The Atomic Sea: Volume Nine: War of the Abyss by Jack Conner

Author:Jack Conner [Conner, Jack]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Science Fiction, steampunk, fantasy, epic fantasy
Published: 2019-05-08T22:00:00+00:00

Chapter 10

Sure enough, one of the pirates’ lines of attack crept toward where Avery and the others had made camp. Naesyn’s men swore and checked their weapons.

“What now?” Naesyn said. “We have nowhere to go.”

Avery indicated the nearest part of the city where resistance to the pirates thrived. “We have no choice.”

Segrul’s people advanced quickly, and Avery and the others had barely hit the street before gunshots cracked behind them. Worse were the familiar eerie shrieks and cracks of great pincers, which turned Avery cold

After running around a few corners and down an alley, the party spilled out into a broad plaza where battle already raged. The terrible crustaceans Avery had first encountered in Hissig fought against the combined forces of the people of the Rim and Core. Many of the latter rode ilithins armored for war, and to see the bird-mounted knights battle the lighting-wreathed decapods filled Avery with a paradoxical sense of boyish wonder and adult despair he never would have believed.

“Screw this,” Janx said, and they edged back toward the alley.

Sounds behind them made them spin around. Around a bend pirates poured into the alley, apparently searching for anyone fleeing into the arms of the enemy; the pirates wanted captives for their pens, although no one knew precisely what for. In any case, it couldn’t be pleasant.

“Halt!” shouted one of the pirates. “Halt or die!”

Several of the pirates cracked guns over the heads of Avery’s party to prove they weren’t kidding.

Sheridan pulled out her own pistol and fired, then dove to the side, as did the rest of them. Janx fired as he moved. Avery hit the ground, biting his tongue and scraping his palms. He scrambled up, as the others glanced about nervously.

“We only have one choice,” Sheridan said, and pelted out into the plaza, evidently expecting the others to follow.

They did. Stumbling and starting, Avery ran out into the battle, making for the side of plaza from which the forces of the islanders were pouring. A great lobster-like creature snapped its pincers in the rain, spraying water, and Avery narrowly ducked in time to avoid being halved. Lightning crackled around him, and a puddle ahead sparked with electricity. Avery leapt over it.

The hairs on the back of neck stood up as the creature shrieked. The wall of sound hit him with bone-shaking, almost bone-dissolving force. He ran fast, though, and the blast of sound only rocked him, didn’t melt him.

The others in his party ran all around. One of the natives twisted an ankle and fell, and a decapod scooped him up and cut him in two. Janx half-turned as he ran, firing his pistol behind him. Sheridan led the way ahead.

The wall of islander cavalry rushed toward them, then around them. The islanders didn’t fire, evidently seeing the natives in the party and knowing they were not the aggressors. A huge, long-legged ilithin thundered right over Avery’s head, and he could smell the birdshit on the thing’s backside as it passed seven feet overhead, the legs to either side of him.

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