63. Battle of the Floating Fortress - Part Three
What unfolded in the next few moments is still a blur in my mind. The tallow-hats, candles blazing from the brims of their crushed funnel hats, charged forward onto the deck of the Rainseeker and set about the crew with long-scythes, pitch-irons and razor-pikes. As I dodged swinging blades and grappling bodies, I was able to discharge my phraxpistol into the melee and bring down several of the burly invaders. But all too soon, my luck ran out.
I stepped aside as a mean-faced goblin with half a nose and an empty socket where an eye once had been, lashed out at me with a sabre. The next instant, I felt a crushing blow to the back of my head and pitched forward into blackness.
When I came round, the deck fight was over. I was lying in a pool of blood - thankfully most of it not my own - amongst the stricken bodies of tallow-hats felled by the disciplined phraxmusket fire of the Rainseeker’s crew. Towering protectively over me and clutching a chunk of balustrade as a makeshift club, was Kultuft, my nameless one. Beside him stood Captain Gart Ironshank. Seeing me stir, the captain offered me his hand and helped me to my feet.
‘That was a close-run thing, Forden,’ he said ruefully, ‘and you seemed to be in the thick of it. Took a nasty blow to the head, I see…’
Before I had a chance to answer, there came a roar from the prow of the Rainseeker as its phraxcannon was discharged. Ahead of us, the central tower of the sumpwood stockade into which the tallow-hats had retreated to make a final stand exploded. A mass of splinters and burning shards of sumpwood rained down on us as, through the steam and smoke, the dazed looking defenders of the floating fortress threw down their tallow-hats and stamped on their candles.
At this signal of surrender, the burly, battle-scarred crew around us gave a mighty cheer and sky pirate captain, Throg Skullbaiter, made his way down from the helm of the Rainseeker.
‘Well fought, lads!’ he announced. ‘Now let’s free the slaves and put a torch to this accursed fortress.’
The crew obeyed, prising open the heavy trapdoors in the wooden floor of the stockade and freeing a hundred or so ragged, gaunt-faced captives below. Trogs, slaughterers, oakelves and woodtrolls - the tallow-hats had enslaved a cross section of midwoods’ dwellers after plundering their settlements and razing them to the ground.
Now it was the tallow-hats’ turn to taste their own medicine. Their leader, a hard-faced fourthling by the name of Lemlott Scrave lay mortally wounded in the smouldering ruins of the stockade and angrily waved away all offers of help. Turning away, Captain Skullbaiter ushered the freed slaves and the captured tallow-hats, now bare headed and grim faced, on board the sky pirate ship and threw the phraxchamber into reverse.
With a creaking and splintering sound, the Rainseeker broke away from the stockade and turned about, its funnel belching steam. From the deck, the captain threw a burning torch down into the wrecked stockade, which had begun to list badly to one side as its gantries and turrets succumbed to the flames.
Then, as the sky galleon gained speed, the floating fortress behind us rose in a great ball of flame and shot up into Open Sky. The sky pirate turned to Gart, Kultuft and me, then nodded towards our phrax-lighter, the Wind Zephyr.
‘Time to cut you loose,’ he said…
