The Cerulean Queen

by Sarah Kozloff

  All around her, people bustled with frantic energy, since the courtyard—as a universally known, large open area in the middle of the city—had become a rendezvous point for troops, supplies, and healers. Across the way from where she currently sat, Councilors Alix, Nishtari, and Fornquit had set a canopy up over a table they used as a rally point. The councilors tried to cope with the myriad of concerns that city dwellers pressed upon them, such as last-minute evacuations or an outbreak of looting of abandoned businesses. Several people holding wailing children congregated in front of the table, arguing frantically. Nana worried whether the orphans that she had often fed had found a way to leave the city.

  Brother Whitsury weaved his way through columns of foot soldiers and archers moving in diverse directions and sat beside her.

  “How are you?” he asked.

  Nana shrugged. “I’m too old for this, Whitsury. I was already old when assassins invaded the palace, I was old when my darling perished, and I was old when Cerúlia returned. I’m tired, Whit; I’m burned down to the fag end of a candle. I can’t face more trouble, more death.”

  “I understand,” said Brother Whitsury in his sympathetic manner, though, wise as he was in the ways of sorrow, even he couldn’t comprehend Nana’s burden, because he didn’t know she served as Nargis’s Agent.

  “We’ll just sit quietly here, shall we?” he said. “Look, I brought a cup and snagged a loaf of bread. We’ll sit and sip Nargis Water and say the five prayers. Like the old friends we are. And soon enough this day, and whatever it will bring, will pass overhead. And then, together, we’ll face whatever tomorrow may bring.”

  * * *

  Destra, Fate’s Spinner, was trapped leagues away from the crisis in Belcazar’s estate, supervising the care of the shields and Raiders wounded in the attack by Matwyck’s Marauders. She wished she had rushed back to Cascada with Thalen a few days ago; she chafed at being sidelined and helpless.

  Sitting alone at the long table, she finished her cup of tisane. Idly, she stared at the ring of leaves clinging around the bottom of the cup. In the pattern, all at once she saw a scene from far away—not a detailed picture as in Saulė’s mirror, but an outline of forms and volumes. Dark-sailed ships and pikemen clashed with riders and archers. A battle about to crash against the shore, with death reaping an abundant harvest.

  If she were on the scene in Cascada, could she use her talent at negotiation to forestall this calamity?

  Well, she wasn’t there to try. So instead, Destra attempted to persuade Mìngyùn to become involved in this conflict.

  You abandoned the people of Iga when you found them too petty and grasping to be worthy of your favor, she argued. Hasn’t the Free Staters’ selflessness throughout the Occupation caused you to reevaluate their worth? Did you not see Thalen—one of your people—spare the life of the wretched old man who lured him into an ambush? Wasn’t that nobly done?

  Hush, Spinner. Your human affections are just noise, signifying nothing. I have not decided. I will watch how the day unfolds.

  * * *

  Thalen had learned from Duke Naven that the cavalry and foot had been under General Yurgn’s influence and the new government had not yet made it a priority to test their loyalty or skills. When he met with their officers in the common room of a seaside tavern last night, he asked basic questions about their training, equipment, and numbers, but he found it impossible to evaluate either the leaders or the soldiers on such rushed acquaintance.

  Uncertain about the competence of the leaders of the Catamount Cavalry, he sent Wareth to the north of the city with a company of one hundred and fifty riders; Fedak to the south with another group; and kept a third, under Marcot’s command, in reserve, ready to ride in either direction should Cerúlia’s birds bring news that the enemy was attempting to flank the harbor.

  With his whole heart, Thalen longed for Mellie archers. He didn’t know the skills or nerves of the three hundred Weir bowmen, wielding an assortment of bows, that had been turned over to him. He would swap the whole lot of them for Eldie, Eli-anna, Tel-bein, Eldo, and a few more of their kin. Still, he placed the men and women strategically in buildings and on rooftops overlooking the quay. The Oros, he surmised, would not have archers in their ranks, but what about their Pellish allies?

  “This is madness,” he complained to Duke Naven, who kept dogging his heels. “I don’t know these soldiers or their capabilities, and the queen doesn’t completely trust her own troops. How can I lead them into battle? I’m fighting with one hand tied behind my back.”

  “Look,” said the duke, “we’re all doing things we’ve never done before. I guarantee that none of these soldiers has ever defended Cascada before. I’ll wager you can trust them to do their best. Put your trust in them, and they’ll put their trust in you.”

  Captain Athelbern, the head of the palace guard (who admitted he’d never swung a sword outside of the practice yard, but who appeared levelheaded and organized), came to Thalen, begging to be useful. Thalen put him in charge of citizens who were also eager to lend their mite. Athelbern instructed them to build barricades to block the major avenues that led into the city proper; though Thalen hoped that the Oros would never penetrate that far off the quay, if they did, he needed to slow them down and keep them from scattering or hiding.

  Chamberlain Vilkit removed a major worry by taking over the task of supplying victuals and water to the troops who massed in carefully positioned squads.

  The hours had been so busy that Thalen couldn’t recall who had brought him the Weir hat. Someone had borrowed (or stolen) the hat of a previous consort for him to wear. It was black with tall feathers dyed cerulean blue, obviously designed to help soldiers spot him from a distance. Thalen settled it on his head, pleased that it fit well enough and that it had a tie in the back to keep it from being blown off.

  The Harbormaster Hut was centrally located on the quay, and it had good sight lines of the whole area. Thalen decided to make it his command post, flying flags that symbolized headquarters. He had men pile crates behind the building so he could get to the roof for an even better view of the action. Tilim and other messenger girls and boys, mounted on good horses, waited near at hand.

  The commander reminded himself to send Cerúlia’s brother on an errand removed from the fray as soon as fighting engaged. He might not be able to save the city; he might even fail at defending her; but he should be able to keep alive one boy on a good horse.

  * * *

  The wind, the current, and Pellish oars combined to carry the ships toward them at frightening speed. With her naked eye Cerúlia could now discern thousands of Oro soldiers arrayed on the decks; clear autumn light sparkled off their armor. The Oros banged their metal gauntlets against their breastplates, making a rhythmic clank that echoed off the quay’s stone buildings and the cliff that rose on the north side.

  Cerúlia muttered, “So many! How did they get so many vessels?”

  Ciellō cursed under his breath. “They bought half a dozen from the Zellish. See the ones with the figureheads of Ghibli, with the long feathers sweeping down their prows? How much coin did ship merchants of my country rake in selling our ships to those heathens?”

  He snorted with anger, but he counted out loud to Darzner, “Six war galleys, five galliots, fourteen troop carriers, and three cargo ships. And so many swifts, at least three dozen.”

  “What’s a swift?” asked Darzner.

  “It’s a shallow boat, a landing craft. It has twelve oars per side. It is used to transport troops between ships or to beach them.”

  Darzner wrote these figures down and slipped the paper into a leather holder. The queen tied the holder to the leg of a seagull.

  Take this first to the Harbormaster Hut, and then to the fishing boat flying blue flags, she instructed her avian messenger.

  * * *

  Still well outside the harbor, the invaders rearranged themselves so that the six war galleys pulled into a line in front of the other shi
ps. They brought down their sails so that they had more precise control over their movement. Their flags—the Pellish Crossed Oars and the Oro Fire Mountains—whipped on their masts.

  Without fanfare or signal, the Battle of Cascada Harbor began when the blue whale, the Leader of the Pods, swam underneath one of the Pellish war galleys and then breached, lifting the port side of the ship completely out of the water. Pellish oarsmen tumbled about like skittles, all losing their oars and two dozen falling overboard.

  A tick later, three humpbacks converged on a second war galley, ramming it from opposite sides. The shallow keel cracked with a report that could be heard across the water. While the sailors on the first ship scrambled to recover, the second was a lost cause—it was already sinking.

  The whales, singing “Smash ’em, crash ’em” to one another, turned their attention to a third war galley. Noting what had happened to their comrades, these mariners had moments to prepare. Their oars could not outrun the whales, who could, if necessary, put on bursts of speed twice as fast as the ships, but the sailors could fight back with their weapons. With their striker they fired one bolt after another, missing their targets, who streaked by underwater. A blue jostled them and then threw two-thirds of his body out of the water, hoisting his enormous weight on the stern end, upending the galley so that its prow lifted nearly vertical. Most of the Pellish sailors tumbled into the sea, and those who managed to hold on were knocked senseless or broke bones in the overwhelming crash that ensued when the ship slammed back into the surface of the water.

  However, while the whales concentrated on attacking the third galley, the fourth ship, Pexlia’s Power, maneuvered neatly and came up behind them unnoticed. A striker bolt hit a blue whale near its eye, turning the sea black with its blood.

  Cerúlia heard the animal’s cry of pain and distress. She realized that the other whales had lost their focus.

  Oh! How terrible. But no! Don’t retreat. You should get angry! Attack the next ship!

  The first galley, Pexlia’s Pride, which had not sustained a devastating blow, had by now, even with only a partial crew, pulled into waters too shallow for the whales, as had the fourth. Galleys five and six rowed toward the shore in tandem, almost out of the big creatures’ territory. The whales attacked, but without coordination; so their random bumps splintered wood but sank neither.

  When the Leader of the Pods next breached, the Pellish sailors peering into the clear water had anticipated his location well; they hit him with a grenado volleyed by the lobber. The explosion of trails of white smoke looked strange and frightening from SeaWidow Cliff, but this appearance didn’t accurately convey the degree of pain the missile inflicted. As the whale’s agony assailed Cerúlia through her connection to his mind, she closed her eyes, covered her ears, crouched, and shrunk in on herself.

  A small cloud of the smoke blew forward, threatening to blind a score of the Pellish sailors who rowed on the starboard side—the men leapt off the galley to hide and wash in seawater, and the ship circled back around to pick them up.

  In horror and disarray, the blues and humpbacks retreated eastward, deeper into the Bay of Cinda, and broke off communication with the queen. Cerúlia still felt a connection to the more numerous, but smaller, pilot whales. When Kiltti helped her rise, she began to cajole these allies, urging them to stay in the battle.

  * * *

  Seamaster Gourdo ordered Queen Carra’s rowers to aim straight into the first war galley that entered the harbor. The Pellish sailors had not recovered enough oars to maneuver out of the way, and with a shuddering crash Queen Carra’s ram penetrated deep into the flank of the Pellish ship, ripping it asunder. Instead of boarding this injured vessel, Gourdo ordered, “Reverse!” and the rowers tried to disentangle themselves from the debris to get in position for the next galley—the uninjured fourth ship, Pexlia’s Power, which came flying at them at the speed of one hundred and twenty oars.

  The Power hit Queen Carra before the latter could completely straighten out; thus the Pellish ram—a wicked hook—smashed through Queen Carra’s side, disabling the Weir ship. Grappling hooks flew in both directions as Weir and Pellish sailors abandoned their oars for hand-to-hand combat on canted, wet decks washed by waves. Gourdo, sword in hand, headed for the man wearing the seamaster’s uniform. He blocked a cutlass swing from a sailor and, leaping onto a bench, stabbed the next Pellishman in the torso. But as he tried to jump to the next bench, he slipped and fell.

  “Captain!” one of his sailors cried.

  The Weir mariners couldn’t cut their way to his side in time. Pellish cutlasses rained down on Gourdo.

  Meanwhile, two Weir fishing boats set their tillers to collide with the slower, damaged, fifth Pellish war galley. At the last moment, the Weir seamasters lit the oil-soaked straw they had piled everywhere. Their crafts burst into flames while the sailors dived for the seawater, leaving the burning torpedoes to collide with the enemy.

  The Little Catch presented itself to the sixth war galley as easy prey. The Pellish seamaster took the bait, adjusting his course to ram the small, ignominious craft, which now fled before his might. The Little Catch had been chosen for this “broken-wing snare” because it had a particularly shallow draft. It skimmed over the rocks of the shoal, leading the war galley on until—with a harrowing grinding noise—the highest peaks of the underwater rocks ripped the galley’s keel to shreds.

  In revenge, the Pellish sent a grenado at The Little Catch, and it burst into a cloud of white smoke.

  Yet, when the Pellish sailors of the run-aground galley tried to evacuate into the swifts that converged close by, pilot whales upended the shallow craft. In fury the Pellish sailors swung their oars at the pilots, but these blows hit wave tops instead of the whales, who, chortling, ducked down at the last instant.

  * * *

  From her lookout point, Cerúlia saw three smaller Pellish fighting ships—“galliots” with only twenty oarsmen on a side—and three troop carriers break course and turn north, paralleling the coastline. She realized that this contingent was attempting to flank the main attack. She tied a warning note to the foot of a hawk, sent the bird to the northern contingent of cavalry, and ordered a flock of gulls to shadow their movements closely.

  When she turned back to the battle before her, she saw that Queen Carra had sunk, and the oarsmen of Pexlia’s Power had regained their places. Two Weir craft—a fishing boat and a merchant ship—tried to throw themselves in its path, raining arrows down on the rowers from their vantage point on higher decks.

  The first civilian vessel took mortal blows when the Pellish penetrated its hull several times with bolts from a striker.

  The second had its prow sheared away by the Pellish ram.

  Nothing now prevented that galley from reaching the quay.

  Smoke from burning ships made the scene below the queen more chaotic and difficult to comprehend. Cerúlia thought she spotted Weir rowboats plucking countrymen out of the water.

  Despite the Weirs’ brave efforts, one war galley, two galliots, and thirteen troop carriers still menaced the city. The queen desperately hoped that Seamaster Wilamara had more tricks up her sleeve, but she turned her own thoughts back to the whales to see if she could rally them to the cause.

  * * *

  “Fuck!” said Wilamara to her longtime trumpeter, when she saw that none of her efforts would halt Pexlia’s Power.

  “Yes, ma’am,” said the trumpeter, an unexcitable man.

  “Well, Commander Thalen, you’ll have to deal with this one,” she said aloud, shaking off the galley as just a distraction.

  Wilamara focused on the two enemy galliots that now skimmed the waves into the harbor, and the large, if less maneuverable, troop carriers behind them. She had kept her two galliots hidden in reserve; now she had her trumpeter call them into the fray. From opposite sides of the harbor each one engaged with an enemy vessel of similar size: grappling hooks arched in both directions. Hand-to-hand battles raged across thei
r decks; oarsmen were pushed overboard or perished from stab wounds. Wilamara strained to discern who had the upper hand. One conflict might be going the way of the Weirs, but the Pellish decidedly had the upper hand on the second mess of smashed timber bobbing precariously up and down on the waves.

  The entangled galliots were inside the arms of the harbor, but the troop carriers hovered just outside when the queen succeeded in persuading the humpbacks to rejoin the battle. The humpbacks pounded one of the troop ships repeatedly, determined to break holes in its keel. People aboard threw casks or weapons down on the whales, but these just made the humpbacks more determined.

  “Yes!” shouted Wilamara, hitting her fist into her other palm as she saw wooden beams on at least one vessel stave in.

  “Indeed, ma’am,” said her trumpeter.

  * * *

  From the deck of the cargo ship Pexlia’s Possession, lagging a bit behind the other vessels, Mikil watched the beginning moves of the battle with anxiety.

  “Sire, we must act—now!” Mikil urged.

  “Hold your piss, boy! Haven’t you noticed that I’ve closed the distance?”

  Nithanil had been catching the wind and issuing fussy orders to the teams of long oars so as to pull ever closer to the other cargo ship that lingered behind warships.

  Wearing the uniforms of the Pellish sailors they had captured, smiling, waving, and miming the need to converse, the Lorthers brought their ship alongside the other cargo vessel—lettering named it Pexlia’s Plentitude—which, like theirs, had twelve, three-person oars on a side. The Plentitude’s crew stowed their oars and let the Possession approach without suspicion.