The veiled throne, p.18
The Veiled Throne, page 18
“Save the ship!” he shouted. “Put out that fire now if you want to live!”
The crew scrambled into action. An out-of-control garinafin was one of the worst disasters that could befall a Lyucu ship at sea. If they didn’t get the beast and the fire under control as quickly as possible, they were all doomed.
Warriors who had only moments earlier been at each other’s throats now jostled to work together, attaching hoses to barrels stacked on deck, hauling water in tubs up from the sea, passing buckets from hand to hand to drench the deck before the fire made its way up from the hold into the rigging and sails.
Nacu, his heart leaping wildly with joy that the gods had seen fit to strangle this mutiny—albeit with an equally dangerous threat to his ship—rushed to the hatch and looked down. Through the smoke and shimmering heated air, he saw a group of Lyucu warriors fighting against—could it be?—strangers dressed in the garb of Dara.
“Barbarians! Spies! We’ve been boarded!” he screamed, not caring how shrill his voice had grown or that he was flapping his arms like a child who had seen a scrubland snake for the first time.
“Votan!” One of the culeks ran up to him. “What horror! What cunning! May Cudyufin’s blessed light preserve us! What deceit! What witchcraft! May Nalyufin—”
The fact that someone was even more panicked than he served to calm the thane down. “What is it? Spit it out!”
“I… we were”—the terrified culek gestured at a group of Lyucu warriors standing by the starboard gunwale, pointing and jabbering excitedly—“hauling up a tub of seawater to help put out the fire. We… we thought we saw a whale—”
“What are you babbling about?” screamed Nacu. “This isn’t the time to worry about whales. Get down there and fight the barbarian boarders—”
“That’s where they’re coming from!” The culek hopped and gesticulated wildly. “There’s a Dara ship down there, under the water! It’s biting into the bottom of the ship!”
Dissolver of Sorrows had latched onto the bottom of the city-ship on the starboard side of the keel. As the city-ship rolled and pitched in the waves, the bow hooks had come undone, swinging the much smaller Dara ship into view if sailors on the city-ship looked directly down over the side.
Ever since Boundless Pastures had begun to chase the Dara fleet, Nacu had been sleeping poorly, haunted by nightmares of barbarian warriors who rode on magical ships that could bypass the Wall of Storms by materializing out of thin air. That these vague hunches were becoming true was simply too much. “Kill the whale-ship! Kill them!”
The culek stared at him. “How?”
“I don’t care. Chop down the mast and spear their ship with it if you have to. But kill them now!”
* * *
A thunderous crash. Dissolver of Sorrows shook from stern to bow like a speared fish.
“What happened?” Princess Théra struggled to get up from the floor in the darkness that permeated the captain’s quarters.
“We’ve been hit!” cried Captain Nméji Gon. “Something struck us directly over the bow from above.”
“We’ve been sighted,” said Çami Phithadapu. She pointed outside the transom windows. Indeed, a reddish glow suffused the water—bright torches had been lit above and were being held over the gunwale of the city-ship.
“Damage?” asked Théra.
“A crack in the forecastle, and we’re taking on water,” said Captain Nméji Gon. “But the hole isn’t big and can be plugged. Looks like they were dropping whatever they could find on hand over the side.” He paused as footsteps boomed in the conning tower above him. “The boarding party is returning. They say that a garinafin is loose aboard the city-ship, and we have to detach as soon as possible.”
“Get some lights!” ordered Théra. “No point in staying in the dark when they already know we’re here.”
Another thunderous crash, and the ship shook again. Théra braced herself against a bulkhead so that she didn’t fall.
“Another hit on the forecastle,” said Captain Nméji Gon. “We’re lucky the aim was off and the missile bounced off the side. Given the height of the city-ship, if they drop a stone in the right place, we’ll be stove-in.”
Théra stumbled onto the bridge in the aftercastle and anxiously watched as men and women clambered down the ladder from the conning tower one by one, rushing forward to the front of the ship to help with plugging the leak and bailing.
“Is everyone aboard?” asked Théra when the ladder was clear. “Where’s Takval?”
“He’s not coming,” said Tipo Tho, the last member of the boarding party to descend from the conning tower, poking her head down from the conning tower. “He went into the upper decks with a team of marines to try to slow down the Lyucu and give the bombs more time to do damage.”
“I told him not to always look for an excuse to play the hero!” Théra was enraged. “Get back up there and drag him back.”
“We won’t survive another hit,” said Captain Nméji Gon. “And lookouts in the forecastle report coracles being lowered into the water from the city-ship. If they board us and pry open the hatches, it’s all over.”
“I’ve already lit the fuses,” said Commander Tipo Tho. “If we don’t get out of here when the wall-busters blow, the sinking city-ship is going to crush us.”
Théra closed her eyes and cursed the gods under her breath. The plan had called for the boarding party to be safely back aboard Dissolver of Sorrows, and for the ship to sail away under cover of darkness, before the wall-busters blew. Somehow everything had collapsed into a tangled mess, and nothing was working the way it had been planned.
And everyone was looking to her to decide what to do.
“Your Highness,” said Admiral Roso, “you must honor the wishes of Prince Takval and the other marines who went with him. The best-laid plan in the world is no match for the unpredictable storms of reality. He tried to adapt to the winds, and so should you.”
The other officers nodded and murmured their assent.
Théra felt very, very alone.
Are they offering me counsel or are they telling me what to do? Is this a challenge to my authority? Damn you, Takval! Why did you defy me? It’s hard enough to know the right thing to do in calm waters, much less in the midst of a storm of doubt in your heart.
“And if I tell you to stay here until Takval and his marines are rescued?” asked Théra, her eyes narrowed. Though she was straining hard, she couldn’t keep the tremors out of her voice.
There was a moment of silence as the officers looked back at her, shadows flitting across their faces in the flickering torchlight.
“Then I will organize a new boarding party and lead it myself,” said Admiral Roso. “Rénga, you may be called princess now, but in my heart you’ll always be Empress Üna, the rightful heir to your father.”
“Then Dissolver of Sorrows will hold fast to this anchorage,” said Captain Gon, puffing his chest out. “Even if this ship is smashed to smithereens, I will stay here, clinging on to the city-ship with my teeth and nails.”
“Then I will fight up through the burning decks to find Prince Takval,” said Commander Tho. “I care not if I must slay man, garinafin, or even a god. Men and women must be willing to die for great lords who recognize their talent. Emperor Ragin elevated me from a farmer’s daughter to command an airship. To die for his daughter would not repay a tenth of the debt I owe him.”
Théra looked at the resolute faces around her. Was Takval’s decision the right one after all? Was she so angry with him because she truly believed that it was possible to succeed without losing anyone, or was it merely because he had defied her? She needed to assert her authority, but was this the right way? Her mother, Empress Jia, had always said that she wanted the best for the people of Dara, and rode roughshod over everyone else’s ideas. Her father, on the other hand, had always been known to listen to the counsel of his advisers. Should she take her cue from her mother or father?
Whatever she decided, someone was going to die.
These people are ready to die for me because I am my father’s daughter, not because they believe I’m right. Who can blame them? I don’t even trust myself.
“Detach from the city-ship,” she ordered, her tone flat. “Surface and get us out of here.”
Captain Gon barked a series of orders as Commander Tho went back up into the conning tower with a few marines to close the hatch and to detach the screws that held Dissolver of Sorrows fast to the city-ship.
An eternity of a few minutes later, Dissolver of Sorrows was free from the Lyucu vessel. As the city-ship continued to sail forward, the underwater Dara ship dove lower to slip beneath its wake. Once it was completely behind the city-ship, it would be able to surface and get away before the wall-busters blew.
Another thunderous crash, louder than any that had come before, and the ship shook from side to side like a quivering arrow. The deck tilted violently until the bow of the ship was pointed downward at a sharp angle. Everyone tumbled to the deck.
“Report!” shouted Théra before she had even climbed back up.
“They dropped a large stone directly through the forecastle,” said Captain Gon after he had had a chance to assess the situation. “Four sailors are dead and six wounded. The forecastle is flooded. We are losing buoyancy.”
“Surface now!” ordered Théra. Even she, no expert sailor, understood the gravity of the situation.
Captain Gon issued another series of urgent orders through the system of wooden clappers. As damage-control teams rushed at the forecastle with wooden planks and sandbags and long nails in a desperate bid to slow down the flooding, engineers at the buoyancy controls pumped the bellows to drive all remaining water out of the ballast tanks to give the ship a chance at escaping the clutches of Lord Tazu’s deadly realm.
The deck tilted at an even steeper angle as the stern of the ship, where the captain’s quarters, bridge, and aftercastle were located, rose up and shot for the surface. Everything slid off the tables, shelves, and other horizontal surfaces. The floor turned into a sheer cliff as everyone, from sailors to marines to the princess herself, grabbed onto anything that could serve as a handhold to stop sliding into the bow of the ship.
With a booming eruption, Dissolver of Sorrows shot out of the sea, stern-first, like some kind of reverse-breaching whale, and then settled back onto the turbulent waves. Water gushed out of the forecastle in cascading sheets as sailors fought to patch the jagged hole.
Just as Théra heaved a sigh of relief and was about to climb up from the floor, the ship shook with another loud crash. The sound of splintering wood filled the bridge, and Captain Gon’s face blanched.
“We’ve been dismasted,” he said after another series of damage reports. “The Lyucu have gotten to their stone-throwers and destroyed the main mast. They’ve doused the sails to keep pace with us. There’s no way we can get the other two masts up or the sails rigged as long as they can cover the deck with their slingshots and stone-throwers. Anyone we send onto the deck will be slaughtered.”
“So we have no way to move, even though we’re on the surface?” asked Théra.
Captain Gon nodded. “We can’t deploy oars, either. Same problem. One more direct hit from a stone-thrower will likely doom the ship.”
Théra slammed her fist into the nearest bulkhead. Her hesitancy had cost them precious time, allowing the Lyucu to land a killing blow. And now they had lost their only means of escape.
“When are those wall-busters going to blow?”
* * *
As a garinafin groom for Pékyu Tenryo, Takval had witnessed plenty of bloody and confusing battles in his life, but for sheer strangeness, the battle aboard the Lyucu city-ship surpassed them all.
Through the smoke, Takval rushed at the first Lyucu warrior he saw, the man who had slid down the ladder leading up to the now-open loading-bay hatch doors. The man’s eyes were red and tear-filled from the billowing smoke, and Takval thought he made a tempting target.
But the man nimbly dodged out of the way, and Takval’s Dara war club thunked into the floor, where one of the metal spikes bit into the wood and held. The Lyucu fighter was quick and sure-footed, despite the heated air, the swirling smoke, and the fact that he had just dropped down the equivalent of multiple decks. Takval was sure that he was a garinafin rider.
Takval struggled to free his club. Since Agon slaves in Taten weren’t allowed weapons at all, Takval had to practice fighting in secret with bones picked out of the middens. He had little actual battle experience and was unfamiliar with the characteristics of metal weapons.
Meanwhile, the Lyucu had pulled his own weapon, a war club of cattle-bone and wolf’s teeth, off his back. Takval managed to free his club and lunged at him, and metal and bone clashed in midair. The wolf’s teeth embedded in the head of the Lyucu’s club shattered and one of the bones making up the handle broke.
Takval’s heart leapt wildly, and he laughed out loud. He, an inexperienced fighter at best, had just disarmed a Lyucu garinafin rider. This was what metal weapons could do against bone and teeth. This was the point of the Agon alliance with Dara.
* * *
Toof jumped back after parrying the stranger’s blow, his arm numb from the impact. After a shocked glance at what remained of his ruined weapon, he examined his opponent carefully: Though the tall man wore the armor of Dara, his loose hairstyle, his pale skin, and his fighting style all spoke of the scrublands.
“What are you doing?” he shouted at the man. “You’re Lyucu!”
* * *
The Lyucu warrior’s exclamation caused an unexpected surge of emotion in Takval’s heart. As an enslaved Agon, there should have been nothing more insulting than to be mistaken for a member of the hated Lyucu. Yet, his first reaction had been a raw burst of joy… a sense of familiarity and of being home.
For months he had been alone among the Dara, a strange people with powerful machines and arcane knowledge, but who also looked down upon the people of the scrublands, though some of them tried to conceal their contempt. He had not been able to speak his own language to anyone except in lessons with Princess Théra, and she was far too busy with leading the expedition to devote the necessary attention to speaking it well.
Hearing the familiar syllables of the speech of the scrublands, even in the accent of a Lyucu topolect, felt shockingly beautiful. He had not realized how much he missed home until now, and he wanted to hear more.
“I’m Takval,” he said. “An Agon, actually.”
* * *
“Oh? I’m Toof.”
It was so bizarre to make introductions in the middle of a pitched battle that for a moment, both men hesitated, unsure whether “Well met” or “It’s an honor” was in order.
Toof was the first to recover. He tossed away his ruined club, backed up to the wall of the loading bay, and picked up a shovel from one of the hooks. The handle was thick and solid, and Toof hoped the iron blade would stand up against Takval’s club better than his bone club. Originally intended as a demonstration of Dara’s farming techniques for the benefit of the immortals Krita’s expedition was supposed to locate, it had been re-appropriated by the Lyucu crew to clean garinafin dung.
* * *
Takval, recovering his wits in turn, lunged after Toof. Though Takval was taller and stronger—he had, after all, been well fed and rested in Dara during the months when the Lyucu were on rations on the open sea—he deliberately fought with less than full strength.
“How did you come to fight with these barbarians?” asked Toof.
“Wouldn’t you like to know?”
They danced and parried in the firelight from the burning stable, as smoke swirled around them, as sweat glistened on their skin, as their hair singed in the heat. Club struck shovel like a tiger’s tusk colliding with a garinafin claw.
“How many of you are here?”
“Hundreds,” boasted Takval. “Your ship is lost.”
* * *
Toof didn’t know what to think. The idea that the Lyucu’s ancient enemy had somehow managed to cross the ocean to join forces with the Dara barbarians was too absurd to contemplate. But then again, was it any more absurd than the idea of Dara barbarians teleporting across miles of open sea to board Boundless Pastures?
The two opponents snarled at each other and clashed again. Lunging, leaping, feinting, quickstepping, sweeping, kicking, smashing, the two seemed evenly matched, and both realized this was going to be a long fight.
* * *
But Takval’s marines were another story. As many of them had been former aviators chosen for this boarding mission on account of their smaller physiques and quickness rather than brute strength, they were gradually overwhelmed by the relentless assault of the Lyucu warriors, who, despite the long journey across the sea, were generally physically stronger and more practiced with hand-to-hand combat. The slender swords the marines carried also had trouble parrying the heavy bone clubs. The marines retreated into a huddle with their backs to each other to better defend against the Lyucu fighters, who not only outnumbered the Dara marines but whose ranks continued to swell as reinforcements arrived from the top deck.
A marine screamed as two Lyucu warriors found an opening in her defenses and smashed her wrist, her sword clattering to the floor. Before the marine could retreat or her companions could come to her aid, two war clubs bashed into her skull from opposite directions, and bloody brains and skull fragments rained over all the combatants.
Takval’s heart sank. He had led the marines here, but this wasn’t a style of fighting that his Dara allies could win. He had to improvise.
Takval jumped back, out of the reach of Toof’s shovel.
“Do you yield?” shouted Toof.
“Hardly,” said Takval. “What’s so impressive about winning when you have the advantage of numbers here? If you’re truly brave, come and fight us farther down in the ship, where my Agon brothers and sisters are ready for you.”
