Magonia(42)

Our batsail opens its wings and our Rostrae surge up, tugging lines, throwing hooks and ropes overboard and flying at the fray. Zal’s on deck, shouting. She sees me and barks an order. “Belowdecks! You’re not here!”
Then she’s running too.
“Stations!” she shouts. “Squallwhales!” Through some sort of amplifier, she screams out over the storm, into the space where the sharks are feeding and the smaller ship is being overwhelmed.
“SQUALLWHALES!”
Our whales come surging fast, storming harder than I knew they could, and suddenly there’s a rush of rain over the little ship. It pours out of the clouds, and the whales sing ferociously.
“THIS IS CAPTAIN ZAL QUEL! PREPARE TO EVACUATE YOUR SHIP!”
There’s a thud, a reverberating hard bash like a pileup on the freeway during rush hour—and then planks and ropes snake out from our crew and onto the deck of the injured ship.
Ignoring Zal, I peer over the railing. There’s a captain there, but with a sudden weirdness, I realize that the captain is tied to her mast. There are bodies all over the deck below, and bags of grain, slit open and spilled.
What?
The fire I thought was on the ship itself suddenly looks to be off to the side, on a little boat, and contained. A moment of confusion on Amina Pennarum, and then—
“PIRATES!” Dai screams.
WHAM. A surge of Rostrae and Magonians up from belowdecks of the little ship, all armed, all screaming.
A pirate Rostrae drops down in front of me, black mohawk, red streaks in his hair, and comes at me with a sword. I have only my mop handle in my hand, and I swing it hard.
I’m fighting like someone who knows how to fight, like this is what I was born to do.
I’ve never been Aza the sick, only Aza the warrior.
I hit him in the side of the head, and there’s a sickening crack and maybe I killed him, but then he’s up again, and shrieking, transforming into a magpie, running and leaping off the edge of the ship into the air.

Screaming and screaling, my crew and theirs. The smell of fire and feathers. Our batsail is shrieking in fury and I look quickly up and see the pirate ship’s sail clawing at ours, the two sails crossing, their wings scrabbling, the masts bending.
I hear myself shouting “AMINA PENNARUM!”
My crew shouts with me. I don’t see Zal anywhere now. Only smoke and swords lashing through ropes, the contorted faces of my crew shifting into bird form, Rostrae rising up, talons out.
Dai’s swinging an ax. Everywhere people are notching arrows into their bows, drawing knives.
I swing for the head of a tall figure who’s appeared in front of me, a blurry-panicky-shaky swing.
It’s Dai.
“Get down, Aza!” Dai shouts. “You don’t have a sword, and your mop won’t protect you. Idiot, get below!”
He swings at a pirate, and their blades whack together.
I’m paralyzed momentarily, and it’s enough time to find myself face-to-face with another invader. He raises his dagger, but Jik grabs me by the hair, and tugs me away just in time. The pirate’s blade meets only air and before he can recover, there’s a swoop and a screech.
Wedda. She leaps onto his shoulders, her beak tearing at him.
I retreat toward the hold, but the battle, the smoke, and the sounds of fighting, and killing and dying are too much. I hit the boat rail and scream as my feet fly out from beneath me. I catch the bar, panting. And I see them. The stormsharks, dead-eyed and made of power. Sizzling light. I swing my mop handle at one of them, crazily. It surges back at me and I find myself engaged with a crashing, slicing whiteness, the teeth so close, and each one of them gleaming and electric.
“Down below, Aza, now! Where it’s safe!” Jik grabs me and hurls me back on deck. There’s a flood of Magonians, a spray of red. A Rostrae cabin boy, oh god, his uniform slashed and burned at the edges of the cut, his bones showing and one of his wings hanging by a tendon.
“Fire!” I hear Zal shout, and from the bowels of Amina Pennarum, there’s a boom. The ship shakes and the pirates scream in fury. All around us I see lightning, and our ship lurches again, and begins to tip.
I lose hold of the ladder and start to skid across the deck. I’m clawing at the boards, trying to get my fingers on something, but it’s slippery with blood.
No one notices me, because this is a ship full of people who can fly, and half of them aren’t touching the deck.
For a moment, I’m in the ambulance again. There’s flashing light and a terrible sense of inevitability as Amina Pennarum tilts up almost on end.
I slip from the deck of the ship,
O
F
F
A
N
D
D
O
W
N
into open sky.
I’m the dying girl all over again.












I’m dropping through time and back to Icarus and his wings, back to me and Jason on the roof.
I’m dropping back to the grave I never occupied.
Air and storm, rain pouring, and me, arms out like a skydiver, falling faster than I thought anyone could fall.
The air is slick, clouds are in my throat, and hail in my hair. I can’t hear my own voice, and I can’t hear Milekt either, because he’s not with me. He was up with the rest of the canwr when we heard the distress calls.
No one knows where I am for the first time in a life of being watched, a life of buddy systems and care.
I’m alone.
I’m alone in the (how many?) minutes before I smash into the ground. I’m going to die now, and no one will know where I went.
A flick of sharp dark fins circle suddenly below me.