Oathen (17 page)

Cannonballs tore through the sides of the
Swordfish galleons, riddling them with ragged holes at incredibly
close range. The sea rushed in, foaming and swirling through gaps
below the water line. Smoke, thick and caustic, began streaming
through every available hole on one of the ships as its inner decks
caught fire. Salvor heard the Swordfish sailors calling in alarm,
while their captains began shouting desperate orders.

That was his cue. Salvor, Ruel, and dozens of
others began showering the Swordfish decks with crossbow bolts,
adding to the chaos.

“And I’d heard Swordfish was a formidable
opponent,” Ruel said with disdain, taking aim. His bolt caught a
woman in the thigh, and she toppled to the deck, dropping the
cannonball she was carrying.

Rhona’s foremost brigantine was already clear
of the far end of the sea gauntlet, having only had time to fire
its sixteen cannons once. Salvor saw how swiftly the
Princeling
’s crew reloaded the deck cannons. Glancing
behind, he could see the crew of the brigantine Posca doing the
same.

Sporadically, the Swordfish galleons’ bronze
cannons began to return fire. A cannonball whizzed right past
Rhona’s head. Everyone on the castle saw it slam into the galleon
on the other side.

Rhona laughed with delight. “Good thing this
is only a caravel,” she called. “Any higher and the mud-loving eels
might have gotten in a lucky hit!”

Two cannonballs slammed into the
Princeling
’s port hull, rocking the vessel; the
Princeling
fired back with several cannons at the same
moment.

“You were saying?” Salvor shouted over the
din.

Moments later, they too were through the far
end of the gauntlet.

“Ruel, the wheel!” Rhona shouted.

Her cousin thrust his crossbow at Salvor and
took control of the ship. Rhona ran to the stern rail and leaned
out next to the flagger, watching her last two ships skim past the
smoking, sinking galleons of Clan Swordfish. The last ship in her
formation, the galleon
Zeru’s Scales
, got off a final
volley, sealing the fate of the two hindmost Swordfish vessels,
before it shot out into open water.

“You can let it go now,” Meena murmured to
Kemsil, who slumped onto his elbows with a sigh of relief, leaning
onto the rail. The orange barrier of the Circuit flew away from the
line of Agonbloom ships, forming its default sphere.

The crews of the Agonbloom vessels raised a
triumphant cheer, and many gave the traditional Clan cheek-baring
to the enemy behind them, forgetting in their glee that they were
invisible.

The common pirates, seeing the six Clan
vessels destroyed by an invisible foe, had since turned their sails
to the wind and fled. Their aborted pursuit left Rhona’s scout
ships only slightly damaged. The pair of caravels sailed wide past
the Swordfish ships, aiming to meet up with the other five ships
further out to sea.

Four of Swordfish’s ships floundered in the
foaming sea. Two more were quickly sinking, their crews abandoning
them en masse. Rhona let an evil grin cross her lips, and she
turned to look at Kemsil. “Time for the last part of the
plan.”

The Swordfish crews dashed between equally
important, equally necessary tasks required to keep their four
remaining ships afloat. Captains in enameled-wood-and-silk
breastplates and stiff short braids bellowed orders over the din.
Crew desperately worked the bilge pumps and dumped all excess
weight from the worst-hit vessels, including their prized bronze
cannons. Longboats dropped to the sea to pick up survivors from the
unrecoverable ships. All thoughts of chasing the presumptuous
interlopers out of their territory were forgotten.

Then a sailor gave a hoarse cry. Hands
pointed. Voices shouted in disbelief and amazement, even—rare among
the Clans—fear.

The aft half of a large caravel rippled into
existence atop the sea, its sails lowered. It balanced magically on
the water. Two complete ships lurked on either side of
it.

All eyes were drawn to the unfamiliar
jellyfish symbol on the closest ship’s bow. A young woman in a
brass breastplate jumped onto the starboard rail as the half-ship
began to arc past the vessels in distress.

“Be ye warned,” she called across the gap,
“your days are numbered, Swordfish! With such mighty weapons as you
have seen at our disposal, and the full support of the great Jualan
House of Aldib, First Clan Agonbloom of the Southern Sea Clans
intends to wipe you from the face of the deeps! We have seen the
vast riches of the Middle Sea, and we intend to take
them!”

Swordfish captains and their crew raised their
voices in protest and denial, but in another moment, no one was
listening. The half-ship and its escorts had vanished again,
leaving the defeated Clan crews alone in the sea.

~~~

Geret listened as the enemy pirates’ angry,
confused shouting faded into the distance. The crew of the
Princeling
let up a raucous cheer for their own success.
Rhona hopped down off the rail into Geret’s waiting arms, and he
spun her around once before setting her down on the castle
deck.

“That was amazing! Your plan worked
perfectly!” he said.

“No, our plan worked perfectly,” she
countered, slipping her hands around his neck and drawing him down
to her. His arms tightened around her waist as her lips claimed
his. The crew hooted and catcalled as their captain’s hands tangled
in Geret’s shoulder-length hair.

“That’s not right, taunting a man like that,”
Kemsil murmured as he came to stand beside Salvor, looking away
from the kiss.

“I think she’s in earnest.”

“I meant me.”

Salvor grinned as the couple drew out the
kiss. “Sorry, Kem, I can’t help you with that one. Maybe you could
ask Meena; she could take it.”

“I heard that,” Meena said, looking over at
them with a saucy grin.

Rhona finally let go of Geret’s hair, and he
stepped back.

“There’s nothing like a fresh sea skirmish to
wake you up in the morning,” she said in a carrying voice. Chuckles
and whoops ensued. “Let’s regroup and get this tub repaired before
someone else sails up and sells us a map to the deeps.”

Ruel stepped up and began to bark orders, and
the crew scurried to obey. Rhona backed Geret up to the starboard
rail, giving him a predatory smile. “All this extra energy; how
should I spend it?” she murmured, sliding her hands up his
chest.

Geret, flushed with success and relief,
carelessly replied, “I don’t know about you, but I’m pretty tense
after that. You could spend it on giving me a back rub.”

Her hands paused, and she looked at him for a
long moment. The smile that spread across her lips made his stomach
sink.

“Lesson two: favors,” she said. “As my
claimed, you can ask me anything you like, and I can choose to
grant it. But for every favor I do for you, I get one in return. At
any time, and of any nature.”

“What? That’s not fair.”

Her eyes glittered. “It’s the Clan way. Now, I
like the idea of granting you this favor, so I will. But that means
that, at some point in the future, I get to ask you for anything I
want, and you can’t refuse me.”

“What if I really don’t like what you ask of
me?”

“Then you’ll do it for me anyway, and
afterward, I’ll tie you down and beat you.”

“What?
”

She laughed at his expression, and he realized
with relief that she was making a joke.

“I do have very persuasive ways, Geret. If you
want to experience them, by all means, keep being stubborn.” She
pulled herself to him, hands fisted in his open shirt collar, and
kissed him hard. Then she stepped past him, trailing one hand
across his chest, and descended to the main deck. “I’ll get my oils
out; don’t make me come looking for you.”

“
I shall not let you steal the lives of these innocents, vile
assassin,” Anjoya called to the grimacing woman before her. She
threw her arms around the her opponent’s waist and flung herself
out into thin air.

The audience below gasped in mock fear as the
two women spun down to the
Shoon
’s deck, lowered on ropes by
sailors who hid in the rigging within the dimness of
twilight.

The women landed with only a slight bump and
lay still, feigning death. Then Anjoya gasped dramatically, arching
her back and widening her eyes. She slid out from under the other
actress’ body, then touched the still bodies of several extras
lying around them. They obediently rose from their prone positions,
gasping in relief. Then they surrounded her and fell to their
knees, proclaiming amazement and gratitude. Anjoya stood, accepting
their praise.

“Thus began the legend of the Unbroken in the
land of Hynd,” she announced to the silent, overcrowded
deck.

The crowd erupted into cheers and clapping.
Anjoya helped up the woman who had played the Breathstealer, and
together they bowed to the audience along with the other cast
members.

Someone pressed a small cup of rum into
Anjoya’s hand, and she took a grateful sip, easing up against the
rail where the breeze could reach her overheated skin. There were
far more people on board than when they had embarked from Salience,
and it made for a hot, aromatic press of bodies, which was
inescapable even at night. The top deck had become a vast
collection of huddled forms surrounded by narrow walk spaces
created by the crew in the course of their constant duties. Anjoya
hadn’t expected to be grateful for her rough, threadbare hammock,
squeezed between an old woman with sleep apnea and a post that
jabbed her in the ribs with every rock of the ship, but since
they’d picked up several dozen frantic refugees on the Byarran
coast, she’d formed a more positive outlook on her own
circumstances.

The
Shoon
had begun to encounter
mile-wide floating islands of pumice a week out from Ha’Hril.
Captain Naizmin had ordered his men to sail around them. Broad
currents of water swirled pale brown with ash. Many of the pumice
islands encompassed scorched or broken trees. Some bore bodies of
the dead, or what remained of them. Once they sailed past a pumice
island that surrounded an upturned hull, blackened to a
crisp.

Unsure of what awaited his vessel if he sailed
too near to the volcano, Naizmin had sought out other ships’
captains for advice. He found them clustered near the mouth of an
ash-filled bay on the Byarran coast. As the
Shoon
dropped
anchor, Anjoya and Runcan came up on deck and looked out across the
ruined landscape in utter shock.

The trees had no leaves; many bare trunks had
fallen. Blankets of ash covered everything in sight. A few
buildings in the nearby trading town had been unearthed by
survivors and refugees, and the bright hues of their clothing were
the only colors in sight. Swirls of ash were caught up by the stiff
breeze and hurled across the useless bay, the decks of the anchored
ships, and the dinghy that rowed out to greet the new arrival. The
sea was a pale muddy color, swirling with dirty bubbles against the
ships’ hulls.

The dinghy brought an ash-smeared Byarran
friar to speak to Captain Naizmin, begging for passage for as many
stranded refugees as he’d be willing to take. Unfortunately, he
spoke only Byarran, and the Kauna’kanan captain didn’t. Anjoya had
translated for them both, resulting in the friar’s genuine
gratitude and the captain’s consent to transport a few dozen
refugees across the Southern Sea to civilization.

The woman who had played the Breathstealer was
one of those who had been given deck space aboard the
Shoon
,
and Soli had found a kindred spirit in Anjoya, the lost hostess of
Lesser Salience.

Anjoya drained the last of her rum; there was
nowhere near enough to last the journey to Yaren Fel, so she
savored its rich flavor a moment longer. Come morning, they’d sail
past whatever was left of Ha’Hril and Heren Garil Sa. Soli had
expressed an interest in hiding below decks, but Anjoya’s mind
harbored a morbid curiosity; she knew she’d be at the rail. The
refugees had brought various rumors aboard regarding the island’s
fate: it was actually intact, hidden inside a cloud; it had split
in two and sunk into the sea; the mountain gods had claimed it as
their new home, chasing away the mortals with a show of power; the
fire dragons of ancient times were reawakening to assert their
dominance again; such destruction must be a sign of holy
disapproval for the lascivious and gaudy lifestyle of the Hrillian
people.

Somewhere among the various versions, she
suspected, was the truth.

“You’ve been rather introspective the last
couple of weeks,” Runcan said to her the next morning, as they
stood along the crammed starboard railing, straining for that first
glimpse of the ruined island.

“I have. These nightly performances don’t just
do the refugees good; they’re a distraction for me as well,” she
replied.

“You’re worried for Kemsil.”

She sighed, eyes on the horizon. “Only when
I’m not furious with him.”