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    Chapter 39


    Hedgecliff


    “I can see them,” Jaz said just as she spotted the sails herself. They were white dots on the horizon. The Rubanian decoy ship had arrived earlier that morning, it had been hugging the coastline and had docked in at the fishing village just before the tide turned. They suspected that the Altareans would leverage the swell of hightide currents to propel them in and the trading vessel would be stuck at the pier. It was a classic manoeuvre for raiding ships when they were forced to dock at smaller villages where there wouldn’t be any tangible resistance from local authorities.


    “Stay on the ridgeline,” Endrin told them. They were organised into three squads of six. On her own team, herself, Endrin and another stonebreaker were tasked with ranged attacks. Loreli, Jaz and another grenadier were for melee.  The other squads had a similar mix of runewielders, each specialised in one particular runestone. Misandrei’s team was at the rear as a reserve, theirs was the only team with a Healer—a bloodstone specialist. Femira’s team was on the higher ridge, with another offensive team further below. Both would primarily be focused on targeting long-range destructive attacks, aimed at taking down the enemy ships. Loreli, Jaz and the other short-range combatants were to defend the stonebreakers as they fired projectiles.


    Resisting the urge to jump into the melee fighting around her would be a challenge when all her instincts would be screaming at her to fight. But she needed to prove that she could be part of the team, that she could take orders. She waited in anticipation, watching as the ships crept closer along the horizon. She thought of the soldiers on those ships. They would be mostly men, if not all of them—she didn’t remember ever seeing a woman stormguard.


    Her eyes spotted another white do on the hiroznt.


    Is that?


    “There’s a fourth ship,” she called out, “there’s a fourth ship is anyone else seeing that?!”


    “What?” Endrin rose from his position and moved toward her, “where?” She pointed, but figured that was a useless gesture. It was always hard to follow a person’s line of sight.


    “Between the middle and the left ship, there’s a fourth one in the distance,” she said. He was squinting, he had a square jaw that now had the grizzle of a light beard from the few days on the road, “shit,” he said after a moment of scanning the horizon, “wait here.” he instructed them before heading off down the back of the ridge to Captain Misandrei’s team position.


    “Four warships,” Jaz whistled, “there could be eight hundred soldiers in total manning them.”


    “Then it’ll be a big win for us when we take them down,” Loreli replied with a grin.


    “Why send four warships for just one merchant vessel, that doesn’t make any sense,” Jaz said, his gaze locked on the approaching ships.


    The tide was carrying them in quickly. Beyond the cliff’s edge was the broad expanse of coastline revealed by the low tide. The myriad of trenches and hollows in the exposed seabed were already being swashed with crashing white water as the sea surged back with the oncoming tide. It’s a strong tide, they’ll be in less than an hour. They would have stormguards and wavecallers propelling their ships in addition to the swell.


    “Do you think they knew we were baiting them?” The other stonebreaker—Kerana was her name, she had a shock of blond in her black hair. She didn’t seem much older than them, definitely still in her twenties. Loreli shot a glare at Femira at the woman’s comment.


    “Do you really think I warned them?” Femira snapped at her, exasperated, “I’ve been with you the whole fucking time.” Kerana gave Femira a wary look. Seriously, you too?


    “Both General Garld and Captain Misandrei trust her,” Jaz scolded Loreli, “Annali is not our enemy. Stop letting your prejudice cloud your judgement.”


    “Prejudice?” Loreli’s eyes widened, “She’s Keiran! They are the enemy.”


    “I’m not Keiran,” Femira said resolutely, “and I haven’t been for a very long time.”


    Endrin was running back up the ridge towards them, bounding over rocks and clearing cracks with ease.


    “Do you think we’ll withdraw?” Jaz asked her. He sounded nervous. Was this his first battle too? She realised she’d never asked Jaz if he’d ever actually been in a battle before being recruited. He’d been a grenadier in the main army ranks, she knew that. She also knew that he’d been in reserve for the assault in Altarea but before that she didn’t know. “I don’t know,” she replied truthfully. The front three ships were fast approaching, along with the fourth on their tail. They wouldn’t have long left to decide.


    “We’re to hold position,” Endrin said as he arrived back.


    “Hold position?” Kerana echoed, “has she gone mad?!”


    “She’s our commanding officer,” Endrin reminded quickly, “get back into position. They’ll be in range soon. Their numbers imply that they knew there would be some resistance waiting for them… but they’re not expecting us. They have no idea the powers they’re dealing with.”


    “Can we really take that many?” Jaz asked him.


    “We’re soulforged,” Endrin said, “remember, most of these men won’t even be runewielders. And those that are, well, they’re nothing compared to the bloodshedders.”


    “How can we be sure they don’t have any soulforged runewielders?” Femira asked, sceptically. She had found the soulstone in Altearea, after all. She also knew that the book had been one of the guiding texts on soulforging that Garld was using to infuse his soldiers. It was pretty obvious that the Altareans knew about soulforging and it wasn’t a stretch to think that they might have had at least some success with it.


    “We have the soulstone, remember?” Endrin said.


    “You’re not so foolish to think that’s the only one?” She replied.


    “It changes nothing,” he growled at her, “we’re not retreating. Get back into position.”


    They arrayed themselves in the agreed formation. The stonebreakers spread out, with Endrin in the middle. The melee fighters behind them, ready to jump into action when needed. She could feel the pressure of the wind shift and change. It became wild and erratic, no longer billowing from the east, it now twisted and undulated. She could sense the cliff beneath her, the weight of it, standing resolute against the wind and sea as the waves finally reached their feet, smashing against them with the force of the approaching tide.


    The ground around her vibrated in response to her edir, she noticed that she could feel Endrin and Kerana’s presence there too. Their edirs pulsing out from them, focused on the cliff. She directed her focus there. The three of them began to form great spikes of stone out from the cliff face. It looked like the spines of a giant stone hedgehog were protracting out from the cliff. She formed two, and could see below that the others had formed three each. She held the two and tried to focus on pulling a third out from the stone but it crumbled under the weight of itself, the rocks crashing into the surf below.


    “Just two at a time,” Endrin called over to her, “you don’t have the strength for more than that.” Angrily, she focused her edir on reforming the lost third spike, but then stopped herself. She was supposed to be learning to take orders. She could feel her grip on the other two slipping, they strained and wobbled. She focused all of her attention back on supporting the two she had already formed. Each spike was twenty feet in length and as thick as a horse of pure rock, she had never tried to hold that amount of weight with edir before. She could feel it straining, and it thrilled her. She wasn’t sure how long she could support it before she exhausted herself, she doubted she could hold on longer than a few minutes before needing a break to recover.


    She wouldn’t need to hold it even that long.


    “The first ship is almost in range,” Endrin called out over the wind, “Hold!”


    She could see tiny black specks on the deck of the ship. The Altareans undoubtedly had noticed their cliff hedgehog by now. A cliffhog maybe? Hedgecliff? She’d think of a better name for it later. Before becoming soulforged, she would have said it was impossible to shoot projectiles that large over such a distance.  Although, five months ago she would have said it was impossible to shoot a stone projectile with your mind at all.


    “Release!” Endrin roared. She felt the sudden swell of his and Kerana’s edirs as they forced all their strength into their rock spikes. Six of hedgecliff’s spikes exploded from the rock face, and hurtled towards the closest of the enemy ships. Her own pair followed a second later.


    Whoa. Her shoulders tensed and she had to adjust her standing position to counter the sudden weight against her chest. She hadn’t expected such a kickback from pushing on such heavy projectiles. The spikes tore through the air but as they neared she felt another force pushing against her edir to deflect them.


    It was stormguards, using powerful gusts of wind to derail the trajectory. She fought with her edir to steer them both back on course but as they neared the ship a surge of wind blasted at them and they zipped past causing a fountain of white water as they crashed into the waves. Beyond the ship. Endrin and Kerana’s spikes had also been deflected. Although it appeared that one of them had managed to catch one of the masts as it was deflected, taking the top of the mast with it as it crashed into the sea with another massive splash. The ship itself was rocking wildly from the distrubed water, its sails billowing violently.


    “Again!” Endrin roared, “before they regroup!”


    Another set of rock spines grew out from hedgecliff, Femira tried to keep up but she couldn’t form them as fast as the more experienced bloodshedders. Who had already launched theirs before hers were even fully formed. The winds had picked up even more violently than before, she could see now that tiny dark blue kites were gliding across the distance between them and the ships. She couldn’t focus on counting how many there were but she got the impression of at least twenty.


    “You see them?” She called back to Jaz.


    “Don’t worry,” she heard in response over the wind, “I’ve got them.”


    “Focus on your own tasks, Vreth!” Endrin shouted over at her.


    This time, she anticipated the pressure kickback and planted her back foot, pushing out with her edir and firing her pair of spikes forward. They trailed after the sets already launched forward by the others.


    A bundle of flames fell from the sky, it was close to her planned path but she didn’t need to alter the course as the burning stormguard fell past a good few feet to the left. Her mind went to the horror that the stormguard must have felt realising that his stormsail had been set alight. She remembered her own attempt at using one that night in the Altarean palace when she’d cleared the crevice on one. The panic-induced terror of being completely unsupported with nothing between you and the death below but air. Stormguards could manipulate the air but they couldn’t fly, not without the aid of the stormsail and those didn’t tend to work very well when they were on fire, she guessed.


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    She’d been distracted by the falling stormguard and when a blast of wind forced her spikes into the sea short of the mark  and she cursed with frustration. She diverted her attention back to making another set.


    “Reformation!” Endrin called out. What? Shit, that meant—


    —Her breath caught and the world spun as a fist of air as big as her body slammed against her. Her vision swam wildly. Sky, land, sky, land, sky land. A thud of pain erupted from her shoulder. Disoriented, she looked up to see that she’d been knocked back against the rock formation. Three soldiers in blue cloaks and bronze armour landed in front of her on the ledge she’d just been standing. A part of her mind was astonishingly grateful that the whichever stormguard had blasted her with a gale had pushed her away from the cliff edge and not over it.


    The three stormguards had abandoned their stormsails and were drawing their curved swords. Suddenly, Femira was a child again fleeing through the market stalls in Altarea, swashes of blue cloak in the corners of her eyes. Instinct told her to run but instead she reached her edir into her chest and conjured all six of her glass blades. Four would have been a more manageable choice and meant she could summon another pair in case of emergency, but wasn’t this already an emergency?


    One of the stormguard’s cloaks went ablaze with fire and another bounded to the right, distracted by something. She didn’t hesitate and leapt forward towards the remaining one, ignoring the pain in her shoulder. She whipped out her steel daggers and kept the six glass blades in orbit as murder moons. She felt a tempest of wind as the stormguard attempted to hinder her with a gust but she drew in earth from below her, pulling it into her core as stoneskin. The action made her temporarily heavier, her skin stronger as the wind blast hit her. The murder moons were pushed out of orbit, but she reached out with her edir, catching them and firing them forward to the stormguard.


    His face was masked by a helm but she could see from his body language he was taken aback by her attack. The glass blades shattered against his bronze armour, but she only needed them to be a distraction, she pulled at the earth at his feet drawing it in. The man stumbled and she rapidly formed a mound of earth that she flung towards him. She had hoped there was enough force in the attack to push him over the cliff but his own wind manipulation skills protected him from that fate.


    “Focus on the ships, Vreth!” Endrin’s voice called out. With a stormguard about to stick his sword in me I don’t fucking think so. She moved forward engaging the stormguard as she struck out with her daggers. He was quick in response with his sword, his fighting style similar to those she’d trained with.


    He wasn’t soulforged, she could tell that much already but he was still faster than a normal person should have been. Using his stormstone hold ability to enhance his speed. Her forearm guard caught his sword as she failed a parry, his sword came back up quick as a snake, aiming for the vulnerable area under the arm. His sword was moving too quickly for her edir to catch it and attempt to dissolve the metal.


    Instead, she focused her edir on stoneskin. She felt the sword cut through the material of her uniform and the force of the blade striking into her armpit. With her focused stoneskin it felt blunt—like a punch—which was far more preferable to a blade slicing in there. She needed to capitalise on the stormguard’s confusion when his sword hit against something hard and immoveable rather than cutting up and out of her shoulder blade. The impact pushed her arm up—causing her to drop her dagger—she used that momentum to clamp her hand on the visor of the stormguard’s helm.  The vibrations of the bronze called to her and she sucked at it, the visor crumpling under her hand to dust. With her other hand, she rammed the second dagger up towards his head and buried the blade into his eye.


    The blade slid sickeningly into the socket.


    She felt the man’s body go limp. The blade grinded against the bone and she gagged, recoiling away and letting go of the dagger. The man slumped away from her, her blade still lodged in his face. She trembled, feeling a sudden and intense nausea. She staggered back, her mind flashed to the blade edge grinding against the bone of his eye socket.


    She vomited.


    It was hot and acrid and spurted out of her onto the man’s body. Oh fuck. Her body erupted into a fit of shivers. She looked around—more stormguards had landed. Loreli was engaged with three of them, her sword flashing and zipping. Jaz and the other grenadier were also embroiled in melee fights, their opponents cloaks ablaze. She was aware of someone shouting but she couldn’t focus on the words.


    “ANNALI!” the words finally hitting her. It was Endrin. The ships! The stormguards were just the vanguard, they were trying to take down the stonebreakers before they could sink the ships. If the ships landed then they would have a lot more soldiers to be dealing with. A lot more blades in eye sockets. Her stomach clenched and she thought she might vomit again.


    She took a stilling breath, calming her nerves. And then another and refocused her edir on the cliff below her. She focused only on forming another set of rock spines from hedgecliff, forcing the thoughts of eye sockets out of her mind. She looked out at the ships, gauging her target.


    To her surprise there were only three ships remaining, with one now a jumble of broken wood being crushed and torn apart by the waves. She could see stoneblades from the other team also being shot out from the cliff face. The other team had been focused on the ship closest to them but now all stonebreakers were directing their attacks at one of the ships that was streaming towards the headland. They’d made it within cannonfire range and bombshells were raining blasts against hedgecliff. They obliterated massive chunks of rockface as she attempted to form her stone spikes. Some of the bombshells exploded in the air, having been intercepted by the grenadiers igniting them before landing.


    The ground beneath her shook as a blast hit close to them. They’d chosen this part of the cliff specifically because of its slope. It wasn’t a sheer face so they would have stability without fear of pulling out too much rock from underfoot. Now with the additional blasts of cannonfire, chunks of the cliff rained down to the surf below. Are they trying to take down the whole cliff?!


    It was the closest warship that was doing the most damage. And all attempts of stone spikes were being deflected. There were less stone spikes now as the endurance of the other stonebreakers began to wane.


    Or maybe the stormguards had gotten to them? She attempted to form another stone spike but it was blasted before fully forming. Femira tried to think of something else, she knew she was getting better at stoneshaping but it still wasn’t her strong point. She’d always been better at dissolving rock than forming it.


    The cannonballs would be metal, she could dissolve them? Try to give the others a better chance at forming their projectiles? She tried to send out her edir but she couldn’t focus on them at this distance, she also doubted she could dissolve metal that quickly from this far away either.


    If she were touching it, she could dissolve it seconds but the further away it was, the slower it dissolved. Think of something! She looked over at Loreli, she’d taken down one of the stormguards but the other two were still on her, blue cloaks swishing as they fought. Blue cloaks! She realised. All stormguards wear blue cloaks! Their arrogant badge of honour. She flicked her gaze back to the closest ship. It was close enough now that she could make out the people on the deck, soldiers milling about, loading cannons. The regular soldiers in dull grey uniforms and among them she could just about make out four men in blue cloaks. She could even catch glints of reddish light as their bronze armour caught the sunlight.


    She kneeled down at the dead stormguard in front of her and placed her hand on his breastplate. The vibrations tingled her hand and the metal poured into her. Her hands glowing with amber light and she formed a thin spear of bronze from it. She took aim at one of the stormguards and prayed that they would be too focused on the stone spikes that hedgecliff was launching at them to notice her spear.


    With the full strength of her edir, she propelled it forward. The spear tore through the air and she kept pushing. As it flew further away, her ability to hold on abated but she maintained her focus, holding on for as long as she could, guiding it with slight nudges.


    The spear landed.


    She could see the stormguard being knocked back across the deck from the impact. She couldn’t really see if the spear had pierced the man’s armour but she suspected it had. Her mind flashed to the eye socket and her dagger—only now she imagined it as a bronze spear. She shuddered and quelled the rise in her stomach.


    The shards of her glass blades were dotted about her. She reached out and pulled the shards into her and formed another spear, this one of glass. It possibly wouldn’t have as fatal an impact as her last one, but it would still be enough to distract one of them long enough. She rocketed the glass spear, thinner than the last towards another of the blue cloaks on the ship. It whirred as it sailed through the air and struck him.


    She’d been so focused on her glass spear that she’d not noticed a stone spike crash into the hull of the ship at the same time. The stone spike tore through the ship and busted through onto the other side, crashing into the water in a spray of water. Soldiers on the ship scurried about but it was breached, the damage was done. Some had realised the inevitable and were diving over the sides before the ship eventually collapsed in on itself. The waves hammering at the breach, tearing it apart.


    Femira felt what she could only describe as being sucked as a vacuum pulled at the air around her. She recognised the sensation and drew as much stone from around her as she could hold. Her skin bursted with amber light as she did so. She held it in her core but didn’t absorb it, using it instead to strengthen her skin and make her incredibly heavy in anticipation of a wind blast.


    A second later—as expected—a blast of air smashed at her. This time from behind, an attempt at pushing her over the cliff but her additional weight of stoneskin held her firmly in place. She looked over at the top of a ridge where a stormguard was barreling towards her. She didn’t have her daggers. She’d dropped one, and the other was still lodged in the eye of the man she''d killed. Her glass daggers were also gone. But she didn’t need weapons.


    She pulled the earth at his feet. Annoyingly, he bound lightly over her attempts to displace his footing. He was closing in on her. She attempted to pull up a mound of dirt as a barrier but a blast of air burst it apart.


    Shit. Terror mounted in her as the man’s sword was suddenly slashing at her. She focused stoneskin on her right shoulder where the sword collided but then in an instant—and with impossible speed—he whipped his blade over her to her left and landed a shallow cut. Her arm flared hot as the sword’s edge cut into her just beneath her dragonhide pauldron.


    She cried out in alarm, and barely had time to react as he stepped back and prepared to run her through.


    Suddenly, the wind and light disappeared and she was encased in a black void. She could still hear sounds but it was muffled, she stood frozen in complete darkness.


    What? She reached out with her hand and touched against stone. Her edir buzzed, and she was suddenly aware that she was encased inside a shell of rock. There was another presence there—someone else''s edir—preventing her from dissolving it.


    Endrin?


    She pressed against the stone shell with both her hands and edir.


    “Hey!” she called out, punching ineffectually against the rock. “Let me out!” She wasn’t sure how much time had passed, it felt like seconds. Her heart was thrumming. She could still hear—and feel—the earth shaking as cannonfire blasts landed against the cliff. And then the edir was gone, leaving only the shell of stone, she reached out tentatively with her edir. It felt normal, vibrating in response to her touch. She drew it in and the shell around her dissolved instantly in a cloud of dust.


    After her eyes adjusted to the light, she could see the body of stormguard that had been attacking. Blood stained his cloak and gave a vibrant red sheen on his armour. Loreli was standing near to her, looking out towards the sea. Nearby, she could see Jaz sitting on a rock and Endrin also walking towards them. She didn’t see Kerana or the other grenadier.


    “They’re retreating?” Femira asked. Noticing that only one of the Altarean ships was still afloat and was hastily changing their direction away from the headland. The tide was still swelling in, it would be impossible for them to make it back out to sea against it, but they would surely have a wavecaller on board who would create a guiding current to channel them away from the bloodshedders.


    “It’s over?” Femira breathed.


    “You’re welcome,” Loreli nodded to the dead stormguard in front of Femira, “I guess you’re not a spy after all,” she took a step towards Femira and glanced at the man that Femira had killed, “dagger to the face…” she acknowledged with a approval, “nice.”


    Femira felt a lurch in her stomach, she buckled to her knees and found herself retching. There was no more vomit left in her. But that didn’t stop her body trying.


    “You alright?” Endrin asked as he made it to them. Loreli nodded, Femira tried to do the same but another retching of bile hit her throat. Her eyes watered and she gasped and wheezed between retches. The wind felt cold against her sweat.


    “Th—thank you,” she managed to pant out, “for the stoneshell”


    “Huh,” Endrin replied, “stoneshell. Not a bad name for it.”


    “Better than hedgecliff anyway,” she said, leaning back and finally catching her breath.


    “I have no idea what you’re talking about,” he replied.


    “Nevermind.”


    “Where are the other two?” she asked, looking around. Loreli and Endrin shared a look. Jaz looked exhausted and didn’t answer her.


    “They’re gone,” Endrin answered solemnly.


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