Then the gunners disappeared in a wash of flame and exploding yellow light as four of the sea chariots closed around the Prism.
The port-side cannons began firing, and Kip saw one of the archers on the back of her chariot simply disappear. The blindage was afire, and Kip saw the sailors and soldiers above them struggling to throw it over the side. One of the Blackguards had painted a line of red luxin down the entire length of the Gargantua’s hull, and as the cannons roared, it lit.
Within seconds, Gavin and Ironfist had the skimmer back up to speed. Musket balls whistled past them, dimpling the water. Several of the archers were firing now at great speed. And Kip could tell that the soldiers were only beginning to make it to the deck.
“Birds!” Kip shouted as a flock of pigeons exploded from the deck of the Gargantua. Pigeons?
“Ironbeaks!” one of the Blackguard shouted.
Kip lost sight of the birds and the ship itself as the skimmer dodged in and out. In the sudden lurching, he thought he was going to be sick.
I’m going to be seasick? In the middle of a battle?
He looked to the horizon to try to steady his stomach. Two of the sea chariot drivers who’d both lost their archers had gone out the range of the guns and abandoned one chariot, pulling another cord that made the luxin fall apart at the seams. Gavin hadn’t wanted the secret of how to make the chariots falling into enemy hands. But beyond them, Kip saw a galley coming, its triple oar decks moving the small ship quickly.
“Got a galley coming,” Kip shouted. He pulled up the binocle and almost puked as the magnified vision seemed to magnify the swaying. “No flag.”
Gavin shot a look up. “Probably pirates looking for an easy kill, not Vecchio’s. Keep an eye on it.”
Then they were back into the fight. They came out from under the stern galley onto the starboard side and saw an explosion blow one of the cannons on the lowest gun deck completely out the side into the water in a spray of wood and fire and smoke. One of the Blackguards—Kip though it was Cruxer—whooped.
An instant later, Kip saw one of the pigeons dive at Cruxer. It hit his chest, stuck.
Cruxer slapped the bird off his chest. It splashed into the water and less than a second later exploded.
Then Kip understood. Like the hellhounds Trainer Fisk had told them about, these birds were natural birds, but they’d been infused with a drafter’s will to do one thing—attack the Blackguards. And in this case, they’d also been equipped with small grenadoes.
Which meant several dozen small flying bombs were circling the great ship—small, intelligent bombs.
As intelligent as pigeons, anyway.
And if that wasn’t quite terrifying, seeing half a dozen of them hit a Blackguard team that had slowed to throw a grenado into a gunport was. A second later, both driver and archer were ripped apart by the explosions. The grenado the woman had thrown bounced harmlessly off the blindage—which hadn’t been pulled off on this side of the ship—and exploded in the water, barely so much as scoring the wood of the hull.
The Gargantua was a floating castle. The fires weren’t spreading. It was invincible.
“Reeds,” Gavin said to Ironfist.
The big man seemed to know what he meant instantly, because he took Gavin’s reed and began propelling the skimmer by himself.
“Kip, hold my feet down. All your weight.”
Gavin was already weaving something between his hands. Kip practically dove onto his feet. Instant obedience. Then he followed Gavin’s eyes.
The entire flock of the remaining ironbeaks was headed straight at them. With only Ironfist on the reeds, the birds were catching up.
Gavin didn’t finish until the first bird was practically within arm’s reach. Then he threw both hands out and a net of yellow luxin spun out from him. It engulfed all of the birds. Then Gavin yanked his arms down and was nearly pulled from Kip’s grasp. But the pressure lasted only a second.
There was no such thing as action at a distance with luxin. To throw something, you had to throw it; to slap something down onto a deck, you had to yank it down. Gavin had made the luxin a lever, and he’d cast the entire net of the birds onto the deck of the Gargantua.
Where they exploded. Kip saw half a man and a helmet flying off the deck.
Not an empty helmet.
Gavin scrambled back into place, and Kip saw an orange drafter peek over the deck and spray luxin down on the burning hull, extinguishing the flames.
Ironfist saw him, too, and put a blue spike in his skull. The man tumbled into the sea.
“They’re organizing into musket teams,” Ironfist said. And the effect was almost immediate. The men on the decks must have started putting the best marksmen in front, while those farther back reloaded and gave them fresh muskets, because both the rate and the accuracy of fire increased.