My hands were numb, and I was tired. So tired. But now was not the time to start giving up. I’d never been taught an open spell, but I could sure burn it down with anIgnateus.
“Buck!” came a cry from the docks.
Just like at Flogger’s Bay, I turned to see Fahr racing after us. He sprinted along the walkway, leaping over split planks and ducking under tilting yards. He was still a considerable distance behind us when I saw a second man barreling after him in pursuit. It was Polley, his catskin vest seared onto his chest, and I could have sworn the white skull was no longer paint.
I waved a hand, lifting the hold in that one spot, and the dock collapsed beneath the big man’s feet. He plunged into the miry water and disappeared as an entire cabin floor fell on him, a sliding gift from the deck above.
Fahr did not slow as he rushed toward us, and my heart leaped to my throat as he launched himself from the shattered dock. He cleared the canal to land amidships with a thud, and Buck grabbed his arm to steady him. The mate wiped the rain from his eyes and turned to face the gate, hands high, fingers dancing. The gate shuddered and began to glow.
“Told you they wouldn’t shoot me,” he said with a grin. “An assist, please! Let’s open this Forge-damned gate!”
And he flung a spell at me. I caught it out of instinct more than strength, not knowing what it was but not needing to. It was my job to augment and expand, and that’s what I did, but this time, when I growled and flung the pattern toward the gate, I sent chimeric along with it.
The gate crackled with runic light and shattered outward in a spray of wood and iron. Through the gate and the pelting rain, I could see smoke as Bilgetown’s twelve ships aimed to sink theTouchstone.
She did not return fire.
“Take us through, Mr. Buck,” said Fahr, and the longboat surged forward, out through the Bilgegate into the stormy sea.
A single blast with three echoes rang out from behind, and Fahr pitched forward, toppling over the side. I lunged, grabbing the corner of his coat, but his weight yanked me off my feet and into the waters after him. Head and shoulders, arms and chest, I followed him into the black swell, and chimeric boomed along with me. I flailed underwater against the current and the tow but was stopped short by a hand at my ankle. My arms popped from my shoulders and water rushed into my lungs, threatening to burst my chest and split my skull, but my fingers were locked on the coat. I remembered theDawn Watchand the powder boy, and I would not let go. I hadn’t saved Corwen. I’d be damned if I didn’t save Fahr.
It seemed like forever caught in the churning, crushing sea, but the bosun dragged us both back over the side. Blood slicked across the hull, and when we rolled him over, Fahr spat out a mouthful of red.
“He shot me,” he hissed. “Forge, he shot me!”
I glanced over my shoulder. Braced on the edge of the gate, Polley grew smaller as we left the waters of Bilgetown, his skull paint streaked, the flint smoking at his side. He’d only had one shot, but three lead pellets, and he had made each one of them count.
Fahr pushed to his knees, but I pushed him back, searching for and finding the holes under his shoulder blade.
“Be still,” I said. “Moving spills the blood.”
Cannon fire boomed from twelve directions, and theTouchstone’s hull erupted under the hail.
“We need to…” He coughed. “Smoke.”
He raised a bloody hand to touch his temple.
“Echo, tell Smoke we’re clear…”
There was blood on his tongue.
“We can talk to Echo,” I said. “What do we say? Dev?”
We were losing him.
I looked up at the bosun. He shook his head.
“Minotaurs can’t talk to fauns,” he said.
I remembered Echo’s voice in my head.Run dark, crew, please, he had said.Your thoughts are very loud, he had said.
Echo, fire, I thought as loudly as I could.Echo, tell Smoke to fire.
I think, at that moment, I may have prayed.
Suddenly, theTouchstoneboomed, but it was like nothing I’d ever seen before. Three of her cannons fired simultaneously—starboard, port, and stern—and the shots hit three of the Bilgetown Twelve, one in the middle, two near the ends. Chimeric flared, racing along the hulls in succession and lighting the sails of all three.
Fire again, I urged silently.And again and again.I had laced over six hundred balls. There was plenty of stock, but they only shot three. Each cannonball exploded in succession, sending wood, iron, and chimeric into the black clouds above. I narrowed my eyes at the sight of the chimeric, however, racing along the chains like a lit fuse, and I watched in horror as the three ships began to roll. And as they did, they began to pull the others with them.
