by Alex Lidell
“Aye, sir,” Domenic answers, the deck creaking under a heavy step. “Rerun the gun drill.”
“And Mr. Dana…” Zolan adds, the creaking stopping at once. “Prior to your arrival, the greater majority of this crew was able to wipe their own asses without step-by-step instructions. I would be obliged if they returned to that state.”
“Aye, sir.” In my mind, I see Domenic’s tight shoulders, two fingers of one hand tapping against his thigh.
I wait for the creaking to start again, posing myself for a quick retreat, but silence reigns instead. And then the words that never, ever lead to good things.
“Permission to speak freely?” Domenic asks.
My stomach tightens. Throw him a line, Zolan, I beg silently. Tell him no.
“By all means,” says Zolan.
Domenic’s words are so low, I can barely hear them. “Ms. Greysik is the Helix’s captain. And should be treated with the courtesy due that rank.”
I freeze, my heart leaping into a confused gallop. Then the boards creak again, and I’m out of the pass-through before the gun room door swings open.
Chapter 16
Nile
Domenic’s words to Zolan notwithstanding, the following week passes in the same tone as the first days had. We are ten days into the cruise when a rolling beat of a drum echoes through the Helix, calling the ship to battle stations. For a moment, I think the call is a surprise drill of Zolan’s conjuring but it is midday, close to the end of the crew’s meal, and Zolan is too good an officer to interrupt the hands’ sacred time without need. I check my impulse to sprint up to the deck, each slow step an effort of will as my body screams for me to hurry, to see for myself what’s happened. All around, the pounding of running feet vibrates the ship around me and bosun’s mates’ voices call silence.
A figure streaks by me, heading in the wrong direction. I grab its wrist, spinning with the force of the momentum until I find myself staring at Lord Vikon’s pale face.
“What is it?” I ask, letting go of the boy’s sleeve.
“Mr. Dana sent me to, uh, get his pistols.” Vikon trips over the words.
“Carry on, Mr. Vikon,” I say, letting go. “With some dignity, please.”
By the time I finally come up to deck, the crews already stand beside their guns, the netting stretches overhead to protect from falling debris, and the wooden deck planks are covered in sand for traction. One of the powder monkey boys is strategically laying out piles of rags and sticks to be used for tourniquets.
On the quarterdeck, Domenic is instructing a middie, who nods and rushes off to lay out signal flags. Zolan, also already at his station, turns and, for once, condescends to address me directly. “I have ordered the ship to quarters, ma’am,” the first officer says with impeccable calm that is likely meant to soothe me along with the crew. “It appears the Tirik Republic wishes to amuse us today.”
It is a good day for a battle, if there is such a thing. The skies are clear, the seas stretch calmly in all directions, and the wind is strong enough for maneuvering the ship without being a hazard. Of course, the enemy will enjoy the same advantage, which is the great equalizer that is the ocean. I call for a glass. There is no land in sight, just the Helix’s three sister ships and whatever vessels the Tirik Republic brought to the game.
“Three Tirik vessels off starboard, ma’am,” Domenic tells me, the first words to me in weeks. Words that Zolan should be saying now. “All with approximately twenty guns apiece.”
“We’ll handle them easily,” Zolan drawls, jerking his chin toward the companionway. “Take charge of the lower gun deck, Mr. Dana.”
Instead of watching Domenic stride away, I accept the delivered spyglass from a middie and examine the horizon. Three, just as Domenic said. Approaching at full sail, though, faster than the Republic ships usually move. “Does it not strike you as odd that the Tirik would continue heading toward us given our greater number, Mr. Zolan?” I ask, focusing on the foremost ship.
Silence answers. I look up to find that Zolan is no longer beside me, but rather reviewing the signal midshipman’s work. Fine. I return to study the coming ships, which are indeed approaching our much heavier force. As I watch, the two wing vessels break off, spreading out from their brethren as if to encircle us. Sailing at the back of our diamond formation, I suddenly find my Helix too close to the other friendly ships for comfort, our great guns too likely to hit one of our own number should battle break out.
“Helm,” I call out, my voice ringing clearly over the hushed deck. “Bring us three points starboard.”
The seaman at the helm begins to spin the wheel, only to have Zolan place a halting hand on the spokes. “Shall I signal the admiral with our intended target location, ma’am?” he asks with deceptive calm.
I curse myself, my face heating. Fighting as part of a unit under an admiral’s command is not something I’ve done before. I’ve been a junior lieutenant on Captain Fey’s ship, but even then, most of the Faithful’s orders brought us into solo action or missions. To fight under an admiral’s flag meant yielding the larger decisions to a central commander—and that squarely includes maneuvering my own frigate into a different position until the admiral’s flag commands it.
My face heats. Too late now. “Yes,” I say, recovering much too late. “Please inform the flag that I wish to maneuver for the weather gage.”
Zolan purses his lips and nods to the middie, who immediately sends the signals up the mast. A few breaths later, another set of flags rises to the mast of the admiral’s ship. Denied, Helix. Keep formation.
Right. Cursing myself, I instruct helm to hold our present station and, after counting to a slow hundred for dignity’s sake, head for the hatch. Unless the Tirik sprout wings, nothing will be happening in the next quarter hour, and there is something I need to do before the killing starts.
After the sunbathed quarterdeck, my eyes struggle to adjust to the gun deck gloom. Just above the waterline and a hundred forty feet long, the gun deck hosts twenty-six of the Helix’s fifty-four guns, with thirteen of the great beasts posted on each side. The Helix’s heaviest guns, these black beauties will launch twenty-four-pound shot up to a mile if they fire well. The sailors stand in teams beside the weapons, the more experienced hands reminding the newer ones to tie kerchiefs around their ears to protect from the coming din. The middies scurry about, trying to make themselves look busy despite there being nothing to do just yet.
My appearance is marked with unenthusiastically knuckled foreheads and tugged forelocks, which I acknowledge with a curt nod, my attention suddenly and wholly on the broad-shouldered officer turning toward me.
The one who’d thrown me to the wolves at the admiralty, whose rise in rank came with a redoubled devotion to rules—a devotion common to those whom the rules benefit. The one who, behind closed doors, stood up for me before the most powerful man on the ship. My mouth is dry as Domenic steps toward me, my heart racing my mind for words.
With his height, Domenic has to duck beneath the low overhead beams, his movements smooth and practiced, as if his body remembers where the beams are and needs no reminders from his eyes. Those are steadily on me.
Stepping back into an empty corner, as much privacy as the gun deck allows, I put my hands behind my back. Not for formality’s sake, but because I don’t know what else to do with them. Domenic braces his arms on the overhead beams, his body blocking the rays of light sneaking through the open gunports. His salt-and-brine scent fills my senses, making the ship spin around me.
“Hello,” I whisper. Three weeks since our last conversation, the one that ended us. It feels like three years.
He nods. Domenic was always better than me at hiding himself from the world. He had to be, to survive beneath Rima’s rule. Just now, though, I wish he was a little less skilled at it. “Ma’am.” His voice is low and musical.
Suddenly, no words come. Storms, I’m ridiculous. “I wanted to see if you were all right.”
/> Domenic’s jaw tenses. “Aye, ma’am.”
My nails dig into my skin. We have so little time. None at all for games and formality. “You are a good seaman, Domenic,” I say quickly. “And I don’t want to let Zolan convince you otherwise. Tell me how to help.”
Domenic’s face lowers, and I don’t know whether the darkness there comes from shadow or something else. He says something too low for me to hear, and when I prod—
“I said,” Domenic’s voice snaps, “that I don’t need your pity.”
I recoil. “Pity?”
“You think I can’t endure a few hours without sleep?” Domenic’s nostrils flare. “That I want the Helix’s great captain to step in and protect me from my commanding officer?”
The words hit me like ice water, stinging even after Domenic clamps his mouth shut. I should never have come here, should have known he’d little welcome my company after I pushed him out of my life at Port Mead. To Domenic, the value of being on the Helix—the only silver lining to the loss of his beloved Raptor—lies solely with serving under Zolan, not me. Even when Zolan treats him like a dog who’d messed the rug.
Thinking otherwise, based on nothing but a short phrase overheard out of context, might be the stupidest step I’ve taken yet.
“No, you are quite correct.” My voice is tight, leashed as tightly as my magic. “Please carry on.”
Domenic opens his mouth, but shuts it without speaking and silently touches his hat.
Returning to deck, I stroll to the rail to watch the ships and waves and skies. I do everything except feel. Deep in my blood, my magic blinks awake and pulls on its leash. Storms, but I wish I could let it out just now. Let it destroy something. Anything. Beyond the confines of our ship, the Tirik vessels continue their approach, as if ignorant of their inferior size and weight. As they get closer, the ships fan out into the familiar line of battle formation, readying to stand broadside to broadside with our small fleet. It’s ludicrous. Suicidal. The small boat crew that martyred themselves at Port Mead at least took a chunk of their enemy out with them, but these ships will never get close enough to do real damage before we sink them.
The Tirik Republic has always been free with forcing its people into harm’s way, usually by means of killing the families of officers they deem disloyal. That’s kept plenty of Tirik captains from prudent surrender, but this… It’s proactive stupidity. If this is the Tirik Republic’s new doctrine, it’s downright frightening. And sad.
After twenty minutes of tense silence, signals finally run up the admiral’s mast. I’ve memorized the code and don’t need to wait for the signals middie to read the flags from his code book. “Open the gunport, Mr. Zolan,” I say formally. “But hold your fire until the signal from the flag.”
“Aye aye, open ports but hold fire,” Zolan says, relaying Admiral Brice’s orders to the gun crews, who’d heard them perfectly well the first time. The repetition of orders down the chain of command is a tradition on naval ships, and at least Zolan and I can agree on that.
“Mr. Quinn,” I call, bringing the ex-Tirik captain to my side for an uncomfortable conversation. The one single hard line of his agreement to defect and serve under my command was a promise never to be required to attack his former countrymen directly, never to have his knowledge employed against the people he called friends. With him and Catsper aboard in the capacity of personal guardsmen instead of naval sailors and marines, their official station during battle is as messengers—though there is no one aboard who imagines for a heartbeat that the Spade will be anywhere but in the thick of the fighting. Quinn, on the other hand…
Quinn’s lips press into a hard line as he steps up beside me, and I try to phrase my question so as to respect the agreement between us. “If the Tirik were to order several captains on a suicide mission,” I say carefully, “is there any way one might go about minimizing the lives lost on both sides?”
Quinn frowns, squints at the approaching ships, returns his attention to me. “Might I make use of your glass, ma’am?”
I hand him the spyglass and watch as Quinn hops easily into the rigging, hooking an arm though the ratlines while he examines the approaching vessels from a better position. He returns a minute later, his shoulders tight as he meets my gaze. “Destroy those ships,” Quinn says quietly. “Now.”
Chapter 17
Nile
“What?” Of all the things for Quinn to suggest, slaughter is low on my list of expectations. “The Tirik—”
“Those are not Tirik ships,” Quinn says. “Destroy them, before they get any closer, Nile.”
The enemy ships break from the traditional broadside-to-broadside firing line and change tack to encircle us instead, their masts and sails straining. For all their speed and maneuverability, though, they are still small fish to go up against even the Helix, much less Admiral Brice’s Rose, Violet, and Thorn—the latter of which has three decks of guns. “Brice must give them a chance to surrender, whoever they are,” I say to Quinn. “We are a naval ship, not a pirate one.”
In echo of my words, Rose and Violet—the two Felielle ships on the flanks of Admiral Brice’s line—fire shots across the bows of the respective vessels trying to outflank us.
Quinn’s jaw is tight. “Trust me. This isn’t time for moral superiority. I will explain when there is time.”
“I’m not going to become the very people we are fighting to protect our kingdom from based on trust me. You need to give me more than that, Quinn,” I snap. “What are those ships going to do?”
“I don’t know,” Quinn snaps back, his brows pulled in a tight knot. “I’d tell you if I did. But whatever it is, you little wish to be on the receiving end of it.”
My stomach clenches. My gut says to trust Quinn, but there is little I can do. I’m not ready to commit murder on a gut feeling, and even if I was, we are too far away to land our shot. “Mr. Zolan,” I call over the deck. “Have the gun crews aim our entire broadside at the Tirik forty-two gunner who is vying to square off against the Helix. Track her full approach, but hold your fire.” It isn’t much, but it’s something.
Zolan turns his head, his eyes dripping contempt as he echoes my order. Tracking a moving ship that appears to pose little threat will put a strain on the crews, and my demand must seem frivolous. A nervous captain making busywork, needlessly fatiguing the hands before a battle.
I pull my shoulders back. Zolan is welcome to his contempt. So are the others. So long as the crew stays alive, they are welcome to curse me to as deep a hell as they wish just now.
Ignoring the warning shots, the Tirik close and flank the Felielle line. The agile forty-two gunner who’s marked the Helix as her target deftly skirts around Violet, establishing a clear path from its broadside to us. The other two Tirik ships put themselves in similar positions against the Rose and Thorn, like vicious little dogs yapping at a pack of mastiffs, unaware of their size and might.
Quinn’s hands tighten on the rail, my own body tensing in reflex. “That forty-two is quicker than she should be,” Quinn mutters. “Don’t you think?”
I nod. I’d marked as much on their approach, to consider later. At this point, the ship’s speed will be of consequence only if one of us flees and the other gives chase. Which seems unlikely.
“Breathe easy, lads,” Zolan says from his place beside me. “That little frigate is too far to do us damage even if she were to land a shot. My only regret is that our escorts will blow her to splinters before we have a chance to exercise our guns.”
As if in answer, a belch suddenly echoes from the Tirik guns.
Sprays of water rise from the ocean where iron balls fall short of their target, despite the Tirik’s high aim to mitigate the distance. At the end, only one shot of the dozens fired even reaches a ship, plopping harmlessly onto Violet’s deck. The frigate doesn’t so much as buck from the impact.
She doesn’t return fire either. Not until her fire would be effective.
“Might the Tirik
be engaging with us for show?” I ask Quinn. “Demonstrating to the Republic Admiralty that they attacked the enemy as directed, without actually sacrificing their crews for no chance at victory?”
Before Quinn can respond, the Tirik forty-two reloads and fires at the Helix a second time, the shot flying just as high as before.
Quinn and I exchange glances and even Zolan frowns. Poor tactics, forced engagements, and occasional mistakes are one thing, but this pattern of apparent errors is smelling too much like cheese in a mousetrap.
My lips press into a line, my attention on the Tirik airborne broadside. Taking fire is never good, but these high-lobbed volleys should stand no chance of harming us where it truly counts, below the waterline. This time, one of the balls manages to breach the distance between us, landing on the Helix’s foc’sle with a dull anticlimactic thud, like a load of cow dung flung from the heavens.
Lieutenant Phal nudges the fallen shot toward the rail, ushering it overboard before it can roll over and crush a foot or hand. Nine pounds of lead can cause mischief even without great momentum, and—
The ball explodes, taking Phal’s polished boot with it—both the boom of the blast and Phal’s scream breaking the deck’s silence a fraction of a second later. A cloud of shrapnel and an odd mist rise into the air, striking Phal’s face as he bends over his mangled leg.
My heart thumps once, watching with a trained detachment even as my mind races to understand. Iron balls should crush, strike, bludgeon—they shouldn’t explode. They…. My thoughts halt altogether as Phal’s hands suddenly jerk from his leg to his throat, his fingers clawing his neck. A heartbeat later, the man falls retching to the deck, blood leaking from his nose, his ears, his eyes.
The deck and everyone on it seem to move in slow motion. A delay between reality and reaction. The men standing beside Phal double over, clutching at their throats, scratching their faces, writhing on the deck soaked in their own bloody vomit and piss. Storms, gruesome as shrapnel is, the gore from the metal debris is nothing compared to the horror of bodies gushing, drowning in their own fluids, gasping for air that won’t come.