“Keep close watch,” Nikandr ordered Jonis, a sharp young officer who’d proven to have excellent eyes.
They moved slower, partially because of the fog but also because Nikandr was nearing exhaustion. He found it progressively more difficult to commune with his spirit. It was not only growing tired, its demands upon him were also growing. Nikandr could feel his heart beat heavily, could feel it skip and his breath grow short if he drew upon the winds too fiercely. And the winds were starting to shift against them. They eddied for several hours past midday and then began to push against the ship head-on, stunting their progress. The best Nikandr could do was to slip northwestward as the wind tried to push them east. If the winds picked up any further, they would be lost, and the ship would be pulled back over the heart of the sea, and if that happened, there would be no returning.
Nikandr drank more pyen, but it was having so little effect that he asked Styophan to bring him the last of it. He took the final pinch and packed it between his cheek and gums.
He began to shake after this, and yet he felt no less tired. Then again, maybe he would have simply collapsed if he hadn’t taken it.
An hour later, he leaned his head against the mainmast, his eyes closing of their own accord.
He woke, only vaguely realizing that Styophan was holding him up.
“Not yet,” Styophan said, rolling Nikandr’s shoulders to try to get his blood moving again. “We’re nearly there.”
“I can’t,” he said, but the words were so soft he barely heard them. “I can’t.”
“You can, My Lord.”
When Nikandr didn’t respond, Styophan pressed him up against the mainmast and struck him across the cheek. Nikandr barely felt it.
Styophan struck him again. “We are not yet done, My Prince!”
A third time he struck, and Nikandr vaguely tasted something warm and slick in his mouth.
Blood, he realized.
He shook his head, which did nothing, and fell to his knees.
But then he heard something else. Something new.
The sound of cannon fire coming off the windward bow.
He dragged himself to his feet and looked, able to stave off some small amount of the clutching weariness. The way ahead was still cloaked in fog, but it seemed not so thick as it once was. The sound of a cannon came again, accompanied by a brief flash.
“Ready cannons, men,” Nikandr called as he resumed his position at the mainmast. “And prepare the muskets.”
“The coast is near,” Anahid said. “I can feel it.”
Nikandr could as well, but not in the same way. The air smelled different. It smelled of earth, of the cold loamy scent of a forest in winter. And now that he put his mind to it he could hear gulls far below, off the landward side of the ship.
As they approached, the cannon fire intensified. And then it was mixed with musket fire.
“Follow the cliff line,” Nikandr ordered, speaking only loud enough for the master to hear, “but stay above land.”
Orders were passed about the ship. The keels were reengaged by the pilot. The land mass would provide them ley lines to work against once more. They would not be as strong as those that ran among the islands, but they would be strong enough in this meager wind.
As Anahid lowered the ship, the pilot brought them in line with the cliff so that it was only a few hundred yards off their landward side. The fighting intensified, men shouting orders or crying out in pain.
And then they saw it. A dozen ships, all of them moored to the cliff. Their landward masts had been disengaged, and spread apart until they were positioned like three-legged stools against the cliff face. It was not ideal, but all ships made for fighting were constructed so in case the ship couldn’t reach the safety of an eyrie.
Nikandr could already tell that they were the ships Konstantin had sent. He didn’t at first understand why they would be moored, but the reason came clear when he noticed that the nearest three ships had been gutted. They’d stopped here for repairs, perhaps after a battle with Yrstanlan ships that had been sent to intercept them, or even because of damage sustained during the crossing of the Sea of Khurkhan.
Further west, stationed at a gentle curve of the snow-covered cliff, were a dozen janissaries wearing white uniforms and rounded turbans with tall, colorful plumes, but there were also several dozen ghazi with them, the militia of the Empire’s outlands that heeded the call of the Kamarisi when it came. While the ghazi fired muskets, the janissaries manned three cannons, which had been maneuvered behind a low rock formation that provided them protection against return fire from the Grand Duchy’s ships. But they were completely open to attack from the rear, and so far, thank the ancients, they hadn’t spotted the Yarost approaching through the fog.
“Lower the ship even more,” Nikandr ordered Styophan. “Reload the cannons with grape, and have no one fire until I do.”
Styophan went quickly about the ship, passing orders, while Anahid used her bonded dhoshahezhan to gradually increase the heft of the ship and bring them closer to the level of the cliff ahead.
As the musket fire continued and the three Yrstanlan cannons belched black smoke one more time, Nikandr moved to the bow and took a musket from the ship’s master, Vlanek. Eight others stationed themselves along the landward gunwales, each man loading his weapon smartly.
Nikandr’s exhaustion began to lift as he loaded his musket. No sooner had he finished and laid the musket against the gunwale when one of the janissaries turned and began shouting to his men. Nikandr waited for one of the men to pick up on the danger and to begin issuing orders.
It came a moment later. A tall janissary wearing a large red turban. They were close enough that Nikandr could see the black, iridescent feathers pinned to the front of the officer’s turban with a large jeweled medallion.
He aimed his musket for this man as the first scattered fire came in from the rag-tag ghazi. Several shots bit into the hull. Others flew high, punching through canvas.
Nikandr released his breath and pulled the trigger.
The musket kicked.
Through the puff of smoke he saw a spot of blood appear on the chest of the man with the feathered turban, just above his heart. The tall man tipped backward, eyes wide, trying to catch himself with flailing arms, and then he was lost among his men and the rocks and snow at their feet.
The rest of Nikandr’s men fired in tight sequence, followed by the forward cannon.
At the cliff, all six men stationed at the two nearest cannons were thrown to the ground in a mass of red. More fire came in from Grigory’s ships, dropping some that had risen to face the threat bearing down from their rear.
The ghazi were not well organized, but they did manage to maneuver themselves to have decent cover against both the Yarost and the ships lashed to the cliff. Nikandr and the others reloaded quickly, firing upon any that took to the cannons, but then the Yarost flew past, and the ghazi were able to hide behind their rocks once more.
“Take her up,” Nikandr called, “and circle back.”
The fighting continued as the Yarost swung out to sea and arced westward, but by now two of Grigory’s ships had freed themselves from the cliff. They were heading up, and it was clear to everyone that the men of Yrstanla had long lost their advantage. They began to retreat, taking ponies that were tied a few dozen yards from the cliff.
Still, the Yarost and the other two ships harried them until the two dozen that remained had ridden northward into the fog.
Nikandr stepped off the skiff and onto the deck of the Drakha. Grigory stood on deck, flanked by three of his kapitans. By now Grigory could no longer be surprised that Nikandr had found his way here on the shores of Yrstanla, and yet as he studied Nikandr-glancing occasionally up to the Yarost, which was now lashed to the cliff above them-he looked more surprised than if Nikandr had stepped onto deck wearing the Grand Duke’s mantle.