Keli’s voice crackled over the communication speakers. “You folks might want to come see this.” She sounded tense.
I stood and looked at Nol. It was too early to be at our destination. What was going on?
The floor tipped as the ship began to dive. I stumbled, grabbing the wall, and Nol seized my arm to steady me. Together we headed for the control room, followed by the others.
Keli’s face was strained and her hands tight on the controls as she settled the ship down into a hollow between two spires of rock. The control was dark, lit only by blips of light from the controls. She’d already cut off all the exterior lights, and the sea before us glowed a dark blue as she gestured at the glass.
“Warships.”
Three ships slid past silent as sharks, lights sweeping over the rocks and sand below. Hammerheads. I knew their classifications from the pryor. One of the beams slid over us from between the rocks, illuminating Keli’s face and throwing her features into shadow. The beads in her hair tinkled as she shifted, her hands hovering over the controls.
My breath caught in my throat as I stared at the ships. “Is it...?”
“Nautilus,” Kit confirmed at my shoulder. “Or at least, part of his army. I served on a similar ship for months.”
We stood without speaking, watching as the ships moved on. Light from the sunrise sparkled around them, outlining them in brilliance.
“Is it a patrol?” Nol asked.
“They’re patrolling the waters between Verdus and Arctus,” Keli said. “It’s the only place that direction, and that isn’t enough ships for an invasion.”
“It’s enough to raid any of the string of surface villages that dot the islands north of here,” Myo said quietly.
I looked at him in horror, and beside me, Nol stiffened. Images flashed through my head—blackness lit by fire, ash raining down, villagers running and screaming.
Kit said nothing, but his mouth tightened.
Was Nautilus hunting for more soldiers to conscript into his army, innocents like Kit?
“Follow them,” I ordered, the words hoarse in my throat as I stared at the ships and saw fire in the night instead. Shivers crawled up my arms. I felt ill. “And if they’re going for surfacers, then we warn the villages.”
We could not leave those people to be snatched away in the darkness and forced into slavery.
Keli sighed. “This again? I thought we did warn the surfacers.”
“That was a different village. It isn’t like Itlantis. They aren’t connected.”
She looked up at me and blinked. “I don’t...” Her eyes slid to Myo.
“It’s my ship,” I said. “Follow them.”
Garren made a growling noise of protest. “We’re a team now. We should put it to vote.”
“We can’t let them go on killing and enslaving right in front of us.” I stared at him, daring him to disagree.
“We have a mission,” Myo said. “Time is of the essence.”
“Yeah, what about the mission?” Garren asked gruffly.
“They’re going the same direction as we are,” Keli mused.
Nol spoke firmly. “I agree with Aemi. I vote we follow the warships.”
“As do I,” Kit murmured.
Myo inclined his head, giving his support after a long pause. “It certainly can’t hurt to know the movements of our enemy,” he said.
Garren crossed his arms, his forehead wrinkling. He grunted. “If it comes to fighting, do I get to knock a few Itlantean heads together?”
“Most certainly,” I said.
He half-smiled. “Then let’s follow the bastards.”
Valus wasn’t present to give a vote, but no one seemed to care.
Everyone else returned to the common room or elsewhere, but I stayed at Keli’s shoulder, my eyes focused on the warships, which had shrunk to dark smudges in the distance as we rose from the floor of the ocean and followed.
CHAPTER EIGHT
WITHIN A FEW hours, we reached a mountain range that curled and twisted, rising from the depths of the sea, the tops disappearing above the surface in a chain of islands. A deep trench sliced the crust of earth at the base of the mountains, a gash of black. The warships descended into the trench and didn’t rise again. The sunlight glowed far above us, coloring the water a gradual gradient of blue, and as Keli took the ship up, the water became punctuated with splashes of yellow and orange as schools of fish fluttered past, fins trailing in the current, moving in unison to avoid the path of our vessel. Sunlight began to dance on the hull and filter into the control room, making patterns across my skin in pale, wriggling stripes.
“Is there a plan?” Kit asked. His voice startled me, as I hadn’t seen or heard him enter the control room. I didn’t turn as I responded.
“We warn them.”
He was silent, so I looked over my shoulder to meet his eyes.
A smile softened his weary features. “It’s as easy as that, is it? Rise from the ocean and tell them not to trust people from the ocean?”
I didn’t smile back. In my mind’s eye, I saw the Village of the Rocks as it had appeared when I’d visited with Myo, the houses charred and riddled with ash, the stones stained with smoke. The crunch of broken pottery beneath my feet, the chill of silence where there should be voices. I saw Greenlet and the burned village where we’d searched for Kit. The child’s shoe lying in ash. My throat squeezed.
“We warn them,” I repeated. “We can’t just leave them. You of all people know what they do to the surfacers.”
Kit didn’t argue with that.
~ ~ ~
The islands lay like scattered pebbles in the water, small and close together, connected by shallows where fish darted back and forth. Each pocket of dense, scraggly vegetation was surrounded by wide swaths of sand and rock. Columns of smoke rose from the edge of the trees, and for a moment, my whole body clenched—we were too late once again—but then I realized it was only the smoke of cooking fires, and I relaxed.
We waded to shore while the Riptide lurked in the shade of a cliff, hidden from view from vines that drooped over the hull. We’d donned masks to protect our eyes and clothing that covered our arms and legs, and the water sucked at the fabric and made walking difficult.
Nol, Garren, and Myo accompanied me. Kit had argued to come along and that it was his job to assure my safety, but too many people would attract more attention than we wanted, and Garren assured Kit that he wasn’t going to let the key to the lost city be harmed.
The beach looked as smooth and pale as a seagull’s egg, but as we slogged from the water, dripping, I saw that it was composed of tiny stones instead of the soft sand I was used to. The wind carried a chill as it blew over our wet clothing. Larger rocks formed cliffs, their sides ragged as if they’d been dropped from the sky and broken open. The trees had small, smooth leaves that came in colors of red and gold.
“We’re farther north than you’ve probably ever been on the surface,” Myo said as he observed my examination of the landscape.
A path curled away from the beach across a bank of tall grass, and we followed it. Birds screamed and took to the sky at our approach. In the distance, the roofs of a village poked up, slanted and covered in rust. The hull of a great ship lay in the middle of a field, its sides carved into doorways and windows.
“Look at that,” Nol muttered.
Garren gazed curiously at the wreckage-turned-functional. “And you came from such a village?” he asked me.
“The houses were stone, not metal, but yes.”
“It isn’t so different from a Dron village,” he said, and after that, he looked at me with less hostility in his gaze.
As we drew closer, I saw rows of long metal shafts pointed at the sea. Brush lay around them in piles, almost as if to conceal their presence from approaching boats. “What are those?” I asked. “They look like cannons.”
Nol looked puzzled. “There is no war being waged between the islands on the surface.”
“A local spat, perhaps?” Myo mused. His expression remained thoughtful, however, as if he suspected other things.
We kept on toward the village, and our approach drew a few quizzical looks, but we did not rouse much attention. Others came and went along the path we’d taken, and in the sea beyond, boats laden with wares bobbed on the water, carrying merchants from other islands. A little girl in a shift with big eyes and curly hair watched us solemnly from where she played along the path with a pile of stones. Her arms were bandaged, and Garren stared at her as if stung by the sight.
“These people,” he muttered, and then he didn’t finish the thought.
Swaths of burned vegetation lined the village, and men scrambled over the charred remains of a house, repairing the roof. They were thin, their ribs showing as they reached up to put boards in place.
A man with tanned arms and a patchwork of scars over his cheeks strode past us, and an object strapped to his hip caught my eye. I grabbed Nol’s arm, forgetting our disagreement in my shock. “Look,” I whispered. “It’s a trusket. We gave one to the villagers on Sprocket. Is it the same one?”
A hand touched my arm, startling me. When I turned, I saw a girl, legs skinny as a sand piper’s, with long hair in tiny braids and large eyes so brown they were almost black. She locked eyes with me and leaned forward.
“I know you’re from the sea,” she said, speaking in a whisper that barely rose above the sound of hammers against metal and merchants calling out their wares.
Beside me, Nol stepped closer but didn’t speak.
She was just a girl. Not a threat, at least not that he could tell.
The girl smiled at me, her eyes glowing and her mouth stretching wide. She gestured to us to follow her with one hand, and then turned and padded toward the wrecked hull of the ship.
I didn’t move, and she turned and grabbed my hand, tugging on it. Then she skipped ahead.
“What does she want?” I wondered aloud.
“It’s a trap,” Garren muttered. “She’s probably got men lying in wait to jump us and rob us.”
The girl stopped in one of the doorways carved into the hull and looked back impatiently. She motioned again.
Myo and I exchanged a glance.
“We see what she wants,” Myo said, and I nodded. “Stay vigilant,” he added, “but I don’t think it’s a trap.”
Garren grumbled. Nol said nothing. I saw the way he scanned the village, as if looking for exits. I knew what he was thinking. My stomach jumped with uncertainty, and I turned my head toward the girl with the braids and walked alongside Myo without waiting for the others. They fell into step behind us.
When we reached the door, the girl had disappeared inside.
A dank, smoky smell enveloped me as soon as I stepped over the threshold and into the interior of the ship. Sailcloth hung from a rust-stained ceiling, creating a makeshift wall that blocked the rest of the room. Behind it, the shadow of a man or woman—I couldn’t tell which—moved. The girl with the braided hair had vanished.
“Hello?” I said, cautious. A clanging sound of a hammer came from somewhere nearby, masking other sound.
The shadow grew taller and then the sailcloth parted and a woman stepped through the slit and regarded us. Her eyes widened.
“Welcome,” she said. “Anni said it was you, but I thought—” She dropped a hasty, odd little bow and smiled at us.
Nol frowned, the place between his eyes creasing. Garren muttered something unintelligible.
“How—what—?” I wasn’t even sure what to ask.
The woman’s smile widened. “I see you are confused. Perhaps you were not expecting...” She stepped forward and seized my wrist.
Instantly, Nol had his hand on hers, a warning snarl coming from his throat as Garren shoved his way to my side.
The woman held up her other hand. “I mean you no harm. Just—come, look.” She drew me forward, reaching behind her to draw back the sailcloth.
I stopped, transfixed at what I saw.
The belly of the ship ruin lay before us, a vast space round and echoing like a giant kettle. Light pierced the hull through holes bored at intervals, and a massive break in the top of the ship let in a swath of sun that pooled on a sand-covered floor far below. Ladders led down from where we stood.
At the bottom, men and women bent over tables, hammers and other tools in their hands. A fire blazed at one end of the space, and a man wearing gloves and a leather apron dipped a glowing strip of metal into a pool of water, where it hissed and spat steam.
“What is this?” I asked.
“They’re making truskets,” Nol said, amazement coloring his voice.
The woman nodded and pointed to a piece of paper tacked to the wall, a drawing of our goggled, cloaked selves. “The villages from eight islands came together to discuss what had been said to the chieftain at Sprocket, and how to proceed. We’ve been watching for you in case you returned.”
“And you’ve been making weapons?” I gazed at the scene below us.
“We fought the sea ships twice,” she said, and tapped a barely healed scar on her shoulder. The sight of puckered flesh where she’d been sewn up made me wince. “We beat them back.”
And they had returned, I thought.
“Who is the chieftain here?” I asked.
“I will take you to him,” she said, and led us down one of the ladders and across the floor, sand crunching beneath our feet as we wove between the tables laden with parts and weaponry. Whispers filled the air as we passed. Workers nudged each other and stared. Some smiled. Others looked wary, as if we were harbingers of doom.
Maybe we were.
On the other side of the ship, a hole opened onto a path of boards that snaked out into the sunshine again, weaving between rocks to a tower of stone that hung halfway over the sea. A roof of scarred metal cast blue shade over a chair with a tanned young man who sprawled in it, eating from a bowl of shriveled fruit. He straightened when he saw us approaching. His dark hair fell into his eyes, half-obscuring them. He had a bandage on his shoulder and another on his wrist, and he wore a medallion that banged against his bare chest as he moved. He reminded me of Nol when he’d lived in the Village of the Rocks and was the mayor’s second son.
“Ooma,” he called. “Who is this?”
He got a better look at us, and his mouth formed an O.
“The visitors from the sea,” he said, jumping up to meet us before she could respond. “Welcome!” He dropped the last of his fruit into his mouth and hurried forward.
“You’re young to be a mayor,” Garren said gruffly. “You’re just a boy.”
The chieftain glanced at him. He spat out the pit of the fruit he was eating, and it landed beside Garren’s foot. “My name is Mak,” the chieftain said in annoyance. “My father was killed in the last attack, and I took his place.” He scanned the rest of us, eyes sharp, as if looking for similar opinions. His shoulders tightened, and he turned as if to dismiss us.
“Forgive him, he’s our rudest member, but he means well, I think,” I said. “My name is Aemi.”
“Yes,” he said, looking closely. His eyes lit up. “We know of you. You once lived in the Village of the Rocks.”
Surprise rippled through me. They knew me by name?
“We came to warn you. There are three ships beneath the sea right now, moored and probably preparing to attack and enslave your people. Your people must go now, before nightfall. Is there somewhere you can hide?”
Mak’s mouth tightened, and he turned toward the bowl of fruit and plucked another piece from it. Wind caught his hair and blew it back as he bit into the dried flesh. “Hide? No. We will fight them. Otherwise they will just come back.” He paused to spit the pit out, and this time he aimed it far from our feet. “They always come back.”
They always come back? How many surfacers had Nautilus enslaved? How many villages had he plundered?
“I don’t know how many there were before,” I sa
id, “but there will be many this time. It could be a complete devastation.”
Mak shook his head. “We will fight.”
I looked at the others helplessly. Nol’s jaw was tight with frustration, Myo was impassive, but Garren straightened, his eyes glowing with admiration.
“You are brave,” he said, “to face such a foe without hesitation. You have the heart of a Dron warrior.” He paused. “I will fight with you.”
I sucked in a breath. “Garren—”
“The Itlantean who seeks to take these people as slaves has slaughtered my people too, displaced my family, and destroyed our home. I would be honored to take arms against them in defending this village.”
The sound of pounding waves filled the space left by the silence. Mak stepped forward and gripped Garren’s hands wordlessly with one of his own.
“No,” I said.
Garren stiffened. Mak turned his head, and the men standing guard shifted slightly, reminding me that they were there.
I licked my lips, gathering my courage along with the words.
“You won’t fight alone,” I said. “I’ll fight too.”
The others looked at me in astonishment.
“Nautilus is our enemy,” I said. “I’m a surfacer, or at least, I was once. I won’t walk away from this and leave you.”
Mak’s eyes shone as he clasped my hand. Garren met my eyes and grunted in respect. Nol clenched his jaw.
“Aemi,” he said, but I shook my head to silence him.
I was going to do this.
CHAPTER NINE
THE MOMENT WE were back on the ship, Nol grabbed my arm and drew me close enough to whisper for my ears alone.
“What was that? Volunteering yourself for an impossible fight? Are you trying to kill yourself?”
“I have a plan.” I tried to pull away.
“Let go of her,” Kit said from where he’d been waiting for our return.
Nol released me and turned to face Kit. Every muscle in his jaw and neck clenched as he ground out the words. “Don’t speak as if you understand what’s going on. You don’t. You haven’t seen the danger we’ve gone through the last few months, and you weren’t with us just now when she volunteered to fight Nautilus’s warships.”
In Dawn and Darkness Page 6
