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"Ravelle, Valora, I'm going to give you a few crewfolk to form our flying company. Your job is the Sovereign's boats. They'll try to board us from all points of the compass once we're engaged at the waist, so you go wherever they go. One person on deck can keep five in a boat, provided you act with haste.
"Nasreen, you'll choose a party of three and stand by at the starboard anchor for my command. Once it's given, you'll guard the bow against boats and free Ravelle's party to fight elsewhere.
"Utgar, you're with me to load crossbows. Now, there's ale at the forecastle and I want to see the cask dry before we do this. Drink up, find your armour. If you" ve got mail or leathers you" ve been saving, pile it on. I don't care how much you sweat; you'll never need it again like you'll need it today."
Drakasha dismissed the crew by turning away from them and striding back up the quarterdeck stairs. Pandemonium erupted amidships; suddenly crewfolk were shoving past one another in all directions, some going for their armour and weapons, others headed for what might be their last drink on earth.
Ezri vaulted the quarterdeck railing and shouted as she strode forward into the chaos: "Fire watches set double sand buckets! Rig the larboard razor-net and hoist it high! Jerome, get your lazy arse up on the quarterdeck! Form up the flying company there!"
Jean waved and followed Drakasha up to the stern of the ship, where Utgar waited, looking nervous. Trega
Suddenly, a low, dark shape shot up the companionway and ran for Drakasha. She looked down in response to a sudden tug on her breeches and found Paolo clutching at her, unselfconsciously. "Mummy, the noise!"
Zamira smiled and swept him up off the deck, cradling him against the lapels of her jacket. She turned into the wind and let it push her hair out of her face. Jean could see that Paolo's eyes were on the Dread Sovereign as it heaved and swayed beneath the cloudless sky, implacably clawing across the distance between them.
"Paolo, love, Mummy needs you to help her hide you and your sister in the rope locker on the orlop deck, all right?"
The little boy nodded and Zamira kissed him on the forehead, burying her nose in his tangle of short, dark curls with her eyes closed.
"Oh, good," she said a moment later. "Because after that, Mummy needs to fetch her armour and her sabres. And then she needs to go and board that lying motherfucker's ship and sink it like a stone."
5
Jaffrim Rodanov was at the bow of his ship, the Poison Orchid steady in the centre of his glass, when she suddenly whirled to larboard and pointed herself at him like an arrow. Her mainsails shivered and began to vanish as Drakasha's crew hauled them up for battle.
"Ah," he said. "There we go, Zamira. Doing the only sensible thing at last."
Rodanov had dressed for a fight, as usual, in a leather coat reinforced with mail inset at the back and the lapels. The nicks and creases in the battered old thing were always a comfort to him; a reminder that people had been trying and failing to kill him for years.
On his hands he wore his favoured weapons, segmented blackened-steel gauntlets. In the confusion of a close melee, they could catch blades and crack skulls with equal aplomb. For the less personal work of actually forcing his way aboard the Orchid, he leaned on a waist-high iron-studded club. He folded his glass carefully and slipped it into a pocket, resolving to return it to the bi
Ydrena waited on the forecastle stairs, her own curved sword sheathed on her back, with the majority of his crew ready behind her.
"She's for us," boomed Rodanov. "I know this doesn't come easy, but Drakasha's raiding in Verrari waters. She'll call down hell on the life we all enjoy — unless we stop her now.
"Form up to starboard, as we pla
"This day will be red! Drakasha is a foe to be reckoned with. But what are we, over all the winds and waters of the Sea of Brass?" "SOVEREIGN!" the crew shouted as one. "Who are we, never boarded and never beaten?" "SOVEREIGN!"
"What do our enemies scream when they speak the name of their doom at the judgment of the gods?" "SOVEREIGN!"
"We are!" He waved his club above his head. "And we have some surprises for Zamira Drakasha! Bring the cages forward!"
Three teams of six sailors apiece brought canvas-covered cages to the forecastle deck. These cages had wooden carrying handles set well beyond their steel-mesh sides. They were about six feet long, and half as wide and high. "Nothing to eat since yesterday, right?" "No," said Ydrena.
"Good." Rodanov double-checked the sections of the starboard rail his carpenter had weakened so that one good shove would knock them over for about a ten-foot length. A blemish on his beloved Sovereign, but one that could be fixed easily enough later. "Set them down over here. And kick the cages. Let's get them riled up."
6
The two ships crashed through the waves toward one another, and for a second time Locke Lamora found himself about to get involved rather intimately in a battle at sea.
"Steady, Mum," called Drakasha, who stood peering out over the larboard quarterdeck rail. Locke and Jean waited nearby, armed with hatchets and sabres. Jean also had a pair of leather bracers liberated from the property of Basryn, who was nowhere to be seen since he alone had gone over the side with the small boat. My boat, Locke thought, somewhat bitterly.
For their "flying company", Locke and Jean had Malakasti, Jabril and Streva, as well as Gwillem. All save the latter had shields and spears; the timid-looking quartermaster wore a leather apron stuffed with heavy lead bullets for the sling he carried in his left hand.
Most of the crew waited amidships, ranked as Drakasha had ordered: those with large shields and stabbing swords up front, those with polearms behind them. The mainsails were drawn up, fire buckets were set out, the larboard entry port was protected by what Delmastro had called a "ski
Delmastro appeared out of the mess at the waist. She looked much as she had the first time Locke had ever seen her, with her leather armour and her hair pulled back for action. Paying no heed to the weapons they were carrying at their belts, she leapt onto Jean, wrapping her arms and legs around him. He put his arms behind her back and they kissed until Locke chuckled out loud. Not the sort of thing one saw just before most battles, he imagined. "This day is ours," she said when they parted at last.
"Try not to kill everyone over there before I even get involved, right?" Jean gri
"Lock of my hair," she said. "Meant to give it to you days ago, but we got busy with all the raiding. You know. Piracy. Hectic life." "Thank you, love," he said.
"Now, if you find yourself in trouble wherever you go, you can hold up that little bag to whoever's bothering you, and you can say, "You have no idea who you're fucking with. I'm under the protection of the lady who gave me this object of her favour." " "And that's supposed to make them stop?"
"Shit no, that's just to confuse them. Then you kill them while they're standing there looking at you fu