time slowed down as she tried to push herself out of it and pull her sword back into the way of the incoming attack. It would be too late.

However, the pirate jumped back before he could strike, a flash of steel appearing in the spot he had just been standing. Elisa’s counterattack. 

Elisa opened up a large space between Cara and the pirate. It gave Cara enough time to reposition herself, while Elisa moved into the open space pressuring Commander von Brecksbach back.  

Von Brecksbach on the other hand kept pushing bac,k staying close to Elisa, denying her the advantage of her longer weapon. Trying to get close enough to her to get a kick or a punch in. 

Cara, now free again, tried to manoeuvre around the pirate commander. But he was moving so fast that she never got quite into the position she was hoping for. Instead a weapon or Elisa were standing in the way or the flow of combat was such that she couldn’t risk pushing into it without having to worry about hitting Elisa. 

‘Backstabbing sure is harder than it looks’, Cara thought still trying to find an opening. 

“Move back”, a strained Elisa told her. “You’re in the way”, she exchanged a few more strikes with von Brecksbach. 

“I want to help”, Cara said still trying to find an opening in the melee in front of her where she could thrust a helping point into. 

“Nnnnggg”, Elisa said, blocking an attacking over head strike and shoving the pirate commander away. “Go back, wait for your turn”, she added as she stabbed her way after the stumbling pirate.

“Oh, well done!”, Commander von Brecksbach said to Elisa, tipping his hat. With a little backward flourish, he took of his hat trowing it forward towards Elisa. She swatted it away easily with her sword-staff. This was enough time for the pirate to push forward again, his sword smashing into Elisa’s staff, pushing her off balance, following it up with quick succession of stabs. Elisa was pushed backward, blocking every attack but having trouble to counter them. 

The pirate was still too far away for Cara to attack and she knew that if she closed in on him he would just shift away again using Elisa as his living shield. So Cara got creative. ‘All I have go do is break his initiative…”, she thought. She started with an arching back-swing high over her head and throwing her sword at the pirate. The sword flew hilt over point towards the commander von Brecksbach, hitting him in the arm.

“Ow!”, the pirate exclaimed as Cara’s sword clattered to the floor. He glanced over at Cara, cracks in his showmanship appearing all over his demeanour. While the strike had mostly wounded his pride, it had destroyed his timing. 

Elisa charged into this gap, shoving away her attacker´s sword with the upper part of her sword-staff, while pulling up the lower part of it moving forwards. 

Von Brecksbach reacted immediately, pulling his head away just in time. Elisa missing the tip of his nose by a hair´s breadth. She kept on pushing though burying the metal cap of her staff in the commander´s chest. Pushing forward. 

As a wheezing von Brecksbach and the snarling Elisa moved past her, Cara ran forward to get her sword back. When she bent down to get her sword a quarrel struck the floor next to her. 

“Hey! No snipers!”, she shouted.

“Only if you are near the commander!”, a voice laughed from a higher deck behind her. 

‘Thanks for the tip’, Cara thought rushing after the Elisa vs commander Brecksbach escalation. 

By now the two had fought each other to a standstill again. The pirate commander stood in a middle guard, just waiting for Elisa to attack. While Elisa on her side was lurking in a high guard, the point of her weapon aimed at the pirates throat, daring him to take a single move forward. 

The pirate commander still looked kind of angry, when he noticed Cara. As he did he beamed at her, waving his sword a little bit in greeting, while never losing his focus on Elisa.

“I am so glad that you could join us again, sweety. I think for you I have to show you my true power.”

Cara looked over to Elisa, who was fighting the parts of her face maintaining her neutral expression from falling off. 

“Stay back little ingot”, she said moving slightly to block the pirate´s way towards Cara.

“No, come closer, we still need to finish our duel”, he said. 

“Come and gather my brother swordlings!”, Commander von Brecksbach shouted, blocking the attack from Elisa, who had enough of his theatrics. 

“Elisa!”, Cara shouted, “more enemies!”, pointing her sword to a group of three pirates who were now jumping down onto the deck. They landed right of Elisa and started charging her the moment their feet touched the ground. Von Brecksbach attacked Elisa again, forcing her to protect her left, pushing her towards the new attackers while opening the way towards Cara.

Elisa cursed. “I’m going to take care of the three lead swords over there. Keep their boss busy for a moment.”

“No problem”, Cara said. 

“Be careful”, Elisa said, disengaging from the commander, who let her go with a grin and a wave. Elisa moved her hands closer to the lower end of her staff, to maximise her reach with her weapon. Before she moved towards her three new enemies, she said to Cara, “Don’t underestimate the pirate’s Mayer style. He will overwhelm you especially with a black sword.”

Pirate Commander von Brecksbach now moved openly towards Cara. Slow and steady without a care in the world. “Three strikes and you are back to being cargo”, he said.

“No, thank you”, said Cara, deciding that she really had to work on her snappy combat dialogue.