Chapter 39 Chimeric
As soon as I hit the water, the chimeric boomed, sending ripples of power through the waves.
My hands were still bound behind my back, and the dark water pulled me under.
We were free of the Endorathil, therefore free of the Sublimatus spell that had protected her, and I slowed my struggles to concentrate on burning through the bonds.
I sank as I did so, and soon, I was dimly aware of a sizzle at my wrists.
Through the distortion of the water, I could see the purple sky, the dark hulls of two ships, and flashes of light between them as the Touchstone’s cannons boomed above.
She was alive.
With a yank, I was free, and I swam for the lights, kicking my legs furiously before my chest burst from the holding.
I breached the surface to the sounds of cannon fire and crying voices, cracking masts and whipping shot.
To my right, the second gundeck on the Endorathil exploded as shot struck in rapid succession, firing splinters like arrows across the water. Just like the Dawn Watch.
But this wasn’t the Dawn Watch, and I wasn’t the same girl, and I ducked beneath the water until the blasts ended.
Up again, and I thrashed around, looking for Dev.
He had been bound like me, and staying afloat during a sea battle was a short-lived prospect even with one’s hands.
I spied him trying to keep his head above water, and I swam over, fighting the whitecaps and the current and the cold.
He saw me, spat a mouthful of seawater. I took a deep breath and dove behind him. Between the darkness and the buffeting currents, I found the ropes that bound his wrists, and I burned through his bonds in seconds. Together, we burst to the surface, gasping for air and glancing between the ships.
The Endorathil had made sail and was pulling out of her anchorage, while the Marelethan peppered her stern with cannon fire as she came about. Under full sail, the Touchstone also rocked forward, and I knew it was their aim to flank the larger ship between them.
“To the Touchstone!” Dev barked over the roar as cannon fire cracked above our heads.
“Wait!” I shouted back. “I have an idea!”
And I threw myself into the waves, arm over arm, toward the Endorathil.
I was a good swimmer, but she had sail and was pulling away.
Her wake forced me back, filled my mouth with seawater, and slowed me with drag.
Her oaken hull was just beyond my reach when suddenly, an unnatural current picked up and pushed me forward until my fingers brushed her staves.
Well done, Dev. I’d said it before. Waterspinners were a useful lot.
I clung to her like a barnacle and flattened my palm against her hull, sending the chimeric through her bones, through her ribs, up her sides, along her decks.
I ordered it, sang it, wove it like music throughout her planks and spars.
It was the spell Thanavar had taught me, the Tecton Permeatus, or Thre’Ahr Nethaliim in Rhi’Ahr.
I said it over and over, until I could weave no more.
The hull crackled with pattern as I cast, but it disappeared into the wood as if it had never been, save for one glistening imprint of my hand and the runescar at its heart.
Aro’el.
It wasn’t enough.
I released her, and she surged past, rising and falling in the waves, her portholes rimmed with the mouths of cannons, and I knew that, even with two ships to her one, she was a formidable foe.
She began to run starboard, turning on the slower, damaged Touchstone, as I swam back to Fahr.
“Who’s left?” I sputtered over the water. “Everyone on board was killed!”
“No,” he barked. “Illusion!”
My eyes widened, understanding thrumming in my veins.
Aluciatus and Mendacium. The obscure, arcane spells from the journal and a clutch of ironmages to wield them.
If you’d just obeyed your captain’s orders, if you’d just stayed in the hold…
I threw a look over my shoulder. On the Touchstone’s main deck, Buck was loading the Molly Boom.
We’d keep you if we could, even just to teach you a thing or two about seeing…
One day, I’d listen, I vowed to myself. One day, I’d learn to trust others, especially this incredible, remarkable crew.
Tacking hard to starboard, the Marelethan leaped in pursuit of the larger ship.
Her guns thundered, shots striking the mizzenmast and tearing up the quarterdeck rail, the splinter spray as lethal as the shot itself.
The Touchstone was yawing, and both Fahr and I waved our arms wildly to attract her attention.
She banked, and I could see the crew race to drag a line over the rail as they swept by.
Fahr slipped an arm around my waist and lunged forward, catching the line with his other hand.
We were yanked out of the water and into the side of the ship with a thud.
Hand over hand, they hauled us, and soon we tumbled over the bulwark and onto the deck.
“We caught us a pair of fishies!” said Buck. I pushed myself to my feet and threw myself at him, hugging him tightly until I thought my arms would break.
“Don’t die,” I said. “Don’t ever die.”
He rapped his horned head.
“Minotaurs are hard to kill.”
I turned to see Echo helping Fahr to his feet. I took a step toward him, but the faun looked away. My heart sank.
I knew I’d disappointed him once again. My pride had led us to this place, this broken place of edges and blood. That was on me, all me. I knew it full well.
“Welcome aboard, Ensign Renn,” came a voice from the stern.
Oh suns. My breath left my chest as I turned, my limbs slow as if dragging through honey.
Descending the smoking steps was Gavriel Thanavar, regal and weary, his face blackened by soot.
With his arm tucked into his chest and his face purple with bruises, he looked more dead than alive, but alive he was, and in full command of his ship.
My heart leaped within me at the sight of him, and my knees could barely keep me upright.
He crossed the quarterdeck, pausing briefly at my side.
I gazed up at him. His skin was splattered with blood, and I wanted to tend his wounds with salve and oil, find rest for him on some long-deserted shore. I wanted to plunge into his sea-deep eyes, drown myself in his riptides, lose myself in his rune.
“We shall discuss your court-martial later,” he said to me and me alone.
“Aye, Captain,” I said, and I meant it. I deserved it. Any and all punishments he needed to mete. I’d deliberately disobeyed his orders, and he’d paid the price for it in blood.
His eyes held me, tried me, weighed me, and found me bolder than ever. With a quirk of his lips, he nodded swiftly, then turned his face to the main.
“Full sail, Mr. Buck!” he barked.
“Full sail! Aye, Captain!”
The Touchstone surged forward, creaking under the strain of a broken hull, as a battery of shot echoed from the Endorathil.
We were coming around on the Marelethan, looking to rake the Endorathil’s foremast and chase guns with a volley.
The Marelethan’s chase guns fired anyway, shattering the Endorathil’s jigger, but her own foremast cracked and pitched leeward, crashing back onto the forecastle amid snapping sheets and stays.
The Endorathil just had so many guns.
One of them boomed now, striking the cathead, and our last anchor plunged into the sea. The cable went wild, shredding the hawseholes and whipping the line through the body of the ship. Hands flung themselves to the deck to avoid being cut in two by the force of the line.
The sails boomed above us, and I looked up. The Touchstone’s sheets were tattered, and she was struggling despite her will. I skidded over to her mast, laid my hands on the splintered wood.
Child
Her voice was weak, barely there, and once again, I sent all my chimeric into her.
There wasn’t much, but I felt her rally as she threw herself to the wind.
Our rudders were sound, and we banked hard, coming around on the Endorathil’s starboard side.
For her part, the Marelethan was sweeping in on her port, and my heart froze when I realized how we were positioned.
Suns. The Endorathil was between us, flanked on both port and starboard sides. I knew what was about to go down.
“All guns,” said Thanavar. “Fire.”
“Fire!” shouted Fahr.
“All guns fire!” shouted Smoke across the waters.
It was poetry and horror together as our guns fired simultaneously, raking her hard.
With cannons from the gundecks and chasers from the main, the chimeric-laced shots tore the Endorathil’s canvas to ribbons, snapped shrouds and halyards, chewed up bulwarks, staves, and rails.
Her capstan shattered under the onslaught, and her wheel cracked in two, grips splintering into a thousand pieces as they spun wild in the wind.
And for the crew, their blood turned the brightwork red.
We emptied our battery into her sails, and on the other side, the Marelethan did the same. The enemy ship was a fish in a barrel, and we held all the spears. Both ships fired and fired until wind and tide carried us past. It was over in a matter of moments. Our guns fell silent, and we waited.
Illuminated by the setting suns, Ilvalour stood on the quarterdeck by the wheel, his hair burned, his face bloody.
He watched us as we swept onward, with only the wind and the waves for song.
In her rigging, stays snapped and canvas groaned, but she coursed away, unable to steer, unable to sail, but also unable to sink.
“Come about, Mr. Neale!”
“Aye, sir.”
“Her hull is too strong!” cried Buck from the carronade. “The balls barely crack.”
Thanavar swore in Rhi’Ahr.
“We shall not sink her this way, if we sink her at all.”
“Is she reinforced with magik?” asked Dev as he watched her smoking hull glide off.
“Undoubtedly,” said Thanavar. “But I would have hoped our chimeric-laced shot might have pierced it.”
Dev glanced up.
“Bring us close, Mr. Neale!”
Thanavar cocked his head.