And, no surprise, the Deltans sailing an enormous circle around the Middle Beach shoal. “Looking out for us babies,” Foam muttered. Tension was building in him like summer lightning.
They were almost at the docks. Shale lashed their sail and stood peering into the gloom ahead, holding the boom so the gooseneck wouldn’t squeak against the mast.
Every eye was on the docks, searching for the fleet of rafts. It was surprisingly dark; the wall Twist had built around Delta blocked much of the city’s torchlight.
Ah—the Dolphin had found a raft. Foam watched as Seven washed silently alongside. Someone leaned out, and Foam imagined the stealthy dribble of oil.
His own boat rocked, surprising a splash from the waves. He bit back a curse as Shale, still holding the boom, bent down and murmured something in Keel’s ear.
Keel shook his head.
Foam let his boat peel softly back into the night. Dread clogged his lungs and he forced himself to take a deep breath.
Shale whispered again, fiercely.
Suddenly Keel nodded. He lowered his jar of oil gently overboard. His mate started to do the same.
The night groaned with the rending noise of wood grinding against wood, horribly loud. A voice called, and then another. Shouts hurried back from the dock.
Foam wrenched his prow to the Dolphin’s stern; when Shale thought the moment right, she would let out the sail and they could follow Seven out of the lagoon. Not yet, though; Seven’s crew were desperately splashing oil on a second raft, no longer trying to be silent.
A gong began beating above the docks. A flint clicked once, twice. A torch caught in Seven’s boat and was hurled onto the nearest raft.
“Idiot!” Shale swore.
The huge grinding noises continued to port, where Brine’s ship had vanished in the darkness. What had happened? Had he somehow smashed into the dock?
Oh. Oh, no.
“The ships,” Foam breathed. “Fathom! The scuttled ships. They left them in the water.”
Brine’s crew grunted hysterically, trying to push clear of the wreckage, sobbing, no point in silence now, as the gong tolled and Foam could see as clearly as if he were there, the Arrow’s keel trapped on the railing of some sunken Deltan yacht.
A glowing ball of fire arced from the shore and smashed into flames just ahead of Seven’s mast. For one eternal moment he watched Shoal topple overboard, coated in resinous fire. Answering fire burst from the remaining oil jar. The man holding it shrieked, disappearing behind a shroud of roaring white flame.
A heavy rumble thundered from three places at once. It was loudest ahead and to starboard, but the tumbling, crashing sound rolled from the other side of the Foot, and, faintly, from behind them.
Seven’s second oiler saved himself by jumping for the bow; a curtain of flame danced between him and his captain. “Sheet!” Seven roared, praying he could make the strait before he had to abandon ship. Another ball of fire came crackling overhead, and flames swept over an oiled raft. The heat was devouring. Seven pressed himself against his transom.
The rolling thunder ended in a series of terrific splashes.
The gong still hammered. A river of torches streamed down the hillside to the docks.
Shale let out their sail. Before her, Seven’s blazing boat was now adrift. Streamers of flame ate away the Dolphin’s mainsail and licked up her mast.
Fire fountained from the docks and splashed into the Arrow just as she swung free of her obstruction.
Foam was gaining fast on Seven’s burning boat; it had stopped dead in the water. Couldn’t be the current, Foam thought, panicking. Too sudden.
The night was full of torches and the sound of running feet.
Hidden in darkness behind Seven and Brine, Foam had escaped the woodlanders’ notice. But now the Dolphin was a blazing pyre. Foam yanked his tiller to the side as he saw Seven’s boat jerk to a stop. Seconds later a ball of burning pitch ploughed into the water where their bow had been.
“Logjam!” Shale screamed. “They’ve jammed the channel! Swim for it!”
The inferno’s roar deafened Seven; its heat lashed his face and hands. Sudden understanding broke over him. The woodlanders had rolled hundreds of logs into the channels to block their escape. The Vein’s current was pushing the jam into the islander boats.
The Arrow was lost. The Dolphin’s crew was dead, or dying.
Hazel Twist had been waiting for him.
He vaulted backwards over the transom. Cold water blessed his burning face. He kicked down as light exploded above him and a globe of boiling pitch plunged into the sea. The knife strapped to the inside of his left arm wobbled, threatening to slide loose.
Shale hit the water first; Keel and Foam followed. The other oiler hesitated. Someone shouted, “Surrender! You will not be harmed!” and he cowered in the drifting ship, hating himself.
* * *
In the blackness beneath the waves Shale tried to use the Vein’s current as a guide. A few more strokes underwater yet. She did not dare to be seen.
Light flared ahead of her and to the left; another fireball. She thought she saw a leg kicking away and turned to follow.
Just a few . . .
Her lungs screamed and her chest bucked, desperate for air. Without it her limbs turned to wood, then iron. She had been underwater forever.
Just a few more strokes.
Seven surfaced quietly. Two gulping breaths, then under again. His ship was wrapped in a shroud of flame. He was still too close, and the Spearpoint shore looked very far away. He angled toward it, away from the Foot. Pushed by the Vein’s current, logs bobbed and ground ever closer, coming after him.
The swim was a long, dreamlike torture for Foam. Time after time he dove into the black water, and time after time he surfaced, gasping for breath, into a storm of sound: roaring flames, calls and orders, the beating gong. Away to the left, an endless scream. The Spearpoint shore seemed no closer. He thought he saw Shale once, her head bobbing up sleek as an otter’s just as he was diving. And one time he saw Keel, eyes wide with fear, weirdly visible in the firelight. He had gotten off course and surfaced next to the burning hulk of Seven’s ship. The first logs bumped slowly around him.
At last Seven felt the sea’s floor rise beneath his feet.
Luck was against him. There were soldiers on Spearpoint too, though many fewer than on the Foot. He could see one, patrolling this strip of beach. Seven drifted tiredly, wondering how he could get out of the water fast enough to silence the sentry before he could raise the alarm. Wondering if Hazel Twist had thought of everything.
Heavy wooden gongbeats thudded through the night air. The guard turned and began to walk back along the beach, peering out at the water. He did not carry a torch. Seven cursed silently. His master, Switch, had had eyes like an owl in the dark; probably a woodlander trait. Besides, Twist was smart. He would have told his men to avoid night blindness, and trust to their ears.
There was the throwing knife strapped to Seven’s left arm. He was good with it, but only at short range. He would have to get close.
The sentinel was very near now. Seven dipped his head underwater. He was still too far out to risk anything. He counted slowly to ten, then let his head rise into the air. The guard was now fifteen paces to his left, almost at the promontory which marked the edge of this stretch of beach. Seven faded into shore, crouching double to keep his shoulders below the water line.
There was a ripple in the water to his right, and a faint gasp. Seven tensed.
The guard heard it too.
Seven crouched even lower, his knees against his chest, spreading his legs apart to resist the tide pushing him into shore. He slipped the knife from its sheath.
The sentry came forward, every step a lesson in caution. His feet ground small noises from the seashells and coarse sand.
Seven closed his eyes lest the torchlight from the buildings on the bluff spark a telltale reflection.
His nerves crawled as th
e footsteps approached, then hesitated. One step farther to the right. Then another.
Seven opened his eyes. The soldier was staring fixedly out at the dark sea. There was a soft plop, like something slipping below the surface. It might have been a fish.
Seven reminded himself that his arm would drip if he paused in his throw. He took a long, silent breath, then lifted his arm clear as he began to exhale, bringing the knife back to his ear. A line of drops pattered from his elbow. His arm lashed like a whip.
The guard turned at the sound of dripping water and caught the knife in his throat. His eyes bulged and he tried to scream. Air bubbled through the blood around the blade. He fell forward with his face at the water line, feet scrabbling against the shells. Gasping for air, he jerked the knife out. A fountain of blood followed his hands like a conjurer’s scarf, and he lost consciousness.
Seven rose from the black water and waded into shore, listening for approaching guards. Quickly he searched his victim’s body, trying not to look at his face.
“Seven?”
“Shale?”
She rose unsteadily from the water. “That swim was longer than I—”
He held up his hand.
Footsteps approached quickly from their left. A soft voice called, “Bone. Come here. I think someone is trying to land.” The steps faded away again.
Seven met Shale’s eyes, then slid Bone’s sword from its scabbard. With discreet, confident steps he walked to their left: a friend coming to investigate.
Shale waited, tense as a hawser in a gale. She cleaned Seven’s throwing knife on Bone’s shirt and then walked around the promontory.
Seven was helping Foam out of the water. The corpse of another sentry lay leaking on the strand. Shale joined them. Wordlessly she held out Seven’s knife. He nodded and strapped it back under his left arm.
At least he knew where they were. There was a path nearby; he had used it hundreds of times before, when this stretch of beach had been one of his early practice areas. He willed away exhaustion and led the others up the hill.
“Keel?” Foam breathed.
Shale shook her head.
Back on the Foot a gong still tolled. Buffeted by logs and current, three islander ships drifted on the black water, blazing furiously, floating pyres for their dead.
* * *
Hazel Twist woke to the sound of the gong. He was just pulling on his boots when Spear knocked on his bedroom door.
“Enter.”
His subaltern strode in and bowed. “You are a genius, sir.”
Hazel Twist coughed and sat slowly upright. “I’m a tired, middle-aged man, Lieutenant. Little more. They came?”
“They came and we caught them. It was magic.”
Hazel Twist snorted. “I cannot share your wonder at the inevitable. Tell me as we go.” Twist stood and patted his pockets absently, looking for his pipe. Misplaced. Oh, well. He would see to it later.
Ash Spear bowed him out the door. “They came in three ships, sir, though at first the men saw only two. Quiet as the wind. They are unearthly good sailors, I’ll give them that.”
“They would choose their best.”
“Of course, sir. Happily, good sailing is no match for good generalship.” Spear’s jubilant voice billowed in the old warehouse. A couple of half-dressed sentries stopped chatting and snapped to attention as Twist walked by. “Rowan Cricket thought he saw something, but he wasn’t sure. Then one of their boats started making a noise like a tree cracking in a storm. We figure he must have run over one of the ships they sank.”
“That was lucky.”
“We would have had them, anyway. We had two of them pinned right away. They were going for the rafts, just as you said they would. We got a direct hit on one with our first shot. By the time we cut the logs, both ships were burning badly.”
“And the third?” They stepped out into the moonlight. The gong had ceased to sound.
“Abandoned, except for one man. Couldn’t nerve himself to jump, so we offered quarter.”
Twist nodded. “Good. How about the others?”
“We have patrols on all the beaches, sir. If they don’t drown we’ll have them by morning. From where they jumped it is not likely they could make it to any shore but the Foot, and we had men all over.”
Twist grunted, unconvinced. “Do not count the bodies yet, Spear. These islanders can swim like otters when they have to. Seven will be among them, Switch’s famous islander pupil. How many prisoners so far?”
“Several of them drowned or burned. At the moment, we have four alive and in custody. We would have had a fifth, but we were unlucky. He was standing on the front of a burning ship and appeared ready to surrender, but when the other survivor dove off the back, the rock of the boat threw him overboard.”
“And?”
“They were at the logs by then. He was knocked about pretty badly, and then rolled underwater.”
Twist nodded. “So that leaves the one who did surrender, and . . . ?”
“Three others. They were in the boat that got hung up. They are badly burned. I told the surgeon to give them as much poppy as he deemed advisable.”
Twist patted Spear on the shoulder. “You have done well. I was beginning to wonder if they would show up.”
“I never doubted, sir.”
Twist smiled. “Of course not.”
Twist had seen badly burned people before, but the sight still sickened him. One islander twitched and gibbered, staring wildly up at the uncaring stars. The second was unconscious.
The third was a young woman in charred pathetic finery. A girl almost. She mumbled ceaselessly through cracked lips: “Dagger . . . swing wide . . . and . . . shoals. Shoals! On the Saw; new boat! Stay by the starboard bank,” she whispered. “Stay close to Spearpoint!”
Twist looked to the surgeon. He shrugged and shook his head. Her clothes had been cut away, and the doctor sponged her crackled skin very lightly with cold water. She yelped as the sponge came up black with soot that had once been skin. “The Saw! The Dagger! Stay wide! Stay wide!”
Twist’s eyes narrowed. He backed away and whispered briefly with his subordinates.
* * *
Red dawn bled into the eastern sky. Twist squatted on the sandy beach where the girl’s cot had been placed, holding her unburnt hand. Nobody within sight was wearing woodlander clothes. “Rose?” he said quietly. He had asked the islander who surrendered for her name, so her parents could be notified.
“And a new hull! Remember?”
“Rose?”
She paused. “. . . right . . . right over the Middle Beach shoal.”
“Rose, can you hear me?”
“New hull . . . Yes.”
“Rose, we need your help. We need to move the base, but we’re afraid of wrecking the boats. We don’t want to run them aground. Do you understand me?”
“Watch out for the Dagger!” she cried.
Twist massaged her hand. Her skin was soft on top, rough on the palms from holding ship’s line. “Can we get to Mona? Are there any shoals?” It was unlikely they would have made their camp on the island nearest to Delta.
Rose frowned, her mind wandering through a poppy haze. “Only the Comb Rocks,” she whispered, frowning. “Is that right? Ask Brine. Brine will know. I’m so . . .” Her eyes wandered, losing focus.
Twist took his time. He knew she would die. The pain would fade, and her body would begin to heal. But then infection would set in, spreading like smoke under her fired skin. How barbaric the islanders were, to send their children to war. How tragic.
“Rose? What about the mainland? Are there any good harbors there?”
“Wh—?” She shifted restlessly, frowning.
“The mainland, Rose. Are there any good harbors nearby?”
“. . . Pie Bay. Pie bay, piebay piebay.” She slurred the words together like a child’s song. Suddenly her eyes opened wide and looked beseechingly into his. “Where is Brine?”
“He is s
ick,” Twist said. “He will be fine, but we cannot talk to him now. That is why we need your help.”
She stared at Twist desperately, as if trying to remember who he was. He rubbed her palm gently with his thumb.
Her eyes blurred. She shook her head. “Watch out for the Tack, of course. Brine. I feel very strange.”
Twist pictured the charts he had studied so often over the last weeks. The nearest good harbor would be Pie Bay; that put them on the south side of the gulf, and not far into the archipelago. So. They had opted to stay within striking distance of Delta. Reasonable. He closed his eyes until he could picture Comb Rock on the map. What was near the Tack, and had Comb Rock between it and Mona Island?
Thumbtip.
“Good,” he whispered. “Very good. We needed your help, Rose. We will not forget.” His throat tightened. His eyes were hot and ached. “You should get some sleep.” His eldest daughter would be only three or four years younger than this woman. “Just sleep.”
* * *
“ ‘Cave,’ didn’t you say, Seven? ‘A cave where we can hide.’ I would have called this a crack between two rocks.”
“Shoal, Nest, Brine, Rose . . . Keel. Keel.”
Shale curled into a rocky corner of Seven’s hideout. She had never felt so exhausted. The swim to the Spearpoint shore had drained her utterly. She had always prided herself on her strength, but now her chest was hollow and she felt like crying from sheer rage at her own frailty.
“It will be a long day without water.”
Foam looked up, shocked by her ragged voice. “If you think you hate it now, just wait until high tide.”
Nobody laughed. The tiny cave was filled with the murmur of the sea and the cold hard smells of rock and water.
“Perch. Bluff. Nest. Shoal.” The skin on Seven’s face and hands felt stiff as cracked leather. Pain licked up his fingers as if they cupped a flame. “Keel. Perch.”
“Shut up!” Shale told him roughly. “Do you think that helps?”
“It is owed.” Seven’s voice was heavy as stone. “They are dead and I might as well have killed them. I let Twist kill them.”
“Then stop mewling and learn from him! Take Twist as your master. And get people who think like Twist to help you. Listen to Foam.”