“Got a galley coming,” Kip shouted. He pulled up the binocle and almost puked as the magnified vision seemed to magnify the swaying. “No flag.”
Gavin shot a look up. “Probably pirates looking for an easy kill, not Vecchio’s. Keep an eye on it.”
Then they were back into the fight. They came out from under the stern galley onto the starboard side and saw an explosion blow one of the cannons on the lowest gun deck completely out the side into the water in a spray of wood and fire and smoke. One of the Blackguards-Kip though it was Cruxer-whooped.
An instant later, Kip saw one of the pigeons dive at Cruxer. It hit his chest, stuck.
Cruxer slapped the bird off his chest. It splashed into the water and less than a second later exploded.
Then Kip understood. Like the hellhounds Trainer Fisk had told them about, these birds were natural birds, but they’d been infused with a drafter’s will to do one thing-attack the Blackguards. And in this case, they’d also been equipped with small grenadoes.
Which meant several dozen small flying bombs were circling the great ship-small, intelligent bombs.
As intelligent as pigeons, anyway.
And if that wasn’t quite terrifying, seeing half a dozen of them hit a Blackguard team that had slowed to throw a grenado into a gunport was. A second later, both driver and archer were ripped apart by the explosions. The grenado the woman had thrown bounced harmlessly off the blindage-which hadn’t been pulled off on this side of the ship-and exploded in the water, barely so much as scoring the wood of the hull.
The Gargantua was a floating castle. The fires weren’t spreading. It was invincible.
“Reeds,” Gavin said to Ironfist.
The big man seemed to know what he meant instantly, because he took Gavin’s reed and began propelling the skimmer by himself.
“Kip, hold my feet down. All your weight.”
Gavin was already weaving something between his hands. Kip practically dove onto his feet. Instant obedience. Then he followed Gavin’s eyes.
The entire flock of the remaining ironbeaks was headed straight at them. With only Ironfist on the reeds, the birds were catching up.
Gavin didn’t finish until the first bird was practically within arm’s reach. Then he threw both hands out and a net of yellow luxin spun out from him. It engulfed all of the birds. Then Gavin yanked his arms down and was nearly pulled from Kip’s grasp. But the pressure lasted only a second.
There was no such thing as action at a distance with luxin. To throw something, you had to throw it; to slap something down onto a deck, you had to yank it down. Gavin had made the luxin a lever, and he’d cast the entire net of the birds onto the deck of the Gargantua.
Where they exploded. Kip saw half a man and a helmet flying off the deck.
Not an empty helmet.
Gavin scrambled back into place, and Kip saw an orange drafter peek over the deck and spray luxin down on the burning hull, extinguishing the flames.
Ironfist saw him, too, and put a blue spike in his skull. The man tumbled into the sea.
“They’re organizing into musket teams,” Ironfist said. And the effect was almost immediate. The men on the decks must have started putting the best marksmen in front, while those farther back reloaded and gave them fresh muskets, because both the rate and the accuracy of fire increased.
A sea chariot driver just behind them crumpled, turning the pipes wildly to one side. Her chariot flipped, flinging her archer into the sea.
“Guard overboard!” Kip cried.
Ironfist’s and Gavin’s reaction was immediate. Catching a peak, they shot hard to starboard. The skimmer flipped completely backward before they hit the next wave.
All of them were nearly torn off the skimmer from the sudden change in direction, but neither Gavin nor Ironfist slowed. Kip thought he was going to tear the post behind him right off, but it held. Both men pulled grenadoes from their bandoliers and tossed them in high arcs. Then another.
“Sub-red on any muskets you see, Kip!” Gavin shouted.
They sped toward the swimming young man.
“I got the reeds,” Gavin said. He took them both and headed straight for the Blackguard. Kip thought he was going too close, but as he popped over the last wave, Gavin turned slightly and they splashed barely a hand’s breadth from the Blackguard. Ironfist reached down and between Ironfist’s strength and the Blackguard’s, the man popped out of the water in barely a second.
Kip hadn’t seen what effect the grenadoes had on the deck, but the musket fire had slowed. Then he saw one of the swivel guns on a lower deck being turned toward them.
The other Blackguards on their sea chariots had rallied around them, and they were spraying red luxin everywhere, the yellows casting flashbombs to dazzle and distract, but the sheer number of them congregating in one sector was enough to encourage the cannoneers to turn the big guns.
The screams of the furious and the shouts of anger and the moans of the injured and the cries of urgent orders and the crackling of fireballs and the snapping of distant muskets and booms of cannons and the whistle of the big mortars and the snap of sails and the wash of the waves and hissing of the wind and the moans of the dying and the shrieks of the wights faded, grew distant, hushed. Kip could hear only the deep, slow whoosh of his own heartbeat, ludicrously slow, and around and beneath that a sighing, like the beach when the tide goes out. For a moment, he had a wild notion that he was hearing the sunlight hit the waves.
He saw one of the Blackguard archers drawing an arrow back. The string touched her lips and the arrow leapt out at the very moment a musket ball tore her jaw off.
Whoosh. The world looked beyond real. Kip realized he was seeing the whole spectrum at once. He could see dozens of guns. The skimmer was directly broadside to the Gargantua. And he could see the glow of men, the glow of matches and slow fuses. He could see the gleam of metal on the powder barrels through the open gunports, could see straight through the smoke.
He swept a hand out and fanned superviolet strands like spiderwebs out to every gun and barrel he could see. The superviolet was so fast and light, it hit its targets almost the instant he chose them. Then he swept his hand back, releasing little bursts of firecrystals so hot they burned his hand even as he shot them out at unbelievable speed.
Satisfaction swept through him even before the next big whoosh of his heartbeat rolled through his ears.
Struck by the firecrystals, every loaded musket and cannon on the starboard side of the Gargantua went off at once. Cannons that were in the middle of being loaded went off, muskets that men were standing over with ramrod in hand went off. Loaded muskets being handed up to marksmen went off. Some of the cannons hadn’t been charged yet, and Kip felt vexed. Others, though, had been fully loaded but not yet pushed back into place, and they blew holes out of the sides of the gun decks.
The entire ship was rocked to the side from the simultaneous concussive force.
Not bad.
And then, on three different gun decks, powder barrels exploded. Flames and smoke and wood and cannons and men and parts of men blasted fresh holes in every deck.
The roar ripped over the Blackguards and Kip blinked. Time was back. He was back.
Men were screaming. Terrible, terrible screams. He could see men on fire, skin blackened and sloughing off, running to jump into the sea. Fires leapt out of all three gun decks.
The skimmer shuddered and Gavin and Ironfist threw their will into getting back up to speed.
“Four ships coming in, half a league,” Kip said. He felt empty, stunned.
“Under the beakhead,” Gavin said.
“Not so sure that’s a good-” Ironfist said.
“Under the beak! The wights will be up on deck any second. We’ve got one chance at this!”
Ironfist acquiesced instantly and they sped in front of the ship, hardly any muskets barking now. They came under the front of the still-moving ship, and Ironfist took the reeds, maneuvering them so that the ship didn’t plow right over them. The wooden beakhead loomed just above their heads, close enough that when the waves lifted them, it almost smashed Kip’s head. Gavin wrapped one fist in fire and punched into the hull overhead.
When the wave receded, Gavin was yanked into the air, his fist still stuck into the wood. Kip lunged, but
