by Chloe Neill
“Captain,” she said with a grin. “Welcome back.”
Twelve
Kit joined Watson and Sampson at the oars as Grant held Dunwood.
With every four feet they advanced, the sea pushed them back two, as if helping the island contain them.
“Magic?” Grant asked.
“Much as I’d enjoy putting you down again, I can’t touch the current here,” she said, heaving against the oars. “The boat’s too small for the force; it would break us to pieces. So we’ll need to do this the old-fashioned way.”
Some pirates were running through the water; others dove in to swim toward the jolly boat, just as she’d done. The gun brig was nowhere in sight, but smaller boats had been launched and were giving chase. If the jolly boat didn’t speed up, they’d be intercepted before they reached the Diana. And they needed to get Dunwood on board.
“Faster,” she said, watching a low boat painted an eye-searing yellow that cut through the waves like a shark. They rowed harder, faster, in perfect rhythm, until the Diana consumed their horizon, and ropes were lowered. The jolly boat was tied on, and the crew began hauling her up as a crack issued from the fortress.
“Incoming!” came the shout from above.
“Down!” Kit said, and they ducked in the jolly boat, now hanging four feet in the air.
The cannon hit thirty feet off their starboard bow, sending an enormous plume of water into the air and jolting the jolly boat against the hull.
Kit lifted her head, looked back at the island. Found Donal atop the fortress, chest bare and thighs braced beside the smoking end of black iron cannon.
She bared her teeth. “Only children and cowards shoot cannons from shore,” she said with disgust.
Dunwood chuckled. “You’ve got a lot of opinions there, Captain.”
Grant grunted. “You don’t know the half of it.”
* * *
The boat was hauled up and over, Dunwood carefully lifted to the Diana, and the others followed him out.
March was waiting beside it, already in an apron. “Where shall we put him?”
“There’s one empty cabin beside Grant’s,” Kit said. He deserved better than the mess. “It’s small, but I don’t imagine he’ll complain about it.”
“He won’t,” Grant said, and followed as the men carried Dunwood down.
Kit nodded, pushed water from her hair. “Everyone all right?”
“Right as rain, Captain,” said Hobbes. “All hands accounted for.”
Her favorite words. “Then let’s get the hell out of Finistère.”
“Make sail!” Jin called out, and sailors rushed to the foremast to climb to the yards and let fly the topsail. Kit ran forward to the mainmast, joined the line of sailors hauling the halyard to raise the mainsail—the largest of the Diana’s sails.
“Ah, the captain’s on the line now!” called out one of the midshipmen. “You’d better heave to, my mates, lest she outhaul the rest of you!”
Hand over hand, inches at a time, they raised the spar that held the sail, and felt the canvas catch the wind, the Diana shudder in response. The sail was sheeted, made tight against the wind, and sailors ran to other sails to finish the work.
The sail raised, Kit walked to the stern, watched as they put sea between the ship and the island. And for the first time in hours, she took a breath.
* * *
It would take time before they were completely clear of the archipelago, but Kit had additional business.
“Keep us moving,” she told Jin. “Into the deep and away from the shoals. I’m going to check on Dunwood.”
“Aye,” Jin said.
She went belowdecks, where the air smelled of vinegar and cabbage, then to Dunwood’s cabin. Grant stood outside it, looking in from the doorway. She saw fear in his eyes when he acknowledged her presence, but he managed to hide it before moving aside so Kit could get a look.
Dunwood was in the berth, his torn and dingy clothes switched for clean linens, presumably borrowed from one of her crew. March kneeled beside him, helping him drink from a wide bowl.
“You’ve a visitor,” Dunwood said as March dabbed his face with a wet cloth.
She looked back. “I don’t think they’re for me,” she said, rising. She put the bowl on a small ledge built into the hull. “Let me speak to the captain about the crew, and I’ll be right back.” She stepped out.
Dunwood probably didn’t believe the lie, but he didn’t make an argument.
Kit gestured March and Grant into her cabin, waited until the door was closed. “How is he?”
“I’ve sponged some of the filth off him,” March said, “although he was surprisingly modest for a spy. New clothes, and I’ve cleaned the wound, put on a bandage. Managed to get a bit of broth in him. But the wound is bad, and he’s still feverish. We’re using vinegar compresses, trying to cool him down. But the illness has set in deep. I don’t know if he’ll recover.”
“He’ll recover,” Kit said, forcing hope she didn’t really feel into her tone. It was her job to be honest, but a good captain always erred on the side of hope. Without it, what was the point of the monotony, the effort, the danger, the trials? “His condition is what it is,” Kit said. “But we’ll do whatever we can—whatever must be done—to bring him through it. He’s our responsibility.”
“Aye, Captain. Of course.”
Kit looked at Grant, got his nod, and opened the door again. “Get some food,” she told March.
“I will,” March said. “The old fogy wants to talk to you anyway.”
“I can hear you,” Dunwood called out, although hoarsely.
“I know,” March said, then grinned at Kit and Grant. “I like him. He’s a good bit of sass.”
“Sass he has in abundance,” Grant agreed.
Dunwood muttered something about respect from the younger generations.
March left them, and Kit and Grant squeezed inside. Grant sat on a small chair near the bed; Kit stood beside him, and together they nearly filled the space.
“So, ‘Paolo,’” Grant said, crossing his arms. “What happened?”
Dunwood tried to chuckle, but the sound was hoarse and graveled. “I presume Chandler told you some of it, or you wouldn’t know that name, much less be here.”
“He said you’d been on a cargo ship, monitoring Guild activity along the coast.”
“How’d they realize I was gone?”
“You didn’t report in,” Grant said. “Your fastidiousness saved you there. The Carpathian found the other four members of your crew.”
Even though Dunwood was injured, the light in his eyes was clear. “They’re safe, the others?”
“As far as we’re aware,” Grant said. “What happened?”
“A Gallic damned privateer is what happened. I thought at first he’d gotten lucky, running the coast and looking for whatever he might find. But no privateers or pirates should have known my name.”
“Someone told them who you were,” Kit said.
“Someone from Crown Command,” Grant added.
Dunwood nodded. “Aye. They provided my name, my alias, where I was likely to be found. Word traveled, as it does, and the privateer found me. Ship name of Chevalier. I was considered a bit of very dangerous cargo in peacetime, spy or no. Not something they’d haul right into Frisia. So they brought me to the Five at Finistère and sold me to Donal, as he was the only one smart or stupid enough for it.”
Grant leaned forward. “He interrogated you?”
“Aye. Asked me what I was doing on the Sally, that was the sloop’s name, what had I seen, what I knew. I gave nothing up,” Dunwood said. He coughed, holding a hand over his bandaged wound as he did.
When he swallowed hard, Kit picked up the bowl, offered it. When he nodded, she lifted his head—burning with fever—with one hand
and held the bowl in the other. He swallowed twice, then turned his face away. Kit put the bowl down, then put the damp cloth across his forehead.
“Thank you, angel.”
Kit nodded, moved back behind Grant, and found a softness in his gaze she hadn’t seen before.
“Not often I have two pretty girls to care for me,” he said, closing his eyes and breathing deeply. “Although that doesn’t help much with the fever.”
“I’m sorry for it,” Grant said. “Sorry it took so long to find you.”
“No point to being sorry for that, is there? Life will go as it does. Waste of time to wish for what’s not.”
“You always were a pessimist,” Grant said.
“And I’m never disappointed with what comes. But we’ve business to continue, which needs to get done before I’m off this boat—however I’m taken off. I’m sure Chandler told you Frisia’s gone very busy. Trade in, trade out. Makes the Guild very happy, as peacetime wasn’t nearly so profitable. Gerard takes power again, they figure to capitalize on the markets. And they’ll help in that regard as much as they can.” Dunwood opened his eyes, looked at both of them in turn. “That’s the sticking point, aye? The information everyone craves.”
“What is it?” Grant asked.
Dunwood looked at Kit for such a long time she began to worry they’d lost him in the middle of it. “You’re Aligned?” he asked finally.
Kit nodded. “I am. To the sea. Are you Aligned?”
“Gods, no,” he said with a grin. “But I’ve spent enough time on the sea to know when someone has the connection.” Dunwood shifted his gaze to Grant. “We didn’t see much of the light touch under Sutherland.”
“And a pity that,” Grant said.
“Oh, aye. The land and the people suffered from it.” He looked at Kit. “You know of Contra Costa.”
“I do,” she said.
“The Allies and the Isles saw Contra Costa as a tragedy. But Gerard thought it a lesson. Word is, he believes he lost the war because the Allies were better with magic. Had more of it, understood how to use it. He’s been, you might say, ruminating over it. The loss. The magic. Getting angrier, say the island staff. And the Guild is encouraging him. He reckons he can reclaim his throne—and use magic to get him there, and damn the consequences.”
“How?” Kit asked.
“With ships,” he said. “I’ve not heard any details, only that the ship has something to do with magic. Some new kind of man-of-war, and the Guild has promised a squadron to Gerard. The first, it’s said, is near completion.”
“Where are these ships being built?” Kit asked.
Dunwood coughed again, and this time Grant rose, helped prop him up to make the breathing easier. “Dungeon’s hell on the lungs,” Dunwood said, when Grant had offered him a drink. Compassion again, at least for a fellow soldier, an old friend, and a man in obvious pain.
But for now, she had to put aside compassion. Because if Dunwood was right, and she had no reason to doubt him, they had to move, and quickly.
When Dunwood was settled again, he shook his head. “I don’t know about where, other than not in Frisia. That would be too close to violating the treaty.”
“Gallia?”
“No. Same problem, aye? It would invite too much attention.”
“We have to get home,” Kit said. “We have to tell the queen, warn the Crown Command. The shipyard has to be located and destroyed.”
She turned to head back to the deck—to give the order to make all possible speed—when the ship’s bell began to ring, calling all the sailors to their stations.
Kit cursed. “Damned pirates. Stay here,” she told Grant.
“I’m coming,” March said, running toward them. “I can stay with him.”
“Aye, you can,” Dunwood said with a leering wink. But his mouth was hard. He understood danger, and duty. “Put Grant to work,” he said to Kit. “No sense in the wastrel lazing around down here when there’s work to be done.”
“I’ll be back,” Grant promised, and put a hand over Dunwood’s and squeezed. And the men looked at each other with the kind of intimacy and tenderness born of hard times and deep trust.
She made for the companionway, Grant rushing behind her. And upon reaching the deck, shouted, “What is it?” to anyone who’d answer.
“That,” Jin said, voice flat and gaze on the sea.
Kit followed his gaze, and swore.
The gun brig from Finistère was behind them, all sails flying, and giving chase.
Thirteen
Where the hell did they come from?” Kit asked, grabbing the glass Jin offered her as sailors ran to their posts, ready for instructions.
But she could surmise the answer—the gun brig had swung around the far side of one of the archipelago’s islands, was rounding the downwind side of it. The ship was a mile off the Diana’s port quarter and gaining ground. Every sail had been raised, or was being raised, and it flew like a bird across the water.
Tamlin dropped to the deck and ran toward them through the currents of sailors.
“Why would it attack us?” she asked. Her hair was windblown and tousled, her cheeks pink from breeze and sunlight, and her eyes wide.
“Because of who we have on board,” Grant said. “They want Dunwood.”
“Or his information,” Kit agreed. “Or to destroy the entire lot of us and make things much easier for themselves and Gerard. Let me think,” she added, and walked to the stern, looked over the sea in their wake. The ship and its contingent seemed to inhale, as if silently holding a collective breath for her response.
The Diana was fast, and although they’d put out plenty of canvas to leave Finistère, there were sails to unfurl yet. But the gun brig had cannons. It didn’t need to overcome the Diana; it only needed to get within firing range. And that particular threshold was growing closer: Kit growled as the gun brig unfurled stunsails that extended horizontally over the hull of the ship like wings of canvas.
“The Guild can march right into the sea,” Kit muttered, then looked up, took in the canvas already on the ship, considered the wind, the water.
Fully rigged, the gun brig would probably be faster on a straight run. They were downwind, and if the sea and wind stayed steady, even with all canvas flying, they might not be able to outrun it. It would be close, and she didn’t like close.
But the Diana was more maneuverable, and speed could be negotiated. So she closed her eyes and reached out for the water. She could feel the tension created by both ships. The water thin and churning in the shoals that surrounded the islands, deeper and smoother in the waters offshore. Those were the faster waters. But, again, if they couldn’t win at speed, they could win other ways.
She opened her eyes, found Simon nearby. “Get me the archipelago map. Tamlin, get back in the top. Let us know if the wind’s going to change. Jin, all hands and keep us flying.”
The bell was rung. Seconds later, the sailors who weren’t already on deck emerged from the forecastle, began spreading to their stations.
By the time Kit turned back to the cabinet behind the wheel, Simon had the archipelago map spread atop it. Kit surveyed it, reviewed the distance between their position and the two next-largest islands: Black and Kestrel.
“What are you thinking?” Grant asked, standing beside her. And for the first time, he sounded curious, not as if he was preparing for criticism or argument.
“That we can’t beat them running downwind, and we can’t engage them,” she said. “They’re probably faster and obviously armed. As much as I’d like to let them get closer and take them with steel, it’s too risky. We have to get Dunwood home. But we may be able to outsail them.
“We’re here,” she added, pointing at the spot just northeast of Finistère. Then she looked up, glanced at the horizon. Black Island, the next in the chain, was south of
them, and several miles off the port bow. The opposite of the direction they needed to travel—northeast and toward home—but the diversion would, she hoped, be temporary.
“If they can use the islands to hide,” she said, “we can use them to escape.” She looked up and at her officers. “The gun brig has a deeper draft. It’s all those damn cannons and shot. And I suspect they’re eager enough, desperate enough, to chase us, but we have the advantage in shallow water. So let’s use the shoals to our advantage.”
“You want to trick them into following us into shallow water and grounding themselves?” Grant asked.
“That’s the idea.” They’d had some luck today, and she hoped it would hold. “I’m thinking . . .” Kit began, and traced a finger along the route she had in mind, snaking in and around the islands.
“Won’t they have the same maps?” Grant asked. “And know we’re ultimately headed home? They could simply wait for us.”
“Maps, yes,” Kit agreed. “But they won’t follow us all the way to the Isles—not without a declaration of war—and they don’t want to risk losing Dunwood. If they want to catch us now, they’re going to have to play by our rules.”
She moved in front of the wheel, looked over her crew. “We’re going to let them chase us,” she called out, loud enough that the sailors could hear. “But we’re going to set the course. We’re going through the shoals, and need to be careful and cautious. She’s armed, and she may fire when we tack, when we expose our flank. That’s a risk we’ll have to take. Our mission is to get Dunwood home,” Kit said. “And by Kanos, that’s damned well what we’ll do.”
“For Dunwood!” the crew called out, fists raised in the air. “For the Isles!”
Nodding, she looked at Jin. “I want every available bit of canvas hanging on this boat. If there’s a jib, staysail, stunsail, pair of filthy trousers, it should be attached and hanging.”
