“Wow!” Mari heard Alli exclaim as a crash and roar sounded. Thinking the deck gun had fired, Mari crouched down over Alain to shield him with her body even though her mind knew that small amount of protection would do no good at all against the destruction that would be wrought by the deck gun’s shell.
But no shell came to shatter the Gray Lady and her passengers. Asha was kneeling beside her, offering with a gesture to hold Alain safe and pointing toward the Mechanic ship. Mari stood, turning to look back and stopping in mid-turn.
The deck of the Mechanic ship was ablaze between the mainmast and the deck gun, flames leaping upward to devour the rigging and spreading outward along the railings. Figures were running frantically from the deck gun. Mari stared, trying to figure out why they weren’t rushing to fight the fire.
“Mari!” she heard Alli yell. “The ready ammunition! Get down!”
Suddenly she realized what Alli was talking about. The big shells stacked next to the deck gun, the flames licking about them as she watched. “Everybody!” Mari shouted. “Hit the deck! As fast as you can!” Disregarding Asha, she dropped down next to Alain and pulled herself over his unconscious body again. “You put everything into that fire to try to save us,” Mari whispered in Alain’s ear, “and if it doesn’t work you’re helpless. I’m going to give you an incredibly hard time for taking that risk once you wake up. But until then I’m going to keep you as safe as I can.”
A titanic roar born of multiple explosions merging into one sounded from the direction of the Mechanic ship. Mari buried her head next to Alain’s, her arm over his face, as pieces of shrapnel tore past overhead, then waited as more fragments of metal and wood rained down upon them. Finally she rose up to look at the Mechanic ship.
A giant had taken a huge bite out of the Mechanic ship where the deck gun had been. The gun itself had fallen through the main deck and lay canted at a crazy angle, barrel pointed almost straight up. Flames had completely engulfed the forward part of the ship, the mainmast had already fallen and, as Mari watched, the foremast toppled slowly sideways like a tree falling to the axe, the top half crashing into the water of the bay and the bottom part lying across the deck of the doomed ship. Mechanics and apprentices were jumping off the ship and into the water, where chunks of wood that once had been part of the ship now served as improvised life preservers and rafts.
Overhead, the sails of the Gray Lady were pocked with small holes caused by debris hurled from the blast, and here and there pieces of the rigging hung limp where they had been sliced through.
Alain blinked, looking up with eyes bleary with exhaustion. Mari met his gaze. “That was stupid,” she told him angrily. Then she kissed him. “Thank you. I love you.” Alain’s lips curved into a barely visible smile as he passed out again.
Alli was back on her feet, gazing at the devastated Mechanic ship. “Wow,” she repeated. “Alain has got to show me how to do that.”
Mari laughed. “Alli, stick to regular explosives.” She staggered to her own feet. “Is everyone all right?” Mari saw the captain watching her with an awed expression. “Captain, let’s get out of here!”
“Yes, Lady Mari!” he cried. “And thanks to your Mage for our salvation this day!”
Though they saw some harbor guard vessels veering in to rescue the crew of the Mechanic ship, which was now on fire from stem to stern and lighting up the entire harbor with its death throes, none of the guard boats made any move to intercept the Gray Lady. Instead, they all took care to avoid the ship with four Mechanics and two Mages visible at the rail. One harbor guard craft armed with a small ballista on the bow angled past the Gray Lady close enough that the crew was clearly visible, all of them gazing fixedly toward the wreck of the Mechanic ship as if the Gray Lady did not exist.
“They must have heard what you told those commons,” Mechanic Dav said in a wondering voice. “We’ve got commons helping us because they want to, not because they have to. That’s so weird. I didn’t think anybody could do that, Mari.”
They cleared the harbor, past fortifications which remained silent as the Gray Lady passed, as the blazing wreck of the Mechanic ship finally sank to settle on the harbor bottom. In the growing light of day it was easy to see a huge cloud of dust and smoke rising over the city of Altis, illuminated from within here and there by fires still raging in various places.
Alli shook her head. “Mari? You really did it this time. I mean, you totally trashed a city, and this harbor is kind of messed up, too.”
Mari laughed, though with no immediate crisis to face she was starting to feel the total exhaustion brought on by the labors of the night before. “I didn’t do that. It was the Mechanics trying to kill me. Do you think the commons will believe that?”
“You already told them, remember? By now the entire city probably knows that the Mechanics Guild tried to murder Lady Mari, the daughter of Jules herself, and that she got away again.” Alli looked at Alain where he still lay on the deck. “She and her Mage. That guy is really handy in an emergency, isn’t he?”
“He’s nice to have around at other times, too.” Mari blinked but couldn’t dispel a haziness in her vision despite the growing light as the sun rose in a blaze of glory. Her mind felt full of fog and her legs wobbled unsteadily. She tried to remember how many hours she had been running and fighting and escaping with barely any pause, but her fatigue blurred recent events into a cloud of disjointed images. “Alli, please take command for a while. Tell the Captain to get us away from Altis, whatever course lets us make the best speed and avoids any pursuers.”
“Sure. What are you going to do?”
Mari looked down at Alain, chest falling and rising as he slept, Asha kneeling nearby. “I’m going to pass out now.” She took a couple of uncertain steps to stand near Asha. “Thanks for everything, Lady Mage. I’ll take it from here.” Dropping down beside Alain on the deck, she rolled next to him and lost consciousness.
Chapter Seventeen
The Gray Lady was running almost due south, coasting before the spring winds, bow slicing through the long swells before her with a rhythmic pounding that Mari found oddly soothing. The white spray occasionally being tossed over the bow shone under the light of the half-moon.
Mari sat on the deck, leaning her back against the railing, staring up at the sails and beyond them the stars. Mage Asha came by, looking down impassively at Mari. “Please join me,” Mari offered.
Asha nodded and sat carefully, then uttered a most unmagelike sigh. “We are all so weary, even after a day’s rest.”
“Tell me about it.”
“I did,” Asha replied. “You wish me to say it again?”
Mari grinned. “That’s just an expression, Lady Mage.”
“I see. Why do we go to Julesport?”
“We’ll need to take on food and water. The Captain believes that’s our safest destination even though the Great Guilds will lean heavily on the Confederation to attack us. He’s also worried about the Syndaris, who he says would sell out their own mothers if the price was right.”
“If they find we are there,” Asha said tonelessly, “the Great Guilds will not depend on commons but mount their own attacks as well. Can we… ? I do not know the word. How do we know the shadows in Julesport will not betray us?”