Bloodsword: War of the Leaf

Death Arrives Early

Nodding in satisfaction as he saw Rack cut down the little Solavar passenger and Tev leap back into the fray, Lot returned his attention to getting up the stairs to the helm.  Only to find himself facing the First Officer, Mr. Ateen, the Solavar officer’s blade red with Torn’s blood as the Princess’ quartermaster fell back with a groan, mortally wounded in the chest.   

The big human had to move fast to catch Ateen’s first stroke on top of his hammer’s iron head, sparks flying at the impact.  Feeling Ateen’s cutlass stick in the part of the haft that jutted up out of the hammer’s head, the Princess’ captain, named after his weapon of choice, twisted the haft and pulled the sword neatly out of fingers numbed by the impact with solid iron.  Gasping, Ateen took half a step back up the stairs even as the sword rattled down the stairs behind the big human.

In the next instant Lot snapped the hammer around in a vicious overhand swing, bringing the big metal head down on the Solavar’s shoulder with a bone shattering ‘crunch’.  Screaming in pain, his shoulder and collarbone destroyed, their jagged remains jutting out of torn flesh, Ateen was hammered onto his knees.  The next blow came crashing down on his head even as the once-powerful officer weaved back and forth in shock, smashing the skull like a raw egg, brain matter spraying in every direction.

Grunting as he put his foot onto Ateen’s chest to yank the hammer free, Lot ignored the gore that had sprayed him and leapt up the final steps onto the aft deck just as his boson Moruun took a slash across the face from Kaluus’ flickering blade.  As Moruun shrieked, dropping his own blade to claw at his ruined face, Kaluus stepped in to deliver the death blow, opening up the big Solavar from chin to crotch with a wicked, downward cut.  Bonelessly the boson fell across the heap of officers’ bodies that he himself had created, his guts tumbling untidily onto their backs.   

Then Lot had to react quickly to Masrim’s lightning fast attacking, flinging his left hand up in time to catch the Second Officer’s descending sword arm before the Solavar’s cutlass could separate the right side of Lot’s head from the left.  Holding Masrim’s arm up, he swung the hammer down low to crush the powerful Solavar’s left knee even as Masrim fought to free his blade.

Crying out as the leg buckled, the Cloudwalker’s Second Officer fell to the deck.  He looked up from his shattered knee just in time to see the hammer swing in from his right, out of the corner of his eye.  It caught him right where his jaw hinged to his skull, right under his ear before he could do more than just twitch.  The impact stove in the side of his head instantly, snapping his neck as it picked up his body and tossed it to Lot’s right where it flopped limply onto the deck, oozing blood and fluid out of the smashed skull.   

Kicking the body aside, Lot stepped towards a waiting Kaluus, his face grim.

  “Captain Kaluus, I presume?”  He grated and Kaluus saluted with the hilt of his sword.

  “Captain Lot.”  The Solavar acknowledged with a tight smile.  “Or, should I call you the Hammer!?  You’re pretty handy with that thing!”  He continued as he eased into a ready crouch as Lot advanced.  A glance around them yielded that they were the last two left on the upper deck.

 “Call me whatever you like.”  Lot smiled without humor, hefting the gore-covered hammer in both hands.

   "But, if I were you, I would be calling on the First Dragon instead!”

  “Why’s that?”  Kaluus hissed grimly, his ice-blue eyes glued to the big, red-splattered hammer as Lot drew closer.

  “Because I’m sending you to meet him!”  Lot snarled, suddenly snapping the hammer forward in a vicious arc.

Throwing his body wildly backwards, Kaluus felt the hammer just miss him as it whistled by his chest.  ‘How, in the name of the Maker, does he move that thing so flaming fast??’  He wondered wildly as he staggered to catch his balance, his hand shaking as he brought his sword back to guard.  With a wolfish leer, Lot stalked forward, the hammer held lightly in his fingers for quick movements.

  “Fool!  My crew were barely adept at their weapons.”  Kaluus bit out, sword now held ready, trying to regain some composure.

  “You now face a ‘real’ swordsman!”

  “Oh?”  Lot snarled, a grimace on his battered, be-spattered face.  “Swordsman, axeman, whatever.  They all claimed great ability and talent.  And they all died the same: smashed by my hammer!"   

But, before the big human could lunge forward to deliver the final blow, a strange sound came to his ears, like something slicing through the air almost with a ‘whooshing’ sound.

  “Wha??”  He began, half turning towards the sound, so surprised was he by it’s appearance, Kaluus momentarily forgotten, the sound coming from somewhere behind him.   

With a deafening ‘KA-BOOOOOM’, the hull of the Dawn Princess exploded, shattering into a million fragments in an instant, her two masts thrown up and over the Cloudwalker with the force of the explosion.

Blinking rapidly in shock, Lot felt the hammer, and his self-control, begin to slip away from him as he watched his ship disappear in a fog of debris right before his eyes.

  “Maker!”  He gasped thickly as, with a splash, the masts with sails still intact, hit the water behind him on the opposite side of the Walker and small pieces of wood from the explosion began to pepper him forcefully.

Then a burning hot iron was forcing its way through his body at chest level from behind.  Groaning, he looked down just in time to see the point of Kaluus’ cutlass emerge from the center of his chest.

“Bastard!”  Kaluus hissed hotly into Lot’s right ear.  “Here’s a little ‘something’ from me to you.  Pity about the Princess, but, then again, it was her or the Walker, right?”   

Snarling soundlessly, Lot summoned his waning strength and snapped his right elbow back, catching Kaluus right on the nose.  Cursing, the Solavar captain staggered back, releasing his sword to reach for his crushed nose.  In the same motion, Lot spun clockwise and brought the hammer up in a backhanded grip.

With a sodden ‘crunch’ the heavy iron head drove into the side of Kaluus’ head, throwing him roughly to the side.  By the time his body hit the deck, the Solavar captain was already well dead.

“You talk to much.”  Lot wheezed at the fallen elf.  Then the tightness in his chest expanded and he lost the power of speech as his lungs stopped working.  Jaw moving without sound, he staggered forward as he felt blood erupt out of his mouth and nose, Kaluus’ cutlass still buried in his back.

As Lot fought to breathe, the world slowly started going dark.  Then he was falling onto his knees, his once massive strength leeched away from his powerful legs by the encroaching darkness.  As he fell forward onto his face, Eineas Lot, the Hammer, the last captain of the Dawn Princess, had one thought passing through his dying mind:

‘Damn me to the Seventh.  I was close!’