Snake Heart

by Lindsay Buroker

  “Yanko, where are you?” Pey Lu yelled. “Get up here to help.”

  To help? Against his friends? He clenched a fist and thumped it against his thighs. No, he couldn’t do that. And he couldn’t let his mother attack Arayevo, either. Nor the others. He suspected that was exactly what she intended to do, now that she had the ship shielded.

  Another boom came, this time from underwater. Yanko sensed his mother’s shield, a large barrier like the one he had made to protect Lakeo and Arayevo from her lightning attack. It extended all the way around the ship. Something struck it and exploded against it. Were these the weapons Dak had told them about? He felt his mother’s shield falter slightly under the power of that one. Whatever it was, it was far greater than a cannonball, greater even than the blasting sticks he’d heard about.

  Yanko extended his senses all around the underwater boat, wondering if he might find some allies to help. He couldn’t see himself attacking his mother outright, even if that might be the right thing to do to help the world. But he couldn’t stand by and let Dak and the others suffer her retaliation, either.

  “Did we hit them?” someone asked.

  “No, they keep moving,” Pey Lu said. “And I can’t—I can’t attack the pilot, damn it. Keep trying with the charges. I’ll lower my shield so they can get through.”

  The booms were scaring away the sea life, and Yanko couldn’t find anything large enough that might be of help. He delved lower with his mind, searching the depths near the bottom. He almost missed a huge jellyfish stretched among some rocks down there, doing its best to ignore the noise. With a kraken, he knew what he could offer it, what he might use to bribe it, but could he convince this creature to swim up and get into the fray? Between its body and its tentacles, it stretched more than fifty feet in diameter. He touched its mind, trying to envision it wrapped around the side of the ship, flinging some of those tentacles across the deck. Even if its touch wasn’t deadly, it would surely distract the pirates. He promised the creature that the noise would stop if it wrapped itself sufficiently around the ship.

  Immediately, it started floating upward.

  “Guess it really hates the noise,” Yanko muttered. Did jellyfish even have ears? Maybe it felt the jarring reverberations through the water.

  Another boom erupted, this one closer to Yanko’s location. Water poured into the ship from somewhere below him. This time, the hole was much bigger than the one Dak had carved with a tool. He must be trying to sink this ship, not infiltrate it.

  Aware of the jellyfish swimming closer, Yanko reached out, not to Dak, who would have his mind shut tighter than a clam against Pey Lu, but to Arayevo. He tried to convey that the large creature was coming and to get out of the way. But as soon as he brushed her mind, he felt the fear in her thoughts. For a moment, he glimpsed the world through her eyes. She was in the underwater boat, with Lakeo and Dak, as water poured through from broken seams. A horrible wrenching sound filled her ears.

  Dak hit a button, and another projectile explosive launched. Pey Lu had lowered the shield she had crafted around the ship in order to attack the underwater boat, so the weapon slid through.

  Yanko lunged for a bulkhead to support himself and cried, “Take cover!” to anyone who would listen.

  As this new explosion erupted, Yanko had a flash of thought, a chilling one. What if Dak wasn’t trying to rescue him, but was simply trying to destroy the competition? What if he didn’t care that Yanko was aboard and might die in the attack?

  Before the thought had been completed, Yanko was hurled into the air as more decking was destroyed under him. He did his best to wrap a buffer of air around himself, but he struggled to find the concentration for magic in the noise, fire, and sheer terror of the people around him. His head did not strike the ceiling as hard as it might have, but he still felt the clunk.

  Light poured across him as he tumbled to the deck—what remained of it. He landed halfway through a hole, his legs dangling, and he had to claw his way to solid wood. Water poured in along with that light, and he realized that fire was not responsible for brightening the gun deck, not this time. Daylight surged inside, along with the sea. A giant hole gaped in the hull of the ship, the bottom of it just below the waterline. Then something dark covered it, something gelatinous that still allowed some light in, seeping through its partially translucent body. His giant jellyfish.

  Yanko pulled himself to his feet, regretting that he had called the creature up to attack the ship now that he wasn’t sure of Dak’s motivations.

  “Get out,” he yelled to men clinging to the cannons.

  The stern end of the ship sat lower, and several feet of water already covered the far end of the deck. Pirates sputtered and cursed. One swam for the hole in the hull, not caring that it was partially blocked by a jellyfish twenty times larger than any of them.

  Yanko started in that direction, too, water sloshing around his knees and tugging at the hem of his robe. He kept his shield around him, expecting another explosion or for one of those jellyfish tentacles to slip inside and catch him. From his viewpoint, the creature seemed to be clinging to the hull and to part of the deck, adding weight to further pull the ship off kilter.

  He could still hear his mother shouting, though to his surprise, her words now included orders to lower the rowboats and abandon ship.

  “The underwater boat has been destroyed, but we’ve taken on too much water. Get to Firecracker and Sea Thorn!”

  Before Yanko reached the hole, he halted, thinking of the prisoner he had intended to check on at the beginning of the chaos. He doubted anyone had freed her before running above decks. He gripped a support post, fighting against the ever-increasing water flowing inside, as he checked the brig with his mind. Alarm rushed into him like the water rushing into the hold. Yes, the woman was locked in her cell, and nearly the entire level had flooded. She was gripping the bars and trying to keep her head in the diminishing air pocket at the ceiling.

  Yanko sprinted toward the ship’s ladder, going as far as he could before the water grew too deep for running. He swam for the steps, though he could no longer see them. He couldn’t see anything under the churning water. The jellyfish shifted its grip on the hull, and even less light flowed inside to illuminate the way.

  What are you doing? his mother spoke into his head, startling him.

  Getting my prisoner, he thought back.

  How about you get this jellyfish off my ship? Her tone came through as dry, even via telepathy, but there was an edge to it, as well, a warning.

  I don’t suppose you would believe the Turgonians were responsible for that? Yanko stopped to tread water for a second over the steps. He mentally prepared himself, took a huge breath, then dove.

  No. I should have questioned you about them from the beginning. Where did they get a mage hunter that can pilot a flugnugstica? Or are these allies of the mage hunter in the brig? Why would the Turgonians be helping Nurian assassins?

  If Yanko had not been busy swimming into the darkness of the deck below, he would have shuddered, now having an idea of what “questioning” by Pey Lu would involve.

  Those aren’t Sun Dragon’s people, Yanko thought, wanting to give her something, though it might have been wiser to ignore her. Beams had fallen across the passageway leading to the brig, and he felt like a fish navigating a cave during a tide change.

  The pilot has quite a command of flugnugstica warfare, Pey Lu thought, more irritation seeping into her dry tone. An image accompanied the words, the underwater boat zipping all around the bottom of the Prey Stalker, somehow anticipating her attacks in time to snug up to the hull of the ship. It stayed so close that she had to divert her magical blows lest she strike her own craft. When she had tried to fling a mental assault at the pilot, she had met with the same kind of brick wall Yanko had encountered with the woman in the brig.

  Yanko had been fortunate enough to get through the mage hunter’s defenses, at least enough to distract her for a moment.
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  I had no such luck with this pilot, Pey Lu said coolly.

  Yanko did not respond, though part of him wanted to point out that she claimed to like challenging opponents. Maybe she only liked them when she ended up defeating them.

  He wriggled into the brig, cracking his knuckles on the metal bars. He couldn’t see anything in the gloom, but he sensed his prisoner still stuck inside. The air pocket had disappeared, and terror radiated from the woman, escaping those walls she kept around her mind.

  Yanko patted his way to the gate, then down to the lock, empathizing with her even though she had come to kill him. Nobody deserved to die this way.

  He gripped the bars on either side of the lock and stared at it with his eyes and his mind. Fire would melt the lock more quickly than anything else, but it needed air to burn. Or did it? He remembered his mother’s demonstration, turning the waves to flame. Was this another instance where his mind was getting in the way of his abilities?

  A hand brushed his shoulder, and he almost let go to swim back, thinking she meant to try one more time to fulfill her mission. But fear guided that hand. She patted at him frantically, trying to get him to open the gate, he realized.

  Giving up all rational thought, Yanko stared at the lock and hurled raw power at it with his mind. He wasn’t even sure if it was air, water, or fire that he called upon. Either way, it worked. Not only was the lock destroyed, but with a great wrenching of iron, his power tore the gate from its hinges.

  His prisoner figured out what had happened immediately and swam out. Good. Yanko did not think he could have lingered longer to show her the way. His lungs demanded air, and he still had to navigate out of the ship.

  Another explosion ripped through the ship, and a beam cracked above Yanko. He kicked as hard as he could. The beam almost crushed him as it collapsed in the passageway, a passageway that was breaking up all around him. Boards floated everywhere, and if not for his mental senses, he wouldn’t have known which way to go or even the difference between up and down.

  By the time he squirmed out through one of several giant holes that had turned the hull into eyehole cheese, blackness encroached on the edge of his vision. He swam toward the light of the surface, hardly caring if he ran into the jellyfish or a boat full of pirates aiming pistols at him. All he cared about was breathing.

  Yanko erupted at the crest of a wave, gasping air in so quickly that it hurt. He blinked several times, fighting back the blackness and sucking in more air. The Prey Stalker lay half on its side a few meters away, the jellyfish still draped across one end of it. Shouts came from all around him. He could only see when the waves lifted him up for a good view, but his senses told him that at least fifty other pirates had escaped the ship and treaded water nearby. Several boats were being rowed around to pick people up.

  Yanko had no desire to be picked up. He wished it were still night, so he could disappear more easily. The island was still about two miles away, and he groaned, both at the idea of the long swim and at the realization that he could be spotted any time during that swim. Pey Lu’s ship might be a wreck now, but the four vessels accompanying it had not been damaged. The booms of cannons came from one of them. Yanko shook water out of his ears and swam toward the island, afraid they might be targeting him. One of the cannonballs splashed into the ocean about a hundred meters ahead of him.

  “Yanko, is that you?” a familiar voice yelled.

  “Arayevo?” he cried, forgetting his concern that he might be a target.

  “Over here,” she called.

  Yanko started swimming in that direction before he spotted her. She had to be on the surface with him. Had the underwater boat been destroyed? He remembered the vision he had glimpsed of it filling with water.

  “Watch out for sharks, clodhopper,” Lakeo called.

  Telltale fins dotted the water around the wreck. Yanko had received a few burns, but he had escaped the chaos without cuts that would spill blood into the water. Nevertheless, he tried to project with his mind, making nearby sea life think he was an uninteresting piece of driftwood rather than a tasty meal.

  As the next wave lifted him to the crest, he spotted Arayevo, Lakeo, and Dak too. Yanko never would have expected to feel so relieved to see the big, dour-faced Turgonian. He manned the oars in an odd dinghy with a thin, angular hull that barely looked large enough for the three of them. Yanko worried he would sink it if he crawled in, but that did not keep him from swimming toward it.

  Something splashed into the water between him and it, and he flinched, thinking a shark had broken the surface. But no, it had been a cannonball dropping down alarmingly close to his friends. More cannonballs arched over the crowded dinghy.

  “How about some protection, mighty mage?” Lakeo yelled after following the arc of the last one. It splashed down less than ten meters from their craft.

  Dak rowed toward Yanko, a cut streaming blood down the side of his face to drip from his chin. His face was grim with determination, and he did not seem to notice it.

  “Shark, Yanko.” Arayevo pointed behind him.

  He sensed the large hammerhead approaching and flung an image of fire into its mind before realizing that would probably mean nothing to a shark. He replaced the fire projection with one of killer whales chasing the shark, though he had no idea if they actually were a threat to the fearsome predators. He did not stop swimming long enough to look back and see if his ruse had worked. Instead, he added a shield behind him to deter creatures from taking a chomp from his legs.

  “Duck,” Lakeo yelled, pulling her head down as a cannonball shot past, barely a foot above them.

  Before Yanko could figure out how to get into the strange dinghy without tipping it over, Dak grabbed him under the armpits and hauled him out of the water as if he weighed nothing.

  A hand latched onto his shoulder before he had fully landed, the slender and thin-hulled boat rocking upsettingly. His legs dangled over the side, as he landed on his back between Dak and Lakeo. Arayevo crouched in the bow, all of them pressed in so closely that they touched.

  “Seriously, Yanko. Some magical cannonball repellent would not be unappreciated right now,” Lakeo said, her fingers digging into his shoulder.

  One of those cannonballs was arcing straight toward them, and Yanko did not have time to respond, not with words. He compressed the air between them and the ship firing at them, creating a wall. The cannonball bounced off as surely as if it had hit solid rock.

  “Good,” Dak said, as talkative as ever. “Keep it up.”

  He patted Yanko on the chest, then immediately set to rowing.

  Yanko pulled his legs into the boat and scrunched them to his chest, finding a spot where he could sit in the puddle on the bottom, between Dak and Lakeo. The puddle hardly mattered since even more water dripped from his robe and hair. He could see the pirate ships from this new vantage point, but did not find the view inspiring. A second vessel had turned its side toward them, gun ports on display, smoke wafting up as more cannons fired. The artillerymen had gotten their range down, and those iron balls hurtled through the air, landing alarmingly close to the boat. Yanko kept his defenses up, shielding them as Dak rowed, though it was not easy. He found it simpler to block a fireball for a few seconds than to maintain a barrier. Maintaining it was hard since the mind tended to fool itself, thinking it had not lessened its effort at all, only for it to be revealed that it had when a ball sailed through to land a foot off their stern. A huge wave of water sluiced over the edge, and Lakeo cursed as it hit her in the back.

  “Yanko,” she protested, swatting him in the shoulder.

  “Considering you almost wrecked me along with my moth—Pey Lu’s ship, you should be delighted that I’m shielding you at all,” Yanko said, though he felt abashed and redoubled his efforts.

  “I wasn’t the one firing at the ship. That was Dak. He said you were tough enough to survive a few mugra.”

  “If those are the giant pointy cannonballs that explode, I don’t
think anyone can survive a direct hit with one. Never thought I’d see something like that on a Kyattese vessel.”

  Without pausing in his rowing, Dak offered a rare smile. It reminded Yanko uncomfortably of a wolf chasing after his prey.

  “As I told you,” Dak said, “the underwater boats were designed by my people. They have many means of defense.” His smile turned to a grimace. “Though I wasn’t expecting to encounter a mage who could simply crush the craft with his mind like a sardine tin.”

  “Her mind.” Yanko sighed. “That was my mother.”

  Yanko eyed the boats around the wreck, hoping Pey Lu was distracted with saving her people. This lifeboat was flimsy, and it would not take a powerful mage to destroy it.

  The boats had lifted most of the pirates out of the water, but were still collecting a few stragglers. The sharks circled, not scared away by the booms of the cannons, or the rifles and pistols being fired. The one Yanko had been fleeing was not far away, its fin visible to the port side of Dak’s boat.

  “Did you get to talk to her?” Arayevo peered around Dak to look at Yanko. “Was she amazing?” That longing in her voice came through, even though water dripped from her hair into her eyes and she appeared as bedraggled as he.

  She was still beautiful, even in that state, with cannonballs arcing toward them and sharks circling. Perhaps a touch crazy, but beautiful. The old familiar longing returned to Yanko’s heart, and he wished he could give her an answer that wouldn’t disappoint.

  “She was... something,” Yanko murmured, not sure what else he could say.

  He did not follow it up with the next statement that came to mind, that Pey Lu might take Arayevo into her crew if she asked. For one thing, Yanko did not want to give Arayevo up. True, she was not his, but he would never get his chance to confess his feelings to her if she ran off and joined Pey Lu. No matter what happened or where Arayevo went, Yanko knew beyond a doubt that he couldn’t join his mother’s crew. He could never become a pirate. He couldn’t do that to his father or to his people.