“We may not have time,” Rias said.
Tikaya lifted her chin. “We’ll make time.”
His eyebrows flicked upward, but the surprise lasted only a second. He nodded once and gave her a Turgonian salute, a fist thumped over his heart. “Yes, ma’am.”
“Jeela, is it done?” a tinny voice asked from the center of the room.
As one they stared at the dead practitioner. The voice emanated from within her black robe.
Rias pointed his cutlass. “Can you answer that?”
“Uhm.” Tikaya knelt by the dead woman, trying not to look at the bloody stump where the head should have been, and patted the blood-sodden robe. She found a glowing opal pendant, the chain broken, just as the voice spoke again.
“Is the Kyattese girl dead? Jeela, do you need help?”
Though her education in the mental sciences was not ecumenical, she could sense the soft hum of a practitioner-made device. She held it up to her mouth, then waved at Rias and mouthed, “Make some noise.”
She partially covered the device with her hand, hoping to disguise the fact that her voice would not match the practitioner’s, and spoke in Nurian: “Yes, mission complete. She’s dead.” Then, fearing further conversation would only hurt her chances at pulling off the ruse, she dropped the device on the deck, so it clanked against the wood.
“I doubt that fooled anyone,” she apologized to Rias as they exited.
The grim cast to his eyes suggested he agreed, but all he said was, “We’d best hurry.”
CHAPTER 6
The Nurian captain’s cabin offered a distinct contrast to Bocrest’s quarters. Behind a desk painted with flowers and vines, lace curtains decorated a bank of windows. Velvet furniture and lush rugs covering the deck might have invited one to lounge, but the cannons booming in the distance suppressed the cozy parlor ambiance.
Tikaya and Rias slid inside, shutting the door behind them. For the moment, the Nurians were busy attacking—and defending against—Bocrest’s warship, but sooner or later someone would figure out “Jeela” had failed her mission.
“Check those trunks.” Rias jogged around the desk to the windows. “Let me know if you can tell if the captain is a wizard or not. If he is, he’ll likely have wards protecting his orders.”
Tikaya threw open the trunks and lifted a sword and a lacy brassiere. “I believe she’s a warrior.”
“Should be safe to search then.” Rias tore his gaze from the windows and cocked an eyebrow at the lingerie. “Unless you want to model that for me first?”
Startled, she dropped the sword. The hilt banged onto her sandaled foot.
Rias winced and lifted an apologetic hand. “Sorry, I, er, two years, you know.”
“It’s fine.” Cheeks warming, she threw the sword back in the trunk, relieved she had not cut off any toes. “I’ll just, uhm, find those orders now.”
Tikaya yanked open a desk drawer and rummaged through letters and supply receipts. Out of the corner of her eye, she caught Rias shaking his head, fingers splayed across his face, before he turned back to the window. A grin tugged at her lips.
A moment later, he found his fearless-soldier-in-charge tone and reported: “All four Nurian ships are even with the Emperor’s Fist now, two on each side. Bocrest is doing damage, but...if we’re going to help, it’ll have to be soon.”
Tikaya tried another drawer. She wanted those orders, and she wanted them to say something significant to justify detouring here. Rias helped her search, checking cupboards under the bunk, but she sensed restless energy emanating from him. He wanted to assist his people, though she could not imagine how he planned to take over the ship.
Under a pile of log books in the bottom drawer, she found a parchment displaying lines of gibberish. “Got it. Encrypted though.” She tapped the nonsensical Nurian letters. “Given enough time, I can work it out, but it’d be helpful to have the key. The captain ought to have it, right?”
“Yes.” Rias joined her at the desk and opened and closed all the drawers.
“I already looked in there.”
He paused at the lower one, yanked it clear, dumped the contents on the deck, and ripped out the bottom. His vandalism revealed a secret compartment from which he plucked another sheet of parchment.
“Guess my looking skills need improvement,” Tikaya murmured.
“I get suspicious when inside dimensions don’t match outside ones.”
“Ah.” She laid both sheets on the desk and quickly memorized the key.
The clanging of a bell echoed through the ship. More footsteps pounded, this time on their deck instead of above.
“Alarm,” Rias said. “They know we escaped. Take that with us. We’re out of time.”
“Wait, I’ve got it.”
“Already? How could you...”
She skipped the introduction and translated the meat of the orders: “‘Search and destroy the Emperor’s Fist before it reaches the Northern Frontier. If any artifacts with strange symbols are found, sink them in the ocean. Use extreme caution in handling them. Do not bring them home and do not try to destroy them.’”
“Honored ancestors,” Rias murmured. “What have my people uncovered?”
“’In addition,’” Tikaya finished grimly, “‘the Kyattese linguist allied with the Turgonians must be killed at all costs.’” Allied? She was no cursed Turgonian ally.
The windows exploded.
Rias tore Tikaya off her feet before she knew what was happening. Wood cracked louder than thunder. Rias came down on top of her, protecting her with his body. Glass and splinters rained about them, tinkling as they hit the deck.
“What was that?” Tikaya asked when her heart left throat. Wind whistled into the cabin.
Rias pulled her up. He nodded to a cannonball lodged in the bulkhead perpendicular to the broken window. “Friendly fire.”
She gulped and plucked a shard of glass out of the side of his neck. “Glad your reflexes are faster than mine. Thank you.”
“Welcome.” He shook more glass from his jacket, then headed for the door. “Still got my back?”
“Of course.” Tikaya grabbed her bow.
They had reached the captain’s cabin without trouble, but, with the alarm clanging, search parties clogged their deck. Fortunately, Rias seemed to know the layout of the Nurian vessel as well as the Turgonian ironclad. They hid in cabins and shadowy nooks to avoid men before slipping down a ladder to the deck below.
“How’re we taking over the ship from down here?” Tikaya whispered, neck bent to keep from clunking her head on the ceiling.
Rias’s shoulders brushed the walls as they crept single-file down a dim passageway. “This is a Nurian striker. Not a big vessel. I think I can handle the tiller by myself. It should be located...there.”
He pointed at a door marking the end of the corridor. He jogged past a ladder well and charged inside, cutlass leading.
As Tikaya passed the ladder, movement stirred the shadows. A woman dropped from above, legs swinging out to wrap around Tikaya.
“Rias!” she called.
Steel rang out in the tiller room. He was busy.
The Nurian tried to pull Tikaya into the ladder well with powerful legs. For a woman, she had surprising bulk and muscle. Tikaya spread her stance and braced herself against the wall. She tried to maneuver her bow to prod the woman loose from the rungs, but it proved too unwieldy for the tight passage.
The Nurian woman released the ladder and threw her arms around Tikaya. The momentum slammed Tikaya back into the wall. A second form dropped into view in the ladder well—a black-robed man.
“Who’s got my back?” Tikaya cried as the woman plucked a dagger from between her teeth.
She released the bow and tried to knock the blade away. Sharp steel bit into her arm.
The practitioner hanging on the ladder narrowed his eyes in concentration. The female fighter clung to Tikaya with one hand and raised the dagger again with the other.
Tikaya bit the arm wrapped around her shoulders. The woman hissed and her grip softened. Tikaya pushed off the wall and tried to shove her foe into the ladder well. The move jostled the practitioner. He cursed, his concentration disturbed, but the woman stuck to Tikaya like a tick. She raised her knife again.
A hand caught the Nurian’s wrist, and Rias yanked her away. Tikaya stumbled and went down. Arrows spilled from her quiver.
The practitioner leapt on top of her, a dagger held aloft. Tikaya grabbed an arrow and rammed it into his gut. Luckily, it was the pointy end.
Eyes bulging, the practitioner reeled back. He dropped the dagger and clutched the arrow in his belly.
Before Tikaya could decide if she was safe, Rias loomed behind the practitioner. He wound up and swept the cutlass through flesh, muscle, and bone. The Nurian’s head fell onto Tikaya.
“Errkt!” She shoved it off and scrambled away. Panting, she pressed a hand against the wall for support.
“I’ve got your back.” Rias raked her with his gaze. “Are you injured?”
“Not...severely,” she said numbly, staring at the decapitated practitioner. “How—why do you do that?” It came out more accusatory than she meant. Or maybe not. He had just saved her life—again—and she did not want to sound ungrateful, but, damn, it was chilling when the man on her side was more fearsome than those trying to murder her.
Rias turned her away from the decapitated practitioner and nodded toward the tiller room. “I’ve seen too many wizards I thought dead heal themselves and later come back after my men. As to how...” He ducked low to enter. “If you’re ever in the imperial capital’s war library, look up Applications of the Kinetic Chain Principle in Close Combat. I wrote it for Lord General Micacrest during my final year of studies, and parts are now used by the military training academies. Not scintillating reading, I’ll admit, but it covers everything from breaking boards with a punch to—”
“Beheading people?” She trailed him inside, also ducking for the hatch.
“That’s not listed in the table of contents, but, essentially, yes.”
A pair of glowing orbs in sconces by the door illuminated the interior, though even without them Tikaya would have noticed the matching ragged holes adorning the exterior walls of the wedge-shaped compartment. A cannonball had gone straight through, leaving uneven gaps more than two feet in diameter. Wind shrieked, and water splattered the deck, pooling and running with the rocking of the ship.
“That doesn’t look good,” she muttered, before noticing a dead warrior on the deck, short sword still clutched in his grip.
“Actually...” Rias shut the door and peered out both gaps. He lingered on one side and kicked out a few broken boards to enlarge it. “It’s fortuitous since there aren’t portholes in here. There’s the other Nurian vessel on this flank, and I see the Fist’s smokestacks beyond it.”
He strode to one of the block and tackles stretched from either side of the long metal tiller. They allowed manual access, though control ropes disappeared through the ceiling to connect to the wheel on the upper deck.
Rias grabbed one of the ropes and readied his cutlass. “They’ll know right away they’ve lost wheel control, and half the crew will probably charge down here.”
“I see, and how will we stop them from killing us?”
“Let me know when you figure it out.” At odds with the seriousness of the situation, a mischievous glint warmed his eyes. “It’s going to take all my strength to man the tiller.”
He sliced through the control ropes even as she blurted, “You’re crazy!”
Rias unhooked the end of the rope on the starboard block and tackle, glanced at measurements on the wall above the tiller, and sank into a low stance to pull. Inch by inch the great lever shifted, and the ship leaned, cutting across the waves in a new direction.
Tikaya hunted for something to block the door that she would surely be defending in a moment. Alas, there was no convenient beam for barring it shut—probably so people could not do what they were attempting.
She pushed a trunk full of spare rope to the door. Forcing queasiness aside in favor of practicality, she muscled the dead Nurian’s body on top of it to add weight.
“Where exactly are you steering us?” she panted.
Rias was a statue, leaning back, arms extended, fingers wrapped around the rope, tendons taut with the strain, but he grinned at her nonetheless. “The closest Nurian ship.”
“Oh, dear.”
A fist hammered at the door.
“The Turgonians cut the ropes,” Tikaya yelled in Nurian. “We’re taking care of it. They ran to the hold!”
A long pause answered her, and, for a moment, she thought they might believe her. Then synchronized thuds struck the door.
“A nice try,” Rias said, and she wondered how much Nurian he understood.
The chest skidded with each strike. She shoved it back in between blows.
“Get a ram,” someone yelled.
“Better ready that bow,” Rias said.
“If we’re successful in crashing this ship, how are we getting out of here?” Tikaya asked.
Rias nodded toward the cannonball holes. “Hope you can swim.”
She groaned.
For a moment, the thumps at the door stopped. Tikaya abandoned the chest and looked out the hole. They had halved the distance between themselves and the other Nurian ship, where a fire burned on the deck. People were scurrying to put it out.
“Are they tacking?” Rias asked. “Do I need to make adjustments?”
“Not yet. You’re dead on, and they’re busy. Not sure they’ve figured things out yet.”
“Let’s hope.”
The hairs rose on the back of Tikaya’s neck. Before she could shout a warning, a wave of power surged at the door. The trunk and body were flung into the room.
While nocking an arrow, Tikaya tried to shut the door with her shoulder. Warped hinges kept it from closing fully, and someone thrust it wide.
She jumped around and fired the bow, point blank, into the lead man’s chest. Shocked eyes launched an accusation at her. She forced aside guilt and kicked him into others trying to surge forward. While they struggled to get around their dying comrade, she targeted a practitioner in the corridor behind them. Her arrow sailed over the heads of men shorter than she, but bounced harmlessly off an invisible shield. The practitioner never flinched.
The Nurians cleared the fallen man away, and their renewed push demanded Tikaya’s attention. The corridor and door were too narrow for more than one to attack at once, but the seconds it took to nock and aim arrows let them push her back.
“Rias! I can’t—”
Then he was there at her side, the slashing cutlass a wall of steel guarding the doorway. He had tied the rope to the other block and tackle. The lever wavered with the rocking of the ship, but hopefully they were close enough now that their course was inevitable.
“Get in there, you fools!” the practitioner shouted. “We’re on a crash course!”
An arrow clipped the doorjamb and whizzed past Tikaya’s head. Every time she found the opportunity, she shot around Rias, peppering their attackers. Her supply of arrows dwindled.
“This is madness,” she yelled over the clamor.
“Yes!” Rias grinned at her, as if he loved every second.
A gifted swordsman made it to the front. Blade a blur, he forced Rias back.
Metal screeched in Tikaya’s ears. She drew the bow, hoping for a clear shot. Two men slipped in behind the swordsman. Tikaya shot one, but more piled inside.
A thunderous crash buried the din, and the ship lurched and tilted on its side. Men scrambled and fell over each other, sliding toward the lower wall. Tikaya tumbled into Rias, but he grabbed the jamb and kept them from falling. Even in the stern of the ship, the cracks of wood breaking against wood were audible. Water gushed in from one of the cannonball holes, which was now submerged. Men flailed and floundered, struggling to get back to
the door.
“I can’t swim!” someone yelled.
“Time to go,” Rias said.
Tikaya grabbed one of the glowing orbs from a sconce before he pushed her toward the upper wall. They had to pull their way along the block and tackle to reach the escape hole. Though the orb hampered her, she refused to release it.
Finally, with Rias’s help, she clawed her way through the hole. The ragged wood tore a new gash in her beleaguered dress, but she wriggled free and slid down the hull into frigid black water.
The icy shock stole her breath. Salt stung her wounds, and she almost dropped the orb.
Rias plunged in beside her, spraying water.
The Nurian striker had rammed into the side of its sister ship, and water gushed into a great hole in the hull. Fire still burned on the deck, lighting up the night. Timber, from splinters to broken beams, littered the water.
“This way.” Rias swam away from the ships, pushing the large pieces of wood out of the way.
“You sure you don’t want to stay?” She was already swimming, side-stroking with the orb clutched against her hip. “You seemed to enjoy having people trying to kill you.”
“You seemed to enjoy it less.”
“Probably—” she spit icy salt water out of her mouth, “—an acquired taste.”
They paddled away from the ships, rising and falling with the waves. Both vessels burned now and flames crawled up the sails of one. Neither would trouble the Turgonians again that night. As they swam out of the shadow of the Nurian vessels, the ironclad came into view. Only one of the two ships on its opposite flank remained, and both masts had been toppled, so it was falling behind. Tikaya and Rias, too, were falling behind. Her chest tightened at the idea of being left in the middle of the sea.
“Hope they see this.” Tikaya lifted the glowing orb overhead, waving it in the air.
“Me too,” Rias said.
The lookout in the crow’s nest shouted something down to the deck. Tikaya’s teeth chattered, and it felt as if hours, not minutes, passed before the warship dropped a boat.
“It’s fortunate you’re here,” Rias said, bumping her arm as they treaded water. “I doubt they would have bothered coming for me.”