Teslaimia’s Choice

The scared face man dragged himself off the battlefield, he knew his wounds were bad, but he was a survivor. He managed to drag himself under the cover of a small house at the edge of town and started to look at his wounds. Thankfully he been lucky and only took most of his damage to his right arm and leg. If he had been just one foot further to his right he would have died just like the Archbishop. He wrapped up his wounds tightly and found that his leg was not broken but that his arm was now useless. His leg hurt quite a bit, but it was still working. After tying up his wounds and stopping the bleeding. A few of his soldiers saw him make for cover so the hurried over with him. "Sir Colton, not many survived the second hit, I saw maybe a few thousand men make it into town get under cover," An older soldier said, "Most of these are recruits and reserves. We lost the vets in the first strike when we lost the knights and officers."

The Ghastly scared man, Sir Colton said in a pained hoarse voice, "We need to form up, that flying monster won't fire on the town. These Imperial bastards won't kill their own. We'll go from house to house, do as much damage as you can, kill as many as you can. We may have lost this war, but we won't make it easy for them."

The old man nodded and called out, "Hornsman Culley, give us four blasts. You two help Sir Colton to his feet, find him a horse."

The Hornsman pulled out his long war horn and gave the signal as instructed, reluctantly soldiers came out of the structures into the main street. Forming up ranks until a troop of several hundred stood in straight lines. Sir Colton came trotting out on a horse which caused the young soldiers to nearly weep with joy as if their lives were not lost after all. The grizzled knight raised his sword and the Hornsman blew the signal to form up once more. The soldiers that had not come out for the first saw Sir Colton at the head of a real formation of their troops and quickly fell into ranks behind him. Sir Colton sat in the saddle with his head held high, none of the pain showing on his face as he yelled, "Burn this city to the ground, no survivors!"

The troops which had been afraid for their lives just moments before heard the command and understood it's significance. They were going to kill this town until nothing was left to pay for the crime of stealing so many of their brothers' lives in such an unfair way. They all yelled with a thick bloodlust! Sir Colton swung his sword down with his left hand and the hornsman blasted out the notes for a free for all charge.

They were only a tiny fraction of the army that had come to this city, but they were still a massive force of over three thousand men in a city with almost no one acting as a defense force. After Sir Colton swung his sword he didn't even have the strength to sheath it. He motioned to a soldier by his side and said in a weak voice, "Put my sword away and then lead me to shelter, quickly I am about to faint. Don't let them see me fall."

*****

Emily and the officer started sprinting to the boat as the officer's group of archers was on the rooftops surrounding the docks. They would fire in bursts firing toward the rampaging Inquisition troops trying to push them away from the pier. Emily finally made it to the boat and then the soldiers raced back as well. Teslaimia was frantic, "Why! Why did you go back? Did you think that by looking you could help anyone? You could have been killed!" She then burst into tears and hugged Emily tightly.

Emily brushed the tears off her cheeks and smiled, "I know, I'm sorry. I won't do it again, ok? Now, stop crying, it'll make your eyes puffy, what will the prince think when he sees you?" Teslaimia nodded and then went below deck. Once she was gone down below, Emily asked, " How far behind were the Prince and his army?"

"His Highness should have been here by now. I suspect that they have gathered with the troops and are on the march to the city right now. Otherwise, he would have been here at the dock."

Emily nodded and said, "I wish we could have done more for the people of the city. My ship must have killed a lot of them, but there were no defense forces fighting back against the survivors."

One of the soldiers who was up in the tall sail rigging called down, "His Highness is coming with the army!" Everyone on the ship turned and looked over at the north bank of the Muliwai A few minutes later they saw the hundreds of thousands of soldiers marching at a slow pace.

The troops looked as angry as they were motivated. Every so often someone one of the officers would call out, "What are we going to do?"

Then the entire army would respond, "Kill!"

Emily felt chills down her spine as this army of hundreds of thousands all yelled out at once. Her heart was pounding as she saw this massive army slap their sword against their shield as they called out. It was a horrific sound that would cause even the most disciplined troops to face their fear of death. A horn sounded from the deck of the ship Emily was on which was answered by a horn from the army. The officer looked at Emily and said, "The Prince wants us to wait here until he secures the city. They will signal us to return once the situation is under control."

Teslaimia finally returned to the deck once more, this time looking composed and her normal too beautiful self.

*****

Sir Colton shivered as he gasped for air, he leaned over to the soldier at his side and said in his hoarse voice, "Get me to the river, we need a boat. Find enough men that we can take one of their large boats. Only that way will we be able to get to the Windsor Kingdom and safety."

The soldier nodded and then asked, "What about the others?"

Sir Colton's eyes opened and he said, "We need two hundred men at most for one of those bigger boats."

The soldier balled up his fist and nodded, he spoke to one of the other young men and said, "Go get Jordy, Bill, and Aiden. We'll pull the rest of Hollerman's squad that are still around here and make for the river."

A few moments later they made their way down to the river, to their horror, the huge flying ship was dropping large buckets into the river and pulling water up to the ship. Over and over. Sir Colton said in a hushed voice, "Get some smaller boats, like fishing boats, we'll act like we are just going out to work, they should ignore us."

They loaded Sir Colton into the boat and brought dozens of crossbows and bolts with them. Once the boats were full they hid all their armor and insignia before rowing out into the river heading east.

All of them stared at the flying ship as they passed under it. Never in their lives had they ever been so afraid. The skyship was the first and only apex predator they had ever truly faced in combat. Men could be killed. Lions could be killed. Elephants could be killed. Even hawks and eagles could be killed. This monstrosity could only kill and never be killed. How could a man reach high enough to even touch it?

They slowly made their way down the river. At one point they saw thousands of their own men fighting against a massive force of enemy soldiers. Sir Colton choked out, "Don't watch. Your brothers are giving their lives so that we can bring the word of what happened here today to the Church."

One of the soldiers noticed something near the bank, "Sir Colton there's a large boat ahead, tied up on the side. They have some soldiers and two women."

"They must be the new Emperor's women. Can you take that boat?" Sir Colton asked.

The men all looked at each other and nodded. One of them began to signal the other boats. One boat moved in front of the large boat while one came alongside and the other to the back.

*****

Emily and Teslaimia were watching the battle onshore. The archers were all staring daggers at the battle wishing they too could be a part of liberating the city. Emily and Teslaimia never even saw the men that grabbed them as they were pulled down from behind and quickly silenced with a hard strike to the back of their heads.

One of the soldiers turned after hearing a sound and then cried out, "We're under attack!" Several crossbows fired at once killing the soldiers including the officer that had led the women to safety. A few of the archers managed to run out of range but the rest of them were lying dead next to the boat.

Teslaimia started to come to first, she saw Emily unconscious with blood staining the back of her head. She looked around and saw dirty men bringing an injured man on to the ship carefully and then the large boat's oars began to row taking them away from shore heading to the east. A few minutes after they were heading away Teslaimia knew she could jump over the side and get away, but if she did that would leave Emily here alone. For the first time in her life, she had to choose her own safety or let someone die, or worse.

Tears started to well up in her eyes, she knew this would be her only chance to get to safety but then she thought about all the meals they had shared, all the laughing, holding hands. Teslaimia knew in her heart that even if she survived alone, she would never be able to forgive herself. rather than flee, she pushed herself closer to Emily and spooned against her with a soft whisper, "I didn't even remember the Prince, I was just worried about you."

*****

Nate called up from the spotter's deck, "Captain, the ladies' boat just got hijacked by those Church bastards."

Captain Gibbs swore and paced around, "Make sure this ship has no coal left on board, Smitty, get me a solution that gets those women off that boat and back onboard the Zealous."

Smitty nodded and said, "I'll bring some of the boys down in the basket and persuade that boat to hand over the ladies. We just topped off the water and the boilers should have enough steam to use the horn. Let me get down there and then hit them with a blast from the horn while you open the hive doors. We'll scare them straight."

Captain Gibbs nodded, "Go set our flags like we did last time. When we sound the horn with the hive doors open even the strongest will make a jump for it."

Smitty and ten of the Zealous security officers ran down to the basket room, the veteran flagman set the flags to say halt, prepare to be boarded. When Smitty and his men started to lower the basket down the ship's steam horn roared out. The men on the boat reacted just as the Captain suspected with more than half jumping over the side and swimming away from the boat. The huge airship started to make a slow circle around the sailing ship making sure they knew that at any moment the bees would be coming down.