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Naji frowned and didn’t say anything. Marjani jumped down from the stern deck and pulled out her own sword and her pistol and nodded at me. “Captain’s lending us Tavin, Ajim, and Gorry,” she said. “And his weapons. Otherwise, we got to take the ship ourselves.”
It’s best to take a ship without violence. You ride on board with your fiercest looking men, fire off a couple of shots, hold a knife to the captain’s throat. But you don’t kill nobody. Merchants’ ships are the easiest for that. The crew don’t value their cargo more than their lives.
But this wasn’t a merchant ship, it was Empire standard, and I could bet they were loading up their ca
And then I had an idea.
“I’ll be back,” I told Marjani. “I ain’t ru
“No!” she said. “They’ll be here–”
“Give me five minutes,” I said. “I’ll be back.”
And then I took off, scrambling down the ladder to get to the brig.
The manticore was pacing in her cell, tail curling and uncurling. She looked up at me when I came in, her face wan and pale.
“I got somebody you can eat,” I said.
Her lips sneered back. “Don’t lie to me, girl-human.”
“I ain’t lying,” I said. “I got lots of somebodies, in fact. We’re about to board an Empire sloop, to take her. There’ll be fighting, but–”
She ran her tongue over her lips, though I could tell from the darkness in her eyes she still didn’t believe me.
“I’m go
She shook her head. Her teeth were like daggers.
“Red,” I said. “They wear red with a gold snake on the chest. Tie up their hair in red scarves. You got that? A man’s got on red and gold, you can eat him.”
“If you are lying to me,” she said. “I will fill you full of poison and drop you to the bottom of the sea.”
“Fair enough.” I yanked out my knife and picked the lock on her gate, swung it open. She bounded out, snarling and hissing, and then stopped right beside the doorway. She looked at me over her shoulder.
“Once I have eaten,” she said, “You may ride me. For your battle.”
“Fine.” I pushed her toward the doorway. I didn’t have the heart to tell her sea-battles don’t work that way.
We ran side by side through the lower decks, men screeching and drawing swords as we passed. “She ain’t go
As many ice-islanders were in that crew, I figured they’d like the sound of that, and it didn’t take long before the crew was cheering us instead of shrinking from us, calling out they hoped she’d rip them Empire scummies to pieces and eat their intestines. I blamed the battle fever. Sends men into such a frothing rage they forget to be scared of a manticore.
Marjani glared at me when we got up on deck.
“I was really hoping that’s not what you were going to do,” she said.
“She’s starving,” I told her. “You expect me to keep her locked away while we’re piling up dead men out here?”
Marjani crossed her arms in front of her chest.
“It’s an Empire ship! They won’t come peaceful and you know it.”
She did know it. She nodded at me, and then turned to Naji, started telling him the protocol for boarding a ship. He stared at her, face blank.
I wondered if he was as scared as I was.
The manticore growled. “Where are the red-and-gold men?” she asked me, her breath hot against the side of my neck.
“There.” I pointed out to sea with my sword. The Empire ship was coming closer, her red bow veering in for us. Dots of light flashed on her deck. Empire swords.
“We’re go
And then Marjani’s hand was on my arm. She pushed me toward the rowboats that hung off the side of the ship. “You want the manticore, you get to take her across the water.”
“You got rope?” I asked.
“What?” said Naji. “You’re going to send her out there… no. No, absolutely not. It’ll completely incapacitate me–”
“Then go with her!” Marjani shoved Naji at me. “I’ll take the Goldlife crewmen and swing across. You don’t have much time before they start firing. Go.”
For a second Naji and me stared at each other and I knew I couldn’t let him get to me, not now. An Empire man’ll die for his ship. I wasn’t go
“Come on!” I climbed into one of the boats, the manticore at my side. She trumpeted – not the way she had when we were racing across the beach. This sounded like a damn battle horn.
The Goldlife crew let out a cheer, all throaty with bloodlust.
And then the Empire fired its first volley of ca
Naji let out a shout and jumped into the boat beside me. Marjani swung her sword through the rope and we crashed into the water, the air thick with black smoke and the scent of ca
Naji flung himself on top of me, his weight pressing me into the manticore.
“What you doing?” I shouted. I could taste the gunpowder in the air.
“Protecting you,” Naji snarled. He was already covered in sweat; it must be hurting him, us being out on the water.
“Then help me row!”
He grabbed one of the oars and we pushed off together, the Empire ship looming tall in front of our little rowboat, sunlight making the water sparkle. Debris showered down on top of us, bits of wood and sail and metal and probably blood and bone, though I couldn’t think about that. Naji screamed, the muscles bunching up in his arms, and he kept shouting, “The shadow! The shadow!” and I didn’t know what the hell he meant at first, cause all I could think about was getting us out of the water. And then I realized the Empire ship was casting a long dark shadow across the sea, and once we got there he could slip us on board so we wouldn’t have to scamper up the side of the ship.
I rowed harder. Water splashed over the side of the boat, soaking me through. I could hear men screaming up on the ships, both of ’em, and pistols going off, and the ca
And then we crossed the shadowline. Naji wrapped his arm around my shoulder and shoved his hand in the manticore’s fur, and all the noise fell away.
It was nice in the shadow, quiet and cool, with Naji’s body pressing up against me like maybe we were lovers after all. And I floated there in the darkness like I was underwater, and I didn’t want to come out, I didn’t–
We slammed onto the deck of the Empire ship.
The Goldlife hadn’t fired on her yet, of course, cause we were looking to take her, not steal from her, but those Empire soldiers were firing off their ca
Everything stopped.
I pulled out my sword and pistol. Naji lifted his sword over his head.
All those Empire men turned from the stations and stared at us, a Confederation pirate and a Jadorr’a and a hungry manticore.
I’d never boarded a ship during a battle before. I’d always stayed with Papa’s boat and fought alongside Mama. But I heard the stories from the crewman who’d come back, bragging up their fighting, and all those Empire crewman were staring at me like they were expecting something.