Team Anna had another quick strategy session by the surf as Team Emily did the same. They dismissed the idea of charging Team Battle Maids right off. Cresh wasn’t maneuverable enough to grab all four of them, and Drake doubted he and Hector were either. One or more would slip past, and then there would be no catching them.
That left forming a line. Drake saw no reason not to mimic the same strategy Team Battle Maids had been using, especially with a monster like Cresh on their team. They decided to use Cresh as a barricade and snatch flags as the maids went around. He and Drake took up their cornerback positions with Cresh in the center and Anna as a safety.
She suggested using her “Oh no, I tripped!” strategy again, which was dismissed when Drake reminded her whatever maid she tried that on would nimbly hop right over her. Eventually, they decided Anna would run out ahead of everyone to pressure the maids into making a mistake. It would at least give her something to do.
“Emily’s team!” Samuel called. “Are you ready?”
Emily simply nodded, face grim and determined.
“Anna’s team? Are you ready?”
“Ready to kick their butts!” Anna yelled.
Drake chuckled before he could stop himself. He glanced at Hector, who nodded with determination, then glanced up at Cresh, who remained laser-focused on the four women standing across from them up the beach. He was going to form a wall.
They could actually win this, and wow, would Emily be pissed. Or amused. It was probably going to be somewhere along the lines of 50/50 with her.
Samuel raised an arm and then paused, staring past Drake to the sea. “What is that?”
No way Drake was falling for that trick. He kept his eyes forward, then felt a chill as Lydia stared past him, eyes wide, and then pointed. “Lord, behind us! Something’s coming!”
His people couldn’t lie. Despite his better judgement, Drake glanced over his shoulder at the bay. And as much as he half expected to then be charged by his battle maids after he felt for their transparent ruses, reality was far worse.
Some thing—no, multiple somethings—were filling the bay, fast-moving silver-blue forms like a school of giant fish toward the capital. Was it a mass sea migration? Were those dolphins? They looked about the size of dolphins.
A thin flow of silver-blue forms coursed off from the main group swimming through the shallow bay toward Korhaurbauten and altered its course. There was no doubt the new column of... something... was heading toward them, and before Drake could say anything, a woman shouted from behind him. Her words raised the hairs on the back of his neck.
“Take cover!” River yelled. “Everyone, under the tarps, now! They will have archers!”
As Drake’s people alternated between glancing at River in alarm and glancing at each other, a long line of arrows erupted from the distant line of objects in the bay, rocketing skyward... on an arc that would bring their sharp ends down on top of everyone on the beach.
Drake gave the order he should have given moments ago. “Tarps! Now! Go!”
He turned to grab Anna only to find Hector already sweeping the little girl up in his arms. They dashed up the beach as approaching arrows whistled menacingly above them. A rain of murderous black objects landed all around them like tiny cruise missiles.
Drake ran for the tarps along with a dozen of his panicked people, some of whom weren’t nearly close enough. As he sprinted across sand that sucked away the energy of every step, the first hail of arrows peppered the beach in a chorus of whooshing death. His people stumbled and screamed.
Drake hissed as something bit into his shoulder and again as one of his people, Alice the dark-haired cook, went down with two arrows in her back. Her horrified screams chilled him. She sounded like Zuri had sounded with that obedience fetish buried inside her body.
Drake’s own back screamed with pain, like a dozen wasps jamming their stingers into his back muscles. He ignored the pain and dropped to the beach to pick up Alice. Hector stumbled past him, and Drake went wide-eyed as he saw the big man also had an arrow in his back. Despite that, Hector stumbled on, teeth bared, with Anna sheltered against his chest.
Drake had to focus on getting himself to safety. Getting Alice to safety. Clutching her in his arms, he sprinted beneath the safety of the thick leather tarps and settled Alice among the wounded, several of whom were gasping for breath. Were those arrows poisoned?
That was when he realized Alice had stopped screaming at some point after he picked her up and ran her to the tent. She was choking like she couldn’t breathe. Why couldn’t she breathe? Someone needed to make sure she breathed!
River hurried to Drake’s side and dropped to one knee to check out Alice, then ripped both arrows out of her. “Kromian arrows are poisoned with paralytics!” She spoke loud enough for everyone to hear. “Get the arrows out! Suck out the poison!”
“Gloves!” Drake shouted. “Get those wounds healed!”
“On it!” Emily shouted. So she’d made it to tarp as well.
A frantic scan of the people under the tarps found Hector breathing shallowly as Emily tended to his wounds with a tearful Anna clutching his hand. Despite Hector taking a poisoned arrow that must sting like a horde of wasps, he’d gotten Anna to safety.
“Alice is hit!” Drake shouted. “Someone tend Alice!”
Had everyone else made it beneath the tarp? With everyone crammed into what was suddenly a scarily small space and everyone dressed the same, in similar swimsuits, it was impossible to tell at a glance who had made it and who was...
Drake spun around to see the oncoming wave of silver-blue objects—kromians, those goddamned fish people!—approaching at a rapid swim. Moreover, Cresh and his zarovians had all dived into the surf instead of taking shelter. His lizardmen were fast in the water. Just like the crocodiles they resembled, they were swimming to meet the watery horde head on.
Drake ripped the still-stinging arrow out of his back and tossed it aside. The wound healed up quickly as the bee sting sensation faded. Whatever poison was on those arrows, his burnished physical regeneration rarity seemed to make him immune... which didn’t help any of his people still lying on the beach.
“Cover me!” Drake shouted to no one in particular.”
“What?” That was Lydia. “Lord, no!”
Drake sprinted back out and toward the closest fallen body riddled with arrows... Hugo. He hauled the young, heavy, and motionless man to his feet, ignoring the way his limbs flopped. He stumbled back toward the tents as another wave of incoming arrows whistled.
Had he doomed himself? No arrows pierced his back. He made it back to the tarp and tossed the man—who was blue-faced and not breathing—down with the others. And when he looked up, he found Gaby with both hands raised and her face red with exertion.
She’d saved them. She’d used fullstop to halt the arrows!
“Help him!” Drake ordered.
“Prioritize those with arrows!” Lydia shouted. “Get that poison out of them!”
As Drake turned to run out for the next person, a strong hand snatched his arm. He tried to rip himself free only to have another strong hand snatch his other arm. It took him a moment to realize that it was Samuel and Darion, not his enemies, who were now holding him back with all their strength. That was the only thing that stopped him from punching them both.
As another wave of arrows whistled down all around them, peppering the beach and the leather tarp above them in a chorus of thumps, Drake fought to free himself from his tormentors. “Let go!” he shouted. “Let me go!” When had his people gotten so strong?
Samuel shouted at him. “They’re gone, lord! The zarovians will not hold back the kromian tide for long, and we are far too outnumbered! We must prepare our defense!”
No, Samuel was wrong. Drake could still save the others. He could still easily see four bodies out there on the beach, motionless and riddled with arrows. They could still survive if he could just get her back to the tarps. His people could—
Wait. Where was Marissa? Where was his mother?
Marissa’s firm hand gripped his shoulder as well. “Those out there are dead, lord. We must focus our energy on those we can still save.”
“Get a tarp down in front!” River ordered. “They’ll use blow guns in close!”
How did River know so much about fish people? Had she fought them before? Out in the bay, not nearly far enough, the much more numerous wave of kromians swirled like piranhas around his brave zarovians. Cresh and the others were fighting four or five to one.
Drake had a moment to stare as Cresh surged from the water with a kromian clutched in each hand and arrows riddling his body. His huge zarovian commander smashed the blue-skinned fishmen together—they dropped—and roared as he charged back into the fray. Arrow after arrow thumped into his body without slowing him down.
Then Darion, Marissa, and Samuel finally succeeded in dragging Drake backward. A tarp slammed down in front of him. Someone had cut the wooden supports on purpose! Why were they destroying their only cover from poisoned arrows?
As he looked up to find another tarp above them, he realized what had happened. His people—or someone, perhaps River—had rapidly organized those who hadn’t been speared by paralytic poison arrows to form a makeshift bunker with a leather tarp above them and another in front. He turned around to find all four of his battle maids, white gloves on, feverishly passing their hands over the wounded, some of whom weren’t breathing.
Alice was among them. Alice wasn’t breathing. She had stopped breathing a while ago, and that seemed so odd. Moments ago she’d been laughing and playing around with the other cooks and the other maids. Hugo was also gone, blue-faced and cold.
He recognized a few others still alive—Tamara, Meryl—but many more were injured, and he was certain there were people missing. His people. The fury and shock that followed the attack were still with him, but a mind that had faced fear before pushed through to take command. More would die if he didn’t get his shit together right now.
Having his battle maids use all their blood healing people wasn’t the right strategy. Any woman with divine blood could use those magic gloves. He couldn’t have his most powerful warriors spending their blood healing people, even though people had to be healed.
“Battle maids, stop healing!” Drake ordered. “Pass your gloves to any women who aren’t going to fight! I need you on the field, with your rarities!” He angrily pulled his arm free from Darion and glared at the worried man. “You! Help them! That’s an order!”
As Darion hurried off, Drake marched to the wooden chest near the edge of the tarp and ripped it open. It wasn’t the chest with their lunch. This chest had extra swimsuits, towels, a ball someone had brought in case they wanted to toss it around, and one other large, glistening item. Magnum. His repeating four-cylinder crossbow.
He’d planned to show it off by shooting some fruit or maybe something else they found. Now, he was going to shoot fish people. He was going to shoot a lot of fucking fish people.
Drake pulled the heavy weapon out and slapped it against one shoulder like a colonial soldier slapping his musket against his chest. He grimly scooped out bolts with his free hand as the sounds of battle in the surf neared. He had nowhere in his suit to stow them, so he simply tossed them in the sand near the tarp they’d dropped for frontal defenses.
When he turned, he found Tamara leading a couple of members of Team Cleaners in sweeping his battle maids’ white healing gloves over the injured who were still breathing... which wasn’t all of them. They had begun to triage. They had to, now.
Fortunately, though Hector appeared to be unconscious, his broad chest rose and fell. Anna lay atop him, crying. If the man lived through this, Drake was going to give him a place in Gloomwood Manor and a medal of honor. The first thing Hector had done was protect Anna.
With one tarp between them and the bay and another ahead, Drake could only hear the battle, not see it. Yet he knew the enemy was getting closer. It would be impossible for twenty-something zarovians to hold an entire bay against an army of fish people. The kromians were going to reach the beach, and then the slaughter of everyone under this tarp would start.
Unless they slaughtered the kromians first.
Drake glanced over to find more people than he expected all gathered up and ready to fight behind him. Lydia had her glowing knives out, and Emily had summoned her spectral battle axe. Nicole had her spirit knives as well, and Valentia, while visibly sweating, had her ice queen face on. She was ready to freeze the first ten to fifteen kromians who attacked.
Also, his force didn’t consist of just his battle maids. Robin was waiting with an arrow and a quiver full of arrows as well—of course she’d packed her weapons for the beach—and Gaby and Carl were ready with a club and knife, respectively.
All were looking to him for orders, for a grand strategy to seize the day. “Here’s the plan!” Drake shouted. “Whoever gets past the zarovians?”
He paused to consider their options.
“We kill every last fucking one of them!”
Author's Note: Happy T-Day to folks in the US!
Team Anna had another quick strategy session by the surf as Team Emily did the same. They dismissed the idea of charging Team Battle Maids right off. Cresh wasn’t maneuverable enough to grab all four of them, and Drake doubted he and Hector were either. One or more would slip past, and then there would be no catching them.
That left forming a line. Drake saw no reason not to mimic the same strategy Team Battle Maids had been using, especially with a monster like Cresh on their team. They decided to use Cresh as a barricade and snatch flags as the maids went around. He and Drake took up their cornerback positions with Cresh in the center and Anna as a safety.
She suggested using her “Oh no, I tripped!” strategy again, which was dismissed when Drake reminded her whatever maid she tried that on would nimbly hop right over her. Eventually, they decided Anna would run out ahead of everyone to pressure the maids into making a mistake. It would at least give her something to do.
“Emily’s team!” Samuel called. “Are you ready?”
Emily simply nodded, face grim and determined.
“Anna’s team? Are you ready?”
“Ready to kick their butts!” Anna yelled.
Drake chuckled before he could stop himself. He glanced at Hector, who nodded with determination, then glanced up at Cresh, who remained laser-focused on the four women standing across from them up the beach. He was going to form a wall.
They could actually win this, and wow, would Emily be pissed. Or amused. It was probably going to be somewhere along the lines of 50/50 with her.
Samuel raised an arm and then paused, staring past Drake to the sea. “What is that?”
No way Drake was falling for that trick. He kept his eyes forward, then felt a chill as Lydia stared past him, eyes wide, and then pointed. “Lord, behind us! Something’s coming!”
His people couldn’t lie. Despite his better judgement, Drake glanced over his shoulder at the bay. And as much as he half expected to then be charged by his battle maids after he felt for their transparent ruses, reality was far worse.
Some thing—no, multiple somethings—were filling the bay, fast-moving silver-blue forms like a school of giant fish toward the capital. Was it a mass sea migration? Were those dolphins? They looked about the size of dolphins.
A thin flow of silver-blue forms coursed off from the main group swimming through the shallow bay toward Korhaurbauten and altered its course. There was no doubt the new column of... something... was heading toward them, and before Drake could say anything, a woman shouted from behind him. Her words raised the hairs on the back of his neck.
“Take cover!” River yelled. “Everyone, under the tarps, now! They will have archers!”
As Drake’s people alternated between glancing at River in alarm and glancing at each other, a long line of arrows erupted from the distant line of objects in the bay, rocketing skyward... on an arc that would bring their sharp ends down on top of everyone on the beach.
Drake gave the order he should have given moments ago. “Tarps! Now! Go!”
He turned to grab Anna only to find Hector already sweeping the little girl up in his arms. They dashed up the beach as approaching arrows whistled menacingly above them. A rain of murderous black objects landed all around them like tiny cruise missiles.
Drake ran for the tarps along with a dozen of his panicked people, some of whom weren’t nearly close enough. As he sprinted across sand that sucked away the energy of every step, the first hail of arrows peppered the beach in a chorus of whooshing death. His people stumbled and screamed.
Drake hissed as something bit into his shoulder and again as one of his people, Alice the dark-haired cook, went down with two arrows in her back. Her horrified screams chilled him. She sounded like Zuri had sounded with that obedience fetish buried inside her body.
Drake’s own back screamed with pain, like a dozen wasps jamming their stingers into his back muscles. He ignored the pain and dropped to the beach to pick up Alice. Hector stumbled past him, and Drake went wide-eyed as he saw the big man also had an arrow in his back. Despite that, Hector stumbled on, teeth bared, with Anna sheltered against his chest.
Drake had to focus on getting himself to safety. Getting Alice to safety. Clutching her in his arms, he sprinted beneath the safety of the thick leather tarps and settled Alice among the wounded, several of whom were gasping for breath. Were those arrows poisoned?
That was when he realized Alice had stopped screaming at some point after he picked her up and ran her to the tent. She was choking like she couldn’t breathe. Why couldn’t she breathe? Someone needed to make sure she breathed!
River hurried to Drake’s side and dropped to one knee to check out Alice, then ripped both arrows out of her. “Kromian arrows are poisoned with paralytics!” She spoke loud enough for everyone to hear. “Get the arrows out! Suck out the poison!”
“Gloves!” Drake shouted. “Get those wounds healed!”
“On it!” Emily shouted. So she’d made it to tarp as well.
A frantic scan of the people under the tarps found Hector breathing shallowly as Emily tended to his wounds with a tearful Anna clutching his hand. Despite Hector taking a poisoned arrow that must sting like a horde of wasps, he’d gotten Anna to safety.
“Alice is hit!” Drake shouted. “Someone tend Alice!”
Had everyone else made it beneath the tarp? With everyone crammed into what was suddenly a scarily small space and everyone dressed the same, in similar swimsuits, it was impossible to tell at a glance who had made it and who was...
Drake spun around to see the oncoming wave of silver-blue objects—kromians, those goddamned fish people!—approaching at a rapid swim. Moreover, Cresh and his zarovians had all dived into the surf instead of taking shelter. His lizardmen were fast in the water. Just like the crocodiles they resembled, they were swimming to meet the watery horde head on.
Drake ripped the still-stinging arrow out of his back and tossed it aside. The wound healed up quickly as the bee sting sensation faded. Whatever poison was on those arrows, his burnished physical regeneration rarity seemed to make him immune... which didn’t help any of his people still lying on the beach.
“Cover me!” Drake shouted to no one in particular.”
“What?” That was Lydia. “Lord, no!”
Drake sprinted back out and toward the closest fallen body riddled with arrows... Hugo. He hauled the young, heavy, and motionless man to his feet, ignoring the way his limbs flopped. He stumbled back toward the tents as another wave of incoming arrows whistled.
Had he doomed himself? No arrows pierced his back. He made it back to the tarp and tossed the man—who was blue-faced and not breathing—down with the others. And when he looked up, he found Gaby with both hands raised and her face red with exertion.
She’d saved them. She’d used fullstop to halt the arrows!
“Help him!” Drake ordered.
“Prioritize those with arrows!” Lydia shouted. “Get that poison out of them!”
As Drake turned to run out for the next person, a strong hand snatched his arm. He tried to rip himself free only to have another strong hand snatch his other arm. It took him a moment to realize that it was Samuel and Darion, not his enemies, who were now holding him back with all their strength. That was the only thing that stopped him from punching them both.
As another wave of arrows whistled down all around them, peppering the beach and the leather tarp above them in a chorus of thumps, Drake fought to free himself from his tormentors. “Let go!” he shouted. “Let me go!” When had his people gotten so strong?
Samuel shouted at him. “They’re gone, lord! The zarovians will not hold back the kromian tide for long, and we are far too outnumbered! We must prepare our defense!”
No, Samuel was wrong. Drake could still save the others. He could still easily see four bodies out there on the beach, motionless and riddled with arrows. They could still survive if he could just get her back to the tarps. His people could—
Wait. Where was Marissa? Where was his mother?
Marissa’s firm hand gripped his shoulder as well. “Those out there are dead, lord. We must focus our energy on those we can still save.”
“Get a tarp down in front!” River ordered. “They’ll use blow guns in close!”
How did River know so much about fish people? Had she fought them before? Out in the bay, not nearly far enough, the much more numerous wave of kromians swirled like piranhas around his brave zarovians. Cresh and the others were fighting four or five to one.
Drake had a moment to stare as Cresh surged from the water with a kromian clutched in each hand and arrows riddling his body. His huge zarovian commander smashed the blue-skinned fishmen together—they dropped—and roared as he charged back into the fray. Arrow after arrow thumped into his body without slowing him down.
Then Darion, Marissa, and Samuel finally succeeded in dragging Drake backward. A tarp slammed down in front of him. Someone had cut the wooden supports on purpose! Why were they destroying their only cover from poisoned arrows?
As he looked up to find another tarp above them, he realized what had happened. His people—or someone, perhaps River—had rapidly organized those who hadn’t been speared by paralytic poison arrows to form a makeshift bunker with a leather tarp above them and another in front. He turned around to find all four of his battle maids, white gloves on, feverishly passing their hands over the wounded, some of whom weren’t breathing.
Alice was among them. Alice wasn’t breathing. She had stopped breathing a while ago, and that seemed so odd. Moments ago she’d been laughing and playing around with the other cooks and the other maids. Hugo was also gone, blue-faced and cold.
He recognized a few others still alive—Tamara, Meryl—but many more were injured, and he was certain there were people missing. His people. The fury and shock that followed the attack were still with him, but a mind that had faced fear before pushed through to take command. More would die if he didn’t get his shit together right now.
Having his battle maids use all their blood healing people wasn’t the right strategy. Any woman with divine blood could use those magic gloves. He couldn’t have his most powerful warriors spending their blood healing people, even though people had to be healed.
“Battle maids, stop healing!” Drake ordered. “Pass your gloves to any women who aren’t going to fight! I need you on the field, with your rarities!” He angrily pulled his arm free from Darion and glared at the worried man. “You! Help them! That’s an order!”
As Darion hurried off, Drake marched to the wooden chest near the edge of the tarp and ripped it open. It wasn’t the chest with their lunch. This chest had extra swimsuits, towels, a ball someone had brought in case they wanted to toss it around, and one other large, glistening item. Magnum. His repeating four-cylinder crossbow.
He’d planned to show it off by shooting some fruit or maybe something else they found. Now, he was going to shoot fish people. He was going to shoot a lot of fucking fish people.
Drake pulled the heavy weapon out and slapped it against one shoulder like a colonial soldier slapping his musket against his chest. He grimly scooped out bolts with his free hand as the sounds of battle in the surf neared. He had nowhere in his suit to stow them, so he simply tossed them in the sand near the tarp they’d dropped for frontal defenses.
When he turned, he found Tamara leading a couple of members of Team Cleaners in sweeping his battle maids’ white healing gloves over the injured who were still breathing... which wasn’t all of them. They had begun to triage. They had to, now.
Fortunately, though Hector appeared to be unconscious, his broad chest rose and fell. Anna lay atop him, crying. If the man lived through this, Drake was going to give him a place in Gloomwood Manor and a medal of honor. The first thing Hector had done was protect Anna.
With one tarp between them and the bay and another ahead, Drake could only hear the battle, not see it. Yet he knew the enemy was getting closer. It would be impossible for twenty-something zarovians to hold an entire bay against an army of fish people. The kromians were going to reach the beach, and then the slaughter of everyone under this tarp would start.
Unless they slaughtered the kromians first.
Drake glanced over to find more people than he expected all gathered up and ready to fight behind him. Lydia had her glowing knives out, and Emily had summoned her spectral battle axe. Nicole had her spirit knives as well, and Valentia, while visibly sweating, had her ice queen face on. She was ready to freeze the first ten to fifteen kromians who attacked.
Also, his force didn’t consist of just his battle maids. Robin was waiting with an arrow and a quiver full of arrows as well—of course she’d packed her weapons for the beach—and Gaby and Carl were ready with a club and knife, respectively.
All were looking to him for orders, for a grand strategy to seize the day. “Here’s the plan!” Drake shouted. “Whoever gets past the zarovians?”
He paused to consider their options.
“We kill every last fucking one of them!”
Author's Note: Happy T-Day to folks in the US!
