Ye Be Askin’ for Death

Tyr pushed the drape to the side and peeked out of the window. Everything appeared to be normal. After fixing the curtain, he withdrew further into the room, away from the windows.

He wanted to incinerate as many of the pirates as possible in one blast. If their bodies were nothing, then there would be no way for them to resurrect. While drawing in the amount of heat needed for such an attack was much harder without Aži, he could still do it. It just took longer. Unfortunately, there were not any explosive materials in this village.

Red and orange swirls wrapped around his body, running down his arms and into his lances. As he focused on the spell, he crouched down. His weapons vibrated and the metal shafts became warm in his hands.

After a few minutes, his heavy footsteps crossed the threshold. The merry music still played and shouts and cheers echoed through the night. A faint smell of alcohol drifted in the air from the many bottles flying around. In some places, the ground was wet with liquor.

Both of his weapons glowed from the heat and hummed with the magic that was being stored. Tyr scanned the village center and pointed the tips of his lances at the crowd. His eyes narrowed and two pillars of flame stretched across the festivities, burning everything in its path.

The people caught in the fire immediately turned black and crumbled to the floor. Their ashes flew into the night sky, drifting up to the cold white moon.

Aži had been flying around searching for Tyr and Macha. Their return took longer than expected, so he was getting worried. When two large pillars of flame erupted, his head snapped to the familiar sight. Without hesitation, he hastened to the location. He and Tyr had their lives connected, so he did not want anything to happen to his friend.

Without stopping, Tyr made his way to Captain Killigrew, his green eyes emitting his killing intent. As he ran towards her, he lopped off the heads of any pirate within reach. Not many survived his initial attack, and the survivors ran away as fast as possible.

This band of pirates had been around longer than he was alive. The fight against their Captain worried him. She was known for being an exceptional fighter who began pirating at the age of nine.

Killigrew snarled and threw a bottle against a wagon. It shattered into a rain of tiny glass shards as she drew her cutlass.

A green aura surrounded her. Seeing her crew burn to ashes in front of her set her anger ablaze. They could not be resurrected, and she would have this man pay.

"Ye be askin' for death toni'ht, boy," she snarled.

Tyr threw one of his lances into the air. Its dark silhouette stood against the moon of Mímir. The lance multiplied into a hundred and rained down around them. Each attack plunged into the earth, splitting the ground.

One blade pierced through Killigrew's body, impaling her through her torso, but a green flame burned the summoned weapon away and closed her wound. She cracked her neck and squared her stance.

"Aaargh," she shouted. A moss-colored mist seeped out of her pores creating a dense ring of miasma that hovered unnaturally at knee-height. Everything in the path of the cloud, which was as thick as a tree-trunk, rotted away and crumbled.

Tyr jumped back, not wanting to get close. He was unsure if he jumped over the fog, if the inner part of the circle would have the same effect. He ripped one of his lances out of a dying woman and threw her over the approaching ring. The body tumbled to the ground, she was still intact until the green circle drew back in.

After the miasma rolled over the woman, her skin bubbled and popped. The flesh fell off her bones in chunks and blood dripped from her eyes.

The gaseous ring seemed to breathe in and out as Killigrew charged towards him. Tyr jumped up onto the roof of a house, but the miasma caused the building to decay and begin to crumble. The timing of miasma's rhythm did not seem to change. When it was at its furthest, he hopped down from the roof and stabbed her through her heart.

Her blue eyes locked with his and she smiled wickedly.

He did not have time to attack again, so he jumped over the deadly cloud that was coming back. As he thought, a green flame ignited from Killigrew's chest where he had wounded her. In an instant, she was healed.

His lips tightened at seeing her regenerative powers. The battle was not looking good, but at least the corrosive fumes seemed to stay in a set pattern.

Aži flew down to Tyr. From a distance, he could see that the situation looked difficult, and he wanted to get rid of the miasma that stopped his friend from fighting. The wyvern gave a piercing screech before drawing in a deep breath.

His belly glowed white as the fires gathered inside. The light traveled up his neck and shot out of his wide jaws. White hot flames attacked the green gas, burning them away. The attack towered three stories high and consumed everything in its path.

As the fires raged, Killigrew ran out of the fire. A green protective bubble encased her body. It was transparent and shimmered in the moonlight. Her cutlass aimed at the wyvern's opened mouth, which still spewed fire and she advanced towards him. Where her weapon pointed, the defensive bubble was opened.

A lance crashed down from the sky and hit the broadside of her blade. The force parried her attack and forced her sword to lower.

While she had her guard down, Tyr swung his lance to decapitate her. His blade struck against the green bubble, causing the shield to crack but not shatter.

His lance pressed against her shield, so Killigrew kicked Aži in the throat, forcing his mouth shut. The flames ended as his mouth clamped shut. The kick caused the onyx wyvern to fly backward through two homes before coming to a crashing halt.

Three lances crashed down from the sky, hitting where her shield was cracked. This time the green bubble shattered into thousands of pieces and fell to the ground. Their fragments glittered in the surrounding moonlight.

Tyr swung his weapon at her, but she did not block the strike. His attack pierced deep into her chest and he felt the blade cleave through one of her ribs.

As he did this, she thrust her cutlass into his side. A warm trickle of blood ran down his leg. The pain caused him to grimace and his eyes narrowed when he looked at her. Tyr grabbed her blade and held it with an iron-like grip.

Her brows furrowed. She tried to pull back her sword, but the man refused to let go. This tactic was something she would do, but he did not have regenerative powers as she did. Both of them twisted their blades, causing their faces to twist with pain.

The two stood, unmoving as Aži's dark figure darted along the ground towards them. His jaws snapped, and he wanted to get revenge. The woman dripped green gas from her pores, summoning the corrosive ring around her again. Increasing his speed, Aži's chest glowed, and he pounced on top of Killigrew. As his mouth opened above her a torrent of flames erupted.

After the flames disappeared, the ground was black from the heat. All that was left of the woman was her hand, which was wrapped around the hilt of the cutlass. It still moved, so Aži gobbled it down. The hand elicited a burp from him and a lick of fire escaped his mouth.

Tyr clutched his side. The cut had been deep. He knelt down and closed his eyes. The area where his wound was frosted over. For now, he sealed it to stop the bleeding.

Wiping the sweat from his brow, he gave Aži a quick pet. "You need to come back sooner. What's the point of having a wyvern when you aren't even around to make fire for me?"

Aži gave a snort. It was not his fault that he could not locate the two. He had been searching the area for hours. In his opinion, Tyr should have made a tracking ring for him instead of Macha. Maybe then it would be easier for them to find each other.

After taking a few moments to recover, Tyr stood up. The lance that he threw into the sky returned to him. The fight had drained him.

Although it was not hard to create fire it was difficult to make it hot enough to instantaneously incinerate people. He wished Aži was around earlier to do that for him.

He dealt with the pirates and preferred to return to the airship as quickly as possible. Currently, his wound was not deadly, but he needed to have it treated before it became fatal. It was painful, and he knew Macha would be worried when she saw him.

Running his fingers through his hair to straighten his appearance, he turned to his wyvern friend, "Let's get Macha."