The Blinding Knife
Page 153

There were a lot of guns.
From the nearest crow’s nest, a ball of luxin the size of a cat arced out.
“Drafter! First crow’s nest!” Kip called out.
The luxin ball split in midair and ignited. It landed on the water only a dozen feet from the starboard side in a curtain of flame—and floated, flames two feet high.
The first sea chariot cut hard to port, nearly plastering itself against the Gargantua’s hull. The next must not have seen the fire in the swelling of the waves, but those same swells saved it as the swells and the Gargantua’s wake made a ramp that flung the chariot into the air and neatly over the fire.
Gavin and Ironfist cut wide around the burning slick and then cut close to the ship.
“Musketeer! Third—fourth crow’s nest!” Kip shouted. He couldn’t even yell his warnings right.
There were half a dozen men along the high castle manning swivel guns. They had to aim between the bars of the blindage, but they didn’t seem to be having much trouble. Kip threw sub-red at them, had no idea if he’d hit anything, and then hit the deck as one of the big cannons went off mere feet from his head as the skimmer pulled even to the ship. The world disappeared as cannons roared and great billowing clouds of black smoke and cordite gushed from their throats.
Seen through the sub-red lenses, the world was delineated into great flashes of exploding guns, the sharp tongues of spitting muskets, the muted bursts of the grenadoes, and the ghostly shadows of men.
Then they were out of the smoke. They immediately cut hard to port, passing in the very shadow of the beakhead. Gavin and Ironfist both hurled grenadoes into that deck overhead. Gavin’s was wrapped in red luxin, and stuck; Ironfist’s was spiked, and stuck. Twin explosions and showers of wood and flame announced their success. None of the cannons on the port side of the Garguntua had been fired, so Kip was able to see clearly once more.
Flames sprang up on the mainsail—and were immediately extinguished in sprays of orange luxin. A few of the lines had been successfully cut, but those that had been merely set aflame were also saved.
“Brace!” Gavin shouted.
The skimmer curved to starboard to get some separation, and just as they rose out of a trough, Gavin shot a huge ball of flaming red luxin at the first crow’s nest. The drafter saw it coming and tried to blast it aside, but the ball merely shattered and drenched him and the crow’s nest in flame.
But Kip barely saw that, because the concussion of Gavin throwing something so massive just as they went airborne threw the skimmer hard to the side, and had they not hit the crest of another wave, they probably would have capsized.
Instead, they simply slowed to a crawl as Ironfist and Gavin were thrown off the reeds for a moment, and the skimmer turned the wrong way, bobbing in the waves. Kip saw two men training swivel guns on them even as a man engulfed in flames pitched out of the crow’s nest, tangling in the lines as he fell, shrieking.
Then the gunners disappeared in a wash of flame and exploding yellow light as four of the sea chariots closed around the Prism.
The port-side cannons began firing, and Kip saw one of the archers on the back of her chariot simply disappear. The blindage was afire, and Kip saw the sailors and soldiers above them struggling to throw it over the side. One of the Blackguards had painted a line of red luxin down the entire length of the Gargantua’s hull, and as the cannons roared, it lit.
Within seconds, Gavin and Ironfist had the skimmer back up to speed. Musket balls whistled past them, dimpling the water. Several of the archers were firing now at great speed. And Kip could tell that the soldiers were only beginning to make it to the deck.
“Birds!” Kip shouted as a flock of pigeons exploded from the deck of the Gargantua. Pigeons?
“Ironbeaks!” one of the Blackguard shouted.
Kip lost sight of the birds and the ship itself as the skimmer dodged in and out. In the sudden lurching, he thought he was going to be sick.
I’m going to be seasick? In the middle of a battle?
He looked to the horizon to try to steady his stomach. Two of the sea chariot drivers who’d both lost their archers had gone out the range of the guns and abandoned one chariot, pulling another cord that made the luxin fall apart at the seams. Gavin hadn’t wanted the secret of how to make the chariots falling into enemy hands. But beyond them, Kip saw a galley coming, its triple oar decks moving the small ship quickly.
“Got a galley coming,” Kip shouted. He pulled up the binocle and almost puked as the magnified vision seemed to magnify the swaying. “No flag.”
Gavin shot a look up. “Probably pirates looking for an easy kill, not Vecchio’s. Keep an eye on it.”
Then they were back into the fight. They came out from under the stern galley onto the starboard side and saw an explosion blow one of the cannons on the lowest gun deck completely out the side into the water in a spray of wood and fire and smoke. One of the Blackguards—Kip though it was Cruxer—whooped.
An instant later, Kip saw one of the pigeons dive at Cruxer. It hit his chest, stuck.
Cruxer slapped the bird off his chest. It splashed into the water and less than a second later exploded.
Then Kip understood. Like the hellhounds Trainer Fisk had told them about, these birds were natural birds, but they’d been infused with a drafter’s will to do one thing—attack the Blackguards. And in this case, they’d also been equipped with small grenadoes.
Which meant several dozen small flying bombs were circling the great ship—small, intelligent bombs.
As intelligent as pigeons, anyway.
And if that wasn’t quite terrifying, seeing half a dozen of them hit a Blackguard team that had slowed to throw a grenado into a gunport was. A second later, both driver and archer were ripped apart by the explosions. The grenado the woman had thrown bounced harmlessly off the blindage—which hadn’t been pulled off on this side of the ship—and exploded in the water, barely so much as scoring the wood of the hull.
The Gargantua was a floating castle. The fires weren’t spreading. It was invincible.
“Reeds,” Gavin said to Ironfist.
The big man seemed to know what he meant instantly, because he took Gavin’s reed and began propelling the skimmer by himself.
“Kip, hold my feet down. All your weight.”
Gavin was already weaving something between his hands. Kip practically dove onto his feet. Instant obedience. Then he followed Gavin’s eyes.
The entire flock of the remaining ironbeaks was headed straight at them. With only Ironfist on the reeds, the birds were catching up.
Gavin didn’t finish until the first bird was practically within arm’s reach. Then he threw both hands out and a net of yellow luxin spun out from him. It engulfed all of the birds. Then Gavin yanked his arms down and was nearly pulled from Kip’s grasp. But the pressure lasted only a second.
There was no such thing as action at a distance with luxin. To throw something, you had to throw it; to slap something down onto a deck, you had to yank it down. Gavin had made the luxin a lever, and he’d cast the entire net of the birds onto the deck of the Gargantua.
Where they exploded. Kip saw half a man and a helmet flying off the deck.
Not an empty helmet.
Gavin scrambled back into place, and Kip saw an orange drafter peek over the deck and spray luxin down on the burning hull, extinguishing the flames.