“Musketeer!” Kip shouted. One of the gunners, whether or not it was their cannoneer with the preternatural aim Kip didn’t know, stood at the bow, calmly tamping powder down his musket with a ramrod. With smooth, fast motions, he drew a square of cloth, reached into another pocket for a bullet, and then tamped those. He held a smoking slow match in his teeth.
As they got closer, Kip saw that the gunner was Ilytian, with skin as black as gunpowder, aboriginal features, a scattered dark beard, short loose trousers cut off below the knees, and an incongruously fine royal blue jacket over his lean frame with no shirt. His wiry black hair was bound in a thick ponytail. His knees were bent, compensating for the rolling motion of the deck as naturally as breathing. He fixed the burning fuse into place.
“I said, musketeer!” Kip shouted. They cut the water right beside the corvette as the cannon portholes opened and the ship turned hard away from them.
Gavin just turned with the bigger vessel. No one was going to do anything. Kip cocked the hammers of Gavin’s dagger-pistols, trying not to skewer himself on the long blades.
The musketeer pivoted smoothly, aiming at Gavin. Kip raised both pistols.
The musketeer shot first. His gun exploded in his hands, knocking him off his feet. Kip pulled both triggers. The pistol in his right hand scraped the flint against the frizzen, but didn’t throw a spark. Nothing happened. The pistol in his left hand roared. It kicked back at Kip with far more force than he’d expected.
Kip spun, tripped, and slid toward the back of the skimmer, rolling, scrambling. He saw Liv flinging both of her hands forward, then turning, her pupils tiny pinpricks as she drafted superviolet. Then she dove for him.
Tumbling facedown, Kip lost sight of Liv, the ship, the drafters, and the battle. All he saw was the slick blue of the skimmer’s deck, sliding away below him. His face slid over the edge. His forehead skipped off the water blurring past them, making his whole head bounce up, just about tearing his head off his neck. On the second bounce, he wasn’t so lucky. His nose went under, and positioned off the back of the skimmer as he was, his nostrils acted as twin scoops, jetting water up into his sinuses at great speed.
Liv must have grabbed him, because there was no third bounce, but Kip could see nothing, think of nothing. He was coughing, retching, crying, blind, spitting up salt water.
By the time he propped himself up, the Ilytian corvette was two hundred paces behind them. Its sails sagged, cut and burning. Smoke billowed out of all the cannon portholes on the starboard side, and fire was visible on the decks. And the whole ship was sitting low in the water. Men were leaping off the decks on every side.
Commander Ironfist, who’d barely said two words the entire time, said, “Men jumping off that fast means the fire must be headed for the—” The middle of the corvette exploded, sending wood and ropes and barrels and men flying every direction. “—powder magazine,” Ironfist finished. “Sorry bastards.”
“Men like those kill and rape and steal and enslave. They don’t deserve our pity,” Gavin said, slowing the skimmer. He was talking to Liv and Kip, who both sat almost equally wide-eyed. “But Ironfist’s right. It’s no easy thing to be the hand of justice.” He dropped the tube into the water. “We’ll row the rest of the way. By the by, nice shot, Kip.”
“I hit him?”
“Blew the captain right off his wheel.”
“The wheel’s at the… uh, back, right?” The musketeer had been at the front.
“Stern?” Liv suggested.
A dubious look. “You weren’t aiming at the captain, were you?” Gavin asked.
“Aiming?” Kip asked, grinning.
“Orholam have mercy, the nut doesn’t fall far from the tree,” Ironfist said. “However, luck is a—”
“ ‘Luck’ is not dropping your father’s priceless, one-of-a-kind pistols in the sea,” Gavin said.
“I dropped your pistols?” Kip asked, heart dropping.
“Whereas ‘slick’ is catching said pistols at the last moment,” Gavin said, producing the weapons from behind his back. He grinned.
“Oh, thank Orholam,” Kip breathed.
“You still almost lost my pistols,” Gavin said. “And for that, you get to row. Liv, you too.”
“What?!”
“You’re his tutor. He’s your responsibility. Everything he does wrong is on you.”
“Oh, perfect,” she said.
Chapter 57
“It looks so… dirty,” Kip said. After seeing the wealth of Big Jasper and the magical edifices of the Chromeria, Garriston looked decidedly unimpressive.
“Dirt is the least of it,” Gavin said.
Kip wasn’t sure what that meant, but he was sorry that he’d been unconscious when he’d floated through the city the first time with Gavin. If he had seen Garriston then, it would have doubtless been impressive. It would have been the largest gathering of humanity he’d seen in his life, at least, if not the cleanest. Rekton’s alcaldesa would never have tolerated the heaps of trash Kip could see pushed into the alleys just off the docks, sitting right next to crates often holding food. Disgusting.
The docks had perhaps forty ships, half-protected by a seawall with great gaps in it. Liv saw Kip looking at the holes, wondering if there was some purpose for them. “The occupiers never really want to break their backs helping out us backward Tyreans,” she said. “The moorages opposite the gaps in the seawall are given to locals. You should see the captains scurry when a winter storm comes. The soldiers gather up in the towers and take bets on whether individual ships will break up.”
The scull, powered by Liv and a hard-breathing Kip, cruised past galleys, galleasses, corvettes, and fishing dories full of locals mending their nets. The men and women stopped their work at the sight of a scull, much less a scull with such an exotic crew. It warmed Kip just to see Tyrean faces again. It made him feel at home. Only as they went past did he see the hostility on those faces.
Ah, not much for foreign drafters. Guess that makes sense.
“Where are we going?” Kip asked.
Commander Ironfist pointed to the most magnificent, tallest building in the city. From here, all Kip could see was the perfect egg-shaped tower with a spike pointing to heaven. A wide stripe around the widest part of the tower was inlaid with tiny round mirrors, none bigger than Kip’s thumb. In the afternoon sun, the tower seemed to be on fire. Above and below that stripe of mirrors, similar stripes of other colors of glass were inlaid as well.
“I sorta figured,” Kip said. “What I meant was, where should we dock the scull?”
“Right there,” Gavin said, pointing to a blank wall at the point nearest a gate. It wasn’t a docking spot, and the level of the streets was a good four paces above the level of the water.
Nonetheless, Kip and Liv steered—fairly expertly, Kip thought—toward the wall. The scull’s nose dipped lower in the water as blue luxin bloomed on the front of the boat and snaked out. It solidified as soon as it touched the wall and became steps, locking the scull in place and giving them easy egress.
“I’m still not used to this whole magic thing,” Kip said.
“I’m thirty-eight years old,” Commander Ironfist said, “and I’m not used to it. Just a little quicker to react. Grab your packs.”