“Please. But be mindful of the cost.” His gaze darted to my arms. “If successful, you could save souls, but not at risk of your own.”
My shoulders straightened.
I wasn’t entirely sure that I could do what he was asking, but I knew I’d be damned if I didn’t try. For him, for me, for theTouchstone. And for this half-patched crew.
Forge, I was getting soft.
“And then, you shall have all the quills and inks and journals you desire,” Thanavar said. He paused as though he wanted to say more but turned away, tossing over a shoulder, “Welcome to the Ship of Spells, Honor Aro’el.”
And with that, he was gone, taking the wind from my sails and leaving me luffed.
I looked at the gunner.
Tomorrow.
Twenty-two guns at thirty balls per gun.
Six hundred and sixty balls, not counting the carronades, chases, and swivels. By tomorrow.
What a foggin’ idiot I was.
Broom clapped me on the back and laughed.
I took a deep breath and got to work.
The sea was rough, the clouds dark and rolling with thunder. We were skimming the Sheets, where water from the Dreadwall turned back across the sky, blanketing the heavens in thick, black cloud and raining itself into the oceans. Soon, it would be constant thunderstorms if we maintained our present course, and I wondered how we’d have a shot with Bilgetown if theweather was against us as well.
I’d laced all six hundred plus balls in eighteen hours, then slept for perhaps ten more before a boom roused me from my bunk. I had sketched the woman figure on the masthead and begun an ink wash portrait of Echo before falling asleep reading my first book from Thanavar’s library. It was calledBending the Runes:Essays in Alchemical Layering, a dry hundred-year-old tome written by Magister Euronius Thibault. I’d found my eyes hovering over the same sentence until they closed entirely. I slept fitfully, restlessly, until the boom.
There was a second, and I scrambled topside to find the cannon aimed at a small, jury-rigged raft pitching in the sea perhaps two hundred yards to port. Broom had clearly been busy, and I leaned over the gunwale to watch.
“Gotta use heavy leathers,” Broom said as he grabbed a chimeric-laced shot with thick gloves. “Burns like the nines.”
I grinned. Like the nines, indeed.
The cannon’s name was Jumping Jak. It was scratched into the iron of the barrel, and I watched as Broom rammed the shot into its muzzle, followed by a wad of cloth. Fine powder was poured into the touch, and all hands rushed to the breech.
“Run ’er out,” he barked, and they rolled the cannon up to the bulwark. In a swift motion, he lit the fuse.
Even after so many months at sea between theDawn Watchand theTouchstone, I wasn’t sure I’d ever be accustomed to the boom of cannons. The roar shatters all sound and rings your ears for days afterward. The cannon jerked, billowing smoke and brimstone, and the ball sailed over the waves, splashing into the water just short of the bobbing raft.
“Ten degrees to fore, Mr. Broom!”
“Aye, Cap’n!” cried Broom. “Ten degrees to fore!”
I glanced over my shoulder to see Thanavar standing between Fahr and Smoke, watching the proceedings from the pup. Hisarms were folded across his chest, and his hair billowed like the dark clouds overhead. Yes, he cut a fine figure, indeed. A blade of steel under a heavy sky.
At his side, Fahr spied me and nodded. Smoke glowered, his eyes daggers under his heavy brow.
TheTouchstoneis a dangerous post, he’d said. Was he angry that I hadn’t listened, or was he jealous that I’d secured a station behind his back?
I swallowed and turned back to the deck.
Broom’s men laid into the cannon, needing all hands to change her angle of shot.
“Run ’er out!” the gunner barked again.
Ball, wad, powder, fuse, and she boomed again. I held my breath as the shot sailed directly for the tiny craft, striking her dead center. A normal ball would have cracked her, but with chimeric, she crackled like lightning. It arced between all pieces until she exploded across the waves. A cheer went up from the crew, and I smiled to myself, proud to have played a part.
