they continued to hold the surrounded elves hostage and waited for the outcome of the reverse raiding party of one.
They heard a few yells, and a shot from a pistol as well. A short sword clattered to the deck of the Voidhawk a moment later, and shortly after the body of an elf crumbled to it. The elf groaned and raised himself up, one arm clearly broken and blood running from his nose.
Jenna laughed a moment later, recognizing the wounded elf as Duballin. He spat out some blood and then tried to scramble away when Keshira landed gracefully on the deck behind him. Dexter chuckled a little as well, seeing the tables turned, then his laugh died when he saw Keshira.
Her baggy clothing had been hanging with many cuts and tears in it from the fight already, but now it was even worse. It scarcely offered any modesty, though she seemed unconcerned about it. More importantly than the ruined clothing was the long sword that was sticking through her side.
“Doesn’t that hurt?” Rosh could not stop himself from asking.
Keshira glanced down at it then up at Dexter and Rosh. “Yes,” she said. “It does.”
“Gods, woman, take it out!”
“No!” Jenna said, countering Rosh’s suggestion. “If you remove it you might bleed out. We need Bekka to have a look at it.”
Keshira nodded. “I will survive.”
Dexter glanced at her again, then back to Duballin. “I’m not for knowing much about elves,” he said, walking closer to him and relying upon his men to keep the other elves from doing anything.
“But I’d wager that your Emperor doesn’t take to failure kindly,” he continued. “So it’s not going to look good for you when I send you back on that ship with a message to leave us be.”
His face, already white from pain, paled even more at the thought of the fate Dexter had laid out for him. “Kill me you unworthy human coward!” Duballin spat out at him.
Dexter just chuckled. He turned to the other elves. “Stand down or else.”
“Or else what, you’ll kill them? After proving you’re too much of a worm to do it to me?” Duballin raged.
Dexter walked over to Keshira and reached out until his hand was on the hilt of the sword driven through her side. His eyes searched hers, looking for a sign of fear. He saw nothing but blind acceptance of him. He yanked the sword straight out, pulling it free of her. He was a little shaken and felt weak kneed at the momentary pain that had flooded her eyes, but as he continued to look at her he saw it fade. He held the sword up and studied it.
“Keshira, are you alright?” he asked while his eyes focused on the sword. He did not want to look at her right yet, since his stomach still felt a little uneasy.
“Yes, Captain, I will live,” she said, happy to please him with an answer if not more.
“This is a nice blade,” Dexter said, swinging it and watching her blood fly off of it as though it was water rolling off of a duck’s back. It had an excellent balance to it and, if it could plunge through her magical skin so easily, he knew a very sharp edge.
“The sword is magical, Captain,” Keshira informed him.
“What? How do you know that?” Dexter asked, surprised.
“I can sense it, it is part of my powers, awareness of magic about me,” Keshira said. “He wears a magical ring on his finger and the pouch about his neck has some magic as well.”
Dexter blinked, surprised. He turned back to Duballin and stripped the three rings off his fingers, figuring she could tell him which one later, and yanked on the pouch, snapping the leather cord holding it. Dexter turned away from the defeated elf and looked at the still resistant prisoners.
“Keshira, the one in the middle, break his fingers,” Dexter said.
She started forward immediately towards the three elves. They tried to back away further but only the edge of the boat awaited them. They looked at each other as Keshira advanced relentless on them. Swords raised defensively they waited until she got close to them, then finally the one in the middle threw his down.
The others followed suit, though Keshira continued to follow the bidding of her Master. She reached out quickly, grabbing his arm and easily overpowering the elf. Her hand slid up his arm and clutched his closed fist in hers and she began to squeeze.
“Keshira, stop!” Dexter called out to her, glad his bluff had worked and fearful that it had almost not been a bluff.
She let him go and retreated. The elf clutched his hand, face pale with the pain the short bit of pressure she applied caused him.
“Kragor, keep an eye on them,” Dexter said. He glanced at Keshira and saw that the bleeding from the sword wound in her belly had actually stopped. He smiled and added, “Keshira, you too.”
She smiled brilliantly and turned to face them. Dexter watched her for a moment then shook his head. “Rosh, Jodyne, Jenna… with me. Let’s make sure they can’t turn around and come at us again.”
Dexter replaced the long sword in his scabbard with the one he had taken from the elf and then climbed up a rope onto the deck of the scout ship. Aboard it he saw two more bodies of dead elves. Apparently Keshira had met with considerable resistance. He glanced around and looked up to the turret with the heavy ballista in it.
“Rosh, get that thing down. I want it,” Dexter said, pointing at it.
The large man grunted and headed off into the ship to climb up on top and work on the mounts that had it secured to the deck. Jenna and Jodyne followed him inside, with any one of them picking up things along the way that they took a fancy to. Jodyne found the galley shortly and busied herself with taking what she could from them to bolster her own stores. Dexter reminded her to leave enough for them to survive on.
Jenna amassed a stockpile of spare weaponry, having to resort to filling a large canvas sack she found with the miscellaneous arms. She lugged it back to the front deck and let it sit there, then returned, searching for more. In the cargo hold she found the spare powder kegs, which she excitedly picked up and carried to the main deck one at a time.
While Jenna and Jodyne rifled through the ships stores, Dexter visited the bridge and studied the star charts that Duballin’s ship possessed. He made note of several of them he was unfamiliar with, taking them and shoving them into a leather scroll case. A few others that he was familiar with had some additional points of interest on them that he committed to memory. The only other item of interest was a locked strongbox in the bridge, but even after breaking the lock he found little that appealed to him save some letters to family and friends that spoke of Duballin’s journey and his various exploits for Emperor and country.
They made their way back to the Voidhawk, Dexter calling Keshira over to help move the heavier items from ship to ship. Dexter joined Kragor in watching their captives, both speculating softly to themselves about what might happen to the surviving elves. Duballin passed in and out of consciousness from the pain of his broken arm and other injuries, making his presence more of an amusement than a threat to the old friends.
When they finished, they forced the elves back aboard the scout ship, making the survivors carry their wounded leader. The corpses of the elves that littered the deck of the Voidhawk were similarly hoisted onto the deck of the scout ship, again at the discomfort of the elven sailors that had been captured. Sometime later they finally untied the ropes binding the two ships and pushed the scout ship free of the Voidhawk. With only four elves remaining, and one of them wounded, the elven ship limped away slowly.
Dexter gave the orders and brought the ship around to the derelict fighter that was flying through space. They carefully pulled up alongside it so that Jenna could board it and look for supplies. She acquired two undamaged casks of powder and, carefully handing each of the five glass flasks over singly, the alchemist’s fire still aboard the ship. With the volatile nature of it largely contained, Kragor went to work stripping the living wood of the fighter apart and storing it in the steerage section of the Voidhawk to use repairing the damage to the ship from the fight.
“Hell of a day, Captain,” Jenna said as the Voidhawk began to sail away from the scene of the battle and return to cruising speed.
“Aye, good fight,” Rosh agreed, nodding his head in praise as he finished tying down a line.
Dexter just chuckled. “I should replace Bekka on the helm. Rosh, we need to get you trained on that pretty quick here, methinks.”
A thump from below broke his concentration. It was followed by the roar of an angry dwarf. Dexter hurried down the aft stairs, followed by the other two, and chuckled when he saw a fuming dwarf holding the door to the cargo bay shut that they had locked the strange woman in.
“Rosh, you’ve got some work to do,” Dexter said with a chuckle, heading past Kragor and up the
