Everything had come apart for both sides. In these circumstances, if he were the one coming after Léshil and Magiere, at this point he would try for a kill instead of a capture—at least of one of them.
Brot’ân’duivé crushed the throat of the second crewman wavering on an injured knee, rushed for the base of the main mast, and climbed fast up into the dark.
Dänvârfij saw blood run down Magiere’s forehead and into her eye. She had faced the monster before in the Everfen, but the sight of Magiere still unnerved her. She was fighting something unnatural.
Magiere’s one clear eye suddenly flooded black, as if the iris had swallowed all of the white. Her face twisted up and her mouth gaped, exposing teeth like a beast’s.
Dänvârfij fought for calm, for focus. She needed another crippling blow to put this thing down. Her left thigh burned from the dagger of white metal no human should possess. And she now wondered about the wisdom of having ordered Rhysís not to fire.
He might have ended this already, but from his distance above, he might kill Léshil or Magiere. That could not be risked; then again, both Léshil and the monster were within reach. Only one need be left alive, and this creature before her was insane.
Madness spawned mistakes.
Dänvârfij tensed as Magiere roared from pain. Dänvârfij feinted with her right blade toward Magiere’s blinded side. Trying to see with her clear eye, Magiere twisted her head and raised the dagger to defend.
Dänvârfij spun and kicked Magiere’s cut temple.
Magiere’s head barely snapped aside. Though she lost her grip on the dagger, that same hand came slashing back with hooked fingers. In the same instant, Dänvârfij glimpsed a shadow racing up the main mast. Then she felt the impact on her neck.
Fingers—nails as hard as claws—raked her skin but failed to dig into her throat.
A shout sounded from high above in Elvish.
“Abandon!” Rhysís cried out.
Brot’ân’duivé closed on the crow’s nest as he heard the shout. The one up here must have spotted him somehow. He gripped the lookout’s edge and pulled himself up, but all he saw was an anmaglâhk sliding away along a rope by a short bow’s haft gripped in both hands. Brot’ân’duivé grabbed for the rope’s anchored end to wrench it and throw his quarry off balance.
The rope went limp in his grip.
He watched half its length fall, severed somewhere out there in midair. A splash came between the ships and piers, and his own half of the rope fell to dangle.
Brot’ân’duivé looked where that rope had led a moment before. Across the water at the next pier was the Cloud Queen. Wrapping the corner of his cloak around the rope, he vaulted the crow’s nest wall as he slid quickly toward the deck of the Bell Tower along the rope’s length.
Leesil heard one word shouted in Elvish.
He barely took a quick glance to see where the arrow had come from, and then he fixed on Én’nish again. He couldn’t risk looking for Magiere or Chap. If he did, Én’nish might not come after him but instead go after whomever he couldn’t save.
The look of shock in her eyes at that shout from above almost stunned Leesil.
There was such a loss of hope amid her fury.
Before he could go at Én’nish again, a slender forest gray form rushed in from the corner of his sight. That other one snatched Én’nish by the back of her cowl and dragged her in a race for the ship’s starboard rail.
Leesil almost went after them ... until Magiere, with blood covering half her twisted face, charged after the pair. He grabbed the back of her shirt, and his feet slid as she tried to rush on. Trying to make her stop, he pulled hard and threw himself onto her.
Then he spotted Chap, penned in near the rail by a large crewman with a mace.
A small number of prisoners from below must have come up the rope ladder, because Dirken and two other raggedly dressed men were on deck and trying to clear a path for the others through the remaining crew.
“Help wolf now!” Leesil shouted at them.
That was all he could do as he dropped his winged blade and wrapped his other arm over Magiere’s shoulder to pull her back. He heard splashes in the water below.
The pair of anmaglâhk had jumped overboard.
Chap dodged a falling mace and looked for an opening to lunge in and rip out his attacker’s knee.
A dull clang rose as a shovel blade rebounded off the back of the crewman’s head.
The man’s eyes and mouth went slack, and Chap quickly leaped aside before the crewman fell on top of him. Once clear, he looked up into the face of a shirtless, thickly muscled man watching him warily.
Chap spotted Leesil struggling with Magiere and rushed away down the deck.
Leesil looked wildly around while still trying to control Magiere. The ship’s boarding ramp was up. Most of the crewmen who had appeared were down, and the freed slaves outnumbered the rest. Then two more armed sailors came out of the aftcastle’s far door.
“Valhachkasej’â!” Leesil cursed.
A large form dropped from the aftcastle.
Never slowing, Brot’an flattened both crewmen as he landed, and rushed toward the port side.
“Off—now!” he shouted, as at a full run he snatched up Leesil’s abandoned blade.
Leesil reversed his effort and wrenched Magiere on her own force to the rail. He looked over the top of it and down it at the pier. It was a long jump but straight down. Magiere twisted suddenly, breaking his hold. All he could do was stun her with a slap across her cheek. She whirled on him; half her face was coated in blood, but her one clear eye showed white around an enlarged black pupil.
“Over!” he shouted at her. “Onto the pier!”
Magiere froze as if confused.
From out of nowhere, Chap hit Magiere in a leap with his whole bulk. Both went over the rail. Leesil shook off his surprise and snatched up Magiere’s dagger.
“Dirken!” he shouted in Numanese. “Your people ... jump! To pier!”
Leesil vaulted the rail as Brot’ân’duivé cleared it beside him.
The world went black as Magiere hit the dock and air rushed out of her under Chap’s crushing weight. When her sight returned, Chap was gone, and someone grabbed her arm and shouted at her, “Get up!”
She heard others landing roughly on the dock as she was hauled up. Her scalp and forehead burned as if she’d been cut, and through one eye only, she saw Chap take off down the dock as ragged people rushed by, following his path.
A vaguely familiar shirtless man carried a boy in his arms.
“Run!” Leesil ordered, shoving her. “Down the pier and up the next.”
She didn’t question him and started to race after Chap. Too little of what had occurred was clear in her head. The last thing she remembered was the pass of a white stiletto ... and then pain ... blood ... hunger had followed. She couldn’t even look at Leesil as they ran.
She had failed him, left him, in losing herself again.
They ran onto the waterfront, hurried to the second pier, and broke into a full run again. But as they approached the end of the second pier, everyone began to slow. Through her one clear eye, Magiere took in the sight of the Cloud Queen.
The ramp was down, and it shouldn’t be at night. As Leesil halted beside her, she saw no sentries up on deck.
The ship looked deserted.
Chapter Twenty-five
After leaping over the side, Dänvârfij hit the water. Impact broke her hold on Én’nish as seawater closed over her head. She kicked to the surface and looked about in the dark. Panic came briefly until she saw Rhysís swimming toward her with Én’nish in tow.