Chapter 42 Run
“Permission to come aboard, Captain?”
Smoke looked down at us from the rail.
“What’s the password?”
“Able,” said Echo, and he flicked his ear.
“And Whack!” shouted Smoke. “Ha! Permission granted, ye sour, baggy-winkled picaroons.”
I grabbed the rope ladder that was dropped down for us and scaled the Marelethan’s black-oiled hull like a monkey.
Echo and Dev came up next, but Neale and his swabs stayed in the longboat and began to lash the line dropped to haul her up.
She was coming back heavy, for we’d dumped the Court of Sand’s belongings and I’d filled each trunk with chimeric.
It seemed a pragmatic strategy, given our current situation and the need to close two stable gaps in succession.
Besides, Dev had said it would be wise to bring a gift to his father, considering he’d scuttled the bargain with the ironmages and outplayed a king with the flash of his smile.
As the Marelethan weighed anchor and began to raise her sails, Dev, Smoke, and I crossed decks to the pup. From there, we could see the Touchstone, careened and silent, in the waters of the bay.
Touchstone? I called to her. Kirianae? Are you there?
There was no response, not even a whisper or a flicker of her sail, and my heart sank at the thought that maybe she was gone.
All this time, all this pain and all this struggle, it had to mean something if not for her.
I had to believe our efforts weren’t in vain.
But if not, if she was truly gone, then at least we had brought her home to rest.
My gaze swung across the beach, to the ironmages casting deep magik on the shores.
The chimeric-heavy air prickled against my skin, sharp as nettles, stinging like wasps. To east and west alike, the walls of Dread began to stir, light rippling across water, runes threading the swells with mounting force.
Each spell struck, as Archaic as the Worldrune’s own web—transection, intersection, dissection, vacillation.
Words older than memory, cutting the sea into pieces and stitching it whole again.
And from both horizons the Dreadwall flared, gleaming with a hundred thousand points of fire, like stars kindled in a sea of night.
In his word, glorious.
“Where’s Thanavar?” asked Smoke, struggling for balance as the sea began to heave.
I pointed up to the masthead, where the winter hawk perched, head low, wings tucked over his back, watching the island with intense focus.
“We have a plan?” he asked with a rise of one bushy brow.
I glanced at Dev. He took a deep breath.
“I think we do,” he said. “The ironmages are going to start repairing the Dreadwall, and we’re going to get the Navy to chase us…”
He scrunched his nose.
“…while we close the Channel behind us.”
Smoke blinked.
“The Channel.”
“Aye,” said Dev.
“This Channel?” asked Smoke, gesturing to the wide swath of water surrounding the island on either side.
I nodded. “Sealing the Cloudgate within the wall and trapping the Rhi’Ahr in the south.”
His expressive eyes widened.
“While the Navy is at our stern?” asked Smoke.
I bit my lip. It did sound like madness. Suns, maybe it was.
“If they’re unlucky or cocky, or if they try to fire on us instead of making knots, then they get caught in the Dreadwall,” Dev said. “But if not, we lead them on a merry chase and hopefully, everyone goes home alive.”
“Racing through the foggin’ Dreadwall with the foggin’ Navy on your foggin’ heels, while you close the biggest foggin’ gap in the entire foggin’ ocean behind you as you go does not foggin’ sound ‘merry,’ Dev,” he groaned, and he ran a hand over his forehead.
“What if we’re caught in the Dreadwall as well? ”
“We die,” said Dev. “In spectacular fashion.”
“Oh,” said Smoke. “Oh my.”
What magik, to have silenced his elegantly profane tongue.
“I’ll definitely need more rum for that.” And he swung around and marched down to the main, shouting orders as he went.
The canvas thundered as they caught the wind, and the Marelethan glided out of the bay as swift as a sailfin.
The wind was behind us, and we were making full sail.
A “run,” it was called, when you sailed with the wind.
You went fast and you went far, and you made knots by harnessing the rushing bank of air.
I smiled to myself at the irony. Sometimes I fought. Sometimes I ran. I’d fought all these last months. Now was the time to run.
That wind was strong now, almost a gale, as we neared the Channel between the walls of the Dread. Waves were rough, the currents clipping, when suddenly, there was a flash of white as Kier dropped to the deck. He strode up beside me, saying nothing, eyes fixed on the island even still.
“I’ll gather the spinners and let Smoke know the course,” said Dev, loud enough to be heard over the wind and the Dreadwall. He turned to the masts but paused and threw a look over his shoulder. “I don’t know if this will work, but…”
He nodded swiftly, first at Kier, then at me.
“Your future king says, ‘Well done.’”
And with that, he headed off to assemble the crew.
I looked up at Kier. His eyes were shadowed, his mouth tight, and his sea-dark hair whipped across his noble brow.
“I do not know if they have the strength, Aro’el,” he said. “The spells they are weaving are Archaic. It will take time for them to cast enough magik to summon the Dreadwall.”
“We just need to buy them the time they need,” I said. “Trust me, my mother is stubborn enough to succeed on sheer will alone.”
He glanced down at me, and his lips twitched. “Like her daughter.”
“Just like her daughter.” And I beamed at him.
The Marelethan’s sails thundered as the boom swung port, and we both looked up just as the ship banked hard.
The Dreadwall loomed ahead, its furious, glittering waters raging to the skies, and we tacked port at the very last minute, heeling deep in the currents, the spray of the Dreadwall stinging and sharp.
“First we fight, then we run,” Kier said, loud enough to be heard over the impossible roar.
“Both wise courses, I’ve been told.” I grinned.
The winds snatched my hair, blew it into and out of my eyes. Hiding and seeking, chasing and found.
We stepped apart, braced our feet.
“Thrum and Call,” barked Fahr from the mizzen. “Both crews, if you please.”
Seamages took their positions, and Kier raised his hands, holding them out in the direction of the breach, fingers dancing with pattern and light. His eyes locked on mine, and my heart hammered in my chest. My entire body was alive with rune, wild with purpose and duty and calling.
All because I’d been pulled from the sea by the Ship of Spells and loved by a man with the heart of a hawk.
“Are you ready to change the world, Aro’el?” he bellowed.
“Aye, Captain,” I cried.
I would never forget his smile that day. It was as glorious as two suns.
“Thryh’siahr tryo’visseth!”
He flung the pattern at me, and I caught it, my knees nearly buckling from the force.
Suns, he was powerful. But I wouldn’t fail him.
I was as stubborn as he believed. I closed my eyes, now, as the runes seared my palms and burned my bones.
It set my muscles aflame and devoured my thoughts in wonder and strength.
In wave after wave, I sent chimeric into the weave, augmenting his spell until it was a huge, spiralling, spinning web of magik, sizzling within my runescarred hands.
“Now!” he cried.
With a scream, I spun around and swung my arms, hurling the spell into the Dreadwall that raged on our starboard side.
Like a match to a fuse, the Dreadwall caught fire.
Mures cadara merae, Circulus formidablant, Lluna Lyrik e Lore,
Al soli, Weilith cywilimmor, cylithovin, Al soli, lyeud, limmor.
Rise up, rise up, Dread Wall of the Sea, of Luna, Lyrik, and Lore,
Gift of the Suns, be still, be strong. For good or for ill, be strong.
I could hear it in my bones as I augmented and cast. Somehow, I understood it.
It was a song of creation, sung in the tongues of both helms, and to its tune, the Cloudgate made music that day.
Patterns danced and swayed with magik. The waters pulsed with life and power.
And the chimeric responded, swirling through the currents, billowing up to roll its way to the moons above.
I saw the strings of the Worldrune, plucked in archaic rhythm. I saw the oceans like lines in the sand, drawn, erased, and redrawn by the tides. The erthe was calling and the sea called back, and the Dreadwall began to heal.
They were doing it. I knew it like I knew my own body. From the little roaming spit of land called Lindurithain, I knew the iromages cast, ebbing and flowing to the wylde, archaic spells they wove.
And we were doing it, too. This inner wall of Dread shimmered like a winter night, when stars and snowflakes would dance across the skies.
The Marelethan maintained a steady course south, following the curve of the Dreadwall as it surrounded the Cloudgate, and we peppered her runepoints with chimeric.
We would brace this inner ring. We had to.
It had to obey when the ironmages cast the call to close the gap, causing the Dreadwall to pull itself around the island like a curtain and effectively cutting off all access forever. It was a bold, grand, audacious plan.
And Forge, I prayed it would work.
The Templemore was on our stern, along with her man-of-war fleet.
She hadn’t fired or loosed her guns, and I think Bracebridge knew he was out of his depth, with Dreadmages, ironmages, and runechasers in the fray.
Or maybe he could sense we were trying to repair the Dreadwall and usher in a boon for his career.
Regardless, I was grateful that he didn’t move to engage as we sailed the rough waters along the rim.
The last thing we needed was cannon fire at our tail.
I remembered that terror the last time we were escaping a gap.