Stormcaster (Shattered Realms #3)(2)
“Still no colors, Captain,” Evan called down. “But whoever she is, we’ll know soon enough. She’s making her move now.”
Strangward planted his hands on his hips and scowled. It was not a good day for a hostile meet-up. They’d taken a fat merchant schooner off Baston Bay. Because of that, and their other takings in the wetlands, the Spirit sat low in the water—so low that in heavy seas her gunwales were all but awash. Too tight a turn might cause them to founder.
They were thinly crewed as well. The quarrelsome quartermaster, Tully Samara, had chosen out some of their best sailors to take their prize around the Claw to Hidden Bay. There he’d find a willing buyer, no questions asked, and add hard money to the split for the crew. Evan fingered the movables around his neck, wishing he had the coin to get in on the bidding.
One day, he thought, I’ll have my own ship, and I’ll be giving the orders. He kept his lofty perch, high above the deck, the wind whipping his hair around his face. As he watched the other ship come on, he debated what his orders would be.
“Come about,” the captain called to Abhayi. He looked up, searching until he found Evan still clinging to the rigging. “Boy, go down and help Samuel ready the twenty-four-pounders so we can give them a proper welcome if they go foolish on us.”
Strangward always called him “boy,” and this was beginning to get under Evan’s skin. I’m not a boy, Evan thought. I’m nearly grown.
Besides, the gunnery deck wasn’t his favorite. He preferred to be above decks. Though Evan was agile and quick, and fair with a curved Carthian blade, Strangward never allowed him to join the boarding parties that followed their grappling hooks onto the enemy decks and fought hand to hand if the crew declined new management.
“If a gale came up, you’d blow away,” the captain always said. “Wait till you muscle up.”
Evan was strong and wiry from climbing in the rigging, furling sail and hauling lines and scrubbing all the things on a ship that seemed to need scrubbing. Still, he’d not got his full growth yet, and he had a slender build. Given his years of starving on the streets of Endru, he worried that he would never “muscle up.” Why couldn’t he at least stay on deck with Brody and the others and get an up-close taste of the fighting? How could he improve if he didn’t get to practice?
If he couldn’t get in on the hand-to-hand, his second choice was to serve as lookout in a pursuit, calling out to the helmsman from a perch high in the rigging. That always provided an excellent view of the goings-on, even if it made him a target.
For sure, he’d rather play powder monkey than swab decks or repair sails or polish the brightwork. But it was hot work in the thick air belowdecks, where they had to blindly follow orders without really knowing what was going on. His ears rang for days after a watch on the gunnery deck. Plus there was always the danger of a misfire that would leave him a smear of blood and powder on the wall.
Still, orders were orders. Evan scrambled down the shrouds, dropping the last ten feet to the deck. He swung down the ladder to the gunnery deck, where the master gunner Samuel and his crew were already hard at work preparing the guns. Evan joined in, running sacks of powder and wad to each of the cannon. He’d had enough practice that he could do it in his sleep. First the powder, then the wad, then the cannonballs. Then it was down to the magazine, back to the gunnery deck, his thighs complaining about the extra weight of powder and shot.
There were eight twenty-four-pounders. The gunners could prep all eight, but once they touched the match to the lot, it would take time to reload, especially with the guns hot from firing. Speaking of heat, the back of his neck burned as if a bit of match might have fallen in somehow. Evan slid his hand under his collar, groping for the cause. When his hand touched metal, he ripped it away and sucked at his fingers, swearing. It was no wonder his neck was burning. The medallion embedded in the back of his neck was blazing hot. Cautiously, he brushed his fingers over it again.
Captain Strangward called it a “magemark,” and it had almost cost Evan this job. “I’ll take you on,” the pirate had said, after plucking him off the streets in Endru, “but you need to keep that thing hidden. Sailors are a superstitious lot, and I don’t want them getting worked up about it. The next thing you know, someone will be pushing you overboard or trying to slice it off you.”
Evan hadn’t made a fuss. He knew he was damned lucky to be chosen to crew with a master like Strangward, and keeping secrets was a small price to pay.
People said that magemarks were a sign of royal blood and magical power. If so, Evan was still waiting for that promise to be kept. Right now, his biggest worry was that he might start shedding sparks and set the powder off.
“I’m going topside for a minute,” he said to Samuel, the gunner’s mate, and skinned up the ladder before he could say no.
Cloud Spirit had come about to windward and shortened sail in order to hold her position. Captain Strangward stood on the quarterdeck, his glass trained on the challenger, which by now had come within shouting distance. Even without the glass, Evan could make out the figurehead now—a nude woman with long, webbed fingers, erupting out of a rock. Underneath was emblazoned: The Siren.
Evan turned away before he could be spotted, all but running into Brody.
“Aren’t you supposed to be below?” Brody said, clapping his big hand on Evan’s shoulder and spinning him back toward the stairs.