Once he was level with the others, they peeled off one at a time, sprinting across the plank, wood bouncing with the weight.
Zionbuss, growled something in a foreign language, sounding similar to Latin but with more guttural tones. The skeletal crew immediately set to moving about the ship and rigging as the Necrolosis began to rise.
“Wait!” shouted Elora. She’d seen the bulworgs suddenly rush at Ragna, the last man still on the cliff’s edge; his blood-stained hammer already swinging in a wide arc. There were too many for him to take down alone and now that the ship was rising the plank fell away, slipping through the green fire and clattering down the cliff.
“Raggy!” Ejan screamed, only just realising that her husband wasn’t aboard. She brought her bow about, arrow already cocked. She let the string go and was already notching another as Elora spun on Zionbuss.
“Take us back down,” she shouted, the panic rising in her chest at the thought of losing the huge Viking.
Zionbuss raised an arm, bellowed a single syllable word she didn’t understand and chopped his arm down. All about the ship, the crew which held their bows ready, suddenly released their arrows, sending them down in a black storm. Below she heard the grunts and sudden intakes of breath as they found their marks.
Zionbuss turned to Elora, shaking his head. “I’m sorry my queen. It’s too late to go back.”
Ejan suddenly turned on the demon, bringing her bow about, the point of an arrow inches from his face.
“You go back, or you die,” she said, a coldness set in her eyes.
Zionbuss shook his head and shrugged his shoulders as if it was out of his hands. “You kill me, and this ship will drop from the sky, killing all of you.
The Viking woman’s jaw clenched, teeth grinding in a snarl like the bulworgs that were attacking her husband. With a swift motion she spun her shoulders so that the arrow now pointed at the back of Elora’s head. “Bring it down or have no queen.”
Zionbuss tensed as if about to throw himself at her, only Elora gently placing her hand against his chest stopped him.
“If you hurt her I’ll tear your throat out and throw you down for the wolves to finish,” he growled in rage.
“I don’t care!” spat Ejan. Tapping the point of the arrow against the back of Elora’s skull, the pain bringing tears to her eyes.
“She’s right Zionbuss. We’re not leaving without Ragna. If I am truly your queen, then I order you to get him on this ship. Alive.” Elora put as much authority into her voice as she could muster, feeling reassurance that Bray had slipped beside her, his arm rising to push Ejan’s arrow away until she stopped him with a subtle shake of her head.
Maybe the Viking really meant to shoot her or was simply bluffing, she didn’t know - didn’t want to know, but she needed Zionbuss to believe she would.
The demon’s eyes flicked from hers to Ejan’s, then back. “Fine,” he growled, then marched off to the rigging and grabbed a coil of rope. He tossed one end to Bray, took the other end in hand and let the coil drop to the floor. With one final glance at Elora, Zionbuss sprinted for the front of the ship, tying his end of the rope around his waist as he went.
“What’s he...” began Bray as the demon jumped off the front of the Necrolosis, vanishing from view.
The coil of rope at their feet began to rapidly uncoil. Bray’s eyes went wide as he realised why he was holding the other end. Spinning about he quickly wrapped the rope around the mast as the entire length snapped taut. His feet finding purchase against the wooden post as he strained against the weight.
Elora ran to the gunnel and peered down, Ejan now beside her, bow and arrow now trained over the side.
Below the green fire she could make out the body of Zionbuss, swinging on the bottom of the rope like a pendulum. As he passed Ragna he wrapped his legs around the Viking’s body, yanking him off his feet and knocking a bulworg off the cliff.
The torturous sound of rope scraping against wood, screamed along the ship, Elora flicked her head around to see the rope was sliding along the gunnel, smoke billowing from its strands with friction as it threatened to knock both herself and Ejan over the edge.
Before it touched them, she was yanked back, her teeth jarring as she slammed into her uncle’s chest. Her eyes never leaving the rope as it whipped in front of where she had just stood. Diagus had pulled Ejan away in the same instant, saving them both from a long drop.
“Need a little help down here,” came Zionbuss’s voice from below.
Elora returned to the gunnel and peered over once again. The demon and Ragna were now dangling beneath them, both clinging to the rope. Ragna was still clutching his hammer but it was clear he wouldn’t be able to hold on for any length of time.
Behind her, Elora sensed movement and two of the demon’s crew placed a rope ladder on the edge and pushed it off. It unrolled as it fell, falling within reach of the dangling pair. With the help of Diagus and Bray they pulled them onto the deck where Ragna was instantly throttled in a tight hug by his wife.
Zionbuss pushed passed them and began ordering his crew around, tasking the skeletal beings into setting sail. A moment later arrows began to thud into the ship, striking the wood from below, one of them arcing over the rail to stick into the mast, missing the demon’s face by a whisker. He didn’t flinch as his eyes traced the wooden shaft to the feather flights.
“Might not be a good idea to look over the edge,” he said. “We’ll need a good wind to lift us away before they train the scorpions on us.”
“Scorpions?” asked Elora.
“They’re like crossbows, only much bigger,” explained Bray, as he lifted her torn sleeve to inspect the cut but saw only flawless skin. She glanced down at the blood soaked into his clothes, on his face and covering his hands. He caught her shocked expression and smiled. “Not mine.”
“Think we had luck on our side there. We got away without taking any major injuries,” muttered Nat, then turning to Zionbuss. “Set the sails, Captain, and I’ll get you such a wind that would knock a dragon sideways.” The demon turned to his crew, one of which now wore an arrow poking out of its shoulder, but not seeming to notice, and spoke briefly in that foreign tongue. Within minutes the sails had dropped, the strange material spreading out in twelve huge sheets.
Nat began to chant and evoke the element of air, a gust suddenly appearing from nowhere and snapping the sails out, ropes straining against the force. The ship creaked, the main mast bending but holding as they tilted forwards, revealing more of the landscape and forcing Elora and the others to grab onto the gunnel. Then they were moving, slowly at first but as they climbed altitude their speed increased until they were sailing through the sky, faster than the swiftness of ships in any ocean.
Elora risked a glance down and saw how big her father’s army was. They were flying above a sea of black, a mass so big that even from this height she couldn’t see where the ranks began or ended. If the barrier failed and this army was set loose on the world, Earth wouldn’t stand a chance, not in its current state; surviving without electricity.
Ragna approached her then and held out his hand, her dagger appearing small inside his huge grip.
Elora smiled. “You managed to get it back?” she laughed, taking it from him and sliding it away in her smuggler’s pouch.
“You can’t have too many knives, my Da always said. And that one is quite a knife. Bit fancy for my liking but it’s too good to leave in a bulworg.”
“Thanks,” she said and gave the big Viking a hug.
Laughing, he put his big arms around her, the trails in his beard tickling the top of her head.
“From what Ejan tells me, it was you that got Zionbuss to come back for me, so we’re even. Don’t reckon much to his ship, mind you. It isn’t right: made from bones and stuff. And that crew of his shouldn’t be even moving let alone sailing the wretched thing.”
Elora glanced around the deck, the mast and sails. Somewhere in the back of her mind she had registered that something wasn’t quite right but at the time, what with being in the midst of battle, she hadn’t had the luxury to properly look at the Necrolosis.
