Read Online Shadowrun - Earthdawn - Mother Speaks by kubasik - Free Book Online

oar's hole. The drum started up—a steady, slow rhythm, designed to hold us in place and parallel with the other ship as the winds pushed us through the sky. The Therans refused to return to the platform empty-handed.

    Another charge went off. I glanced out the window. The tear appeared, finally, the red blossom of flame cutting into the dark purple of the elemental plane. As I stared gasped, for within the hole cut into another world I saw something move.

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    My bowl of gruel slipped from my hands and splashed to the floor as I craned my neck to get a better look at the things rushing up from the deep-blue crack in the sky. I saw three or four white creatures with long limbs and thin, skull-like faces dominated by large mouths lined with sharp teeth. Their long, sharp fingers moved in and out of a grip, terribly desirous for something to rend.

    Already, shouts of alarm rang through the air. Sailors scrambled to untie the net connecting the ships, but their efforts came too late. The elemental air rushed up from the hole in the sky and snagged the net. It shot up like a blanket over a rambunctious and sleepless child. The two ships lurched and rushed toward each other. As our ship jerked to port, some of my fellow slaves cried out in fear. Redbeard, always ready with just the right response, cracked his whip to silence us. Then he, wide-eyed with concern, called up the stairs. No answer came back.

    As the two ships nearly crashed into each other, sailors on the other ship dropped their end of the netting. The elemental air drove the loose netting up and then rushed out from under it, a strange, amorphous glitter of silver shunting aside raindrops as it raced toward the gray clouds above. A treasure lost to the skies.

    For just a moment I felt oddly safe in the slave hold, protected from the rain like a child staring out the window of her hut. I also felt somehow safe from the creatures that rushed by me toward the upper decks, their long bodies like milky water. It seemed as if it were all happening in a dream, and that retribution would be swiftly dealt to my enemies.

    The sense of safety ended a moment later.

    The first scream came from directly overhead. Dark drops of blood fell with the rain, startling me. I pulled back just as the corpse of a Theran sailor fell from the deck above, cart-wheeling through the air, his chest an open cavity, the ribs shattered and pulled opened wide. The rag doll body slammed into the hull of the opposite ship, bounced off and began its nightmare plummet to the ground below.

    On the other ship I saw several sailors gathered against one of the things. They had surrounded it, their blades flashing strange light as they swung at it. The thing raked the air with its claws, and they could neither strike it nor avoid the tips of its sharp claws.
    Lines of blood appeared on their faces. The sailors cried out in pain, but the pain only seemed to strengthen their resolve to destroy the thing.

    A palpable panic filled the hold as slaves on the port stared out at the carnage through the small oar holes, their backs tense with terror, while the other slaves uselessly craned their necks for a view outside. Some of the slaves cried out questions in a variety of strange tongues. A few answers came back. One slave, the red-haired woman, shouted in Throalic, "Elemental monsters. They're attacking the ship!"

    Redbeard walked the aisle, snapping his whip, but his heart wasn't in it, the gesture more like a reassuring habit. The snapping of the whip quieted us, but the anxiety did not abate.

    I realized that if the sailors lost the battle, we might well be the next victims of the terrible elemental creatures. Chained to our oars and weaponless, we would be easy prey.
    More than that, it seemed that the chance J'role said we must wait for had arrived. If the creatures won the battle, then the Therans would be dead and we would only have to face the monsters. No simple task, but possible. If the