by J. D. Lakey
Tam’s eyes gleamed. “We must create this disarray, I assume? We are to be the bait and the hook and the gaff that beats them senseless? I like that idea. Come. Let’s tell Alain and make plans.”
Cheobawn smiled. Tam, her lovely Tam. All you had to do is point him in the right direction and he would have a dozen plans in place to get them there.
Half an hour later they turned the Wanderlust into the well-marked lane and sailed south, Blackwind Pack standing in strategic spots on deck, every weapon they owned secreted in their clothing. As the sloop eased between the embrace of the walls of marsh grass, two swift-boats—buoyant little boats made from fish-skin leather and giant fish bladders with large engines and used by all the smaller sloops as landing craft—exploded out of the grass on either side of them and raced towards their boat.
“Stay calm,” Tam called. “Follow the plan.”
Cheobawn reached out into the ambient and reminded the sky hunters and the quills to stay away. There was a reluctant agreement amongst her brethren.
The swift-boats converged on the Wanderlust. Cheobawn, in a pretense of fear, retreated to the top of the cabin, making sure they saw her. She turned and acted cornered, trying to look natural as she hid her hands by her side. She had two belaying pins in either hand and another six hidden in her pockets. Prepared, she waited.
Megan and Alain met the port swift-boat and Tam and Connor met the starboard boat. Ropes with hooks were thrown, snagging the sloop wherever they could find purchase. There were too many to manage, though they tried valiantly to unhook them all. Burly men in Watch uniforms scrambled on board. They drew their clubs from their belts and stalked the children across the deck of the Wanderlust. Blackwind Pack retreated, pretending to be frightened, luring the men to the stern. That left their boats unattended.
Tam had argued against this part of the plan. “It is a fool’s mistake, leaving the boats unguarded. We cannot count on our Luck being that good.”
“We can. We must,” Cheobawn insisted. “They think they are capturing children. Their over-confidence will be their undoing.”
Two men mounted to the cabin roof and stalked her.
Che backed away.
“Be calm, little one,” one said, pulling out a length of rope. Did he mean to catch her and tie her up? “Dominick just wants to talk at you, is all.”
Dominick. She was certain that talking was the last thing Dominick wanted to do. The Head of the governor’s secret police was a cruel man with a thirst for pleasure. He had turned the causing others pain into a form of high art. Che had leapt from the top of the Lowlander’s hospital to avoid the countless futures in which she died at his hand. The last time she had seen him, she had crawled into the heads of his guards and scrambled their memory centers. It had not been kind. Dominick was terrified of her. Now she had to erase the timelines in which she had to watch Tam die under this man’s wicked hand.
The other man eased to the side, trying to flank her. They meant to encircle her. She could hear the battles being waged on the deck of the Wanderlust. Bodies hit the deck, rebounded off walls, and fell into the river with great splashes. Che did not look around. Instead, she whipped a pin into the bridge of the nose of the one closest. He dropped midst a great splatter of blood, choking out a scream, his hands clutched over his face. The second man only had a moment to watch in surprise, then a pin caught him in the temple. He dropped like a stone. Che sprinted down the cabin’s roof, launched herself through the air, and landed next to the starboard swift-boat. Jumping into it, she took out her fishing knife and stabbed the pontoon. Her knife rebounded off the resilient surface of the cured fish bladder. Cheobawn cursed. The fish leather seemed impervious to the bite of her knife even though she had honed its edge just this morning.
Cheobawn did not mean to leave the men of the Watch with a boat that could chase them down. She had to rethink her plan. The body of the boat was made of hardened fish skin, the bladders sewn into the edges. The giant outboard motor was bolted to its frame. She took a breath. Start small, she muttered to herself. Opening the cowling over the motor, she buried her long knife in its guts. Then using her fishing knife, she slashed at the stitching that held the pontoons to the fish leather. The boat began to break apart around her, threatening to entangle her as it went limp. Che leaped away, her hands clawing frantically at the side of the Wanderlust. Finding a handhold, she flipped herself over the railing and back onto the deck. With a glance towards the marsh, she ran towards the second boat. The two sky hunters were diving, claws extended, attacking things unseen in the reeds.
Che raced over to the port swift-boat and began sawing through the ropes of the grappling hooks that held it secure against the side of the Wanderlust. Megan joined her. She still had her long knife and helped Che set the boat free. Cheobawn leaped into it as it began to drift away.
The great engine on is rear roared back into life with just a touch of the yellow button on its cowling. Grabbing the tiller, she eased it up alongside the sloop. Megan grabbed a mooring line from its prow and tied it off while the boys gathered the bags they had prepared and dropped them over the side to land at Che’s feet.
Che studied them. Everyone was healthy and whole. She could only assume that the blood on their clothes came from the Watch officers. One by one, her Pack dropped into the swift-boat with her. Che grinned at them and turned the throttle. The boat leaped away with a satisfying roar. It all had gone to plan. The men on the Wanderlust would not be ambulatory for a while. Their mother-ship would be slow to come looking for them and even slower still to come to terms with the fact that five children had bested eight Watchmen.
Cheobawn turned the swift-boat and skimmed the edges of the marsh for a few clicks, before heading north to Dunauken.
“They will recover and follow eventually,” Tam shouted into her ear.
Che pointed at the massive sails on the horizon. Jonah’s men, done tormenting the villagers, were on the hunt. “They will have something to say about that. All we can hope for is that an argument will break out among bad men and outlaws. That will work in our favor and delay both of them,” she shouted back.
Chapter 17
That evening, they sheltered in the tall grass and ate their rations cold.
“Where to next, wee-bit?” Tam asked
“I sent Sam a set of coordinates with the last carrion dragon. Hopefully he understands their significance. Robert Wheelwright’s spies must certainly know what is going on out here by now.”
“We go to meet Sam Wheelwright?”
“That sounds too simple,” Connor grunted. “We just survived a bloody battle, fighting determined men who meant us harm. We will just stroll up to Sam and ask for refuge? What are you not telling us?”
Megan looked up, a fierce look on her face. “More than just Sam will be there.”
Cheobawn smiled at Megan and nodded. “The Meetpoint Captain cannot shift a single foot without that knowledge finding its way down their vines of grape. Information is everything and everyone is a gossip. Half the men on the waterfront are spies for one faction or another on this cursed planet. The Spacers have spy eyes out on the edge of the world. They will see us and come. Even in this, we have friends and enemies. If we are to be taken prisoner by anyone in the Spacer forces it must be by Kirr or Kander Hess. Those who fear me the most are the most dangerous and the Scerrons have tried more than once to make sure I do not survive.”
“Besides the beasts of the air, we have no other allies, then?” Alain asked.
“I will use them sparingly. Shooting them is not allowed, but the wicked men coming after us have very little use for rules. Animals have already died for us.”
“So,” Tam said grimly. “We just need to find Sam without being spotted by anyone else. This boat will suffice?”
“Small is good in this case,” Connor observed.
They huddled together in the bottom of the boat and slept, the Night guarding them once
more. Cheobawn slept soundly. For the first time since escaping the black box, dreams of the cold dark did not come.
The first rays of the sun woke them. Once again they headed north. Che tasted the world. The place they were to meet Sam was a golden place in the ambient where all the threads of the planet converged. Cheobawn lifted her eyes to the northern horizon.
Are you watching, Mothers? Is Menolly dreamwalking for you? Are you pleased that your great game of War is finally falling into place?
There was no answer. As ever, the Coven played their cards close to the chest.
Chapter 18
Tam had the spyglass to his eye while Alain sped towards the brilliant white sails on the horizon. She did not need Tam to tell her whose boat waited for her. As she had hoped. Sam’s schooner, the Sunbird II, sat anchored in the deep channel of the Liff exactly where she told him to be. Che sat next to Alain, her fingers on the back of Alain’s hand where it gripped the tiller. The swift-boat hit the wake of a passing ship and bounced. It was like a stone skipping across the surface of a smooth lake, each bounce a bone-jarring thump that traveled up the spine and rattled the skull. Everyone had their fists locked around whatever bit of boat that was handy.
All six of the carrion dragons now circled above their heads. They had come at dawn, sensing her peril. Be safe, she admonished them.
They flashed a fierce emotion down their connection to her. Che snorted ruefully. The image could not be mistranslated. War was not about being safe. It was about being fierce.
For a while, Sam’s sail was all they saw, and Che breathed a little easier, thinking she had dodged the worst of it.
“Two sails to the east,” Tam warned from behind his glass. The breath she had been holding exploded softly out of her throat. Her Alpha turned the spyglass to the rest of the horizon. “Another off to the west.”
“That makes five,” Connor said. Che could not fault his math. They had been followed out of the south marshes by Jonah's sloop and a smaller sail that was the Wanderlust racing beside it. They had indeed traded boats with Dominick’s men.
“No matter what, we need to board Sam’s boat. What happens after that will take care of itself,” Che said.
Sam spotted them, pulled up anchor, trimmed his great sails to catch the wind, and turned to meet them.
One of the eastern sails was quicker than the other. As it drew closer, she could see the double scarlet stripe emblazoned on its main sail. A pirate ship, Mowatt had told them, the day he told them of all the dangers to be found on the river. It sped towards them, trying to block their path and keep them away from Sam. The bounty on her head had brought out all sorts of bad men. These the true pirates that she had been hoping to meet. She cursed her Luck for granting her wish.
Alain aimed their swift-boat at its side, meaning to hit them broadside and bounce off. At the last moment he turned the tiller hard and, amidst a great plume of spray, slid down its side, bouncing off its aft section before turning hard to return to their coarse towards Sam’s boat.
Sam’s boat was pointed at them, closing fast.
“He means to hit us,” Megan warned.
Tam had the glass trained on the Sunbird II. “No, he has men on the prow with grappling hooks. If we do this right, they will catch us and bring us alongside without losing headway.”
The sailboat that had tried to intercept them was coming around hard. The other was almost on them. This one had the double blue stripe on its sail. The Watch. Even among the governor’s men, there were factions. Dominick’s men. As ever, it seemed that Dominick served his own interests first and foremost.
Sam had to turn to avoid a collision with the Watch vessel. Alain cursed and brought the swift-boat around hard. They skated across the surface of the water sideways, the small prop trying to find a grip in the increasingly choppy water.
Three anti-grav ships slipped across the sky at mast height, the sound of their engines a high-pitched whine. Megan yelped in surprise. Blackwind Pack had a new set of contenders for their control.
Connor stared up at the ships in wonder. Che could tell what was going on in his head. This was the adventure he had always longed for. But they had no time to waste on admiring the flight of the silver ships—the swiftest of the sailboats was trying to run them over. Tam swore. This game was turning deadly. Connor snarled and pointed to the gap between the two attacking boats, red stripe versus blue, neither Watch nor pirate willing to give way.
“I see it,” Alain shouted, revving the engines. “Hang on!” It was like threading a needle if the eye was trying to crush you.
They popped out of the gap between the two sailboats like a cork from a bottle of bubbly wine. Another boat blocked their path. Che was cursing their Luck until she saw the scarlet bird emblazoned on the mainsail. It was Sam. Alain turned their boat hard and aimed for the grappling hooks hanging over Sam's railing. The wake of the other boats caught the prow of the Sunbird sending her dancing with her nose in the air. The hooks missed their targets.
Cursing, Tam and Connor leaped up to grab the hooks as they whizzed by overhead.
“Hang on,” shouted Samwell. Ropes were thrown. Cheobawn caught a rope but in the next moment both Tam and Connor grabbed a piece of her clothing and tossed her up into the waiting arms of Sam’s crew where she was unceremoniously shoved to the background as Sam’s crew tried to save the rest of her Pack.
Tam, arm tangled in a rope, braced himself against the bottom of the swift-boat, pulling on the line with all his strength as he tried to keep the two boats side by side.
Megan and Connor snagged their arms in the boarding ladder just as the rough water tore the two boats apart again. The Sunbird jerked them out of the swift-boat and slammed them against its hull. Cheobawn tried to get to them but the rivermen knew what they were doing and kept her away from the railing. By some extraordinary miracle, they managed to hang on. In the next moment they were scrambling up the ladder to safety.
Jerked clear of the swift-boat, Tam used his line to scale the side of the schooner like a mountain climber.
Free of the restraints, the swift-boat fell away to the side. Cheobawn, caught up in a crewman’s arms could only watch as Alain was pulled away from her.
Alain was not so easily defeated. Opening up the throttle, he spun the the swift-boat around and aimed for the side of Sam’s schooner. Tam hooked his arm around the railing and leaned out, his arm outstretched. “Come on! You can do this!” roared Tam.
The swift-boat slammed into the side of the Sunbird hard enough to make the heavy schooner shuddered and danced to the side. The prow of the small craft buried itself under the hull of the Sunbird, launching Alain into the air. He hit the side of the boat hard and began to slip back into the water. Tam grabbed him by his shirt as two of Sam’s crew grabbed Tam.
Sam’s boat kicked and reared in the rough surf but Tam managed to hang on to his Second. Then Alain, immersed up to his hips, began to slip from Tam’s grasp.
Cheobawn screamed. She wanted to help but arms caught her her and kept her back. The deck of the Sunbird II was a chaos of the bodies of the saved and the savers.
Sam got there first.“Climb, boy,” he roared, as he reached down and grabbed the back of Alain’s shirt.
Alain shook the water from his eyes and climbed. He scrambling up Tam's torso using Tam’s clothing as a handhold and gained the deck. The swift-boat, without a hand on the throttle, foundered and fell to the wayside as anti-gravs screamed by just above their head.
Che broke free of her restraints and fell upon Tam and Alain, hugging them fiercely. Connor and Megan joined them, laughing.
“We did it!” Connor crowed in triumph. But they were not done yet. Alain reached over and punched him in the shoulder. “They can still board us. We need to get out of here.”
Sam was shouting orders over the chaos on his deck as the two nearest sailboats tried to come around and ram him once again. Jonah’s nimble sloop was ne
arly on them. It was time to leave. Che was turning to tell Sam this when Tam reached out, grabbed her shoulder and nudged her to the side. Che was vaguely aware of Alain doing the same to Megan. An angry bee zoomed through the gap between Tam and Che in the place where Che’s head had been only a fraction of a second before. Che was watching Megan when a similar bee buzzed past her heartsister’s head and buried itself in the mast of the Sunbird II. Splinters of wood exploded outward. Megan cried out, clutching her face. Alain cursed and pulled her to the deck as Tam slammed Che down and covered her with his body. Connor had Sam, tossing him behind a pile of ropes. Things kept whizzing by. Two of Sam’s crew went down, their bodies unnaturally limp. Che recognized death when she saw it. They had once been human but were now just ruined meat. Guns. Bullets. Blood ran everywhere.
Che’s mind was elsewhere, following the path of the bullets back to the assassins who had sent them. Anger did not fuel this violence. Money did. Someone had paid these men to kill her. Who? She tried to follow that thought back down the timeline of the assassins but angry voices around her brought her back to the moment.
“Get us out of here!” Connor was screaming fiercely in Sam’s ear.
Sam shouted an order at Carlil. The deck boss tried his best but the crew seemed frozen in terror. Che stared at the faces of the two dead. Neither was Peltin, she thought with relief, before she remembered that Peltin was making the Meetpoint Run while Sam stayed in Dunauken to see to her safety.