Spark of War (Progression Fantasy)

"If we're in the clear, what are you still doing up there?" Laze's voice came over the communicator to El's ears.

"Pilish ship is under attack too," El said. "I think there's a seawyrm there."

Laze didn't respond for several seconds. "Both Tas and the captain are saying we should get the Blaze out of here, then. Where there's one, there's usually more."

"Yeah. You go ahead," El said.

"Somehow I knew you'd say that," Laze said quietly.

"Because you would've said the same thing," El responded. "Nidina, any chance you want to back me up on this?"

"Not really, but somebody has to keep you out of trouble," Nidina said, and El glanced down to see the other woman already flying up to join her. "Laze, you and Dayne…"

"Have to stay here in case any more hangnails—or a seawyrm—show up," Laze finished for her. "We know."

"Be careful," Dayne said.

"Always am," El said.

"No, you never are," Nidina corrected. "Which is why I'm going with you. We'll be back soon."

"It's not that bad," El said quietly at the same time she made sure Nidina had caught up, then launched herself across the sky.

"Totally is," Nidina said, already on El's right, her flaming wings spread wide and trailing flaming feathers that fizzled out after a second.

"Whatever," El mumbled. "Laze, what does Tas have to say about these seawyrms? What can we expect?"

"One second," Laze said.

While El waited for the answer, she looked ahead to the Pilish ship. Near constant gunfire rang out across the open sea, faint shouts and screams intermingled as the huge seawyrm thrashed about on the deck. If the weapons were harming it, it showed no sign of it. Curved claws like swords peeled open the ship's hull, while the tail lazily swept left and right, each motion hurling soldiers into the sea. Not that the water was any safer, the surface practically boiling with activity from the hangnails swarming underneath.

"Tas says, and I quote, 'don't die'," Laze finally said into the magic of the armor.

"Always good advice," El deadpanned. "Anything useful?"

"Their scales are tougher than the bears' were, and they're stronger too," Laze said, like she was repeating what she heard. "Breathe jets of water that can cut a man in half, or maybe even a woman with flaming wings. They also seem more intelligent than the average beast. Been known to coordinate ambushes, and retreat when outgunned."

"Nidina, is it just me, or is that seawyrm not killing anybody?" El asked, half the distance to the Pilish warship already covered. Flames ignited, formed into swords, then reverted back to unshaped flames as she went, her mind racing on what she could do against something that size.

"You're right. It's basically ignoring the sailors. Just knocking them into the water occasionally while it rips the ship open," Nidina said. "Must be something inside it wants. What's the plan?"

"As much as I'd love to send you after the soldiers already in the water, we need to make that thing our priority," El said. "Cover me from a distance with your bow while I see if I can get its attention."

"You think my arrows are going to hurt it?"

"Probably not, but worth a try," El said, now close enough the ship was barely a dive away.

"Listen to Tas's advice," Nidina said, a bow igniting in her hand. "Don't die!"

"Same goes for you," El replied, settling on a large, two-handed battle-axe of blue flame. As soon as the weapon solidified in her hands, she nodded once at the Firestorm beside her, then tucked her shoulders and flared her wings.

The ship drastically grew in her vision as she poured on the power, descending so fast, the whistle of her passage reverberated over the sound of gunfire below. The seawyrm, like a fifty-foot-long snake with thick scales, four somewhat short legs, and fins like wings running the length of its back between its shoulders and tail, had its large head wedged into the hole it'd ripped into the ship. That left a nice, long section of neck exposed, and El powered straight for it, axe cocked back.

Bracing as she came in, El's flare ended just before she arrived, and she twisted with all her strength, even going so far as to flare the axe itself mid-swing. The weapon grew to five times its regular size in an instant, fire raging like a barely contained wild beast in the blink of an eye.

El came down on the back of the seawyrm's neck like a guillotine, the surprising force of the blow slamming the beast down to the deck of the ship, metal clanging in response. Blue flames tore at the sapphire scales at the same time, broken pieces of them flying off, but didn't penetrate any deeper than a bare flesh wound.

For her part, El's momentum wasn't about to be stopped, and she spun just enough for her own feet to slam onto the deck. Metal buckled beneath her boots as her knees bent, frost crawling out in an instant from her armor converting the kinetic energy to cold, and the axe in her hands shattered into fizzling whisps.

She couldn't stay there, though, muscles already tensing under the thick scales in front of her. El leaned back and flared her wings before steadying herself, shooting up into the air at the same time the seawyrm gave a great thrash. It tore through the metal of the central structure on the ship, hurling shredded pieces into the water, while the glass on the upper levels completely shattered. Massive jaws lined with thick, curved teeth split in a titanic roar that sent ripples across the surface of the water in all directions, and the head swiveled to find El.

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Sea-blue eyes locked on to her even as she formed a bow in her hand and released her first arrow. Nidina had been firing the entire time, red-flame-arrow after red-flame-arrow plinking against the monster's scales.

El's arrow didn't do any better.

The flames spat and sizzled for an instant when the arrows it—either from some property of the scales themselves, or because they were still wet—but either way, the Firestorm attacks had no effect.

"Tough armor, but if it can't reach us…" Nidina started, but cut off as the jaws opened wider.

El stared down the gullet of the beast, the inside of the seawyrm's mouth a shade of blue that reminded her of a peaceful mountain lake. Nothing else about the beast's mouth was peaceful, though. The teeth looked sharp enough to punch right through El—frost armor or not—while the forked tongue tasted the air. On either side of the mouth, where the top jaws met the bottom, El spotted strange muscles flexing, and she flared her right wing just in time.

Bursting to the left, two jets of water thinner than El's arm pierced through the air right where she'd been, the sound like paper tearing in her ears. And it didn't just stop there, the seawyrm dragging its head across to the side for the powerful gouts of water to follow her path.

As soon as her right flare faded, El repositioned slightly, then flared both wings, shooting her straight up and over the waterjets as they passed underneath her feet.

Powerful, but only in straight lines.

"Watch out for those," El said to Nidina, releasing an arrow to strike the seawyrm in the forehead with about as much effectiveness as a finger-flick.

"You don't say?" Nidina replied, her own arrows practically bouncing off the creature below them. "All we're doing is pissing it off here."

"At least it's focused on us and not the sailors…" El said. That line of thinking lost its usefulness in the next second, when the seawyrm twisted its girth around and its tail absently sent half a dozen men and women plummeting into the water below. "Right, going to need to be more aggressive. I'm going to line up a shot for you. Start powering one up, and be ready for your opening."

Before Nidina had a chance for a snarky reply, El dipped her shoulders and flared straight for the beast. The scathing twin streams of water angled up to try and cut El in half, but she simply rolled her shoulders and ducked underneath the attack. This is nothing compared to dodging the golems back in Guld.

Up, down, up, she avoided the seeking water three more times before the stream finally stopped. In its place, the seawyrm let out a second mighty roar, the sheer volume of it flashing El's armor and dropping the temperature around her. It didn't stop her, though. It didn't even slow her down, and a warhammer of blue flame ignited in her hand.

One flare-up changed her angle, shooting her to go over and above the seawyrm's head and the monster flexed its neck to follow. The jaws opened like it planned to snap her out of the air on the way by, but a dip of her shoulders and a second quick flare at the last second shot her back down at a forty-five-degree angle. With the momentum of a runaway carriage—and the power of twenty horses dragging it—El kept the flare going even as she brought the warhammer around with all her strength.

WHAAAM, the blow slammed into the seawyrm's now-exposed throat, right where the jaws met the neck. Sure, the scales protected the beast from her weapon punching through it, but they didn't do nearly enough to protect the soft flesh underneath. The monster's throat collapsed as she hit it, and the seawyrm's front legs lifted clear off the deck. Up and back the went the front half of the lizard-like body, until the whole head crashed into the ship's metal wall with a second titanic WHAAAM.

El twisted hard in the air so she didn't go crashing into the ship along with the seawyrm, and instead flared her wings to take her straight up. Momentum and inertia threatening to pull every muscle in her body, only her frost armor allowed her to execute the brutal change in direction, but change she did. She cut her flare after only a split second, letting the leftover thrust of it lift her higher up even as she looked below.

The ship's metal building had buckled under the weight of the seawyrm, but the beast's eyes remained wide open, and quickly locked back onto El. With a great shift of its weight—little legs in the front clawing at the air—the seawyrm pulled itself out of the wreckage of the building to go crashing back down to the deck. Beneath its feet, the whole ship rocked from the shifting mass, then rocked a second time as El came down on the back of the monster's head like a falling meteor.

As soon as the thing had started its forward motion, she'd flipped over in the air and flared her wings, hammer once again in hand. This time, when she connected with the top of the seawyrm's skull, something cracked beneath the blow—hopefully its skull—before the whole thing slammed to the deck. At that point, however, the deck had taken enough, the metal collapsing as El hit it along with the seawyrm, and the both of them went crashing below.

El grunted as she smashed into something strong enough to stop her descent, frost armor flashing so brightly, ice sped out from the point of impact all around her. Even with the protection of her armor, though, the landing—if it could be called that—blasted the wind out of her lungs. The hammer was just as gone as her concentration, and she rolled to get onto her hands and knees, the world still spinning around her.

The metal floor beneath her hand didn't seem to be able to hold her down, and she got flung to the side. No, not the side… down. That was the wall, not the floor. A shake of her head cleared some of the cobwebs, and a second attempt actually got her to her hands and knees. Steam blasted around her from broken pipes, and two Pilish soldiers looked at her with really, really wide eyes just ahead.

No, that wasn't quite right. They didn't seem to be looking at her. They were looking over her. Past her.

What could they be…?

Oh, burn it!

Without giving it a second thought, El forced herself to scramble ahead, just barely getting one foot under her before flaring her wings to launch her straight up.

"Be ready!" she shouted into her communication magic as she blasted out of the wreckage of the ship's deck, the wide maw of the lunging seawyrm directly behind her. So close she could practically feel its breath washing over her, she focused on the flaming star in the sky directly ahead of her. The flaming star was getting much larger in her vision.

Closer. Closer. Closer! El flared her left wing, jerking her to the right just in time to avoid the huge flaming arrow that shot through the air right where she'd been a heartbeat before—and straight down the seawyrm's throat.

She spun in the air, letting her flare fade, as a pained, gurgling roar filled the area, the seawyrm collapsing back down to the deck of the ship with smoke and steam gushing out of its mouth. Its small arms clawed at its own neck and face, like it was trying to rip away the pain, but they obviously couldn't reach. With a second whimpering roar, the sapphire-blue beast hurled itself over the side of the ship and into the sea, its mouth open the whole way.

Its tail vanished under the waves a second later, and just like that, it was gone.

For good measure, El charged up one of her plasma arrows, but fatigue came out of nowhere to slap her in the face. The arrow was barely half the size of the two she'd fired off previously. Luckily, it turned out she didn't need it. Within seconds, the churning water calmed as the hangnails quickly followed the seawyrm deeper.

El let the arrow fade without releasing it, took one look at the Pilish ship—they'd survive—then signalled to Nidina and started back to meet with the others.

It'd been a long day.