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.

 

Project Empress special: the story so far

 Life ate me. I could not go on writing as I had hoped. But it is NaNoWriMo again. So Project empress continues. 

As a reminder for what has happened so far follows a short synopsis of the story so far:

It’s the year 20xx.

In the first third of the 21st century: the great global industrial civilisation failed.

As it fell it dragged the entire world down with it, leaving it fractured in thousands of tiny pieces. Everyone blamed each other. The shadow of tyranny grew and devoured once great nations. But in a shattered world that still remembered a once golden age, the tyrants were soon eaten by the wolves they themselves raised. 

Out of the ashes, built on ruins, half remembered cultures and jealously guarded remnants of the old technology, a great number of new small nations, city states and petty kingdoms rose. 

Europe once on the cusp of unity and greatness had returned to its savage ways it had existed for so long, but it was here in these lands, that the historical martial arts underground rose. People used old manuscripts and treaties describing martial arts that had lain dormant for centuries, to bring them back. They were people bound by a common appreciation of the ancient martial arts, who during these times of chaos rose to the challenge, bringing a certain semblance of order into the chaos of a burning world. 

Let me take you into a world, where warlords vie for supremacy over the old Europe, where high scientists fight to bring back the wonders of the world that was, where some people dream of becoming kings in a world ripe for the taking, while others still dream to bring back the great unity of the past. 

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. 

Which is the point where our story resumes this year. 

Project Empress 027

 [Cahpter 6 continued]

As Cara rushed forward, she turned towards Elisa shouting, “And remember: no killing!”

“Survive first, preach later”, came the answer from Elisa who was moving away from Cara, looking for a good position to start combat. 

Cara had already decided for a spot to initiate combat. She was running towards the trap door that she had seen moving earlier. She was pretty sure that the pirates were going to use it to ambush her and Elisa. As she was getting closer, she saw the trap door door rising. But that wasn’t all bad, she was already close to it and she had chosen her line of approach so that the side with the hinges was facing her. 

She let the bag with the weapons slip from her shoulders and let her body fall forwards pushing everything she had into a sprint. The hatch was already a third open when she jumped. It reached the half way point when she reached it with her feet, landing on it slamming it shut again. She could hear screams and falling bodies below her. She stood up, the hatch below her now her pedestal. She extended her sword to one pirate who was rushing her with a hatched and a knife in his hands, who suddenly came to a skidding halt. 

‘Yeah, cower before the sword empress`, Cara thought. 

This was also the moment when she heard a crossbow bolt fly past her head, only just missing her ear. She instantly collapsed back into a crouch, looking around her but she could not spot whoever shot her. Probably marksmen positioned on the decks of the surrounding ships. 

It reminded her of something that Walter had told her during their long training session. “Sometimes you will need to sting like a bee and scuttle away like a cockroach. Never let your pride stand in the way of your life.”

She got that lesson know. She felt an angry bump against the trap door below her. Before she scuttled, she pulled the hatch open, cowering behind it. There was a triumphant cry from below. It was cut short by another crossbow bolt, this one hammering against the metal of the open trapdoor. 

“Stop firing, you asshole! We are on the same side”, a voice screamed from below. Cara took a quick peek around her cover and saw that a head had appeared, this pirate was shaking his fist angrily. She followed where the man was looking and spotted the marksman on top of a cargo container on the ship from which her and Elisa had fled from. The marksman shrugged his shoulders while reloading his weapon. 

Cara slammed the hatch closed again. There was another muffled thump and crash. She locked the hatch to buy her some more time before the next pirate tried to climb up through there. Then she scuttled as fast as she could towards the next tree. 

As she moved, she spotted a pirate with an iron capped club who had been sneaking up on her from the back. She changed her scuttling to running. The Pirate with the hatched and knife had now regained his wits and was charging her again. He had chosen a slight detour to reach her that would keep him out of the line of fire of the allied ‘snipers’. 

By now Cara’s panic was starting to catch up to her. Too much was happening all around her. The trees that had appeared massive for something growing on a small flat ship, now looked far too thin and reedy to be of any help. More like bushes with high aspirations, rather than proper trees. Also, the direction she was running towards held a third pirate who was still at the side lines, watching and armed with a sabre. He was watching her with the patience of a hunter, waiting for her to be in range and distracted to calmly strike her down. That all the people around her were armed with black weapons only didn’t help her calm down in the least. 

Behind her she could hear a pirate scream. A quick look showed her that Elisa was winning her first duel. Her first opponent had been disarmed. Both his weapon and a good part of the arm that had carried said weapon lay on the floor. 

“No killing!”, Cara screamed. 

“He will live”, Elisa screamed back, turning around, pushing her strange glaive towards her next opponent, who fell over backwards to avoid running into its approaching point.

Cara had meant her appeal to reach  everyone involved. Because as far as she could tell, as much as these pirates were carrying non-lethal weapons, they were certainly using them with a very lethal mindset. ‘All of these people are insane…’, Cara thought. 

But there wasn’t much time for thinking. The pirate with the club had abandoned all pretences of stealth and had openly rushed Cara. He had stopped just outside the reach of her sword. The moment Cara had focused on Elisa, he pushed forward, club held high to strike down Cara. 

“Wrong approach”, Cara said, shifting away from the attack. Positioning her back towards the next tree, to force the pirate with the hatched and the knife to move around it. 

She shot the Point of her sword forward. “My reach is much grater than yours”. she said as she caught her attacker in the solar plexus. The moment she had made contact, she pushed her entire centre of gravity into the attack by moving half a step forward. 

The pirate in front of her doubled over, all of his breath leaving him with a wheeze. As his arms crossed over his stomach, Cara pulled her sword back, throwing a strike out of a movement of her wrists against the the arm that held the club. She felt her sword pushing through the muscle, hitting bone. The pirate made a strange croak, letting his weapon fall to the floor.

Cara didn’t even wait for the club to hit the floor when she turned around again. 

The pirate with the hatched and knife was moving around the tree to attack her from the right. While the hunter pirate with the sabre had been calmly approaching her from her left. The moment Cara spotted him he stopped his his approach. He shot her a sly smile, with a slight shrug of his shoulders. Cara filed that man away under ‘dangerous’. Turning her attention towards the man with hatchet and knife, she never let the hunter out of her field of vision. 

This opponent too, knew very well up to which distance he was safe. The moment he got close to Cara he stopped his advance. He glanced around. His eyes stopping at the hunter. At something above the hunter on the decks of another ship and at something right behind Cara.

‘Behind me?’, cold dread grabbed hold of Cara. She tried to swallow down her rising fear, but her mouth was dry while her throat was constricting with panic. ‘No, I just looked in that direction there is nothing there apart from the pirate I just beat.’ She could still hear that one wheezing and trying to get back enough air into his lungs to scream.

Her panic however was not that easily convinced. ‘Are you sure?’, it asked. ‘Haven’t you overlooked anything?’, it said, adding: ‘Those wheezes are so loud they could easily mask light footsteps…”. Her stomach had to this point felt like it was filled with boiling acid, now the acid had turned into lava that was now liquefying her innards. 

‘I am sure…’, Cara thought. ‘And even if I’m wrong. The greatest threat is right in front of me.’

This time it was a lesson from Natalie that she remembered. “There is only the Path”, she had said, “there is no need for fear on the Path, because the art will protect you. With the art you will move through all your opponents, always forward on the Path.”

“Easy for you to say”, Cara said, confusing the pirate in front of her, but not nearly enough to gain any advantage from it. 

‘Forward it is’, Cara thought, raising her long-sword high above her head taking advantage of her longer reach to hit the head of her opponent, who easily swiped away her attack with his knife, following through with his hatched targeting Cara’s arms. Just as Cara had expected. The moment her sword had made contact she had stared to pull her blade back, together with the foot she had pushed forward. Her head was held high and close to her head the point of her blade was still pointing towards the pirate, when his hatchet clashed against her sword. Cara took the energy of the strike to swing her sword around her head, now striking a counter attack against the arms of the pirate. Following through with a step. She did hit the arms of the pirate, blocking them. The pirate whinced as the point of Cara’s sword flashed towards his head. Seeing this he pushed Cara’s sword away to the side. Normally he would have cut open his arms with this. But with a black sword this wasn’t a problem. 

But Cara wasn’t done. The moment the pirate pushed against her blade she pushed the pommel of her sword under her striking arm, her blade turning over from straight towards his face to pointing away from him. Cara pushed her sword forward, as the pirate was still moving his arms. Now, instead of moving Cara’s sword away from his face this now smashed it right into his mouth. Again, had Cara’s sword been sharp this would have cut his face open from ear to ear. It was still enough, especially as Cara was following her strike through with her own force and movement, to smash into his cheek and the teeth behind it with enough force to throw his face around. A splash of blood erupting from it. 

Instead of being a good little pirate and stopping his attack, he just shook his head, focusing on Cara again. 

She had stopped her attack, thinking that she had won. She had moved slightly to get a quick look at what was happening behind her. There was only the pirate with the club still writhing on the floor. No one else. Her panic shrugged her shoulders and went looking for something else to torment Cara about. The hunter was still moving towards her, his head tilting this way and that way, trying to gauge the best way to approach Cara. 

Cara was pulled back into the current situation when a hatchet followed by the point of a knife came flying towards her. She moved out of the way, only to now be confronted by a knife point followed by the hatchet. Another step back to get her out of harms way. 

This time the crossbow bolt actually grazed her face leaving a burning mark on her cheek. Her panic sprang up again to tell Cara of all the exiting ways she would now be murdered. Cara told her panic to please fuck off, at least until she was done fighting. With sweat damp hands she shifted her grip on her sword, focusing for now only on the man in front of her. His attacks where good. She could not block both weapons at once, the pirate had also changed his approach in such a way that she could not repeat her trick from before. However, his technique was weak and if he had a style it was primitive. He fought with the cunning of an angry man. 

“There is no anger”, Cara quoted Walter, as she held her sword in front of her and as the pirate´s weapons came clashing down on it, she pulled it back, instantly pushing forward again as both of them had passed. “There is only the path.”, she continued, pushing her sword forward, it´s point accelerating into the throat of her enemy. The hit was strong enough that he man fell over backwards, the weapons cluttering out of his hands. 

Cara turned back towards the tree that she had used as cover and rushed towards it. Just in time, as she heard another bolt ricocheting from the deck behind her. With one hand she wiped away the warm sweat on her face not noticing that it was blood. 

Moving forward she saw the hunter, waiting for her, but she also noticed that the pirate with the club was slowly getting up. Wheezing, using the club to steady himself, he now held the weapon in his off hand. The moment her attention shifted the hunter moved forward. He was still far enough away, yet one or two quick steps would bring him in range. 

“You are going to retreat now, right?”, Cara asked the pirate with the club. As he got up still gasping for air, he turned towards her, strange flames blazing in his eyes. 

Instead of retreating he raised his club moving towards Cara again.

“Strong”, the hunter said, nodding at his comrade. 

Cara exhaled. “What did I not kill you for?”, she asked the pirate with the club. She didn’t wait for his answer, rushing point first towards him. Her opponent, not going to fall for the same trick twice, turned sideways, letting Cara’s sword pass him while still closing the distance to her.

However, Cara had played another trick this time. As the man had moved, he stood now in front of the entire length of Cara’s sword. With a yell, she turned her entire momentum around pushing her body while she was turning close to the hilt of her sword, to move forward with it with her full weight and momentum behind it. Her sword moved horizontally  into her attacker, catching him right in the stomach. Then it rose as Cara moved from a low into a high stance, moving all the inner organs of the man up into his diaphragm and sending him flying again. She followed the flying man, turning her sword around. She aimed the pommel of her sword at the falling man’s hand that was still holding onto the club. When he landed so did Cara’s strike. With a crunch it crushed the club into the hand which went limp. Cara swatted away the club with one hand.

“And please stay down, hurting you… hurts you more than me… but it´s not fun at all.”

The man was flopping around in answer. Cara turned her sight towards the hunter. He wasn’t where she remembered him to be. Instead there was now a shadow accelerating towards her head in the corner of her eye. With a mighty “Miiieeep” Cara jumped over the man in front of her, diving out of the attack´s way just in time, so that it didn’t hit her head splitting it open, but instead hit the calf of her right leg as she crash tumbled out of the way. Her opponents sabre transferred all of the remaining energy into the chest of the pirate lying on the floor.

“Sorry mate”, the the pirate with the sabre murmured as he lifted his sabre and moved around his now motionless comrade. 

Cara by now had found all her feet again, put them below her, sorted her hands into what she thought had to be left and right and was pushing herself up again. Her left leg was pounding with diffuse pain. If this had been a training session she would have tapped out and sat on the bench for a while. This was the type of pain that held back until you rested, to then tell you how bad it was. Usually leading to worse injuries because one kept pushing the damaged body part. But now Cara was glad for it, because right now she needed to go on and pay the pain tax later if she wanted to survive. 

“Best out of three?”, Cara asked.

“Heh”, was the only answer she got, before the hunter showered her with a wave of attacks. 

The panic was back. It had nothing helpful to say, only that there was now only pain and death left for Cara. 

Cara had stopped breathing, being pushed back by the hail of attacks raining down on her. Step by step she lost ground. The hunter came ever closer while behind her one of the aspirational trees that had been supposed to be her advantage cut of her escape route. 

Now it was only a matter of time until one of the attacks struck her hand or her arms.

Behind her she could feel the tree as she bumped with her back against it. 

Cara had lost.

Only that she hadn’t. 

The strong of her blade was protecting her. Despite her panic. Despite her mind drifting to how she would be beaten. Jeanne D`Arc and her art had protected her. She breathed in, pushing her panic out of her body. As she breathed out, she moved the point of her sword, that had been pointing towards the sky, back to where it belonged into the face of her opponent. Striking him in his right temple. The hunter staggered.

“One”, said Cara.

The hunter was still in the flow of his attack though, trying to hit her back on the other side. Again, Cara’s strong blocked. The point of her sword accelerated into the left temple of the hunter. 

“Two”, said Cara.

The hunter was now staggering back. But he did not stop his attacks. Turning his sword around he now made a rising slash against Cara’s sword. The sabre clashed against Cara’s sword sending her point flying back up towards the Sky. 

Cara moved forward, flying down into a low crouch, pulling her sword back close to her chest. From down here her opponent was wide open. 

“You lose”, Cara said, attacking the hunter with a rising thrust that caught him under the chin sending him flying backwards. 

“Three”, she said. “And because you are more stubborn than wise…”, she followed the flying man and struck him with a descending strike, where again she moved her body with her sword, sent the man crashing back on the floor. He bounced off the floor once before he came to rest before Cara. His sabre rolling out of his hands. 

She took the sabre and threw it overboard, to not encourage further stupidity. 

She then hobbled towards where Elisa was. The forge walker had been pushed towards the railing of the orchard ship, but where her enemies had thought her cornered, she had taken care of all of them. As Cara was moving towards her, she could see how Elisa was using the blunt side of her glaive to throw a last attacker rushing her overboard in a high arc. 

Elisa saw Cara and said: “Don’t worry little ingot, they will all live”, she looked across the deck of the Orchard ship. “As long as they quickly seek medical attention…”

“Now”, the voice of commander Aurei von Brecksbach echoed over the PA, “You ignored my generous offer to surrender and then you massacred my precious fighters. I’m afraid, that I have to take care of you myself”, he said. He now stood tall, illuminated from below on the highest point of the ship Cara and Elisa had fled from. 

“First of all, no more snipers. If I catch one of your ‘precision’ bolts one more time, so help me god…”, he glowered to his left and right. Some quiet murmurs could be heard from around the orchard ship. 

“I will have to dispose of you both myself”, he said. He opened the clasp holding his cape, with a dramatic swirl he cast it away. He then crouched down and to Cara’s amazement he jumped high into the air toward the Orchard ship. Instead of crashing into the deck below, he descended slowly down towards the ground while holding a pose, his arms held wide one of his legs pulled up slightly. 

When he had almost reached the ground he punched the big iron brooch he had on the right breast of his uniform, this released the harness that had been holding him aloft. 

He used the fall to land in a dramatic crouch.

“Lights!”, he demanded. To Cara’s surprise several lights came on, bathing the commander in the limelight. He stood up and with a giant grin on his face he said to Cara and Elisa: 

“It’s show time!”

Project Empress 026

 [Chapter 6 continued]

Both of them crouched before the metal door. It had a large round hand wheel to keep it closed tight. Elisa was leaning forward pushing her ear against the door. She listened intently for a while, then relaxed back. Turning to Cara, she said: 

“Looks like the there is no one behind this door. Also judging by how often you got visitors, there shouldn’t be anyone on their way over here yet… With a bit of luck we have a clean run out of here. Stay close to me. Keep our back clear, if you have any trouble tell me immediately, even if I’m busy myself. Understood?”

“Yes”, Cara said. Elisa was about to say something, when Cara added “But try not to kill anyone, please.”

Elisa exhaled audibly, massaging her face with her free hand. 

“Little ingot, I don’t go around killing people for fun. You understand that, right?”

Cara felt a bit offended by the change of tone in Elisa’s voice but she decided to be displeased later. 

“Yes, I know”, Cara said, although right now she was not that sure. “But these people aren’t murderers.” Cara gesticulated as she said this, her hand encompassing the general area in front of them. “They use black weapons. They did not kill me or injure me. They did put me in a cage and that rope was really uncomfortable though”, she said, sliding towards some darker thoughts. “But they did give me food and water. These are not totally bad people.”

Elisa in front of her was going through several stages of exasperation. As she listened, she tried out several reactions, in gesture, expression and word. All of them failed. When Cara was done with her appeal to Elisa’s better judgement, Elisa sighed, slowly shaking her fist. 

“Look, little ingot…”, Elisa sucked her lips in her eyes darting around as she kept looking for the right words. “The reason, why these pirates have been so ‘nice’ to you is because they are slavers. They see you as a trade good and they have been taking care of you, because you are worth more to them if you are in good shape. If they mistreat you, you are worth less and you are skilled, that makes you even more valuable. Besides, the Purgatory Gap isn’t a place where you can go on extended man hunts and sell people as bulk.”

Cara’s eyes grew wider as she listened to Elisa. 

“I can see that you are understanding what I’m saying”, Elisa said relaxing, she opened her hand and put it lightly on Cara’s shoulder. “The reason I have to kill them is because we can’t risk being caught. Once they know that we are trying to flee they will put us in chains and weld them to our cages. Also knocking someone out cold is really hard to do. Doing it without it turning into a spectacle that everyone in the vicinity will hear is even harder. Also, people you knock out have the horrible tendency to wake up. Causing us more trouble. Do you understand that?”

Cara had started feeling sick as she listened. “I understand”, she said. “But I would prefer if we don’t kill anyone…”

“Me too, little piggy iron, me too”, Elisa said. “If we are really quiet and if Fortune smiles a tiny little bit at us, we’ll make it out of here without anyone else noticing us. OK?”

Cara, pulling her sword closer to her heart, nodded. 

“Good”, Elisa said, “let’s go.”. She reached up and gently tugged at the hand wheel. It began moving with a tortured squealing sound that made both Cara and Elisa wince. 

“So far for Lady Fortune”, Elisa said. She got up, took the hand wheel in both hands and began turning it as fast as she could. The screeching was reduced from banshee, to the wailing of an ordinary damned soul whose heart wasn’t really in it anymore. A few moments later the bolts of the door reached their inner resting point with a big resonant clunk.

Elisa mouthed several colourful curses, then, gritting her teeth, pulled the door open. The door swung open without a sound. “Now you’re quiet?”, Elisa hissed. Behind the door was a short metal corridor with another similar metal door a few steps from them away. 

They both carefully moved forward, trying to listen for any noises from beyond the next door. Cara still heard the memory of the last door louder than anything she could actually hear in the present. Elisa seemed to be satisfied though, as she moved forward. She crouched again in front of the next door, listening intently.

“Coast is clear. After this door we turn sharp to the right, walk quietly up the corridor and to our right we will find a stair way that will lead us onto the deck. From there we need to look for a way back to disembark. Ready?”

“Ready”, Cara said.

Another hand wheel, another impersonation of a soul being tormented in hell. ‘Rather fitting for the Purgatory Gap’, Cara thought. This time it was a deeper, corrugated metal groan. Much easier on the ears, but this one travelled through the walls, the floor and the ceiling of the ship. In contrast to the last door, this one also kept complaining when being opened. 

They slipped out of the door. 

“Keep an eye out for visitors”, Elisa said as she turned around and closed the door again behind them.

“Why?”, Cara winced through gritted teeth. 

“Because,” Elisa whispered loudly through the noise, “if we leave this one open, anyone will see that something is off.”

“They will hear right now that something is off”, Cara hissed back as Elisa was shutting the door.

“Hearing is here and now. Seeing is forever”, Elisa said. 

“That hardly makes any sense”, Cara said.

“It makes enough sense for now and now… SHHH!”, Elisa put her finger against her lips, moved past Cara and signalled to follow her. 

At first Cara was happy that the infernal noises of the doors had died down. But now that the silence had flooded back into the corridors of the ship, she wished that some kind of noise had been left behind. There was no motor noise, no creaking, or anything else for that matter. Right now there were only the steps of her and Elisa, as well as Cara’s own breathing which with each step sounded more and more like the loud wheezing of a slowly dying animal. 

Elisa didn’t seem to notice or at least care as she moved forward. After what felt to Cara like two or three eternities, Elisa signalled her to stop. She gestured towards the front right. There Cara could see where the corridor opened to the right. Elisa mimed walking up stairs with with her fingers, followed by a thumb’s up gesture. 

They moved a bit faster now. 

Again, their steps and breath violently pushed away the silence. Cara was about to wish that something happened, just to take away the stress of the uncertainty weighing down on them, as they arrived at the niche where the corridor opened to the right. It opened to a small space with another steel door as one turned right, as well as a stairwell leading up and down. 

Elisa exhaled. She was about to signal the next step of the plan to Cara, when they both heard the characteristic lamentation of a steel door being opened. 

‘FUUUUCK!’, Elisa mouthed, stomping her foot into open air, then putting it very carefully down on the ground again. As indistinct voices started to get louder with the door above them opening wider, she urgently gestured downstairs. She gently pushed Cara down the stairs and then followed her. They moved far enough downstairs that they were out of direct sight. As they heard steps coming down the stairs, Elisa grabbed the large bag holding her weapons. She opened it, pulling out a staff almost as long as Elisa was tall, followed by a head for the staff, which she fastened to the top of it. She kept her hand on the staff head that extended into a blade roughly the length of her lower arm, while her head began to nod with the steps the pirates above were making. After three nods, she twisted the head around, which snapped into place with a sound that would have been deeply satisfying in any other situation. Once she was done with that, Elisa wasted no time with listening if that manoeuvre had given them away, instead closing the bag again, handing is back to Cara. Elisa put her other weapon into a magnetic holster on her belt that Cara only now noticed. She made a mental note of feeling envious of it, in case they made it out here alive.

“I swear, if I catch him down there sampling the wares, I will drown him with my own two hands”, a loud male voice said. 

“Bullshit. Even our dumbest prospects know better than that. Gerhardt is always an utter professional. If you ask me he’s being too soft again. Helping the merchandise eat or some shit like that”, an female voice said. 

The male snorted. “Yeah… true.”

“I bet you a litre of korn, that he’s being too soft and not an idiot.”

“Nah, you’re right. And he isn’t too soft. He’s right too. The merchandise he takes care of always sells for a better price.” 

The voices had arrived on the floor above Cara and Elisa and were now moving down the corridor they had just come from. 

Elisa turned to Cara, slowly counting down from three with her fingers. When she arrived at zero she moved up the stairs again. Much faster than before, but softly enough to make less noise than the two pirates moving down the corridor. 

Cara, now shivering with terror, was following Elisa, trying to focus only on the person in front of her. She would have liked to breathe, but right now holding her breath was the only way she could make sure not to make any noise. Her hands were clammy from cold sweat as she gripped her sword so tightly that her knuckles were turning white. 

As the steps grew fainter behind them, Elisa increased her speed, now taking two steps at a time. As she reached the door at the top of the stairs she immediately started to open it. If it made a noise, Cara couldn’t hear it from the thundering of the blood in her ears and the drumming of her heart in her chest. It was only when cold air hit her face that she noticed that the door was open. 

Below she heard the lament of the outer door that lead to the storage hall where here she had been held prisoner. She almost fell over when Elisa pulled her over the threshold outside into the cold. 

As Elisa shut the door, closing it and looking all around here as she did so, Cara remembered breathing again. She gasped for air. 

“Look around”, Elisa said as she worked the hand wheel. “The gunwale should be around that corner over there”, Elisa pointed with her lips in to the direction she meant. “Go look if there is a way to leave this ship over there.” 

“Now, piggy iron!”, she added when Cara didn’t react instantly. 

Cara just nodded, still mostly busy with breathing. Jeanne D’Arc firmly in her hands, she moved into the direction Elisa had told her to go. They were outside, it was light already, but they were surrounded by old weathered containers blocking the view of their surroundings. Judging from the light and how cold it was, Cara assumed that it was still early in the morning. 

As she reached the corner Elisa had indicated, she stopped to carefully peak around it. Another corridor made of containers which had rusted into the deck they had been placed on a long time ago. But this one short, leading directly towards the outer railing of the ship. 

Cara cast a look back at Elisa, who had produced something that looked like a longer more sturdy version of the defence sticks Cara knew from Monasteria, using it to block the hand wheel. The moment Elisa had wedged the stick into the mechanism of the door, she hurried after Cara, shooing her forward with her hand.

Cara moved forward, cast a quick look around the outer gangway; it was empty. Cara relaxed. Only now she smelled the rust, felt the cold creeping humidity from the canal below, the smell of wet earth wafting in from somewhere close. The cold wind made her shiver, but for the first time since waking she could almost feel freedom in reach of her fingertips. To the left and right was only a very narrow gangway, much narrower than on the Ruhig Blut. One would only be able to shuffle along them sideways. She looked over the railing. Below them was a weird little park, mostly a moribund patch of soil with some tufts of grass which had not yet quite decided to die but weren’t really interested in living either. The whole thing was dotted with smallish, trees that were more long warped branches than anything else. The weirdest part about it were the strange metal parts breaking out of the ground here and there. That down there wasn’t land, it was a rather pathetic example of an orchard ship.   

She heard a heavy sigh behind her. It took all of Cara’s willpower not to yelp and jump over the railing. Elisa had somehow materialised right behind her, also looking at the failed garden ship below. Elisa’s head was shifting left and right, while she made a tsking noise with her tongue. 

“Yeah…”, Elisa said. “I guess that is the best way.” 

“Which…”, Cara said, Elisa was already past her and had vaulted over the railing, “way,,,?” She landed below on the deck of the other ship and somehow rolled over the floor despite all she was carrying. She stopped in a crouch looking left and right than back up at Cara. 

“What are you waiting for?”, she whisper-yelled. “We need to get a move on.”

“Can you catch Jeanne D’Arc?”, Cara asked.

“Less talking more throwing”, Elisa said, beckoning her with both hands, “and hurry upping”, she added.

Cara threw her sword. Elisa casually pulled it out of the air. Then Cara carefully climbed over the railing. Then began to slowly cling down the railing until she hang off the gunwale of the larger ship with her feet still, from Cara’s perspective, several miles from the lower deck. 

“What are you waiting for?”, Elisa said, her her whisper-yell fighting hard not to turn into a yell-whisper.

“It’s really high!”, Cara said. 

“No it’s not. It’s not even three meters.”

“It looks higher from where I’m hanging”, Cara said. Right now rather happy that until Natalie and Walter had stopped her from doing so, she had spent years gripping her sword really tightly. Because right now her fingers could hold on for a little while. Saving her from if not certain death at least from broken legs. She tried to pull herself up again, but that didn’t work. When she tried to mover her legs, she suddenly felt something grabbing them. 

Below her Elisa had moved to her and had now gripped her, with a bear-hug around her lower legs. She unhooked Cara from the ship above, turned her around, Cara’s upper body wobbled around a bit as she did that, and let her down in front of her. 

“There”, Elisa said, “now take your sword and move.”

Cara took her sword and followed Elisa who was running towards the edge of the garden ship. 

“Fuuuuck…”, Elisa said.

“Wrong side?”, Cara asked. 

“Yep. Only water down there. But that’s OK, lets go…”, Elisa looked left and right. “Over there”, she pointed left. “With a bit of luck we find a small boat we can steal along the edge or at the end of this ship quilt.”

Elisa turned, Cara followed her, wondering how they would get past the cabin space that was at the end of the ‘garden’. But then she spotted a ladder leading upwards. Where she also saw something move. 

“Elisa.”, Cara said.

“What is it now”, Elisa said, not turning back to her.

“Good morning ladies and gentlemen”, a voice echoed over from all around them. “We have another bracing winter morning. It´s a fresh 1° C and we are experiencing a rather unpleasant front of escape and…” the voice from the PA system paused dramatically. “Murrrderr!”, it yelled.

The yell was answered from all sides apart from the water side. A few voices behind Cara and Elisa, some in front and several more from the side where the large freighter they had fled from was. Now pirates were appearing from their hiding places. A few others were just now rushing in to join the spectacle. 

“We lost Gerhardt today, a great comrade and friend. We have one piece of merchandise who threw our hospitality in our faces, brothers and sisters.” Booing and hissing. “However, it also uncovered a stowaway. So at least our loss will be balanced out at least somewhat by now having two new pieces of merchandise.” The people around them were all on the higher levels. Elisa moved backwards, keeping herself between Cara and the pirates in front of them. Her eyes darting around. 

“Sadly, we will have to punish these two human resources. It will significantly reduce their return on investment value, but it will send a strong marketing message to our future assets, that it is far better to keep your head down. They who cause trouble will be troubled in turn.”

“Get ready to fight for your life”, Elisa said to Cara with a low voice. “The bag contains an assortment of weapons, if you need one, take one from there. You have my blessing to do so.” They were now at the point that was furthest from all the pirates. Elisa had turned her back to the canal. Cara did the same, trying to gauge their situation. It didn’t look good. There were at least a dozen pirates surrounding them and she had spotted at least two others taking advantage of the spectacle that the speech had caused to slide down on deck. Also, there was a least one metal hatch on the deck of the garden ship that had opened a few inches and then closed again. 

As Cara was trying to get her racing heart under control and push her panic back, she saw Elisa drawing her breath.

“I AM ELISA KLEIN CUNNINGHAM, I AM A SOLINGEN RANGER AND A FORGE WALKER. I CARRY DEATH IN MY HANDS AND AM PROTECTED BY THE LADY OF THE FORGE. STAND DOWN, LET US GO AND I WILL OVERLOOK YOUR INSOLENCE”, she roared, her voice projecting all over the ships as effective as the PA system had done. 

A bright column of light appeared to Cara and Elisa’s right into which stepped a large figure. A man wearing an ancient bomber jacket and a cowboy hat, holding a very long sleek sword in one hand and a microphone in another. 

“Oh!”, the voice echoed over the deck, “We have a special guest with us today. Well, well well. I am Commander Johannes Aurei von Brecksbach and we are the Aurei free trading company. Please brothers and sisters, make sure not to break her too much,” a chuckle went through the crowd, “we can ransom her for a tidy profit.” Commander Aurei von Brecksbach turned towards Cara. “And who might you be, girl?”

“I am Cara Gibson Müller”, Cara yelled, “And I will become the Empress of Swords!”, she added.

Elisa shot her a confused glance over her shoulder but then smiled. “Sword Empress? I like that.”

The Commander just laughed. “Don’t break that one either, comedians always sell well. Attack.”

With that, the pirates rushed jumped down towards the lower deck.

“Use the trees for cover. Use your surroundings”, Elisa said as she moved forward. “Once you start fighting never, ever stop. Unless you win”, she pulled out a large double barreled gun from the depths of her coat. The pirates slowed down for a moment. “May the forge protect and aid us”, Elisa whispered, pointing the gun to the sky and firing. Two flares one silver and sparkling one red as blood shot into the sky. She dropped the gun grabbing hold of her weapon with both hands now.

“Let’s go”, she said bearing her teeth.

Leaving her fear behind her, deciding to push forward so fast that it would not catch up with her, Cara rushed into battle.