The Blinding Knife(236)

One of the guns on the second deck went off next, and Gavin shouted, “Now!”

Around the skimmer, Kip saw that the Blackguards were grouped into pairs, one at the reeds and one archer. Each team’s archer had a rope in hand, and starting at the outside teams, they pulled.

Before Kip realized what was happening, the skimmer split, each team suddenly freed, one driver and one archer, the sea chariots breaking off from the skimmer smoothly and multiplying their force instantly. Two, four, six, and eight split off, leaving only Gavin and Ironfist and Kip on the now much smaller skimmer in the center.

The water behind them cratered and jetted as Kip heard the roar of the cannon again. Then it seemed the world turned to cannon fire. The Gargantua loomed larger and larger and the eight skimmers cut the waves with perfect grace, none so close to the others that a single cannon shell could hit two of them.

The seas were rough today, so Kip was glad that his father had made supports, both up behind his back so he wouldn’t tumble off the stern and also handles so he could brace himself. Kip saw that the deck of the Gargantua was actually open, contrary to what Gavin had expected, but then, even in the few seconds that Kip was watching, the great wooden screens that were the blindages were brought down by scrambling sailors. Seen in sub-red through Kip’s spectacles, the men glowed as if lit from within, still clearly visible despite the screen.

The skimmer cut hard to port and Kip barely caught himself. He didn’t see any danger, but he decided that even as he was scanning the big ship and trying to keep an eye out for more distant dangers, he should copy his father’s and Ironfist’s stance. Each man had his legs set wide and knees bent, keeping his weight low.

The great rudder of the Gargantua turned hard, and the lumbering great ship, sails full, began to turn. Along the broadside, Kip could see gunports snapping open, on at least three different levels. Not all at once, but as each crew was ready.

There were a lot of guns.

From the nearest crow’s nest, a ball of luxin the size of a cat arced out.

“Drafter! First crow’s nest!” Kip called out.

The luxin ball split in midair and ignited. It landed on the water only a dozen feet from the starboard side in a curtain of flame—and floated, flames two feet high.

The first sea chariot cut hard to port, nearly plastering itself against the Gargantua’s hull. The next must not have seen the fire in the swelling of the waves, but those same swells saved it as the swells and the Gargantua’s wake made a ramp that flung the chariot into the air and neatly over the fire.

Gavin and Ironfist cut wide around the burning slick and then cut close to the ship.

“Musketeer! Third—fourth crow’s nest!” Kip shouted. He couldn’t even yell his warnings right.

There were half a dozen men along the high castle manning swivel guns. They had to aim between the bars of the blindage, but they didn’t seem to be having much trouble. Kip threw sub-red at them, had no idea if he’d hit anything, and then hit the deck as one of the big cannons went off mere feet from his head as the skimmer pulled even to the ship. The world disappeared as cannons roared and great billowing clouds of black smoke and cordite gushed from their throats.

Seen through the sub-red lenses, the world was delineated into great flashes of exploding guns, the sharp tongues of spitting muskets, the muted bursts of the grenadoes, and the ghostly shadows of men.

Then they were out of the smoke. They immediately cut hard to port, passing in the very shadow of the beakhead. Gavin and Ironfist both hurled grenadoes into that deck overhead. Gavin’s was wrapped in red luxin, and stuck; Ironfist’s was spiked, and stuck. Twin explosions and showers of wood and flame announced their success. None of the cannons on the port side of the Garguntua had been fired, so Kip was able to see clearly once more.

Flames sprang up on the mainsail—and were immediately extinguished in sprays of orange luxin. A few of the lines had been successfully cut, but those that had been merely set aflame were also saved.

“Brace!” Gavin shouted.

The skimmer curved to starboard to get some separation, and just as they rose out of a trough, Gavin shot a huge ball of flaming red luxin at the first crow’s nest. The drafter saw it coming and tried to blast it aside, but the ball merely shattered and drenched him and the crow’s nest in flame.

But Kip barely saw that, because the concussion of Gavin throwing something so massive just as they went airborne threw the skimmer hard to the side, and had they not hit the crest of another wave, they probably would have capsized.

Instead, they simply slowed to a crawl as Ironfist and Gavin were thrown off the reeds for a moment, and the skimmer turned the wrong way, bobbing in the waves. Kip saw two men training swivel guns on them even as a man engulfed in flames pitched out of the crow’s nest, tangling in the lines as he fell, shrieking.