Spark of War (Progression Fantasy)

"You sure we shouldn't go with them?" Laze asked El for the third time where they stood on the dock. The last of the civvies were loading onto the heavy ship, only to quickly vanish below-decks.

It didn't take much for El's imagination to show the exhausted refugees collapsing in the first open space they found with plans to sleep all the way to Wirock. And nobody could fault them for it. They've earned their rest, now that the journey is over.

"No. We'd have to leave at some point, and our wings would be hard to miss in the middle of the sea," El said. "It's better they get away without anything drawing attention to them."

"You could come all the way to Wirock with us," Tas said as he sauntered down the dock towards them. With a steaming cup of coffee in one hand, there was an obvious weight lifted from his shoulders by delivering his charges.

"The more I think about it, the more I think it's better we don't," El said. "At least not yet. If the Wirockians really live forever in their golem bodies, there are bound to be some who were there when we took the Ember. Or when we stole the process that lets them change bodies. Either way, we may not get a very warm welcome at all.

"Which is why I'm counting on you, Tas," El said. "Put in a good word for us?"

"We wouldn't have even made it this far if you hadn't found us when those bears were chasing us," Tas said. "A good word is putting it mildly. Everybody on that ship," he thumbed over his shoulder with his free hand, "owes you their lives. Uh, not the sailors, I guess. But everybody who just got on. They'll all say the same thing."

"Thanks," El said, but got cut off before she could say more by Macer's voice from the bow of the ship.

"Tas, get your ass on the boat. We're leaving!" Macer said.

"It's not a boat, lass," a gruff man said as he walked by her. "It's a ship. If you want to row yourself to Wirock, I can show you to a boat."

"Don't tempt her," Tas called up to the grinning man. "She'd do it just to prove she could."

"I could also put a bullet through your coffee cup just to prove I could," Macer said, actually unslinging her rifle from where it hung over her shoulder.

"Aaaaaaand that's my cue to go," Tas said. Walking backwards, he raised his cup to the four Firestorm as if toasting them. "Dayne, my good man, keep these fine women out of trouble. And, actually, how did you end up being the lucky lone man traveling with three beauties?"

"I make good soup," Dayne said simply.

Tas actually missed a step walking backwards, the coffee sloshing out of his cup before he caught himself. "Good soup, huh? I'll remember that. Nidina." Tas bowed. "My coffee pot is always open in trade for more stories."

"Only if you have something better than those burning awful biscuits next time," Nidina said.

"They weren't biscuits," Macer said. "They were actual rocks."

"Sure tasted like it," Nidina said.

"Laze, your mind is sharper than El's sword, and your heart bigger than Macer's…"

"TAS!" Macer threatened.

"…ammo pouch," Tas finished, face forcefully neutral. "El… El, you scare me like no other person I've ever met. I'm glad you're on our side."

"Seriously?" El said, taking a step forward, only for Laze to grab her arm, and for Tas to turn on his heel and jog up the ramp to the ship's deck. "Until we meet again!" Another toast with his cup before he brought it to his lips and threw his head back. "And away!"

"Casting off isn't that quick there, laddy," the grinning man said to him. "It'll be a bit before we're underway. You can go back down and do a few more goodbyes."

Tas looked down at El—and the blue flames sparking in her hand—then quickly shook his head. "I wouldn't want to cause any further delays," he said to the sailor, but his face turned serious as he looked down at the Firestorm. "We'll be waiting for your in Wirock. Good luck here. Pili isn't as welcoming as it used to be. Stay sharp."

"Always do," El said.

"And dramatic," Laze added, elbowing El gently in the ribs.

With that, Tas gave them the Pilish salute, and vanished below-decks. Almost twenty minutes after that, the ship was finally away from the docks and setting out, the gentle waves crashing against the prow.

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"We'll wait until the ship is out of sight, then take to the skies," El said, watching as the boat exited the protected inlet. "Won't have to worry about attracting the wrong kind of attention to civvies who aren't with us anymore, and we'll be able to move a lot faster. We've only got a few days before we have to go pick up Nexin and Sol, and there's a lot to do."

"There's a spot up the hill here we can watch from," Dayne said. "Good view of the water, and we won't be on the road in case a patrol wanders by."

"Good thinking," El said. "Lead the way."

And Dayne did just that, taking the group up through a nearby forest of stone spikes to find a surprising clearing with an excellent view of the water.

"The sunset is going to be gorgeous from here," Laze said, walking to the edge of the cliff. "Almost like it was made for it."

El followed her friend to stand with her toes hanging off the edge to the sheer, hundred-foot drop to the water below. The reflecting sunlight was already like a line of fire across the sea, simultaneously rippling and shimmering. Off to her left, the ship with Tas and his charges was just exiting the protected inlet, though at least they didn't have to face rough seas at the beginning of this leg of their journey.

"I hope they have smooth sailing," Laze said, as if reading El's thoughts.

"Hard to imagine a day as beautiful as this one turning bad," El replied, enjoying the breeze through her hair and across her skin. It's only been a few days since we left Balacin, but it feels like we've been running and fighting for weeks. "You got any of that soup you're so famous for, Dayne?"

"Already setting it up," the man replied, and El glanced over her shoulder to see him unfolding the collapsible tripod and pot.

"Yup, this is totally why we took him instead of Teth or one of the others," Nidina said.

"Nothing to do with Teth's escalating rhymes at all, I'm sure," Laze said.

"I swear, it's like he's trying to make up for the time he was iced," Nidina groaned. "Our parents almost begged me to convince you to take him with us. Good taste—and Teth being in the room—was the only thing that held them back."

"I'm sure Macer would've shot him," Laze said.

"At least twice," El added.

"Do you think their—what did they call them?—their bullets could get through our flame armor?" Nidina asked as she settled down beside the bowl.

"The pistols? No," Dayne said, igniting one of his electrum hilts under the bowl to heat the water. "Even the rifles probably couldn't. At least not with one shot. Those cannons on the fort walls, though? I wouldn't want to test it."

"They shoot huge, physical projectiles," El said. "Even if our armor absorbed the impact and transferred most of the kinetic energy to heat—or cold in my case—I doubt it'd take all of it. We'd get punted."

"Like when Nexin hits you in practice?" Laze asked, elbowing El in the ribs.

"Yes, exactly like that," El said flatly. "Why don't you spar with him next time so you know how it feels?"

"He goes easy on her," Nidina said.

"He does!" Laze said… proudly?

"On us too," Dayne said. "He only tries against El."

El finally turned from the view of the sea to shake her head at her friends. "No, he goes easy on me too. You've never really seen him when he gets serious. When he fought Sol—the Stormbringer—or came back to save me from the Ignitio… it's like nothing you've ever seen."

"It's like that arrow you did in the tunnel, right?" Laze asked.

"Okay, it's like something you've seen." El glared at her friend. "On a whole different level, though. He concentrates his fire so much, it becomes this plasma that… that… just seems like it could cut through almost anything. And the way he moves, he just vanishes." El snapped her fingers. "Gone."

"I wish I could see it," Laze said dreamily.

"You probably don't, really." Dayne added the contents of some small packets he kept in his pack to the pot.

"Why not?"

"Because if he's fighting that seriously, we're in a bad situation."

"Yeah, I pretty much had my Spark ripped out of me the first time I saw it. Oh, and almost died at least six times the second time I saw it. Not to mention the whole end of the world thing with the Pyre waking up." El rubbed her hands together as she watched the soup. Soon.

"Shouldn't be any more forgotten gods waking up in the foreseeable future," Laze said. "I think we're safe."

"Safe is relative." Dayne methodically stirred his spoon three times clockwise in the pot, then paused, and just as carefully went three times in the opposite direction. Three, then three. Three, then three, he kept up the pacing so evenly, El could've used it to measure time more accurately than any clock.

"Yeah, but right now, we're safe," Laze said, gesturing at the four Firestorm. "And so are the civvies we just spent the last few days keeping out of the jaws of everything we ran into. Seriously, why does everything in this country want to eat its people?"

"Because there isn't much else to eat," Dayne said, pointing at the barren stone around them.

"Man has a point." El's eyes stayed locked on the pot, the fragrant steam finally rising from within to reach her nose. No meat in it or anything, but that didn't matter; her stomach was already shivering in anticipation.

She wiped the back of her hand across her mouth just to make sure she wasn't drooling.

"Hey, Nidina, what are you doing?" Laze's voice cut through El's focus on the soup—Soooon!—and El grudgingly tore her eyes from the pot to where Nidina was sitting.

Correction, where she had been sitting, the spot now empty. El turned her head to look for her friend, then completely had to shift how she was sitting before she found Nidina standing at the lookout-edge.

"Nidina?" Laze asked again when the other woman didn't respond to the question.

Hand above her eyes like she was trying to shield them from the sunlight, the woman finally spoke. "Burn it. Somebody come here and tell me I'm imagining this."

"Imagining what?" El stood without waiting for an answer, something about the tone of her friend's voice.

"There, just coming out of that bright reflection in the sea. Is that the warship we saw earlier?" Nidina asked. "It's not, right? It's my imagination. Tell me it is."

El didn't answer immediately, instead squinting against the glare until she found what Nidina had to be talking about. Just breaching the left side of the wide liquid sunshine, the sharp bow of a huge metal warship cut its way through the waves.

And straight for the Wirockian ship carrying all the Pilish refugees.

"That's not your imagination, Nidina," El said. "And the civvies are not safe. The Pilish ship is heading right for them."

"Plan?" Laze asked.

El turned to Dayne. "Sorry, the soup's going to have to wait."