Chapter 4 #2
“For the Dawn Watch!” I cried. “Just sink that Forge-damned ship!”
And I lunged forward, striking his chest with both palms, and chimeric burst in a shower of sparks, forcing him onto his heels.
He snarled and, with a flare of rune, sent me hurtling backward to slam into the wood of the hatch.
I struggled to my feet, but he made a fist now, and I was caught, unable to move leg or limb, unable even to speak.
It was a bind spell. He hadn’t needed the incant. He hadn’t needed a word.
“Another outburst and she will kiss the cat,” growled the captain. “Tell her that, Mr. Fahr. The Touchstone won’t abide calumny.”
Fahr glared at me darkly and shook his head. I hated him then, too. Him and his captain and this Forge-forsaken ship.
Smoke moved aside as Thanavar settled to the sunswheel, his hands steady on the grip.
“Thrum, Call, and Torrent, Mr. Fahr,” he said.
“Aye, sir.” The mate turned to the bosun. “Buck, shall we dance?”
“Rain dance,” said the minotaur, and he grinned.
Buck. The minotaur’s name was Buck.
Smoke looked up at the captain and gestured to me.
“Do we really need to keep her?” he asked. “I could practically toss her to shore at this point. She’d fry up crisp like a sausage, and we wouldn’t be ferrying a Navy curse in our hold.”
“A delightful thought, Mr. Oakum,” said the captain. “But please take your place on the main.”
Smoke knuckled a salute and crossed the deck to stand between Buck and Fahr.
We were close to shore now, and I gazed over the docks of Hodgetown.
The air was hot, the morning sky filled with smoke as fire raged across the pier.
I saw the bones of the tavern where I had first raised a glass, now little more than a blistering shell.
Silhouettes dodged along the streets and ran through the shanties in a desperate attempt to salvage what little remained.
My heart broke at the sight of a dog tied to a post, trying to gnaw himself free before he was engulfed by the flames. Ships could sink and men could perish, but I broke for the suffering of animals. Regarding people, I had been hard as a stone before I ever set to sea.
If I squinted, I still could make out the Marelethan sailing through the eastern pipe, free as a hawk on the wings of the dawn.
Gone.
The captain turned to me, face sharp as sheets of ice.
“Watch and learn, you wretched woman from a lost frigate. See what it means to serve the Ship of Spells.”
He raised one hand into the air, and runes tumbled from it like coins.
From the main, Fahr, Smoke, and Buck did the same, raising their arms and casting patterns that glittered like stars.
And like a corresponding heartbeat, the ship began to yaw.
She began to heave and yaw as water moved beneath us.
They were calling the ocean.
Thrum, Call, and Torrent.
They were spinning the sea.
Thrum went the pulses, sent out from Fahr’s hands to the waves, and I could see the shallow ripples that belied a deeper current.
Thrum, thrum, thrum. Even the deck boards reverberated with the rhythm.
Smoke’s fingers, blackened with grease but sparking with power, wove a simple pattern.
It was the Call, and the Touchstone herself dipped as the waters of the bay responded. But what was the Torrent?
The Touchstone heaved now, and I looked to see a wave of water rolling toward us.
It was gathering from beyond the Bay of Hodges and rushing toward us like the Dreadwall itself.
The Ship of Spells ebbed low with the current, then rose again as the wave swelled beneath us, and I could see the strain on the quartermaster’s face as he called the waters home.
Beside him, Fahr’s palms turned, and the wave burst upward like a mountain.
Up, up, up it went between us and the docks, cresting with white foam and sea spray, and for a moment, I thought we were underwater.
Torrent. I struggled to remember the pages from the books in the Yard. I tried to picture the runes in my mind. Torrent. Torrent?
The minotaur brought his shaggy hands together, then flung them wide. The water followed his lead.
Rain!
Like a torrent, the massive wave shattered into spray, sending salt rain pelting across the docks.
Fires sputtered, timbers hissed, and steam curled into the morning skies as the seas doused the flames.
The Touchstone rose and fell once more as a second wave took to land, and this time, Buck flung the spray farther in.
A third wave was sent cascading toward the town, but it was the fourth that stopped me cold.
It hovered over the docks, swirling like a wall of steam and seawater.
I could even see fish swimming within it as the water held her breath.
My eyes slid over to the captain. One hand on the wheel, the other cast patterns into the wind.
He was soaked to the bone, rain running down his brow and high cheeks, and his dark hair was slick across his shoulders.
Unknown patterns tumbled from his fingertips.
They were almost like a protection spell but different, likely Rhi’Ahr magik.
He was a very powerful mage, and that made him dangerous.
Still, I watched in awe as he guided the storm along the shattered ships now, sending downpours to quench whatever fires remained.
Seawater rained across the deck of the Touchstone as well.
I closed my eyes and welcomed it, cool and salty, soft and clean.
Lightspinners. Waterspinners. Navy skill with their cannons.
This ship breathed magik like air.
“Sail!” came a cry from the masthead.
“Navy!” cried a young midshipmage. He was tall and lean with dark skin and curly black hair, the tips bleached from exposure to the suns. “We got Navy, sir!”
My heart thudded as a large, four-masted man-of-war swept in through the western pipe, under the blue-and-gold pennant of Oversea.
“Hands to the post,” barked the captain as he pushed the wet hair off his face. “Spinners, stand down.”
“Damnations,” I heard Fahr growl. “The Templemore.”
“Forge fog a faun, he’s got it bad for you, Dev,” laughed Smoke, his barrel-chest heaving. “He wants to take you home, all wrapped up in pretty ribbons. Ol’ Boney and Bracey be mateys again!”
“Fog you,” said Fahr.
“Not today!”
There was the distant boom of a cannon, but it was too far out to be any more than a threat. Still, we were privateers, and they were Navy. I was Navy, and it just didn’t sit well with me.
Thanavar turned to the young midshipmage, released his hold on the wheels.
“The deck is yours, Mr. Neale. Take us out the eastern pipe and run sharp. Let us elude the Crown today, if we can.”
“You can handle it, lad,” said Smoke. “An extra ration tonight if you’re quick and clean.”
The man called Neale beamed at them both beneath a cloud of black hair.
“Aye, sirs,” he said. He knuckled a salute and squared to the crew. “Avast, ye soddin’ jaks! Haul sail or Bracebridge will haul arse!”
The Touchstone banked starboard as seamages scrambled to comply. The wind snapped and the hull creaked, and soon, the smoke of Hodgetown faded into the distance. The echo of Navy cannons took much longer.
Thanavar turned, and suddenly, I dropped to my hands and knees, released.
“Kirianae,” he said, the language rolling from his lips. “N’gariyad ilfoy?”
I had no words. I was under no spell, but I had no words. I knew nothing of his world.
“I don’t understand…”
In hindsight, I was surprised that my tongue actually worked. He sighed.
“I will give you a second chance, Ensign,” he said. “No one is offered a third on my ship.”
A chance on the Ship of Spells. Everything inside me raged at the thought. And yet…
He looked up.
“Messrs. Fahr and Oakum, fetch the doctor and join me in my cabin. Bring the wretched woman with you.”
He spun on his heel and disappeared through the hatch, taking the air with him.
I was grateful, then, when Fahr and Smoke grabbed my arms and hauled me to my feet.