by Ree Soesbee
“Hmmph.” The asura nodded curtly. She looked out to sea, the stiff wind tossing her multicolored braids about her shoulders. “So when we reach the Disenmaedel, your plan’s basically: ‘Gah! Getum!’ You expect to survive that?”
“Always worked for me before.” Cobiah leaned forward on the rail, trying not to focus on the past. “You have a better idea?”
“As a matter of fact, I do.” Macha grinned, showing a smile made of sharp little teeth. “Head for the battery gun at the back of their ship. Whatever else happens, no matter what you have to do, get to that gun.” She gestured toward the brig’s quarterdeck with both hands as if she were unfurling a flag. “Get over there and ‘gah getum’ in that direction.”
“And then what?”
Macha stared at him as if his head were filled with feathers. “Fire the gun, idiot.”
“Fire the—?” Cobiah choked. “Are you kidding me?”
“Use your anemic human eyes and look at their ship, mouse. They’ve bolted a bombard to their deck. That thing’s not meant to be fixed to a hull, it’s meant to be attached to a massive hunk of stone, and there’s a reason for that! Even your simplistic human mind should be able to understand that it’s a matter of applied force.” Macha leaned closer and broke her sentence into small words. “They’ve never fired that gun. If they do, it’ll twist their keel, and the Disenmaedel will flounder in the water like a chicken off a cliff.”
Cobiah considered this. “They’ve probably reinforced the main deck. Or set a brace from the mast step.”
Macha snorted. “We’re talking about pirates, not mathematicians. Unless they have an asura aboard, I doubt they’ve thought beyond, ‘Ooh, cool, a really big cannon!’ ” She swatted at him chastisingly. “Just get on that ship and fire the bombard—preferably not at us—and then get back here before that mad cat Sykox runs out of coal and throws me into the furnace.” She snorted and then winked up at him. “Fire the gun, Cobiah.
“Physics will do the rest.”
The thunder of guns echoed from the cliffs surrounding the bay. The brigantine’s sails flushed with wind as she tried to cut away from the charr galleon, but Sykox had been right—even with the gale at their back, the Disenmaedel couldn’t escape the Havoc under full steam.
Cobiah stood among tense, crouched charr, their tails lashing with eagerness, bright swords or cocked pistols grasped in their clawed fists. Battle ready, tension thick in the air, they waited. Centurion Harrow had a grin on his furred face, fangs bared behind curled red lips. Some of the other charr spoke in low tones, voices muffled by the wind of the ship’s passage and the rumble of the sea against her hull. Cobiah couldn’t hear them. He wasn’t even sure he wanted to know what they were saying. Every eye was fixed on their enemy. Every muscle was tensed to leap the moment their ship struck hull.
“Hold our course!” Harrow snarled. The cry was taken up by the charr standing closer to the engine room, carrying the call throughout the ship.
The hull of the Disenmaedel surged closer with each swell of water. Cobiah could see the frantic hands on board, stuffing the carronades, aware that every second brought them closer to impact with the oncoming charr vessel. One man stared at the Havoc as she closed, and Cobiah could read naked fear on the man’s features. The Havoc closed to pistol range—twenty yards. Half pistol range. Small-arms fire exploded from the human ship, and the charr crouched in preparedness.
Cobiah imagined what it must be like to see a ship full of ferocious charr bearing down on you, only a few feet of water separating you from claws and teeth. The Havoc grew closer, and closer still, and the humans desperately fired their pistols and tried to load their carronades. But they weren’t fast enough with the ship’s guns, and the Disenmaedel had run out of time.
The charr helmsman let out a mighty bellow as the Havoc plowed bow-first into the brigantine’s side. Although Cobiah was braced for impact, the collision knocked his feet out from under him, slamming him forward into the guardrail. He grunted, trying to right himself, and realized he was the only one lying down. Each of the charr had their claws sunk deep into the oak. As Cobiah scrabbled to rise, the sailors of the Havoc leapt over the rail in massive leonine pounces and landed on the deck of the Disenmaedel.
The gun crew of the brigantine flung themselves at the charr in response, drawing swords and knives from their belts. Battle cries rose above the clash of steel on steel. Even old Grist, who was not as fast as the others, fought with a fury that Cobiah had never seen before in war. If this was what charr brought to the field of battle, it was little wonder that Ascalon had been lost. At their furious charge, the deck of the Disenmaedel erupted in confusion. Huge furred charr swept down upon their enemy, swords flashing viciously. Claws slashed here and there, cutting through the human ship’s ropes, tearing down their sails. Pistols fired, puffs of smoke erupting into the air, and, once empty, were shoved back into their holsters—there was no time to pack and reload.
The Havoc struck her enemy relentlessly, driving the thick limb of her bow into the Disenmaedel’s hull. Both ships had suffered damage. The Havoc’s hull was cracked, the sturdy boards separated in small breaches. They could be tarred back together, the water in her berth eased out by bilge pumps. The Disenmaedel had not been so lucky. Her side was caved, her sleek curve wrenched apart, and water was pouring into her berth. She’d survive, but only if she could dislodge her unwanted suitor and plug the rent he’d made in her corseted hull.
Cobiah pulled himself to his feet and climbed over the rail. With a gulp, he steeled himself and stared across the divide between the Havoc and the enemy brigantine. Gripping the belaying pin tightly in his hand, he leapt. Three . . . two . . . one—then he slammed into the brigantine’s deck, rolling across the slippery surface with the force of his impact.
Within seconds of his feet striking the wood of the Disenmaedel’s deck, someone attacked him. A fist drove into his cheekbone, knocking him sideways over a carronade. A sword swept over his head, clipping his hair and drawing blood from the edge of his ear. Spinning in his crouch, he plowed the belaying pin into the side of the other man’s knee and saw him fall forward with a stiff crack of bone. The sailor swung again, but Cobiah parried his sword with the thick oak of the pin. He returned the blow and drove his belaying pin into the man’s gut. The Disenmaedel sailor dropped his sword, howling with pain as Cobiah cracked him across the face and kicked him over, watching as the sailor collapsed into unconsciousness. Just then one of the charr stormed past, burying a heavy-bladed axe into the sailor’s back.
“Well done,” snarled the helmsman. “And here I’d bet three gold you weren’t really on our side.” He laughed, and the sound was bloodthirsty. “Perhaps you’re worthwhile after all, mouse.”
“You didn’t have to kill him, Fassur!” Cobiah choked. “He was out of the fight!”
Pulling his weapon free and sighting his next prey across the ship, Fassur shrugged. “Now he’s out of the world.” Without another word, the burly charr sprang across the ship toward another human sailor. Galled, Cobiah faltered and ventured to the rear of the ship, avoiding fights wherever he could. All around him, charr and humans were locked in vicious struggles, and the charr didn’t fight fair. They took no prisoners. They exploited weakness and ground it into dust. Although badly outnumbered, they were clearly the more seasoned warriors, fighting in small clusters of two or three against groups twice, even three times, their size. Cobiah had never seen such glee in the eyes of combatants. It sickened him. Even charr who had shown him common courtesy on board the Havoc now fought with joyous abandon, seemingly unaware—or uncaring—that their prey were terrified and overwhelmed. The sailors, convinced that the charr would never surrender, returned hate with fury, killing any charr they found alone. The longer the conflict progressed, the more people on both sides would die.
The only way to stop the killing was to end the fight as quickly as possible.
Cobiah hurdled a hatch to reach the brigantine
’s quarterdeck, dodging through two shouting sailors as he broke into a run. The deck was slippery with blood and salt water, but he did have one advantage—for the most part, the pirates of the Disenmaedel ignored anything furless.
On the quarterdeck, four burly sailors manned the bombard. One hefted a pair of burlap gunpowder sacks into the barrel, and two more were working to lift a massive iron cannonball. The fourth stood at the top of the stairs to the deck, a loaded pistol in each hand, two more stuffed through his belt, and a cutlass in a sheath at his side. Right now, the armed thug was watching the strife with a patient, ready eye, weighting the pistols in his hands. His forehead wrinkled in a frown as he watched Cobiah approach. Clearly, he couldn’t place the youth among the crew.
Using that to his advantage, Cobiah pretended to stumble on his way up the last few stairs. “Sir!” he said. “The cap’n says . . .” Then, at the last moment, instead of straightening, Cobiah charged forward and buried his shoulder in the thug’s midsection. To Cobiah’s surprise, the big man didn’t go down. Although Cobiah’s shoulder hit him solidly, eliciting a meager grunt, the man stood his ground at the top of the stairs as if he were a brick wall. Cobiah looked up over his shoulder at the immense man’s broad, pielike face and managed a halfhearted smile.
The pistol in the sailor’s right hand slammed down onto Cobiah’s back with terrific force, missing his temple by inches. A second motion, and the handle of the other pistol crashed into his collarbone with enough force to knock Cobiah to his knees. As Cobiah lay there, his head spinning, the big thug raised his pistols and cocked the hammers back in slow motion. Staring down twin columns of doom, Cobiah tried to murmur a prayer to the god of death. He couldn’t finish it. Instead, he whispered his sister’s name.
The roar that followed wasn’t one of flame and gunpowder, or the crashing impact of iron ball against bone. Instead, something fuzzy smacked Cobiah’s cheek—a tail?—as a large rust-colored mountain of muscle tore up the stairs and launched itself at the sailor.
“Sykox?” Cobiah said, marveling.
One of the thug’s guns went off as Sykox plowed into him. An iron ball whizzed past, sinking deep into the oak deck a few inches from Cobiah’s feet. Unlike the slender Cobiah, Sykox had more than twice the mass of the thug, and the two toppled and rolled onto the deck like a cat with a ball of yarn. “Get the others, Coby!” Sykox roared. “Stop them before they point that thrice-burned thing at our ship!”
Startled, Cobiah pushed himself to his feet, looking past the brawlers. The other sailors on the quarterdeck were rushing about in a panic, trying to get the gun readied. They shoved a watermelon-sized cannonball into the gun’s barrel, and one tamped it down with a long, padded stick while another unscrewed the cover of the vent tube and frantically shoved a friction primer down into the hole. One tug on the lanyard sticking out of the thin hole in the breech of the cannon, and the heavy gun would fire.
As Cobiah watched, the third man drew a cutlass from his belt and strode murderously toward him. Still holding the belaying pin, Cobiah stepped forward to fight. The Disenmaedel’s sailor took the first swing. His blade swished forward and Cobiah dodged nimbly. With a shrug of his shoulders, the youth returned the favor, swinging the belaying pin widely in the hopes of ending the fight in a single shot. The sailor ducked easily and grinned, revealing four gold teeth. With a snatch of his free hand, he gripped Cobiah’s wrist as it passed, twisting viciously. Pain wracked Cobiah’s arm as the belaying pin slid through numb fingers. When it struck the deck, the sailor kicked it away, laughing at Cobiah’s grimace of pain.
Cobiah tried a shallow kick at his enemy’s leg, but the other man dodged it, keeping hold of Cobiah’s arm. Cobiah rolled closer, under sword range, pressing his back against the sailor’s chest. Recklessly, he drove his free elbow into the sailor’s rib cage and was rewarded by a whoosh of air and the soldier’s grasp loosening on Cobiah’s wrist. Tilting his forearm back, Cobiah slammed his fist upward. Bone cracked as his knuckles creased the man’s lower jaw.
Nearby, Sykox fought far more warily. “You’re big,” he said, circling the massive thug who had guarded the stairwell. The mountainous sailor turned slowly, keeping his eyes on the canny charr. His hands spread wide, he waited for the inevitable rush . . . but Sykox only smiled and stepped again to the side.
“You’ll find no opening, kitty!” the big human bellowed. “I’ve fought your kind before. I was raised in Ascalon! I use charr hides as hearth rugs!” He drew a deep breath, bald pate shining in the sunlight. “I’ll tear out your claws and carve ’em into scrimshaw!”
Sykox lashed his tail, feinting left and right. He’d already gotten several blows in, marking his burly opponent with bloody streaks down chest and arms. But it hadn’t been enough to slow the sailor’s motions. The charr managed to turn the sailor away from the stairs. Narrowing his eyes, Sykox measured his opponent with a snarl. The thug was nearly as tall as the tawny charr, and even wider through the chest.
“Do you think I’m weak?” the thug taunted. “Stop stalling. I’m ready for you, charr!”
“You may be ready for him.” A reedy voice piped up from over the side of the ship. Macha stood on the railing of the Havoc, her feathered armbands and embroidered blue robe whipping in the strong wind. “But you’re definitely not ready for me.”
A brilliant spell flowed from the asura’s fingertips, leaping through the air in fractal twists and unpredictable patterns. In one hand she held a short scepter, and from the other poured a wild burst of magic. Serpents formed of brilliant, glittering points of light swarmed forward, writhing one over the other as each fought to reach their target first.
“Pain!” the asura shouted. Her twisting barrage pummeled into the sailor’s broad chest. “Anguish!” Macha pointed again, and the snakes lashed out around his body, their glittering, viperous heads striking the sailor again and again. “Ruin!” The final word of her spell hissed out between the asura’s gritted teeth.
Overwhelmed by agony, the Disenmaedel thug toppled to the ground with a shriek of pain. He thrashed violently as spectral serpents coiled about his torso, piercing his flesh repeatedly with their poisonous, sparkling fangs. Cobiah had never seen the like.
“I thought you said you couldn’t blast them with magic!” Sykox yelped, smacking at his arm where a spark of passing starlight had set fire to the fur.
Macha tossed her head, rainbow braids flying. “No, I said it was a stupid question.”
Across the deck, Cobiah’s assailant staggered back as the youth planted another uppercut beneath his jaw. Bewildered by the concussion, the sailor shook his head and tried to clear his thoughts—only to have Cobiah slip out of his grasp. He shook his pale hair out of his eyes and launched two quick punches. They landed with rock-hard thuds, and the staggering pirate tumbled to the deck.
“Arrgh! Is it out? Is the fire out?” Panicked, Sykox smacked desperately at the singed area on his arm. Cobiah grabbed him, smothering the last of the flame with the sleeve of his shirt. He couldn’t help laughing at the agitation on the powerful creature’s face. “What?” Sykox moaned. “Fur is flammable!” Laughing, Cobiah clapped him on the shoulder with a wide grin.
“Get to the weapon, you idiots!” From the railing of the Havoc, Macha thrust her finger demandingly toward the other sailors on the quarterdeck. “Stop fooling around!”
Sykox rolled his eyes. “The woman sets me alight and then accuses me of wasting time! Completely unfair.”
Five yards away, the last two sailors worked frantically to maneuver the now-loaded battery gun into place. One spun a wheel at its base, turning the cannon on its harness, while the other desperately shoved at the barrel with all his strength. They’d turned it almost a full ninety degrees. Now, the swell of its huge muzzle pointed toward the Havoc’s hull.
On the main deck, charr and human sailors fought viciously. Several on both sides had fallen, and the deck was stained red with blood. A few of the humans had broken free of th
eir catlike foes and now struggled over the side of the Disenmaedel, using heavy crowbars and thick oak staves in an attempt to dislodge the charr vessel. They hacked at the Havoc’s hull in a reckless frenzy. As they did, a few of the charr remaining on the Havoc shot pistols at them, glad to join in the fight. Madness everywhere.
Cobiah could see Centurion Harrow fighting back-to-back with a wounded Fassur near the Disenmaedel’s central mast. The captain’s white fur was stained with oil and gunpowder, and one arm hung limply by his side. Leaning wearily against the mast, he kicked an adversary in the knee with his heavy peg leg, unloading his pistol at the human at the same time. Fassur was doing less well. Labored breathing aggravated a long, deep gash on his chest where his pelt was matted with blood. Yet the charr was not giving up; with each gasp of air, he swung his sword again, driving back the mass of humans that threatened to overwhelm the captain and his loyal second.
“Sykox!” Cobiah yelled. “I’ll man the cannon if you handle the sailors.” Pausing, he added, “But don’t kill them!”
“Don’t kill? Pish. You humans are so binary,” growled the charr, but his snarl twisted into a smile. “I should have left you in the ocean!” With a bound, he lunged toward the frantic humans. Claws outstretched, mouth open, fangs wide and threatening, the engineer vented his fury on the two humans with gleeful abandon. He was as fast as a jungle cat and more than their match. In moments, they’d both been knocked senseless. Long claw marks on their faces and chests offered tribute to the tawny charr’s precision.
While Sykox was handling the threat, Cobiah raced to the rear of the massive bombard. The vent was open but unlit, and down the narrow channel he could smell gunpowder and oil. Cotton fiber hung limply from the chamber, a thread that drove down the vent into the darkness where the charge had been packed inside the bowl of the barrel’s deepest recess. One flame, even one small spark, and the vent’s wick would catch. If that happened, the bombard would suck a breath of fire into the depths of its belly, where sacks of black powder were waiting for just such a kiss.