Chapter 46
Ian took a moment to assess what was happening around him.
Sol and Deneb had broken the locked hatch, tearing it open to free the rest of the Majis inside. Aizel ran toward them.
Several of the already freed Majis were forming a bucket line to douse the flames. Lane and Nele jumped into the line to help them.
Shouts were coming from the nearby ship now, and it veered toward them.
Its inhabitants had no idea yet that the burning ship had been taken over by the Majis.
They were likely coming closer to rescue the inhabitants from the fire.
With enough of the Majis on their side, they could still overpower the taskers of the second ship.
Ian turned back to the activity onboard.
Majis prisoners climbed out of the hatch, coughing up smoke and running away from the enclosed space as quickly as they could. The freed Majis helped each other, removing the muting necklaces and chaos-magic wrist bindings.
The newly freed Majis joined the bucket line, drawing up as many buckets of water from the sea as they could and passing them down to throw onto the flames. But it did not appear to be helping.
Nearly half the ship’s deck was covered in flames now. At this point, the massive inferno would be visible from the shore, though Ian had no time to wonder how the generals would interpret this change in events.
He had no time to even rally enough Majis to take the second ship. If they did not act now, they would lose the lives they had worked so hard to save. “Abandon ship!” Ian yelled. “Remove your armor! Jump overboard!”
Sol, standing at the hatch to help pull people up to the deck, also took up the call. “Abandon ship!” he yelled.
Ian ran to the two rowboats tied to the bow of the ship, meeting several other Majis with the same idea. They cut at the ropes and lowered the boats into the ocean below.
The second ship was also lowering their rowboats.
The shore was a long distance away, and the boats would carry perhaps six men each, with several more holding on to the sides. The rest of them would have to swim—or take their chances boarding the other taskers’ ships.
Perhaps it was the harsh light of the fire, but as the Majis men—and women—removed their armor, Ian realized they were far weaker than they had first appeared.
Their cheeks were sunken, their bodies thin and angular.
They were not in any condition to swim for the hour it would take to reach the shore, much less fight as soldiers.
Gareth truly had been sending them to their deaths.
Nele and Lane ran across the deck, assisting wherever they could.
The Majis jumped overboard, splashing into the cold water and attempting to climb up into the rowboats.
Those inside the boats reached over to pull others up until the two boats were as full as was possible.
Others clung to the sides of the boats or held on to the hands of the passengers as they began to row toward the shore.
Some of the Majis swam toward the empty rowboats that the second ship had dropped. The boats would take only half of them.
The wall of heat behind Ian continued to grow, and the ship tilted heavily to one side. “We are taking on water,” Ian yelled. He waved to Nele and Lane. “Abandon ship!”
Ian ran across the deck, looking for any float-able pieces of wood or furniture or tools that he could toss over the side to aid the remaining swimmers. “Help me with this,” he called out to a passing man as he grabbed one end of a large barrel.
The burly man stepped forward, but instead of lifting the barrel as directed, he stepped toward Ian.
Ian saw the glint of steel in just enough time to jump aside from the man’s knife attack. This was not a Majis—it was one of the remaining taskers.
Ian no longer had a weapon, but he raised his hands, crouching low over his feet to defend himself from the man’s next attack.
But the attack never came.
The man collapsed to the ground, revealing a slim Majis holding on to a ship pin that she had just used to whack the tasker in the head.
Ian nodded in thanks, then turned back to the barrel. The Majis dropped the pin on the ground and helped Ian pick up the barrel to toss over the edge of the ship. Ian helped the Majis woman over the railing next so she could use the barrel to float to the shore.
The ship careened to one side, the deck below Ian’s feet slanting dangerously toward the neighboring ship.
“Deneb, Aizel and I are going to the next ship to free as many as we can,” Sol said, running to Ian’s side and grabbing his arm to steady them both. “Swim in now so the soldiers don’t slaughter the survivors.”
Ian nodded.
Sol ran to the nearest railing and jumped overboard.
Ian took an extra moment to ensure that no one else was onboard the sinking ship.
Tilting to the side as it was, the ship had veered wildly off course. He appeared to be the last person onboard. The deck continued to tilt below him, and he slipped toward the lower railing. They were so close to the neighboring ship that Ian could almost reach out and touch it.
Above him, he heard shouts of alarm from the taskers on the second ship, but it was too late to stop the collision.
Ian scrambled away from the railing just before the burning ship plowed into the neighboring one with an alarming crash of splintering wood. He pulled himself across the deck, reaching out to anything he could find for stability.
The ship rocked beneath his feet, tilting fully to its side as it began to sink.
And then the fireworks started.
The sound of splintering wood turned into the crackling of lightning and booming of thunder as energy streaked across the deck, originating from the hull of the ship next to them.
Smaller fires ignited on the dry wood everywhere the lightning struck. Both ships were on fire now.
Ian found himself holding on to the far railing—now above him—caught between a sinking ship and the explosion of chaos magic beads on the ship next to him.
He needed to make it to the water without getting crushed between the two ships. He climbed across the deck, using his hands on the railing to inch himself over, hand by hand until there was nothing left to grab on to.
The fire had surrounded him, licking up from below him and pressing in on him from the side.
With a final effort, he lifted himself by his arms to clamber over the railing of the ship so that he was standing on the now-horizontal side of it.
He ran forward as far as he could and dove into the ocean, its icy-cold water a refreshing change from the sweat and heat of the fire he had been fighting amidst for a quarter of an hour.
Pushing away from the ship, he swam out for several long moments so as not to be caught beneath falling debris.
The ocean around him was littered with broken pieces of wood and filled with the bobbing heads of swimming Majis.
Ian looked around, then reached for the nearest person and dragged their head above water. He dragged them to a piece of wood, and they both grabbed on to it. When the man coughed up water, Ian realized it was the tasker who had tried to stab him only moments before.
Leaving the tasker to fend for himself on the floating wood, Ian swam out to the next bobbing head, then repeated this until he had helped all the people he could see.
Grabbing on to the nearest piece of floating debris—the hatch cover that Sol had forcibly removed—he oriented himself toward the shore by putting the ships behind him. He kicked his legs to propel himself forward, using the debris as a flotation device for his hands.