Two against one is never good odds, and the curved knife edged those odds even more in their favor. Some men may boast of their combat prowess in a grandiose manner, stating “Two against one, it was hardly a fair fight, for them!” I have never made such a braggartly statement, nor is it likely that I ever will as such is not my nature. But even in the midst of that difficult situation, I felt no great uncertainty as to the outcome.
Based on my narrative thus far, some may be inclined to believe that I rely on my unusual and quite dramatic abilities to extricate myself from any peril. However, while it is true that I do not hesitate to use those abilities, such as the time distortion I have heretofore described in great detail, I also must assert that it is in the manner of a tool, much like a carpenter uses a hammer or saw, and not in the totally reliant way a man with a broken leg uses a crutch. I only endeavor to clarify this matter so that anyone reading it will know that I am not restricted in my behavior as is the proverbial “one trick pony.”
As it was still, in the grand scheme of things, only recently that I had lost my memory and then begun to gradually rediscover various skills and abilities which I possessed, it was still a surprise when a skill set outside my consciousness manifested itself. While not as implausible or dramatic as moving through time at a different rate, the hand to hand combat skills that were reflexively triggered on that airship were nonetheless quite useful.
I knew I must reach the crewmen moving towards what I assumed must be a speaking tube of sorts, and then deal with the knife wielder secondarily. I was only marginally closer to the first crewman, but two quick steps brought me within reach. At this point I had no conscious plan, and it was slightly disconcerting to have my body react to the situation from the perspective of an observer.
In the graceful yet trained manner I have since seen Asian fighters employ, my left foot shot out, arcing in the opposite direction of the running man and caught him square in his stomach. Scarce had he bent over when the second man thrust at me from the side with his knife, no doubt attempting impale me. I spun towards him, and at the same time knocked the knife from his hand and hit him several times in rapid succession with both of my hands, one after the other.
I can now do as much, and more with full knowledge of my actions, but at the time I could not tell you exactly where I struck him. The only thing I can say with any certainty is that when I turned towards him, but before my left foot even touched the ground, his eyes went blank and he fell to the deck, quite unconscious.
Still recovering from being struck by the door upon my initial entry into the room, the third crewman was just now pushing himself to a kneeling position from the deck. Although most unchivalrous of me, I didn’t give him a chance to regain his feet before kicking him in the side of the head and sending him to the deck once more. I would have to ensure the three ceased to be a threat, but took an instant to toss the keys through the still open door, between the bars of the cage to Threm, who caught them deftly enough.
Once I saw the keys in Threms’ hand I returned my attention to the incapacitated crewmen and contemplated what to do with them. A quick glance out the open hatch showed that the airship was descending over a town or city. Dim red lights in a circular pattern surrounding an open area almost directly below indicated a probable landing area, although one constructed so as not be visible from afar.
In any case, I did not seriously consider throwing the three out to their deaths as it was somehow distasteful to me in their helpless condition. I rendered the still gasping man unconscious as gently as I could and divested him of his clothing as he was the closest to my size. By the time I was finished, Threm entered assisting the weakened pilot to walk. The other man from the cage followed. He nodded when he saw me, “Sorceror, if you do not mind, I would take my chances escaping with you.”
I nodded back to him, laughing “I am no sorcerer, but you are welcome nonetheless. I am John, this is Threm, and you are?” He accepted my extended hand, although somewhat hesitantly. “I am called Mak.” I shook his hand, then released it, remaining aware of the need to move quickly and dispense with most pleasantries. “Very well then Mak, let’s get out of here.”
Threm quickly caught on to what I was doing and began removing the clothing from another of them in order to dress the pilot. In short order the pilot, the other escapee, and I were wearing the nondescript clothing of airshipmen leaving Threm in his own garments due to his size. We drug the three into the cage and quickly bound and gagged them before locking the gate.
Returning to the aft compartment, I looked down again through the hatch and saw that we were significantly closer to the ground than before, close enough in fact to distinguish figures moving along the ground in preparation for the landing, or docking as it were.
I began formulating a plan as I realized that the search most likely initiated from my encounter with the girl in the cabin must reach us soon. Attempting to hide on the ship successfully seemed a remote possibility due to our unfamiliarity with its layout, so I discarded that idea. Likewise, attempting to make our way upwards and flee via several of the suspension sacks seemed overly risky.
As I was pondering other options and about to ask Threm for his advice, the speaking tube whistled briefly, apparently triggered from elsewhere. No sooner had I stepped to it, flipped opened the whistling end cap than an irritated voice carried through the tube quite well, “Laggards! Get that guide-line lowered now or you’re the first ballast I jettison when we lift off.”
Even while I replied “Right Away Sir,” through the speaking tube, I noticed that the deep voiced one was already moving, feeding a large rope, the looped end of which hung suspended over the open cargo hatch, out into the space below. Apparently, he had some knowledge not only of where we were going, but of airship operations as well. I decided to ask him about it later, should we manage to extricate ourselves.
I noticed something in very short order. Next to the cargo hatch, leaning against one wall was a wooden stretcher of sorts. It even had a hook which I surmised would fit through the loop in the line that Mak was starting to lower. Granted, the idea that began materializing in my thoughts was a tenuous one, but facing immediate discovery on the airship next to the disabled guards was not an option I relished.
“Mak, wait!” I pointed to the stretcher. “Threm, get the pilot on there.” I explained my plan to them and both nodded in agreement, although Threm’s nod I noticed was a tense one as he obviously held some reservations concerning the soundness of my proposal. “Do you have any other ideas?” I asked him in a friendly tone, affecting a smile despite my apprehension.
Threm retrieved the pilot and began securing him into the stretcher before answering. “If I had a better idea, I would tell you Jahn. It is clear that our options are limited and time is of the essence.” I nodded and helped with one of the straps. Mak spent a second or two staring at Threm with a curious expression on his face, but then shook his head and went about retrieving some other items from the room.
I disliked leaving Threm on the airship, even for the short time it took to lower Mak, the pilot and I to the ground below, but he was the strongest of us, and my hand still smarted from sliding down the rope when I fell from the airship previously. “I will climb down as soon as you reach the ground.” Threm tried to reassure me, “Do not worry, I am a good climber.” Frankly it wasn’t Threm’s climbing ability that concerned me. I was more worried about what would happen once we reached the ground, especially once someone on the airship realized we had escaped or our subterfuge was revealed to those below.
It took perhaps a minute for the stretcher to complete its journey downward with Mak and I straddling on opposite sides for balance and holding the rope for support. But once there was truly no turning back, my nerves calmed somewhat and I began searching the area below for a likely escape route. One side of the landing area was well lit, and significantly more populated than the other side. I spent several secon
ds looking carefully in the other direction, towards the darker areas, with the idea that we would be noticed less that way before discarding the thought.
The pilot was wounded, and my plan hinged on us seeming a normal enough part of the airship landing to be able to get away right under their noses. I just hoped someone would direct Mak, Threm and I towards whatever passed for a hospital so that we could simply fade from the ground crew’s focus.
When Mak and I landed, Mak would address whoever approached and simply tell them that he needed to get the ‘injured crewmember’ and I to the hospital right away, and that Threm would help carry the stretcher, as one of my hands had been burnt. I indicated the direction we should take with a nod to Mak, and he seemed to understand.
Seconds later we were on the ground. None of the ground crew waiting to receive and secure mooring lines paid us any mind, and I was relieved in that respect. However a man who was dressed in a different enough, and somewhat fancy manner, did take note and approach. He was followed closely by another man dressed in a plain tunic, but who carried a sheaf of papers and a writing instrument.
Mak straightened his clothing then unhesitatingly stepped toward the man. The fancy dressed man tapped Mak in the chest with a long pointer, similar to a riding crop in length but without the flexible end. His first words were accented in a manner that rendered them unintelligible to me, but as Mak replied, sounding notably confident despite our precarious situation, I caught their meaning. “We need to get that man to the infirmary,” Mak said, pointing to the stretcher. “He requires immediate care.”
The man pursed his lips and continued absentmindedly tapping Mak’s chest with the pointer. “But you were not listed on the manifest or disembarkation voucher sent down?” As the man spoke he redirected the pointer at the papers held by his helper, tapping them instead. “This is highly irregular.”
In a display of incredibly bad timing, horrific luck, or a combination of the two, Threm dropped the last foot or so to the ground behind me after lowering himself by the rope. “And WHO is he?” the man said, not missing a beat as he pointed his black stick at Threm.
Mak attempted to cover as best as he could, but I could hear his confidence waver a bit as he explained, “We need him to carry the stretcher, because this one’s hand was burned… He needs care as well. The captain did not want to distract the…”
The man with the pointer turned away from Mak, obviously ignoring him and stepping towards me. He pushed the hand I had been dramatically favoring upwards with his pointer, in order to get a closer look. To my shock and apparently his, my hand was almost completely healed from the rope burn I had received only a short time ago.
He was obviously reticent to believe our story and I saw him take a deeper inhalation than usual as he turned his head, and feared he might be on the verge of summoning guards of some sort to detain us. Mak had done his best and had not convinced the man of our mission, so I opted for a more direct approach.
Willing myself into the state of temporal acceleration, I noticed one of the man’s blinks slow to nearly a standstill and realized I had been successful. As quickly as I could I poked one finger an inch or so into the soft spot on the front of his throat, triggering him to cough and with the other hand punched him lightly in the stomach which I hoped would cause him to bend over. Before he started either reflexive action, my hands were back where they had started and I felt confident that no one, including the man would notice I had even moved.
Perhaps I became carried away, but I had developed an immediate dislike for the black pointer stick the man wielded as a symbol of authority. Before resuming normal time I reached out and broke the thing, leaving one end dangling loosely from the other. Then I allowed time to resume its normal course and stepped towards the man and placed a concerned hand on his shoulder as he bent over and began coughing. “You should get him some water.” I said to his assistant.
Then I looked at Mak and Threm, trying to convey a sense of urgency with my eyes as well as my voice, “Come on, let’s get him to the infirmary.” My two companions picked up the stretcher and with me in the lead walked as quickly away from the coughing man as we were able.
We made it nearly all the way across the landing field to a series of low buildings before I heard the man regain his voice. “Stop them!” He cried out in a raspy half shout.” Realizing that no one but him had been paying any attention to us I reigned in my proclivity to break into a run at that point and in a low voice said as much to my companions. “Easy… We remain part of the background for most of them. Keep the same pace until we round the corner.”
We were only five feet from the corner when I heard the man cough again to clear his throat and say in a louder voice, “You idiots, the ones with the stretcher.” Abandoning all pretenses Threm, Mak and I ran around the corner, into the city.
The street was, to my dismay, mostly deserted. While this allowed us to proceed unhindered, it also gave us no chance at cover, unless we could gain entrance to a nearby building or make it around another corner before those following us arrived at the street.
A two-wheeled flat cart pulled by a donkey approached us. The sound the wheels made as they compacted the dirt of the road contrasted with the gentle clomping sound of the animal’s hooves. A man walked ahead of the beast, whistling lowly as he led the donkey along by a single tether.
The roadway was darker than the airstrip had been, but I could see that red orbs glowed dimly from posts spaced at fairly regular intervals along the roadway. The orbs themselves were each contained in a woven mesh enclosure, and post and all was topped by a shallow conical cover, shielding the lights from weather and preventing the lights from being visible from above.
Only a bit startled by our hurried movement, the man stopped whistling as we passed him and craned his neck around to follow our progress, but other than that took no action. I saw that his cart contained earthenware jugs of a consistent type and size, packed with straw between them and secured by only a low retaining rail. If the substance they contained was inflammable, a temporary barrier of flame might slow our pursuers, but as I had no fire source, the idea did not seem practical.
Several paces in front of Threm, who was carrying the front of the stretcher bearing the pilot, a door swung open and the figure of a man emerged partially, still facing inwards. A stream of invectives followed, uttered by an obviously upset female voice. The man was shoved backwards out the door, causing him to stumble and fall onto his buttocks in a most ungraceful manner. He started to rise with a yell and I saw him reach for a knife at his waist.
Even had I not been in dire circumstances and in need of finding shelter from the presumably quickly approaching pursuit I would have come to the woman’s aid. With the open door also came an opportunity I could not pass up. As I moved towards the man with the knife, I called to Threm as loudly as I dared and pointed towards the door.
I reached the man before he began to straighten up and punched him squarely in the temple, knocking him back into the dirt and causing the knife to fall from his now numb fingers. I smoothly picked up the knife and held it; handle out, to the woman in the doorway, who was now staring at me in surprise.
I smiled at her in a friendly manner and asked, “Would you allow us in? My friend is injured and I promise no harm will come to you.” In reality she was still contemplating my request, but when she took the knife from my hand I grasped her by both shoulders and guided her gently backwards into the building.
Threm and Mak followed behind me immediately, but as Mak started to kick the door shut behind him, I realized a critical flaw in my idea. Two flaws to be exact. One was the cart driver, and the other was the antagonistic man I had left in the street who would undoubtedly reveal our presence to the men from the airfield. “Wait!” I said to Mak, “See if there’s a back way. I’ll try to draw them off.”
The woman seemed to be sizing up the situation, and at least had not
yet decided we were a threat to her. As I moved to the front door again, seizing the handle and looking quickly out onto the street before closing it again, she at least decided to help Mak and Threm get out of some back way. “Come this way, quickly,” I heard her say quietly yet urgently behind my back.
I was glad of that, for the street in front of the house was on the verge of becoming a very busy one due to our pursuit, and also because the formerly knife-wielding man I had punched seemed to be taking exception to my actions and was now shouting on the other side of the door. In an instant, I decided to deal with both situations at the same time and took a fraction of a second to compose myself and clear my head. The slightly increased resistance the door gave me as I pulled it open again and stepped into the street told me that I had succeeded in altering time around me.
I had to alter my course in order to dodge a glowing portal disc directly outside the doorway. If my reflexes had not been enhanced by the time dilation, I would have stepped directly into it. As it was, I skimmed the edge and in fact felt a strange tingling sensation as my leg passed through the very edge.
I paid it no mind, as I had more pressing matters at hand. The man I had punched was now standing and was mid-stride towards the door, his mouth open in the midst of another shout. I strode past him, and grabbed his collar as I did so. When I had pulled him off of his feet, and was dragging him along on his heels, I broke into a trot heading towards a mass of some seven men who had rounded the corner some forty yards away.
The cart and donkey had only moved half way to them, but as it was far to the right on the roadway, I avoided it easily. When I discovered that dragging the man on his heels was easier than I had expected, I increased my stride and began running. I had to move around one portal, this one so faint that I almost missed it, and duck under another one oriented nearly vertical. Compared to dealing with the portals when I was on the airship and their perceived relative motion, these stationary ones were simple to negotiate.
Several strides short of the seven men chasing us I turned sharply to the left, and as the fellow I was dragging began sliding sideways I released his collar, sending him crashing into the men in slow motion. Four of them were bowled over as I watched; barely starting to react to what to them was an indistinct blur of motion. The other three were another matter and I decided at that point that I had no desire to do them harm, at least not more than was needed to slow them down significantly.
The answer rested in the hands of one of the three still standing, or more accurately moving in slow motion. Since I had begun my approach they had taken perhaps one full stride and close inspection would have revealed their limbs moving along at a snail’s pace. In any event, one of the three held a net, probably intended to aid in our capture, while the other two carried simple javelins or spears tipped with obviously sharp leaf-shaped heads made from a dark colored metal.
Without much delicacy I grabbed the net firmly and pulled it from the man’s hands. It seemed like he was trying to follow me with his gaze, for it looked like his head turned to follow me, a look of surprise building on it, as I stepped away from him with the net now in my hands.
I flung the well-made mesh over the top of his head, managing to cover the other two to some extent. One after the other I shoved them quickly in a tumble, making a pile close to the other four already bowled over. Seeing coil of rope still in the hand of one of the men on the ground, I finalized my thought of securing them in order to delay them further.
The rope proved no more difficult to secure than the net had, and in length was sufficient to loop around all eight men twice with a little to spare. The extra length I quickly used to tie the ends together and snugged it tightly around the men. That completed I realized that little time had actually passed to allow Mak and Threm to make good their flight from the back of the woman’s house.
I decided to give them a greater lead by causing a distraction in the opposite direction, and took several steps past the huddle of tied and netted men before I began to stagger from an enormous wave of fatigue that washed over me. I had overtaxed myself, and actually stumbled and fell to one knee as time lurched back to normal around me.
Even as my vision edged towards blackness I heard shouts from the men I had enmeshed on the ground, “What happened?” and “I saw him, it was a man.” Inevitably, one of them noticed me just before I fell face first into the dirt, unable to alter my course or keep myself upright any longer. “There he is,” was the last thing I heard before the blackness and silence of unconsciousness enveloped me.
An indeterminate time later, I was rudely awakened when someone dumped a bucketful of water over my head. Sputtering, I attempted to wipe the water from my face and eyes and found my hands securely fastened in shackles. I did have some range of motion, but not sufficient to reach my face. Blinking, I cleared my eyes as best I could.
I could see, but for a minute or so, my vision was blurry and my eyes stung from the water. In any case the room was dimly lit by several torches held onto the walls by metal sconces. I puzzled briefly at this apparent anachronism when the small light globes seemed so ubiquitous in this world, at least what I had seen so far. Several men stood around me wearing simple belted tunics and pants which extended only halfway below the knees. As my eyes cleared I saw that one of the men had gold or bronze colored trim sewn onto the edges of his tunic. I surmised, not incorrectly, that he was probably in charge.
Seeing that I was awake, he stepped towards me and leaned closer, as if to take a better look at me in the dim light. His breath smelled of garlic, some other spice I couldn’t place, and more than a little alcohol. One of his eyes was a mass of milky white scar tissue, the reason obvious from the purple slash which crossed his eye socket. He stared at me through one beady black eye, turning his head slightly to do so.
“Doesn’t look like anything special to me.” He turned briefly towards the other men, shaking his head slightly. “Dodge this!” he said, raising his voice slightly, and cuffing me on the head hard enough to snap my head sideways. “Bah, you’re not fast. They must have been trying to cover for being lazy.” As if to illustrate his point, or just for the fun of it, he hit me on the other side of the head.
I declined to give him the satisfaction of wincing, or even grunting at the pain, but neither did I make any antagonistic remarks towards him, such as questioning his ability to hit any harder, although I must admit to wanting to. I kept my gaze and my expression neutral. Not getting any reaction from me, he quickly became bored. “Throw him in with the others.”
Quite without preamble I was lifted to my feet and led out of the room. As my feet were still shackled I was only partly successful at matching the steps of my guards. Each of several times when I stumbled they lifted me back to my feet roughly, with some insult or other indicating my fault in the matter, and we continued. I don’t know why prisons and jails always seem to prefer storage of prisoners deeper underground than the rest of the facilities, and this one was no exception.
The guards took me down a set of winding stairs and past a manned station consisting of a table, chairs and two additional bored looking jailers playing some sort of dice game. The cell itself was Spartan in the extreme. A set of narrow bars, of perhaps a three inch gap, separated the holding area from the hallway. The only air was provided by a narrow, perhaps half inch slit near the ceiling in two sections of the room. The floor provided the only seating, although several sets of chains, thankfully unused, provided additional standing room against several portions of the walls.
In the gloom, now only lit by even dimmer red globes than I had seen on the street, I noticed perhaps a dozen or more people seated despondently around the cell. They showed only minimal interest when they realized it was only a new addition to their numbers being escorted in, so great was their apathy.
I wondered how long they, and by inference I, were to remain there, and indeed what our final disposition was to
be. Still shackled, as were most of the others, I was shoved through the door and left to my own devices. Once the guards departed however, several of the other prisoners showed moderately more interest at my advent.
Approaching cautiously, they eyed me for some time before speaking, one old man apparently taking on the role of spokesman for the group. “Stranger, you do not belong. You are in better health than any here, and if I am not mistaken, you do not carry the mark of the owned. I would think you a spy, but you would be the worst one yet, so poor is your disguise.”
I held up my shackled hands as best I could, looking around for anyone I recognized, but hoping not to do so. “As far as I know, I am owned by no man, so even if I knew what this mark was… I would not have it.”
As if to illustrate his point, the man pulled the neck of his rough spun tunic away from his neck, revealing a circular brand. Several of the other unshackled ones did the same, and a few with shackles managed to expose their marks also. I suspected specific ownership was determined by variation of the mark within the circle, but in the dim light I could not clearly identify details to any great extent.
As I was pondering the uneasy feeling which had started in the pit of my stomach, I heard a familiar female voice off to one side, “John?” It was a tentative question, from one truly unsure as to the answer, yet with a fair amount of hope couched in that one word. I turned to look, in reality disbelieving what my ears told me, but having to prove to myself that they were wrong.
It was Layla, the very woman who had first met me on my arrival to this world and done so much for me before being captured by the vile exalted one. The look on her face quickly changed from surprise, and more than a little of the disbelief that must have shown on mine, to a mixture of pleasure, relief and something else I couldn’t place. Her first step towards me was rushed as if she was going to run, but then she stayed herself and walked. It was not, however a slow walk, and when she reached me she touched my face gently, her fingers brushing my skin tentatively in a way that made every nerve of mine come alive.
I raised my hands as far as the chains permitted, intent on grasping her hands in mine. They only made it a fraction of the way before being drawn up short. I do not know with any degree of assurance what I would have done had I been able to actually take her hands, but the slight widening of her eyes and the way they glistened in the dim light must have mirrored my own.
For what must have been several seconds, we merely stared at each other. In my case because for some reason I did not want to break the silent bond that had just formed between us. As to why she did not speak, I am not sure. Although I had done but little to earn any emotional feeling towards me on her part, nonetheless I felt something unexpected well up inside me.
The moment was broken in any case by the entrance of several guards, some with clubs, some with poles from which extended loops of rope. Had I been slightly less interested in them, and more observant in what was going on around me, I would have paid more attention to the majority of the other occupants who scuttled and scurried to the walls and corners of the room, crouching down to avoid notice and averting their gaze. My own erect posture and direct gaze earned me their immediate attention, for upon their entry I had positioned Layla behind me out of instinct.
One of the guards with a club approached me, raising his club as if to strike me. Perhaps I should have flinched, or cowered in imitation of the others, but the thought honestly never occurred to me at the time. Instead I stood as he feinted at my head, holding his gaze with my own. His next swing was no feint, and I ducked out of the way but took no other action.
I thought he would swing at me again, but he did not. Instead he spat a stream of greenish liquid from his mouth, no doubt created by a lump of something held against his lower jaw by his lip, and spoke “Spirit…and a bit of quickness, this one for the arena. Should be more entertaining than most of the recent fare.” Immediately though, he ignored me and started looking around at the other prisoners.
“Where is the ‘princess’?” he said quietly as he looked around. I stood still, but continued to look the guard in the eye as I kept Layla behind me. None of the other inmates gave any answer, but simply looked forlornly at the ground. The guard raised his club again; intent on striking me, but Layla stepped to one side revealing herself to him. “I am here.” She said.
The guard stayed his hand, but I could have cared less, as he now knew the location of “the princess” and for some reason, this enraged me. I had no idea what they had in mind for her, but as I had been relegated to “the arena,” I could only imagine hers as a more humiliating and possibly painful fate. I could have waited for better odds, for a more opportune moment, but I did not.
Instead, I simply punched to closest guard square in the jaw before he even had time to raise his club towards me. The other guards were either slow to act, or I was already slipping into my increased time rate. The first was merely reaching for his club when I stepped into him and twisted his arm away from the weapon with a dull snap. I did not even wait for him to react before I kicked one of the others in the groin in a most unsportsmanlike fashion and tripped the fourth against his own legs with the chains on my wrists, sending him crashing in slow motion to the ground.
Layla’s face was lit with surprise as I turned towards her and grinned, but I wasted no time in conversation as I found keys to unlock my restraints on one of the guards and removed my shackles and manacles. Still moving faster than normal, I folded her gently over my shoulder and proceeding out of the open cell door. Whether I would be able to reach a safe location, or even attain egress from the building was unknown to me at the time. I merely acted out of instinct to protect one who I now knew I cared about.
I ran, her weight upon my shoulders negligible, through several doors and up a number or ramps, until finally we reached the exterior of the building. A dull red light illuminated our path, as it proved to be night again outside. Red orbs, set along the street on posts in a regular fashion gave us direction in the short term at least.
I set Layla down, realizing I was tiring, and wanting to maintain my strength should we be accosted. She appeared on the edge of engaging me in a dialogue of sorts, so I held a finger to my lips, and pointed in the direction I believed the airship was. Layla nodded briefly and we headed along the street, attempting to make good time, whilst also making every effort to be quiet.
For some time we traversed thus, I grasped her hand for the sole purpose of guiding her through the unknown streets as quickly as possible, or so I told myself. As I saw the shape of the airship ahead in the gloom, only separated by the width of several buildings, a clamor finally rose up behind us. I saw a collection of lights brighter than the mounted red orbs, and these lights were moving, wavering against the buildings we had passed. They spread out in various directions, but all too many of them seemed to be converging on the airship dock.
As Layla and I neared the landing, I also heard a commotion from that direction. My first though was that some sort of wireless communication of telegraph had been used to report the escape, and guards were simply moving to seal the area, but the yell that could have only come from the throat of Threm, my Neaderthaloid companion gave me some heart. Peering around the final corner, I grinned as I saw Threm striding through a hastily formed line of guards, throwing them aside with impunity. Mak was also accounting for himself well, if unexpectedly, by moving around behind the guards distracted by Threm and disabling them by various quick, effective and somewhat unsavory methods.
I noticed a small group of guards maintaining their distance from Threm, and saw them in unison raise several larger two handed versions of the pistols I had seen previously. These contained three much longer cylinders running along the barrels, which were longer, but not as long as one would expect for a rifle. As I disengaged my hand from Layla and ran towards the men, I moved so quickly into my faster time rate that I scarcely noticed it, exc
ept for the slowing of everything around me.
My first concern was Threm, who appeared to be the target of the musket men, as I thought of them due to their strange weapons. Mak was unfortunately on the verge of being struck from the side with the butt of a spear just as he finished snapping the neck of his current victim. I was past Mak, had re-aimed the spear so that it would miss him, and kicked a leg from under his attacker before Mak saw the spear coming. The tripped guard had not even started to fall when I covered the distance to the musket men so fast was I travelling in comparison.
As moving all of the muskets or men out of the way would have taken, as I had learned in prior time dilation, much effort and tired me greatly, possibly rendering me unable to secure Layla’s safety and our escape, I elected to attempt something more subtle. As I walked past each man, I reached over and snapped from their guns the upper cylinders, the ones made of copper. When I was three men down the line, I noticed an unexpected, but beneficial effect of my action. The cylinders had been pressurized with a gas that billowed out quite opaquely as I separated them from the weapons. Even if I hadn’t effectively disabled the weapons, which I had, the gas was going to obscure Threm and Mak as they attempted to reach the airship.
I continued along the line of muskets, and twisted the cylinders from the rest before returned to Layla. Since it seemed obvious that we all endeavored to execute an aerial escape, I decided to quickly secure Layla on the ship before returning to aid Threm and Mak, and hopefully the injured pilot, should he still be with them. I adjusted myself close to normal time for just long enough to pick Layla up and tell her my plan briefly before accelerating again. I ran rapidly towards the accommodation ladder which now hung from cargo bay of the airship.
Looking up, I saw no obvious signs of resistance from above, so with one hand around Layla, her arms around my neck, I began to climb one armed up the ladder. From my point of view the climb was agonizingly slow, so focused was I on catching each rung above as I let go of the one beneath it that I lost perspective of just how fast I was climbing in relation to everything going on around me.
By the time I gained the top of the ladder and helped Layla inside the ship, I was becoming quite fatigued. Each movement now took more effort, as if I was mired in mud. With so much still to do, I had no intention of submitting to the fatigue and falling unconscious this time, but I remained aware of what would ultimately result if I continued to exert myself at such a level.
I relaxed slightly, hoping that time would speed up around me, but no so much that I would become ineffective. It seemed to work to an extent, my sluggishness lessened, and as I set Layla down, I saw her begin to turn slightly. Everything was still moving slowly to me, but she moved faster than had the men below. I darted past her to the door, and braced it closed as best I could with a piece if timber and a crate.
I slowed to normal speed, and said “Wait here, I will be back soon,” to Layla before leaping back to the ladder and moving down it as fast as I could, speeding myself through time as I went. The cloud from the disabled musket gas had not dissipated while I climbed down, nor had any of the participants on the ground moved in any great measure. Mak had made it to another of the guards and was just releasing the man to fall to the ground.
Threm was holding the last of the line of spearmen above his head and in the process of hurling him towards the still confused musket men. What concerned me most was a second line of muskets I had not noticed before, moving along the street towards the courtyard. Puffs of smoke let me know they had fired, but it wasn’t until the first ball rolled towards me through the air that I realized they were shooting at me. I avoided being hit only by letting go with one hand and using my other hand and foot like a hinge, swinging away from the ladder.
I swung back and very nearly into the path of a second bullet. Several other projectiles drifted past me in the air, but I paid them little heed as I could tell they would not come close enough to be a threat. Before another volley was fired, I had reached the ground and began running towards the musket men, yet at an angle across the courtyard. Realizing that I might not be moving quickly enough to protect Threm and Mak from these new threats, I threw myself forward with a will. As time slowed around me further, I saw several flashes as the disc shaped portals appeared around me.
In this case, even as I was pondering several of the portals and how to negotiate around them, I was also developing a strategy to deal with the ten muskets, as I now counted clearly, being quite close. My mind was becoming more adept at not only thinking faster, but tackling more than one item simultaneously.
As I ran next to a coil of mooring line, in this case a rope of approximately one inch in diameter, I reached down and picked up one end, allowing it to trail behind me. Carrying it at once to the right and then behind the row of musket men, I turned my run to the left and directly behind them. Once I was just past the last of the men, after running completely behind them, I turned left again and kept running. During this entire stunt, they had moved only an inch or so in the process of reloading, and not a single man was tracking my progress.
The rope began to tighten itself against their legs, and the back row was pulled from their feet. I saw expressions of surprise begin on their faces as I looked backwards over my shoulder. I kept running and towing the rope behind me until all the men were either laying on the ground, or in the process of falling towards it. At this point, I dropped the rope and started back to the men to relieve them of their muskets, figuring that most of them would have at least loosened their grip in the sudden and unexpected fall to the ground, nor was I incorrect in that assumption.
Seconds, at least from my frame of reference, saw me in possession of ten muskets and running back towards the airship ladder. As Threm and Mak doggedly finishing with the last two of their accosters, I slowed to normal time to coordinate our departure with them, and to make sure they were aware it was I who aided them.
The transition was abrupt and jarring for me, more so than previously. I actually became so disoriented for a brief second that I dropped the muskets I carried, nearly falling forward on top of them in my efforts to regain my balance.
In any case I must not have taken long to recover, for the next thing I saw was Threm slapping his attacker on the side of the head, sending the man spinning through the air like a rag doll. As the man crumpled to the ground, I managed to speak loudly enough for the two of my companions to hear, “Threm, Mak! Do you have the pilot?”
Mak looked towards me suddenly, somewhat surprised at my sudden appearance. He must not have noticed me moving around quick as a flash so busy he had been with dispatching his own attackers.
Threm, on the other hand, remained remarkably composed and continued scanning the area looking for other threats. He nonetheless answered me quickly, giving me a grin and a nod as he looked briefly in my direction. “Jahn, I am glad you made it. The pilot is here, just inside that building.”
My large friend indicated a doorway in the nearest of the buildings flanking the courtyard. “We should get moving, I do not think there will be much resistance onboard, as the guards seem to have been stationed below. I imagine the crew is off getting drunk somewhere.”
I returned his nod, noting that Mak turned and started toward the warehouse door with little hesitation after his initial surprise at seeing me. I stepped to follow him, in order to retrieve the pilot, but felt suddenly dizzy again, my legs turning leaden as well. “Threm, help Mak,” I managed to croak out as blackness began to envelop my vision. I fought it, and took a step forward, although it took a supreme effort on my part. Halfway into my next step, my knees collapsed and I hit the paving stones below with them.
I remember thinking briefly that it should have hurt to do so, but my body felt nothing as my vision continued to waver within the dark numbness that was enveloping my eyes and thoughts. I reached casually towards a wetness I felt on my chest, and touching that wet, I brought my ha
nd shakily in front of my face. “Blood,” the thought registered along with the realization that I had indeed been shot at some point during the conflict. With that I fell unfeeling to the paving stones below.
Chapter Twelve