by V. Briceland
“I hope not,” Milo had replied.
“But sir—” Nic had been aghast at the thought. “It won’t be safe. We don’t know what will happen …”
“Young man. Do you know what will happen if we stand here?” Nic thought it a philosophical question, and had shaken his head in reply. “I do. I’ll catch a cold from this beastly rain. Trust me. You won’t want to see how curmudgeonly I can be when I’m sneezing. Now, prove to me you’re worthy of that medallion,” he had said, poking at Nic’s chest with his cane, “and show me to someplace dry.”
Nic had complied with all possible speed, yet once they were in the his quarters, he still had objections. “But Majesty, I have no plans. No stratagems.”
“You have yourself, Niccolo.” Alessandro had eased himself into the captain’s chair, sighing as his old bones protested. “And you have your crew. For now, that will be enough. Take me to the armada, so that I might see it for myself. Then we will think on what to do.”
Now that they had reached their goal, Nic entered the pitch-black cabin, more lost than ever. He wondered exactly for how long he would be shut into that pleasant prison cell, if he failed to return to Cassaforte with its three most important political figures whole and intact. He should never have consented to allow the king and his heir onboard. Milo Sorranto was more than willing to lend a hand where needed, however, and Risa seemed hardened to the wind and weather. Maxl had much the same thought, as he dived in the door after Risa. Darcy and the Arturos followed, trailed by others of the crew who were not below. “You women of Cassaforte,” Maxl said, his teeth chattering. “You are much stronger than you look. There is hair upon your chest. Yes!”
“I should certainly hope not.” Risa cupped her hands together and produced a glowing ball of deep red light that illuminated her face from beneath. She released it so that it sat on one end of the table, its surface spinning and writhing. Even when the boat rocked from side to side, however, it didn’t shift—unlike Nic’s paper boats, which fell from side to side on the mantels, desk, and tables, casting crazy shadows as they tumbled. She then moved to the table’s other end. “It won’t be visible from afar,” she assured Nic. “We can’t be knocking heads in here.”
“And for that I am grateful, my dear.” King Alessandro had long been dry, but he pulled himself closer to the orb of light that Risa set down, as if warming himself with it. He, too, shivered, making Nic wish they had brought some kind of coals for the cabin’s fireplace. “Now this is what I call a council of war,” he said, indicating that everyone should sit down, captain and pirates alike. Sparks of defiance twinkled in his eyes. “So much better without High Commander Fiernetto, don’t you think?”
Milo shook his head. “Majesty, you’ve taught me too well for me to dismiss the opinions of a man who is only doing the job for which he has been appointed. Fiernetto means well. Though he is a bit of a …”
“Pig head,” Risa supplied. She sat down next to Alessandro, then put her arm around him and laid her head on his shoulder, as if he were her grandfather. She was trying to warm him, Nic realized.
“Yes,” agreed Milo. “And not much of a creative thinker. Which is why we need you, Captain.” He leaned back in his chair, expectant.
Before his crew, it was difficult for Nic to admit to his shortcomings. He spoke slowly, hoping that what he said wouldn’t diminish him in their eyes. “I am not educated, like your high commander,” he said. Outside, the storm seemed to roar louder, as if laughing at him. “I can barely read. I’m not learned in military strategy. I’m nothing but a poor brat who’s bluffed his way from one end of the Azure Sea to the other.”
“That poor brat thought of a strategy the high commander did not,” Darcy asserted. Nic softened to hear her defend him so hotly. “You were the one who suggested Risa enchant the gondolas to look like warships. Not he.”
“Signorina Colombo is correct,” said Milo, nodding. “Your lack of training in traditional military strategy is an advantage, when it comes to outthinking those for whom it is hidebound instinct.”
“Now is the time, if any, to decide upon what we are to do.” The king coughed, prompting Risa to rub his shoulders with worry. “A stormy night. The might of an entire nation versus the valiance of a renegade few. It’s very like one of your dramas, is it not, Signor Arturo?”
“Ah … well … yes … that is to say …” For once, Signor Arturo was speechless. He bobbed and fussed with his hands fruitlessly, while his clothes dripped a steady puddle onto the decking.
“That’s a good one,” the Signora was heard to whisper to him. “Make sure to use it when we get back.”
“Poetic, really, when you think about it.” Another round of coughs racked Alessandro’s form, but he waved off both Darcy and Risa, when they reached out for him. “Cassaforte’s old king, surrounded by the generation that will soon supplant him. So, Niccolo.” King Alessandro leaned upon the table, only to be pushed back into his chair by a sudden lurch of the waves. “What say you?”
Although he had spent the last three hours commanding a ship through a storm like he’d never experienced, at the monarch’s question, Nic’s hands twitched with sudden nervous energy. He’d warned the man that he had no plan of action, and yet here he was, being asked to provide one. “Perhaps knowing where the armada is could be valuable enough,” he said, trying desperately to make something good out of the situation. A few of the boats he’d folded from paper lay on their sides upon the table. He grabbed one and began to worry at it. “Do you have some sorcery that would allow you to tell someone, back in the city?”
Risa shook her head. “Had I thought about it before we left, perhaps. At the time I did not think it wise to advertise that we were going to sneak the king away from his guards and drag him out of the country. Your sister is going to kill us all, by the way,” she added to Milo.
“She can’t kill me,” he assured her. “That would be treason.”
“A little thing like that won’t stop her.”
“Create a weapon, then. One against which they would be powerless,” said Darcy.
“There are limits to what even Allyria Cassamagi’s enchantments could do.” She looked as disappointed with herself as Nic had felt moments before.
Maxl stepped forward. “I think that we are steering to great big ships,” he said, excitedly playing out the scenario with his hands. “And when we are getting close, poof! You turn everyone into frogs. On other boats. Not on this one.”
Nic could have sworn he heard a suppressed snicker from a certain member of the Divetri family, but the storm had once again picked up, and he might have been mistaken. “Thank you for clarifying that for me, Signor Maxl,” said Risa. “But no.”
“Speak up, if you have ideas,” said Nic to the crew. “Now is not the time to hold your tongue.”
The ideas came slowly at first. The Signora thought of a massive net, real or ensorcelled, that might snare the armada and keep them from proceeding. Qiandro, once his thoughts were translated, was all for using the Allyria in the same way the pirates had used their cutters the night before, and tossing infernal devices aboard the ships. Risa rejected the first as impossible, and Nic had to turn down the latter for the lack of any materials with which to make the infernal devices. Then the ideas came faster. They could speed back to the city using Risa’s powers, and then build a magic shield around the city. Risa could cause lightning to strike the Azurite ships and reduce them to rubble, or drown the sailors with rain, or cause hail to fall over their vessels and weigh them down so grievously that they sunk.
Risa had to reject every suggestion. “The enchantments of Allyria Cassamagi just don’t work that way. I’m sorry. I wish I could do some of those things, but I have no concept of how to go about them. I’m learning, without a teacher. Your captain made a suggestion yesterday of enchanting gondolas around Cassaforte so that
they looked like warships. He thought it might scare off the Comte Dumond, or at least delay them. That I can do, because the very nature of a boat is to be … boat-y. It wouldn’t be a warship once I’d done it, but a simple change of appearance is within my limited powers.” She looked around the assembly once more, looking very much like the young woman she was instead of the powerful enchantress she was supposed to be. “I’m sorry.”
Nic was looking down at his hands. While Risa spoke, he felt electrified by possibility. “Do it now,” he said suddenly. When he whipped up his head and met Risa’s startled glance, his eyes were wide and alive. “Do it now.”
The Infant Prodigy interrupted him. “Perhaps if we captured a squid, you could transform him to look like a very big squid monster and scare the Comte Dumond with it.”
Risa held up a hand to arrest any more talk about that plan. “What do you mean?” she asked. “Niccolo, we left before we could set up any unused boats around Cassaforte’s perimeter. Even if I had, I couldn’t give them the appearance of Piratimare warships from this distance.”
“Not there.” Nic’s brain could have outpaced the fastest gallop of any thoroughbred horse. “Right here. Right now.”
Darcy didn’t understand, either. “We didn’t bring any gondolas with us, or even rowboats.”
“Nic, unless you explain, I’m afraid I’m going to have to entertain the squid idea,” said Risa.
“They’re all around,” he told Darcy.
Maxl also didn’t follow. “The armada, yes, it is all around us.”
“No.” Nic thrust the folded object beneath Darcy’s nose. “These.” She stared at him for a moment. Then, in the glow of the red orbs, he watched her smile. It was like a ray of sunshine breaking through the gloom. To Risa he said, “Paper boats. There are a dozen and a half around this room alone. Where there’s paper, I can make more.” She seemed to be staring at him as if he were mad. He hastened to reassure her. “They’re real boats. They can float, for a while.”
King Alessandro smiled. “I believe, Captain, that you have arrived at another brilliant bluff. That makes two within the space of two days. I must insist my officers take more sea air.” He settled back into his chair.
“It was all Darcy,” Nic said, bathing in the girl’s glance. “It’s exactly as she told me once. I’ve been making these all my life. Now I know to what end.”
“Inestimable girl,” said the king. He looked fondly upon Darcy. “Keep her safe.”
“This could actually work!” exclaimed Risa. Nic could tell her mind was racing as well. “I can retard the effect of the water upon them for a while.”
Nic hadn’t finished, though. “And remember what you did with the heir’s head?”
Milo peered at Nic with an expression of long suffering. “Which time?”
Risa spoke. “I know exactly what he’s talking about,” she said with a wicked grin upon her face. “Let’s get started.”
Milo rose. “Will you take my arm, sir?” he asked the king.
Alessandro demurred. He seemed most weary from the weather and the late hour. “I shall hear of it when it is done,” he assured his heir. To Risa, he added, “I will rest here a while. Bring me gladsome tidings, my dear. And Captain.” Nic had already reached the cabin door, but he stopped to listen. “Thank you.”
Though King Alessandro remained within, the entire crew raced to the deck armed with the paper fleet. Thankfully the rain had lessened in its intensity and had become a mere drizzle, though the Allyria still pitched to and fro from the wild seas. The lights of the armada, which was struggling against a stiff headwind, were no closer. Risa had taken one of the globes she’d created and perched it upon her shoulder. When everyone huddled around her, the glow upon their faces created a spooky effect. “Let’s try,” she said.
“Three at first,” ordered Nic. He pointed. “Infant Prodigy. Maxl. Knave.”
Cupping their hands in the way that penitents carried doves to the temple, the three crew members leaned over the ship’s railing and tossed their little paper boats onto the waters. Risa stood nearby with both palms raised to the heavens. Whispered words fell from her lips. Her eyes drew back into her head so all that was visible were the whites.
Nic watched as the little specks of white grew more faint as they fell into the water below. A streak of lightning stretched from clouds to the sea. During that bright split-second, it seemed to Nic as if the scraps of paper stopped tumbling upon the wind. They gained weight, and mass, and motion. Then, where nothing had been before, three immense craft began sailing toward the comte’s armada.
They were large warships from the Piratimare shipyards, graceful and lithe, looking more as if they’d been sculpted by an artist than assembled from thousands of individual pieces of wood. Their sails, crested with brown and purple, were full and proud. Cannonados projected from ports beneath the deck. Their stern and cabin lights glowed brightly, and even cast reflections upon the water. Without anyone on board, however, and with the straight course they took across the water, they projected an eerie, almost ghostly effect, no matter how real they seemed.
Risa raised her hands higher. Without warning, the ships caught fire. Several members of the crew instinctively shielded their faces from the blazes, though they knew that it was only a mirage. Long tongues of flame licked from every porthole. All the decks were alight.
“Fireships,” breathed Nic. His eyes gleamed.
“In my country we are calling them hellburners,” said Maxl, with wonder. The wind was helping the illusion by forcing the flames in every direction. The ships sailed on in their collision course with the armada.
“Darcy. Signora. Urso.” Once the first flank was on its way, Nic indicated that the next three boats be launched. Soon the number of blazing vessels had doubled, then tripled as another three joined them. Risa continued her whispered prayers. By the light of the ships, she seemed pale. Nic hoped she could hold out long enough to see this bluff through.
All aboard the Allyria seemed to hold their breath as the illusory battalion began to near its goal. At first it seemed as if no one aboard the Azurite craft had seen the burning boats bearing down upon them. Then Nic thought he could hear the sound of bells clanging and shouts being carried over the wind. From the lead ship in the formation he saw a spark of light against its hull, and then, seconds later, the roar of a cannonado. Its missile, a stone ball, passed harmlessly through one of the first three boats and splashed into the water. A massive plume of water rose into the air where it hit. Another followed, and then another, growing increasingly closer to the Allyria.
“Leave your paper boats with Thorntongue,” Nic cried out. “And man your stations. We’re bringing the ship around.” To Darcy he added, “Keep them going. And watch out for Risa.”
“I will,” she promised. Already the crew was filling her arms with the boats that were left. “Good luck,” she yelled as he ran for the quarterdeck.
By now the sound of the cannonados was growing. The first of the burning Cassafortean hulls had made its way between the Azurite warships into the middle of the formation, and the ships were beginning to break course. Those on the outside had changed their orientation completely so they could bring their guns around to face their attackers; the head ships were heeling hard so the fireboats would not be behind them. A cheer went up from the crew, which sent Nic scurrying away from the ship’s wheel to the rail to see what happened. He saw that the hull of one of the closer ships of the armada sported several gaping holes from the cannonados of its own fleet. When the ship keeled upright, the damage was below its water line. Almost immediately, it began to drag down into the sea.
“More,” Nic yelled down at Darcy, so loudly that he felt his throat become raw. “More fireboats.”
Her face was awed and scared when she looked up at him and nodded. Another folded paper boat fle
w from her hands into the water. It transformed into one of the hellburners and joined the seemingly unending stream of inferno ships confounding the enemy.
The cannonado fire was endless, now, as the armada’s ships fired shot upon shot in an attempt to still the restless fireboats. One of the shots must have connected with the tiny paper boat hiding within the illusion. Nic saw it wink out, its flames immediately extinguished. Most of the stone projectiles went right through the illusions and into the Azurite warships. Nic watched as a mast split and tumbled, crashing onto the deck below. A boom sounded from another of the armada’s vessels minutes later, when cannonado shots from a friendly ship connected with its supply of yemeni alum. The explosion let loose a belch of fire that rose like a scarlet ball into the air, splitting the ship into two.
The armada’s captains were busy, for several minutes, trying to avoid the burning debris even as they continued to batter each other with the ceaseless fire of their weaponry. The number of ships dwindled from sixteen to fifteen, and then from fifteen to twelve to seven. By the time the last of the fireboats reached the scattered armada, only two boats remained. Both were mastless and broken and drifted without aim among the smoldering wreckage of what had been a once-mighty fleet.
They had won. The last lights of Nic’s flotilla of illusions winked out, all at once. On the deck below, Nic heard a thump. He left the ship’s wheel to find Milo with his arm around Risa Divetri. “It’s all right,” he was telling her in the most reassuring of voices. “It’s over.”
“Is it?” she asked. Her head lolled back to an upright position. She dropped her arms so heavily it seemed they might fall from their sockets. Then she began to sink to the ground.
With cries, Darcy and Nic both leapt to catch her. Milo had the situation well in hand. “She’s unhurt,” he assured them. “But worn.”
