Snake Heart

by Buroker, Lindsay

  “I can’t tell who it is. The sun hasn’t come up yet, so it’s still dark out there. There are at least three ships approaching, though. I believe one of Pey Lu’s ships fired the cannon.”

  “Warning them to stay away?”

  “Likely.”

  “Are they doing so?” Yanko asked.

  “It doesn’t look like it.” Dak did not remove his gaze from the periscope or offer anyone else a view.

  Yanko sat in the empty seat next to Arayevo and sent his senses outward, trying to see with his mind what Dak saw with his fancy technology. But the other ships were still too far away. He could sense the pirate ships, as well as the auras of the people on board. They were scurrying about, preparing for battle. Everyone seemed alert and all aboard seemed to be on the main decks or the gun decks. The sounds of more booms reached his ears.

  “This may be our chance,” Yanko said. “Everyone’s turning out for the battle. There won’t be anybody left in the cabins. Maybe Pey Lu’s quarters won’t be guarded.”

  “I thought you didn’t want to deal with your mother.”

  “I’m open to dealing with her empty cabin.”

  “I think those are Kyattese ships.” Dak left the periscope and waved Yanko out of the pilot’s seat. “We’ll try to sneak close enough to board.”

  “Excellent.” Arayevo leaped from her seat, almost clunking her head on the ceiling. She raced toward the hatches where they’d first come aboard. “Lakeo, grab your weapons. We’re going to infiltrate a pirate ship.”

  “I don’t have any weapons—Yanko’s mama stole them all.”

  “Maybe the Kyattese left something on board. Come on. Back here. There are some lockers.”

  Yanko watched them rummaging, amazed at how excited Arayevo was at the idea of some adventure. Was it possible his mother had been the same way? Stifled by the thought of raising children in a remote mountain village? If that had been the case, why had she married his father in the first place? Why have children she would only end up abandoning? And why had she had to become a criminal in order to have adventures? Couldn’t she just have rejoined the army? For that matter, why had the sea called to Arayevo? She, too, could have found other ways to have adventures, surely. Legal ways. What if her thirst for excitement got her killed? Or what if… what if it meant she would never consider returning to Aspen Hollow with Yanko? Would he have to give up the homeland he loved to have a chance at being with her? The sea didn’t call to him the way it did to her. Assuming she truly was done with Monkey-brains Minark, could they find some place they could be together and both be happy? Did she ever think of being happy with him?

  “Have you told her?” Dak asked.

  “What?” Yanko glanced warily at him, realizing he might have been caught gazing after Arayevo with moon eyes.

  Dak flicked off the interior lighting, plunging them into near darkness. The exterior lamp was out too. Dak made small adjustments to the controls. They seemed to be traveling very slowly, deep enough below the surface that the currents only tugging gently at them. A small amount of light filtered down to them. Dawn must be brightening the sky up there.

  “About what? Finding me a sword?” Yanko smiled, making his tone light. He didn’t think this was the appropriate time to discuss his issues with women. “Do the Kyattese even carry such things? They don’t seem to be a sword-swinging people.”

  Dak glanced at him, but said nothing else. Maybe that was all the prying he would do. Yanko wondered why he had bothered. Unless Dak thought they were about to get killed and that Yanko should confess his feelings before that happened.

  Dak started to get out of his seat, leaning toward the periscope, but he paused. “We getting close?”

  “To Pey Lu’s ship?”

  “Yes.”

  Yanko checked with his mind, mapping out the three pirate ships in his head and their boat’s position in relation to them. He could also feel a fourth ship at the edge of his range now and noted that it was made from iron instead of wood. Was there a Turgonian craft in the Kyattese fleet? Or had the Kyattese bought ironclads from the Turgonians?

  Aware of Dak waiting for an answer, Yanko concentrated on the pirate ships. He could worry about the new arrivals later.

  “We’re close to one, but I don’t think it’s her ship. Hers is…” Yanko sensed her aura before that of anyone else’s on the ship, a big frigate closer to the island than the other two vessels. He yanked his touch back, afraid she would feel him probing. “That way.” He pointed.

  Dak accepted his assessment without a word and turned the underwater boat. It was a small thing, but the sign of trust pleased Yanko.

  A clang came from the rear of the craft, and the women chattered excitedly about a machete they had found. It was probably for cutting back foliage on an island rather than for beheading pirates, but Yanko supposed it was better than nothing, especially for someone without magic to call upon. Arayevo sounded even more animated than Lakeo at finding the thing.

  Yanko shook his head. “No, I haven’t talked to her about my feelings,” he said quietly, the words as much for himself as for Dak. Maybe he should share his feelings before they did something as suicidal as trying to steal from hundreds of pirates. “I never knew how. It’s too hard to say to her face. I tried writing some poetry, some very awful poetry, which my father found instead of her. But I could never give it to her. I guess… as long as I didn’t tell her, I could pretend she felt the same. My fantasies could continue on, no hint of reality squashing him. Because if I told her how I felt and she said she didn’t share those feelings, then I couldn’t go on pretending it was inevitable that we would be together someday.”

  The lack of lighting made it hard to tell, but Yanko got the impression that Dak was staring at him and had been for a while.

  “That is what you were asking about, isn’t it?” Yanko asked. “When you said, have you told her?”

  “I meant about Pey Lu being responsible for the deaths of all those villagers,” Dak said. “She seems to think being captured by the woman wouldn’t end in death. I’m not sure that’s wise to assume.”

  “Oh.” Yanko was glad the darkness would hide the pink of his cheeks. “I think I did. I know I told Lakeo.”

  “It looks like there are two things you should discuss with Arayevo then,” Dak said dryly. “How far now? Did I adjust our course enough? If we can avoid using the periscope, I will. It’s subtle, but it is visible, and they probably have the decks lit well.”

  Another cannon fired, sounding much closer than before. Three more booms followed immediately after. Yanko forgot his mortification over his confession and extended his senses again. He needed to be monitoring everything that was going on if they were going up there. They would need to find the perfect moment.

  “We’re getting close, yes,” Yanko whispered.

  Orange light filtered down to them, briefly illuminating the interior of their craft before disappearing.

  “Was that a fireball?” Yanko wondered. It definitely had not been cannon fire, but it had seemed to come from the direction of the new ships, not his mother’s ship. As close as they were getting, he would have felt it if she or another mage on her deck had drawn power.

  “You’ll have to tell me, mage.” Dak leaned forward in his seat. “There she is.”

  The black hull of Pey Lu’s craft was visible ahead of them, the water growing lighter with each passing minute. Yanko wished the sun would slow its assent. The underwater boat wasn’t as easy to spot as a sailing ship, but it would have to break the surface for them to board, and then it would be very visible. Or—he tilted his head—would it need to break the surface?

  “Can we go out through that hatch closet, so the boat doesn’t need to come up all the way?” Yanko asked.

  “You don’t think you can make some fog to hide us?” Dak asked.

  Yanko snorted. “I don’t think it ever gets foggy at this latitude.”

  “Yes, you can go out the airlock
. The hatch closet.” His tone did dry very well. To think, there had been a time when Yanko believed Turgonians had no sense of humor. “There are a lot of cutting tools so the scientists can take samples when they’re down here,” Dak added. “I may actually be able to cut a hole into the hull, and you could enter that way. If this were a Turgonian ironclad, it wouldn’t be possible, but I may be able to drill into wood. A hole letting in water will give them another problem to deal with, too.”

  “With the cannons going off, they might not hear anyone cutting into their hull.”

  “Exactly.”

  “We’re ready,” Arayevo announced from the entrance to the control room.

  She and Lakeo stood shoulder to shoulder, each carrying a knife and a machete. Arayevo also had the pistol at her belt, the weapon she’d worn when they first arrived on the island. She must have had an opportunity to retrieve it after Dak had rescued her from the pirates. In addition to the weapons, Lakeo wore a padded torso covering that might soften a mediocre blow from a weapon, though it appeared to be designed to provide protection from scientific experiments, or perhaps welding work.

  “Maybe we won’t have to fight,” Yanko said.

  “One of them is going to have to be your bodyguard,” Dak said.

  “Uhm, what?”

  Dak did not look happy as he waved toward the control panel. “The ships are moving. There’s no way for the flugnugstica to stay close unless someone stays inside to pilot it. If we let it drift, we might never find it again. If we can’t escape from Pey Lu’s ship…”

  “We’ll be stuck there and Yanko will have to talk to her,” Arayevo said.

  “I don’t think you should be rooting for that family reunion. I don’t believe it would go as well as you think.” Yanko spun toward Dak. “We need you up there. There must be a way you can come. Can’t we… clamp onto something? Arayevo and Lakeo are fine fighters, but I think we should all stick together.”

  As much as he adored Arayevo and had come to appreciate Lakeo, the two of them put together couldn’t beat down as many pirates as Dak could. Not to mention that Dak had that mage-hunter-like training and might be able to deflect a mental attack or two.

  “Clamps?” Dak mused to himself, looking over the controls in front of him. He snapped his fingers, leaped to his feet, and ran to the back of the boat, nearly knocking Arayevo over as he sped through. He disappeared into a cabin Yanko had not yet investigated.

  “Should he be getting up just now?” Lakeo pointed to the porthole, where the black hull of the pirate ship loomed so large that nothing else was visible now. “Yanko, when you were napping at his feet, did you learn how to pilot this tub?”

  “No.”

  “How about how to put on the brakes?”

  “Sorry, no.” Yanko might be able to push them backward or hold them stationary by manipulating the waves around them, but the underwater boat was a mystery.

  Orange light flared somewhere above them at the same time as Yanko sensed an immense amount of power being used. Numerous cannons fired in the wake of the attack. Whatever was going on out there, Pey Lu was serious about defending her little pirate fleet against the other ships.

  The Kyattese ships. He thought back to that first fireball, the one the newcomers had apparently launched. Would the peace-pursuing, education-loving Kyattese hurl fireballs at their enemies? Did they study such destructive magic? Or was it possible…

  Yanko swallowed and stared at the bulkhead, as if he could see through it and to the ships exchanging fire with the pirates.

  “What is it, Yanko?” Arayevo asked. “You look like you’ve either had a grand insight or you remembered you forgot that you should use the outhouse before going into battle.”

  “I think I know whose ships those are.” Yanko shook his head slowly. “Because last time, one ship wasn’t enough. This time he brought three, including an ironclad. I don’t think a kraken can crush an ironclad.”

  Dak raced back into the control room, almost skidding as he lurched to a stop and pulled another lever.

  “You think Sun Dragon is the one hurling fireballs at your mother?” Lakeo asked.

  “It’s just a hunch, but if he also found clues that led him here—or if he was able to follow me—it could be him.”

  Yanko kept shaking his head as Dak ran back to the rear of the craft again. They seemed to be drifting now. Had he cut off the engines?

  “I hope your mother annihilates him then,” Lakeo said. “That dung-sucker was ready to make that entire volcano erupt in order to get us.”

  Yanko wasn’t sure he agreed with the sentiment. He remembered his earlier thought, that Sun Dragon at least wanted to help Nuria. He doubted Pey Lu had Nuria in mind.

  A faint clank sounded, followed by a lurch that made Yanko grab for the nearest bulkhead.

  “We’re attached,” Arayevo blurted from the hatch leading to the closet—airlock. She had moved back there and was monitoring whatever Dak was doing.

  Yanko took a deep breath, wishing he was as excited about this adventure as she was. He hoped they didn’t get caught—and killed.

  Dak jogged back to the front, waving Yanko out of his way again. This time, he sat in the seat next to the piloting seat. Thus far, he hadn’t used any of the switches, dials, or levers on this side of the control room, but now his hands flew over the console.

  “I’m sawing a hole with a tool meant to slice off coral samples,” Dak said. “Be ready to move soon. Even in the middle of battle, it won’t take them long to realize they’re talking on water.”

  When Dak finished, Yanko joined Arayevo and Lakeo at the airlock. “Anyone have a weapon to spare?”

  Lakeo’s hand slid possessively over her newly acquired machete. “There was a first-aid kit with a scalpel in it.”

  “That should cause hardened pirates to wet themselves.”

  Arayevo hesitated, then flipped the utility knife in her hand and offered Yanko the hilt.

  “Just focus on helping us with magic, if we’re forced to fight,” Dak said, coming up behind him and gripping his shoulder briefly. “I’ll watch your back. Let’s try to sneak in without a fight, though, and get out quickly. Yanko, how about some smoke?”

  “Is something burning?”

  “It could be.” Dak gave him a significant look, then stepped past him and turned the wheel on the hatch.

  Lighting fires on a ship that already had a fresh hole in the bottom seemed harsh, and he wasn’t sure how wise it was to make his mother think of him as an enemy, not just a competitor who had been in her way. Still, Dak had just offered to watch his back. It made Yanko want to help him.

  “I’ll see what I can do,” he said.

  “We can’t all fit in at once,” Dak said. “Yanko and I first, then you two follow. Arayevo, you remember how to cycle the lock?”

  “Yes, but promise you won’t kill all the pirates without me.”

  “That shouldn’t be a difficult promise to keep.” Dak pulled Yanko into the small chamber. “This will flood when I open the outer hatch. The hole is to the right. Swim to it, and we’ll hope to get in before a bunch of men are sent down to find out what’s going on.” He nodded to Arayevo, then shut the hatch behind him.

  Yanko took a deep breath. “I’m ready.”

  Dak pulled a lever on the bulkhead instead of turning a wheel. Clanks came from within the wall, then the hatch opened of its own accord, groaning as it pushed against water, water that flooded into the chamber. Yanko took a last deep breath, then swam out.

  Chapter 11

  The sea outside was brighter than the airlock. Yanko followed Dak to the right, running his hands along the barnacle-dotted hull of the pirate ship. They had farther to go than he expected, and Yanko realized that Dak had clamped to the vessel in such a way that the underwater boat should not be visible to someone inside the hold looking at the hole.

  Cannons continued to boom, the noise louder now that they were outside. Flashes of light filtered down
through the water. Yanko’s senses jangled with all of the magic being hurled around up there. It wasn’t just his mother now.

  Dak slipped through the hole, and Yanko hurried after him. His senses told him that the hold was empty. Good. The longer they could go without being discovered, the better. They wouldn’t have much of a shot of searching Pey Lu’s cabin if they were being chased by the crew.

  The hole was partway up the side of the hull, and Yanko almost fell as the water carried him in and down to the bottom of the hold. It was a large space, and only about a foot of water filled it so far. A bilge pump was set up at the far end. He snorted, doubting that would be sufficient for holding back the flood, not when Dak had cut a hole more than two feet wide.

  “Smoke,” Dak whispered. He needn’t have kept his voice down. The shouts, booms, and bangs from above drowned out everything, and Yanko barely heard him. “While we wait for the women,” he added.

  Yanko did not see anything to burn unless he lit the ship itself on fire. Burning the ship they had just boarded seemed unwise.

  “You just want the area obscured?” he asked.

  “So they have trouble finding the hole and noticing how perfectly shaped it is, yes.”

  Since the water was more plentiful than flammable material, Yanko used it instead. He chilled the air and created a thick fog. It would not remain indefinitely, but it ought to linger in the enclosed space.

  Above them, a hatch opened, and light spilled down the stairs leading into the hold. Yanko did not move, but he created more fog, thickening it further, until he couldn’t see who was coming down the stairs. He only heard the footfalls on the wooden steps. Two sets of footfalls. He lifted a hand, thinking of an attack he might use to knock them down, but he sensed Dak charging up the stairs, amazingly quiet for a big wet man sloughing water.

  A grunt sounded, following by two thumps. The men on the stairs tumbled off into the water. Yanko shuffled over to them, thinking of tying them up, but the men had not survived the fall.

  Yanko tried to tell himself that Dak was a soldier and that these were pirates, and that killing them made sense to him, but he couldn’t help but feel uncomfortable. These weren’t random pirates. They were his mother’s people. She shouldn’t mean anything to him—didn’t mean anything to him—and yet killing her people felt like a betrayal on his part. He also worried about what the consequences would be if they were captured.