Island of Dragons (Unwanteds #7)(67)
He also expected the worst from his team. While they had grown to over fifty in number and were the largest of any team fighting for Quill and Artimé, many of the members had never fought before. True, Alex had given Aaron some especially strong spell casters, which was great. But if the spells were having as little effect as the squirrelicorns reported, Aaron wasn’t sure what he was going to do.
The pirates reached the shore and climbed the rocky hillside. Aaron gripped his dagger tightly in one hand and some components in the other, and willed his hands not to sweat. When the enemy grew close, Aaron gathered his courage and rushed forward, tossing heart attack components and scatterclips and shouting the verbal components that went with them, trying to hit the pirate men and women before they had a chance to block the components with their shields.
He knocked down two with lethal components, and several others with the single component version of the heart attack, figuring he’d better conserve components and just try to stop the enemy first. He could kill them later.
His plan served to infuriate the mass of pirates, and several of them changed direction and came charging up the hill toward Aaron, determined to stop him. Aaron cast as many spells as he could, but aiming and throwing them individually and calling out the verbal part of the spell took more seconds than he had before the pirates reached the top of the hill. With one last “Die a thousand deaths!” Aaron turned his back and ran to the lighthouse, ducking inside as his team members came to his aid, swinging rusty makeshift swords, clubs, and even the water buckets that they’d been using all night to douse the flaming tar balls.
The pirates slashed and hollered, charged and stabbed, swung and connected, and soon the Necessaries and Wanteds who had joined Aaron either ran away in fear or lay dead on the road. Aaron and the other spell casters barred the door to the lighthouse and began pelting the pirates with spells from the windows above, taking out a few of them in the process. After concerted efforts to break through the door failed, the pirates grew annoyed by their thinning ranks, and most of them gave up.
“To the mansion!” one of the pirates cried. All but two turned and headed in the direction of Artimé’s mansion, the roof of which was barely discernable through the trees, shining golden in the morning sunlight.
With the pirates fleeing, Aaron’s confidence surged. Feeling emboldened and remembering his immortality, Aaron recklessly jumped from the window and landed on top of one of the two remaining pirates. She staggered and dropped to one knee. Aaron pummeled the woman until she flopped to the ground, then flung three heart attack spells at the other pirate’s back, felling him.
Breathing heavily, he checked himself for wounds, finding a slice on his arm that barely emitted a trickle of blood before the skin came together again. While evidence of the injury clearly remained, it was certainly healing at an alarming rate. The pain, while present, was less than he expected. “Yes,” he whispered. He could take some risks. At the moment, he couldn’t imagine a better ability to possess than immortality.
He looked all around, and when he was certain the coast was clear, he called to his remaining team. “They’re gone! Let’s go!”
Aaron’s team came running down the lighthouse steps and gathered around him. “What now?” one of them asked. Of the fifty, there were only six men and women left.
“Let’s check on Liam and Gunnar and the teams on the north side of the island to see if any of them need help,” said Aaron. “And then we’ll head back to Artimé to protect the mansion.”
Those remaining agreed and set out.
But soon another huge wave of pirates came from the direction of Liam’s station, also heading toward the mansion in Artimé. Knowing it would be crazy to take them on, Aaron and his group hid behind a stand of trees and waited for them to pass. As the last limping pirates passed by, Aaron and his team soundlessly took out the trailing ones, unbeknownst to the other pirates. When the enemies were out of sight, Aaron’s team ran north toward Liam’s station to see if anyone was alive.
“Liam!” Aaron called softly.
A few of Liam’s team emerged from behind a group of rocks, Liam among them. “There were too many,” Liam said, dazed. His pant leg hung in tatters, and there was a bright red bloodstain spreading on the remaining cloth. He limped out from behind the rocks, and his four remaining teammates followed.
Shouts rose up in the distance behind them, but they couldn’t see anything. “Th-that’s probably another shipload of them coming from Gunnar’s station,” said Liam. “We’d better check on them.”
“We’ve got twelve of us now,” said Aaron. “Let’s stick together. We have to do something! I can’t imagine what things are going to look like in Artimé. I hope . . . ,” he said, thinking of Alex, thinking of everything. “I hope everyone is okay.” He slipped his hand inside his vest to make sure the robe was still in place. It was. The battle inside his head returned while the one on the ground took a brief respite.
Aaron led the group toward Gunnar Haluki’s post with Liam hobbling along behind, slowing them down. A short time later, Haluki came out from behind a section of houses. Seven women and men followed him sporting various injuries. Their faces were grim, and they barely spoke.
Gunnar flashed Aaron a defeated glance, and soon the group of twenty was moving along together, growing more fearful of what they would find with the teams on the north shore of the island.