Black Sun (Between Earth and Sky, #1)(59)

The ship rolled with the waves, and the bailmen took turns keeping the ship from being overwhelmed. Callo stayed tied to the bow as lookout and Xiala to the stern, and they all prayed to whatever beings they thought protected them.

The rogue wave hit an hour later, a monster grown twice as high as its companions, which were already clawing up the sides of the canoe, doing their damnedest to get over. Xiala saw it coming and screamed a single note at it, more instinct than aid, but it did no good and the wave barreled down over the ship.

She flung herself against the deck, wrapped her arms around the bench leg, and held on. Her stomach dropped as the ship pitched, the water shoving her head down so hard she saw stars when her temple struck the floor. Then she was being lifted, her body suddenly weightless. Her shoulders burned as the water dragged at her, promising to pull her out to sea. But she didn’t go, and soon she was huddled by the bench again, with the wind lashing and the waves slapping the ship, but not actively trying to kill her.

As soon as she and the ship had righted themselves, she screamed for another bail team. She wasn’t sure if her voice could be heard over the storm, but three men lashed together ventured out from the poor shelter of the reed awning, heads ducked and buckets in hand. The lead man crossed the width of the ship to tie himself to the far side and joined the other team already bailing the ankle-deep water.

She checked the flotation bladder at her back, knowing Callo would be doing the same for the bow. Once sure it was still secure, she turned to the bladdered paddles that were doubling as outrigging. She spied a loose one, the sac torn free and dangling and the shaft rattling against the side of the ship, dangerously close to breaking free.

“Paddle loose!” she cried. “Starboard, back quarter. Somebody secure it!”

There was shuffling under the reed awning. Finally, a man crawled out on his hands and knees. She thought it was Loob, but in the sheeting rain, she couldn’t be sure. He was tied to another man, likely Baat, who followed him but kept the rope slack between them. A third man was their anchor, just outside the awning. Xiala squinted through the rain. Their anchor wasn’t tied down, and his rope had unspooled from his middle, where it was quickly slipping from his hands.

She opened her mouth to scream at the man to tie down, but before she could speak, the ship tilted violently, a wave coming up under them. The bow veered. The bailmen tumbled hard to the deck like bits of debris in a hurricane. The distressed paddle broke free, flying out into the open water like a loosed bird.

Loob lunged for it. Baat stumbled, Loob’s momentum pulling him forward.

And then it happened. They both went overboard.

One minute there, the next gone. The anchor who had failed to tie down was scrambling on all fours to keep himself from following.

Instinctively, Xiala dragged her securing rope down over her hips. It pooled at her feet.

And she was running, no time to think about what she was doing.

“Man overboard!” she screamed as she leaped onto the bench, braced a foot on the railing, and dove headfirst into the water.

The sea was darkness, vast and alive, and it swallowed her whole like she was no more than the smallest minnow. She dove deeper, past the surface tumble and rain, eyes seeking her lost men. She could feel her eyes change, her Teek eyelids coming down to keep the water out, the shape changing to let in more light, the field of her vision expanding.

She spotted Baat first, kicking and struggling toward the surface but steadily sinking anyway. She spied Loob below him, hanging on the rope like a weight. Dead, her brain told her, but she corrected that to unconscious. But it made no difference to Baat whether the rock dragging him to the seafloor was dead or simply unconscious.

She pushed toward him, arms slicing through the water like blades, legs together kicking as one. Came up on him fast, knocking into his shoulder to get his attention.

He struck out, panicked, fist hitting her in the temple, before he realized someone was trying to help him. His eyes went wide, and she wondered what he saw. What he thought he saw. Her waist-length hair a black cloud around her, her multicolored eyes rounder and wider than any human’s. It was fear on his face, and not just because he was drowning.

She reached for the dagger on Baat’s belt and pulled it free. He paddled back from her, terrified. She ignored him and kicked down, past his churning legs. She grasped the rope and hacked at it until it frayed and broke. Released from Loob’s weight, Baat shot up toward the surface. She watched him rise, not knowing if he would make it to the ship, but at least she had given him a chance.

As Baat shrank away, she realized Loob, on the other end of the rope in her hand, was pulling her down now. She kicked hard, dragging him up. But her progress was too slow like this. If he was still alive, he needed air, and she needed both arms to get him to the surface. She looped the frayed rope around her upper chest. Once her arms were free, she swam.

But the body at the end of the rope was dead weight.

She pumped her legs and used her whole body to move forward, but it wasn’t enough. And her air was running out, too, even with the extra time that being Teek had bought her. Her head ached where Baat had hit her, and her limbs were tiring. She needed more. She needed her Song.

But to Sing, she needed air.

Tears of frustration fell from her eyes, washed away immediately by the salty water. She could cut Loob loose, call him dead when she found him, and maybe not be wrong. But she remembered his wife from Tova and how he had been the first to defend Serapio, and she was his captain, and she would not let him drown when she could save him.