Project Empress 030

 Chapter 7

Crossing Limbo

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

She looked over to where von Brecksbach was lying. 

There was no one there anymore.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“What? No.”, Natalie said.

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

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

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

“So we are still all alive.”

“Yes, little ingot”, said Elisa.

Cara let that sink in for a minute.

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

Project Empress 029

[Chapter 6 continued and finished] 

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

“Family…”, Cara said. 

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

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

“I didn’t kill him”, Cara said. 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Project Empress 028

[Chapter 6 continued]

Cara and Elisa exchanged meaningful glances.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Hey! No snipers!”, she shouted.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“No problem”, Cara said. 

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

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

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