Chapter 99 Ahnna
Ahnna
As Ahnna raced around the island to the southern edge, thick greasy smoke rolled over her.
She scrambled up the rise with James close behind, her boots sliding in the damp earth. Ash fell in soft spirals, catching in her eyelashes and coating her tongue with its bitter taste. But worse were the screams.
“Commander!” someone called out, but Ahnna’s gaze was fixed on the sea.
Harendell’s ships edged closer, the oars protruding from them reminding her of great centipedes, their decks blossoming bright with fire every time a projectile was lit.
Each crack of a catapult being loosed made her twitch, fire soaring through the sky with the promise of death.
A burning ball flew overhead, trailed by a tail of smoke. It exploded into the jungle canopy, tearing through trees and leaving behind a line of char.
Ahnna winced, throwing an arm up against the heat, but her eyes never left the battlefield.
If the ships got much closer, they’d be able to hit the structures at the center of the island.
Structures that contained all the food, all the supplies, and all the injured whom Nana and her assistants would be struggling to keep alive.
The crews on the shipbreakers were loading and shooting as swiftly as they could, and damaged ships listed in the waves, one of them actively sinking.
“The vessels with the catapults aren’t loaded with soldiers.” James lowered his spyglass, his face glistening from sweat. Ahnna knew hers was the same because the heat was intense. “It’s the ones with the towers, and they’re holding back.”
“They’re not within range.”
“They’ll come when they think our shipbreakers are destroyed.”
As if in answer, a ball of fire flew toward the clifftop. Those manning the shipbreaker dove to either side right as the war machine exploded, sharp pieces of wood and metal flying in every direction, the base catching fire.
The screams were horrible, and Ahnna raced to shove down the soldiers whose clothes had ignited from the spray of fire. The damp earth smothered the flames but did nothing for the burns.
“It hurts! It hurts!” sobbed the woman beneath her. “Make it stop!”
Ahnna lifted her up and shouted, “Get the injured to Nana. The rest of you, keep hitting them.” Sickness pooled in her stomach. “Use fire!”
“Should we bring back the other shipbreakers?” someone demanded.
“Not yet.” She struggled not to look at James to beg forgiveness for her next order. “We wait until they commit the ships with soldiers.”
It had been so much easier when she’d given orders to defend Eranahl, because she’d been fueled by anger and hate. Not so now. There was only one person she wanted dead, and if she was here, Lestara would keep well out of reach.
Runners brought forward clay pots filled with tree sap that were kept in a trench behind lines, and within moments the shipbreakers were launching incendiaries of their own.
Fire exploded across a ship as one projectile clipped a mast—not with enough force to break it, but the burning sap sprayed over the sails and over the sailors below. Too far to hear the screams, but they echoed in Ahnna’s head all the same.
The Harendellians returned the attack, ships moving to take the places of those that were damaged beyond use. Dirt and fire and rock exploded all around, the noise deafening. James aided with one of the shipbreakers while she directed fire, forced to scream over the uproar for anyone to hear her.
The sea was full of damaged ships. Full of fire and debris. But they kept coming.
And one by one, they picked off Ornak’s shipbreakers. Worse still, with each strike on the island, more of her people fell. Men and women sat in the dirt burned beyond recognition while others lay still, their eyes as glassy as the pools of blood around them.
Then there was only one shipbreaker left under her command.
James heaved a rock into the sling, their stores of sap and pots long ago spent. With the aid of two Ithicanians, they shifted the machine so that it was directed at a ship, then let it loose.
Crack!
The large rock soared through the air, but the very same ship let loose a fireball at the exact same time. Ahnna’s chest tightened as the projectiles passed each other, and then she took note of the trajectory.
“Move!” Her scream was loud and shrill as she lunged at James. Her shoulder hit him in the side and they both rolled, going off the side of the cliff right as the fireball struck the breaker.
Ahnna clawed for purchase on the tree roots, then her whole body jerked as her fall was abruptly arrested. “I’ve got you,” James shouted, one hand holding tight to her belt and the other latched on the roots. “Climb!”
She scrambled up, her burned hands screaming in pain against the rough roots, then rolled over the top and helped James up.
The shipbreaker was nothing but a smoldering mess of charred wood and metal, a human form half melted against it. The other soldier who’d been working it sat a distance away, hands pressed to her ears and rocking side to side.
Ahnna stumbled to her, falling to her knees. “Are you hurt?”
The woman stared at her, and Ahnna realized she was just a girl. Sixteen, if a day, but old enough to have joined the service. She carefully pulled the girl’s hands from her ears. “Are you hurt?”
“Why are they doing this?” the girl asked. “What did we do to deserve this?”
“Nothing.” Ahnna pulled the girl against her. “To find meaning in why Harendell is here is the path to madness. Instead, remember why you are here. To defend your home. Your family. Your friends. Know your own heart, and care not for the hearts of those who try to take what is yours.”
“Ahnna!” James shouted. “They’re coming!”
She twisted in the ash and debris, eyes fixing on the ships with siege towers, their decks teeming with soldiers with shields.
The other ships were parting to make space for them to sail through, giving her a first good look at them.
They’d been reinforced, especially on the bow, with thick wood and metal plates to protect each ship as it came up against the cliffs.
The weight of the vessels had to be extraordinary, and they sat low in the water, primed to sink if she could hit them just right.
“Bring forward the other shipbreakers,” she shouted at her remaining soldiers. “Get them mounted and then shoot at will! Archers, get ready!”
Ahnna dragged the girl to her feet. “Help get the injured to Nana. Go!”
All she was doing was delaying the inevitable, but Ahnna didn’t want a child on the front lines of the fight to come. Getting to her feet, she ran to help James and the others moving the three shipbreakers they’d kept hidden.
The war machines were murderously heavy, and sweat streamed down her back as she pushed one up the slope on top of log rollers. Fireballs still flew overhead, striking the island with thunderous booms, but the pace decreased as they made way for the other ships.
A teen boy raced up to her. “Commander, Jor sent me. He says that the boarding ships are focusing on the south and west sides of the island because the surf isn’t as fierce. We’re sending reinforcements.”
“Any word from the other quadrants?” Her real question was whether Aren was well. Lara, Taryn, and Bronwyn. Though in truth, she knew almost everyone on this island, so every loss was a knife to the chest.
The boy only shook his head.
“Go find out.” She gave him a push to the path leading into the jungle. “Go across.”
She wasn’t protecting him any more than she had the girl. There was nowhere to hide once the island was taken. Nowhere to run. Yet she couldn’t fight the desire to stand between death and those who’d barely had the chance to live.
“One more push!” James shouted, and they heaved the catapult onto its mount, two soldiers falling to their knees with tools to secure the heavy bolts.
The other machines were moving into place, but as Ahnna stood, it was to find that the ships were close enough that she could see the faces of the men. See their panic.
Oars tangled up as they tried to reverse course, but it was too late.
“Shoot!” she screamed, the crack of it deploying making her ears ring.
The rock shot through the sky and exploded into the siege tower, carrying onward to smash through the deck behind it.
The tower swayed, then collapsed on the deck full of soldiers, but Ahnna didn’t pause to watch the carnage. “Another! Don’t stop!”
Rocks flew, smashing into the ships as they tried to retreat out of range, but the weight of them made it impossible for the oarsmen below to reverse progress.
Oars tangled or broke, and Ahnna knew that belowdecks, those manning them would be suffering.
Injured and crushed by the heavy wood, splinters driving into flesh.
Not even soldiers, just desperate men willing to take on the hard labor for a bit of coin.
Fire flew from the Harendellian ships as they resumed bombardment, and to her right, the cliff collapsed beneath one of the shipbreakers from the force of impact, its crew falling screaming into the waves below.
“Get the chum ready!” Ahnna screamed, wanting to give those who’d fallen time to swim to the cove even though she knew they’d never make it, for dark shapes were already moving in the sea, called by the noise.
James helped lift the barrel of blood and guts, then it was flying into the water, spraying the gore across the white froth of the sea.
Instantaneously, the sharks rose, the sea swirling in a chaos of crimson foam, and Ahnna watched the soldiers and sailors take notice.
Felt their fear as much as saw it, because that was what waited for them if they landed in the water.
One crew mutinied, throwing the captain to the deck, the vessel turning and sailing back through the lines.
But Ahnna felt no satisfaction. More fire bloomed overhead.