Red Seas Under Red Skies

Then crossbow bolts came from the second boat. Streva, caught up watching the travails of the first, took one in the ribs and fell backward onto Locke. He pushed the unfortunate young man away, knowing it was beyond his power to help. The deck was already bright red with blood. A moment later Malakasti gasped as an arrow from the Sovereign's upper yards punched through her back; she fell against the taffrail and her shield went over the side.

Jabril pushed her spear away and yanked her down to the deck. Locke could see that the arrow had punctured one of her lungs, and the wet-sounding breaths she was fighting for now would be her last. Jabril, anguish on his face, tried to cover her with his body until Locke shouted at him: "More coming! Don't lose your fucking head!" Gods-damned hypocrite, he thought to himself, heart hammering.

On the sinking boat below, another sailor wound up to toss a grappling hook. Gwillem struck again, shattering the man's arm. Yet another rock followed from Jean. That was it for the remaining Sovereigns; with the boat going down and corpses crowding the seats, the survivors were spilling over the side. They might be trouble again in a few minutes, but for now they were out of the fight.

So was a third of Locke's "company". The second enemy boat came on, wary enough of the stones to keep well back. It circled around the stern and darted for the starboard side, a shark with wounded prey.

9

Zamira pulled her sabre from the body of the last valcona and hollered at her people along the larboard side: "Re-form! Re-form! Plug the fucking gap, there!"

Valcona! Damn Rodanov for a clever bastard; at least five of her people lay dead because of the bloody things, and gods knew how many more had been injured or shaken. He" d been expecting her to try to go broadside-to-bow; the beasts had been waiting like a spring-loaded trap.

And there he was — impossible to miss, nearly the size of two men, wearing a dark coat and those damned gauntlets of his. In his hands, a club that must have weighed twenty pounds. His people flooded around him, cheering, and they poured against her first rank through the gap Rodanov had somehow contrived in his starboard rail. The point of decision was exactly the mess she'd expected: stabbing spears, flailing shields, corpses and living fighters alike too pressed by the crowd on either side to move, except downward. Some slipped through the ever-changing gap between ships, to be drowned or ground to a pulp as the two vessels scraped together again. "Crossbows," she yelled, "crossbows!"

Behind her spear-carriers, nearly every crossbow on the ship had been set out and loaded. The rear rank of waiting Orchids seized these and fired a ragged volley between the forward ranks; eight or nine of Rodanov's people toppled, but he himself seemed untouched. A moment later there was a return volley from the deck of the Sovereign; Rodanov had had the same idea. Screaming men and women fell out of Zamira's lines with feathered shafts in their heads and chests, not one of them a person she could spare.

Sovereigns were attempting to hurdle the wider gap to the right of the main fight; some of them made it and clung tenaciously to her rail, struggling to pull themselves up. She solved that problem herself, slashing faces and cracking skulls with the butts of her sabres. Three, four — more of them were coming. She was already gasping for breath. Not quite the tireless fighter she'd once been, she reflected ruefully. Arrows bit the air around her, more of Rodanov's people leapt and it looked as though every single gods-damned pirate on the Sea of Brass was on the deck of the Dread Sovereign, lined up and waiting to storm her ship.

10

Locke's "flying company" was now engaged at the starboard rail of the quarterdeck; while Mumchance and one of his mates wielded spears to fend off swimmers from any other angle, Locke, Jean, Jabril and Gwillem tried to fight off the second boat.

This one was far sturdier than its predecessor; Jean's two hurled rocks had killed or injured at least five people, but failed to knock holes in the wood. Rodanov's crewfolk stabbed at them with boathooks; it was an awkward duel between these and the spears of the Orchids. Jabril cried out as a hook gouged one of his legs, and he retaliated by stabbing a Sovereign in the neck.

Gwillem stood up and hurled a bullet down into the boat; he was rewarded for his effort by a loud scream. As he reached into his pouch for another, an arrow appeared in his back as though by magic. He sagged forward against the starboard rail and sling bullets rolled onto the deck, clattering. "Shit," Locke yelled. "Are we out of big rocks?" "Used them all," said Jean.

A woman with a dagger in her teeth vaulted acrobatically up to the rail and would have made it over had Jean not bashed her in the face with a shield. She toppled into the water. "Gods damn it, I miss my Wicked Sisters," shouted Jean.

Jabril frantically swept with his spear as four or five Sovereigns at once got their hands up above the rail; two let go, but in a moment two more were rolling onto the deck, sabres in hand. Jabril fell onto his back and speared one in the stomach; Jean got his hands on Gwil-lem's sling and threw it around the throat of the other, garrotting the man, just like old times in Camorr. Another sailor poked his head up and shoved a crossbow through the rails, aiming for Jean. Locke felt every inch the legendary hero of the plunging beer-cask as he kicked the man in the face.

Rising screams from the water told of some new development; warily, Locke glanced over the edge. A roiling, gelatinous mass floated beside the boat like a translucent blanket, pulsing with a faint internal luminescence that was visible even by day. As Locke watched, a swimming man was drawn, screaming, into this mass. In seconds, the gooey substance around his legs clouded red and he began to spasm. The thing was drawing the blood out of his pores as a man might suck the juice from a pulpy fruit.

A death-lantern, drawn as ever to the scent of blood in the water. A gods-awful way to go, even for people Locke was actively trying to kill — but it and the others sure to come would take care of the swimmers. No more Sovereigns were climbing up the sides; the few left in the boat below were frantically trying to escape the thing in the water beside them. Locke dropped his spear and took a few much-needed deep breaths. A second later an arrow hit the rail two feet above his head; another hissed past it completely; a third struck the wheel.

"Cover," he hollered, looking around frantically for a shield. A moment later Jean grabbed him and dragged him to the right, where he was holding Gwillem's body up before him. Jabril crawled behind the bi

"Might feel bad later about using the dead like this," hollered Jean, "but hell, there's certainly enough of them around."