She edged back to give him room, her mind darting, racing, thinking.
Cultist dispatched, Gareth turned to her and roared, “For the love of God, what the devil are you doing here? Get
Below…eyes flying wide, she seized his lapel and hauled him close-close enough that he could hear her above the godawful din. “The oil!” She met his eyes. “I saw in the galley-the cook has just decanted an amphora into lots of little bottles. He uses lots of rags. Put the rags in the bottles, light them, and…” She looked up at the sails of their ship, taut in the breeze-the fair wind was still blowing-then looked at the other ship. The cultists’ ship. It, too, was under sail. “If their sails burn-”
She didn’t need to finish. Gareth grabbed her arm and pushed her toward the stern ladder. “Come on!”
He had to help her slide between desperately fighting men. Suddenly, he reached over and past a set of shoulders, tagging someone in a scrum beyond.
An instant later, Bister popped through. “What?”
“Come with us.” Gareth pushed past Emily to clear the area around the stern hatch. As soon as she could, Emily darted behind him and went down. At a nod from him, Bister ducked down behind her.
Gareth dallied to deal with the two cultists who had seen them go below. A slash on his upper arm and two scrapes later, he whirled and went down the ladder.
He found Emily and Bister working frantically, readying their little incendiaries. Emily had found a basket. She thrust the last of the pottery bottles wicked with rags into it, looked at him. “Tinder?”
He reached into his pocket and drew out his tinderbox.
Bister did the same. “But…” His young batman eyed the bottles.” We’ll need to be on deck before we light them.”
“Indeed.” Gareth reached for the basket-a sudden ruckus in the corridor had him seizing his sword instead and swinging to face the door.
But it was Watson who appeared. He was bleeding from a gash on his face. “What’s to do?”
Gareth lowered his sword, lifted the basket. “How’s your aim?”
He explained as, with Bister in the lead, they hurried back to the stern ladder. Setting the basket at the ladder’s foot, Gareth handed two bottles to Watson, another two to Bister, then took two himself, tucking them into his breeches’ pockets. “I’ll go up first and clear an area-you follow, get those lit, and aim for their sails. Mooktu and Mullins are up there somewhere. We’ll give you cover and I’ll get my two away when I can. But we’ll almost certainly need more than those”-he nodded at the bottles they held-“to get their sails fully alight. So once you throw the first two, come and get more.”
He turned to Emily. “You stay here,
It suddenly struck him that he wanted to kiss her-desperately wanted to taste her lips for just a fleeting instant. He knew how badly the odds above were stacked against them.
Gripping his sword, he turned, and pushed past Bister. “Come on!” Without a backward glance, he led the way up and out.
Back into the cacophony of a battle that was definitely not going their way. This attack was infinitely better planned than any of the previous incidents; whoever had organized this knew his business.
His reemergence in the restricted space around the stern hatch temporarily swung the odds in that corner their way.
He found Mooktu, and with a word and a glance had him shoulder to shoulder, then Mullins saw, and although not knowing why, came to join them in clearing the area around the hatch and holding all comers back.
Gareth noticed Arnia at Mooktu’s elbow, and Dorcas behind Mullins. Both women looked dishelved, but neither had wounds, and both had knives. He knew Arnia could use hers, and Dorcas’s was bloodied.
Then another wave of cultists charged their little wall, and he had other things to think about.
The first incendiary lobbed out from behind him. Bister’s direction was good, but his range less so. The burning bottle smashed on the other ship’s deck. Surprised crew quickly stamped out the ensuing fire.
But the next bottle struck the lower part of the middle lanteen sail.
The oil soaked in, then flared, and the sail caught.
As he’d expected, the sailors rushed to douse the flames, but Watson lobbed his bottles in quick succession, and fires bloomed on the rear lanteen.
With shouts and curses, the sailors on the other ship rushed to fill buckets. But before the flames were fully doused, Bister hit the middle sail again, and the very top of the rear lanteen.
The other ship started to lose speed and fall back-bringing their front lanteen into Bister’s firing range. Watson concentrated on keeping the fires going on the middle and rear sails.
One of the advantages that until then the cultists had had was that they could remain intent and focused, uncaring of what else was happening on the xebec. But with their own ship in difficulties, that changed. Distracted, they glanced across the waves, only to see their ship drifting further back and away.
The tide of the battle, until then with the cultists, swung the other way. Dacosta and his crew sensed it. They were quick to capitalize, pushing hard to lower the number of cultists they had on board.
Some cultists decided the waves were safer.
And then, quite abruptly, the fighting on the xebec’s deck reached the mopping-up stage. Bister popped up at Gareth’s elbow as he stepped back from the waning fray.
“We’re out of incendiaries”-Bister nodded at the other ship-“but looks like we had enough. Watson even managed to hit their sail locker, so they won’t be coming after us anytime soon.”
“Not unless they run out their oars.” Dacosta pushed through the others to join them in the stern. He looked at the ship sliding away in their wake, then up at his own sails, and shook his head. “No, not even then.” He glanced at Gareth. “These cultists-how likely are they to be competent oarsmen?”
“Not likely at all.” Gareth glanced at Emily as she joined them. She appeared unharmed. She grasped his arm as if for support and comfort, and something inside him calmed.
Dacosta had brought his spyglass. He trained it on the other ship. “His crew will need to get those burning sails down and ditched before they can think about the oars, and if the cultists aren’t able, there’s not enough crew to make much of a show.” He glanced back, signaled to his first mate. “We’ll keep all sail on-in these conditions, it can’t hurt.”
Gareth caught Emily’s eye. “That was an inspired idea to use the oil.”
Dacosta glanced at her, brows rising. “That was your notion, mam’zelle?”
Emily smiled weakly. “We had to do so something, so…” She suppressed the impulse to lean heavily against Gareth. Fighting was horribly draining…truth be told, it was simply horrible all around. She tried not to look as the crew checked bodies, then heaved the dead overboard. Those cultists who were able had already jumped.
But the xebec was safe again, and so were they.
Dacosta acknowledged that with a low bow. “It seems we all owe you a debt, mam’zelle. For me and my crew-and my brother who owns this ship-I thank you.”
Emily inclined her head, and kept hold of Gareth’s arm. She’d noticed his cuts. None were still bleeding, but she was conscious of a definite desire to take his hand, lead him belowdecks, and wash and tend them. She wondered if perhaps she might manage it later.
Dacosta had his spyglass to his eye again. “If you can explain to me one thing, Major. Why is it the captain there”-his fixed gaze made it clear he was speaking of the other ship’s captain-“did not run out his guns? He wanted to after we set his sails alight-I saw him try to give the order, but the cultists-those on his ship-prevented it. If not for that…” Lowering the glass, Dacosta regarded them impassively. “Given our cargo, he would have blown us to bits.”
Emily stared. “He had guns? You mean cannon?” The last word came out as a half squeak.
Dacosta nodded. “All xebec carry guns, but only small ones, and not many. But at such close quarters, he couldn’t have missed, and because of the oil, we would go”-he made a gesture-“
A rueful smile touching his lips, Gareth met her gaze briefly, then faced Dacosta. “It’s that thing I’m carrying that they want. For once, it protected us. If they’d blown up the ship, even if they’d just sunk it, they would lose what they’ve been sent to fetch-and their master wouldn’t like that.”
Dacosta nodded. “I see. This master of theirs, this Black Cobra. I take it he doesn’t forgive well?”
