Fifty-Two The Summoners

FIFTY-TWO

The Summoners

SAMUEL

I saw Her Majesty's Drake' s demise moments before he shuddered with an unseen explosion.

"Brace!" I bellowed across Hart . Everywhere, my crew dropped to the deck, and Olsa, at my side, stepped behind the mizzenmast.

Blasts rippled through Drake , spewing fire from gunports and shaking marksmen from the rigging. His ghisting circled the ship in distress as fire raced from stern to bow. When it reached the figurehead, the ghisting Drake reared in silent, terrified pain, and I saw Hart's light ripple through the deck at my feet in agitated response.

"That was no accident," Olsa said beside me, her posture still crooked with tension. She cast her gaze out across the fleet at another explosion, then another.

The third explosion, however, could hardly be heard over the roar of a whirlwind. I shouted another warning as one of the Aeadine Stormsingers'—now, apparently wayward—cyclones touched down three ships away. The sea erupted towards the sky, taking with it a glistening, churning stream of morgories from the water below.

For a breath, I could only gape at the sight, then orders cut from my lips. Hart 's crew scrambled to respond, and I clutched the shrouds as wind and spray battered us. Slowly, Hart eased away from the cyclone. The other ships in our squadron scrambled to do the same, and Nomad nosed out into the sparse stretch of empty sea between us and the Mereish. He loosed a broadside, cannons firing in a synchronous ripple I had no time to laud.

"Samuel!"

Benedict advanced up the quarterdeck stairs, prodding a sailor ahead of him at cutlass point. Despite the man's obvious ensorcellment, Benedict was careless with his blade, and several bloody puncture marks marred the back of the man's jacket by the time he fell to his knees before me.

Benedict grabbed his prisoner by the hair and tipped his head back. "Recognize this bastard?"

Mr. Pitten stared up at me with Magni-dulled eyes.

"What were you doing aboard my ship?" I asked, though my Sooth's senses—so sharp I felt as though I knew each sound before heard it—had already delivered me an answer. "Sabotage and murder."

Mr. Pitten contorted, fighting not to react.

Benedict nodded to his pocket. "I found an Ess Noti talisman on him, a Magni one." He shook Pitten's head pointedly, and the man's face creased in pain. "Pity I am a Black Tide Son, Mr. Pitten, and that thing was a fucking trinket."

Pitten gasped in sudden, unmitigated terror, and Benedict's power billowed around him in my doubled vision.

"You came to sabotage my ship," I repeated. "And kill, but who? All of us, Mr. Pitten? Can you bear to have so much blood on your hands?"

"I was to disable the ship, that is all, I swear!" the cultist protested.

"Why? Under whose orders? The cult's?" I gestured to the charred wreckage of Drake .

Pitten tried to scream in frustration but choked off as Benedict's power rushed into his nose and mouth. He spasmed.

"Answer, now," Ben demanded.

"They sent after the man, the Mereish man!" Tears streamed down the landsman's face, but hints of accusation battered their way into his gaze. "I have no choice. I have to kill him. He told me to! The Midden Ghist! He—"

"Maren! Secure Mr. Maren!" I snapped to Olsa. She was already running across the deck and vanished through a hatch. Illya raced to join her as I added, "And look in on Alamay!"

Beyond the lattice of lines and sails and the wreckage of Drake , a massive, dark-purple light bubbled between the ships of the Mereish Fleet.

Dread assailed me. Something large was trying to break through from the Other, and, with the veil as thin as it was, I doubted it would be long before it succeeded. Whether it yielded to a Mereish Summoner or came of its own accord, I had little doubt it would be dangerous.

"See Mr. Pitten secured below," I said to Benedict, then made my way to the rail looking midships. "Hear me! We will take no one aboard from Drake , we can risk no saboteurs. Mr. Penn! Organize a search of the hold, we may have more stowaways aboard. Mr. Keo, take us south."

My orders were being executed before I finished issuing them. As we slipped carefully through the battle, navigating the other ships and entering more open waters, I drew my spyglass and trained it back on that roiling, purple light. I glimpsed two Sooths on the deck of a Mereish ship next to the anomaly, a brownish hedge to the forest green of their lights.

Sooths, but Adjacent. Summoners.

"Ms. Poverly." The girl had frozen at my side, transfixed by one sight or another. I placed my coin in her palm. "I must go into the Other. Give this back to me in three minutes and ensure I hold on to it, do you understand? Do you have a pocket watch?"

Poverly nodded fervently. She looked less frightened than I anticipated, more overwhelmed and grateful for a task. She held the coin in one hand and took her watch in the other, then hovered close as I took the quarterdeck rail in both hands and lowered my head.

The Other leapt up to swallow me. The fleets thinned, becoming little more than reflections of ghisting-inhabited wood and magelights. The lights of Otherborn beasts between—and occasionally on—the vessels doubled.

I focused on the bruised purple light. I saw the creature here, whole and manifest as it hovered, shuddering through the paper-thin wall between the worlds.

The beast was like none I had ever seen. It swept into the water and rose again on broad, avian wings—though its feathers had the texture of seaweed, rippling with water and slung from a thin frame of raw bone. Its head was capped by an eyeless skull and a long, vicious beak, and its legs ended in talons longer than boarding pikes.

I watched it strain at the barrier for a breath, debating my course of action. The Mereish Summoners clearly intended to use the beast against the Aeadine—but should I try to stop them, or allow the beast through and turn it back on the Mereish? If I pitted my strength against the Mereish mages, could I win?

Something skimmed past my cheek. I turned as it passed and, in my mind's eye, saw a musket ball. Shock, then a spike of fear stabbed through me.

Someone had shot at me, but not in the human world.

In the Other.

I dropped into a crouch behind the rail just as another shot slammed into it. The ghisten wood, present in both realms, swallowed the ball like living flesh. No crack, no shatter. No splinters.

There, across the water, I saw one of the Mereish Summoners had turned to me. A long rifle rested against her shoulder as she lined up for a third shot.

I barely registered the faint glow of her weapon—radiant as ghisten wood—before the great winged beast finally tore fully into the human world. It faded to a glow, a reflection like the hundreds of other beasts and mages scattered across the fleet. I saw that glow descend on an Aeadine ship, its brightness vibrating as claws raked the deck and shredded rigging.

Another shot struck the rail behind me and my mind stuttered, threatening to blank. Only one thought took root in that thunder of heartbeats and roar of blood in my ears. More lights were converging on me, and I had no idea how many of them answered the will of a Mereish Summoner. My chances of stopping the beasts—particularly the winged one now terrorizing the fleet—were slim.

I needed a weapon of my own.