6. A Shadow on a Ship
T he ship was almost due to depart, and there was still no sign of the Shadowmancer. Perhaps the ruse hadn’t worked. Perhaps the message hadn’t reached him. Or perhaps he’d come, seen that there were too many people, and fled.
Viola didn’t doubt his ability to take on all of them. He’d summoned those arrows and wyverns like they were nothing. It was a clear day, visibility was excellent. The port was close to the street, and there were trees lining the rocky walls of the bay, all offering excellent viewpoints. He could fire multiple projectiles at once and then send a couple of wyverns to finish them off. Even with the new additions to their weapons, they couldn’t disrupt the monsters for long. Viola fancied their own energy would wane before the Shadowmancer’s did. She did not want to be proved right.
She wondered if the Captain had planned this, or if it was all the King’s idea and no one had dared say a thing against him. He was a fine warrior, to be sure, and he’d been smart enough to rescue the then-Princess Isabeau from the giant, but despite some attributing divine qualities to the ancient giants, the present-day ones weren’t known to be particularly intelligent and no one had any such certainties about the Shadowmancer.
He’d managed to evade them all until now. He wasn’t a fool.
Viola was beginning to suspect that the King might be. She didn’t want to believe that. He was her King, after all, and before he was that, he was the kindly knight who had inspired her to take up the sword herself when he visited her homestead when she was a girl.
The rest of the team didn’t seem to share her concerns, or if they did, they were keeping them to themselves. That didn’t surprise her when it came to someone like Lightworth, who thought all a knight had to be was brawny and brave, but Arborwood and Stonecutter had a bit more sense to them.
She wished Freya or Heindrich or even Flameborn were here. At least then, she’d have someone to share her concerns with.
The King had instructed everyone to remain on guard, posting them at different spots over the deck. The real sailors had been sent below, although they’d need to come up soon if the airship was to depart on time. Perhaps the Shadowmancer wouldn’t even make his move until they were in the air. Maybe he’d swoop in on a shadow wyvern after they were airborne, cut through the hull, and take the cargo out from under them.
Actually, that wasn’t a bad plan. Maybe they should contact the Captain and see if she could send some more airbourne assistance—
Viola shook her head. No. The Captain and the King would have thought of this. She shouldn’t second guess them. It wasn’t her place.
All the same, she placed herself on the steps, out of sight of the deck and within running distance of the cargo.
Just as the time to depart was almost upon them, the boat gave a sudden lurch. The knights turned, moving towards the barrel where they’d stored their swords, some pulling out their hidden daggers. Viola froze, not reaching for anything.
Ten monstrous tentacles shot up around the boat, black and shadowy. They caught several of the knights, yanking them into the air before a single weapon could be drawn. The rest of the tentacles swept across the deck, knocking everyone overboard.
Everyone except Viola.
The sailors below deck moved for the stairs.
“Stay here!” Viola hissed.
All of them froze. Viola grabbed a light bomb hidden about her person and flung it onto the deck, turning as it burst to protect her eyes. Light split from it, swamping the boat. The knights crashed into the water with a triumphant splash. Wasting no more time, Viola skid across the deck towards the barrel as the boat pitched, the tentacles reforming as the light dispersed.
She grabbed a sword, not troubling to find her own. They were all spelled against darkness.
Not that it would matter if one of the tentacles caught her and pitched her overboard.
No, Viola insisted. You’re not getting me .
But there was no way she could dodge that many appendages, no way she could locate the Shadowmancer alone, no way she could be sure to exhaust his energy before her own. She needed people. She needed cover. She needed to be airborne.
But she didn’t have those things. She had a blade and a boat and—
A shadow drifted over her, lighter and softer than any the ones the Shadowmancer had conjured. The shadow of the sails.
The closest she had to being airborne. The best substitute she had for cover.
She buckled on her sheath and leapt towards the rigging, scrambling up into the sails, cutting the ropes with her dagger. White sails dropped, dispersing the shadows swiping at her. They could slide between spaces, but they couldn’t move through the fabric itself without dispersing and reforming. Higher she climbed, slicing more rope, setting the sails spinning.
Shadows rose to meet her. She spread out across one of the booms, sword and dagger both drawn, dispersing any tentacle that came within an inch of her. This wouldn’t work forever. All she could hope was that she was granting her comrades enough time to get back on board or send for back up or escape in case the Shadowmancer’s intentions turned murderous. He clearly had a thing against knights. She couldn’t win this way, not unless—
“So,” said a silky voice, “we meet again.”
Viola turned slowly, wrapping her wrist in rope to help her balance, the boat swaying beneath her feet. She scanned the skies for any sign of her adversary. She knew he was here, lurking somewhere amidst the shadows that danced and flickered in the light of the dawn.
A shadowy figure emerged from behind the sails, standing aboard a wyvern, its back as flat as a plank. The wyvern’s form shifted and contorted like smoke, but the figure astride it was still and unmoving. Younger than she’d thought at first. Mid twenties, or early—her age. A gold mask obscured his left eye and cheek, soft black hair tousled in the wind, and he smirked at her as if they were old friends.
Viola tightened her grip on her sword, her heart pounding.
The Shadowmancer and his wyvern drifted forward, eyes glinting as he raised his hand, summoning tendrils of darkness to swirl around him. Viola narrowed her eyes, focusing her gaze on her opponent. No use in striking him. She didn’t have the reach.
The Shadowmancer lashed out with a whip-like tendril of shadow, aiming for Viola’s waist. She dodged, jumping deftly to the boom below her, feeling the rush of air as the shadowy appendage grazed her side .
Viola retaliated with a swift slash of her sword, but tentacles came faster and stronger. The Shadowmancer yawned, stretching his arms as if this deflection now bored him. He was toying with her, and he’d come this close just for the satisfaction of watching her lose.
His mistake.
Viola flung her dagger in his direction. She missed, skimming his cheek, but it caught him off guard, making his shadows falter. Just for a second.
A second was all she needed. A second to calculate the trajectory of the sails, to work out which rope she needed to cut.
And to slice through it with her sword.
The Shadowmancer laughed as the first sail soared overhead, missing him entirely. He didn’t see the second one swinging around, catching him in the middle and shooting him overboard.
Viola leapt from her spot, rolling against the deck and racing towards the side. If he’d hit the water, maybe, just maybe, he wouldn’t be able to use his shadows to scoop himself out. She doubted they worked as well underwater. If she could get to him there—
But there was no splash. At the last second, inches before the water, his shadow wyvern caught him by the arms. A quick swish of his wrists later, the wyvern reformed beneath him.
The last Viola saw of the Shadowmancer, he was soaring off over the Feywood, clutching his chest and blowing a kiss behind him.