Before the Broken Star

by King, Emily R.

  “Prime and reload!” the commander calls.

  Jamison lowers his musket into loading position, butt against his hip. All their shots fired, but at this range, the guns are less accurate and their few shots that landed did little damage.

  Our gunmen ready for another volley. A trained soldier can reload in under a minute. The pesky wind and rain add to their struggle. Jamison is the first to fire again, followed by several others. I cringe at the repetitive booms but do not release my sword to cover my ears.

  Laverick’s shot strikes a wooden soldier square in the chest. He recoils at the impact but continues on, his torso hardly scratched.

  The scene is repeated across the battlefield. Wooden soldiers pockmarked with nicks and scores, weathering our fire without a sound. Their resilience sends my ticker pounding.

  The army comes within fifty yards. At this range, the gunfire is more accurate. The settlers reload again and fire. Wooden soldiers recoil. Holes blow through their arms and legs, splinters flying in a spray of shards. A lead ball blasts apart one’s knee. The wooden soldier hobbles on his good leg, still coming for our line.

  The men reload and prepare for another round.

  A gust blows rain in my face, my sword at the ready. More longboats have left for the Lady Regina. Others return to shore for the next boatload of people. Vevina and Captain Dabney are still directing the evacuation. Unarmed men and women dare the choppy waves and swim out to the ship. A longboat has capsized in the cove and its passengers are trying to flip it upright, the winds hefting them about in the water.

  Markham is not among his ranks, and the Cadeyrn of the Seas cannot be seen along the coastline. A mist settles upon the island, driven in by the storm, and obscures my far-off view. Father Time said Markham needed to be close to his army. Did I misunderstand? Has Markham taken the heartwood and the sword of Avelyn and sailed away?

  The wooden army lumbers closer, just yards off now, their battle-axes and spears ready. Commander Flynn calls for the infantry to pull back. The men without swords turn their muskets over to bludgeon with and the others draw their rapiers.

  A battle-ax whizzes past us and slams into Commander Flynn’s chest. He falls over dead before I can gasp. The settlers rush the front line of wooden soldiers. They whack at them with the ends of their guns and hack with swords.

  A wooden soldier sweeps his arm and throws a man. The man’s yell ends when he slams into a tree. A second wooden giant wades through the men, cutting with his ax, trampling over our troops like weeds.

  Someone’s spear goes through the man to my right. Another wooden soldier comes directly for me, ax swinging. Claret shoulders her musket and shoots. The ball goes through the soldier’s shoulder, blasting a hole. He sweeps his ax at us. We roll out of the way and Jamison fires at his knee. The joint explodes and the soldier drops.

  As he tries to get back up, I grab the lit lantern and throw it at him. The glass shatters, covering the wooden soldier in oil. The flame ignites in a burning hot flash.

  More men toss lanterns at our enemies’ front line. Fires smolder all around. One wooden soldier steps over his burning comrade. Another walks onward, his arm aflame, and hits a settler. The man falls to the ground with his clothes ablaze.

  Several wooden soldiers lumber for us, some of them still on fire in places, scorched but mobile.

  “Fall back!” Jamison pushes at me. “Run, Everley. Take cover!”

  Claret and Laverick grab up their firearms. We dash into the deserted camp, splashing through puddles. We keep going until we are far in the middle and hide between two tents.

  The three of us huddle out of the downpour. I stand guard as they reload their muskets. Laverick spills her powder horn and Claret jams down her ammunition ball with the rod. A man screams as he’s thrown into the tents.

  The wooden soldier who tossed him stomps closer. He swings his battle-ax and knocks down a tent, deflating it into a heap. We go still, the Fox’s and the Cat’s firearms halfway loaded. He turns the other way, his back to us. No one moves as the wooden soldier stalks closer. At less than two yards, he spots us.

  Claret and Laverick rush to reload. I step out, maneuvering his attention away from them. The soldier lunges at me. I sink low and hit his shin with my sword. The metal carves a shallow mark in his leg. He swipes diagonally, and I roll to evade.

  “Hurry!” I shout.

  Laverick pulls back on the hammer and raises her musket. The soldier hits the end as she fires and the shot goes wide. She turns the weapon around and cracks him with the stock. It does not slow him. Claret presents her musket and shoots through his knee. He tilts to the side and crashes into a tent.

  “Everley!” Jamison runs through the tents.

  Thunderheads fill the sky, and the rain becomes a weapon for the wind to slash at us. I blink away raindrops, my head soaked.

  “We’re here!” I cry.

  “We’re retreating. Get to the boats!”

  Claret and Laverick sprint for the shoreline.

  I clamber up out of the mud. The soldier with the blown-out knee is trying to rise on his good leg. The wooden army is unbeatable.

  I have to find Markham.

  Blue peers out from the pocket of Jamison’s pack. Seeing the wooden soldiers not far behind us, the pixie ducks down again. I am reluctant to leave. Where is Markham or Harlow?

  “Everley, we have to go!” Jamison cries.

  The prince is here somewhere—he must be close to his army—but us staying would be madness. Jamison and I run for the boats, lightning flashing overhead. The dead or dying litter the rainy beach, too many casualties to count. Fires still burn, shrinking in the downpour, as our enemy cuts apart the camp. What they leave untouched, the wind flattens or carries away.

  Claret and Laverick have gone ahead, rowing to the ship in a longboat with Vevina. Captain Dabney has held the final boat for us. We splash into the sea, waves slapping and pulling at my ankles.

  An ax whizzes over our heads. I heave myself out of the water and fall forward into the boat. Jamison and the captain wrestle stormy waves and push the longboat against the current.

  Spears dart past us, impaling the sandy shallows. The soldiers have redirected for pursuit. At chest-deep water, Jamison pulls himself into the boat. Meanwhile, Captain Dabney loses his grip and falls prey to a large swell that tows him back toward shore. The soldiers are up to their knees in the water, casting spears. One of them grazes the boat. Another pierces the captain and he keels over.

  Jamison watches as the captain is plucked up and pushed around by waves. The tide is pushing our boat back to the beach. I pick up the oars and row rapidly for the ship. Jamison takes up another set of oars and together we combat the wind and current.

  The wooden soldiers try to hold their pursuit by entering the sea, but their hollow forms bob to the surface. They are too heavyset and ungainly to swim, so they float back to shore like driftwood.

  Jamison rows harder, his face beading sweat. Outside the cove, through the misty rain, the back of a sea creature rises and submerges. The memory of the Terrible Dorcha’s attack sets me on edge. I watch for the creature to resurface, but it doesn’t reappear again in or past the cove. Dorcha would make his presence known, so the creature I saw must be something else.

  A ladder and line dangle outside the hull. The other longboats have been lifted to the main deck. Jamison secures the boat to the line and then we catch the rope ladder. I leave my head down to keep raindrops from my eyes and climb out of the saltwater spray. Lightning crackles and thunder booms over us. I jump over the rail onto the deck, which is slick from the rain, and Jamison and I both come to a full halt.

  At middeck, our crew, including Dr. Huxley, has been disarmed and cornered by a dozen of Markham’s men from the Cadeyrn of the Sea. Harlow aims an armed musket at the surgeon, a rapier sheathed at her hip. Another half dozen of Markham’s men stand guard over the locked hold. The other evacuated settlers must be imprisoned belowdecks.

/>   Between us, Prince Killian holds a pistol to Quinn’s head.

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  My ticker stops, then restarts with a clunk. I cannot look away from Quinn’s terror-filled face. I’m seven years old again, in the drawing room of our manor, standing over Mother’s body. Father shouts for Markham to let me go. My heart, whole and unbroken, pummels my ribs. Every part of me knows I must break loose or I will never be free.

  “Here we are again, Everley,” Markham says.

  The scars of the memory burn. I steel myself, funneling my concentration into my clock heart. Be indifferent. Be a machine.

  “How did you find a portal out of my world?” he asks.

  “We had help,” I reply.

  Lightning crisscrosses the sky. Markham’s hair and clothes are drenched, the sword of Avelyn sheathed at his side. Harlow and the sailors guard the hatch to belowdecks. The crew members of the Lady Regina are silent. Jamison and I stand close, equal in our distance to Markham and Quinn. I draw my blade and step forward.

  “Stay back.” Markham digs the pistol barrel into Quinn’s temple, creating a crater of flesh. The heartwood is not visible on his person, but it must be with him or his wooden army could not be swarming the settlement, demolishing it section by section.

  “You have what you want,” I say, calling over the wind. “Take your treasure and leave.”

  He scoffs at the absurdity of the suggestion. “I cannot have you pursuing me or sailing back to Wyeth. With the settlement destroyed and everyone dead, it will be months before the queen discovers my departure.”

  Jamison draws his sword. “Time won’t prevent the inevitable. Queen Aislinn will send forces. She has probably foreseen your treasonous act. A fleet from Wyeth will already be underway.”

  “Her Omnipotence is a fraud,” Markham says, sneering. “She hired her father’s assassin and feigned the vision of his death. The king was lazy and content with his riches and lands. To colonize and explore the isle, I needed a leader ambitious about expansion. Aislinn took little persuasion. She was anxious to set herself as an idol before her people and prove her greatness to the world.”

  My mind reels to make sense of his claims. “But the queen made other predictions besides the king’s murder, like the flood.”

  “Her council was losing faith in her, so she staged another prophecy. Her men dammed the river downstream, and the waters rose and flooded the city.” Quinn squirms against Markham. He wrenches her head up at a painful angle and she stops. “It’s finished, Everley. I’ll start with the girl, then move on to your husband and crew. Once they’re lying in their own blood, I’ll open the hatch and execute the women one by one. You’ll witness every death, and then—”

  “You’ll kill me too,” I say, sickened by his brutality.

  Markham tips his head in consideration. “You’ve evaded death this long, why change your luck? No, you must live, Everley Donovan. I’ll abandon you here and leave you stranded on this cursed isle to ponder the deaths of your friends and loved ones.”

  Horror binds me, shortening my airway. His punishment is too close to how I felt all these years agonizing over the loss of my family, stranded, alone.

  “Let the girl go, Killian,” says Jamison.

  “Lieutenant Callahan, I will miss you most. You would have remained in my ranks had Everley not corrupted your loyalty.” Markham levels the pistol at Quinn’s head again. “Shall we begin?”

  He tightens the trigger—and an explosion rocks the ship.

  Splinters fly, filling the sky. Jamison and I drop and cover our heads. The blast catches Harlow and Dr. Huxley, pitching them to the side. Markham turns away with Quinn, shielding his face.

  In the clearing smoke, Laverick steps out of the hold. She takes the sword of a dead sailor killed by the blast. Vevina and Claret also climb out from belowdecks and arm themselves with more weapons from fallen crewmen. They used powder from the ammunition battery to blow the hatch.

  Quinn twists from the pistol barrel against her head and bites Markham’s gun hand. He shoves at her to let go, and I scramble to my feet.

  Harlow sits up and aims her musket at me. Vevina kicks the firearm from Harlow’s grip, snatches it up, and then knocks her in the skull with the stock. Harlow goes down near Dr. Huxley, clutching her head. The surgeon has not yet moved or gotten up.

  The crews of the two ships clash, Markham’s men with swords and firearms, ours with fists and any makeshift weapon they can grab.

  Markham throws Quinn to the deck and takes aim at her. I rush him and push his pistol arm up. The shot travels up the mast and into the storm. He tosses the unloaded firearm aside and draws the sword of Avelyn.

  I maneuver in front of Quinn. Markham taps his blade against mine to antagonize me. He has genuine training—over three centuries’ worth of experience in swordplay—and wields a superior weapon. He reels back, recovering his starting position, and lunges. I parry as he advances, the rainy gusts belting me like another foe. Our blades striking, he pushes me to retreat widthwise across the deck. My back reaches the hammock netting on the portside and I go left. Markham anticipates my maneuver and feigns another lunge. I flinch and he grins.

  Bloody bones, I hate him.

  Panting hard, I ignore my exhaustion and keep up with him. He’s not the least bit short of breath. Trying to outmatch him is folly, but my clock heart impels me on, reminding me of Father Time’s charge for me to win back my sword.

  Across the way, Jamison and Harlow slash at each other. She has rallied from Vevina’s hit to her head. The fray spreads around us as more settlers climb out of the hold to engage in battle. Markham’s men are outnumbered but better armed.

  I reattack their leader in vigor. Markham blocks my onslaught of blows, his movements strictly offensive. I lunge and my blade sinks through his shoulder. He gives a pained hiss and yanks free. His next swipe is retaliatory—his blade grazes my chin.

  Pain explodes there and keeps on burning as warmth spills down my jaw. Unlike his wound, my cut bleeds.

  “You should join me, Everley. With time on our side, we would be unstoppable. Your shrewdness and my eloquence. All the worlds would bow to us.”

  I clutch my blazing chin, my blood soaking into my glove. “Your flattery may have worked on Tavis, but ingratiation holds no allure for me.”

  Feeling the cold of his steel under my skin has reawakened the hunger that brought me to this isle. I stab his other shoulder and wrench the blade out. As he is bent over, grimacing, I see a string necklace with a wooden heart come loose from his undershirt. He straightens, his clothes ripped from my sword, and notices the subject of my stare.

  “Clever lass.”

  He swipes at me in earnest. I retreat and trip over a dead body. Markham drives down his sword, barely missing my side. I roll over and get up.

  A few men fighting around us have halted to stare off into nowhere. If not for the raging storm, I might think someone had torn time and frozen them.

  I follow their stares to the Cadeyrn of the Seas sailing into the cove. The massive ship speeds closer, its broadside turned toward us, gunports open and cannons presented. Markham shuffles toward the upper deck.

  Across the way, Jamison disarms Harlow and holds her at sword point. They pause as the taller, wider, and longer first-rate ship flies up to our smaller vessel. Their own crewmen are aboard our ship, including the governor. They wouldn’t attack their men. But as the ship comes so close that I can count each cannon on the three gun decks, it’s apparent that that is precisely what they intend to do.

  Jamison shouts over the din. “Prepare to receive fire!”

  Men on both sides of the battle duck for cover. I run after Markham and brace against the gunwale. The cannons fire.

  I count eight—no, nine—blasts in quick succession.

  Gunfire pelts the deck and starboard side of the Lady Regina. A cannonball severs the foremast, and the top third of the mast falls toward the middle deck, where I last saw
Jamison.

  I cover my ears and shield my head. Markham watches calmly, unflinching as the blasts boom. His ship is firing on their own crewmen and commander. Since he cannot perish, he must have given the order at the sacrifice of his men.

  Our swordplay was a game. He was toying with me, delaying for this slaughter.

  A cannonball strikes the stairs to the upper deck. I shield myself from showering debris, the concussion ricocheting through the ship. Markham’s men ready the longboats for departure. He steps out into the open and tips his chin in farewell.

  “Until next time, Everley.”

  He strides off, exposing his back to me. Arrogant blaggard.

  I slice the back of his belt. He stops and clutches at his drooping trousers. I cut higher, cleaving the string around his neck. As the heartwood falls between us, blasts sound. Seconds later, the cannon fire bashes several longboats apart and the middle deck buckles under the siege.

  Markham lunges for the heartwood. I drive my blade through his chest, where his heart would beat if he had one, and spear the blade into the gunwale.

  He moans, his fist tight on my sword. While he’s pinned, I scoop up the heartwood and fling it overboard. I look to land and see the wooden soldiers freeze. All their movements cease at once, and a few fall over, toppling like cut-down trees. Smoke plumes stream from the settlement, the camp decimated.

  His wooden army has fallen.

  I return for the sword of Avelyn, but Markham has pulled the blade that trapped him from his chest and tossed it out of my reach.

  His wolfish eyes glow murderous, my sword in his hand. “You’re a briar in my heel.”

  “Everley!” Quinn cries from middeck. “Help me! He’s stuck!”

  Without a weapon of my own, I have no hope of winning the sword of Avelyn from him. “I’ll be coming for my sword,” I say.

  “Why wait?” Markham waves me forward, blade ready.

  I back out of his range and run into the wind.

  He shouts after me. “You’ll never find me, Everley! You’ll never see the sword again!”

  I jump over the cracked and smashed deck. The dead are strewn among the fragments of planks, more casualties from gun and sword wounds than cannon fire. Everyone is wet, drenched by the unyielding storm. While the cannon fire has ceased, Laverick, Claret, and Vevina are directing survivors into the few longboats still intact.