“Just give it to me.” Shiner holds out her hand.
Skylights digs around in his shirt pocket and hands her a pill. “Hurry and take it. I could use help with the powder.” With that, he’s gone again.
“Fire at will!” Hook’s voice filters through the timbers, and the hiss of a fuse sizzles through the air.
I cover my ears for the nextboom. Then the next. And a few more. The ship rocks more, and the beast beneath the surface roars so deeply it raises the hackles on my neck.
Shiner pops the pill into her mouth, then dry heaves and swallows again.
“Did it go down?” I hang onto a wooden post beside us as the ship continues to sway and the cannons boom.
She nods and wipes her mouth.
Skylights runs by again, a barrel on his shoulder. “How long will it take to work?”
“Soon!” he yells. “If we’re still alive.”
Another hit slams into the ship, and I’m thrown sideways. I try to stay upright, fail, then wind up in a heap against the hull. Pulling myself to my feet, I peek out the canon window and see more tentacles whipping up from the water. They’re wrapping around Anne’s ship, and pirates are jumping into the water and trying to swim away. They don’t make it far.
“There’s more than one.” Shiner burps and leans against the hull beside me. “How many krakens are there?”
“No idea, but Hook said it’s their mating season. They’re here to?—”
“Do the deed with tentacles?” She dry heaves again.
“Sorry. Just breathe.” I rub her back, then fall into her when the ship is hit again.
“Coming through!” Cookson rolls a barrel by us. He can really move when he wants to.
The air is thick with the smell of burnt gunpowder, and the booms of the cannons don’t stop.
“Maybe we should help?” I ask Shiner.
“When I catch my breath.” She nods. “I’ll help. We can get a barrel from the back and roll?—”
I’m on my ass, and my ears are ringing. How did I get on my ass? I look around as cold water sloshes into my lap.
“Moira!” Shiner is in my face yelling my name, but I can barely hear her over the ringing in my ears. She pulls me up to my feet and looks me over. Swiping at my face, her fingers come back bloody.
“What happened?” I rub my ears.
Shiner points to a black cannonball lodged in the beam I’d been leaning on earlier.
“Anne is stillshootingat us?”
Another burst of water surges through a hole in the hull that penetrates through to the lower deck and out to the sea.Oh, shit.
Cookson stomps up with a barrel, which he promptly breaks. “Cecco! Where’s the hammer?”
Cecco rushes past, then returns with a rusty hammer and a handful of nails. Working together, Cookson and Cecco patch the hole as best they can, but they’re fighting against the constant onslaught of the waves, made worse by the tentacles pulling the ship down into the water.
“We can do this.” Shiner points to the cannons.
With Cecco and Cookson occupied, the ones on this side of the ship are silent now.
“Come on!” Shiner pulls me toward one. “I’ll get the powder in. Can you find a ball?” She reaches into the nearest barrel and comes out with a metal scoop full of black powder. It smells like fireworks and July nights back when my mother was still lucid. But now, that scent means only war.
The lanterns overhead sway precariously, but I don’t stop to question the wisdom of having burning flames overhead when there are barrels of black powder just beneath them. Maybe I’d rather be blown to bits than digested in the stomach of a kraken, anyway.
