Scimitar War (34 page)

“By the Nine Hells!” Joslan swore as he swung round toward the catapult, but checked his invective before voicing it. He couldn’t blame the artillery crew; a precise hit in these conditions was near impossible. They had to re-tension the ropes with each shot as steam wafted from the water-soaked hemp. He turned back toward Akrotia. The floating city was glowing now, fiery runes visible even in the daylight. He clenched his fists, then gasped in surprise at the pain in his hands. He looked down at his palms, and saw that the skin was blistered.

He touched the rail he had been grasping so tightly, and pulled back. It was as hot as a newly poured pot of blackbrew. Joslan glanced around the quarterdeck and saw that the wood was smoldering.

≈

*Akrotia is spinning like a maelstrom, Trident Holder!* The school leader fluttered his fins nervously, pointing at the whirling shadows in the distance.

Broadtail’s fins twitched as he watched the spires of the city’s lower reaches sweep past. The great iron hooks were holding, but the taut ironweed cables were being twisted into a single spiral strand. Ironweed was strong, but nothing was unbreakable. If Akrotia kept this up, either the cables would snap, or the augers would pull out of the sea bed. The high-pitched crack of another barrage from the two landwalker warships reverberated through the water, and the mer around him flinched as a rain of stone shards cascaded down through the water. The plan was working, but for how much longer?

*The landwalkers are damaging Akrotia,* Broadtail signed, furrowing his brow in determination. *We’ve got to give them more time before the city breaks free.*

*How?* the school leader asked, eyes wide.

*We have more ironweed, do we not?*

*Yes, Trident Holder. Plenty, but—*

*Get your longest cable. We will catch one of the spires and slow the city’s rotation.* Broadtail grinned a challenge at the school leaders. *It will be like riding a sea drake!*

Broadtail recalled the excitement of his reckless youth, hanging on as a bolt from the drake killer pierced a sea drake’s scaly hide, the strain in his arms as he struggled to maintain his grip on the cable, and the headlong plunge as the beast tried to escape. The trick was to pull hard enough to keep the drake swimming forward against the pressure, to tire it before it turned to attack. This would be easier, for Akrotia could not turn and swallow half the school. He saw his team leaders gaping at him, their fins fluttering and colors shifting nervously. They, obviously, had never taken a drake ride.

*Is this not the same school that swarmed the sides of the warship at the seamage’s island?* Broadtail signed, hoping to shame them into action. *The landwalkers attack Akrotia from above! Do you have less courage then they do? Are you warriors or finlings?*

He saw in their shifting colors that his taunt had scored. Their fins flared and the stubborn pride that he knew every mer possessed showed on their faces.

*We are with you, Trident Holder!* the foremost of them signed, flexing his webbed hands. *Command us!*

*We must slow Akrotia down, delay the moment when it breaks free. Get the longest cable we have, and split the school to grasp both ends. We will catch one of the city’s outer spires as it passes, and pull against the spin. Go!*

The school leaders signed orders to their teams, who flipped their tails and vanished into the depths where they had stowed their weapons and supplies. Broadtail took the moment to surface and assess the attack. The wind whipped up the waves and blew spray through the air, but he could see the ships. Oars splashed into the water at their sides as they tried to hold position. Their sails were down, which seemed strange. Then he noticed the landwalkers pouring seawater over the ships, and realized their concerns; Akrotia would burn the sails. With these winds, it would not be easy for them to flee using only the oars. When Akrotia broke free, the warships would need help. The mer returned from the depths carrying a long loop of ironweed, and the school split into two groups, each grasping an end.

When all were ready Broadtail signed, *Good! Now follow me!* and flipped his tail.

The trident holder eyed the whirling mass of stone carefully as they approached. The water was warmer here, but only uncomfortable, not dangerous. A spire of dark stone loomed out of the blue haze, sweeping around in an arc toward the school. Broadtail grasped the slack ironweed cable at its midpoint and swam up into the path of the spire. He struggled to maintain his position in the eddies created by the rotating city. The spire rushed right at him. When he felt the wake it pushed along in its van, he released the cable and dodged out of the way. The cable caught on the rough surface and snapped taut.

Trident Holder Broadtail clamped his webbed hands onto the ironweed cable along with the rest of his school. He shivered in triumph as hundreds of mer flipped their tails and swam against the pull of Akrotia’s rotation. In a flash, he recognized the irony of the situation: here they were, landwalkers and mer, working and fighting together to destroy the very thing that had been created to unify their races.

≈

“Get some water on the quarterdeck!” Joslan shouted. A sailor raced up the stairs and doused the deck, and steam rose and whipped away on the wind. The railing was still smoldering.

“Ware on the quarterdeck!” cried the first mate as two of the tar-coated mizzen shrouds caught fire. The sailors immediately them cut away to keep the entire rig from catching. Joslan glared up as the wind whipped the burnt ends of the shrouds about like black tendrils of hair. If they had to cut away many more lines, the over-stressed rig would be in danger of toppling.

“Fire!” came a yell from forward.

Joslan jerked around, expecting to see flames licking at the deck, but felt the great catapult crack off its shot instead. The stone struck among the debris of their previous impacts. Pieces fell away from the waterline, and he caught a glimpse of interior space. Akrotia’s hull had been breached! Water splashed through the gap, hissing and sputtering against the hot stone. As he opened his mouth to cry out their success, the backstay parted with a deafening crack.

“Widow maker!” a crewman cried out.

“Damn!” cursed Joslan. The mizzen mast swayed and groaned against the planks of the deck. With no supporting aft stay, the mast was under incredible strain in this wind, and could snap at any moment. If it fell forward, it would likely take the main and foremasts with it like a row of tipped dominoes. Their moment of triumph had devolved to potential disaster.

“Hard to port!” Captain Betts cried, but before the helmsman could respond, Joslan stepped forward.

“Belay that!” He strode to the wheel and grabbed the helmsman’s arm. “We’ll bear to starboard and cut the mizzen away!”

“But Admiral, with all due respect, that’ll put us even
closer
to that bloody thing!”

“For a moment, yes, but we can’t fire the catapult aft of the beam, and we might miss a crucial shot before we can get back into position. Do, it, Captain, or I’ll damned well have you relieved!”

Betts clenched his jaw and glared at his commanding officer, then nodded. “Very well, Admiral. Steer to starboard and hold her broadside to the wind. Damage crew to the afterdeck! Get running backstays rigged on the mainmast!”

Indomitable
swept to starboard, aided in her turn by the immense pressure of the wind on the higher stern castle. Under perfect conditions, cutting away a mast was a dangerous operation; with a full gale blowing, the entire ship was in peril. If the mast split up its length, it could fall right on the ship instead of over the side. If it split down to its step, it would rip a hole in the deck. The damage crew wrapped a length of wrist-thick hawser around the mast’s base to keep it from splitting. Then the axe-men took up position to both sides and swung. The mast was a solid pole of hard spruce two feet thick, but the axes were broad and shaving-sharp. On the fifth stroke, Joslan heard a crack. On the sixth, there was a series of cracks and pops, and the huge spar trembled.

“Come on…” he muttered, gauging their angle, relative motion, and the proximity of the floating city. Heat beat on his face as if from the open door of a furnace. The sweep crews had resumed their cadence, struggling to maintain
Indomitable
’s position. But the ship was broadside to the wind and seas, and her weakened starboard-side shrouds were stretched to their limits. They could end up losing more than one mast if this was not concluded quickly.

The axes fell again, and the mast gave way, toppling to smash into the port-side rail in a shower of lines, blocks and splinters.

“Cut it away!” the captain ordered, rushing forward with a boarding axe in hand. “And keep it from fouling the rudder!” The damage crew severed the trailing lines with a vengeance, and the spar drifted away on the wind-tossed sea.

“To port, Captain! Bring her back on station.” Joslan resumed his pacing, avoiding the stump of the mizzen mast in the center of the startlingly clear quarterdeck. He looked once again toward Akrotia.

In the short time that all eyes had been on the rigging, something had changed. The city’s rotation had slowed, though the winds seemed as strong as ever. The admiral’s pulse quickened. Could the breach have been enough to increase the drag on the city as it took on water? He heard the catapult crew ready their weapon as the target came round again, but Joslan focused his spyglass on the city’s hull. He heard the weapon fire and watched as it struck, shattering more stone. But though they had increased the size of the hole, water still only splashed into it.

Akrotia
did
seem to be slightly lower in the water. He watched it rotate, and with each turn, it sank a tiny bit more. Something was pulling Akrotia down. Again he recalled the report of the
Fire Drake
.

Could the mer be doing this? Surely they couldn’t just
pull
Akrotia beneath the waves!

The wind gusted even higher, shrieking through the tattered rigging, and Akrotia continued rotating, albeit slower. Joslan snapped his glass closed and turned to Captain Betts, yelling in his ear to be heard over the wind.

“Ready the jib, and stand by. Something is happening, and I don’t bloody like it!”

“The sail’s ready, sir, and the crews have kept it doused. Just give the word!”

But even as the captain spoke, they all felt a great shockwave under the surface of the sea.
Indomitable
trembled, and all eyes turned to Akrotia. They gaped as the enormous city lurched up like a broaching whale. Whatever the mer had used to hold it in position had given way. Instantly, the wind shifted, drawing the ships straight toward the massive stone structure. And even more horrifying, a white bow wake formed along the city’s forward edge. Joslan cursed all mages to the deepest of the Nine Hells. Akrotia was coming for them.

“Hoist the jib and bear away! All other hands to the sweeps, and signal
Stalwart
to disengage!”

Canvas exploded aloft from the bowsprit as the sailors hoisted the tiny storm jib.
Indomitable
picked up speed, sailing away from Akrotia’s path at an angle to the wind. A single signal flag flew up the main halyard, but the dry cloth burst into flames before it got aloft.

“Come on, Quincy!” Joslan muttered as he watched
Stalwart
. The other ship was also turning away, but with her bow into the wind to start with, she could hoist no sail to take advantage of this new wind angle. As Akrotia surged forward,
Stalwart
began to lose ground, her transom getting closer to the blinding heat of the city with every passing second.

“Bear off and get a headsail up, man!” Joslan urged, glaring at the other ship. Wisps of smoke fluttered from
Stalwart
’s taffrail. “Hoist a bloody sail, Quincy! Captain, signal
Stalwart
to make sail!”

Signal flags, soaked in seawater this time, were hauled aloft. Joslan raised his spyglass. Captain Quincy was clearly visible, firing off orders from his quarterdeck, but no sails were being readied. He was relying on sweeps alone to pull the heavy warship out of trouble, but with this wind dead against him, he was losing. Inch by painful inch, the distance between the ship and Akrotia lessened.

“He’s doomed if he doesn’t do something,” the captain said, joining Joslan upon the smoldering quarterdeck.

A jaw-clenching metallic screech sheared through the howling wind like a thousand swords being drawn from rusty scabbards. Joslan’s heart stuttered as he watched one of Akrotia’s towering gates scythe open. The huge bronze plates rotated outward into the stone arch, wreathed in glittering runes of fire. Heat-hazed air made the view through that gaping maw waver, but Joslan could see that the water inside the harbor was bubbling like a pot on the stove.

“It’s gonna bloody swallow ‘im whole!” a crewman exclaimed, and Joslan couldn’t even make himself rebuke the man. He was right. The battleship
Stalwart
carried eleven hundred men, and they would all burn to death if her captain didn’t do something very soon.

“Her transom’s caught fire!” a lookout called out, pointing to the flames licking at the great ship’s stern. Men formed a bucket brigade from the middle deck, and water cascaded over the taffrail, but the flames remained undiminished, whipped to a frenzy by the wind and powered by Akrotia’s magic.

Then, as if suddenly aided by some less-malevolent magic,
Stalwart
surged forward. Froth piled at her blunt bow and streamed down her sides. The sailors ran about the deck, pointing over the side and cheering, even as the ship continued to burn. Joslan shook his head in wonder.

“It’s the mer!” shouted a sailor in
Indomitable
’s rigging. “They’re pulling her out of danger!”

“By the Nine Hells, it’s true!” Captain Betts pointed to
Stalwart
’s bow, which was now throwing up an impressive wake. “Look!”

Joslan raised his glass just as a large mer leapt in a graceful arc, thrusting a trident forward, away from Akrotia. Joslan just stared, utterly flabbergasted. Only weeks ago, the mer had attacked and destroyed
Fire Drake
, now they had just saved
Stalwart
.

The two warships edged farther and farther away from Akrotia, beating westward, and the unnatural wind waned and finally died away. The city slowed and turned northward once again, its radiance diminishing. Signal flags flew, and Joslan saw that the fire on
Stalwart
was finally extinguished, and though her transom was blackened, there seemed to be little structural damage. As the winds abated and shifted to their usual direction and strength, the ships cautiously set what sail their charred rigging would bear. Only then did the mer break off.

Before they vanished beneath the waves, however, the entire school surfaced and waved their webbed hands. Even Admiral Joslan could find no rebuke for the cheering sailors who lined the rail and enthusiastically returned the gesture.