All traces of Strangward’s usual self-deprecating charm were gone. In its place was the hard and ruthless Stormcaster of legend. And, once again, the pirate was telling the master of the Fellsian navy what to do. But in this case, at least, she bowed to the stormlord’s expertise.
DeVilliers gazed at Strangward for a long moment, then nodded curtly. “That will require time to set up. We’ll put up the yellow flag and stall for time. You give us a brisk northwest wind to hold the weather gage. Baines, you’re on the gunnery deck. When the eight-pounders are primed and ready to go, run them out and fire when ready. Teza, you are sailmaster. Finn, you handle the barriers. Jorani, run up the yellow flag and then load the swivel cannon, but keep them out of sight for now. Prince Adrian, go forward and charm the Carthians. Keep them occupied and stop them if they try to board us.”
“Captain,” Captain Talbot said, her sword in her hand, practically vibrating with the need for action. “What can I do?”
“Help the prince,” DeVilliers said. She reached into the slop chest and pulled out two long strips of yellow cloth—flags made from the remnants of sailor’s shirts. “You’ll be the last surviving crewmen.” She turned away, toward the stairs.
Like a shell detonating, the crew dispersed to battle stations. Finn, Talbot, Ash, and Strangward sprinted forward. Finn peeled off at midships, planting himself by the mainmast. Moments later, a glittering web of magic spun out from the waist of the ship, settling gently over the masts and rigging.
When they reached the forecastle, Ash could see bloodsworn lined up along Hydra’s rails, grappling hooks in hand. It didn’t require close counting to tell that they were vastly outnumbered. Strangward peered around the foremast. “There’s Samara,” he murmured, pointing. “He’s the only one who’s not bloodsworn.” The Stormcaster retreated to the aft side of the foremast, planting his back against it. Curling his fingers around his amulet, he raised his other hand, as if reaching for weather. The ship shuddered as the sails began to fill.
Ash gazed across the waves at the fleetmaster, who wore a lavishly brocaded coat, high boots, a broad gold belt, and a satisfied smile. He held a curved Carthian sword loosely in one hand.
“Greetings, wetlanders!” Samara called. “You have nothing to fear. Strike your colors and stand down, and you will find out just how merciful the empress can be.”
Anger welled up in Ash. Would the empress display the same kind of mercy she’d shown at Chalk Cliffs? Had this fleetmaster seen his sister? Did he know where she was? Ash wanted to reach across the waves, grip him by the throat, and demand answers.
“Your Highness?” Talbot touched his sleeve, breaking into his dark daydream.
Ash collected himself, leaned toward Talbot, and murmured, “Let’s buy some time.” Ash stepped away from the mast, lunging forward to grip the rail as if worried that his legs wouldn’t support his weight. Talbot came up beside him, following his cue. Ash couldn’t help thinking that he and Talbot were poor choices to impersonate a pair of sailors. He hoped that Samara wouldn’t ask them to recite the pirate code or demonstrate a sailor’s knot.
“Halloo the ship!” Ash called.
Samara stared at Ash in his nondescript coat and mariner’s cap, a makeshift scarf around his neck. His gaze slid to Talbot and then back to him. Clearly, this was not what the fleetmaster had expected.
“Who are you?” Samara said in Common. “I expected to be greeted by a wetlander naval commander. Instead, we have what looks like a pair of wetland scrubs. Or is it just that you couldn’t find a uniform large enough to fit that one?” He nodded toward Talbot.
Ash saluted the empress’s flag. Talbot squinted at him, then followed suit.
“Sir. We are privateers with a letter of marque from the king of Arden,” Ash said. “We work the wetland coast off Bruinsport. We captured this Fellsian vessel, and wish to present it to Empress Celestine with our compliments.”
“Is that so?” Samara scanned Sea Wolf’s decks for activity. “Where’s the rest of your crew?”
Ash and Talbot exchanged glances, as if getting their story straight. “They’re—uh—sleeping,” Talbot said. “Below.”
“The empress is always in need of good ships, sailors, and soldiers,” Samara said. “But why would you want to give up your prize?”
“We’re hoping the empress will take us on,” Ash said eagerly. “The boy king in Arden—he is even more miserly than his father. We think we’d do better with you.”
Samara eyed them skeptically. “Where’s your captain? I want to speak with him.”
“He—ah—he’s resting,” Ash said. “He can’t be disturbed.”
“I don’t believe you,” Samara said. He pointed to the yellow flag flying from Sea Wolf’s rigging. “What the hell is that?”
Ash stared up at the flag, as if surprised to find it there. “That? It’s only . . .” He pretended to be overcome by a spell of dizziness, hanging on to the rail in order to remain upright.
“It’s some kind of a northern banner, I reckon,” Talbot said. “We just never took it down.” She blotted at her face with her rag mask and shivered, as if from a sudden chill.
Finally recovering his balance, Ash called, “Would you like to come aboard, sir? Or should we pass a line and come to you?” Reflexively, Talbot gripped his arm, as if she thought he might follow through.
Samara looked up at the flag again. “What is it? Ship’s fever? Bloody flux? The pox?”
“I don’t know what you mean, sir,” Ash said.
“I mean that you’re trying to run a rig on us,” Samara said. “Trying to gull us into letting you bring contagion onto our ship and back to our home port.”
Ash tried to keep the astonishment off his face. Was this sketchy plan actually going to work?
“Please, sir,” Talbot said. “We have to get off this ship. We don’t want to end up like—like the rest.”
Ash glared at her. “Shut up!” he hissed.
“It seems to me,” Samara said, with a sharklike smile, “that the kindest thing to do would be to put the lot of you out of your misery. It will also teach you not to bring wetland diseases so close to our shore.” He turned to his waiting bloodsworn. “Put down your grappling hooks, men. We won’t be boarding this one. Run out the guns and fire at my command.”
The bloodsworn seemed to take this order quite literally. All along the rails, grapnels hit the deck with a clatter, and the crew swarmed to battle stations.
Well, Ash thought, they’re not going to board us, but there’s more than one way a plan can go wrong. What the hell was going on below? He knew they were shorthanded, but how long could it take to ready the smaller guns?
Then it seemed like everything happened at once. First, the creak of the hinges as Sea Wolf’s gun ports opened and the rattle of the side tackles as the eight-pounders slid into view. Strangward’s stormborn sailor Jorani immediately began to roll one of the deck cannons to the rail. Talbot ran to help her, and together they got it secured and went back for another.
The deck shook as the eight-pounders roared beneath their feet, sending bar and chain shot pinwheeling into Hydra’s rigging, shearing off the foremast and shredding the sheets at midships. The second volley ripped into Hydra’s wheelhouse, which was emotionally satisfying but did little to arrest the enemy’s battle preparations. The third volley took out the mainmast, sending it crashing sternward.
Jorani raked Hydra’s deck with grapeshot from one of the deck guns, sending the bloodsworn flying. When it was emptied, she raced to the next and put the match to it. She unloaded one more gun into the Carthian ship, and then they were done until they could reload.
Samara’s shouted commands floated across the water as Hydra’s gun ports slid open.
“Prepare to come about!” DeVilliers shouted, and the ship began a slow turn, presenting its stern to the Hydra. Ash and Talbot ran aft, meaning to keep the enemy ship in view. Just as they came abreast of the foremast, Sea Wolf lurched forwa
rd as her sails filled with air, and Ash fell flat on his back. Talbot was extending a hand to help him up when he was blinded by a flash of light and searing heat as the entire ship shuddered and pitched. The foremast and rigging crashed down on him, and he found himself entangled in lines and sailcloth, breathing in the scent of burning pitch and scorched wood.
Clearly, the Hydra had launched its first volley. But what had happened to the barriers?
Fighting free of the rigging, Ash looked aft. Finn stood alone in the waist of the ship, his stormcoat fluttering in the rising wind, one hand on his amulet, his eyes closed.
As Ash watched, Finn opened his eyes, wells of malice in a pale, grief-stricken face. The eyes of a stranger. Raising his free hand, he released a torrent of flame directly at Ash.
What the hell, Finn?
Ash flung himself to one side, but not quickly enough. He was conscious of searing heat, and a concussion all but cut him in half and left his ears ringing. Then he was in the water, wrapped up like a parcel in sailcloth and unable to tell which way was up.
Ash kicked strongly, hoping he wasn’t weighed down too much to float to the surface. Before long, his mouth filled with salt water, and his lungs were bursting, and he still couldn’t see a thing.
You’re going to die, he thought. I’m sorry, Lyss. I’m sorry, Mother. I’m sorry, Jenna. He’d managed to fail all of the women in his life. The men, too.
Somebody wrapped a muscled arm around his chest from the rear, towing him upward until his head broke the surface of the water. Ash sucked in air gratefully, then began coughing, trying to expel seawater from his lungs. His rescuer took his hands and planted them on something solid, made of ridged wood or planks. “Hang on to this, healer,” he said. “I’ll be right back.”
It was Strangward. Within the space of an hour, his erstwhile friend had tried to kill him, and his erstwhile enemy had saved his life. It was no wonder he couldn’t tell which way was up.
Keeping one hand on his makeshift raft, Ash groped for his belt dagger and carefully sliced away canvas and lines until he uncovered his face and he could see. He found that he was clinging to the overturned hull of the longboat that had been mounted just above deck level on the Sea Wolf. He looked back at the ship, and saw that there was a huge bite taken out of the port side of the ship right where he and Talbot had been standing. The hull and decking were charred black, as if they’d been flamed.
He squinted, blotting seawater from his eyes, and realized that Sea Wolf was still under way, growing smaller and smaller as she receded into the distance. When he looked around, he saw that he was floating midway between Sea Wolf and the Hydra, with nothing but ocean all around, no sign of land as far as the eye could see. “Hey!” he shouted. “Sailors overboard!” And then, “Help!” even though he realized that it was probably futile as more and more ocean opened between them and Sea Wolf.
“Will you shut up?” someone said, startling Ash so that he almost lost his hold on the keel.
Strangward was back, this time towing an unconscious Talbot, who was bleeding heavily from a head wound. “Sound carries over water, and we don’t want Samara coming over to finish what he started.”
“You’d rather drown?”
Strangward thought about this for a long moment, as if it were a hard question. Then he said, “We’re not going to drown, healer, unless you panic.” He brought Talbot up beside Ash, boosting her a little so that her chest and head rested on the side of the boat. “Here,” he said. “Keep her head above water and try to stop the bleeding. There are enough predators around here without drawing any more.”
Talbot was reviving, coughing and sputtering. It consumed all Ash’s attention to keep her from foundering the boat before she came fully awake. She vomited out seawater, and then, eventually, began spewing words. “What the hell just happened? Where’s the ship? What are we— Strangward! What are you doing here?” She eyed the pirate suspiciously. “Where’s the rest of the crew?” She swung her head from side to side. By now, both ships were out of sight. Empty ocean stretched all the way to the horizon. “Why do I keep ending up in the ocean?” she moaned. “All my life until recently, I never even came close to drowning, and now twice in a couple of months—”
“Be quiet and hold still,” Ash said, “and I’ll try to close up the hole in your head.” Fortunately, it was just a flesh wound, and he was able to deal with it quickly. His own head was thick with confusion. What had just happened? It had seemed like they were getting away. And then—
Strangward watched the horizon a little longer, waiting for rescue or enemy vessels to appear. Then he said, “All right, I’m going to flip this boat over. I don’t want to lose either of you, so you need to grab onto the line, let go of the boat, and put as much distance between you and it as you can.”
“You want us to let go of the boat?” Talbot said, her teeth chattering.
“I can’t flip the boat with you clinging onto it like a barnacle,” the pirate said. Ash and Talbot walked their way hand over hand down the length of the boat until they reached the tether line. Releasing their hold on the planking, they held tight to the line.
“Be ready for a high wave, all right?” Strangward said. Moving a short distance away from the boat, he held on to his amulet with one hand and made a kind of come-hither motion with the other. The longboat disappeared into a trough, then seemed at risk to be foundered by a high wave that slammed over the gunwales and flipped the boat right side up.
Ash had to admit, it was a slick move.
“You’ve done that before,” Talbot said, almost accusingly. “Haven’t you?”
“A time or two,” Strangward said. “Now, hang tight a minute and let me get aboard first, so I can haul you both in safely.”
“Why do you get in first?” Talbot said.
Strangward mopped wet hair out of his eyes. “Oh, I don’t know—because I know how to do it without flipping the boat over again?”
“Is this some kind of trick?”
“Why would I play a trick on you now?” Strangward said. “I could have let you both drown.” The humor faded from his eyes, replaced by the pain Ash had seen before. “That could still happen, you know.”
“Talbot, please,” Ash said. “He saved both of our lives. You have to give him credit for that.”
Talbot looked from Ash to Strangward. She’d been unconscious, of course, during the pirate’s heroics. “I’m just saying—”
“I don’t want to argue while I’m treading water,” Strangward snapped. “I’m getting aboard. Do whatever the hell you want.” The pirate swam up next to the longboat, put his back to it, gripped the top edge with both hands, threw his head back, drew his knees up, and flipped himself backward over the side. Ash and Talbot stared at him, then stared at each other.
Planting his feet against the near side of the boat, and leaning back over the gunwale on the other side, he gave them both a hand up. He dragged an oilcloth sea bag out from under the aft thwart, opened it, and pulled out two pails.
“Help me bail her out,” he said, handing one of them to Talbot. After a moment’s hesitation, Talbot joined in.
When the longboat was as dry as they could make it, Strangward unfastened the mast from its storage straps. “Here,” he said. “Help me raise the mast.”
Understanding finally dawned. “You’re planning to sail this boat all the way to shore?” Ash eyed it skeptically.
“In the hands of a stormcaster, this is a ship,” Strangward said, the light of mischief back in his eyes. “Hang on a little longer, and I’ll show you what I mean.”
All three of them put their backs into it, attached the shrouds, and soon they had the gaff and staysails raised.
Talbot studied the rig, frowning. “Do you even know where we are now?” she said. “Or where we’re going?”
Strangward laughed. “I know exactly where we are, and I know exactly where we’re going,” he said. “We’re going to Tarvos after all.”
7
DEADLY DANCING
After Lieutenant Quill Bosley took his unplanned leap off the volcano, Lyss slipped back into Celesgarde, hoping to avoid being connected with his disappearance. She worried that an investigation might expose the presence of Jenna and Flamecaster in the mountains overlooking Celesgarde.
Bosley was reported missing at morning muster. When he didn’t show up by evening mess, Lyss reported his absence to the empress. Celestine sent search parties into the mountains, through the capital—even into nearby islands. They found nothing. She questioned Bosley’s fellow wetland officers about his possible whereabouts. They had no answers for the empress. They had no questions, either. The consensus seemed to be, the less said, the better.
As days passed, Bosley was mentioned less and less often, and Lyss began to hope that she was in the clear. She had plenty of other worries to occupy her time.
She had to stay alive, and free of Celestine’s blood bond, and somehow get back to the Realms. But she was marooned on this island surrounded by a stormwall. The only way out, it seemed, was to return to her homeland as commander of the empress’s army.
And, then, somehow, escape.
Well, then.
Since the age of twelve, Lyss had spent three seasons of every year in military camps of one sort or another. While this was a different army, in a different place, with different strengths and weaknesses, many of the challenges were the same.
Most of Celestine’s dryland soldiers shared physical features—narrow eyes, high cheekbones, bronze skin—suggesting that they had the same ancestry. Yet the peoples of the Desert Coast were as tribal as any she’d seen—loosely organized into clans and extended families. They were generous to a fault, but proud, thin-skinned, and alert to any real or imagined show of disrespect.
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