Into the Fray
Twenty Fourth Day of Elnu-Hamba (Elnu Descendent), 1349 A. L. (After Landfall)
Nico felt the shiver running though Branch Breaker's body against his shoulder, and he felt his fear almost as close as his own. Looking up at the sky all he could see was chaos and madness, amid the sound of the dying and the crack of wood and the snapping of lines all he could think of was a scene of the End of Days he had seen in a church in Rouen when he was a boy. Though he had one hand on the bow and an arrow in the other he was as far from thinking of battle as a mouse with a eagle in the sky.
"Shoot!" Sir Roland shouted and all at once the fear seemed to flee from his body. He could feel it in the soles of his feet, like a groaning roaring hum, he could see it all about as sorcery flashed and danced around the pale lady and the around Inge, wards and spells of protection he thought they were... but it was arrows that found their mark first, bronze tips and bright white feathers.
His was one of the ones that found their mark among the whirling mass of the spirits, sparking off
something the eye shied away from seeing. And then the things descended on the ships like wolves on a prize bull.
***
Zaia of Alexandria had never liked horses, much preferring mules or donkeys for their gentler gait and less pretentious palates, but he had never expected to have a talking horse tossed onto him by the weight of a four whirling elementals moving with the fury of a hurricane. The bottle he had been readying flew from his hand and in an instant flashed to hungry red flames on the deck, fanned by the very winds that had stated it...
Don't play with fire little wizard, the singsong words, as though called out by a cruel child, followed him down into unconsciousness.
***
Seeing the healer near crushed under the weight of the horse that had been trying to guard him made Esha freeze with fear... and then the flush of unaccustomed anger. She had been in battle before and she had not always been alone, but as the ship swayed and twisted under the strength of the foe the sorceress felt for the first time that murderous rage that she had feared to find in her heart. She wanted to kill them, to tear the life out of them and make it her own. The world seemed slow all around her, seen though the warped lens of her wards, her staff was bolted into the ground and bolts of fire flashed out of it.
"Die screaming!" Esha cursed nd knew not in what tongue it was.
***
Tom had not thought he would miss fighting the damn dragon, as awful as that was a dragon was still a thing of flesh and blood that you could sink a spear into, this was bloody wind and hate and howling madness, this was seeing the lads he had fought with and bedded down beside flying over the gunwale, ropes going taunt, their own or the ship as he tried to fight something fast as as galloping horse and about as hard to fight with a spear. He had never wished he was a damn archer more in his life, but arrows were few and the enemy were many... and they were coming for them.
When one of the crossbows tipped overboard he hardly noticed... until that is he saw the captain go down with it. Tom flung himself across the deck, only half noticing that Sir Roland was trying to distangle man and horse as the fire roared beside them. But when he reached the edge it was to find the captain not fallen but tangled up in a fishing net of the sort the crew would sometimes use... a net that had not been there.
Uncanny bloody ship, the thought was more fond than troubled
***
Water, water I need water, as prayers went it wasn't the most fair-said, but it was from the heart just as from the midst of battle. As Inge asked so it was... and not a moment too soon as she had to dive under a beam that the spirit had tossed over her head. "Stop, stop! Why are you doing this?" she found herself shouting even as a shard of ice spun from her hand to strike the figure where its heart might have been on a man.
Then an arrow went though its head from behind and another and another.
Swiftly as it had come the spirits took flight... leaving behind a deck strewn with the wounded and the flotsam of battle... but not death, the girl could not feel Her close that way.
The fire was put out, the wounded healed, but when al that could be set aright was there came one last frightening realization, no one could find Ohun, no high and not low.
What does the fleet do?
[] Search for Ohun by Inge's magic for the next few days
[] Sail on as fast as the wind can take them, to meet an actual storm in this state might be the death of all of you
[] Split up with the most damaged ships going ahead
[] Write in
OOC: I'm sorry this took so long. I was kind of tired of battles where you guys would be able to see everything that happened play by play even though your PC was busy fighting for his life and the battle takes place over a wide area. So I tried something a little different to show the chaos of battle... only trouble is it took an ungodly amount of time to come up with something I was happy with. Hope this works.