longer useful.”
“Majesty!” the admiral cried. “You cannot listen to this madness.” He flung out his hand toward the boats. “Those runners are fine, precision-crafted warships. You can’t sacrifice our naval strength on one foolhardy gambit!”
“Actually, I don’t see why not,” Josef said, rubbing his chin. “Eli’s right. Without clingfire, the runners are only good now for drawing fire and dodging between palace ships. Dodging doesn’t win wars. If we can block the bay, we can buy time for the Council to arrive.”
“But, sire,” the admiral said, his voice cracking. “That fleet was your mother’s pride!”
“And my mother would throw it away in a heartbeat if it served her country,” Josef said. “We can’t be sentimental if we’re going to have a hope of surviving.”
The admiral looked like he was about to cry. “If you sink the fleet, we’ll be defenseless against the next naval attack.”
Josef smirked. “Fight the sword at your throat, admiral, not the sword in the sheath. If sinking the fleet gives me the luxury of missing it later, I’ll count that a victory. Man the runners, skeleton crews only, and tell the men to line them up at the mouth of the bay. I want everyone else to get a bow and get to the cliffs. This is now a siege.”
The admiral clutched his head in his hands. “I can’t believe this is happening.”
“Believe it,” Eli said, giving the old man a gentle push. “Off you go now. We don’t have much time.”
Too shocked to realize he was taking orders from the prince’s layabout friend, the admiral nodded and ran down the stairs, calling orders in a mournful voice.
The sailors of Osera lived up to their reputation. Not fifteen minutes after the plan was hatched, the runners were moving out. Four men crewed each ship, rowing hard against the current until they reached the mouth of the bay. They worked quickly, throwing the wrist-thick docking lines from ship to ship. As one pair of men tied the lines, the other worked the anchor, dragging the chain back and forth across the seabed to catch the rocks. One by one, the boats linked together, forming a floating wall between the bay and the sea. When the ships were all tied in position, by rope to each other and by anchor to the ocean floor below, the sailors kissed the prows good-bye before pulling the bilge plugs. As the sea rushed in, the sailors jumped into the bay and swam for the trawlers waiting to take them to shore.
Josef watched it all from the cliffs where the royal guard and those sailors not tasked with sinking the fleet had positioned themselves with crossbows taken from the watchtower armory. The admiral was there as well, his face pale and drawn.
When the last ship had been scuttled, Josef examined the battlefield. The mouth of the bay was now a spiky wall of sunken ships. Each runner had been scuttled prow first, its iron-tipped nose shoved deep between the craggy rocks of the bay floor with its long body pointing up and its narrow mast stabbed into the water behind it like a brace. Even so, the wall of scrapped boats looked like little more than flotsam before the enormous palace ships.
“Will it work, you think?” the admiral whispered.
“We’ll know soon enough,” Josef said. “Are the archers ready?”
The admiral nodded. “Everyone’s in position. The scuttle crews will get bows and get up to the cliffs as soon as they land.”
“Good,” Josef said. “Because the enemy’s on its way.”
The Empress’s fleet had cleared the reef and was now plowing across the span of deep water that ran parallel to the coast. The front line of ships was already within striking distance of the sea cliffs, but the fleet slowed as it neared the island, turning off the Empress’s current to form a ring around the mouth of the bay. Lights flashed on the decks as the ships signaled to each other, and then one of the palace ships from the circle’s northern end broke off from the group and began slowly moving toward the wall of sunken ships.
“They’ll stop,” the admiral said as the palace ship crept toward the barrier. “They have to stop. They’ll break their hulls and strand themselves if they don’t. No admiral would waste a ship like that.”
“And no woman would give up life as a princess and betray her homeland for the love of a ruler she’s never met,” Josef said bitterly. “Don’t underestimate the Immortal Empress, admiral.” Josef looked up, raising his voice as he grabbed his crossbow from the ledge. “Stations! Here they come!”
The order was scarcely out of his mouth when the enormous palace ship crashed into the sunken remains of the Oseran fleet.
The squeal of wood on wood echoed off the cliffs, followed by the horrible crunch of breaking timbers. At the mouth of the bay, the line of sunken ships was bowing, dragged inward by the momentum of the enormous ship. The water churned as the sunken runners plowed along the seabed, and then, with a great clang of metal on stone, the tangle of anchors and knotted chains reached the end of its slack. The line caught, and the palace ship jerked to a halt.
The bay held its breath as the ship stopped. On its deck, the soldiers were sliding, thrown off their feet by the sudden stop. Some fell hundreds of feet into the water below as the ship tilted with a great groan, its keel well and truly stuck in the wall of the sunken fleet.
A cheer went up from the cliffs and then died out almost as quickly as the prow of the palace ship began to shake. Josef squinted. It was possible the crash had broken something inside, but the soldiers on the deck weren’t running with the sort of panic he’d expect from the crew of a damaged ship. He was still watching their movements for a sign of their plan when the prow of the palace ship fell forward.
The great pointed nose fell like an ancient tree, crashing into the bay with a splash that echoed off the cliffs. It bobbed once in the water before a network of ropes wrenched it tight. Josef bit back a curse. The prow hadn’t broken. It was designed to fall, forming a launch ramp for the troop boats Josef could now see waiting inside the ship’s enormous belly. The second the ramp was steady, the boats began to roll out, pushed by men carrying long wooden shields over their heads, their dark faces set in grim determination as they hauled the boats down the ramp and into the bay.
Three ships were in the water before Josef realized his army was gawking and not firing.
“Shoot!” Josef shouted, arching his neck to look up at the sailors on the cliffs. “Now!”
The men jumped at his voice, and at once a ragged volley launched from the cliffs. The short, black crossbow bolts flew from all directions, falling on the boats like rain. The enemy raised their shields over their heads, but it wasn’t enough. Men fell screaming into the water with bloody splashes as the Oseran arrows struck true, but it did not stop the torrent of boats pouring out of the palace ship.
“Keep firing!” Josef shouted as he reloaded his own bow. “Don’t let up!”
Wave after wave of bolts shot down from the cliffs, covering the enemy ramp in a bristle of wooden quills. The bolts struck hard, hard enough to punch holes in the troop ships that were already in the water. But for every boat the Oserans sank, two more appeared from the palace ship’s maw, sliding down the ramp into the bay whose blue water was now a sickly shade of purple.
“How many of the bastards are in there?” the admiral shouted.
“Too many,” Josef said, tossing his empty quiver down and reaching for another. “But they’re not the real trouble. Look.”
The admiral followed Josef’s gaze past the palace ship’s open nose to its back, and his ashen face turned even grayer.
On the rear deck of the palace ship, ten men stood in a circle around a glowing sphere of iron and stone. The sphere grew brighter by the second, until it hurt Josef’s eyes to look at. When it was as bright as a small sun, the men threw out their hands in unison and the glowing ball launched into the sky. It arced above the bay and started to fall, hurtling toward the watchtower with a high-pitched scream.
“War spirit!” the admiral cried. “Get a team down there!”
“No!” Josef shouted. “Keep firing! The war spirit is covered!”
The admiral stared at him. “Covered how?”
Josef nodded at the storm wall. “Time for that lazy bastard to do his part.”
The admiral turned and nearly dropped his bow. Eli was standing on the storm wall, staring up at the falling war spirit with a calm smile as he unbuttoned his shirt. With each button, black smoke rose to curl around him, flashing with sparks. Overhead, the war spirit was picking up speed, its scream ratcheting up to a deafening wail even Josef could feel in his bones. Just before it crashed into the tower’s tile roof, the fire over Eli’s head exploded
