Chương 567: Chapter Five Hundred and Fifty-Two - I Have the High Sky

About an hour later, the pirate ship turned, pointing its front in the same direction as us and gaining a bit of altitude. It was still about two, maybe two and a quarter kilometres away, far enough that we couldn't make out too many details with the naked eye. What I could see was that it had a large crew, and while they didn't have uniforms or anything, they did seem like they were moving with some good amount of coordination.

The crew was also all human from what I could tell, which kind of fit with the vehicle being from Pyrowalk. The Beaver and the other ships in the convoy messaged each other back and forth, trying to come up with a plan, but it seemed like the Pyrowalkian ships just wanted to keep flying as quickly as they could and hope that they could outrun the pirates... which made no sense to me. The pirate had caught up. It was staying caught up as well. There was no question that they'd be run down.

"That doesn't make sense," I complained.

"It does," Amaryllis said.

"You're just not thinking about it from the right angle. Those merchants aren't warriors or fighters or even explorers. They're not ready to turn around and fight quite so easily. They'll run first."

"But they'll be picked off," I said.

"One of them will," Amaryllis said.

"The pirates will have a meal out of them, but by the time boarding is complete, the others will have fled." I stared. I... I understood it, in a way. It only made sense. But it was also so awful. Didn't they have friends across ships? Bastion came up next to me, head craned back to see the pirate ship above.

"I imagine they're planning to make use of the night," he said.

"Look at the underside. There are large spotlights on swivels and the ship is lined with smaller lamps, more than is usual, I suspect. They'll likely make sure that the entire convoy knows that they're there all night, then demand surrender in the morning after the crews are all tired from the waiting." I nodded along, that made some sense.

"That makes sense, I guess. I imagine that there's no fighting at night," I said.

"Unless we do it," Amaryllis said. She glanced over to the horizon, where the sun was very much about to set.

"Did you bring this up for a reason, Bastion?"

"Yes. And I suspect you have a very similar train of thought," he said. I sure didn't. But my friends were kind enough to explain their idea to me, and I agreed that it was better than any plan that involved just flying in a straight line and hoping for the best. Eventually we brought Awen in too, because the plan would require her to do some things to the Beaver's engine that it wasn't meant to do all the time. Clive was informed too, then the rest of the crew. We had everyone gear up as best we could.

Every weapon, any armour we had and then a good hearty meal too. I looked around, then felt a small pit of guilt in my tummy. So many of my friends were under-armoured. The Scallywags and the rest of the ship's main crew didn't have any armour at all. I made a mental note to make sure to change that. It might be heavy to carry around, but gambesons for everyone wouldn't be that expensive or heavy. Maybe some helmets too, and at least a few more crossbows.

So far the threats we'd faced were all so big that more armour wouldn't help much, but now it felt like it might make a serious difference. The first step of the plan involved telling the ship ahead of us--the Cramped --what we were going to do. They protested, but we moved on anyway. An hour after the sun dipped behind the horizon we turned the Beaver and aimed to the starboard side of the ship ahead and gently sped up, gaining speed as we kicked the engine to full.

The ships ahead lit up their lights, and a lot of them were pointed upwards, towards the pirates, just as we'd asked. So they were willing to go that far, at least. Then, while we were accelerating, Amaryllis cast a complicated spell behind us with some help from Awen and Desiree. Awen because she knew some light magic tricks, and Desiree because she was just a pretty decent caster. The spell created a bunch of small, dim, floating lights behind us, tied to the ship ahead.

The idea being that from above and from so far away, the pirates would think that the Beaver was still trailing after the others. We had already snuffed out every light on the Beaver, turning the deck dark and making it really hard to see, but we needed that. Unauthorized tale usage: if you spot this story on Amazon, report the violation. The pirate ship was gently following along after the convoy, unaware of the deception so far.

The Beaver, however, was already hiding in the shadow of the convoy and picking up speed. As we hit just about our fastest velocity, we cut the engine to go silent and then dropped a bunch of ballast. Mostly it was water-weight. Awen spun up the gravity engine off of a flywheel, which was far quieter, and we pumped more gas into the balloons. The Beaver jumped upwards, rising so fast that I felt like I was being pushed down into the deck.

All of my ears popped, and I could see that we were soon even with the pirate ship, then above it.

"Slight port!" I called back.

"Aye!" Clive replied before turning the wheel towards the pirates. I was chewing on the end of one ear as we flew over them, crossing just behind the pirate ship.

"Slight starboard," I said. In the silent darkness, my voice carried well. Clive turned us the other way, and soon we were flying along the pirate ship, only a good hundred metres or so above it. Slowly, we allowed ourselves to drift lower. Looking down, it seemed like the pirates hadn't noticed us, which was brilliant. They were planning on using the dark to their advantage, to stress out the merchants and keep them on edge, and yet we were able to do that too.

It was a moonless night, and we could be quiet and sneaky as well.

"Calamity," I called out softly.

"Your show."

"Alright, capt'n," he said. He planted a foot on the starboard railing, then nocked an arrow that he pulled back with a grunt of effort. His bow strained. The heavy arrow, with its glass-bulb tip, caught the light spilling off the pirate ship. Then Amaryllis, Desiree, Awen, and Caprica all touched the arrow in turn. Soon it was glowing. Not too brightly, but I could see the wavering magic of a half-dozen spells stuck to it. He loosed. The arrow hissed down, far too fast to follow with the naked eye.

I leaned over the side of the Beaver and squinted down. Where had it... There was a spark that went off inside the pirate ship's balloon, a flash of orange light within the canvas covering.

"Keep firing," Bastion said.

"It didn't catch," Awen said.

"They might have some sort of fire-suppression."

"Let's blast a bigger hole, then," Calamity chuckled. The next arrow detonated the moment it hit the ship. Calamity had aimed for one of the thin metal bands that circled the airframe. There was a loud crack and a cup-full of burning liquid was splashed over the canvas. It sputtered at first, then caught properly. The fire didn't last all that long, but it did leave a hole large enough to crawl into. Calamity giggled, then fired again, and again, and again.

The twang of his bow filled the air with a regular beat, one arrow every ten seconds or so... and he was a crackshot with them. Each one hit a band, sliced through a rope, or punctured something that looked important within. The pirates, of course, caught on soon enough. There were shouts, and the ship turned. There was a small observation post on the very top, and they lit up a spell-powered spotlight within and soon discovered the Beaver hovering above.

"Everyone, fire!" I shouted before aiming down and launching my own magical attack. My little fireballs barely reached the pirate ship... but they did reach. A dozen little pops as splashes of magical fire splattered against the canvas balloon. The crew's spells weren't much better. The Scallywags had a few simple spells too, which helped to fill the air with a lot of flickering lights, but it was my more levelled, mage-like friends who had the real punchy spells.

Desiree cast something she called fox-fire at the ship, summoning a small two-tailed fox made of fire that ran along the top of the ship, each step leaving behind a small puddle of fire. Amaryllis muttered under her breath for a long time, then she pointed her spell-dagger down and the clear sky filled with blinding light as a bolt of what felt like real lightning came out of the heavens and rammed right into the observation post at the top of the ship.

The spell-powered spotlight within popped and I swear I could see the skeletons of the pirates within for a moment. The lightning coursed through the ship, they shot out the bottom on its way to the ground. Amaryllis backed up, breathing heavy.

"That'll wake them up," she said. I nodded. My ears rang, and we weren't done yet!