Spelljammer Story Chunk 3

(2043 words)

My little party charged down the deck, and spun to face the battle again in front of the flitter. The fight had entered a stalemate. The remaining eight members of our crew were holding back in a rough circle around the elves. Every couple seconds, the lieutenant would dart forward and try to make a slash or stab at one of us, but everyone managed to dodge or parry before the blow could land. The other marines continued to surround the Songmaster, who had started playing a new tune – something I would have called a jaunty dance number if the circumstances had been different. I knew I had to get to her, stop her from making magic, soon, or the tide could turn even further in their favor. Well, I had magic of my own.
I kept my sword ready on guard, but I stepped back behind Rudy and Olaf, the two halflings I had picked up. They knew to defend me while I was casting. I began a quiet chant, and gestured with my free hand. I spoke the words for power, and formed my hand into the contorted sign for mist. It was tricky to do one-handed, and I had to concentrate. My fingers don't bend that way very easily. But I pulled it off, and spoke the final syllable that set the spell in motion. My energy drained away, but I was pleased to see the spell had worked – mist was rising from a circle a couple yards wide, right by the entrance to the flitter. I couldn't dispel the invisibility, but I could make it less effective.
And not a moment too soon. Just as the mist had thickened into a dense fog, I saw the edge begin to swirl, exactly as if some unseen figure was moving through it. I shouted "There!" at the same moment I lunged with my cutlass. I couldn't try anything fancy, not with no clear target, so my attack was straightforward and easily avoided. The mist swirled again, and I heard the officer curse. Olaf and Rudy made swings at the mist just after me, but it was too late, the elf had clearly retreated back out of the dangerously revealing fog.
Stalemate again. The Naval officer would probably not risk entering the fog again, but we couldn't leave the flitter to find him. The halflings and I kept our weapons ready, and waited for things to change. That didn't take long. There was the crack of pistols firing, the shots so nearly simultaneous that it was hard to tell if there had been one or two discharges. The marine lieutenant was suddenly not standing, but lying full-length on the deck, and a bloody hole had suddenly opened between his eyes. All eyes on deck turned towards the stairs to the poop-deck, where the captain was standing, a smoking pistol in each hand and a dark smile on his face.
I smiled myself. The captain was up to his usual tricks. That particular one was one of his "ignore me, not important" charms. Very useful in a fight, where someone you had forgotten about could very easily kill you. Even I had forgotten about the captain after he had shot the marines and retreated. No doubt he had been carefully aiming and waiting for his perfect shot ever since. And now that he had taken it, the odds were considerably more in our favor. The ring of crew members closed in around the marines and the Songmaster, and a low growl of anticipation was audible from the men of the Jewel.
At that moment, the deck shifted again, as the portside liftstones returned to full power, stopping the slow roll that we had been in since the beginning of the battle. At the same instant, we heard the muffled explosion of cannon fire from below our deck – four blasts first, followed a second later by several more. Again, the battle paused, as all on deck watched the man-o-war, waiting to see what would happen.
The first four balls glowed slightly, making their flight easy to see against the blackness of space. Two of them veered, going off course and sailing harmlessly into the void. But the other two flared as they approached the man-o-war's wing, the light that surrounded them spreading out ahead to overlay the man-o-war briefly. The light faded, but I knew it had had an effect, for the two balls, and the eight immediately following them, smashed into the wing unhindered. Most of the balls merely clipped the wing, breaking off chunks near the edge, or punching holes in unimportant areas. But two of the cannonballs punched through the wing where it narrowed to join the body, and cracks spread to connect the two holes.
I felt like cheering. Now we had a chance. I knew the man-o-war was now in serious trouble. A wound like dangerously weakened the wing. If the ship tried to do any hard maneuvering, or even caught too strong of a spellwind, the wing could very well break off entirely. The Jewel of the Stars could outrun her now. We just had to get underway. But to do that... I turned back to the battle on our deck.
The Songmaster completed the song she had been playing, and shouted a command to the marines, something in elven that I didn't catch. The marines began moving towards the flitter, keeping together around the Songmaster. Our crew barred the way, but each time one of them moved to attack the marines, the Songmaster blew a sharp note on her flute, and the human or halfing suddenly paused, frozen in place by her magic. This was bad – the marines would be at the hatch to the flitter soon, and myself and two halflings couldn't hold the way against five marines and a spellcaster.
But perhaps the unexpected would turn the tide. "Stay here," I called to the two halflings, and moved forward myself, cutlass raised. I quickly closed the distance to the nearest marine, now only eight yards away. I made a slash at his arm, and, as expected, the Songmaster blew another note on her flute. For a second, my mind was filled with a fast dance song, its quick notes threatening to overwhelm all my purposes and plans. But I was more used to dealing with magic than most of the crew of the Jewel, and I knew a trick or two to resit its effects. Before the insidious music took full command of my brain, I focused my eyes on the bright turquoise of the captain's pants, across the deck from me. Everything else faded into the fog of the spell, but I concentrated on keeping that bright spot of color before my eyes. It wavered momentarily, but I held on, and suddenly the music in my head stopped, its force spent.
`I carefully left my face blank, though, and pretended to freeze, the way the other crew had when struck by the spell. The marine I had been attacking raised his cutlass, ready to cut me down – and I suddenly ducked beneath his blow and darted forward between him and the marine to his left. Suddenly, I was inside the ring of marines, and right next to the Songmaster. I brought the hilt of my cutlass up in a punch towards her face, and she flinched backward. At the last second, I pulled the punch, down and backwards, and instead of hitting her square in the nose, the bottom edge of my cutlass caught her flute, and pulled it from her hands. It dropped to the deck with a clatter, and I kicked it out of the ring.
The two marines I had ducked between were spinning to deal with me, and the Songmaster hadn't even paused for breath – her cutlass was already in hand, and coming up for a cut at my throat. Both marines swiped at my back. I was able to twist out of the way of one, but the other was in my blind spot, and I couldn't even try to dodge. The blade struck my back, and I grunted. It was a solid hit -  the marine had muscle, clearly. But my chainmail had saved my spine, and I breathed a prayer of thanks. Dwarven made, and it had cost me all of my share of a very profitable journey. But it was worth every farthing. Light enough to wear under a shirt, but more than strong enough to block a cutlass stroke. Of course, I'd have a bruise beneath it – chainmail flexes, no matter who makes it – but better a bruise than dead.
The Songmaster's blade came up, and I parried hurriedly. Good as the chainmail was, it couldn't stop a blow aimed where it wasn't, and her slash would have opened my throat. I got my cutlass up in time, and the blow deflected harmlessly up. I countered with a thrust of my own, a simple strike at her ribs, and she parried it with equal facility. I estimated that we were evenly matched. We had almost the same reach, and if I was a bit stronger, then she was a bit faster, and it balanced out. Of course, I still had those marines at my back, and that would have been a problem. But now that the Songmaster's magic was disabled, the rest of the crew was safe to move in. Suddenly, five marines were facing seven Jewel crewmen, all out for blood. The marines at my back turned to avoid being skewered with boathooks, and I was left alone to deal with the Songmaster.
We faced off, cutlass on cutlass. I led with another thrust at her torso, finishing with a slight upward shift of the point that had fooled opponents before. Not her, though. Her parry was precise and efficient, using the minimum amount of movement to achieve maximum results. She did not immediately riposte, keeping her blade on guard while her breath whistled through her teeth. I made a quick feint to her left, then made a slash aimed at her upper right arm, hoping to cripple her good arm. My feint took her in for a fraction of a second, I saw her sword begin to move to defend against the attack to her left, but she read my intentions in time, and brought the blade back in a quick parry to the right. My blade was barely deflected, and I saw a few strands of midnight-black hair drift down to the deck. I permitted myself a tight smile. The Songmaster caught my eyes, and a smile of her own suddenly blossomed, as she whistled a chord. My blood chilled as I realized, first, that not all music needs an instrument, and second, that her whistling breath had not been tuneless.
But it was a little too late for the realization. This time, she was not using a spell that would effect me directly, wisely choosing to avoid gambling on my ability to resist it. Instead, her spell took affect on the world around her. She blurred in my vision. Suddenly, it was like I was looking at her through a thick fog, or a very dirty pane of glass. I could barely make out any features at all; she seemed closer to a shapeless blob of color than a recognizable person. I slashed at the middle, where I guessed her torso was, but her cutlass parried me again, and then counterattacked, darting into the gap I left when I struck. I wasn't able to return to guard again quickly enough, and she scored on me, a thrust into my neck. Only the tip of the cutlass caught me, but that was enough. I felt a burning pain as the blade opened my unprotected skin, and I knew I would have a new scar, if I lived through this fight. Luckily, she didn't seem to have opened any major blood vessels, but it was bad enough. If I was unable to strike her, she could whittle me down, taking small cuts that would add up to death eventually. My fear grew.