Chapter 6 Dreadships
That initial sense of elation wore off pretty quick, and by afternoon, I was all but spent.
My muscles cramped after hours of holding this unnatural position as I clung to the side of a pitching ship.
My arms strained in opposite directions, my knees braced against the slippery hull.
The suns’ rays reflected from the waters, baking me like a trout on a spit.
I was soaked to the bone, and salt crusted along my lashes and lips.
But the chimeric still lit in straight lines across the open sea, and I felt stretched along with it, thinner and sharper as we went.
“Ahoy, girl,” came a voice, and wearily, I gazed up. It was Smoke, and in his hand, a tin cup.
“Rum?” I croaked.
“Bells, no,” he said. “You’re Navy! You’d be swinging from this here rope within the hour. Water. Do it right, and you’ll have all the rum you can drink tonight.”
I don’t know why, but I believed him.
He held the cup out and dropped it, keeping his hand wide and fingers taut in a perfect Kinestorum spell.
Patterns spun, runes sparked, and the cup floated perfectly down to me.
I needed to keep my hold on the line, so the cup hovered in mid-air until I could pull my free hand from the ocean’s icy grip.
I couldn’t feel my fingers, but the thought of fresh, sweet water running down my throat was a powerful one, and I managed to draw the cup to my cracked lips.
It wasn’t fresh and it certainly wasn’t sweet, but it did feel good going down.
Hours went by, and the Touchstone coursed on under full sail, following the chimeric that raced through the water ahead of us.
At one point, I slipped and slammed into the hull.
I’m sure the boards slid out farther to help, and I regained my footing.
But I was bone-tired, aching from every joint and muscle, and I don’t remember when they hauled me up and set me in a canvas hammock to sleep away the night.
I didn’t get any of that promised rum, and I’m not sure how they managed to wake me the next morning, because the pain was worse than the day before.
In fact, I think I wept as Buck carried me to the rail, gnarled and shaking like a beaten dog. Still, they slipped the rope around my waist and lowered me to the sea, and it was only Thanavar’s scornful face watching me from the deck that forced my blistered fingers into the waters once again.
I wouldn’t let him see me fail. I refused to let that happen.
All that day, I kept to my post, bare feet braced against the hull, with one hand twisted in rope and the other in the sea. It was evening when they hauled me up from my perch. It was dawn when they came for me yet again.
This time, the captain was waiting, the morning suns reflecting the violet and green undercurrents of his hair.
“You are doing it wrong,” he said.
Oh, how I hated him. I could kill him with my eyes.
“You are fighting the ocean,” he said. “And the ocean will win.”
“Please tell me how you chase chimeric in the open seas.” I lifted my chin. “Sir.”
His lips twitched. I could have sworn it was a smile.
“Trust the ship,” he said. “Lean into her. Draw magik from her boards and let her hold your weight.”
Draw magik from her boards?
“She will not let you fall.”
I couldn’t trust him. I didn’t dare. And yet, as we stood face to face, the deck rolling beneath us, rocking us in the same slow rhythm, my pulse hammered in my throat. Could I? His gaze never left mine, steady and sure, and I did the unthinkable. I let the current take me. His current.
What was I thinking?
“Trust the ship,” I repeated warily. I was exhausted. Surely that was to blame for trusting the enemy. Besides, if he wanted me dead, certainly there were other, far easier ways to do it.
“She is the Ship of Spells,” he said. “She will not let you down.”
I glanced to the waters, sparkling and deep.
“And I will belay you.”
Oh, Forge fog a faun.
“All day?” I blurted.
“And all night, if necessary.”
He was close enough to breathe him in. Salt, linseed oil, parchment. The sea. His skin glistened gold in the sunslight, as if threads of filagree were woven beneath the surface. It shimmered like my runescars, and I knew his magik ran deep.
Swiftly, I turned away, gathered my line, and stepped over the side. The planks slid out, and I let her take me down.
This time, I leaned into her. This time, I let my bare feet draw magik from her boards.
And this time, I was not so tired when he pulled me up for the day. I was almost eager when he dropped me back down again later, and I wondered if I was somehow drawing magik from him as well.
There were times over the side when I swore I heard a voice. A whispering, murmuring, lyrical voice. But the ocean is a living thing, and I was sunbaked and raw, clinging to the side of a moving ship while a strange new magik wrote lines across my skin.
Surprisingly, my hands didn’t hurt unless the chimeric was near, and it was hard to remember that, less than a week ago, they had been little more than tendon and bone. Even wrapped in leather, the patterns glowed with rune.
They weren’t like normal scars. More like tattoos that gleamed and sizzled as they crept up my forearms, bright in their unfathomable march.
I’d taken to calling them runescars. It seemed appropriate.
Not scars, not rune, but a blending of both that marked them as different from anything ever known.
They had not burned my hands off, as Echo had feared, but neither had they stopped, and he was worried.
Truth be told, so was I, but I’d be damned before I’d let him know.
Although, as he was a clearseer, I suspected he already did.
By the dawn of the fifth day, I was strong enough to belay myself.
It was a dark morning, the skies heavy with storm clouds and the sails snapping in the winds.
Even with such rough seas, my legs now braced naturally against the curve of the ship.
One hand twisted around the ropes while the other embraced the life and the currents of the sea.
The moment my fingers touched the surface, the “chase” rune in my palm burned like a beacon and the chimeric lit up the waves.
It was strong on this fifth morning, and I sensed we were close.
I wasn’t surprised, then, when Buck hauled me back up at noon.
“Water,” said Echo, handing me a cup. I drank it gratefully, asking no questions.
“Rum,” said Buck, handing me another. I drank it greedily, asking even less.
“We’ve spotted something,” said the doc, taking the empty water cup back and leaning against the rail.
I pulled on my gloves and looked to the dark horizon. In the distance, the rain clouds had burst, and it was hard to tell where the sea ended and the sky began. All was gray and blue and black, and a chill wind swept up my spine.
There was a light on the water.
No. Two lights.
No. Many.
I peered over the rail, cupping the rum in both hands, Buck and Echo on either side.
The lights were Rhi’Ahr, and I understood the need to stop the chimeric trail. If they saw the chimeric, they’d know we were coming, and they’d be prepared. While we were skilled and stealthy, we were sorely outgunned.
“The ships that attacked Hodgetown?” I asked.
“You were chasing their chimeric, yes?” said Echo.
I had been chasing the Rhi’Ahr ships, yes, but I hadn’t fully thought out what we’d do once we caught ’em.
“Captain thinks they may have formed a Dreadship,” said Echo. “Isn’t that right, Buck?”
“They do that,” the bosun said. “Fearsome big. Hard to sink.”
Now, that was definitely something I remembered from Berryburn Yard.
A Dreadship was two or more ships joined together to form a larger vessel.
The Emperial Navy had never been successful, but clearly, the Rhi’Ahr had mastered the skill.
Another reason we needed the Dreadwall to keep them from our shores.
“Hand sail, Mr. Buck,” called Fahr over the winds. He was with the captain on the pup and holding a spyglass to his eye. “We have a Dreadship of two. There’s a third out here somewhere.”
The bosun grunted and left my side, shaking his horned head and barking commands to the crew.
Hand over hand, they began to reef the sails, slowing our speed as we rode the choppy waves.
The harpy, whose name I’d learned was Kithriit, or Kit, sprang between the masts, dousing the lanterns that swung from timber and beam.
I looked up to the high pupdeck, where captain and first mate stood.
I had to admit they cut fine figures on the deck of this ship, like day and night, sun and moon.
Thanavar wore mystery like a cloak, whereas Fahr was as bright as a coal fire.
I watched the first mate lift the spyglass again, his dark hair whipping in the sea wind.
He’d be a natural at the wheel of a Navy frigate or Emperial man-of-war.
Why he would trade such a life to walk in the footsteps of an enemy captain, I’d never know.
I studied that enemy captain now. A Rhi’Ahr warrior in the coat of a Navy officer, and it set my blood to boil.
Tall and lean, he was wrapped in moonslight and fury.
Black hair escaping its queue behind those bloody elven ears, and cheekbones that could cut paper.
Like a stormshear, he was, all anchor and clash, a whirlpool of shadow and sky.
I found myself pulled into that riptide, whether I wanted to be or not.
He turned his face, and, for a brief moment, our eyes met.
Lightning shot down my spine, and I fought the urge to look away.
Instead, I steeled my jaw, refusing to stand down, daring him to see me.
Me, the wretched girl from the lost frigate.
Me, the vain, insignificant ensign Blue, the wayward woman adrift on the sea, filled with the chimeric that called to us both…
Chase, whispered that voice once again, echoing the excitement growing in my chest. Aro’el, child. Chase.
Swiftly, I glanced away, pretending to study the ocean, but my toes curled inside my boots, and I took breath after breath to still my racing heart.
Chimeric, Rhi’Ahr, Ship of Spells, war. I was alive with something that I didn’t understand, so I buried it deep down beneath my iron will and the anger that was my lifeboat.
These were stormy seas, and with a captain like that, I’d need all the anchors I could get.
I tried to see the Dreadship’s lights, but it was a task as the rough waters pitched us in their swell. Suddenly, Kithriit cried out from high in the rigging and pointed portside, where another light flared into view. Fahr swung his glass.
“Marelethan to port!” he cried.
She had been running dark, with no lamp or lantern on the open sea, and I could see chimeric crackling in the gunports along her hull.
“Beat to quarters!” barked the captain.
“All hands beat to quarters!” Fahr shouted. “Gunners, roll!”
“Gunners!” echoed Smoke from the wheels. “All hands to the post!”
My blood hammered along with the drums as the crew scrambled to the carronades, rolling them across the deck like thunder.
“I must get to surgery,” said Echo. “One always hopes…”
His voice trailed off, and I looked up. His goatlike eyes were glassy, his brow furrowed.
“Another ship, very close,” he said. “I hear them.”
He bolted upright, swung around to the pup.
“Captain!” he cried. “Fourth ship, stormveil to starboard!”
And my arms lit up like fireworks.