8. EIGHT #3
“Continue to question me and I’ll have you demoted, as any other captain would. Or, if you want to pillage, I can drop you with the Tera’thians. They’ll take you with open arms.”
Gelhard only rolled his eyes. “I spoke out of rashness, Captain.” But Fankalo didn’t like the way he said Captain—like it had fermented on his tongue.
Her father’s only rebuke was a glare. “Let’s just get to safer waters. No Pazirian vessel will have the nerve to try us there.”
Minutes passed by as though they were full days.
The crew shouted and signaled in an effort to keep the sails to their best angles.
Gelhard commanded the helm beside the navigator, long limbs even more rigid than usual.
Captain Keane never let his eyes leave the ship on the horizon, which grew ever closer.
As soon as they could see individual forms moving about on the opposing deck, Fankalo used her magic again. A wall of darkness hit her: water and screams and fast-moving metal.
“They’re going to shoot,” she cried. Not a moment later, a broadside launch, a machine like a tanka but as large as a man, released a fist-sized chunk of metal. The ocean directly in front of them spewed water several stories into the air.
Her father’s brows lowered, causing the sun’s gleam to shift across his dark skin. “Get below deck.”
“But I—”
“Get below deck, now.” He paused before barking to a small figure darting across the main deck. “Mitek, keep her with you!”
If there was one person in all the world she would obey, it was this man who had chosen to protect her and provide for her when the world had cast her aside. Just as she made it down the stairs, she heard a whizzing, followed by the splitting of wood.
“Hit, captain!” someone screamed from the topdeck.
Her father swore loudly enough to reach her ears. “Prepare the launchers to return fire,” he called.
The footsteps of the crew across the planking were like war drums. Fankalo couldn’t move. She was too terrified and fascinated all at once. Mitek fled past her, practically diving headfirst through the hatch. Water exploded to the starboard side. Then again portside.
Her Luck prickled in the back of her mind. She closed her eyes and felt its tug lead her back toward the navigation room. Brow creased, she stepped away from the hatch to follow it.
“Ay! Brat!” Mitek hissed from the lattice beneath her. “What are you doing?”
Fankalo ignored him and scurried back up the stairs to the quarterdeck. If anyone noticed her, they didn’t say anything.
After the turbulence from outside, the room was strangely quiet, as though it was holding its breath. A chest in the corner lit up in her mind. She rushed to it and opened the lid. Within lay dozens of cylindrical objects. When she lifted one, her Luck thrummed through her bones.
The door opened and shut behind her. Mitek was panting with his back pressed against it. He strung together more curses than she’d ever heard in a single utterance.
“What are you—?” His mouth hung open when he saw the contents of the chest and the cylinder in her hand.
“What are they?” she asked. Other than very, very lucky.
“Flares,” he responded, both hands raised like she’d leveled a tanka on him. “They’re really expensive and really dangerous. Put it back.”
“What do they do?”
“Make a lot of light and noise.”
She pocketed it and set the lid back on the chest.
Mitek’s hands clutched at the sides of his face. “Have you lost your—?”
“You’re going to show me how to use this.”
“Fat. Fated—”
“Or this ship’s going into the deep.”
The boy’s tan skin lost all its color. Another explosion of wood sounded outside the door. “You’re taking the blame,” he snapped.
“Deal.”
“And I get your ration of datecakes.”
“Absolutely not.”
His face screwed up before he grabbed her wrist. “Come on then.”
They slipped from the navigation room and clambered up the ladder onto the topdeck.
“We should use it here. Less chance of it hitting something it shouldn’t.”
She handed him the flare, and he pulled his hat over his eyes. “Kretch. We needed something to light it.”
What an idiot. How had he not thought of that before? Fankalo fished into her waistbelt for a box of matches and set it into his hand. “Here.”
His eyes widened. “You keep matches on you?”
“Of course I keep matches on me. They’re useful.” Though, admittedly, she didn’t know how to use them. She had pocketed them when her father gave her a tour of the magazine, hoping the opportunity would strike.
Mitek fumbled with the container, lighting a match against its side, only for the wind to blow it out.
“You need to—”
“I know what I need to do, brat! Help me block the wind.”
The flame stayed this time, and it hissed and sizzled as it moved from the match and approached the base of the cylinder. Mitek hid his face in the crook of his arm, lifting it into the air with his quavering free hand.
Fankalo rolled her eyes and, at her magic’s insistence, snatched it from him, rushing to the southern rail to point it out to sea.
A loud pop. A blinding flash.
Fankalo dropped the flare with a scream and scrambled backward. A red star consumed a spot in the sky. Her mouth hung open.
“Ay!” It was her father, screaming from below. “When I find the diddlehead who’s set off flares when we’re manned down I’ll—”
“They’re reversing masts!” Zeb barked from the crow’s nest.
The captain surfaced onto the topdeck, eyes darting from Fankalo to mouse-faced Mitek to the flare. Then he moved to the rail, watching the enemy ship retreat. He didn’t look angry. He looked like he was playing a difficult game of stackers.
The sounds of the sails and the sea spilling and slapping against the hull were all around them. Fankalo’s limbs grew heavy.
Gelhard’s lanky form ascended the ladder from the quarterdeck to join them. “What’s happened?”
“We’re fifty leagues from Gembolta,” her father said, voice as sturdy as the mast. “They must have thought we were calling on reserves.” His hands flipped through a quick series of signs to Zeb, which Zeb then relayed to the deck below.
Fankalo had seen many of the raiders use the signal language.
Zeb had promised to teach it to her—her father usually assigned him to show her the ropes.
The scraggly old sailor had been with Captain Keane almost as long as Gelhard.
He had served many roles and learned many skills aboard the Rogue’s Respite, though he preferred the crow’s nest, where he didn’t have to use any of them.
“Hit report, Captain,” came a voice beside them—Timbor, the boatswain. “The bilge is flooding. A slow pull at ocean line, but we should be able to make it to port in Gembolta before the ship takes on critical water.”
Her father nodded. “Inform the helmsman to shift course. Inform the crew we’ll make landfall by morning.”
“Yes, Captain.”
Mitek squirmed beside her. Likewise, Gelhard paced in circles with long, agitated strides. Her father didn’t seem to notice them. His eyes were distant, his body contrastingly still. Fankalo longed to reach for his hand.
“We got lucky,” he murmured.
“Lucky?” Gelhard threw up his hands. “Lucky that I’m going to have to reforge all of the trade documentations to make declaration in Gembolta now!”
The captain’s face turned to stone as his quartermaster stalked away. Behind it, Fankalo understood his agony. They had been lucky, perhaps. But things were anything but good.
If she hadn’t led them to raid the Pazirians in the first place, it wouldn’t have happened.
He saw her looking at him, and flashed her a reassuring smile, fake as one of Gelhard’s apologies.
She would do anything in her power to fix this. Somehow.