The Rawn Chronicles Book One: The Orrinn and the Blacksword: Unabridged (The Rawn Chronicles Series 1) (40 page)

Hildek had cringed when the
Jezzrion
had scraped against the mountain. He had looked away as the bodies began to tumble. The mountain blocked his view of the ship now, but they were closer. The Havant was eager to board her; he wished her good riddance.

He looked at Jynn just as the
Jezzrion
came back into view. He was glad she could not read his mind without touching him; he shivered at the thought. Jynn suddenly breathed in sharply. Hildek looked at the other ship as it came back into view from behind the mountain. Something black trailing a chain hurtled towards them. A few seconds passed before he realised what it was.

“Hard to port!” he shouted, but he knew it was too late.

The ten-foot-wide anchor struck the
Raxion
fourteen feet from her figurehead. It carved through wood and flesh as it passed through the hull and the ship’s mid decks. The force of the impact almost stopped the ship in mid air. Everyone, who was not in the flight path of the anchor, lurched forward with a violent jolt. As the anchor left the ship, bursting a midst a cloud of planking near its aft rudder base, the wind that sent it in the first place slammed into the ship with a tremendous force. Anyone not holding onto something and exposed to the blast gale-force wind felt himself lifted off the deck and sent spinning over the side.

Jynn and Hildek crawled to the starboard railing as the ship stopped shaking. They looked at towards the Blacksword, who was standing in full view next to the
Jezzrion’s
iron Orrinn Tower. They watched him lift up his sword. In the bright, sunny day, it did not glint or sparkle. He held it there for all to see. Then he swung the weapon of prophecy in a horizontal arc towards the centre of the Orrinn Tower.

“Oh shit!” Hildek barely had time to curse as the Blacksword sliced the tower in two.

Chapter 28

Jynn Ri

The crossing of the Peril Bridge was not as treacherous as anyone thought it would be. They had all made good time and not lost a single man to the sinkholes. Beyond the bridge was a grass field. Tall, green stems bent in the wind, and it would prove useful as cover. Luckily, they found an old, dried-up riverbed with deep grass embankments that ran in the same direction they were travelling in.

Their luck, however, was going to run out.

Whyteman had taken three others to scout ahead. He returned with bad news. A Vallkyte patrol out of Fort Chunla had stopped to camp up ahead of them. They stood in the way of their goal, the Oldwoods.

“How many are there?” asked Powyss.

“Eighty at the least,” said Whyteman.

They all groaned at the answer.

Powyss looked at them in silence. They were all thin and malnourished; none of them were in any fit state for battle.

Othell smiled back at him. “You’ve gave us a good run, Captain,” he said, and everyone nodded in agreement. “You and your apprentice; we can use his sword when he catches up.”

Little Kith rubbed his nose. “Well, you’ve got to die of something, I suppose; may as well be with a sword in your hand,” he said.

“Or a bow,” said one of Whyteman’s archers, who was called Linth.

“We have the element of surprise.” Velnour shrugged.

“Fortune has favoured us so far,” said a Haplann soldier called Hexor, his twin brother, Foxe, nodded in agreement.

Powyss pulled out Bor-Teaven and rested it in his lap. “Whyteman, take your archers to the right flank and give us cover when we attack, take out the pickets first.”

Whyteman acknowledged with a nod.

“That leaves twenty-four of us to attack line abreast. Keep quiet, and wait for my signal,” said Powyss.

The warm air languished placid and sultry. A soft breeze swayed the grass stems as they crept up to the Vallkyte positions. Birds twittered and insects hummed; it was a day for drowsing in the sun.

They were so close to the enemy pickets that they could reach out and touch them. One saw the massive bulk of Little Kith and was about to utter a cry of warning when Whyteman fired an arrow into his mouth. Two other pickets fell to arrows before the enemy spotted the fugitives, and then Powyss stood, screamed a war cry with the others, and attacked.             

Several things happened when the Blacksword cut the Orrinn Tower from the hull of the
Jezzrion
.

First, the tower, now free from the ship, spun away into the air. The Wind Orrinn inside it continued to blast out strong gusts through the iron funnel as it twisted and turned. It ripped the horizontal sail from its moorings. Wrenching sounds of snapping cable and iron cleats filled the frigid air and it spun away, wrapped in the sail.

The next thing was the ship itself. With no wind or sail to hold it up, the seventy-ton ship plummeted straight down. The wide hull helped her to cling to the thin mountain air as she fell, causing the cold air around it to scream as it dropped. The fall was not far; the ship had been slowly descending after the collision with the summit’s edge, and the mountainside spoke of a soft landing in thick snow, fifty feet below.

The other thing to slow her descent was the
Raxion
. Both sky ships, now tethered together by the anchor chain, now tightened when the
Jezzrion
plummeted to the mountain slope.

Once more, the suddenly violent lurch forwards pulled everyone on deck off his or her feet as the dead weight of the
Jezzrion
hauled the lighter
Raxion
after it. The tightening chain caused more damage below decks and the hull of the ship buckled and screamed in protest.

Jynn watched in horror as the
Jezzrion
slammed, hull first, onto the mountain below. It began to slide down the snowy slope, quickly followed by the
Raxion.

The violent landing jarred the bones of the Blacksword’s body. He held onto the rope he had tied around the bottom of the Orrinn Tower as the bow ploughed through the snow. She started to slide down the steep slope effortlessly. Powdery snow sprayed up onto the deck, and the ship left a furrow in its wake.

The ship struck against boulders and tore down stunted firs. She jostled left and right, until she finally hit two outcrops of rock that protruded from the snow. The
Jezzrion
stopped, wedged against the rocks.

However, the
Raxion
still had forward momentum; she hit the snow slope and bounced down behind the
Jezzrion
. Everyone held onto something in fear for their lives. All, that is, except Jynn. The captain saw her running towards the bow in long, lopping strides.

The aft castle of the
Jezzrion
loomed dangerously close and collision was imminent. Jynn jumped from the bow and used the wind element to give her lift and distance. Three long seconds later, the bow of the
Raxion
hit the aft castle of the
Jezzrion
; both parts of the ships crumpled from the force of the impact. Wooden planks and splintered beams spun around Jynn as she flew through the air, arms and legs wheeling wildly. A few chunks of ballistic timber whizzed past her, one even punched a sizable hole into the skirt of her purple robe. Her mighty jump took her past the mashed, chaotic ruin of the
Jezzrion’s
stern and she landed on the ships tower deck, but momentum made her roll further down to the bow. She pulled out her sword as she slid and rammed it into the planking, gripping the snake hilt tightly as she slowed; the sword cut a long, deep gash into the planking. The collision had the effect of pushing the
Jezzrion
out of the rocks she was wedged into with a loud violent screech. She then continued her jarring descent down the mountain.

The front of the
Raxion
was a mass of ruined wood and bent metal, the rest of the ship continued to break up as the anchor chain dragged her after the
Jezzrion
.

However, her ultimate demise came in the shape of the Orrinn Tower, still wrapped in fragments of the sail, which the Blacksword had cut from the
Jezzrion
. It dropped from its upward flight, by turning upside down, and gravity did the rest. The whistling noise of the tower’s rapidly speeding fall made Captain Hildek look up as he gripped tightly to his disintegrating ship. The tower hit the
Raxion’s
aft castle, punching through it with incredible speed. Exploding debris and great chunks of snow erupted high into the air, along with Hildek’s broken body.

Without the weight of the
Raxion
to slow her down, the
Jezzrion
picked up speed. The snow and ice slope of the mountain was now not as steep, and it provided a firm platform for Jynn to stand on as she pulled out her sword from the deck and ran to grapple with the Blacksword.

He was ready, sword in hand, as she leapt into the air. Both swords clashed and the fight began. Snow cascaded around them as they fought, making the deck more slippery than it already was. Its white brilliance shone off Jynn’s bright steel blade and made the Blacksword’s a stark silhouette.

They danced around each other, swords clanging with each strike. The momentum of the sliding hull threatened to put them both off balance, and the Blacksword was grateful for the training he had received at the hands of Powyss. He used small amounts of the third element to steady him when his balance failed.

Jynn, too, was as lithe as a cat and very fast; both combatants were staying away from the thrusting swords, looking for an opening as the ruined hull continued to pick up speed, bounce of rocks and smash into trees on its journey down the mountain.

The volatile energies of the Pyromancer had abated slightly during the battle, but the Blacksword had achieved his goal. He also knew in his heart that the prophecy told him that he could not be defeated, and his enemies would fall to the Sword that Rules. Nevertheless, the bespoke clashed harshly with the fact of Jynn’s prowess with the blade. It was taking all of the Blacksword’s skill and concentration to keep up his defence. His speed was with him; every time the Havant got under his defence, he moved away from the sharp metal that always landed inches from his body. He used this to his advantage when she saw an opening and lunged. He ducked, moved behind her, and rammed the pommel of SinDex into her back.