Tycho nodded. “We’re not doing this for a single man. You really think I would risk my precious marines for Koschei? No. We’re doing this to save the entire city.”
“You said that before. But from what exactly?”
Tycho glanced out the dark windows, over the walls of the palace, to the slender spire wrapped in white storm winds. “From that.”
The aether maelstrom had doubled since he last saw it, growing wider and taller, and now as he stared at it Tycho could see slender ribbons of white mist streaming out from the storm over the city and over the Strait.
“We don’t have much time.”
As the Hellan ships accelerated down the channel toward the Furies, Tycho lingered by the window and peered into the storm, searching for the outline of the Tower of Justice.
That poor girl. All alone in there. I can’t believe I just left her there. I should have… done something. Gone back. Gotten her out.
Something.
Tycho turned back to the captain. “What hope do we have of actually damaging those warships?”
The captain glanced up from the map table. “None.”
“Don’t spare my feelings, sir, I can handle the truth.” Tycho forced a grin. “What if we angle the guns up at the command deck instead of down at the hull?”
“We’ll kill a few officers while their guns shatter our hulls and destroy our engines.”
Tycho sighed. “Ah, the soldier’s life for me.”
The captain strode past him, saying, “You’re a sailor tonight, Xenakis.”
The Herakles and her escorts bore down on the Furies, and now Tycho could see the lights shifting on the decks of the Eranian ironclads. The three warships were turning to meet their attackers, their electric lights flickering and blinking in the darkness as the Turks ran back and forth across the decks to their battle stations.
“We’ll bear northeast and draw their fire in that direction,” the captain said. “With any luck, they won’t notice your boys coming up out of the water until it’s too late.”
Tycho nodded.
With any luck. If we had luck, we wouldn’t have needed Vlad, or Koschei, and we wouldn’t be sacrificing three ships and a thousand good men to stop a witch from driving us all insane. No, we won’t have any luck tonight.
The Hellan destroyers swept to the northeast and the guns began to fire. A soft boom here, a distant crack there. And then a few more. And more, a little faster. As the enemy ships came together, they came within range of the enemy guns one by one, and one by one they opened fire.
Shells exploded in the water, hurling tall white spouts of spray into the air.
That one was damn close.
Tycho moved away from the windows.
I’m only in the way here. I shouldn’t be here at all. I should be in the palace, protecting the Duchess. I should be trying to help Wren…
A shell struck the hull of the Herakles and the whole ship shuddered for a moment. Men were shouting and screaming outside. The captain calmly issued orders, and the bridge crew calmly obeyed them. Engines at one quarter, all guns fire at will, fire team to the armory, medics to the armory.
Tycho watched the mechanical precision and stoic demeanor of the sailors around him, wondering if there had ever been a field of battle on dry land like this one.
Rifles began crackling and popping as the men on deck fired at each other across the water. The Hellan ships were spread out in a long line, cruising slowly past the Eranians with their hissing electric flood lamps glaring up at the enemy decks.
Directly ahead of the Herakles, the lead Hellan escort ship’s engines exploded in a rolling firestorm that flew up into the sky and painted the rippling waters in yellow and red. Bodies were thrown in every direction and the survivors dove over the railings into the freezing Bosporus.
Tycho shoved a sweating hand back through his hair and tried to slow the pounding of his heart.
You never see the shot that kills you. It just kills you, and that’s it.
He swallowed and went to the rear door of the bridge, exchanged a grim nod with the captain, and headed below.
Another shell struck the Herakles and Tycho clung to the handrails and walls to keep his balance at the ship groaned and shivered around him. A sailor scrambled past him and Tycho called out, “Where are the wounded?”
“Aft!” and the sailor was gone.
Frowning, Tycho headed aft, and down another deck, and aft again until he found the fire team throwing buckets of water on the smoldering decks and hacking at the smoking walls with their axes. One of the men pointed Tycho down the narrow corridor and he hurried to the far side of the ship where he found nine burned and bloodied men lying on the floor with two very young and very nervous medics trying to bandage them up.
“Major Xenakis, sir!” One of the medics bolted up.
Tycho waved him back to work. “Give me those bandages, and find some more blankets.” He knelt down beside one of the injured men.
“Sir, is there something you need?” the medic asked.
“No.” Tycho began wrapping up a bloody leg. “I just need to be busy right now.”
They’re out there, right now. My marines. My boys. If not for me, they’d probably be sleeping in some barracks right now, safe and sound. But I had to open my big mouth, and well, here they are.
The Herakles shook and from down the long corridors the voices of the sailors and the keening of the bulkheads echoed thunderously.
I had to show off my damn gun. I had to be so smart.
He recalled his tirade to Salvator, which had caught the Duchess’s attention from the far end of the Chamber of Petitions.
Why fight a powerful ship when all you need is to disable the crew? Why pit man against man when a gun will kill the enemy at a distance? We don’t need to be strong, we need to be fast and silent and precise.
One thing had led to another, and within three months he had founded a whole new force of young marines, all trained in gunplay and knife throwing, all trained to swarm a ship silently from fragile little dories wearing nothing more than rags.
They must be on the Eranian ship by now.
Tycho tried to focus on his bandaging.
They’re dying right now. Some of them are dying. And it’s because I put them there.
He finished with his patient and moved on to the next one.
It’s awfully quiet out there right now. Maybe they’re doing well. Maybe they’ve found Koschei. Maybe this stupid plan will work out after all.
“Good God, sir, what’s that?!”
Tycho looked up and saw a pale shape snaking its way along the deck. “Aether! It’s the aether, it’s here. Get the men up, get them out of here!” He jumped to his feet and began yanking at the injured man in front of him as the two medics grabbed the arms and legs of another man and fumbled him down the hall, heading farther aft.
Tycho pulled and pulled, but he could only shift the wounded sailor a few steps and the curling, writhing tendril of white mist was flowing closer and closer to him.
“I’m sorry,” he whispered as he dropped the sailor. He stumbled backward the first few paces, keeping his eyes on the mist. Then he heard the screams.
Men were screaming in the distance, their voices echoing across the waters and in the narrow steel canyons between the ships’ hulls. There were no words, no cries for help, no names, no pleas. Just wordless shrieks of pain and terror.
Tycho turned and ran back down the hall. At the end of the corridor was a locked door and he pounded on it, yelling, “Let me in! Let me in!”
But the door remained shut, and there was no sound of anyone on the other side.
The entire hull of the Herakles shuddered and groaned as the ship began to list to starboard, and the growling and crackling sounds of fire echoed in the distance while yellow and red lights danced on the walls.
And along the floor of the corridor, the thin fingers of the aether mist crept toward him.
