*Eelback! You traitor! What have you done to the seamage?*
*I am no traitor, Quickfin,* he signed, then pointed accusatively toward the seamage. *It is she who is the traitor! The Voice of the mer chose to go to war, and she opposed us!*
*The Voice could NOT have agreed to this!* Quickfin signed.
*Swim away, friends of the Trident Holder’s eldest,* Eelback signed, grabbing the cord that encircled Tailwalker’s neck. *The seamage has betrayed us, but she still lives. If you wish to do the same, swim away.*
*Release Tailwalker and Seamage Flaxal’s Heir or I will gut you like a fresh-speared tuna, Eelback!* Quickfin signed, flipping his tail furiously.
*You sign bravely for one so outnumbered. Your life is of no concern to me.* He made a gesture that needed no interpretation and half of his school surged forward, spears and tridents thrusting.
*No!* Kelpie signed, swimming forward to confront Eelback, but too late.
Quickfin parried the first thrust with his dagger, but could not hope to deflect them all. He gaped in shock as the tines of a trident pierced his abdomen. His dagger fell from his webbed fingers and he grasped the haft of the weapon embedded in his flesh.
Chaser watched in horror. His hand strayed to his dagger, but he was no warrior; though he could fight if need be, he knew when he was outnumbered. He also knew what his strengths were. He lashed his tail, pivoting in a blink and dashing away, the wake of his stroke billowing the blood of his friend in a swirling cloud. He swam as fast as he could, leaving Eelback’s school far behind, knowing what he had to do.
The Trident Holder must know of this, he thought as he surged forward, streaking toward home. Broadtail must know he has been betrayed!
≈
The sky exploded in a shower of fire that Edan felt to the marrow of his bones. The lighkeeper’s gift, he realized. He’d helped make some of those casks himself. White phosphorous burned like nothing else, so hot it would catch steel on fire. Flicker squealed in ecstasy, and he knew she felt it, too. Now, this was a fire!
Then a cry from forward caught his attention, and Edan gaped in shock at the figure diving into the water. It was her! But why had she fired the catapult? And why taunt Captain Brelak…using Bloodwind’s name?
He turned and stared at the beauty of the white phosphorous with questions whirling through his mind. The streamers fell to the water, their glow still visible as they slowly sank beneath the surface. Then the billows of smoke streaked away on the wind and Edan caught another glimpse of the huge warship, its rows of ports bristling with weapons. Before he could even open his mouth in surprise, something hit him and he sprawled to the deck.
The shock of the impact brought him back to his senses, and the screams of shock and pain around him renewed his fear.
A body fell in front of him — Johansen, the boatswain, his blond hair spattered with blood, his hands grasping the tattered flesh of his flayed chest. His eyes centered on Edan’s for an instant, his mouth gaping as a thick crimson pool spread around him. Then the sailor’s gaze lost focus and the blood stopped pumping from between his slack fingers.
Flicker squealed in fright, drawing his attention away from the dead man. He turned and saw Captain Brelak, and he stared in disbelief. The huge man — so strong, so seemingly invincible — lay propped against the cuddy cabin, both hands clutching the shattered remnant of his right leg, trying to staunch the flow of blood. A ballista bolt had passed right through the ship’s bulwark and then the captain’s leg. Its iron tip was now firmly embedded in the bulwark on the far side of the ship, its wooden shaft stained crimson. Edan watched in mute horror, stunned immobile, at the man’s struggle to staunch the pulsing flow of blood.
“Mouse!” Feldrin bellowed through gritted teeth, his hands drenched with his own blood. “Mouse, get my belt! My belt! Quick!”
The seasprite’s wings were a blur as Mouse flew quick as a flash, flipped open the man’s belt buckle and hauled the stout length of leather out through the loops. Struggling with the heavy belt, he looped it twice around the captain’s torn leg above the wound, then threaded it back through the buckle and hauled it as tight as he could. Feldrin released his grip on his leg, and blood jetted from the shattered knee before he cinched the belt tight against shattered bone.
The captain’s scream rent the air, shaking Edan to his soul. He cringed, watching the man pull the belt tighter and tighter. When the flow of blood finally ebbed and stopped, the captain slumped against the side of the cabin, gasping for breath.
Numb with shock, Edan stood and gazed around the deck. Dozens of the deadly ballista bolts pierced the hull. One completely transfixed the mainmast, its iron tip and shaft sticking out opposite sides. The mast was cracked up its length, but had not split. One sail flapped in the wind, set free when the lines that held it were severed in the barrage.
Horace bellowed orders and sailors shouted their responses. The helmsman tried to steer the ship with one hand, his other hand a torn and shattered ruin. Nearly sick, Edan turned toward the rail and saw the huge warship, her long oars biting into the water to bring her other side to bear, the triple line of ports already bristling with the deadly tips of more ballistae.
Edan stared at those weapons, riveted, terrified. Orin’s Pride and her crew could not withstand another flight of those deadly missiles. They would all be killed, or the ship would sink and they would drown.
“No,” he said, clenching his fists against his fear. He knew what he had to do.
Edan closed his eyes and stretched out his senses. The fires aboard the huge warship were like shimmering beacons to him: the cauldrons of boiling pitch and braziers of burning coals being readied by the catapult crews; the lanterns and lamps on every deck; the two great galley stoves, coal fires smoldering in their bellies. He could feel each fire intimately — its life — its hunger.
He called to the fire, and it answered.
“Burn,” he said, exerting his will on the flames, urging them to rise. Flicker clung to his neck, whispering excited, indecipherable words in his ear.
“Burn,” he whispered, feeling the rush of power. “Burn it all!”
≈
“Ready starboard ballistae!” Captain Flauglin ordered as the ship came slowly around. He lowered his glass, having surveyed with grim satisfaction the damage wrought by their first broadside. “Ballistae only, Lieutenant, but keep the catapults ready.”
“Aye, sir!” The lieutenant relayed the orders to the weapon crews.
“We’ll give her one more broadside.” He probably could have let the schooner go after only one barrage, but it was a matter of principal now; they had fired on him, even if their shot had fallen short. He glanced at the commodore and noted that the muscles of the man’s jaw were tight, perhaps repressing a smile.
“Starboard ballistae ready, sir!” the lieutenant reported.
“Fire as the target bears, Lieutenant,” he ordered.
“Aye, sir!” The officer glanced down the line of the deck as the bow swept ponderously around to windward, the port-side sweeps pulling hard. He raised his hand, ready to signal the weapon crews once the Clairissa’s side came abeam of the crippled schooner.
“Fire!”
The excited shout was not the lieutenant’s authoritative command, but a shrill scream of terror, and the officer looked around for the culprit who had usurped his order.
Then another cry rang out from forward, and another, then screams of “Fire! Fire in the hold!” came from below.
Captain Flauglin turned from his quarry to look along the deck of his ship, and his mouth fell open in shock. Fire leapt up from every brazier. The slow matches flared in the hands of the catapult crews. A pitch pot burst, spattering men with its burning contents.
“Fire crews to the main deck!” he shouted. “Belay that broadside, Lieutenant!” A man behind him screamed. A lamp had exploded, dousing the sailor with burning oil; he ran blazing across the deck, every step leaving a sp
ot of flame that licked at the wood. The signalman cried out as the stern lantern exploded near him, setting the furled spanker ablaze. “ALL HANDS! Buckets! Bring water!”
“Captain Flauglin, what the hell…”
He looked to the frightened commodore and cringed at the man’s white-faced fear, then his eyes were drawn down to the deck beneath the officer’s polished boots. The wood was smoking — blackening beneath his feet!
“Sir! I — ” But Captain Flauglin’s words were cut off. The deck incandesced white and exploded into flames.
≈
“Holy gods of light and darkness,” Horace muttered. Heat from the explosion bathed his face.
The entire flagship, every bit of wood and canvas from stem to stern, topmast to keel, burst into flames. A whirling cyclone whipped the inferno into the sky, fanning the fires like a stoked furnace. Screams of burning men rose on the heat-blasted air. Some of the blazing sailors plunged into the sea, falling from the burning yards to escape the flames, while others collapsed where they stood, blackened husks of charred flesh consumed by the fire. The cries of a thousand dying men mingled with the roar of the inferno and rose on the air as his majesty’s flagship Clairissa died in flames.
And above that torrent of noise…laughter.
Horace turned, sickened by that incongruous sound, to see Edan staring at the blazing ship, his eyes glowing with ecstasy, the laughter rolling from his throat like water from a well.
“Bloody mad,” Horace muttered, reacting to that horrible laughter the only way he knew how. Two steps brought him to the young man’s side, and his big hand snatched one slim shoulder and flung him around.
“Wha — ?”
But the Edan’s bark of astonishment was cut off by a blow from Horace’s fist that snapped his head back and laid him out flat on the deck. The little fire demon tied to his wrist was snapped back with him. She recovered first, shaking her head in surprise, her hair scorching the planks. In panic, she turned to Edan and started patting his face as if to wake him, but Edan was out cold.
“Wallace, chain that lunatic below!” Horace snapped, and then turned and knelt next to the captain, who lay unconscious in a pool of blood.
“Aye, sir!” The crewman shouted, grabbing the collar of the Edan’s shirt and hauling him toward the main hatch.
“Run his shackles through an eyebolt in the keel! If he burns this ship, he’s goin’ down with it! And make bloody sure that little demon is in her cage so she can’t set the ship afire.” He felt the captain’s pulse; it was fast and weak, but the bleeding had stopped. The seasprite crouched on Brelak’s shoulder, trying to wake him, but Horace thought it was probably best if he remained unconscious. Shards of broken bone showed through the torn meat of his knee, and his leg was cold below the wound. There was no pulse in his ankle. “Bloody hells!
“Somebody help get the captain below. Any other injuries? Rhaf! Get that hand bandaged! Someone take the wheel!” He stood and surveyed the damage. The ship would sail, though with a bolt through her mainmast, he’d rather not strain her rig. One foremast shroud had been severed at the deadeyes, but a crewman was already replacing the shattered block, and a new sheet had been attached to the flapping jib. The rest of the rig was intact, though holes riddled the sails and a dozen man-long ballista shafts protruded from her port side.
He turned and grimaced at the spectacle of the two warships dying in his wake. The Clairissa had already burnt to the water. The tips of her mighty masts, still in flames, were slipping beneath the sea’s surface. The Fire Drake crawled with mer like a maggot-infested corpse, water spilling over her gunwales and her decks awash as she was dragged under. A slick of wreckage, bodies, burned bits of wood and canvas, fouled the water. The only ship to escape damage was the Lady Gwen. She’d cut her anchor rode and set all sail, heading north at her best speed.
“There’ll be nine shades of hell to pay for this,” he muttered. He turned and barked out commands, ordering the ship to sail a wide arc to windward under shortened sail. He’d have to make his way through the wreckage into Scimitar Bay, but he wanted to give the mer time to cool off before he did.
With that thought, he wondered what the hell was going on with them; he could understand them attacking warships, but why hadn’t they attacked Orin’s Pride as well? And what had happened to Cynthia Flaxal? A seamage lost at sea…he shook his head and returned to the task of getting the wounded Orin’s Pride back to port.
≈
Sam swam for her life through the wreckage, past bodies of sailors, marines and mer. She tried to stay quiet, keeping her hands below the surface and kicking steadily. The water was swarming with mer and she had no doubt that they would gut her like a fish if they caught her, but she remained undetected amidst the flotsam.
Besides, the mer were busy, still swarming aboard the dying Fire Drake. Although most of the crew had already been slaughtered, the mer threw grapples into the rigging and hauled back until the ship rolled over on her side, her masts in the water. Sam kept her face turned away from the heat of the blazing flagship. Even at her distance, it warmed the back of her head. Her plan had worked spectacularly; the emperor was sure to declare war on the seamage after attacks by the mer and the seamage’s own ship. But Orin’s Pride still sailed, even though it had been damaged by the flagship’s ballistae.
She hadn’t figured on Edan.
Such power…A flash of lust surged up from her gut. To wield that kind of power…or to be with a man who could…
Sam swam on, expecting a webbed hand to grasp her ankle or a trident to pierce her from below at any moment. The reef was only a stone’s throw away now, the ridge of coral washed by crashing swells.
She pushed past a dead mer, and nearly screamed when it jerked and rolled over, one webbed hand reaching up for her, the other clutching the gash in its belly. She grabbed its wrist, thrashing in the water to free her dagger. No way to draw the cutlass, let alone wield it properly, but if she could get her dagger…
The mer flipped its tail, clutched her with its other hand, and dragged her down. She gulped a breath and fought to see through the cloud of blood and trailing intestines. Finally, her dagger was free! She jammed the blade into its chest, cutting through the fragile gills. The mer thrashed, drawing her close, its needle teeth closing on her shoulder. She brought the dagger up under its jaw and jerked it across the scaly throat, ending the fight in a huge cloud of blood.
She kicked it away and fought for the surface, for air. Long shapes glided below her; she could not tell if they were mer or sharks, and Sam wondered for a hysterical moment which she would prefer. She broke the surface, gasping for breath, and swam as hard as she could for the reef, her dagger clutched in one hand. If she could only make it to the reef…
The swells mounted under her as she neared her goal, the shallows pushing them higher than they had been out to sea. She swam down the face of a swell, gaining some speed, but there was a roiling in the water behind her. Another swell rose and she swam hard, kicking for all she was worth. If she could ride a swell over the reef, she might just pass without being cut to bloody ribbons.
Then something raked her leg, dragging her down before she could draw a breath. Pain stabbed through her calf and she kicked frantically, curling up and slashing blindly with her dagger. She felt the blade slice into something, and for a second she was free. Then it clutched her again and she saw it, the webbed hand of a mer encircling her ankle, dragging her down. Her lungs burned for air, but she drove her dagger into the wrist. It released her, but jerked the weapon from her grasp. At this point, she didn’t care; all she wanted was air.
Sam broke the surface coughing and sputtering, drawing great lungfuls of sweet air. Another swell lifted her, and she heard a roar. In an instant, she realized where she was, and a glance down confirmed it. Ridges of razor-sharp coral flew past beneath her, but the swell was passing; without swimming to keep on top of the wave, she was being left behind, deposited onto the unf
orgiving reef.
She landed on her hands and knees as the water receded; pain lashed her arms and legs, but already the next swell was rising behind her, and this one would not lift her up, but would crash down on top of her, driving her whole body onto the reef. She scrabbled forward, heedless of the scratches and cuts, knowing she would not survive if the wave came while she was still on the coral. She would be shredded like a cockroach under a boot heel.
She heard the roar of the wave behind her and spared a glance, fighting forward over a sharp edge. The wave rose, its face steepening and curling. She flung herself forward and caught a glimpse of turquoise-white before her: a finger of sand between two ridges of coral. She dove for it as the wave crashed, slamming her down.
Her legs raked over the last ridge of coral, then she was past it, driven down onto the sand between the coral heads. She hit hard, but the undulating ridges of sand felt like a featherbed compared to the coral. She let the wave pass over her, then swam for the surface through clouds of blood from her cuts. She had made it past the reef; the mer could not reach her.
Sam swam for the beach through the crystalline water of the lagoon, ignoring the sting of salt water in her cuts and scratches. She was pushed onto the beach by a gentle curling wave, tiny in comparison to the raging monsters that thundered across the reef. The coarse sand ground into the wounds on her hands and knees, but she crawled up the beach and was finally able to stand.
Her shoes were gone, and her trousers were shredded below the knee. Amazingly, she still had her cutlass, its stout leather baldric looped firmly over her shoulder and clipped to her belt. A deep puncture in her calf bled freely. The mer dagger had stabbed right through the muscle. She ripped a swatch from her shirt and tied it tight around the wound, staunching the flow slightly. The rest of her cuts and scratches only bled a little, though they stung horribly, filled with salt water and sand. There was nothing she could do about them now; she didn’t have much time if she wanted to survive.
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