Page 259 of Scorched Earth

Bait gave her a jaunty salute, then stepped up onto the rail. Lightning crackled in the sky, illuminating his form, and then he dived into the stormy seas where Magnius waited.

Teriana strode to the helm, taking the wheel from Yedda. “Baird, you keep that wind blowing.”

“Yes, Captain!” The giant retrieved his drum, then began to dance in an open space on the deck, the music drowned out by wind that rose to vicious strength.

Lifting her spyglass, Teriana watched the unfamiliar legion guarding the most critical supply route to the West. The route that fed all of the supply lines that Marcus would have so carefully protected.

While Silvara’s attack on the Bardeen-to-Arinoquia path was important, it was Padria, located in the breadbasket of Celendor, that was responsible for food, weapons, gold, and supplies. This was the path that Marcus’s legions depended on, and it was also the path that Lucius Cassius used most aggressively to maintain his control in the West. If she failed to destroy it, the efforts of everyone else might well be for naught.

Even from here, Teriana could see that the volume of goods gathered outside the fortress was incredible. Endless unhitched wagons lined up to be unloaded—enough food, she suspected, to feed an entire city. The legionnaires garrisoning Padria were racing to protect those supplies from the deluge, frustrated men trying to tie down tarps in the gale-force wind. So entirely occupied that they didn’t notice the tide as it began to retreat.

The wind was directly behind theQuincense, holding the ships that made up her fleet steady even as the sea began to flow backwards beneath them.

Faster and faster, the waterline retreated down the beach, and then it drew back farther still.

Revealing Bait, standing with his arms outstretched, Magnius’s massive form coiled around him protectively as he used Madoria’s mark to control the sea.

The water ceased withdrawing and instead rose upward to create a towering wall. On the crest of it sat her fleet, held by fingers formed of water. As though Madoria herself held the ships in place.

As the wall of water grew taller, Padria grew smaller below, and Teriana took in the totality of the newly expanded fortress built to protect the precious xenthier. The town itself was farther inland, the streets mostly empty as people had fled inside to avoid the rain. Beyond Padria, hills rose that would be salvation to any who started running now.

No one was running.

Finally, one of the legionnaires glanced out to sea and took notice of the towering wall of water beneath the circling black clouds. He pointed and shouted, his fellows turning their heads.

For a heartbeat, they all stared in horror at a scene that should be impossible. But then their training took over and they were running. Mouths moving in what she knew were shouts of warning to retreat inland. To get to higher ground.

“Proceed,” Teriana whispered to Magnius, and Bait’s hands moved forward.

Bringing the sea with them.

The tidal wave rolled, carrying her fleet with it at terrifying speed.

“Get ready!” she shouted, her crew racing to follow her order while the crews on the other ships did the same.

The legionnaires were sprinting inland, heading for the hills beyond.

None of them would make it.

Water slammed into the wagons full of supplies, shattering them, then it struck the wall of the fortress with a boom, spraying dozens of feet into the air. Legionnaires clung to the upper level of the fortress even as the water swept past, flowing over the running men, their heads disappearing under the churning surface, armor dragging them down.

Breaking them.

Drowning them.

Killing them.

Tears mixed with the driving rain running down Teriana’s face.This is war,she told herself.In war, people die.“Get ready to disembark!”

The ships passed the beach, the wave carrying them closer and closer to the fortress. “That’s far enough,” she whispered to Magnius, then shouted, “Ready!”

The sea went entirely still, then began to flow backward while the hands formed of water held the ships in place high up the beach.

Abandoning the helm, Teriana moved to join the crew massing at the bow, Baird a towering pillar among them. Polin stood with their singular cask of black powder strapped to his chest. Yedda had a storm lantern in her hand. Standing with the rest of the crew, Teriana watched the water retreat, carrying both bodies and men clinging to debris.

Don’t look at their faces,she ordered herself.They are your enemy, nothing more.

Except in her mind’s eye, they were faces she knew. Thirty-Seventh faces.