The Key to Creation (32 page)

The war galleys fanned out as they drove in toward the enemy ironclads, each captain choosing his own target. Each galley had a jagged prow, capped with a cast-iron beak; they were made to smash into enemy vessels, rip open hulls, and sink them…but they were not designed to defeat the thick armor cladding.

As the
Golden Fern
struggled to catch up, the first war galley collided with the nearest Tierran ironclad. Omra heard shouts in two different languages, both crews bracing for impact, a resounding blow louder than a thousand church bells, followed by the grinding of metal against metal. The war galley’s metal beak slammed into the armored hull and scraped aside, ripping a bright silvery scar of clean metal, but did little actual damage. A shower of sparks looked like the spray from a blacksmith’s grinding wheel.

While the galley shouldered against the Aidenist ship, enemy sailors rained arrows across onto the Uraban crew, slaughtering Omra’s soldiers. Waving their scimitars, the greatly outnumbered Urecari swarmed onto the ironclad’s deck.

As the other galleys closed with their targets, Tierran arrows arced up and struck down like lightning bolts, killing countless Urecari before their ships could come together. The second galley slid past its target entirely, the captain and helmsman both dead and too many rowers wounded to maintain the ramming course.

The third Uraban war galley had better luck as it charged into the Aidenist flagship. Its metal beak struck a seam between armor plates and wedged there, splitting the sheets of metal apart. Uraban soldiers threw ropes, grappling hooks, and a wooden ladder so they could swarm across. Omra saw a bearded Tierran man standing on the deck waving a great sword and hacking at Uraban fighters who rushed aboard.

The galley remained stuck into the flagship’s broken armor plates. In the furious battle on deck, Aidenists outnumbered the Uraban soldiers ten to one—until Omra could bring more fighters into the fray. He pointed. “That is our target! We will ram the flagship and break open her hull.” With the enemy’s armor already damaged, perhaps the
Golden Fern
could strike a mortal blow.

The oarsmen pulled harder, driving the
Fern
to greater speed. At the approach of the soldan-shah’s ironclad, someone from the Tierran flagship shouted wildly, but it was too late. Omra embraced the foremast, planting his feet for the impact. His crew shouted a war cry.

The two ironclads collided, sparks flying. The heavy
Fern
’s momentum pushed the jagged maul on its prow through the flagship’s armor plates, gutting the Aidenist ship like a fish. But the crash also crumpled the
Golden Fern
’s keel, and many of her own armor plates split off as the hull planks burst beneath them—a death blow for the soldan-shah’s ship.

Omra didn’t care; the two armored vessels were locked in a death dance now. His men threw ropes and hooks and charged aboard. “We’re at too close quarters for them to use arrows now!” He raised his scimitar. “For the glory of Urec!”

Omra had held back his hatred for so long that he leaped in among the enemy like a tightly wound spring being released. Having just come from the church service, he wore no body armor, but he didn’t feel naked. Urec would protect him. He slashed with his blade, striking off arms and heads indiscriminately.

Around him, the soldiers who had come aboard from the war galley were fighting and dying, and even the influx of fighters from the
Golden Fern
did not change the tide of battle. The Aidenists simply hacked and killed, and Omra’s men did the same.

A screech and groan of metal filled the air: not the clash of blades, but the ironclads themselves, taking on water, foundering. Locked in a tangle of metal, both vessels were sinking. Omra knew the
Fern
was lost—as was the enemy flagship—and he meant to take as many ’Hooks down with him as he could.

He fought his way forward, nearly slipped on the bloody deck, then ducked just in time to avoid the thrust of a Tierran sword. His olba had come unwound, his sash severed, and he yanked the scraps of cloth away. His fine garments were drenched with blood and sweat.

The damaged Aidenist ship listed to one side. The
Golden Fern
was also sinking rapidly, taking on water through her burst hull and dragging the other ironclad down with her.

Nearby, he heard guttural Tierran words, and in the flame-lit darkness Omra watched a second stolen ironclad draw alongside the flagship, their crew also joining the battle. A Tierran man shouted orders at the helm; long red mustaches drooped down his cheeks like a rooster’s tail feathers.

With this new flood of enemy fighters joining the fight, Omra’s men had no chance. They had left plenty of Aidenist corpses strewn on the deck, but he saw that more than half of his fighters were already dead. The bearded Tierran commander fought like a berserker, slashing in one direction and another, killing anyone clad in Uraban silk.

As the locked ironclads shifted and sank, the embedded war galley sprang free with a lurch. More water rushed into the wide hull breach with a loud gurgle, pulling the Aidenist flagship down.

In his heart, Omra wanted to stay aboard until the very end to kill as many Aidenists as possible. While that would bring him joy—and it was the brave thing to do—he had a much greater obligation to his people.

He couldn’t just sacrifice himself here, no matter how great his hatred for the followers of Aiden. His harbor was in flames, and the blaze could well spread into the city. He had a war to fight and win—and if he died here, now, he would leave young Zarif Omirr to rule, a boy who had not yet been trained in the basics of government.

No, the soldan-shah could not abandon his land and leave his people without a leader. He called to his surviving fighters, “The ship is lost! We must go. Quickly, overboard—swim to our war galleys and save yourselves.”

With a last glare at the bearded Tierran commander, Omra dove over the side of the sinking ship, avoiding the floating debris and flames. Weighted down by sodden robes, he stroked toward the nearest war galley. A few arrows slashed into the water nearby, but none struck him.

As the two death-locked ships went down, the bearded Aidenist commander and his crew abandoned ship and climbed aboard the adjacent ironclad, where they were welcomed by the redheaded captain with long mustaches.

Shaking with exhaustion and only now realizing how spent he was from the fight, Omra dragged himself aboard the nearest galley. He breathed heavily and did not say a word despite the activity around him. He merely stared as the majestic
Golden Fern
finally slipped beneath the surface, taking the enemy ironclad with her.

The
Al-Orizin

As if made of quicksilver and ice, Raathgir rose out of the frigid water, breathing frosty steam and regarding the two vessels.

Saan and his companions scrambled back aboard the
Al-Orizin
while the horned ice dragon circled, looking for any chance to lunge forward and snatch them in its jaws. Its long fangs were translucent, like icicles.

From the deck, two sailors threw a boathook and a harpoon at Raathgir, yelling challenges. The creature flinched when the spear points struck its polished scales, and it let out an ominous hoot from its blowhole. Still, it seemed more curious than ferocious as it darted away then immediately circled back, keeping out of range of the projectiles.

“Sea monsters just don’t learn their lessons,” Yal Dolicar said with false bravado.

“I don’t fancy diving into that cold water to wrestle with the beast,” Grigovar replied. “I’d throw you overboard first.”

“Maybe it thinks we invaded its territory,” Saan said. “Ystya, can you uncreate that monster, as you did the Kraken?”

Alarmed by his question, she vigorously shook her head. “There is no call to destroy him—Raathgir hasn’t harmed us. These are his waters.”

“But it’s…a monster!” Fyiri cried. “You won’t use your powers to protect us against it?”

“Raathgir is one of Ondun’s creations—as you should well know.” She looked pointedly at Fyiri. “I won’t simply destroy a creature because you call it a ‘monster.’”

“What if it attacks?” Saan asked.

“It won’t attack.”

The sailors hurled more curses, followed by another round of harpoons. One iron point struck Raathgir’s jagged dorsal fin with a clang and ricocheted off to splash in the water.

“Stop wasting our harpoons!” Saan snapped. He turned to Ystya, shaking his head. “How can we get out of here with that beast guarding the waters?”

Raathgir let out a shrill blast of frosty steam, recoiled, and raced away from the two ships. The ice dragon darted to a cave opening in the blue walls of a nearby iceberg and slithered into the passage like a worm burrowing into dirt to evade a hungry bird. Its pointed tail vanished into the ice mountain.

Grigovar shifted his grip on the frozen tabletop he had taken from the ice-locked ship, which was still tucked under his arm. “That was easier than I expected.”

“Ha! The beast knew we wouldn’t back down.” Yal Dolicar swelled his chest. He raised the stump of his right wrist.

Sen Sherufa remained unsettled. “We should get out of here now, Captain. Something powerful froze that ship…something we don’t understand.”

Saan felt as uneasy as the Saedran woman. “You’re right, Chartsman. We don’t know what frightened the ice dragon. Prepare to set sail!”

Beside him, Ystya suddenly looked around in dismay. Her face paled to the color of chalk. “Raathgir sensed it before I did—my mother is coming.”

Saan shouted to the crew, “Quickly, hoist those sails and strike the ropes!” The
Al-Orizin
’s crew detached the hooks and ropes that tied them to the ancient ice ship.

Shivering on the lookout nest above the mainsail, a man called out, “Captain, I see that ship again—the island witch! She’s entering the field of ice mountains!” The encroaching icebergs blocked the pursuing vessel from view.

“These frozen islands are going to be a maze to navigate, Captain,” said Sen Sherufa. “It’ll be dangerous.”

“That’s to our advantage. We’ll be like a buck taking refuge in the forest from hunting dogs. Iyomelka might have our scent, but we can hide among these ice mountains, like thick underbrush.”

Long ago, when the
Al-Orizin
had sailed away from Olabar amid cheers and celebrations, Saan had been proud of his colorful sails, but now he wished he had plain white or gray ones, like a Nunghal ship, which would blend into this pale oceanscape.

Saan whispered to Ystya with more confidence than he felt, “Don’t worry, we’ll keep you safe from her.”

The young woman was too filled with apprehension to smile. “And I’ll protect you, too.”

Moving again, the
Al-Orizin
sailed into the cold gray channels between icebergs, leaving the ancient vessel behind. Though his hands were stiff with cold, Saan climbed the mainmast to join the lookout high above. The man pointed around a blue-white wall of ice. “She’s back there, Captain. I don’t think she saw us.”

From the high vantage, he caught a glimpse of Iyomelka’s resurrected ship, like a flash of detail illuminated by a lightning strike. The masts were dark and sharp, like the branches of a dead tree on an autumn’s night; the ragged sailcloth was stitched together with seaweed.

“Hard to port!” Saan cried. “Stay out of sight.” The ship turned swiftly, scraping close to a floating berg. The
Al-Orizin
deftly threaded its way through the frigid labyrinth.

Olabar Harbor

All in all, Destrar Broeck considered it a successful night. Drenched, bloody, and exhausted—but happy—he joined Iaros aboard the
Raathgir
. A surgeon now worked to sew up deep sword cuts on his left arm, right side, and right thigh. He hadn’t even noticed the injuries during the fight aboard the foundering
Wilka
, but they continued to bleed, and the surgeon was concerned, so Broeck let the man poke him with needles and sew the wide wounds shut with tough gut string. All the while, the destrar sat on a barrel on deck, where he could watch the glorious flames spread in Olabar harbor.

Three of the soldan-shah’s war galleys were adrift, their decks a hedgehog of arrows and strewn with dead bodies. Some of the Curly soldiers remained alive, wounded and groaning, too injured to pull the oars. Broeck was saddened to lose the
Wilka
, but it was a price he was willing to pay. He may have lost one ironclad, but the soldan-shah had lost
all
of his.

Fifteen of Broeck’s men had been killed in the fighting aboard the
Wilka
, and several more of the injured went down with the ship, unable to swim to safety. The destrar took heart from knowing, however, that his fighters had killed many more Curlies than that. Ondun could count the bodies Himself and sort them out.

Iaros stood at his side, no longer so young and foolish, and his long mustaches looked dramatic rather than absurd now. Broeck gave an approving nod. “You did well, nephew.”

Instead of puffing his chest with pride, Iaros mumbled in response, “We still have six ironclads and plenty of eager fighting men. If we press forward into Olabar harbor, we could cause much more damage.”

“That we could, Iaros.” Broeck winced as the surgeon tugged a suture tight. “But the cost would be too high. We dare not lose any more armored ships or soldiers. Remember, Queen Anjine expects us at Ishalem. This was just…practice.”

Though disappointed, his nephew agreed. “Time to turn about and head back to Gremurr.”

Broeck cursed under his breath as the surgeon tied off the thread. He changed the subject. “Are the woman and her son aboard your ship, as I asked?”

“Yes, they’ve been held below where they could cause no trouble.”

“Bring them up. And find someone who speaks their language—I need to tell them something.”

Iaros smiled at the burning ships in the harbor. “You don’t need a translator—that sight will explain more than words!”