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.

Project Empress 025

[Chapter 6 continued] 

“First things first”, Elisa said, “we have to make sure that when the time comes you can liberate yourself.” As she said that she lay her weapon collection down on the floor, it consisted of a long sword, a one handed sword, a long messer, as well as a school of knifes in many different shapes and forms. She took a modern survival knife from the latter group and turned back to Cara. 

“Lift you arms”, Elisa said. 

Cara did as she was told. Elisa started to cut into the rope holding her lower arms together. It took longer than Cara had expected. At first she didn’t want to push her would-be rescuer, but as time went on she had more and more difficulty to remain still. She tried to move her head around to see what Elisa was doing. 

“Stop moving, will you?”, Elisa said. 

“What’s taking you so long? Is this some kind of special rope?”, Cara asked.

“Nope it’s as common a rope as they come. But for my plan to work, this has to be done right.”

“And what is your plan?”, Cara asked, thinking that if she was to be a central part of it she should know what was supposed to be happening.

“When the pirate comes with your food, you will wait for him to give it to you. Then as he turns around to walk away, you liberate yourself from the rope and grab his feet and maybe give them a nice little pull so that he falls flat on his face. Which will be my signal to attack, neutralise and get the key from him. You will then be free and we both can be on our merry way towards freedom.”

“Sounds good. But why does this make your cutting so slow? Is your knife dull?”, Cara asked.

Elisa stopped with what she was doing, her burning eyes slowly rising over the horizon of Cara’s bound hands. 

“Young damsel”, Elisa said, her words flowing from her like slow lava out for revenge, “I am a Solingen ranger and a forge walker. My blades are my life and their edge my honour. The are never dull.”

“I’m sorry… I… er… I was just wondering…”, Cara said, wanting to but physically unable to retreat from Elisa’s wrath.

“Yes you are…”, Elisa said, her eyes still trying trying to turn Cara into a fine super heated mist. She breathed in, her eyes flaring up, but as she slowly breathed out the fire left her eyes. “First time’s for free, no one is born all-knowing…”, Elisa relaxed again, resuming her work. “What I am doing here”, she said, her face vanishing behind Cara’s hands again, “is cutting up the entire rope so far that, when it’s time, you can rip it completely apart. This way, when the guard comes, he will see you still bound, everything will be fine, but the moment he turns around… riiiip… and you are free.”

“Oh”, Cara said. After a brief pause; “I am also bound to the bars of the cage behind me. You better give me that knife first so I can cut the rope behind me before you finish your work on my arms. We don’t want to rip the rope around my arms before the guard comes.”

The eyes dawned over Cara’s hands again. Brows crinkled in though. A short nod. Elisa carefully placed her knife in Cara hands. 

Cara, for her part, cautiously moved the knife past her head, waving it around behind her neck until she found the rope. She had to turn the knife in her hands so that the blade made contact with the rope. A short slicing motion bit deep into the rope. Two moves later, the rope was cut and Cara could finally move her head again without being strangled. 

“That is a very sharp knife”, Cara said to Elisa, handing the knife back to her. Elisa just nodded, taking her knife back, without a word continuing her work. 

A few minutes later Elisa reappeared, now looking rather satisfied. 

“This should do it”, Elisa said. She then put the knife she was using away, went through her collection again, pulling out a long slender knife, a good ten inches long. It was mostly blade, only at the very end it curved up to a serious looking point. 

“Here, take this one. Hide it under your legs. If need be that one should help you the most inside your cage.”

Cara would have loved to get a feel for the knife but that would have broken her bonds, so for know she carefully pushed it under her legs, taking great care of not accidentally cutting herself with it.

“Now, we wait”, Elisa said, collecting her blade herd and vanishing above Cara again. There was a bit of noise, followed by deep silence. Cara even held her own breath, concentrating on her surroundings, to see if maybe she could detect Elisa’s breathing. But there was nothing. What she did notice then was, that the ground was moving very gently, which meant that she was probably on a ship. That was exiting. But also good news, if she was still on a ship she hadn’t been unconscious for too long. Which meant that she was probably still relatively close to Datlem. The situation was less horrible than she had expected. 

Cara was still imagining her triumphant return to civilisation and how she would non-nonchalantly tell Natalie about her audacious escape, when she heard the metal door open again. There were the heavy steps again. The heavy boots, with the work pants. Followed by the man hiding behind the enormous beard. 

“Are you hungry now?”, the man asked.

“Oh yes, very!”, Cara said grinning broadly. She was a terrible liar, but in some instances she could hide the truth behind a convenient illusion. She told her truth, the other side saw their truth, everybody was happy. “I am really looking forward to it.”

The beard-man shook his head laughing. “You are a weird one.” The man took Cara’s now empty water bowl and pulled it towards the bars of the cage. He took out two glasses with some kind of stew inside them. He opened the first glass, filling the room with the smell of pumpkin, handing himself the glass through the bars emptying the container in Cara’s bowl. He then repeated the same process with the other glass.

“I’ll come back in twenty minutes or so”, the beard-man said, pulling a wooden spoon out of a pocket inside his coat. As he did so, Cara could see the grip of his cutlass and knife on his belt. He put the spoon next to the bowl. “And I will need the spoon back. Not that you try to use that as a weapon.” 

The man laughed. Cara laughed. 

“I’d rather use a knife for that”, Cara said still smiling. 

“Good choice”, the beard-man said- He got up, turned around, moving back to the door somewhere to the right.

This was Cara’s chance. She ripped the rope holding her arms together in a move that made her feel like Hercules, shifted her weight forward, jumping...

Her scream alarmed the beard-man who turned around to see a now very much unbound Cara twisting on the floor of her cell, trying very much not to scream in agony as all her joints and muscles screamed at her for her glorious idea of going from forced immobility to full Olympic athlete in under a second. 

“Wha…”, the beard-man started to say.

“Oh for fucks sake”, Elisa interrupted him as she crashed into him from above. The beard-man fell over helped by Elisa’s hand pushing his face down as she fell. The back of the  man’s head cracked against the metal floor. His cry of pain was stopped midway, by Elisa’s rondel dagger piercing his heart and part of his lung. Elisa shifted her weight around, placing one of her knees on beard-mans throat. Placing a hand and a foot on his torso she pulled out her dagger. Air and blood spluttered out of the wound which she instantly pushed with her free hand again. She remained in that position for a while. She then slowly removed her hand from the wound out of which blood began to seep out. She shifted her weight away from the now dead pirate and began to search him.

“You killed him…”, Cara said, her eyes wide, her aching body forgotten for the moment.

“Very well observed”, Elisa said, still searching. “There we go”, she added, as she produced a key ring with various keys. “Let’s get you out of that cage then.”

“Why?”, Cara asked.

“Because you want to be free…?”, Elisa said, slowing down only slightly as she eyed the lock of the the cage and the the keys in her hand to find the most likely candidate.

“Yes. But why did you kill him?”

“Because”, Elisa said, moving back to the cage trying the first promising looking key, “that man was a pirate.”

“But that isn’t a reason”, Cara said as Elisa opened the door to her cage. As Elisa leaned in to lend Cara a hand, Cara shied back. 

“Really?”, Elisa said. She sighed. “Look damsel. That…”, she pointed at the dead pirate with her dagger. “Is a very bad man. I had to kill him to get you out of here.”

“You could have knocked him out.”

“Oh my god… you little piggy iron ingot…”, Elisa said. “Knocking someone out is very hit or miss. If Mr. Pirate over there had started to scream all his friend would have come to join him and then I would be there in that cell right next to you, if I was lucky.”

“But he wasn’t a killer…”, Cara said, still staring at the dead man. 

“Says who?”

“I’m still alive and he gave me food”, Cara said, pointing at the bowl. 

“Yes, little ingot, because he and his friends want to sell you. This is a slaver. Slavers are bad. Do you understand that?”

Cara just nodded. 

“Are you still going to eat that?”, Elisa said pointing at the bowl of stew. Cara just shook her head. “Nice”, Elisa said, grabbing the bowl and spoon. “First you get some feeling back into that body of yours. You need to be able to move if we are to get out of here alive. You have two minutes. Thee minutes tops. His friends,” Elisa pointed at the dead man with the spoon, “are going to start wondering where he is soon. By then we need to be armed and moving.” She took a spoon full of stew and ate it. “Oh man, this is really good. Their cook is an artist”, Elisa said, her eyes closed, savouring the stew. 

“No thanks…”, Cara said, still staring at the pirate and the puddle of blood growing quickly from under him. 

“Your loss”, Elisa said. “Now hurry up we need to move out of here.” Elisa moved aside, starting to shovel the stew into her mouth. 

It took Cara several attempts to get her body to cooperate. Various parts of her had been asleep and were now starting to wake up to a show of pins and needles, while her joints were loudly protesting the very idea of doing their jobs. Whimpering, she loosened one limb after the other. Crawling out of her cage she took care not to come into contact with the pool of blood that was slowly moving towards her. 

“Where is Jeanne D’Arc?”, Cara said trying to ignore the dead body in front of her.

Elisa, still stuffing her face with the stew, looked around. “There is another prisoner?”

“No”, Cara said. “Jeanne D’Arc is my sword.”

Elisa put the spoon into her bowl, swallowed the focused on Cara. “Is it a sharp?”

“No.”

“Is it a rare or somehow expensive sword?”

“No…”, Cara said her gaze lowering, when she remembered what was waiting further down for her, she instead decided to focus on the bowl in Elisa’s hand. “It is just a cheap, black sword. But it’s mine…”, she couldn’t bring herself to finish her sentence. Getting out of here alive was more important than getting her crappy old black sword back.

“Well at least there you are lucky”, Elisa said. “If it was a valuable blade they wouldn’t have put it in this crappy store room.” 

“They put me here…”, Cara said looking a bit further up the arm that held the bowl, her indignation giving her courage a small boost.

“Yes, bound in a cage and it’s not like they can just walk through here and nick you all subtle like”, Elisa said. “Which is why we should hurry up, get your Jeanne and get out of here.” She resumed to wolf down what was left of the stew. “Damn, that was really good. We should steal their cook too…”

Cara pushed her gaze a bit further, looking Elisa in her face again. Elisa had finished eating. She set down the bowl, placing the spoon back inside.

“So you are going to help me find my sword?”, Cara asked.

Elisa climbed up the cage back to where ever the entrance to her crate was. “Of course”, she said, vanishing out of sight for a moment, returning with a backpack and a large canvas bag. “Your sword is part of you.” She jumped down, put on her backpack securing it and slung the softly rattling bag over one of her shoulder. “You don’t leave something like that behind.” She looked at Cara, smiling a warm smile for the first time since Cara had seen her. “Don’t worry piggy iron, we’ll get your sword. I think I know where it is.”

“My name is Cara”, Cara said.

“Good to know piggy iron”, Elisa said, moving past Cara towards where the metal door had to be. 

“Why do you keep calling me that?”, Cara said as she tried to follow Elisa. This was made rather hard by the dead man and the pool of blood that had by now reached her feet. The metallic smell of blood and something else far more unpleasant was filling the air by now. If she wanted to get out she would have to walk through the blood and over the dead. 

“Because”, Elisa said, “you are not steel yet. You certainly went through the smelter and the forge, but you’re not there yet. Let’s hope you harden.”

“I don’t want to harden,” Cara said, carefully moving through the blood which was somehow both very sticky and slippery at the same time. Cara had to concentrate not to retch.

“If you don’t harden, you’ll break”, Elisa said, while checking the contents of a couple of cloth covered barrels to one side.

“I don’t want that either…”, Cara said, her voice now sounding strange, as she was now consciously breathing through her mouth alone, to not have to smell her surroundings. That did not help against the weird sensation of walking through the pool of blood. Each step made her shudder.

“And that’s why you are still piggy iron, damsel piggy iron”, Elisa said. looking back at Cara with a sad smile on her face. “You’ll find your way”, she added, moving ahead again. “I have the feeling that you’ll make good steel one day.”

“What makes you say that?”, Cara asked, thankful for the conversation as it gave her something to focus on. ‘Conversation…’, she thought.

“Should we be talking this loudly?”, Cara whispered. 

“Yes”, Elisa didn’t whisper back. “There is a double door leading to this storage room. The doors make quite the spectacle when you open and close them but when closed they keep the sound out pretty well.”

“How do you know that?”, Cara said, wondering about the apparent omniscience of the forge-walker. 

“Because unlike you little piggy iron, I’m not a prisoner.”

“That makes sense…”, Cara said.

“Ah… here you go”, Elisa said, looking under another cover. She pulled a black sword from out of a rack. “This your sword?”

“Yes!”, Cara almost yelled. For a moment all blood and dead beardy men were forgotten. She rushed forward to get her sword back. 

“Do you mind if I get to know Jeanne a bit?”, Elisa asked.

“Er… no go ahead.”, Cara said.

Elisa changed into a stance that Cara didn’t recognise. It looked like a more centred version of one of her lower guards. Elisa moved the sword in a few quick strikes ending it a stab. She played around a bit with it trying to get a feel for the overall balance for the sword. 

“Decent”, Elisa said. “Manoeuvrable, but with a slight tendency to bite. I like that. Where did you get it?”

“A flea market…”, Cara said. 

Elisa looked at her dumbfounded. The laughed. “Well you do have luck on your side at the very least. For a flea-market sword its spectacular.” Elisa walked back to Cara, handing over her sword grip first. 

“OK piggy iron, you have your sword back. Keep good care of her. For the rest of our little adventure I would recommend you use the knife I gave you. At least until we are out in the open and you have space to swing Jeanne. Stay close to me. Do as I say. How good a fighter are you?”

“With my sword? Not very good”, Cara said. “But it was enough to beat two of the pirates who attacked our ship.”

“That’s an interesting definition of ‘not very good’”, Elisa said. 

“The pirates didn’t know the basics principles of the martial arts. They don’t count”, said Cara.

Elisa snorted, shaking her head. “Right… Well you follow me. Keep quiet and keep our backs covered. OK?”

Cara nodded, holding her sword close to her. Feeling her sword´s weight in her hands started to relax her. She inhaled, instantly regretting having relaxed as suddenly her nose was flooded with the smell of blood again. 

“Around that corner”, Elisa pointed forward, “is the inner door. We are going to try to open that all quiet like. But we can’t know if someone is close enough to hear the door so the moment we open the door we have to assume that we are going to get attacked or ambushed, understood?”

Cara nodded again.

“Piggy iron?”, Elisa said.

“?”, Cara expressed.

“Knife?”

“Oh…”, said Cara. She moved her sword into her off-hand. Pulled out the knife Elisa had given her. “Ready.”

“Let’s see if we don’t make steel out of you yet”, Elisa said and moved towards the metal door.

Project Empress 024

 Chapter 6

Child of Iron; Child of Steel

Cara woke up to pain and twilight. Her head was experimenting with different approximations to the Platonic ideal of pain. Her mouth and nose were dry and burning, while here arms were a half numb, half sore bundle in front of her. She tried to lift a hand. It didn’t move, instead it sent jolts of stabbing pain up her consciousness to keep her headache some company. Cara blinked, trying to focus her blurred sight at the traitors she once called her hands. They were neatly tied together at the wrists, the rope wrapped up her forearms until it reached her elbows. As she eyed her hands, tried moving them together. Her arms jerked up. She almost punched herself in the face. She evaded her attack by jerking her face away, which sent a new dazzling display of a firework of pain through her head. She groaned. Cara considered letting herself fall to one side, to curl up into a fetal position in the hope that unconsciousness or at least sleep would take her into their merciful arms, but decided against it. Even small movements, minor things like breathing and the mere act of existing brought her a rich buffet of pain. She didn’t want to know what would happen if she had to absorb the impact of tipping over. 

‘Where am I anyway…?’, Cara thought. She should be on board the Ruhig Blut. She was pretty sure that she had been fighting pirates. She remembered sending a pirate flying over the ships railing and smashing another one in the face…

Cara smiled as she remembered her successes in actual combat against real opponents. Her smile considered Cara’s situation and left in disgust. In its stead the pain flooded into the space it had left.

“Ow…”, Cara said. Saying that hurt. She followed it by an exploratory groan. That seemed to work so she groaned some more. It didn’t help much with the pain, but just hearing something and being able to moan about her situation did help to lift her mood just far enough out of the muck that she could start to focus on her situation.

Her body was one angry ball of cramps, crowned by a blazing beacon of pain that used to be her head. Her head, that was bound to be the pirate that had struck her down. The rest of her body seemed to be loudly protesting the weird half sitting half squatting position she was in. Which in turn she was forced to remain in, because she found herself inside a smallish cage. There wasn’t much room above her, so she could not stand up. In front of her was not enough room to stretch out her legs very far. She could fall to her side after all… To her right was enough space to fall and stretch out a bit. He legs didn’t seem to be bound… Strange. But then that would have made it harder to put her in the cage for whoever had done that, Cara assumed. The cage itself was inside some kind of storage room. She could see a narrow corridor in front of her, large crates on the other side. Two more empty cages to her immediate right and some kind of crate to her left.

‘Ah well, the firework of pain it is then’, Cara thought to herself and let herself fall over to the right. She did not fall very far when she learned that she had also rope around her neck biding her to the bars of the cage behind her. Gasping, shocked by new yet unexpected pain she struggled to get back to her original position, screaming while keeping her mouth as immobile as possible, producing a high pitched keening in the process.

“Holy shit, could you be any louder?”, a female voice hissed from behind the create to the left.

“Eh…?”, Cara croaked.

“You are making too much noise. Continue like that and someone will come. Probably to make you shut up…”, the voice said.

“Who are…”, Cara was about to ask.

“Shhh…”, it hissed from beyond the create. “Fuck. Me. Here we go…”

As Cara was still trying to find out what the voice meant by that she noticed that a metal door was being opened to her far right. The heavy door swung open and heavy steps moved towards her. Tough work boots, out of which grew equally heavy duty trouser legs, appeared in her field of view. 

A great full beard appeared from above, behind which a male face was hidden who measured her up from behind his beardy camouflage. 

“Are you awake then?”, the face behind the beard said in a voice a bit higher than expected.

Cara nodded very carefully. 

“Are you thirsty?”

Cara nodded. 

“Hungry?”

Cara was hungry but the though of moving her mouth at all filled her with horror so she decided to shake her head instead.

“Right. Wait here”, the man behind the beard said, his tone of voice not betraying an kind of sarcasm. 

It took Cara a while to get the irony of the beard-mans statement. “Heh…”, Cara laughed unhappily. Shortly after the man appeared again. He had a decent sized wooden bowl in his hand. He turned it so that it would fit through the bars and placed it close to Cara, he then reached through the bars and poured water into it out of a large water bag. 

“Drink. There’ll be food in about an hour. I’ll come back then and see if you are hungry then OK?”

Cara nodded.

“Good girl”, the beard hiding a man said smiling and left. The echos of the heavy metal door falling shut again had already faded away, when Cara had managed to get the bowl close to her face. She somehow had managed to not spill much of the water on the way and carefully began to drink. The moment the water touched her lips she realised how thirsty she was and started to gulp down the water.

“Can you maybe drink without making so much disgusting noise?”, the voice behind the crate asked.

“Could you please stop being so rude?”, Cara said.

“Sorry”, the voice said. “I’m a bit on edge. My plans have just been put in major jeopardy.”

“Oh. I’m sorry to hear that… ouch…”, Cara said. “What happened?”

“You happened”, the voice said. Cara could hear the pouting in the voice.

“You are very rude”, Cara said. “No wonder they put you in a cage.”

The voice snorted. “I’m not in a cage.”

“No? Are you in a barrel then?”, Cara asked.

“Nope. I am in a crate.”

“That’s a weird place to put a prisoner… but then you are a very unpleasant person”, Cara said, slowly finding the perfect way to speak without making her head explode more than it already had.

“I’m not a prisoner, you potato. I am a stowaway.”

“Oh…!” Cara said. And having forgotten her rules of pain reducing talking, she added a quick “arrrrgh…” to that.

“’Arrrgh’, indeed”, the voice from the crate said. “It was smooth sailing up to here and I was going to make my exit soon, with none of the idiots out there being the wiser. But then you appear all damsely and distressed.”

“Oh”, Cara said, more careful this time. “So if I am the innocent princess, kidnapped by pirates… does that mean you’ll be the knight in shining armour that’s going to save me?”

Somehow Cara could feel that her invisible companion was rolling her eyes.

“Ranger”, the voice said.

“Huh?”

“I’m not a knight. But I’m a ranger. No shining armour. Mostly reinforced aramid fiber and some cleverly placed metal plates. Also, in a really bad mood, because you, miss damsel are a fucking liability. But I can’t very well leave you here…”

“You are far to rude to be a knight”, Cara said. “Also I’m not a liability. I can fight.”

“Oh really, is that the reason why you ended up inside that cage?”

“I beat two pirates before one snuck up on me, that wasn’t sportsman like.”

“Oh no, we should write a strongly worded letter to the pirate guild.”

“We can do that?”, Cara asked.

There was a short pause… a few existential breaths being taken and exhaled again.

“No, damsel. There is no pirate guild. And even if there was one, they would certainly not take letters from their prisoners and stowaways, seriously…”

“Makes sense…”, Cara said thinking about it.

“So… you can fight?”

“Yes”, Cara said.

“What do you do? Self defence?”, the voice asked.

“No… well… yes…”, Cara said, she felt another roll of the eyes incoming, “Everyone learns self-defence in Monasteria. But I am also trained”, ‘a very tiny bit’, she added in her mind, “in the historical martial style of Liechtenauer. The old style.”

“Look at at… the damsel does have teeth in the most unexpected places.”

“Ewww…”, Cara said shuddering.

She heard movement from her left, some rumbling a few muffled bumps as things were shuffled around. Then from above a figure dropped down from above her cage. It was a small, woman who held a veritable bouquet of weapons in her arms.

“I am Elisa Klein Cunningham, I am a solin-ger, a forge-walker and I’m going to get you out of here.”

Project Empress 023

 Entremés 2.1

Meanwhile in Monasteria

Manfred Brumotti von Burg was filled by the fire of righteous indignation. His trust and benevolence had been betrayed. One of his students, ‘Former students’, he corrected in his mind, had gone behind his back to the Lord-bishop to somehow trick him into giving her the official, holy quest to win the fencing title of an upcoming tournament somewhere in the South for the greater glory of Monasteria. How she had even known about that tournament wasn’t clear to him. Surely she had somehow heard about it while gossiping with one of her friends. But instead of telling him, her master, of it she had gone directly to the Lord-bishop and gotten the quest herself. She had also somehow talked some wandering ‘master’ into sponsoring her. That little bitch had so cunningly asked him to let her transfer to another master, which he graciously had allowed. It wasn’t a big loss for the academy, as she was what Manfred called a “fun fencer”, someone who took up the sword not for the glory of winning tournaments, but just for the sheer pleasure of playing around with it. Which was perfectly fine. The “fun fencers” had their own corner in the hall, where they could work on their sloppy footwork, bad form and general lack of talent. Sometimes, every once in a while, out of this pool, after enough years of hard work, someone rose from those ranks to become a proper fencer. But mostly they were there to well, have fun, pay their academy fees and bask in the glory of being part of the leading fencing academy of Monasteria. 

He would, of course, distance himself from this snake. And of course it was a woman… Manfred fumed. They really didn’t make it easy for him to protect them. So often they were weak, but that was only natural, but also entitled. Dreaming dreams above their natural station. Of course a female could take up the sword and they could even rise above the level of pure fun fencers. But within their bounds. They did have their pretend tournaments, their own little spaces to fence in a safe environment, were they could pretend to be martial artists. But in an open tournament? With men? Ridiculous. 

But no matter, in the end it had opened up a new golden opportunity for Manfred. The Lord-bishop, for reasons only clear to him, had decided that this strange tournament, in Vienna of all places, was now something that the church of Monasteria was very interested in winning for the greater glory of God and its humble city. If Manfred could get this title, it would not only enhance the renown of his academy, but more importantly bring him up to speaking terms with the Lord-bishop. Then, finally, his school would stand head and shoulders above the other pretender schools and back alley academies which dotted the city. All of them were trash, second rate places with questionable methods. 

The Lord-bishop’s blessing would bring that last bit of official recognition which would turn his academy into the academy, not only in the city but the entire region.

Apart from that, it was high time that Eskil, his master student moved up to the rank of junior master and took over some more responsibility. For now Manfred would oversee the training of the new one. It was important to get him to as high a level as possible in the short months that they had. But it was also important to have Eskil learn the ropes of the high art of teaching others, so that he could be sent out, like in this case, to some faraway contest that had the potential to bear rich fruit for the academy. If he won, it would be proof that Manfred was a master among masters and if he lost, well, then he had obviously overestimated Eskil’s skills and would have to push him harder to become worthy of the school he was training in.

The new pupil, a young blond man built like a work-in-progress Greek god, showed despite being wounded enormous amounts of talent. He was very athletic, had a lot of previous training and had that certain ‘killer instinct’ which was so often lost to the new soft generation. Most importantly, he had the will to become a champion. He, despite the broken nose, had been walking his lanes, working on his footwork for two days straight now. Slowly he was getting them just right, perfect step, perfect measure, perfectly straight. One or two days more and he’d be allowed to hold his first sword. 

‘Yes’, master Manfred thought to himself, ‘this betrayal may in end be a blessing in disguise.’

Entremés 2.2

Later on the Ruhig Blut and afterwards

Natalie was screaming and kicking, being held back by Erika, who held her in something between a hug and a grapple. 

After Natalie had dispatched the last few pirates, sending them packing, often in a high arc overboard, she had made sure that there weren’t any left skulking around and walked back around the containers to see how Cara was holding up. As she had arrived on Cara’s side of the ship, she noticed that a small group of Pirates had managed to climb the ship the hard way, overcoming the passive defences of it. Two were without much success trying to break open the steel door leading to the bridge. Wolfram had not even graced them with a sideways glance, focusing exclusively on the path ahead, while three others were moving down the gangway. One of them had moved midships right into Natalie’s staff, falling to the ground stunned by the blow. Natalie jumped over him, following the final two along the port side of the ship. Ahead, she could see a Cara fighting a pirate dressed in red wielding two long knifes. Her style was a bit rushed but pretty solid. Natalie smiled to herself. She was now speeding along to help her pupil mop up the rest of the attackers. 

Cara had just dispatched her enemy, when Natalie’s pride turned into something colder. Cara was standing above her fallen enemy enjoying the after glow of victory, while the two pirates behind her were now accelerating towards her. Natalie started to sprint, not yet yelling a warning, so that she could overwhelm the pirate next to here with the element of surprise. She was preparing her rush attack when she heard Erika’s warning above her.  

“Cara, attenta!”

But it was too late. The two pirates were already cutting their losses. The one closest to Cara had lifted a black metal fighting stick in his hand, which came crashing down, as Cara was turning around. 

As Cara fell unconscious, her attacker caught her in his arms, with one hand he attached a grappling hook to the rail and, throwing Cara over board, rappelled down after her. His companion, drawing what looked like a hand canon from his jacket turned around. Seeing Natalie storming towards her took aim at her.

Natalie dove to the ground as the pistol fired a red glowing ball of fire. The flare flew over Natalie’s head. As she scrambled back up, the other pirate had also sprung over the railing and rappelled into the fog below. Natalie had run back and forth along the gangway trying to see anything below, but there was only the mist and the rumbling of the engines, in the distance a murder of crows was complaining about the racket they had caused. But even they fell silent after a while, leaving only the memory of the attack behind. 

Natalie had run to Erika, screamed at her to turn around and get Cara. But Erika had told her that it was impossible. They could not stop in time, turning around would take considerable time, in which they would be sitting ducks.

They had to push on to Datlem. Only then could they do anything to help Cara. 

The moment they had passed the mighty portals to Datlem, the city that controlled two important canal crossroads, Natalie had been itching to go off board. She had planned their next steps with Erika while constantly peeking over the side of the ship to see if there was a place where she could safely jump on land. 

Erika was going to talk to the port authority once they anchored. While Datlem’s sphere of control officially only reached to its city limits, welcoming everyone who behaved within them, very careful not to ask too many questions, the city actively discouraged any kind of criminal activity close to its gates. That was considered extremely rude.

Natalie on her end, when she finally managed to jump off board, took the shortest route towards Datlem Cathedral. 

The city was neutral ground owned by the church. It was the most important trade hub in the region based on its very Christian ‘don’t judge. lest you be judged’ approach to its guests, which made the local priest regionaria Alperta P.A. a woman far more powerful than her modest rank of priestess would normally grant her. To keep that position, she had to play nice with the regional powers. First and foremost among them the bishopric of Monasteria. Keeping the Lord-bishop happy meant remaining independent. They had a mutually beneficial understanding that shielded the Regionaria from church intrigue while granting the Lord-bishop privileged access to trading goods and, more importantly, the newest gossip about the local powers.

Armed with her official Monasterian charter in hand, she knocked on the door of the administrative building. First with her hand, then with her foot, followed by her staff. 

An angry church Deacon opened the door, head deep red and ready to scream, but he was outscreamed by a furious Natalie. 

“I’m here on a mission from god!”, she yelled as she waved the sealed parchment in front of the Deacon’s face. The Deacon stumbled a few steps back, Natalie rushing after him like a tidal wave that was approaching the end of politeness. 

“I need to talk to Monsignora Alperta now! This is a life or death situation that must not be delayed.”

Some ruffled feathers and some fire breathing on Natalie’s part later, she was in front of the Regionaria, who was tending to her orchids in the conservatory of the cathedral. The older woman listened to Natalie’s demands while continuing her work. When Natalie had said her piece, the Regionaria laid down the scissors she was holding, took a tiny watering can, watered the orchid in front of her and then turned to Natalie. Setting the can aside, she took the parchment in Natalie’s hand, as she started to read at the document with intent, a pince-nez appeared on her nose. The assistant responsible for this, did so by discretely appearing from between the plants, vanishing back into them when he was done. 

The Regionaria read the document. Took of the pince-nez handing it over to the reappeared assistant. Gave back the parchment to Natalie and looked her in her eyes. 

Natalie’s eyes narrowed by a small degree, but she stayed calm never looking away.

The Regionaria nodded. She took a tiny bell from the table where she had put her watering can and rang it. A different assistant manifested out from the surrounding plants, a clipboard in his hands. 

The Regionaria dictated that two small but fast motorised craft were to be prepared. A strike and rescue team was to be assembled by tomorrow morning an hour before daybreak. Their mission to assist master Natalie Laukkanen Lapointe in locating and liberating her student Cara Gibson Müller as well as making an example of the brigands who had dared to kidnap one of the Lords chosen flock so close to the sacred grounds of Datlem city. 

“Tomorrow morning”, Natalie had pressed out between clenched teeth, the best she could do to maintain proper decorum. 

“Yes,” the regionaria said. “Tomorrow. We need to prepare. You need to eat, pray to the Lord and rest. Our scouts will need time to go ahead, to see where the possible targets are hiding. My analysts will need to go over the Seraphim data to see if we can track your attackers. And then, when we are ready, we will strike. The pirates took your charge alive, they won’t kill her overnight. There are no cannibals left in the Purgatory gap.”

“I understand, Monsignora”, Natalie said, pushing down her burning fury, pressing it into something colder and harder. 

Project Empress 022

 It was a strange feeling, the acceleration of the ship. It wasn’t the impressive push of a fast wagon. Compared to them, the Ruhig Blut was pushing out of ‘hardly in motion’ towards ‘not really fast’. What made it impressive to Cara was that the ship in all its mass was inexorably pushing forward, always close to leaving her behind. Like a continental plate, that had suddenly remembered that the stove back home was still on and was now hurrying back, leaving all on top of it to worry about what to grab hold of. 

Cara decided to walk a few steps back, standing against the back wall of the bridge, which was now softly and reassuringly pushing into her, like a slightly over eager floor. It also reminded Cara of her less than optimal posture. She used the opportunity to straighten her back and work on her core musculature. Something that master Manfred had told her she had to work on, never explaining how. He had also given up on her on that front many years ago. 

“I have to have a final look at the old gods”, Erika said. “After that, I will prepare for combat duty and meet you outside.” Erika left through the door in the back.

“You can stay here for a bit longer,” Wolfram said, his gaze focused on the channel before him, eye flitting over to the simulation and several displays and readouts. 

“Once we reach our final velocity, it will be easier to move. In the case that it should come to a battle and I have to break or change course in a way that could throw of you balance, I will ring the ships bell”, he pulled a small lever and a loud piercing ringing sound trilled through the air outside of the bridge. “When you hear that, brace yourselves. It will keep you safe. It’ll give you an edge in combat too, even quick witted pirates will need a few repetitions until they notice the pattern. However, the better ones will have proper sea legs and won’t have any problem with adjusting to the situation. But for now just enjoy the ride.”

The Ruhig Blut kept accelerating for a while, while pushing it’s way through a long curve. They were just coming out of it when Wolfram, started push the ship into a hard starboard direction. The ship slowly turned, Wolfram adjusted the baring. Cara was still wondering why he had done that when she noticed that not so far ahead the channel made a, for a cargo ship, sharp turn to the right. Wolfram pushed the throttle further forward, the engines going that little bit faster and he kept that up, while a display right above the throttle was slowly down the spectrum from a mellow green towards an increasingly insistent red. 

Cara’s hands were slowly turning into claws trying to grab hold of the steel wall behind her. The ship was now slowly turning towards the direction in which the canal was turning while still rather insistently drifting towards what now was an unhurriedly approaching metal clade canal edge. ‘Your Animus is still weak´, Walter’s voice resonated in her head, as she tried to keep herself from hyperventilating. She glanced over to her master, who, judging from her expression, was still undecided if she was seeing death in the eye or was having a really good time. 

Before they could hit the wall they were drifting towards, the ship´s propulsion finally managed to convince the boat to change track. Just as Cara was starting to relax again, Wolfram was twirling the wheel again, this time towards the port side. 

“Don’t worry”, co-captain Wolfram said, “We have azimuth thrusters.”

“Yaay…”, Cara tried. She looked over to Natalie, who looked back and shrugged her shoulders. The war over her expression was slowy being won over by enthusiasm. 

“I never quite get used to this”, Natalie said, “but Wolfram knows what he’s doing. If you can calm yourself, your survival instinct will start to relax. After that you can just enjoy the ride.”

“I don’t know… relaxing my survival instinct… it sounds like a less then optimal idea”, Cara said.

“Trust me”, Natalie said, trying a wide grin that was more fever than cheer.

“Yes, master Natalie”, Cara said, gritting her teeth and focusing on trusting Natalie. Indeed, after a couple more manoeuvres Cara started to get used to them, as every time they miraculously did not crash into walls but somehow, like strange prophesies coming to pass after millennia had passed after they had first been uttered, the Ruhig Blut somehow kept moving forward, always water in front of it and at least an hand’s breadth below it. 

“Get your weapons ready”, Wolfram said. “Over there”, he pointed forward and to the left, “the old channel joins the new part here. There could be the first attackers lurking.”

They did not. Even better, this was a long, mostly straight stretch of channel. It gave Cara time to catch her breath and even the control lamp above the throttle was back to its placid green. 

“Now is the time for you to get ready and out there. If there is going to be trouble it will be in about 5 miles from here. Then we will be in easy reach of the next part where the old channel meets the new. 5 miles further down, the channel will be winding its way about quite a few obstacles. We will bypass Ulfloa. I can’t go full steam ahead through their port region and they won’t help us. They will keep out of the conflict, siding with the winner…”, Wolfram sighed. “After that, we will just have to survive a bit longer and we are in the waters of Datlem, who don’t suffer any kind of conflict in their waters. There we will be safe. If all goes well well be back in safe waters in 40 minutes. After that it’s smooth sailing to Dortmund’s district 9”, Wolfram turned around for a second giving them both a crooked smile and a nod.

“You heard the co-captain”, Natalie said to Cara. “Use your sword first, it has the better reach, but keep that short stick of yours handy. If they come too close to you it will serve you better than your long sword.”

Cara nodded. Hesitated. Then asked: “What about you? You have your long sword and your even longer staff.” 

Natalie raised an eyebrow, the right corner of her mouth moving upwards. “That is a really good point. The answer is”, she put on her gloves and showed Cara their thick leather, the palm of the left had a long reinforced part across the palm, “and half sword techniques.”

“Half-sword?”, Cara asked. 

Natalie gripped her sword with her right hand at the grip placing her left hand on the middle of the blade. She showed Cara a few moves in that strange grip. The moves where short but controlled and powerful. “I know. I’ll teach you later, so don’t get killed.”

“Yes master”, said Cara trying to control her enthusiasm.

“Swear it.”

“What?”, Cara asked.

“That you won’t die today.”

“I swear that I won’t die before at least having won the manuscript we are after”, Cara said, straightening her posture even more.

“Attagirl”, Natalie said. She then paused, her head tilting to one side. Her intense look made Cara a bit uncomfortable. Maybe her master had realised that Cara wasn’t talented enough for this task. That all of this had been a big mistake. She swallowed.

“Your make-up”, Natalie said finally, “It’s not done yet.”

Only now Cara realised that she had been so engrossed in Erika’s explanations of the many interlocking systems that made the Ruhig Blut such a special ship, that she had forgotten to finish her make-up as she had originally planned.

“Anther reason to stay alive. That eye-shadow of yours won’t do on a dead face.”

Cara nodded. Natalie saluted her with two fingers before turning around to leave the bridge by its starboard door. 

“Before you go out, two things”, Wolfram said now looking forward again. “First, once you leave, the doors behind you will lock and you will not be able to open them from outside. If you need to retrea,t there is a door on the lowest deck of the container compartment. Midships. it will lead to a t junction both narrow with a few corner and emergency buttons big and red, that will instantly seal the corridor behind you. These are also weapons. If someone stand in their way when they come down, they will die. Understood?”

“Aye”, Natalie said.

“Y… yes”, Cara said.

“Good. The second point is, that the Ruhig Blut has several little surprises for attackers. They are mostly for show and to strike fear in their hearts. Don’t be surprised if you see or hear strange things. Especially if they are loud or dramatic. In this case the behemoth living in this waters is on your side. Understood?”

“Aye”, this time Cara and Natalie answered at the same time.

“Good. Now, all hands on deck please.”

 Cara moved out through the port door. After she had closed it, she heard several bolts slam into place. Through the windows which she now noticed had a dark green tint to them she could see Natalie on the other side grinning and waving at her. She waved back forcing something of a smile to appear on her face. 

As she moved down the stairs she noticed that she was shaking with nerves. She kept focusing on the training that she had had with both Natalie and Walter. As she did so she started to move more like she had on the green on the roof above Bacchus’ Barrel which now seemed to incredibly far away. Now she was here on a ship that was, maybe, about to be attacked by pirates. Under her fear, she felt a strange little tingle. A small seed of excitement taking root in her mind. She grabbed hold of it, encouraging it to grow. 

She had reached the part of the ship where cabins and the closed storage rooms ended and the ship was open. As she was about to climb the ladder down towards the walkways on the gunwale of the ship, she saw Erika appear from a door further down through the door Wolfram had mentioned earlier. On her back she was carrying a large metal back pack thing that over a cable was connected to a strange staff, that was one part rifle and one part science fiction weapon. 

“Is that a laser?”, Cara asked.

Erika looked up at her, waved at her with the strange weapon thing. 

“In part”, Erika said. “If you want I’ll explain how it works to you later.”

“I’d love to”, Cara said as she climbed down the ladder. When she had arrived at the level of the gunwale, Erika was walking up a steep set of stairs leading to the middle gangway above the containers. 

“Wonderful”, Erika called down. She pulled a retracting cable out of the backpack, plugging it in and securing it in a rail above the gangway. As she did, the backpack came alive with lights starting to glow and the whole thing making a noise like a turbine slowly revving up to speed. Erika gave her a thumbs up and wandered out of Cara’s line of sight.

Cara turned around and wandered along the guard rail, when over her Erika’s head reappeared. 

“Cara.”

“Yes?”

“Did I tell you about the honey pots?”

“You have bees here?”

Erika looked at her for a few moments blinking. “I’d love too, but I don’t think that works on a ship… or does it…?”, she shook her head, “But that’s not the point right now; no it´s that lower gunwale and the ladder in the middle”, she pointed towards the central point of the ship. “It’s open and undefended. It attracts pirates, like honey attracts the bear.”

Cara nodded strategically, hoping that it would encourage Erika to tell her more. It worked.

“The rest of the ship is well defended. High walls, hard to climb and, in combat, electrified overhanging wires. Very hard to get on the ship that way, except with an equally large or larger tanker. Pirate tankers don’t survive in the canal network… Anyway. The gunwales along the container parts are lower, easier to reach and in the middle they have these nice open ladders. The even go behind the bulky navigation lights. Very convenient. Greed makes people dumb. They will go up the ladder. Giving you an easy time to dispatch them one by one. If we get attacked. Stay back a bit you don’t want to scare the idiots away. If the attackers are mostly men and they see you? Scream in a high pitched and pathetic way.” Erika screamed, it was shrill and sounded terrified. “Oh no! Please…”, she pleaded, her eyes wide with horror, “… don’t hurt me. I’ll give you anything you want. But please don’t hurt me”, she said, looking at Cara with even bigger eyes and pursing her lips a bit. “8 out of 10 times it works and the idiots walk just right into your attack. Cazzi…”

Cara kept nodding, wrestling her confusion to keep it out of her face. Erika gave her a last look. “Just hit them with your sword. Hard”, she said.

Cara nodded again, this time more convincing and with that, Erika’s head was gone again.

Cara checked her defence stick, it was well in reach of her right hand, stuck into her belt. She jumped a couple of times to make sure that it wouldn’t suddenly fall down or shift into a position where she couldn’t easily reach it. It stayed where it was supposed to. She placed her sword held in her left hand over her left shoulder. With the wind tussling her hair she felt very heroic. As they moved past the increasingly wild vegetation at the edges of the canal she struck one pose after another looking for one that felt appropriately heroic. After a while she discovered that looking heroically into the horizon wasn’t that much fun if there wasn’t anyone to marvel at her poise. It also wasn’t that comfortable. So she walked up and down the gangway. Always hurrying past the honey pot ladder, to make sure that she didn’t startle any lurking pirate who had silently swum to the flank of the ship and was planning his shadowy infiltration. 

She had taken great care to always keep the ladder in her field of view somehow when patrolling. But in the end she sat down on the gangplank a few metres away from the ladder, to the aft of the ship so she could watch the now overgrown forests at the edge of the canal floating by while keeping a stealthy eye towards the trap. 

She was startled out of it by a loud hissing notion coming from the entire length of the ship. There was also a muted ringing of the ships bell. As mist billowed in thick sheets from the canal below. She remembered that Wolfram had said, that if they were to be attacked she’d notice by the ship doing strange things. She stumbled back up to her feet. The hissing came again and even more thick fog appeared. The navigation light started to glow much brighter now giving the fog a deep red colour. Not really like blood but close enough to be understood as a warning. She then felt a rumble shiver through the entire ship, a split second later followed by the bellowing of the ships oversized fog-horn. As it resonated through Cara and their surroundings the fog grew thicker extending ever wider. By now the Ruhig Blut was completely enshrouded by it. Below the navigational lights Cara would not have been able to see her hand in front of her face. 

“THIS IS YOUR ONLY WARNING”, a deep booming voice thundered out of dozens of speakers all around the ship. “THIS IS THE FREE TRADER RUHIG BLUT. YOU LEAVE US ALONE, WE LEAVE YOU ALIVE. THE MOMENT YOU LAY A HAND ON THIS SHIP OR DARE BOARD IT WE WILL GIVE YOU NO QUARTER. TURN BACK NOW, OR DIE”, the voice thundered, followed by another long rumbling boom of the foghorn. 

‘Pirates’, Cara thought, her heart started to race. ‘I’m going to fight pirates.’ Her eyes started to glow, her heart racing. She gripped her sword now with both hands and moved slowly towards the ladder in front of her while the fog came crawling on deck from below. 

As she moved forward, she heard the roar of smaller boat engines coming to life from several directions. Whatever stealthy manoeuvre the pirates had originally planned, now that they had been discovered they threw the veil of subtlety aside. 

A moment later Cara felt the Ruhig Blut jolting ever so slightly. The pirate attack boats had made contact with their ship. 

There was a the high pitched trill of the warning bell again. Cara crouched down, bracing herself for whatever may come next; covering her ears and squinting, just to be on the safe side. Right now she would not have been surprised if dinosaurs had suddenly erupted from the containers above. 

What happened instead was that far below, the dead gods started screaming in rage, the entire ship vibrating slightly as its frame tried to contain them. As they did, first the navigation lights started to glow brighter, drawing the eyes of everyone around towards them. Then, below them a string of floodlights that surrounded the ship came to life casting its harsh blue tinged light into the water below. Even through her hands Cara could hear the screams of the attackers below as they were blinded by the aggressively bright light. 

Inside, on the bridge, co-captain Wolfram threw his favourite switch.

Outside on the stern and on both sides of the prow where the name of the ship proudly stood, neon lights flicked to life. They added a few words above and some letters to the end of the ship´s name. Taking the “Ruhig Blut”, “stay chill”, and turning it into “Komm näher, du kannst Ruhig Bluten”, “Come closer and feel free to bleed”. Wolfram chuckled, turned on his microphone, roaring in his best overlord voice: “YOUR LIFE IS FORFEIT. MUWHAHAHAAAHAAA!”

Outside, Cara was trying to feel a bit better about her situation, but she had to admit that the entire lighting and thunder show was working. Despite being on the ship´s team she was starting to get scared. It didn’t help that Wolfram’s laughter was followed by two blasts of the fog horn. 

The tactic worked, as there was a a shadow trying to climb up the honeyed ladder, which slipped out of sight as the fog horn shook space and time around it.

Her hands covered in cold sweat, Cara decided that she really needed to read the book on Animus that Walter had given her. She had no control over hers. Inside she was all knotted up and any movement was not with her body but against it. Her body had decided that getting as close in form to a rock having a panic attack was the best idea right now, while her mind kept screaming that now was the time to relax and remember her training. 

The shadow that had disappeared on the ladder was now back. It turned out to be a pirate. Looking more like a young man in his black edgy phase, still blinking and shaking his head. The pirate in black saw Cara cowering and instantly relaxed. He grinned and started moving towards her. 

“Oh hello there, who do we have here?”, he asked.

Cara got up, still trying to explain to her muscles, that when one side tensed the other had to relax. The muscles didn’t buy it, deciding to stay all tense.

“Please”, Cara said, moving her sword forward, the point towards the pirate. Behind him another pirate, this one apparently preferring red, appeared on the gangway. 

“Look what I have found”, the pirate in black said to the one in red. “We already have a bonus. And we’ll even get a black sword on top.”

The pirate in red looked at Cara. He laughed when he saw her. “Nice”, he said. “Looks, like all of this was just smoke and mirrors.” 

They both laughed.

Cara took a deep breath, exhaled. That was all she could do consciously, the rest her body had to take care of. She didn’t have time for that now.

Trying to focus on Natalie’s and Walter’s lessons, she let the point of her sword sink again. 

Gritting her teeth she said, “I am very sorry. But you need to leave the ship.”

“No can do”, the black clad pirate said coming forward, shrugging apologetically. He drew a short but thick cutlass. It had a black blade. This actually relaxed Cara. She had fought and had been beaten by black swords hundreds of times. They hurt, they could break things, mostly her bones, but they did not kill as easily as sharps. 

“This is your l…”, Cara remembered the words the others always used in these situations.  “Y… your first and last warning. Leave of suffer the consequences.”

“Oh, no…”, the pirate in black said putting one of his hands on his cheek in mock fear. “Or I will be forced to spank some manners into you”, he laughed.

Before Cara could react, the pirate in black was rushing forward, cutlass raised. As he pushed forward, his cutlass flew down, trying to smash into Cara’s hands. 

Cara remembered what Natalie had told her during their first training session. ‘Don’t be afraid. The art will protect you.’ 

‘That shouldn’t be too hard’, Cara thought, remembering how often master Manfred had told her that she was slow and dumb. 

Before the cutlass could reach her wrists, crushing them, she pulled her leg back, pushing her back closer to the containers, pulling her hands out of harms way. She raised her sword, the strong of its blade stopping the enemy cutlass. As she felt the contact, she raised her hands, the cutlass now stuck and controlled by her cross guard. She turned her back foot around so that it now pointed towards her enemy, who was only now becoming aware that his attack had been blocked. The black clad pirate started to turn his own blade in his grip to better counter Cara’s force. 

Cara lifted her back foot as the pirate in black moved his sword.

‘When you walk the path’, she remembered Natalie telling her, ‘you just move through your enemies towards the sword masters of old.´

Cara stepped forward, carrying the point of her sword with her, pushing into the throat of her attacker. She felt that she made contact with his throat protection when her back foot was passing her front foot. Her grip steadily carried her through as she pushed past the pirate, sending him flying head first into the man in red behind him. 

“I hit!”, Cara exclaimed, a warm wave of excitement rushing through her body. 

The pirate in black was pushed back to his feet by the one in red. He coughed, when he looked up, Cara was relieved to see that he was still alive, but also a bit smug that she had killed his smile. The pirate changed his stance, now holding his cutlass in a more protective stance as he moved forward. The pirate in red was now also readying his weapons. 

The eyes of the pirate in black were now ablaze with anger. 

As Cara saw that, she started to relax a bit. The pirate´s form was weak, his style was sloppy. Her enemy taking her seriously helped her to get deeper into the flow of combat.

The pirate was now showering her with blows, alternating from left to right at a speed that impressed Cara, as she calmly blocked them with the strong of her blade. She was observing the impressive move-sets of her opponent. His sword slashes forming almost a V-shape as they kept raining down on her. He was creating enough pressure that Cara had to inch a bit away from her enemy every once in a while, but she was still lost in thought. 

‘Hmm…’, she thought, ‘if I wasn’t blocking his sword it would be more of an X shape, that means…’, her sword was making more of an inverse V shape. As she was left handed, strikes attacking her right were especially easy for her to block. ‘There!’ As an attack to her left moved over to the right, she swung her sword around to her right, the point falling, moving into an arc into the side of her enemie´s exposed head. His attack was still on its way, when his head was smashed into the containers. There was still significant force in his original attack, which dissipated in a puff of futility on the strong of Cara’s waiting sword. The black clad pirate stumbled back. Cara snapped her sword around again, squatting low as she moved forward. Her blade catching under the pirate’s armpit. She pushed up, shoving him over the ship’s railing into the water below. 

She turned back to the red pirate, smiling. “I did that”,she said, pointing over board. 

The pirate in red had seen. He was now crouching in front of her, two long thick knives in his hands. ‘That’s going to be interesting’, Cara was still thinking when she noticed a bunch of other black clad pirates behind the man in red. There were three of them, one half crouching a few steps further back the gangway. Another one standing directly behind him. The third was moving towards the prow of the ship. What had caught Cara’s eye were the crossbows the two men facing her were holding. They were definitely pointed at her.

“That’s cheating”, Cara said, her eyes scanning her surroundings for something, anything, that could provide some cover. Aside from jumping over board there was nothing. 

“Fiddlesticks…”, Cara said, her energy seeping away from her again. 

As she was gritting her teeth, getting ready for a dash towards the red pirate in the hope to somehow dive behind him for cover, she noticed that a thin blue line of laser light had appeared from above, dancing over a metal plate that was covering the standing marksman’s right shoulder. As she saw that, she felt the slight shudder of the dead gods, screaming louder below decks. She looked up seeing Erika pointing her weird rifle at the pirates below. Her backpack had come alive with strange purple light. 

As Cara’s eyes darted between the men with the crossbows and Erika, a blue-white ray of lighting jumped from the the strange rifle in Erika’s hands to the pirates. The man standing was cramped, shooting his bolt wide. The metal bolt was encased in St. Elmo’s fire. 

The lightning sprung from the standing man to his kneeling companion, who also misfired as all his muscles started to cramp. 

Cara was hit first by a wave of the smell of ozone. Followed by a strange sweetish smell that reminded her of barbecue parties in summer. 

“Don’t just stand there, piccola”, Erika shouted from above. “Get that stronzo in red.”

Cara was back in the fight. She closed the space between the pirate in red, careful not to get so close, that he could reach her with his long knives. 

She knew several styles of “langes Messer”, the long knife, but she had never seen one use two at the same time. But she knew of some Italian and Spanish styles that used a dagger together with a rapier.

As the red pirate moved, she smirked. Instead of using one of his weapons as defence and closing in on her, he was wasting time by making a flurry with both, getting up slowly. When he moved forward, his movements were heavy and clunky. Cara wanted to spring forward, point first, using her superior range. But she stopped herself in time. 

The pirate in black had been wearing armour below his lose clothes. Just as Cara was wearing armour underneath hers. Hitting him with a black sword with a rolled tip like hers on a breast plate, would leave her open. Not taking her enemies seriously because they were not following any style would also be a bad idea. The black pirate had not taken Cara seriously and then he had gotten emotional. Both reasons for why he was now in the canal. ‘Just follow the path’, Cara thought to herself, noticing that the man in red was showy, but he was showy outside of Cara’s reach. His posing was a trap.

Cara lunged into it with a cut from above, lunging towards the pirate´s face. He easily blocked her blade with one of his long knifes. She instantly withdrew, pulling her blade back  and changing her footing so that, instead of facing the containers, she now faced the water again. The second knife crashed against her blade closer to the point, thus displacing it. The red pirate used this opening to close the distance between them, his first knife now pointing towards Cara’s face moving forward. 

Cara had to stop herself from moving back. This was one of Walter’s harder lessons. Retreating against an opponent who had a strong aggressive style, created the illusion of security, followed by the reality of defeat. If she pulled back now, she would block the oncoming threat but also free the knife she had just blocked. After that it was just a matter of time until she would be hit.

Instead Cara inhaled, gritting her teeth she pushed forward past all her instincts, swinging her sword in a wiping motion as she moved past it, keeping the first knife bound against her blade. The far end of her sword crashed into the second knife above. 

Now, past the knives herself, her sword had a clear way towards the pirate in red. She twisted her body around, again sending her sword flying toward the face of the red pirate. But there was no impact. The man bent over backwards, her sword missing him by the tiniest of margins. He sprung back up, the hand that was close to Cara shooting forward with another stab attack, while the second knife was moving in a long arc towards whatever part of her body remained undefended when blocking the stab. 

Cara rotated her body back in the other direction, towards her attacker, throwing her sword in a wiping motion to his outstretched hand that was holding the stabbing knife. She should have pressed on, but the motion of the other flying knife was too much for her. She pulled back, lifting the sword, blocking the second knife. The attacker gasped. Whatever Cara had hit, it was a good hit. The stabbing knife fell out of a limp hand. The pirate shook his hand. There was something painfully wrong with the shape of his wrist. But to Cara’s terror, her attacker just focused on the remaining knife and his target.

Cara was about to slip back into a panic. She could hear her breath coming in rapid puffs. ‘No time for panic’, she thought. ‘Only the path.’ In the background she could hear Erika’s lightning weapon striking someone on the other side of the ship. 

‘I’ve got the better range’, she thought, pushing forward several exploratory stabs, which the pirate in red swatted away with ease. ‘His technique is weak, but his focus is phenomenal.’ The attacker tensed his body. As Cara’s next stab came, she knew that she’d made an error. He jumped into her blade, intercepting it with his long knife. As her sword rebounded, the pirate turned his knife around to hook the part of the grip extending out of his grip behind Cara’s cross bar. Cara would either lose her sword or be pulled into the knife face first. But he wasn’t there yet. Cara relaxed her arms, her sword falling, bumping over the metal pommel of the long knife. Now her blade was under her attackers arms. She made contact with the blade, push cutting upwards. Moving the knife above her head, shoving it aside. Her blade, moving in a C shape over her opponent´s arms, now lay on top of his arms. With a little jump she smacked the arms of the pirate against the rail. This time he screamed. He let go of his second knife that landed with a clatter on the bright crimson navigational light. Making sure that she used the flat of her blade, she struck the pirate square in the face with it. The man stumbled back crumpling to the floor.

“Cara: two. Pirates: nil.”

“Cara, attenta!”, Erika yelled, pointing at something behind Cara.

As Cara turned, she could see the shadow of motion out of the corner of her eye. 

The shadow was followed by darkness.