realized her own gullibility and naivete. Kij had talked her out of building the ironclads, said they were a waste of money in a time of peace. In all the speculation of what Kij had prepared as a trap. Ren had not once recalled the conversation, not even after the attempt to steal the heavy naval guns.
In the massive gunports, the barrels of the Prophets looked like oversized rifles. It would be a close battle- Ren without heavy armor. Kij without heavy guns.
“Hard to starboard! Bring the forward cannon to bear! Sink the bloody bitch!” Ren shouted.
The forward gunners ran out the bow cannon even as the ironclad spat another screaming round of grapeshot. Their distance was such that the grapeshot had time to spread over a wide pattern before striking. It peppered the decks, chewing away planking where the wood thinned. Screams of pain came from all quarters, mixing with the moans of those already wounded.
With a thunder that vibrated to Ren’s very core, the forward cannon fired. On a column of smoke and fire, the ball hurtled the gap and struck a glancing blow along the ironclad’s stern.
“We’ll have to hit them dead on to punch through their plating!” Raven shouted.
“Lieutenant!” Ren called to the marines’ commander, then paused as grapeshot roared from the other ship. Kij was firing her cannons in series, trying to keep Ren’s soldiers from sharp shooting the gunnery crews. “Have your women fire at will!” Ren shouted into the relative silence. “Aim for the gunports!”
It was a slaughter, her women trying to sharp shoot in the deadly hail, dying before they could get their shots off. The aft gun was useless. As the fore gun was run out to fire, the ironclad turned, forcing them to take another glancing shot. The ball careened off the thick plating. Beside Ren, the pilot fought the fast current to try and close with the ironclad while keeping clear of the boulder-strewn shores. They circled, wary as knife fighters, moving upriver as they cut each other with cannon fire.
“There’s the Portage River mouth!” the pilot shouted. “But I can’t get past her! She’s forcing us up the Bright River, toward the falls. It runs shallow from here on up! Either we’ll run aground or we’ll be forced under the falls!”
Ren swore. The ironclad’s steep side offered no purchase for her marines to board, and closing with Kij’s ship would only increase the damage that the grapeshot would do. They were running out of river, though, and soon would be at the foot of the falls itself.
“Do you hear something?” Raven shouted.
How can you hear anything over this hellish noise? Ren tried anyhow. Over the thunder of the cannons and the endless roar of the waterfall, there was a high-pitched sound, ceaseless, growing louder.
A steam whistle, she recognized suddenly, blowing without stop, and coming closer.
“Where is that coming from?” Ren asked.
“Look!” A marine on the deck suddenly cried, pointing upriver toward the white curtain of water. “The falls!”
Half a mile upriver, and hundreds of feet up, the underbelly of a boat speared out over the edge of the falls. It came and came, unending, its steam whistle screaming a death keen that was now being caught and echoed back by the granite cliffs of the gorge. A hundred feet of hull showed before the side wheel appeared at the brink, and the whole mass pivoted on its weight. Sluing sideways, the boat started to fall, and the cannon fire picked out the lettering on its side wheel. Destiny.
Ren shouted in wordless protest. Jerin! Halley!
With a curse, the pilot swung the wheel hard, turning suddenly without regard to the ironclad. “‘If that hits us after it comes over the falls, it’ll take us under!”
The ironclad too was turning, trying to escape the massive ship now tumbling over the falls.
“‘No!” Ren caught the wheel and jerked it back. “Kij’s giving us her broadside! Ram the bitch! End it here! Kill her now!”
The pilot threw her a panicked look, and then shouted into the tubes, “Full speed ahead! Full speed!”
The Red Dog leaped forward, its bow arrowing through the dark waters. Ren ducked down low behind the shield, bracing for the impact. They struck with a great splintering crack, the braced bow of the Red Dog cleaving deep into the ironclad. Ren was slammed forward into the shielding, striking her head, eclipsing the world with a flash of dark and pain. Then the fore gun fired, more felt than heard, the muzzle apparently buried in the guts of the ironclad. The ball punctured one of the boiler engines of the ironclad, and the shriek of escaping steam and screaming women joined with the crack of rifles.
Raven had her by the arm then, and was hefting her up, crying, “It’s going to hit us!”
Ren turned, and saw the shattered decks of the Destiny rolling toward them, out of the night, tumbled by the fast shallow rapids. Her mind only understood flashes of what she saw: a railing here, an open doorway there, a hanging flight of stairs breaking off in mid-tumble.
Raven dragged her backward, back along the Red Dog’s top deck to the stern gun. There Raven pushed Ren down and caught her by the foot. “Strip! Get your boots off! We’re going to have to swim for it! The nearest Queens Justice is Annaboro. When you get to shore, stay low. Kij might have backup troops!”
They went into the dark, fast water then, Ren stripped to only a shirt while Raven was still fully dressed.
Caught in the icy current, Ren struggled to keep afloat. She looked back. The water was littered with bodies, some thrashing, some still. The wreckage of the Destiny struck where the two ships were joined, and the river forced it up, rearing above the gunboats. Borne down by the weight of its plating and the water filling its bowels, the ironclad sank quickly. The Red Dog, still caught by its ram, rolled as the ironclad sank, the Destiny toppling over its dipping bow.
Oh, Jerin, love, I’m sorry. I’m sorry that I took you away from your mothers’ farm where you were safe. I’m sorry I let Kij take you as bait. I’m so very sorry that I’ve gotten you killed.
Ren came ashore downriver of the Portage River confluence, teeth chattering from the cold, bone weary and heartsick. Raven had vanished into the waters, and Ren could not remember if her captain even knew how to swim. Two guards kept faithfully to her. The sergeant, Buckley, apparently swam like a fish and had helped Ren keep her bearings as they struggled for shore. The other was a young private whose face Ren could not recall, and in the dark could not see, by the name of Cherry. For miles the fast current had carried them, and they could only keep their heads above water. Then the river turned, and in that bend, the water deepened and slowed and they thrashed ashore.
The wind had kicked up, tossing the trees and cutting cold as sharp as knives through their wet clothes.
Buckley knew approximately where they were, and knew too of a nearby mansion laid to ruin in the last war. It would give cover and shelter well away from the exposed river-bank. Ren wanted only to lie in the mud and grieve, but dragged herself up anyhow. She couldn’t give up until she was sure Kij was as dead as her father, her elder sisters, Halley, and Jerin. She had to be sure Kij paid.
They were past the escarpment, and the land was flat here, smoothed by countless floods. They kept to the cave-black shadows of the windbreaks, hedging fields of freshly cut hay. The night was full of distant cracks of rifles, faint echoes of shouting, and the rolling thunder of racing horses. The gray of false dawn touched the sky as they reached the mansion sitting alone on a hill, the short summer night fleeing before the sun. In the silence before dawn, the dark, broken structure, surrounded by shorn fields, seemed ominous.
They paused in the windbreak at the foot of the hill, shivering, scanning the fields.
“How close is Annaboro?” Ren asked.
“Another ten miles south. Your Highness,” Buckley murmured, then cocked her head, listening intently.
“Riders are coming.”
Ren swore. In their white shirts and red uniform pants, they stood out in the scanty cover of the windbreak. “Let’s try for the mansion.”
They ran. The sharp stems of the cut hay stabbed like a thousand needles in their bare feet as they raced for cover. The riders broke out of a woodlot behind them, and came sweeping toward them. A glance was enough to show the riders weren’t the Queens Justice. Even as Ren and the others reached the old front yard of the mansion, the riders cut them off. looping around them in a rough circle of lathered, blowing horses.
Kij looked worse for wear, at least. Her beautiful face was cut and bruised. Part of her shirt had been torn off, and a bloody bandage showed beneath. But she was alive, damn her soul, when everyone else was dead.
“Don’t you know when to die?” Ren asked her.
“I could say the same for you. I’ve been trying to kill you for six years,” Kij growled.
