Air and Ash Page 10

  I’m weary, but somehow not frightened. “Is that a threat or a promise, sir?” My words are thick through the swelling.

  Catsper’s smirk widens. “A prediction.”

  “Let her recover first.” Domenic speaks over my head as if I’m not there. He pushes the bowl of water away and stands facing the marine.

  Catsper crosses his arms. “Pity you and your opinions are here in my Cove, Dana. Plus, I believe we can safely say that your methods have failed.” He turns to me, and I am suddenly uncertain which of the two men before me is the greater force to reckon with. “All right, Ash. Since in your brilliant judgment the proper course of action upon being confronted with two thugs is to stand between them and the one person who is actually trained to fight hand to hand, pray show me what you are capable of on your own.”

  “You…” I rub my temple. Are hallucinations a side effect of air calling? “You want me to fight you?”

  “It won’t truly be a fight,” Domenic says darkly. He sits on the deck with his arms crossed and shoots a dagger-filled glance at the marine. “He’ll knock you about until you can’t see straight and then tell you to return tomorrow.”

  Catsper shrugs. “On your feet, Ash.” Despite an amused expression, there is nothing light in the marine’s voice. “I wish to see what you know. Besides how to find fights.”

  No, he’s not a hallucination. Just a lunatic. I wonder what he’d do if I refuse, but in the back of my mind, I know. If I refuse, Catsper will shrug and leave me be. And he will never invite me into the Cove again. And this matters because…? I ask of myself even as I rise from the bench.

  I’m truly unsure who I’m trying to impress, but having tasted the inside of this place, I am prepared to trade a few bruises for right of entry. My head feels heavy, but I don’t deceive myself. Domenic is right—I won’t hold my own in this fight no matter what state I start in, so the bruises are a moot point. Halfway to my feet, I launch myself at Catsper.

  The marine pivots from my path, and my surprise attack ends with my face in the deck. My puffed eye throbs. I push myself to my hands and knees, and then to my feet.

  Catsper slams the side of my head with an open palm. “Hands up, Ash.”

  I cover my head and focus on his hips with my good eye. If I can land a single strike, I will consider this fight a victory. I circle, looking for my opening. I feign to my left and throw my right fist into him. Blind and hard.

  Catsper parries my punch and slides forward. He twists as he moves until his back is to me, his shoulder jamming into my abdomen.

  I have a second to gasp as I am lifted into the air. The overhead beams rush toward me, and I brace myself.

  Catsper drops to his knees in midthrow, and my body avoids striking the overhead beams as I sail over the marine’s shoulder.

  There is nothing to soften my landing, and my back thuds flat against the deck. I have enough sense to tuck my head, but that’s of little comfort. The reverberation of the impact echoes through my bones and knocks my breath away.

  “Storms and hail, Catsper,” says Domenic, his anger washing over the Cove.

  Catsper merely cocks his head at the first officer. “You need not watch, Dana.”

  “And how in the bloody waves would that help?”

  He has a point. This little match is going to continue until I’m unconscious, because there is no way I’m either winning or quitting. I collect my limbs and ready for a return attack. In a small way, sparring with Catsper is akin to standing on deck in battle. You can’t think of what might become of you. You must focus on what you can do. And right now, I can get up and try again.

  Or perhaps not.

  Catsper’s knee drops onto my abdomen before I can rise and pins me to the ground. I writhe like a fish, unable to breathe as he grips the fabric of my tunic and pants and pulls up against the pressure of his hold. I shove his knee with both my hands. It dislodges slightly, but now presses my rib. My side explodes in pain, and I scream.

  “Enough.” Domenic shoves Catsper away.

  The marine rocks gracefully onto his heels and cocks an eyebrow at Domenic, whose face turns crimson. The men’s eyes lock in silent conversation, the kind only friends can have.

  I clear my throat. “How did I do, then?”

  “Bad but workable.” Catsper rises and walks off to gather the abandoned medicine chest and water. “If your guardian protector permits me to train you without his sage advice, that is,” he adds over his shoulder.

  I’m unsure what just happened, but I am grateful for the reprieve. Sitting up, I grip my middle.

  Domenic kneels beside me, catching my chin between two fingers. I try to pull away, but he holds fast, his gaze examining every bruised and cut inch of my face. “Are you all right, Nile?”

  Everything hurts, but no worse than it had. Spectacular as Catsper’s attacks had been, he’d not injured me. “I’m not petitioning to be returned ashore, sir.”

  “Yes. You’ve made that point clear by now.” He frowns at my swollen eye. “Though I must point out that you are unlikely to worry about black eyes as Prince Tamiath’s bride.”

  I struggle up to my feet. “I didn’t think I’d need to worry about them aboard a naval vessel either, sir. Not from my own crewmates.” It’s a shot across Domenic’s bow. A properly handled crew does not ambush its mates—and it’s the first officer’s job to make it so.

  I expect a tightened jaw and a dagger-sharp look. But Domenic flinches and turns too quickly on his heels before leaving the Cove.

  Chapter 17

  “Nile?” Ana, whom I thought safely on watch, sticks her head into our cabin. It’s been three days since my encounter with Mic and Johina, which I told Ana about in detail, and my initiation into the Cove, which I didn’t. Three days of her worrying about me and jumping at every creak the ship makes. I’d appreciate the concern over my well-being, except that it comes with unending advice and admonitions. “What’s going on here? Why aren’t you resting? Did something happen?”

  I lift my head, clamping down the magic I’d been slowly releasing, and choke on air. I’m sitting on the deck, my hands braced against my knees. The cabin looks like it had hosted a storm. Which, to be fair, it had. A cough until I get my breath back. The magic in my blood grumbles its disapproval at being cooped up again.

  Ana squats to pick up the scattered clothing and papers while I try to convince my body that I am still alive and breathing. I thought letting the magic free in a confined space with less air to attract would be a tame experience, one less likely to kill me and the ship. I was somewhat right, if not nearly as inconspicuous as I’d hoped.

  “What happened?” Ana demands again. “Does your head still hurt? Did you fall?” She crouches beside me, her small hands pushing my braid away from my face.

  “I fell,” I say between breaths. “But it was my own fault. Was trying one of Catsper’s tricks. Didn’t end well.”

  She scowls. Catsper has taken to training with me every afternoon but won’t give Ana the time of day. A sin of the grandest proportions in Ana’s world. She sits back on her heels. “Find some other place for it. Dana heard the commotion from his cabin and was little pleased.”

  I keep my face still. Domenic has been avoiding me ever since I told him off in the Cove. I think I actually hurt him. Which is as ridiculous a notion as my fretting over its possibility. Domenic couldn’t care less about my opinion. Or about me. And yet… The worry in his eyes as he pushed Catsper away and knelt beside me seemed more than genuine—it seemed personal.

  But it had seemed just as personal on the Ashing beach, hadn’t it? And I remember how that ended. With the truth of my birth mattering more than I did.

  I grab onto the bulkhead and pull myself up. “Please pass my apologies to Mr. Dana,” I mutter. “It won’t happen again.”

  “Good,” Ana says neutrally, though her eyes sparkle with unsettling curiosity.

  “Good.” I nod, and shuffle past her into the passageway. />
  “Deck there!” We are at the foot of the companion ladder to deck when the lookout’s call sounds.

  I straighten at once, listening for more.

  “Sail to starboard!” the lookout’s voice calls.

  The familiar prickle of excitement wakes my senses. “Sail to starboard,” I repeat to Ana, who seems to have only marginally registered the words. “Come quickly.”

  I rush to the deck, Ana trudging behind me. The moment I’m in the open, I turn to the sea. Fog hangs thick under a graying sky, but I can tell the amorphous shape in the distance is large. Too large for a merchantman or one of the small sloops the League favors for carrying dispatches. My blood warms, coursing through my veins with renewed vigor.

  Midshipman Kederic scampers up the mast with a glass.

  I hold my breath.

  “Square rig,” Kederic calls down.

  Man-of-war. I knew it. My hands tug straight the ghost of a uniform I no longer wear, and I twist back toward the deck, already tasting the order to prepare for battle.

  But instead of a crew readying to sprint, I find the deck awash with uncertain whispers. Second Lieutenant Kazzik, the third in charge after the captain and Domenic, has the watch. Kazzik now shifts his weight from foot to foot instead of clearing the ship for action. The wrongness of it all crawls through my skin. I want to shake Kazzik, to grab the drum and beat it myself. Not your ship, Nile. I clench my jaw tight. Not your call.

  Ana scampers over to me. Her hands are white where they press against each other. “What think you?” She bites her lip. “Surely not the Republic. They’ve caused us no mischief here before.”

  Oh bloody storms, of course it’s the Republic. We are in the middle of a war, and an ally would have signaled before now. Moreover, with the juicy convoy of merchantmen the Aurora has in tow, the Tirik skipper probably has his eye on the gold already. The Republic needs the money. Butchering off nobility in the name of equality and the people’s power may sound righteous on a public square, but it also left the Republic with no one to properly run commerce. And since taking from the rich is a short-lived source of income, one must forever find new rich to impoverish.

  Hence the Republic’s mission to liberate the subjects of the Lyron League kingdoms from oppression.

  “I think it would be safer to presume the ship is Tirik and be proven wrong than to act otherwise,” I tell Ana.

  She stares at me blankly. Which isn’t entirely her fault. She has too little training for this, and Kazzik, the officer who is supposed to be guiding the middie, is too busy clutching a spyglass in an attempt to divine details he cannot hope to see.

  I lower my voice. “You may wish to ensure your division is in order, ma’am.”

  Ana nods readily, eager to have a task she can manage.

  My attention returns to Kazzik, my empathy ebbing to irritation. The man has the deck; it is his duty to call the ship to quarters. That he’s unlikely given the order alone before is his problem.

  Or mine, it seems.

  I give him to a count of five to locate his wits. Kazzik’s silence grates on me like nails scraping slate. An amateur ship playing war. Stepping forward, I knuckle my forehead and say, a bit louder than necessary, “Shall I inform the captain and Mr. Dana of the sail, sir?”

  Kazzik stares, then jerks his head no, dispatching one of the middies for the task. At least he remembered that little of the protocol.

  The second officer handled, I turn my attention to the convoy. Four gray outlines in the fog. Hundreds of souls entrusting their lives and livelihoods to us. We should signal the merchants to scatter so that at least some survive if the Tirik overpower our defenses. The Republic can chase down only one runner.

  “They are hoisting a flag,” Kederic shouts, his voice breaking with excitement. “Red and black. Tirik colors! It’s a Republic frigate. Enemy in sight!”

  “Thank you, Mr. Kederic.” The booming confidence of Domenic’s voice precedes his appearance—clean, perfect, and composed, as if he’d not just been awakened. “In the future, a single description will do.”

  The crew’s mumbling ceases such that the creaking of the ship’s timber sounds loud in the silence. Even I find myself unable to look away from the first officer.

  Domenic puts his hands into the small of his back, surveys the deck, and scowls. His face stays stone still as his chest fills with breath. When he calls out, Domenic needs no speaking trumpet to carry his voice. “We shall beat to quarters!”

  Chapter 18

  BOOM, RATATATAT. BOOM, RATATATAT.

  The rousing din of the marine’s drum reverberates through each plank of the ship. A stampede of bare feet erupts around me.

  BOOM, RATATATAT. I fall in with the wave of sailors rushing the deck, clearing anything not nailed in place. Gun crews loose the ropes of the few main deck guns, their counterparts doing the same on the gun deck below. Boys spread sand. Somewhere inside the Aurora, carpenters break down the makeshift bulkheads separating the cabins. At the rail, Catsper’s marines take up places.

  BOOM, RATATAT. Seven minutes and we are still at it. Domenic is giving instructions that should be unnecessary. Rima is nowhere in sight.

  The Faithful, with near triple the Aurora’s armament, cleared for action in three.

  I secure a stray bucket another sailor left behind. In the back of my mind, a different marine drums the same beat, different crews man their guns, different boys spread sand. On that ship, the captain stands tall on his quarterdeck, staring at three decks of approaching guns. He must know there is no chance of surviving the attack, but his face says nothing of that. On that ship, I have charge of the gun deck, not buckets.

  That ship is gone.

  “Captain on deck!” the bosun cries out.

  About bloody time. I snap toward the companionway, ready to make a report this captain would never ask me for. The crew whispers. We watch Rima’s shoulders emerge from below and his boots stride across the quarterdeck, cleared and ready for battle. What’s coming, I wonder, praise for the final result or reprimand for the sloppiness we went through to get here?

  Rima puts his hands on his hips. “What is this racket about, Mr. Dana?”

  The slap of the words forces me back a step. My jaw tightens.

  Domenic’s face is a mask of cool calm. He holds his spyglass out to Rima. “A Republic man-of-war on starboard, sir.”

  Rima brings the glass to his eye and studies the mist. “I do not know her,” he declares. His tone is a mix of surprise and offense. “Who has command of her?” He waves his free hand at Domenic before the first officer can respond. “Do not trouble yourself, Commander, you would not know.” Lowering the glass, Rima taps it against his palm. “The Tirik Republic has no interest in the Siaman Sea. They will take no action.”

  My eyes widen.

  Domenic shifts his weight and looks into the distance. “Twenty-two guns on her, I believe. Four fewer than us.”

  “When I want your beliefs, Commander, I shall ask for them.” Rima snaps the glass shut. “Our duty is to our convoy, Mr. Dana. We shall not glory-seek at their expense and I would thank you not to overheat the crew.”

  “Aye, sir.” Domenic touches his hat. My own hands are trembling with cold fury, but his mask of cool indifference stays solid. “Shall I signal the merchants to scatter?”

  Captain Rima’s cheeks darken, a sharp contrast to the unflinching officer beside him. “The waves take your soul, Commander! Am I speaking for the pleasure of hearing my own voice? My convoy will not act the prey to a ship whose broadside is inferior to ours. We will stay our course. The Republican cowards will maneuver to avoid our guns.”

  That last bit hits the crew just right. The tension around me shifts fast as a snapped bowstring. There will be no battle, no blood, no death. Some of the hands feel righteous. Their ship shall neither cower nor glory-seek. They are above such things. Others care only that they won’t face battle with a ship ill prepared and a crew ill trained. Either wa
y, the men and women around me nod, safe in their understanding.

  Not the marines. The boys’ gazes are locked, but I find Catsper’s. His jaw is tight. He’s read Rima’s words for the self-serving manipulation they are. Rima wishes to risk neither his hide nor the merchant fees a scatter order will cost.

  With a nod and a smile, Captain Rima begins his inspection of action stations, shifting several sailors between posts—more often than not sending diamond-cut Eflians to the safer belowdecks tasks. Apparently, Rima’s confidence at avoiding battle does not preclude his preparations for it.

  Then there is nothing to do but wait. The day is late, with dusk just a few hours off. The Republic frigate has the weather gage, the favorable position wind-wise. They will dictate the timing of the action, if there is to be any. While all is still calm, Song and Sand replace Kederic on the lookout platform, and Rima orders the cook to bring sandwiches to the crew. I wash my bread and cheese down with water and sit tight, though my blood boils with the scent of coming danger.

  As soon as I judge the frigate close enough for meaningful inspection, I beg a glass from Ana and train it on the closing ship. The name painted on her hull reads Devron in Tirik, and she handles well in the water. A nimble ship. I swing the looking glass back and forth across her deck, movement along the Devron’s ports catching my eye. My chest clenches in recognition. Waves and hail. Are the twins bloody sleeping on the platform? “Sir!” I call out, my glass still trained on the enemy. “The Devron is opening her gun ports!”

  As if it had waited for my announcement, the report of a gun roars from the distance. The ocean rises in a fountain of spray off our starboard quarter.

  Several hands whoop.

  “Just like the Republic!”

  “Cannot hit the beach if they were stranded on it.”

  Idiots. I snap the glass closed.

  “Silence fore and aft!” Domenic orders, then lowers his voice to an even timbre and addresses the captain. “Warning shot across our bow, sir.”