Chapter Three Hundred and Fifty-Eight - The Enemy Always Gets a Vote

Amaryllis looked really cross with me. “Broccoli. Which one of us has wings?”

“Um, you?” I said.

Then she smacked me atop the head with her feathers. “That’s right,” she said between smacks. “You could have died! Jumping to your death like that like a headless moron. Stupid bun! Stupid Broccoli!”

“Hey, don’t smack the ears, they’re sensitive!” I complained.

“I ought to test the sensitivity of your behind with a paddle if it means you won’t try something like that again,” she said. She sounded really angry. Then I noticed how wet her eyes looked, and I instantly felt terrible.

“I’m sorry,” I said. I moved in close and gave her a hug. “I thought... well, I didn’t.”

She huffed. “Yes, not thinking is a habit of yours,” she grumbled.

“I probably would have been fine! I can make myself small, so I’d weight less and wouldn’t smack the ground as hard, and my ears can act as parachutes, and I’m good at jumping!” I prattled, but it didn’t seem to be winning Amaryllis over much.

“This is very sweet and nyall, but can nya two pay a bit more attention to what’s goin’ on?” Calamity asked.

I glanced up while still clinging to Amaryllis, after all my heart was still beating fast from the spook I got while nearly falling and I needed the comfort. Calamity was right though. The Beaver Cleaver and the rest of the fleet was coming around and so were the pirates.

“We don’t have much time,” Awen said. “We need to tell the fleet what to do.”

“Either turn around or face the pirates,” Caprica said. “I don’t imagine we can fight them while loading on the hostages. That would be the height of irresponsibility.”

“What about the baron?” I asked. I finally pulled out of the hug with Amaryllis and half-turned to see where the baron’s little ship had gone.

It wasn’t too far off yet. I could still hear the rumble of its engines as it puttered along. The crew harpy aboard the ship seemed busy inflating the balloon from the reserves they carried onboard. It looked like they’d just barely managed to remain buoyant in the air.

“They’re heading west,” Awen said. “Towards the Snowlands?”

“Technically we’re in the Snowlands already, even if all they do is claim this space without inhabiting it,” Caprica said. “But yes, the nearest city to the west of here would be Sissifin. Or maybe the pirates have a second base of operations, or he’s aiming for somewhere entirely different. I don't think we have time to speculate.”

She was right, the pirate’s crew were coming, and they’d know something was up. We wouldn’t be fighting pirates caught with their pants down and split apart across a dozen rooms where we could take them out in clumps, but a properly prepared group expecting a fight. And I bet that all the best fighters were on board those ships. You didn’t leave your best back at the base when you were going out to pirate something. Or so I assumed.

I looked to my friends. Bastion made it up onto the roof and glanced around, he was soon followed by Caprica’s guards who ran up to stand near her. My friends were all here and no one was proposing anything.

I think it was mostly because we were all a bit tired. The last bit had been... well, it was all a lot.

“I have a plan,” I said. The idea was still somewhat fresh, but it was there. And we needed to do something. Speaking up got everyone’s attention. “Caprica, call off the fleet, tell them to pull back and wait. If they do need to fight, then it’ll be best if they’re in the air already. Bastion, we need to move the prisoners up to here. Or the floor right below. We’ll evacuate from the rooftop. Prepare some of the slyph to take over the weapons of the ships below too. If the pirates decide to fly over the tower to attack the fleet, then we’ll hit them from below. If they come to land... then we let them.”

“And if they do land?” Caprica asked.

“Then they’ll have to climb all the way up the tower to reach us,” I said.

“Through a narrow, easily defendable stairwell,” Amaryllis said. “Three or four sylph soldiers working in tandem could hold the stairs for a week.”

“They’ll be able to free the pirates we imprisoned,” Calamity pointed out.

I shrugged. “That’ll take a while. We can’t exactly move the prisoners with us. Besides, if we leave with all the hostages and sabotage their ships, then it’s an absolute victory for us, isn’t it?”

“I’ll send the message right away.”

“They’ll see the baron’s ship,” Awen pointed out with a gesture in the baron’s direction.

I chewed on my lip, then shrugged. “Okay. It’s a loose end, but I never said my plan was perfect.”

“It’s good enough, I think,” Amaryllis said. “Let’s start moving people up. The hostages below will have had a few minutes to relax and get their legs under them for the climb.”

“We shouldn’t rush them, they’ve been in cages for a while,” I said. “But, uh, maybe hint that they should put as much effort into moving as they can.”

Bastion clapped his hands. “Alright, you heard the captain. Clear the roof, we don’t need them seeing us up here and figuring things out. Someone free the hostages on the level below us and push the baron’s guards in their cages. Captain Broccoli, you’re in charge up here for now. Once the ships arrive, start the loading process. Princess, I’m heading back down to direct things from there.”

And with that, Bastion jogged to the edge of the roof and took the quick way to the ground floor. I almost gasped before remembering that he could fly.

Swallowing, I ran back inside and into the baron’s lavish quarters, my friends bunching up behind me.

Some of the sylph had already started freeing the hostages, and I noticed that they were complaining quite loudly already. That was something I could work with.

“Amaryllis, can you stay up here and help me with the nobles? Awen, Calamity, um, would you mind bring the other hostages up from the bottom of the tower?”

Awen nodded, and Calamity gave me a sloppy salute. “Sure thing, captain,” he said before moving off.

I nodded to his back, then turned to the nobles. “Okay everyone!” I said loud enough that my voice rang out above their grumbles and calmed them down for a moment. “My name’s Captain Bunch, and I’m one of those responsible here. I need to talk to you all, so please listen for just a moment.”

“A mere captain?” one of the harpy asked.

A snapping spark flickered next to Amaryllis, like a whip-crack, and the nobles flinched.

“Thanks,” I muttered, then raised my voice again. “In a moment you’re all going to be freed. We have ships coming in, but there are a lot of pirates returning to the tower. We’re going to evacuate everyone from above. So, please stand off to the side over there where you can, uh, relax out of the way. I’m sure the baron had some food up here, and we’ll share that between everyone while the other hostages are brought up.”

“Other hostages?” a harpy asked.

I nodded. “The crews of your ships, and all the others who the pirates captured. We’re not leaving anyone behind, okay?”

The last of the hostage’s cages was opened while I finished up my speech, so Amaryllis and I directed the nobles towards the far end of the baron’s quarters. Someone had demolished a few walls, leaving only pillars behind, but some walls were left intact. It turned the upper floor into a space with lots of wide open nooks where plush sofas were waiting.

“That’s mine!” One noble harpy said before she flounced over to a large seat and flopped down into it.

“Uh, it is?” I asked.

She sniffed, a very Amaryllis-like expression. “That... rotten-yolked good-for-nothing baron Vonowl made a point of parading around all of the necessities we brought with us.”

“Mhm!” another agreed. “Did you think he commissioned that fine suit he was wearing himself? Of course not! The fatherless curr was merely lucky that our sizes were close. Though, perhaps they were closer before I went so long without food.”

“We’ll work on the food thing,” I promised. I just wanted to wait for all of the baron’s guards to be tossed into cages before we started to snoop around.

Once the nobles were settled out of the way, I left Amaryllis to babysit them while I searched for some food. Unfortunately, I was waylaid by a sylph I recognized as one of the scouts while looking. “Ma’am,” he said with a quick salute. “We have issues.”

“Issues, plural?” I asked.

He nodded. “We were seen, we suspect.”

I gasped. “Oh no. Are the pirates heading towards it?”

He shook his head. “They are moving lower. We suspect they’re planning on connecting to the tower midway up, onto some of the balconies on the middle floors.”

I blinked. “They can do that?” I asked. “Wait, how do we know that’s what they’re planning?”

“Speculation, based on the height they’re flying at, ma’am,” the scout said.

It would be a pretty clever manoeuvre. “Where’s Caprica?” I asked.

“The princess is still here,” the scout said. He leaned to the side and pointed over to the other end of the room where Caprica was pacing.

“Thanks,” I said.

“Any orders, ma’am?” the scout asked before I could go.

I considered what to say. It was weird to have people looking to me for orders. “Prepare for a fight,” I said. “This is going to get complicated, I think.”

The scout saluted, then darted off without making more than a whisper. I didn’t have time to marvel at how cool the sylph scouts were though, not when things were about to get rather hairy in a not-fun sort of way.

“Caprica,” I said. “What do we do?”

“First, we don’t panic,” she said. She was next to a thin slit of a window, the curtain covering it tossed aside so that we could see out. I noticed the Beaver Cleaver and one of the sylph frigates flying our way. “We’ll have several minutes between the arrival of our fleet and the pirates, even if they’re kicking things into high gear.”

“Will that be enough to evacuate everyone?” I asked. None of the hostages below had arrived yet. They weren’t in great shape, and there were lots of steps. “We’re not going to have a choice, we’ll have to fight.”

Caprica didn’t look too pleased with the idea, but she turned to one of her guards anyway. “Contact Bastion. Have every archer and range-specialised mage come up here. We’ll launch what attacks we can from the rooftop.”

“Would that work?” I asked.

“Against an entire airship? It would be a miracle if even one arrow hit someone past the gasbag, but there’s a chance, and the pirates won’t enjoy having arrows and spells shooting past their heads,” Caprica said. “It’s the best we can do from here. The fleet will have to take care of the rest.”

I stepped past her and looked out the window. Two of the pirate ships were relatively close. Both were larger than any of the ships we had in our little fleet, and they were probably better-armed too. We might have had the numbers on our side, but that advantage wasn’t great when we needed every ship we had.

The third pirate ship was lagging way behind, so it wasn’t a worry just yet.

I squinted. The two ships that were closer weren’t flying together, I noticed.

In fact, one of them was racing ahead of the other.

Almost as if it was coming straight for us.

***