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Deestured to the bosun He started bellowing sailors down out of the rigging Though they often went about ar ar blades and other instruments of martial mayhem Demos ordered the sails furled, taken down, and stowed, so that they would not become victims of combat He'd also ordered the decks wetted, and the crew had been slopping laboriously melted water over the entire ship for the past quarter of an hour Despite the wind and cold air from the north, the temperature was not quite sufficient to refreeze the water on the deck, and the Slive's timbers soaked it up as if the ship herself was thirsty to return to the sea

Marcus could hardly fault Deerously unpredictable in a battle, even when used by experts If the captain had decided to try his hand at it, Demos's precaution was entirely sensible They had just finished when one of the sailors cried out, "Here they cohts alter course and go into a steep dive toward the motionless ship As they came down, perhaps a score of the ahead of the rest to engage Antillus Crassus and his Knights Aeris

Tribune Crassushts' attention, and flashed a quick series of hand signals Half a dozen of the Aleran fliers streaked up tointo a v-shaped for Crassus, reuard the ship

Marcus had tihts The six h theirhis windstreahts like dandelion fluff The two men on either side of the leader closed in to catch his ar, while the other three struck at a nuain control of their flight had brought the distance of a weapon One of the Alerans' blades struck hole, leaking a spray of green-brown blood, a severed wing fluttering down more slowly above hih the Aleran vanguard to fall upon the ship

At another signal froan to veer off, forced away froale The first thirty or forty of the enemy were driven off, but there were sihts Aeris to reach theh the winds, and as the attack went on, the vord forced away earliest began to circle and fall upon the ship froht, and soht landed on the deck not six feet froy through his body

The enehly man-shaped Its body was covered in chitinous arionare's lorica Its head was roughly the shape of a hel where the mouth should have been - only sreenly reflective, like a dragonfly's, an is upon its back, noing fro in upon the vordknight's back

Those alien eyes turned to Marcus, and the vord rushed hi blades rather than hands, and its weapon-limbs were upraised and ready to strike

Marcus sidestepped the first double blow of the deadly appendages, drawing his blade as he did His first stroke clove into the chitin on the vord's shoulder, and was nearly trapped there as the vord's ed to jerk the weapon clear in tily wound hacked into the vord's flesh The weapon careen-brown blood

The vord spun to return to the attack - but there was a flash of steel and angry scarlet sparks, and the vordknight's head jumped up off its shoulders as if propelled by the blood that jetted up in a fountain behind it

The headless vordknight turned in place as if the blow had done nothing to inconvenience it, blades slashing Captain De blade in hand, was forced to leap back froain as it met one of the eneained his balance, hacked the vord's other scythe aith casual efficiency, then stepped forward and drove his heel into the thrashing creature's belly The kick sent it tuhts landed on the aft deck, rapidly followed by a third Dearound the stern side of the deck suddenly bowed, as if hts around the ankle

Marcus charged the other pair before they could orient the eye, released it, and shoved the wounded vord aith all his strength He ducked beneath the second vord's blow and ca his own body in too close to the vordknight's to allow the creature to use its scythes on hihed no e sack of ht to the deck, it crunched audibly

He heard Deht steps as the ship's captain went past hie of his vision Marcus concentrated on the vord beneath him - the creature was tremendously powerful, easily th, and Marcus could not enhance it with furycraft this far from the earth beneath the ship, even if it hadn't additionally been coated in six inches of ice

Marcus stayed atop the vord, relying upon his weight instead of his strength, keeping as close to the vord's body as possible, denying it any se hich it could ean to slaainst the vord's, one blow after another After several such strikes, his own ears were ringing, but the vord's struggles had lost cohesion

A second later, Demos's blade hissed somewhere near Marcus's back, and red sparks fell all around his head and bounced up froht's face Marcus rolled to one side as swiftly as he could and looked up to see Deladius in his left hand and shifted his grip upon it to offer it back to him Marcus took the sith a nod and looked around, his heart pounding