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“You killed a captain’s son?”
I nodded.
“For Kaol’s sake, Ana
“He was go
She shook her head. “No. Explain this to me later.” She clanged the attack bells, deep and ominous and so loud they hurt my ears.
“Arm the ca
“Please, Ana
“No!” I jerked around to face him. “This is my fault. I ain’t go
Naji’s eyes looked sad, and for a half-second I thought maybe he was worried about me and not about the pain of the curse.
I pulled away from him and raced across the deck toward the manticore, who had stood up, her tail curling and uncurling.
“This noise, girl-human,” she said. “Are we close to land?”
“Fraid not.” I stood face to face with her. “You see that speck of light out there…” I pointed to the horizon. “It’s a ship full of men you can eat.”
Her eyes lit up.
“In exchange for a meal,” I said, “may I ride you? Into battle?”
“With the other ship?”
I nodded. “They’re after me, and I bet they try to board.” I took a deep breath. “I need you to protect me.”
She scowled. “Do I look like the Jadorr’a?”
“Please, Ongraygeeomryn.” I know I mangled her name cause it came out sounding like a blood-cough and not like bells at all, but she still smiled without showing her teeth. “It would do me great honor to ride you into battle.”
She dipped her shoulder, and I climbed on. Her wings rose up around me like a shield.
“Where should I go?” she asked.
“The helm, the helm!” I pointed with my sword. Men were stopping their work to stare at us, but I ignored them as the manticore bounded across the deck, leaping up beside Marjani.
Naji didn’t say nothing at all.
“Bring the ship around starboard!” Marjani shouted. The men scrambled up in the rigging, moving the sails. She grabbed the wheel and yanked it hand over hand. The manticore trumpeted and dug her claws into the wood as the ship tilted and turned.
Naji’s eyes began to glow.
“I wouldn’t–” Marjani said.
“You are not me.” Naji crouched beside the manticore, his eyes fixed on the Hariri as she loomed larger and larger.
“Do they have another assas… another Jadorr’a on board?” I asked him.
“No.” He pushed his coat sleeves up to his elbow and drew the knife over the swirl of one of his tattoos. Blood welled up in thick shining drops. He dropped it over the deck, and when it struck the wood it began to glow pale, pale blue.
The manticore licked her lips. I yanked on her mane. “You’ll be eating soon enough.”
Naji ignored both of us.
At the helm, Marjani screamed, “Keep working! Get those ca
My heart pounded up near my throat. Naji knelt down at the splatter of his blood and began to chant.
The Hariri got closer and closer.
I threaded my fingers through the manticore’s fur.
The wind was warm and the air was clean and Naji’s voice hummed with my heartbeat.
And then the Hariri fired her ca
The Nadir jolted, sending me and the manticore skittering backward. Naji slammed forward on the deck but didn’t stop chanting. Marjani brought the ship around, side by side with the Hariri.
“Fire!” she screamed.
A chunk of the Hariri’s side blew out across the water. Smoke curled up in the air.
And then I saw it.
The machines the Hariris had out in the desert, the ones that glinted metal and glass: they had them on the boat, too. That glint of light flashing off the surface of the sea – it’d been their machines.
“What in hell?” asked Marjani.
“Oh no,” I said, my body shaking.
Naji glanced up, his eyes bright and empty-looking.
One of the machines unfolded itself from the deck of the Hariri, looking like some golden insect. With a long, whining shriek, it leapt up into the air, metal wings beating into a blur, heading straight for the deck of the Nadir. The men screamed and scattered.
Naji said something in his language.
The machine froze in mid-flight, its wings stilled. For a second, it hung there, shining like a piece of jewelry.
Then it crashed down into the sea, water sloshing in a great wave over the side of the boat.
Silence and smoke.
“Keep firing!” Marjani shouted.
The men listened to her. Ca
More machines lifted up off her deck. They were like wasps, like spiders, like stinging scorpions. Only all of them could fly, and all of them were big enough to hold a pair of grown men.
“What are those things?” Marjani yelled.
“Metallurgy.” Naji’s voice shook.
The machines buzzed through the air. Ten of them. Fifteen.
“We can’t turn the ca
“Fire!” Marjani shouted out to the crew. “Use your pistols!”
Shot blasts erupted all over the deck. The machines moved forward.
Naji chanted. One of the machines sputtered and crashed into the water. Another. Another. But his voice was fading, turning scratchy and old-sounding. They were closer, closer – one of them began to spiral out, and it spun and spun and then slammed into the side of the Nadir. The whole boat tilted.
Naji collapsed across the deck.
I leapt off the manticore and knelt beside him. His breath came out raspy and weak. I yanked the mask away from his face and he sucked in air. His skin was pale, his brow lined with sweat. But he sat up.
“I couldn’t breathe,” he said softly.
“Don’t wear your mask.” And I flung it aside, just as the machines landed across our deck.
“Get on the manticore.” He shoved me away and stood up, his movements shaking but strong. I clambered onto the manticore’s back.
“I can’t eat these creatures,” she said to me, and for a minute I thought she sounded scared.
“You’ll eat what’s inside of ’em,” I said.
The largest of the machines groaned and split open. Captain and Mistress Hariri sat beneath the shield, both of them dressed for battle and armed with a trio of pistols each.
“We’re here for Ana
The men lined up along the edge of the boat, pistols pointed at the Hariris. Half of them were Confederation, and they knew better than to fire.
“We aren’t flying Confederation colors,” Marjani said. “We don’t have to adhere to Confederation rules.”
“Where’s the captain?” asked Captain Hariri. “Captain Namir yi Nadir? Where is he?”
Marjani didn’t answer. She just pulled out her pistol and cocked it back.
“Here.” Naji stepped forward.
Captain Hariri looked at him for a long time.
“You’re not a pirate,” he said. “You’re a–”
Then Naji spoke in his language, and light erupted out from the lines of his tattoos and the splatters of his blood on the ship’s wood, and it arced across the ship and slammed into Captain Hariri’s machine. The machine shot across the deck.
Both of the Hariris jumped out of the way, nimble as cats, and everything started again.
The rest of the machines roared open. Hariri crewmen poured out. That knocked our own crew out of their stun, and they launched forward in melee, pistols blasting and swords ringing.
“Ongraygeeomryn!” I shouted, pulling out my sword. “Now!”
“Ana
But I wasn’t listening to Naji. We flew off the stern deck, the manticore trumpeting loud and perfect. She landed square on the chest of some poor Hariri clansman and his blood spilled across the deck. I caught sight of Captain Hariri in the blur of pistol-smoke and fighting and got off one shot and missed. He disappeared behind one of the machines.