“There’s more than one.” Shiner burps and leans against the hull beside me. “How many krakens are there?”
“No idea, but Hook said it’s their mating season. They’re here to—”
“Do the deed with tentacles?” She dry heaves again.
“Sorry. Just breathe.” I rub her back, then fall into her when the ship is hit again.
“Coming through!” Cookson rolls a barrel by us. He can really move when he wants to.
The air is thick with the smell of burnt gunpowder, and the booms of the cannons don’t stop.
“Maybe we should help?” I ask Shiner.
“When I catch my breath.” She nods. “I’ll help. We can get a barrel from the back and roll—”
I’m on my ass, and my ears are ringing. How did I get on my ass? I look around as cold water sloshes into my lap.
“Moira!” Shiner is in my face yelling my name, but I can barely hear her over the ringing in my ears. She pulls me up to my feet and looks me over. Swiping at my face, her fingers come back bloody.
“What happened?” I rub my ears.
Shiner points to a black cannonball lodged in the beam I’d been leaning on earlier.
“Anne is stillshootingat us?”
Another burst of water surges through a hole in the hull that penetrates through to the lower deck and out to the sea.Oh, shit.
Cookson stomps up with a barrel, which he promptly breaks. “Cecco! Where’s the hammer?”
Cecco rushes past, then returns with a rusty hammer and a handful of nails. Working together, Cookson and Cecco patch the hole as best they can, but they’re fighting against the constant onslaught of the waves, made worse by the tentacles pulling the ship down into the water.
“We can do this.” Shiner points to the cannons.
With Cecco and Cookson occupied, the ones on this side of the ship are silent now.
“Come on!” Shiner pulls me toward one. “I’ll get the powder in. Can you find a ball?” She reaches into the nearest barrel and comes out with a metal scoop full of black powder. It smells like fireworks and July nights back when my mother was still lucid. But now, that scent means only war.
The lanterns overhead sway precariously, but I don’t stop to question the wisdom of having burning flames overhead when there are barrels of black powder just beneath them. Maybe I’d rather be blown to bits than digested in the stomach of a kraken, anyway.
I don’t see any balls, so I drop to all fours and crawl forward, looking beneath the cannons as Cecco and Cookson curse and hammer behind me. When the ship lists to one side again, a ball rolls past me. I jump on it, stopping its progress, but that’s when I realize I can’t lift it. Instead, I roll it over to the cannon Shiner’s working on.
“Shiner!” I scream when a thin tentacle darts through the opening where the cannon sticks out from the side of the ship.
She whirls and buries a dagger into it, pinning it to the hull. It pulls away, splitting itself in two and leaving a smear of purple blood as it disappears back out the window.
“Thanks.” She bends down, and together we lift the cannonball and load it into the barrel.
My joints ache, my head going woozy from the effort of it. I stand back and gulp in air as Shiner turns a crank that sends the cannon back out the window.
“How do we light it?” I look around but don’t see any matches.
“Use the quill!” Cecco points to a wire cage full of what looks like feather quills. “Then the flint.”
“Got it!” I grab a quill and stare at the cannon.
“In the breech hole!” Cecco yells.
“Breech hole? What’s a breech hole?” I look up at Shiner.
