The clouds?
Yanko shifted his senses skyward, half-expecting to find a massive flock of birds attacking the ship at the behest of a distant mage. But birds didn’t fire cannons.
No, it was a ship in the sky floating under a massive balloon. He’d never sensed—or seen—anything like it.
“A dyrugar,” Dak said.
Yanko opened his eyes and peered in the same direction as Dak. Now that he knew where to look, he could make out a black oval shape within the gray clouds.
“I’ve… never heard of such a thing.” Yanko stared.
“Our people simply call it an airship.” Tynlee didn’t sound as shocked by the appearance of such a thing. “Only the Turgonians have the technology to build them, as far as I know.” She lifted her eyebrows and looked at Dak.
“Our army has a few,” Dak said vaguely. “They’re mostly experimental. They’re easy targets and highly flammable so not the ideal vessel to put a lot of troops and resources into. There are a handful of privately owned ones in Turgonia as well.”
“But it would more likely be a military vessel harrying a Nurian ship, wouldn’t it?” Yanko, his mind piqued by the word flammable, used his senses to investigate the strange flying vessel.
“Are we sure that’s a Nurian ship?” Dak asked.
“It’s pink and orange,” the first mate said.
“It’s a Nurian ship then. But could it belong to a pirate? If that’s a Turgonian airship, it likely has a legitimate reason for attacking.”
Yanko frowned as he sensed that the hull of the strange ship—it was halfway between a sailing vessel and an enclosed box—was made out of metal. Turgonian steel. Why would it be considered flammable?
Yanko sensed forty or fifty people within the strange airship, many of them standing at a railing on an open deck at the front of the enclosed cabin and others manning cannons from open ports on the sides of the hull. Down on the Nurian ship, Yanko sensed about twenty people, with pain and fear radiating from their minds.
“Maybe we should sail closer and find out,” Yanko suggested.
“Maybe we should sail farther away and not,” Dak said.
The answer surprised Yanko until he noticed the wary expression on Dak’s face and realized that he and Yanko could end up at odds if they sailed over and saw that the Turgonian military was attacking a Nurian ship for some reason. His duty would be to help the Turgonians. Yanko’s duty—or perhaps his honor, since he no longer had an official duty—would urge him to help his own people. Maybe they were pirates, but maybe they were innocent merchants or refugees fleeing from the war.
“This ship does not have weapons,” the first mate pointed out as the captain joined them at the wheel. “Unless one counts our cannon.”
“Cannon?” Dak asked. “Singular?”
“Yes, it’s for emergencies,” the captain said.
“It’s stored behind those buoys and life jackets.” The first mate pointed to a wooden cabinet, the doors painted the same vibrant turquoise as the trim of the ship, save for a gold anchor and a mermaid on the front. “It’s old.”
“How old?” Dak eyed the cheerfully painted cabinet.
“Well, it’s made of bronze,” the first mate said. “Or maybe copper.”
“I believe Ambassador Silver Wolf’s predecessor purchased it from a Turgonian ship that was outfitting itself with more modern armament,” the captain said. “For emergency purposes only. As we said, this is a diplomatic vessel. Few pester us.”
Dak rubbed his face. “Why am I imagining a rusty cannon sitting on a pier with a free sign propped against it?”
“It’s not rusty,” the captain said with an indignant sniff.
“It has a slight patina,” the first mate said, “that doesn’t come off. But it gives the weapon character.”
Tynlee had been gazing toward the airship and Nurian vessel, her eyes glassy as she used magic, perhaps for an assessment similar to the one Yanko had made.
“Sayzon,” she said to the captain. “Steer us closer, please. I am not convinced that our people are pirates. I wish to assist the Nurian vessel.”
The captain and the first mate exchanged long looks with each other. Long concerned looks.
Yanko caught Dak exchanging similar looks with Sicarius and Amaranthe. Would the president’s agents also feel obligated to assist the Turgonians?
The first mate hadn’t adjusted the wheel yet. He bit his lip and looked at Yanko, as if he would or could countermand Tynlee.
“Adjust course,” Tynlee told him, steel in her voice. And magic. Yanko sensed it.
The first mate shifted the wheel without hesitation. The captain frowned, lifting a hand to object.
“We will not attempt to draw their fire,” Tynlee assured him. “I will convince the captain of the Turgonian vessel to leave the Nurian ship alone. I need to be closer to do so, but I am certain I will be able to achieve that goal. Turgonians are weak when it comes to mental defenses.”
“Really,” Dak said.
“Colonel,” Sicarius said, and Yanko jumped.
He hadn’t noticed the assassin’s approach.
“We must speak.” Sicarius said it like an order rather than a request.
Dak’s eye narrowed, and he looked like he might object to being ordered around by the—civilian?—spy. But he grunted and walked off with Sicarius and Amaranthe.
Yanko stepped up to Tynlee’s side as their yacht cut through the water on its new course, closing on the Nurian ship. Unfortunately, the Turgonian airship, its great black balloon like a dark storm cloud hovering over them, was also closing on it. The boom of the cannons grew louder.
“What can I do to help, Honored Consul?” Yanko asked.
“You can call me Tynlee, Yanko. And I will handle this. Mind manipulation will be the simplest magic to employ and should result in no casualties on our side.” Her gaze was locked on the airship, and she didn’t look at him. In a low voice, she whispered, “A little closer. A little closer.”
Cannons fired from the airship ports, and Yanko winced as they tore into the side of the wooden sailing ship. Even though he didn’t know anything about the combatants, other than their nationalities, he was inclined to think of the Turgonians as overly muscled bullies picking on a weaker foe.
Maybe he could conjure a great wind to blow that hulking Turgonian balloon onto a different course. Was that what steered the vessel? Or did it simply stay aloft with hot air, similar to the hot-air balloons he’d once seen at the beach when he’d gone on a trip with his great uncle?
Abruptly, as he stared at the black balloon, he realized what part of the ship might be flammable. Not the metal hull of the cabin or the frame, but the balloon. It had to be made of some kind of flexible fabric, didn’t it? If so, he could burn it.
But Tynlee had told him to leave this to her. Should he?
It would be an act of war if he took down a Turgonian ship, and if he did it in front of Dak, Yanko had no doubt that Dak would know who had been responsible.
Another boom sounded, and this time, they were close enough to see the cannonball flying down from above. Though they were still a long way from the battle, Yanko found he could compress the air in front of its path, creating a shield. He smiled smugly as the cannonball bounced away instead of hitting its target. Surely, it wasn’t an act of war to simply shield a ship.
“Actually,” Tynlee said, her brow furrowed with concentration, “if you could distract our Turgonian friends, I would appreciate it. I’m having trouble affecting the captain, but as we get closer, it should be easier. I just need time.” She glanced toward the trio of Turgonians out of earshot on their deck. “But they’re debating if they are obligated to help their people, if only by keeping us from acting. In other circumstances, I might not mind if a noble Turgonian warrior tossed me over his shoulder and carried me belowdecks, providing he was handsome enough, but not today.”
Yanko opened his mouth, intending to let her know he was shiel
ding the ship—maybe she was too focused on the airship captain to have noticed. But that wouldn’t negate her concerns about their own Turgonians. Dak could fling Yanko over his shoulder as easily as he could Tynlee. And there wasn’t any circumstance in which Yanko would find that acceptable.
“Yes, Honored Consul.”
More cannons fired, and as Yanko walked slowly toward the Turgonian group, he created a shield to wrap all the way around the Nurian vessel. He hoped he could keep his focus on that as he spoke with the agents. He was tempted to run to his cabin for his warrior-mage robe, but he feared that the situation might change drastically in that time. He was loath to disappear even for a minute.
Dak watched his approach, his arms folded over his chest. Sicarius also observed Yanko, but he was listening to Amaranthe who spoke animatedly, and Yanko had the impression that she was trying to convince them of something. Not to take over the yacht, he hoped. Yanko would have to fight any attempt to do that, and he didn’t want to hurt Dak. He didn’t want to hurt anyone. But he believed he could. Mage-hunter training did not nullify physical magic. If Yanko threw a fireball, it would hurt even Dak and Sicarius.
“Tynlee has determined that we will convince the Turgonians to leave, and I am helping her,” Yanko said. “Will that be a problem?”
“Are we certain that is the right thing to do?” Amaranthe asked in slow but precise Nurian. So she did speak it. It sounded like she might be new to the language and a little uncertain. “I was suggesting that we get the captains of the two ships together for a chat and determine if any crimes have been committed. And by who.”
Yanko had been ready to protest, but her words weren’t what he expected. Also, he had to pause to concentrate on rebuffing a barrage of cannonballs.
“By who?” Yanko asked. “Is there a question?”
“Amaranthe pointed out that we’ve crossed the boundary line from Turgonian waters into Nurian waters,” Dak said. “If the Nurian ship committed a crime and fled, our people could be within their right to pursue them across the line. But if the Turgonians for some reason instigated an attack, we should find out why. I don’t know why they would have, since we aren’t at war with Nuria right now.”
“Which is why we should chat first before starting a fight.” Amaranthe opened her palm toward the sky.
“Chat,” Sicarius said flatly.
“I know.” She patted his arm. “You don’t chat. Shall we call it negotiating a moratorium on shooting each other pending the result of an investigation?”
“Yes.”
“Do bigger words make chatting more acceptable?” Dak asked.
“More professional, perhaps. How are we going to arrange this negotiation when they’re a hundred feet in the air?” Sicarius pointed toward the airship.
“I can bring it down,” Yanko said.
Dak frowned at him. “In such a manner that they’ll be open to negotiation afterward?”
“Uhm.” Yanko was still fantasizing about lighting that balloon on fire. Was there another way he could force the ship down? “Maybe Tynlee can convince the crew to bring it down. Do you think it’s seaworthy if the air is let out of the balloon?”
“It’s not air,” Dak said.
“Perhaps she can simply handle the negotiating while they’re up there,” Amaranthe said before Yanko could ask for clarification. “She is telepathic, isn’t she?”
“Yanko,” Lakeo called from the railing. “Are you the reason cannonballs are bouncing off before hitting the Nurian ship?” She waved toward the people hunkering on the deck of the Nurian craft—the yacht was close enough now that they could see their scared faces as they stared up at the airship.
“I may be,” Yanko said, reinforcing his shield as more booms erupted from the airship.
“Down!” Jhali shouted.
Two of those cannonballs sailed in their direction.
Yanko flung his hands out as he rushed to shift his shield from the Nurian ship to theirs. The pair of cannonballs bounced away and splashed into the water twenty feet from the yacht, but more cannonballs reached the Nurian vessel. One tore through a mast, and it toppled like a felled tree, the sail crumpling. Another tore through flesh and blood, knocking a man overboard and killing him.
Yanko cursed, furious with himself.
“Do you still wish to negotiate with them?” Sicarius asked in his deadpan voice.
Amaranthe frowned at him.
Before she could reply, Tynlee ran up, waving her arms. “They’re not Turgonians, not all of them. The captain is a mage. That’s why I wasn’t able to manipulate him. I believe they’re pirates.”
“Our people would not allow pirates to have one of our airships,” Dak said coolly.
“I’m sure it wasn’t a gift,” Tynlee said. “Will you join us to fight against them?”
“We have only your word that they are pirates,” Sicarius said.
“They’re shooting at us.” Tynlee flung her arm toward the airship as cannons fired again.
“Your mage shielded their primary target,” Sicarius said.
Yanko braced himself as cannonballs arced out, half of a round of ten going toward the Nurian craft and half toward their yacht. He dared not join in the conversation. He constructed a shield directly in the path of the cannonballs flying toward the other ship, praying to the cheetah god for speed and accuracy. They weren’t bunched up, so he had to carefully channel the wind to block each one. Sweat broke out on his forehead as his magic knocked the cannonballs aside.
“Yanko!” Lakeo yelled. “Wrong ship!”
He shifted his focus back to them, struggling to keep his concentration as the volley plummeted toward the deck of their small craft. Some would miss, but some wouldn’t. There wasn’t time to carefully construct a wall of air, so he merely flung raw power outward, acting as much on instinct as calculation.
The cannonballs flew backward as if they had bounced off a trampoline. Most of them soared past the airship without disturbing it, but two slammed into the metal hull. Unfortunately, not with enough power to do more than leave a dent, but Yanko hoped it made the soldiers—or pirates—inside twitch.
It would probably only make them angry so that the entire next volley came at the yacht.
“I give you my word that it’s a diverse crew drawn from many nations and definitely not Turgonian soldiers,” Tynlee said, but she didn’t ask again for help. She turned to look at the airship, through its hull, most likely, seeking out susceptible minds that she could manipulate. The crew couldn’t consist of all mages.
Yanko clenched his jaw. He believed Tynlee. It was time to do more than merely manipulate minds.
“I can’t defend us indefinitely,” he said, glancing at Dak. “I’m going to burn that balloon.”
He wasn’t asking for permission but thought Dak might give away whether that would be an effective strategy, whether the balloon was the flammable thing he’d mentioned before. Yanko would hate for it to prove fire retardant and for his attack to fail.
Dak met his eyes briefly, then studied Tynlee for a longer moment. Amaranthe drew a pistol, but they were too far away from the ships for her to do anything with it yet—unless she intended to shoot Yanko or Tynlee. Sicarius was watching Dak, and Yanko had the abrupt realization that he might be here to report on Dak’s activities and choices as much as to pursue his own spy mission. Had Dak’s loyalties been in doubt even before Yanko’s failed attempt to intercept those orders? Perhaps as far back as the Kyatt Islands when he’d chosen to help Yanko hunt for the lodestone?
“I’ve got them squabbling with each other,” Tynlee said, her eyes distant as she worked her magic. “Maybe…”
The airship had stopped firing, and the nose turned away from the Nurian vessels. Had she caused some of the crew to bump the wheel or whatever was used for steering?
After being shot at and seeing fellow Nurians hurt, Yanko wanted that ship down in the water where they could stop the pirates from attacking anyone else eve
r; he didn’t want to let them flee.
Dak sighed. “Ignite the gas in the balloon, Yanko.”
“What? Gas?”
“It’ll be hydrogen.”
Yanko abruptly understood what Dak meant about the airships being flammable, for all fire magic had its basis in cleaving hydrogen from oxygen in water molecules and igniting the hydrogen. Before, he’d assumed the balloon was filled with hot air, but now, he looked at the airship with new eyes, shifting his attention from the fabric to the gas inside.
“I see,” he whispered.
But igniting it might blow up the entire ship including the crew inside the cabin. Even if they were pirates, could he be the one to incinerate them? Perhaps if he controlled the explosion carefully…
“Why tell him that?” Sicarius asked Dak.
“If pirates stole a military vessel, the military will want it back,” Dak said.
“Destroyed?”
“We can’t board it if it’s up there.”
Yanko tried not to listen to the conversation, since he needed his focus to work his magic, but he couldn’t help but think again that the agents from the Turgonian capital might report back on Dak if he seemed to be overly interested in helping a Nurian kid. Or a Nurian government employee.
Shaking his head, Yanko went through with his plan. As Dak had suggested, he ignited the gas.
There was no way to keep a chain reaction from occurring, but he shielded the cabin below from the explosion. The balloon went up fast with a boom more impressive than what the cannons had issued.
The cabin plummeted, startling Yanko with the suddenness. He reacted on instinct and shifted his shield of air, turning it into a cushion to slow the craft’s descent. The structure still landed with a huge splash, the water spraying the Nurian ships. It had landed between the yacht and the damaged vessel.
At first, Yanko worried the mostly enclosed structure would sink, since it was made of metal, but the buoyancy of the air inside kept it afloat. It bobbed on the waves, the cannons still visible in the open ports.
“Take us in,” Dak called to the captain.
Tynlee looked at him in surprise.
Dak waved his rifle and touched the cutlass on his belt. “If they’re truly pirates, we’ll deal with them.”
Assassin’s Bond: Chains of Honor, Book 3 Page 12