Chapter 7 Stormveil
“Stormveil to starboard!” Thanavar barked. “All hands!”
Stormveil? I didn’t think any other ship could stormveil!
I scried the furious waters and could see no fourth ship off our starboard side.
The Marelethan, however, was sweeping in on our port side already.
She had gotten close by running dark, her normal ship-song drowned out by the roar of wind and wave.
Now, I could hear them shouting over the boom of cannons.
The sky flashed, and two balls tore through our rigging, snapping a cable and swinging a yardarm into the mast.
“Return fire, Mr. Buck!”
“Return fire!”
And the Touchstone’s cannons shook the entire ship. There was a roar of light and blowback of heat, and the Marelethan’s mizzenmast shattered into a hundred beautiful pieces.
A second volley took out the enemy’s bowsprit and smashed the elven face from her figurehead.
Gold-painted wood burst inward along her hull, and I knew some of the shots had struck powder as explosions rocked her from within.
The gunners had delivered a wicked broadside, and I cheered inwardly despite them not being my crew.
We swept past, and the aft cannons boomed now, raking her clean and shivering one of her timbers in two.
It tipped but caught in the rigging, and I saw chimeric crackle to keep it skyward.
The runes that danced across enemy sails danced along my arms as well, and I had to bite my tongue hard to prevent a cry of pain.
The taste of my own blood worked wonders in that regard.
“Hard to port, Mr. Fahr!” called the captain. “The Dreadship’s coming at us afore!”
“Hard to port, aye!”
I peered through the darkness. Sure enough, the distant lights that had been the Dreadship were growing larger as they rolled toward us across the waves.
Fahr sprang from the pup as the Touchstone banked, her gold-shot canvas catching the wind and leaping through the water.
But the Marelethan banked as well, her to starboard, and her sails were broader.
A flash from her aft cannons, and the balls whipped across our decks, blasting holes through the gunwales and leaving a trail of sizzling chimeric.
I watched the seamage named Neale augment spells thrown at him, and my heart thudded in my chest. I had done that aboard the Dawn Watch. I could do it again. But my hands…
“Stop them,” said a voice, and I whirled to find the captain standing behind me, looming like a stormshear on a thundering sea. “Stop the shots.”
“How? My hands don’t work!”
“Your hands work in spite of you, wretched woman. We have a cruiser engaged, a Dreadship on approach, and a veiled cruiser to starboard. Swallow your pride and stop the shots.”
He gripped my shoulders and spun me around.
I could see the Marelethan’s aft gunports, dark like open mouths.
Chimeric danced in the pits—the same chimeric that danced across my hands.
I pulled off my gloves and let them drop, flexing fingers still stiff from the splinters of the Dawn Watch.
But I had made the Carmen Lumiere. I had chased three enemy ships across an ocean, and I had done it despite my wounded hands.
Or had I done it because of them?
One, two, three flashes of light, followed by three corresponding booms, and the balls whipped toward us, trailing chimeric like smoke.
I flung up my hands in a classic protection spell—it was my default, thanks to life in the Spits.
I had barely time to whisper the incantation before the balls hit, sliding me backward across the deck.
Patterns crackled behind my eyes like lightning.
Heat, force, water, snow.
Frost, power, Dreadwall, tree.
Kirianae.
Three huge cannonballs hovered before me, caught in a spinning, crackling web of chimeric cast from my fingertips.
I had stopped them.
One, two, three, they splashed into the sea like stones.
I turned to look over my shoulder. Thanavar was gone.
“Earned an extra tot tonight, Blue!” called Fahr. “Catch!”
Runes sprang to life in his palms, and he flung the shield my way.
Eight months on the Dawn Watch had prepared me, though, and I caught his simple magik spell without hesitation, feeling the chimeric, now somehow a part of my very being, leap behind my eyes, searing me raw, burning me whole.
With a cry, I flung the now chimeric-laced spell at the Marelethan, and a gunport exploded as the shot was blocked.
“Good!” Fahr shouted. “Go!”
I raced to the rail and cast another protection spell.
The dark sky flashed with powder and chimeric, and I flung the spell across the Touchstone’s hull, praying I’d stop at least a few.
It was only a few, and I cursed as the Touchstone shuddered from the impacts as ball after ball tore into her ebon-stained hull.
My chimeric shield netted four, sending me sliding backward with each strike, and runes flared between the ships.
I glanced around to see if Thanavar had been watching, if I’d done enough, but he was nowhere to be seen.
Thunder again, and this time it was the Touchstone, her cannons booming in succession and sending Forgefire across the waters.
Good hits, all, and the Marelethan banked leeward, turning to flee.
Our chase guns struck her transom hard, and it was sheer fortune that I saw her name shatter into a thousand golden pieces across the waves.
Suddenly, Fahr’s voice broke across the main.
“Down! All hands, down!”
I plunged to the deck as the balls whipped over my head, smashing the bulwark and shredding the rail. Splinters sprayed across the main, and loosed cables whipped overhead. The shots had come from the other direction.
“Stormveil to starboard!” cried Smoke, hauling the sunswheel with all his strength. “Starboard guns fire!”
“Fire!”
“Fire!”
The order echoed below decks, and our long guns thundered again, but they were firing blind.
There was nothing save flashes as our shots struck home, but I could hear bells and shouting and the creak of very large timbers.
I peered up from the deck. Gunsmoke curled over the water, and I was sure I saw a shape glinting in the darkness.
This was bad. Where the hels was the captain?
Suddenly, there was a flash of white. A winter hawk soared between our damaged rigging, dipping low as cannon fire erupted just beyond our starboard mizzen. The stormveiled ship was right on our tail.
Fahr grabbed me by the collar and hauled me to my feet.
“Your protection spell,” he barked. “Build it wide and send it my way. We need to cover the hawk!”
The great bird sailed overhead, dodging airborne debris as he arced toward the enemy ship.
I gaped at Fahr. Men rushed across the main, affixing cables and loading cannons with heavy, short-ranged shot. Some climbed through the shrouds, mending and binding to keep the spars and spreaders working. Others sat in their own blood, pierced by shards of splintered wood.
“Blue! The hawk!”
“Your men are bleeding, and you want to protect a bloody bird?”
“Fog you, Blue! Do it now!”
I obeyed, the patterns forming first in my palms, then leaping from the tips of my fingers into co-circling runes.
I clapped my hands together, then flung them apart, and the web grew large between them.
I hurled the shield toward the mate, who caught it, spun it, and flung it across the choppy sea.
It fell across the hawk, and immediately, the bird banked upward and aft, glittering with rune.
With every beat of his wings, the bones of a ship emerged out of the darkness.
My heart stopped in my chest.
It was the Endorathil, large and lethal and crackling with chimeric.
“Fire!” barked Fahr, his command echoed by the gunners below decks, and the Touchstone thundered once again. Heavy shot shattered the gleaming Rhi’Ahr hull, while the long guns tore up her masts, gaffs, and sails like powder.
“Fire!”
Another round, and then another, and I marveled at the Touchstone’s battery. Most Navy ships could fire two rounds in as many minutes, but this ship had just emptied her fifth. I wondered how much was magik and how much was just fine seamanship.
Lightning flashed across the sky now, and thunder announced the onset of rain.
The Endorathil banked hard, bringing her chase guns to bear.
She barked heavy shot abroadside, the roar of cannons deafening and the howl like a siren in my ears.
I saw a rush of white as the winter hawk swept over the Rhi’Ahr gunner’s pale head.
The shield had long dissipated, and the bird was vulnerable, but he raked the gunner’s face with deadly talons, buying the Touchstone’s crew time to reload.
A savage volley shattered the Endorathil’s aftdeck, and several of her chase guns plunged into the sea.
With a dip of his wing, the great hawk turned and veered into the gap between the ships.
Suddenly, a shot racketed from the Endorathil’s battered deck. It was cannister round, grainy and sharp, and it blasted the hawk’s wing, showering feathers across the waves. The bird itself followed, plummeting into the dark waters in a burst of sea spray.
“Kit!” shouted Fahr. Tangled with the rigging, the harpy looked down. “The hawk!”
With a cry, she sprang from her post, streaking down between the ships, her leathery wings riding the winds like a spinnaker.
I saw her dive into the water, only to reemerge, gasping but empty.
She took a deep breath and dove again, and this time, she was gone so long I thought her lost. The sea swelled, the rain pelted, and all was black save the lightning, but then she was free, climbing the wind with the hawk in her talons.
Beat, beat, beat went her wings, and she arced over the shattered rail to drop him onto the deck.
The hawk flailed, but Fahr caught him, gathering the great bird up in his arms before passing him to a rain-drenched, bloodied Neale.