“The difference between us, Morgawr, is not that I think I am better than you. The difference is that I recognize what I am, and I understand how terrible that is. You would go on as you are and not regret it. Even if I am able to change myself, I will look back at what I was and regret it always.”
“Your time for regret will be short, then. Your life is almost over.”
There was a fresh edge to his voice, one infused with anticipation. He was getting ready to attack. She could feel it in the movement of the air, in its crackle and hiss as the magic he summoned began to break free of its restraints.
As a result, she wasn’t where he expected her to be when he lashed out. She had eased to the side, leaving just a shadow of herself behind to draw him out. Feeling the backwash of the magic’s power, watching the whipsaw effect of his fury cause the wall behind her to rupture, she struck back at him with shards that would have ripped him apart had he not already made his own warding motion in response.
Trading ferocious assaults, they quickly turned the chamber into a smoking, debris-clogged furnace, the heat and sound intense and suffocating. But they were more evenly matched than either had expected, and neither could gain the upper hand.
Then the Morgawr simply disappeared. One moment he was there, his great form shadowy and fluid behind a screen of smoke and heat, and the next he was gone. Grianne slid back to her right, not wanting to give him a chance to come at her from another direction. She tested the air, searching for him, but the trail of his body heat told her he had fled from the room.
She went after him at once. If he was running, his confidence was breaking down. She did not want to give him a chance to recover. A fierce anticipation flooded through her. Maybe now she could put an end to him.
Black Moclips was closing on the Morgawr’s fleet when Redden Alt Mer decided to take a look for something he was already pretty certain wasn’t still aboard. He did it on a whim, having not even thought of it until now, remembering it because of something Ahren Elessedil had told him when they had talked about Ryer Ord Star, wanting suddenly to discover if it was true.
So he climbed down out of the pilot box, the controls locked, the airship on course, and walked past the living dead of the Federation and climbed down into the aft fighting station in the port-side pontoon. He walked back to where the ram began its upward curve, removed a panel on the side of the hull, and peered inside.
There it was, against all odds, in spite of his certainty it wouldn’t be, still in the same condition in which it had been installed, neatly wrapped and ready for use. You never know, he mused.
He carried it out and laid it on the deck, piecing it together in moments, wondering why he bothered. Because it was there, he supposed. Because he lived in a world where a man’s fate was often determined by chance, and he had believed in the importance of chance all his life.
Back in the pilot box, he saw the sail-stripped masts of the Morgawr’s fleet begin to loom ahead of him like trees in a winter forest. A few sails were still unfurled to permit the airships to hover, but most were rolled and cinched. Mwellrets clustered against the railings, peering intently at him as he neared, trying to figure out why Black Moclips was coming back and why they couldn’t see the Morgawr or their fellow rets. They were not yet concerned, however. He didn’t seem to pose a threat. He wasn’t flying directly at them, instead pointing off to their port side and slightly away, as if intending to fly out to sea.
Black Moclips was traveling very fast now and still picking up speed. She was doing better than thirty knots, flying through the clear morning sky like a missile launched from a catapult, skimming the back of a gentle southerly wind, the ride smooth and easy. Sea birds flew at him and banked away, as if sensing that trouble rode his shoulder, but he only smiled at the thought.
When his speed reached forty knots and he was less than a quarter of a mile off the fleet’s port side, he went back down to the main deck and threw the heavy ropes and grappling hooks over the side. They swung out and away, trailing the vessel like monstrous fishing hooks. An apt analogy, he thought wryly. He sprinted to the pilot box, seized the controls, opened the starboard tubes, and raked the sails hard to port. Black Moclips swung sharply left, the sudden movement throwing most of the crew sprawling across the deck, where they remained, staring at nothing. Alt Mer ignored them, straightening out the airship and picking up new speed, heading directly for the Morgawr’s fleet, the barbed ends of the grappling hooks glinting in the sunlight as they swung back and forth like lures. Aware that they were being attacked, the Mwellrets were racing about like frightened ants now. Sails were being run up, lines fastened in place, and anchors weighed. The Mwellret guards were trying frantically to get their dead-eyed crews to their stations. But in stealing their lives, the Morgawr had also stolen their ability to respond quickly. They weren’t going to get under way in time.
Black Moclips was a brute among Federation warships, not particularly large, but blocky and powerful. She went through the Morgawr’s fleet as if it were a stack of kindling, her battering rams and hull snapping off masts like pieces of kindling, the grappling hooks tearing apart sails and shredding lines. Half of the airships lost power immediately and plummeted into the ocean. The rest spun away, damaged and fighting to stay aloft. If they hadn’t been so stupid about it, the rets would have put their ships down in the water right away, but they lacked the experience that would have taught them to do so.
The shock of multiple collisions rattled Black Moclips to her mastheads, tearing huge holes in her hull and collapsing her forward rams. Both grappling hooks had torn free somewhere along the way, leaving entire sections of decking and railing in splinters. Alt Mer was thrown to the back of the pilot box and lost control of the craft completely. He struck his head on the retaining wall, bright splashes of color clouding his vision. But he scrambled up again anyway, hands groping for the steering levers.
In seconds, he had Black Moclips swinging back around for a second pass. He could see clearly now the damage he had inflicted on the Morgawr’s fleet. Airships lay in pieces in the water, some of them burning. Debris and bodies were scattered everywhere. A few survivors clung to the wreckage, but not many. Most were gone. He tried not to think of it. He tried to think instead of the lives he was saving, concentrating on his friends and shipmates and his promise to protect them.
Back toward the remainder of the fleet he sailed, picking up speed as he approached. One or two airships were under way now, and he made for them. His purpose was clear. By the time he was finished, not one of them would be left. He intended to sink them all and leave the Morgawr and whoever was with him stranded on Mephitic.
He couldn’t do this, of course, if there was any chance at all that the ships he was attacking might be repaired. He had to destroy them utterly. He had to decimate them.
There was only one way to do that.
He wished Little Red could be here to see this. She would appreciate the simplicity of it. He glanced over his shoulder at the island, but he was too far away now to make out anything clearly. Smoke and ash rose off the damaged fleet in waves, obscuring his view. A dingy gray haze masked the clear blue of the morning sky, and the fresh salt air smelled of burning wood and metal.