Scimitar Sun (47 page)

“There’ll be nine shades of hell to pay for this,” he muttered. He turned and barked out commands, ordering the ship to sail a wide arc to windward under shortened sail. He’d have to make his way through the wreckage into Scimitar Bay, but he wanted to give the mer time to cool off before he did.

With that thought, he wondered what the hell was going on with them; he could understand them attacking warships, but why hadn’t they attacked
Orin’s Pride
as well? And what had happened to Cynthia Flaxal? A seamage lost at sea…he shook his head and returned to the task of getting the wounded
Orin’s Pride
back to port.

≈

Sam swam for her life through the wreckage, past bodies of sailors, marines and mer. She tried to stay quiet, keeping her hands below the surface and kicking steadily. The water was swarming with mer and she had no doubt that they would gut her like a fish if they caught her, but she remained undetected amidst the flotsam.

Besides, the mer were busy, still swarming aboard the dying
Fire Drake
. Although most of the crew had already been slaughtered, the mer threw grapples into the rigging and hauled back until the ship rolled over on her side, her masts in the water. Sam kept her face turned away from the heat of the blazing flagship. Even at her distance, it warmed the back of her head. Her plan had worked spectacularly; the emperor was sure to declare war on the seamage after attacks by the mer and the seamage’s own ship. But
Orin’s Pride
still sailed, even though it had been damaged by the flagship’s ballistae.

She hadn’t figured on Edan.

Such
power
…A flash of lust surged up from her gut. To wield that kind of power…or to be with a man who could…

Sam swam on, expecting a webbed hand to grasp her ankle or a trident to pierce her from below at any moment. The reef was only a stone’s throw away now, the ridge of coral washed by crashing swells.

She pushed past a dead mer, and nearly screamed when it jerked and rolled over, one webbed hand reaching up for her, the other clutching the gash in its belly. She grabbed its wrist, thrashing in the water to free her dagger. No way to draw the cutlass, let alone wield it properly, but if she could get her dagger…

The mer flipped its tail, clutched her with its other hand, and dragged her down. She gulped a breath and fought to see through the cloud of blood and trailing intestines. Finally, her dagger was free! She jammed the blade into its chest, cutting through the fragile gills. The mer thrashed, drawing her close, its needle teeth closing on her shoulder. She brought the dagger up under its jaw and jerked it across the scaly throat, ending the fight in a huge cloud of blood.

She kicked it away and fought for the surface, for air. Long shapes glided below her; she could not tell if they were mer or sharks, and Sam wondered for a hysterical moment which she would prefer. She broke the surface, gasping for breath, and swam as hard as she could for the reef, her dagger clutched in one hand. If she could only make it to the reef…

The swells mounted under her as she neared her goal, the shallows pushing them higher than they had been out to sea. She swam down the face of a swell, gaining some speed, but there was a roiling in the water behind her. Another swell rose and she swam hard, kicking for all she was worth. If she could ride a swell over the reef, she might just pass without being cut to bloody ribbons.

Then something raked her leg, dragging her down before she could draw a breath. Pain stabbed through her calf and she kicked frantically, curling up and slashing blindly with her dagger. She felt the blade slice into something, and for a second she was free. Then it clutched her again and she saw it, the webbed hand of a mer encircling her ankle, dragging her down. Her lungs burned for air, but she drove her dagger into the wrist. It released her, but jerked the weapon from her grasp. At this point, she didn’t care; all she wanted was air.

Sam broke the surface coughing and sputtering, drawing great lungfuls of sweet air. Another swell lifted her, and she heard a roar. In an instant, she realized where she was, and a glance down confirmed it. Ridges of razor-sharp coral flew past beneath her, but the swell was passing; without swimming to keep on top of the wave, she was being left behind, deposited onto the unforgiving reef.

She landed on her hands and knees as the water receded; pain lashed her arms and legs, but already the next swell was rising behind her, and this one would not lift her up, but would crash down on top of her, driving her whole body onto the reef. She scrabbled forward, heedless of the scratches and cuts, knowing she would not survive if the wave came while she was still on the coral. She would be shredded like a cockroach under a boot heel.

She heard the roar of the wave behind her and spared a glance, fighting forward over a sharp edge. The wave rose, its face steepening and curling. She flung herself forward and caught a glimpse of turquoise-white before her: a finger of sand between two ridges of coral. She dove for it as the wave crashed, slamming her down.

Her legs raked over the last ridge of coral, then she was past it, driven down onto the sand between the coral heads. She hit hard, but the undulating ridges of sand felt like a featherbed compared to the coral. She let the wave pass over her, then swam for the surface through clouds of blood from her cuts. She had made it past the reef; the mer could not reach her.

Sam swam for the beach through the crystalline water of the lagoon, ignoring the sting of salt water in her cuts and scratches. She was pushed onto the beach by a gentle curling wave, tiny in comparison to the raging monsters that thundered across the reef. The coarse sand ground into the wounds on her hands and knees, but she crawled up the beach and was finally able to stand.

Her shoes were gone, and her trousers were shredded below the knee. Amazingly, she still had her cutlass, its stout leather baldric looped firmly over her shoulder and clipped to her belt. A deep puncture in her calf bled freely. The mer dagger had stabbed right through the muscle. She ripped a swatch from her shirt and tied it tight around the wound, staunching the flow slightly. The rest of her cuts and scratches only bled a little, though they stung horribly, filled with salt water and sand. There was nothing she could do about them now; she didn’t have much time if she wanted to survive.

A glance out to sea confirmed that
Orin’s Pride
was heading toward the cut into Scimitar Bay. She had to reach her goal before they arrived. She dashed up the beach to the trail over the hill, leaving bloody footprints in the sand.

Chapter Thirty-Three

Flight of the Manta

“How much time do you expect to spend here, Count?” Camilla spooned sugar into her tea and stirred. The silver spoon tinkled around inside the cup.

“If my negotiations with Mistress Flaxal go well and the merfolk do not prove difficult, I will probably be no more than a week. A fortnight at the longest.” He smiled and lifted his cup to her, sipping the strong tea. “I suppose it would be unseemly to hope for difficulties, but I cannot in good conscience delay. The emperor awaits my report.”

“Well, having heard enough from Cynthia on the subject, let me assure you that the mer are
always
difficult.” She smiled up at the pale dawn light tinting the sky a pinkish hue beyond the balcony. Inside, Tim slept deeply on the comfortable divan. “Perhaps they will be so kind as to delay you for a whole month.”

“Perhaps.” He lowered his cup and sighed. “Though there is the decision about Timothy. I would take him back to Tsing with me, but he’s grown so accustomed to this place. He’s so…”

“Happy?” she said with a grin. “You know he would be welcome here, though I can understand you wanting him with you, after so long apart.”

“I think we should be together, but I know he will miss his life here.” He finished his tea and set the cup down. “And I must admit that I will miss it here as well.” He looked at her pointedly. “There is much to miss.”

“Perhaps you could prepare your report and send it with — ”

Three rising notes of a trumpet sounded in the clear morning air.

“That’s the call to general quarters!” the count said, surging to his feet.

“General what?” she asked.

“Battle stations, Camilla. The warships are calling the alarm to battle!”

Their eyes met and they both reached the same conclusion at the same time.

≈

Sam heard shouts and rustling from the foliage ahead of her and ducked off the trail. Flinging herself into the undergrowth, she kept her face down and her hand on the hilt of her cutlass. Mere steps away from her hiding place, a crowd of people rushed past her, toward the beach she had just come from. She recognized the nonsensical gibberish of the native folk, and realized that they must be going to see what had happened, undoubtedly drawn by the pyre of the flagship’s death.

She smiled grimly; if they didn’t catch her — and if they were too distracted to notice her bloody footprints before their trampling feet obscured them — this would work to her advantage.

Sam waited until the last of the running feet had passed, then lunged to her feet and dashed down the trail, ignoring the stabbing pain in her leg. She rounded the last bend and stopped, grinning down at the chaos that reigned below in Scimitar Bay. Shouts rang out, and people were running in confusion. A crowd milled about on the main pier next to the big three-masted schooner. Several of the natives’ dugout outriggers paddled madly toward the mouth of Scimitar Bay, where
Orin’s Pride
was just nosing out from behind the giant mangroves that lined the channel. As the ship emerged into the open bay, Sam took grim satisfaction in the damage it had taken. She didn’t see the captain on deck; if she was lucky, he had been killed. The small fleet of dugouts swarmed around the ship like a school of remoras.

Perfect!
She scurried toward the deserted shipyard dock where the
Manta
was tied. Sam dashed down the dock and leapt aboard, throwing herself down into the cockpit to avoid curious eyes. No one shouted an alarm. After a moment, she peeked out. All attention was still on
Orin’s Pride,
coming up to the pier across from
Peggy’s Dream
. The crowd was raucous, shouting questions while they caught the dock lines and secured them to the pilings. Sam could have blown a horn over on the shipyard dock and no one would have heard her.

So far, so good
. She scuttled around the deck, staying low, readying the ship’s jib and mainsail. The
Manta
was fully rigged and ready for sea, and Sam blessed the day that Dura had assigned her to work on the ship. As a result of it, Sam knew every line, fitting and system. Her only worry was for stores; she had no idea what, if anything, had been brought aboard for the initial sea trial. She would have to trust her luck, and hope that they’d at least filled the water barrels.

Finally, she was ready. With all attention still focused on the docked schooner, Sam stood and drew her cutlass. She hacked through the dock lines on the bow and amidships unchallenged, leaving the stern line tied to the pier. Skipping to the cockpit, she pulled the jib halyard through its ingeniously mounted block system to a large bronze winch. She wrapped the line around the winch drum, ignoring the blood from her lacerated hands that smeared the line, and cranked the drum’s handle until the sail was aloft and the line taut. Then she grabbed the flapping sheet and hauled on it until the sail snapped, cracked, and filled with the breeze.
Manta’s
bow swung around as the ship strained against the stern dock line.

“Hey! You there! What the bloody hell are ye…”

Sam recognized the voice, but didn’t look up. Working as rapidly as she dared, she tied off the sheet, drew her cutlass and slashed at the restraining dock line. The vessel surged forward, the gap between her starboard transom and the dock widening quickly. Feet pounded down the wooden planks and Dura’s bellow of alarm rang out.

“You bloody thief! Who the…Billy, what the hell are ye…Get back here, you thief!”

Sam looked into the livid dwarf’s face and laughed at her. “Thanks for the fine ship, Dura, but the name’s Sam, not Billy.” She sketched a mocking bow and sheathed her cutlass. “My compliments to Master Ghelfan in the name of Captain Bloodwind!” She spun the wheel to turn the ship into the wind, and dashed forward to loop the mainsail halyard around its winch and crank madly. The great gaff rose ponderously and the mainsail flapped in the breeze. Sam chuckled at the sound of Dura’s shouts and curses ringing through the morning air, then tied off the halyard and turned the ship downwind.

Manta
leapt forward as her mainsail filled, and Sam fought the wheel for a moment to keep her on course. The ship responded with the speed of a catboat, her double rudders biting hard, snapping her bows around in a heartbeat. The ship was already making an easy five knots, and was still accelerating.

“Gotta give that sea witch credit,” she muttered, grinning as she passed the stone pier and the two schooners, “she knows how to design a ship!”

More shouts rang out from the pier, echoing Dura’s. She couldn’t resist waving a bloody hand at the amassed crowd. “Thanks for the ship!”

“Sam!” a high voice screamed, and she saw him. Tim shoved through the crowd to the fore, waving frantically. “Sam, it’s me! Come back! Father’s here!”

She nearly lost her grip on the wheel when she saw the tall figure in the dark blue dress jacket behind her brother. His face, stature and dress hit her mind like a hammer blow, dredging up memories from her past; from Samantha’s past. But she was not Samantha anymore, she was Sam, and that past was no longer hers.

She drew her cutlass and stood on the cockpit gunwale, steering with one foot on a spoke of the wheel as she raised her sword and screamed at them, “I have no father! And you’re no brother of mine, you traitor! My father is dead! My father was Captain Bloodwind!”

She saw the shock on their faces and laughed, brandished her cutlass once more and steered
Manta
for the channel and open sea.