Salt Storm: The Salted Series: Episodes #31-35 by Galvin, Aaron (top 5 books to read TXT) 📗

release that they too might join the battle against the Blackfin and his seawolves.

At first, it seemed to Sydney that Ellie was determined to reach them.

Ellie pivoted a moment later, however, her route blocked when the soldier battles spilled closer to the Orc cages.

Those inside the Orcinian cell proved their mettle too, then; Mr. Owens had caught a passing soldier and held him fast against the bars, strangling him with his other, burly arm. Makeda had stolen the suffocating soldier’s dagger too. The Pod Mother carried over toward the cell door and worked at picking the lock with the dagger. The younger Owens stood by her side, his head on a swivel in protecting watch of any seawolf who might try and stop Makeda from working to free them all.

Sydney saw too that Ellie had moved on from her initial path.

Changing course, Ellie ran toward the clearer route that led to the Merrow cages instead. Drawing her sword as she ran, Ellie hacked at the lock over and again until breaking it free. Then, the brutish Silkie ripped open the door and motioned the Merrows inside to come out.

“Ellie!” Sydney shouted and waved from the king’s pavilion. “Ellie, hurry!”

Her voice was lost to the crowd and battle. Those in the stands were screaming too, the Nautilus filled with the deafening noise of the many, all scattering and fleeing for escape.

Rupert was grabbing at Sydney again too, trying to pry her grip free of the railing and drag her back into the pavilion. “My king!” he cried, shouting all the while. “We need to leave, now! It’s an attack!”

Sydney refused to be yanked away, fighting and clawing to keep hold of the pavilion railing and witness all that unfolded upon the barge. “Ellie! Over here!”

Sydney recognized such hopes for a lost cause when Malik Blackfin came thundering down the scaffolding steps, bellowing commands. His sword rose and fell, slaying any who came to test their skills against his. Throughout it all, Malik called any in the Painted Guard who drew near him to remove their helmets and reveal themselves as friend or foe, lest he run them through without a second thought.

Sydney’s fear overtook her hope, then. “Ellie, run!” She cried to her friend when Rupert succeeded in ripping her away from the rail. “Run, Ellie! Run!”

Rupert shouted over her. “Stop fighting me, Sydney!” He tried and failed to carry her off. “We need to go!”

You need to! She thought, fighting to no avail to buck against Rupert’s attempts.

Sneering, Rupert threw his arm around Sydney and dragged her off toward the Nautilus tunnels.

For all her continued struggle, Sydney kept her gaze upon the battle for the barge and those seeking to flee from the chaos there.

Amelia and her father, Jack Mayfield, were fleeing alongside Ellie, all three of them diving off the barge end. Others too dove into the thrashing white water where another battle raged.

Triangular shark fins had encircled the barge, rising and falling as they sliced through the water. The Nomads below targeted the wounded Painted Guard that were either cast off the barge, or else had abandoned the bloodbath above in search of their own safety. Yet for all the screams and cries for help from the Blackfin’s Orcs, the Nomads in the water left Ellie and the Merrows all unharmed. Each of the newly freed prisoners and their allies dove below, disappearing from those still watching from the stands, or else fighting upon the barge.

A handful of Merrows in half-human form had joined the fight alongside the Nomads in the water too. They flew up and free of the surface with harpoons in hand, flinging them toward their enemies. One nearly found a home in the Blackfin’s throat, the massive Orc dodging it at the last as the harpoon carried on and buried its tip in the shoulder of a Painted Guard lackey behind him.

Like a field general with the presence of mind to adapt amidst the conflict, Malik rallied his forces behind him and then divided his company. The first of those he sent into the water to fend off the Nomad and Merrows there. The rest he bellowed to follow him and stop Makeda from freeing those loyal to her inside the Orcinian prisoner cell.

Even as the Blackfin’s soldiers swarmed their cage, the Orcinian prisoners roared back in defiance.

They’re not going to get away, Sydney recognized when the Blackfin’s soldiers began to retake control of the barge and rallied around those inside the Orcinian cell. Even from afar, Sydney could see the cell door had yet to swing open, and the single dagger Makeda clung to would be meaningless against her brother’s surrounding forces.

Sydney’s thoughts turned to the newly freed and others still fighting in the water, then. Swim away, Ellie. Sydney kept the thought, though she could no longer spot her Silkie friend, nor the Merrows from home that all fled with Ellie beneath the thrashing waves. Swim away and don’t look back!

Even as she continued her prayers for Ellie, Amelia, and the other Merrows to escape, Sydney’s eyes rounded when a slew of towering black dorsal fins emerged in the water, all swimming in perfect formation, rising and falling together.

The Orc pod’s collective screams of echolocation carried over all as the Blackfin’s seawolves swam against the Nomad and Merrow attackers in the water.

Sydney could not see where Ellie and those escaping with her had gone, but the remaining rebels in the water were being swiftly trapped between two sides – the oncoming pod of seawolves in the water, and the Blackfin with his soldiers expanding their perimeter upon the barge.

Despite the odds against them, those loyal to the queen who had remained upon the barge continued to fight. Each showed no signs of retreat, consigning themselves to their deaths in a final stand against the Blackfin and his minions, if only to grant the others like Ellie some precious further seconds to escape below.

Where is Mom?! Sydney’s mind screamed at her to look