The Storyteller

by Traci Chee

  People were afraid. But more than that, Ed could sense a seething undercurrent of anger passing from one person to another like a lightning strike in the water. He felt it too—a determination to fight, to resist, to die, if he had to, on his own two feet.

  Then, one overcast morning when the flowers were just beginning to bud on the trees, while Ed was on watch aboard the Thunderhead, alarms began ringing all around the bay, calling civilians to their shelters and soldiers to their posts. On the coastline, battle flags went up on every fort and onshore battery.

  The eastern defenses had been breached. If the Royal Navy could not push the Alliance back out of Tsumasai Bay, the capital would soon be under attack.

  With so little space at the eastern entrances to Tsumasai Bay, however, too many ships would foul up the lines. So the Thunderhead did not depart immediately. They were the fifth line of defense and would be called up only if they were needed.

  Grimly, Ed watched the growing cloud of smoke sweeping across the water like a black fog. He heard the sounds of the cannons coming ever closer.

  Instinctively, he looked north. Toward Arc.

  Toward home.

  At noon, they got the signal. The Thunderhead was going to battle.

  The captain began barking orders. The soldiers scrambled for their positions. Anchors were drawn up. Sails were loosed. Lac and Hobs went scurrying about their duties as Ed joined his gun crew at the Ripper, greasing the axles, laying out shot boxes, filling tubs with seawater.

  As they neared the fighting, the smell of smoke grew stronger. The cannon fire grew louder.

  Through the curls of smoke, Ed saw the Alliance ships, flying banners of blue, gold, and white. In the distance, he spied the Barbaro, General Braca Terezina III’s prize flagship.

  The blue beasts of the Alliance were sailing on Kelebrandt.

  But to Ed, they were not beasts. To Ed, they weren’t the enemy. Among the unfamiliar flags and figureheads, he recognized the Eclipse, the Moonlight Run, the Red Hare . . . They’d been repainted and outfitted with new flags, but Ed would have recognized them anywhere. They were the ships that had been stationed at Corabel since he was a boy.

  “Cast off the tackles!” the gun captain shouted.

  All around him, the redcoats scuttled for the Ripper, preparing to fire. The shot was loaded. The muzzle was raised.

  But Ed didn’t move.

  He couldn’t move.

  Those were Delienean ships out there—his ships, at least a dozen of them within sight, and probably more battling in the chaos to the east—with captains and officers he’d known his entire life.

  “Fire!” The command rang out.

  The gun captain lit a match. He was lowering it toward the firing mechanism.

  But Ed couldn’t allow them to attack Delieneans. His Delieneans. “No!” Ed lunged forward.

  “Hold!” the captain roared at the same moment.

  Shocked, Ed whirled around.

  “Hold!” the officers echoed.

  The gun captain held. The match burned to nothing between his fingers as he and the other redcoats stared warily at Ed, who’d tried to stop them from firing on the enemy.

  But Ed was watching the flag being run up their mast—black with a single white circle in the center—the worldwide signal for a cease-fire.

  For a negotiation.

  The new queen was inviting King Darion Stonegold to parley.

  * * *

  • • •

  They waited for hours after the Barbaro, General Terezina’s floating fortress, with King Darion Stonegold aboard, sailed past them toward the castle at Kelebrandt. Hours without word from the queen. Red and blue ships sat uneasily on the water of Tsumasai Bay, waiting for orders.

  Ed sat against the gunwale with his head in his arms. He could feel the tension of the redcoats, their hands straying to their weapons at sudden sounds, always looking over their shoulders at the enemy, lingering just within firing range.

  Beside him sat Lac and Hobs, who, after fifteen minutes of cease-fire, had sneaked down from their own posts.

  Hobs dabbed at his round head with a handkerchief. “What do you think they’re talking about now?” he asked.

  “They’re probably still staring at each other from across the throne room,” said Lac, “waiting to see who makes the first move.”

  Ed shook his head. “Stonegold is asking for her surrender,” he said. “Surrender now and spare the capital the grief of a battle, or leave him no choice but to take Kelebrandt by force, sacrificing thousands of lives.” He glanced at the Alliance line.

  He couldn’t fight them, if the battle resumed. He couldn’t kill his own citizens. And they were his own citizens, he knew now, though he’d run from them, from his title, from his responsibilities.

  He knew he’d be brigged for refusing to follow orders. In this time of war, he might even be shot for mutiny.

  But he couldn’t do it.

  “The new queen would never give in to that bonesucker’s demands,” Lac declared loyally.

  But by midafternoon, when the cease-fire flags came down, they were replaced by new ones—white as snow, white as surrender.

  The new queen was surrendering.

  Oxscini was surrendering.

  The Alliance had won.

  The captain of the Thunderhead didn’t seem like he could believe it. He glanced at the other ships of the Royal Navy line.

  A few of them ran up the white flag . . . but not all of them. And every second they didn’t, they could feel the increasing pressure of the Alliance guns on them.

  “Orders, Captain?” asked one of the lieutenants.

  The captain sighed. “Yes. Raise the—”

  “No!” Lac cried, charging up the steps to the quarterdeck. “We can’t just give up. We’ve barely done anything to stop them!”

  Scrambling to their feet, Ed and Hobs dashed after their friend. They’d seen Lac defy orders before. It hadn’t ended well for him.

  “This isn’t one of your stories, hero,” the captain said. “We’ve done our duty. That’s all we can do.” He nodded at his first lieutenant, who opened her mouth to give the order.

  No, Ed thought. If Oxscini fell to the Alliance, Roku would be the only free land left in Kelanna. No one would be left to fight. Even now, it seemed, there was no one left.

  Except him.

  But before he could speak, Hobs did something quite unexpected. And rather foolish.

  He crept up behind the captain and hit him over the head with a belay pin. The captain’s eyes rolled back in his head and he slumped to the floor.

  Lac balked.

  Hobs shrugged.

  Guiltily, they turned to the lieutenants, who outranked and outnumbered them.

  They could be shot for this.

  But as the first lieutenant checked the captain’s breathing, she looked up at them with a long sigh. “I hope you have a plan,” she said, “because if we’re not dead or victorious by the time he wakes up, we’ll all face penalties for mutiny.”

  Lac gulped and looked to Hobs, who looked to Ed, who looked to the Delienean ships looming in front of them, still waiting for their surrender.

  More and more white flags were going up on the Red Navy ships every second Ed wavered.

  Could he do it? Could he be their king again without drowning in his sadness, like a man staked to a beach at high tide?

  Yes. He could. He wasn’t the Lonely King; he was not cursed. He was Ed, and with all that he’d learned about himself the past few months, all that he’d become, he could be Eduoar Corabelli II again.

  Ed stepped forward. “I have a plan,” he said.

  He couldn’t do it as a low-ranking seaman in the Royal Navy, but he wasn’t that boy, really. He was Eduoar Corabelli II, rightful king of Deliene, and if he
could signal the Delienean captains that he was alive, aboard the Thunderhead, and ready to take command of his ships and his kingdom, they might follow him.

  They might be able to push the Alliance back out of Tsumasai Bay.

  He just had to let them know he was here.

  “I’m Delienean,” he told the lieutenant.

  “Shh!” Hobs said loudly.

  Ignoring him, Ed continued, “I can get those White Navy ships to turn on the Alliance, if you’ll continue to fight.”

  She eyed him suspiciously. “How?”

  “Just give me a couple signal flags and a place at the bowsprit.”

  “Ed, what—” Lac began.

  The first lieutenant stood. “Done.”

  Ed clasped Lac and Hobs by the shoulders. “Thank you, my friends, for everything you’ve done for me. Never have I met anyone more loyal or more brave.”

  “Brave?” Lac echoed.

  Ed nodded. “Brave.”

  The rest of the crew raced back to their battle posts as Ed dug into the chest of signal flags until he found two that would suit his purposes: one in Delienean black-and-white, another with a gold crown, which would tell everyone they had royalty aboard. Asking Hobs to run them up the mast, he dashed to the prow of the Thunderhead, stripping off his crimson jacket, revealing a white shirt—thoroughly starched, thanks to Lac—and black trousers beneath.

  He scrubbed his stubbled cheeks. Would his people recognize him?

  They had to.

  Before he reached the bowsprit, however, another of the Royal Navy ships let off a broadside. Cannonballs went soaring through the air, sinking into the hulls of the Alliance ships.

  The crew cheered.

  Bang! Bang! Bang! Their great guns rang out.

  The battle began anew. It was chaos. No one seemed to know who was giving the orders. No one seemed to know whom to listen to.

  There was the sound of distant cannon fire in the south. Someone at the southern entrance to Tsumasai Bay was fighting back too. They were all fighting back.

  Ignoring the gunshots that whizzed back and forth between the riflemen and the enemy, Ed clambered along the bowsprit and stood, his tall form leaning over the water, visible to all.

  Here I am, he thought, watching the Delienean ships. Your king.

  CHAPTER 27

  Not Today

  Hunkered behind the islands at the southern tip of Oxscini, the outlaws peered around the shoreline to the southern entrance to Tsumasai Bay.

  Thirteen Alliance ships were clustered in the deep water just out of range of the two stone forts flanking the mouth of the channel. Inside the narrow passage, the crimson ships of the Royal Navy stood guard. The air was strangely empty of the sounds of battle.

  Because no one was fighting. Cease-fire flags flew from the onshore battlements and the front of the Alliance line. All was quiet.

  “What in the blue world?” Reed muttered.

  “Guess it isn’t today after all,” the mate said.

  The captain tapped his belt buckle. Once, twice . . . He shook his head. He hadn’t come all this way to turn back now. But before he reached the count of eight, a white flag went up on the nearest fort.

  Surrender?

  Captain Reed put away the spyglass. If the Forest Kingdom gave up now, the Alliance would control almost all of Kelanna. The Guard would have all but won.

  Someone needed to do something. Someone had to show them that the world was still worth fighting for.

  It might as well be an outlaw.

  Pivoting to the rest of the crew, he called, “All hands, to arms!”

  They cheered.

  Killian ran up the battle flag as they loosed the sails. The outlaws surged toward the enemy line.

  At the prow of the Current, the chase guns boomed. The sounds of gunfire were answered by the thunder of cannons in the north.

  Reed grinned. At least someone in Tsumasai Bay hadn’t given up the fight.

  In the channel, one of the redcoat ships let off a broadside. Iron sank into the hull of the nearest Alliance vessel. The steep sides of the waterway echoed with the thunder of war drums.

  The Current of Faith and the other outlaws sailed in, one after another, battering the Alliance ships like a wave upon the rocks, chewing out sections of the enemy line until they went crumbling into the sea.

  The Crux punched through a gap between the Alliance warships, firing cannons from port and starboard. One after another, the outlaws rammed through the blue vessels until the Alliance line ruptured, enemy ships breaking off into scattered sections as the lighter, quicker outlaws closed in, sailing circles around the unwieldy Alliance vessels, taking out masts and puncturing hulls.

  Reed loved it—the roar of the great guns! The wind in his hair! The quick spitting of firearms from the fighting tops!

  The Red Navy ships began to emerge from the mouth of the channel, clearing a path for the Brother, which sailed past the battle and north into Tsumasai Bay.

  Sefia and Archer were off to find Stonegold.

  The Alliance warships were forming ranks again, battling back against the combined force of the outlaws and redcoats.

  The One Bad Eye got raked by an enemy broadside.

  The Crux lost a chunk of her stern.

  And as the Current turned to let off another round of cannon fire, an Alliance vessel rammed them on the starboard side. The green hull splintered. The timbers groaned. The outlaws rushed to defend the rails as enemy soldiers flooded onto the Current. Cooky and Aly popped up from their places behind the gunwale, striking boarders with the butts of their rifles.

  “Get us away from that ship, Jaunty!” Captain Reed shouted.

  “We’re stuck,” the chief mate said.

  At the same time, the helmsman answered, “No can do, Cap! The only way we get out of here is if they’re not steerin’ into us anymore.”

  The captain cursed. Trapped by the prow of the Alliance vessel, they were immobile in the water—an easy target for their enemies.

  They had to get free. He had to get them free. And to do that, he needed to disable the Alliance rudder so they couldn’t keep pushing into the Current.

  “Meeks, you have the ship!” Reed cried, leaping down to the main deck.

  There was a faint “Aye, Cap!” and a whoop of laughter.

  Captain Reed raced to the prow of the enemy’s ship, jammed against the Current’s green hull. He jumped onto the rail, kicking at an enemy soldier as he grabbed for the Alliance bowsprit.

  Gunshots erupted around him, but he wasn’t afraid. He wouldn’t die dangling over his own decks.

  He swung up onto the enemy ship and drew his guns—the Singer, blue and light, and the Executioner, cold as ice and heavy as lead. He was in Alliance territory now. Dozens of soldiers stood between him and the stern of the blue warship.

  But that wouldn’t stop him. He was Captain Cannek Reed.

  Shooting, ducking, fighting, smoke drifting from the mouths of his revolvers, he made his way down the length of the Alliance ship. One, two, three . . . No one stopped him. Nine, ten, eleven, twelve people fell to his bullets. No one was fast enough.

  But his cylinders were empty. He was out of ammunition.

  A blue-uniformed soldier came at him with a boarding ax. Neatly, he stepped aside and heard the blade strike the rail, sinking deep into the wood.

  Holstering the Singer, he drew a knife and rammed it into the woman’s jawline as she struggled to free her weapon.

  She dropped as Reed ducked behind a cannon and fished in his pockets for bullets, dropping them one by one into the chambers of his six-guns.

  Then he was up again.

  One of his shots found the helmsman. Another struck the ship’s bell and ricocheted into the head of a lieutenant on the quarterdeck.

  The
Executioner was thirsty.

  A round punctured the neck of an Alliance soldier, punching clean through to the skull of the woman behind him.

  Reed’s bullets found sailors, officers, gunners, topmen.

  Until he reached the stern of the enemy vessel, where he clocked a rifleman over the head with the Singer and seized one of the miniature cannons they used as a chase gun.

  Aiming for the rudder chain, he began counting. One, two, three, four . . .

  . . . five, six, seven, eight. He fired.

  The small cannonball snapped the rudder chain, which went rattling down into the sea.

  The enemy ship was dead in the water. The Current was free.

  He raced back across the Alliance decks just as his crew was disentangling their ship. The Current was sailing off. Holstering the Singer, Reed ran up the bowsprit and leapt, the Executioner still in his hand.

  The sea surged below him. The air licked at his arms and legs.

  He landed, rolling, on the deck, amid the cheers of the outlaws. Five of the Alliance ships were sinking or dead in the water. The others were turning tail and retreating to the east as the redcoats and the outlaws pushed them back from the entrance to Tsumasai Bay.

  He didn’t think the Royal Navy could still sail around to attack the Alliance on two fronts, but he and the outlaws had given them fewer ships to fight.

  The redcoats joined the outlaw ships, forming a line of mixed colors—The colors of the Resistance, Reed thought—guarding the narrow channel.

  Then he saw movement to the east.

  The retreating Alliance vessels weren’t retreating at all. They were joining up with another line of blue warships—at least twenty of them—led by an enormous ship even larger than the Crux.

  She was blue instead of yellow now, but Reed recognized her figurehead—a white winged horse.

  It was Serakeen’s flagship, the Amalthea, and the man himself was at the prow, his burgundy coat flaring in the wind and a glint of metal at his wrist where his hand used to be.