Above the little boat, standing with feet planted in the wet sand and an axe raised in both hands, was a hellkin.
“Marina.” Cali rasped the name like a curse as she realized the hellkin was about to bring the axe down on the boat.
Bonnie released her grip on the captive and broke into a run with the rest of the pirates and Cali right behind her, bow drawn.
Thirty-Three
The sand slurpedat Cali’s boots as she ran, her breath coming fast, her eyes fixed on the hellkin swinging an axe at the water’s edge like someone possessed.
Bonnie’s sword sang as she drew it, the blade catching the moonlight, and Cali already had an arrow notched in her bow. Thrain’s boots squelched the sand somewhere behind her, and she could hear him puffing, but she didn’t look back. She couldn’t take her eyes off the small boat.
Jolli floated at the shore where the low waves burbled, and every time Marina swung the axe toward her painted hull, the little boat lurched sideways. The deliberate, deft sidesteps sent the axe blade whistling through empty air into the waves, which splashed up in a churning froth that soaked the hellkin from the waist down.
Marina screamed and swung again. Again, the jolly boat bobbed away, her painted sides shimmering as if she was taunting the hellkin. She might have been. A merry creaking sound rose over the waves, sounding every bit like laughter.
Marina didn’t hear them coming, even though they made no effort to quiet their approach. The indignity of losing a fight with a rowboat consumed her, and she was too busy hauling the axe overhead in another furious attempt. She was still screeching when Bonnie reached her, and the pirate captain’s sword came down in a short, controlled arc. The strike wasn’t at the hellkin, but at the axe itself. The flat of the blade connected with the axe handle and knocked it clean from Marina’s grip, sending it spinning end over end to land in the wet sand with a squelch.
Marina spun around, but Cali already had an arrow notched, the string drawn back to her cheek, and the tip leveled at the hellkin’s chest. Her claw twitched with the desire to let the arrow fly.
The moonlight caught Marina’s face. Her crimson skin was mottled darker with rage, her hair was wild from the salt wind, and her eyes blazed with fury. She looked from Bonnie’s sword to Cali’s arrow and then at the small knot of pirates who had fanned out behind them.
“That boat,” she said, breathing hard, pointing an accusatory finger at Jolli without looking away from Bonnie, “is a menace. It tried to kill me.”
Behind the captain, two of her crew had already waded into the shallows. Jolli allowed them to take hold of her without complaint, leaning gently into their hands, while Gert ran her palms along the hull in careful inspection.
Marina watched this and made a sound of pure outrage. “You see that?” She jabbed her finger again. “It’s possessed, I tell you.”
“She,” Bonnie said.
Marina blinked, her outstretched finger slumping. “What?”
“Jolli is ashe.” The pirate captain’s voice held a distinct edge. “We’d prefer you not misgender her. Also, she’s not possessed. She simply takes a dim view of those who steal her and then try to hack her apart.”
Marina’s jaw tightened. “It spun in circles for two days. It rowed itself into rocks. It tipped us into the water three times. I was only defending myself.”
From the water, Jolli rocked back and forth, slapping the waves as if she was clapping.
“She,” Gert growled from the water.
Bonnie crouched, retrieved the axe from the sand, and then handed it off to one of her crew without comment. Or she tried to. Thrain materialized at her elbow, still catching his breath, and took the weapon from the pirate’s grip before anyone else could.
He turned it over, checking the blade, then looked at Marina with cold eyes. “You stole my axe.”
It was only then that Marina’s gaze moved past Bonnie and locked onto Cali and Thrain. “You two.”
Cali kept the bowstring taut as she gave the hellkin the barest nod. “Hello, Marina.”
“Is this your idea of revenge?”
Cali glanced at Thrain. He raised his eyebrows.
“Let me understand this,” Cali said. “You stole a jolly boat, spent days being outwitted by it, tried to destroy it, and somehow that’s something we arranged?”
“I wouldn’t give us that much credit,” Thrain said under his breath.
As a pair of pirates moved toward her, Marina whipped a hand behind her back and produced a dagger. Her gaze pinged to Bonnie as she took quick aim, but Cali was quicker. She let her arrow fly, striking Marina’s hand in the stretched flesh between the thumb and pointer finger.
The hellkin shrieked, and the dagger flew off course, missing Bonnie and landing harmlessly in the sand.
