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“How many times have you been here?” Rin asked.
“Plenty. Came down here with Altan once, two years ago.”
“For what?”
“Tyr wanted us to kill Moag.”
Rin snorted. “Well, you failed.”
“To be fair, it was the only time Altan ever failed.”
“Oh, I’m sure,” she said. “Wonderful Altan. Perfect Altan. Best commander you’ve ever had. Did everything right.”
“Excepting the Chuluu Korikh,” Ramsa piped up. “You could call that a disaster of monumental proportions.”
“To be fair, Altan used to make some really good tactical decisions.” Baji rubbed his chin. “Before, you know, that string of really bad ones.”
Ramsa whistled. “Lost his mind near the end, he did.”
“Went a little crazy, yeah.”
“Shut up about Altan,” said Chaghan.
“It’s a pity how the best ones snap,” Baji continued, ignoring him. “Like Feylen. Huleinin, too. And you remember how Altan started sleepwalking at Khurdalain? I swear, one night I was walking back from taking a piss and he—”
“I said shut up!” Chaghan slammed both hands against the railing.
Rin felt a noticeable chill sweep over the deck; goose bumps were forming on her arms. There was a stillness in the air, like the space between lightning and thunder. Chaghan’s bone-white hair had begun to curl up at the edges.
His face didn’t match his aura. He looked like he might cry.
Baji lifted his palms up. “All right. Tiger’s tits. I’m sorry.”
“You do not have the right,” Chaghan hissed. He pointed a finger at Rin. “Especially you.”
She bristled. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
“You’re the reason why—”
“Why what?” she asked loudly. “Go on, say it.”
“Guys. Guys.” Ramsa wedged his way between them. “Great Tortoise, lighten up. Altan’s dead. All right? Dead. And fighting about it won’t bring him back.”
“Look at this.” Baji handed Rin his spyglass, directing her attention to a black point just visible on the horizon. “Does that look like a Red Junk ship to you?”
Rin squinted into the eyepiece.
Moag’s Red Junk fleet comprised distinctive opium skimmers, built narrow for enough speed to outrun other pirates and the Imperial Navy, possessing deep hulls to transport huge amounts of opium and distinctive battened sails that resembled carp fins. On the open seas they disguised all identifying marks, but when they docked in the South Nikan Sea, they flew the crimson flag of Ankhiluun.
But this ship was a bulky creation, large and squat, much rounder than an opium skimmer. It had white sails instead of red, and no flag in sight. As Rin watched, the ship cut a ridiculously sharp turn in the water toward them that should have been impossible without a shaman’s help.
“That’s not Moag’s,” she said.
“That doesn’t make it an enemy ship,” said Ramsa. He peered out at the ship with a spyglass of his own. “Could be a friendly.”
Baji snorted. “We’re fugitives working for a pirate lord. Do you think we have a lot of friends right now?”
“Fair enough.” Ramsa slammed the spyglass shut and shoved it in his pocket.
“Just open fire,” Chaghan suggested.
Baji shot him an incredulous look. “Look, I don’t know how much time you’ve spent at sea, but when you see a foreign warship with no identifying marks and no indication of whether or not it’s brought a support fleet, the response is usually not to just open fire.”
“Why not?” Chaghan asked. “You said it yourself. It can’t be a friendly.”
“Doesn’t mean it’s looking for a fight.”
Ramsa’s head swiveled back and forth between Chaghan and Baji as they spoke. He looked like a very confused baby bird.
“Hold fire,” Rin told him hastily. “At least until we know who they are.”
The ship was close enough now that she could just make out an etching of characters on the sides of the ship. Cormorant. She’d been over the list of Red Junk ships harbored at Ankhiluun. This wasn’t one of them.
“Are you seeing this?” Ramsa was peering through his spyglass again. “What the hell is this?”
“What?” Rin couldn’t tell what was bothering Ramsa. She couldn’t see any armored troops. Or crew of any uniform, for that matter.
Then she realized that was precisely what was wrong.
She couldn’t see anyone on board at all.
No one stood at the helm. No one manned the oars. The Cormorant was close enough now that they could all see its empty decks.
“That’s impossible,” said Ramsa. “How are they propelling it?”
Rin leaned over the side of the ship and yelled. “Aratsha! Hard right turn.”
Aratsha obeyed, reversing their direction faster than any oared ship would be able to. But the foreign ship veered about immediately to follow their course, cutting an absurdly precise turn. The ship was fast, too—even though the Caracel had Aratsha propelling it along, the Cormorant had no trouble following their pace.
Seconds later it had almost caught up. It was pulling in parallel. Whoever was on it intended to board.
“That’s a ghost ship,” Ramsa whimpered.
“Don’t be stupid,” Baji said.
“They’ve got a shaman, then. Chaghan’s right, we should fire.”
They looked helplessly at Rin to confirm the order. She opened her mouth just as a boom split the air, and the Caracel shook under their feet.
“You still think it’s not hostile?” Chaghan asked.
“Fire,” she said.
Ramsa ran belowdecks to light the fuse. Moments later a series of booms rocked the Caracel as their starboard-side cannons went off one by one. Blazing metal balls skimmed over the water, scorching bright orange trails behind them—but instead of blowing holes into the sides of the Cormorant, they only bounced off metal plating. The warship barely shook from the impact.
Meanwhile the Caracel lurched alarmingly to starboard. Rin peeked over the edge—they’d taken damage to their hull, and though she knew nearly nothing about ships, that didn’t look survivable.
She cursed under her breath. They’d have to row one of the lifeboats back to shore. If the Cormorant didn’t dispose of them first.
She could hear Ramsa’s footsteps moving frantically around belowdecks, trying to reload. Arrows sailed over her head, courtesy of Qara, but they thudded ineffectively into the sides of the warship. Qara had no target—the warship had no crew on deck, no archers. Whoever it was didn’t need archers when they had a row of cannons so powerful they could likely blow the Caracel out of the water in minutes.
“Get closer!” Rin shouted. They were outgunned, outmaneuvered. The only chance they had at winning was to board that ship and smoke it out. “Aratsha! Put me on that ship!”
But they weren’t moving. The Caracel bobbed listlessly in the water.
“Aratsha!”
No response. Rin climbed on the railing and bent to look overboard. She saw an odd stream of black, like a smoke cloud unfurling underwater. Blood? But Aratsha didn’t bleed, not when he was in his watery form. And the cloud looked too dark to be blood.
