Page 146 of Scorched Earth (Dark Shores #4)

TERIANA

Once the alliance with the Bardenese rebels was secured, Teriana and her crew moved on to the second stage of their strike against the Empire.

Theft.

“It’s been ages since we commandeered a ship,” her aunt Yedda said, tucking yet another knife into her boot. “I’m looking forward to it.”

Teriana wished she felt the same way. Her stomach was in knots as the Quincense and the rest of her fleet sped along on a stiff wind of Baird’s making, heading in the direction of the naval vessel that was their mark, with Magnius leading the way.

All across Reath, their allies were doing the same.

A coordinated effort made possible only because her people had ships everywhere.

And because all across Reath, nations were ready to strike back against the Empire.

From Arinoquia to Sibern. From Bardeen to Chersome to Sibal, forces were readying to strike legion stockpiles and naval vessels, all with the same goal in mind.

The theft of the Empire’s precious black powder.

Teriana had seen the legions use it. Had watched them bring down walls with it, and knew it was how Marcus had flooded Revat.

She was terrified of the black powder.

One spark and boom, everything near it was blasted apart. But she also knew it was the only thing that would eliminate the Empire’s paths to the West. Knew it, because of what had been said during Marcus’s manic episode when they’d taken Imresh and Emrant.

Wex will need time to set up the explosives. They’ll need to do it carefully or they’ll take out the entire stem—you know that.

If the explosives go off at the wrong time, this will be for nothing. We’ll have to start over with a new stem.

Using black powder with xenthier can go… badly.

None of it had resonated in the moment, because she’d been too concerned about Marcus to think of anything else. Yet in hindsight, what he and Felix had said made one thing clear: black powder had the capacity to render xenthier paths unusable.

“I’ve never heard about it being done,” Agrippa had said when they’d been coming up with the plan.

“But I’ve been gone for years, so it’s possible they’ve experimented.

Marcus would certainly know if they had.

Except the question is: if it works, why hasn’t the Senate destroyed every path they consider a liability?

There has to be a consequence that they don’t want to pay, which Felix’s comment certainly suggests. Badly means fatal in legion-speak.”

“So you think it’s too risky?”

Agrippa had only shrugged and said, “When your back is against the wall, sometimes the risky choice is the only choice.”

“There it is,” the lookout called, tearing her from her memories, and the doubts that came with them. Teriana lifted her spyglass. In the distance, the Cel vessel plunged up and down on the heavy seas, the crimson and gold banner flying high from the mainmast.

“They haven’t spotted us yet!” the lookout shouted.

Teriana wasn’t surprised. As close to Celendor as they were, no one would dare to attack one of its ships, and that made them overconfident. Lazy in their certainty that these were their waters.

The Quincense drew closer. Not only were the Maarin ships infinitely faster than the Cel ship, they had every sail open to hold Baird’s wind, while the Cel had lost their nerve and lowered several of theirs.

“Still haven’t seen us!”

Teriana shook her head because overconfidence was starting to look like stupidity on behalf of the Cel. Yet she knew that the targets on the far side of the Reath—those under Marcus’s control—would be far more vigorously defended.

“They’ve seen us!”

Teriana watched the Cel sailors stare at the Maarin fleet with no real concern on their faces. Blue sails meant trade, not war, and they seemed more interested in the storm front rolling in behind them, nothing about it natural.

“We’ll take the port side,” she ordered, lifting a flag to signal one of the other ships to move in on the starboard. “They’ll have the powder in the hold. Take as many casks as you can, but for the love of the Six, do not allow it anywhere near flame.”

“Prisoners?” Yedda asked, and Teriana shook her head. “No. Don’t mistake their confidence in their own waters for weakness. If they learn what we’ve stolen, they’ll suspect our strategy and be ready for us. No witnesses.”

Her crew gave grim nods, their fingers brushing over the hilts of their blades. Not soldiers, but life on the high seas came with inevitable conflict, so they knew their business.

But so did the Cel.

Some of her crew would be injured. Some might die. This was a taste of what it was like to be Marcus when he sent men into battle. Or what it had been like to be Marcus, because she doubted he cared much about casualties any more. Or anything at all.

Teriana lifted her spyglass again. As she watched, the first signs of concern began to show on the Cel crew’s faces. As the Quincense and the Furia drew closer still, the Cel abruptly seemed to realize their intent. They exploded into action, readying to repel the attack.

But nothing could prepare them for what lurked in the waters below.

Teriana’s vision shifted, taken over by Magnius so that she could see what the demigod saw beneath the waves: the hull of the Cel ship.

“Now,” she whispered, and as Magnius put on a burst of speed, her vision became her own again. Just in time to watch as the Cel ship shuddered from the impact of Magnius’s tail.

It heeled over with a groan and spilled several sailors into the water. Their screams cut off as the Quincense and Furia sailed over them—there was no room in this moment for mercy.

“Lower the sails!” she shouted. “Ready the hooks!”

Sails dropped, but the Quincense ’s momentum kept her moving, sliding alongside the floundering ship full of stunned sailors. “Now!”

Her crew threw the hooks, the thick metal catching the railings of the Cel vessel, and men and women strained to pull the vessels together even as Teriana shouted, “Board!”

With a roar, her crew surged, leaping the gap between ships or swinging across on ropes to land on the deck amidst the Cel. Teriana ran with them, the sea a flash of white foam as she jumped, landing with a thump.

A blade flashed toward her face, but she parried.

Quintus’s training served her well as she fought the man before her, looking for an opening and then dragging the tip of her sword across his stomach, sending his guts spilling onto the deck.

There was no time to reconcile herself to what she’d done, for another soldier took his place, murder in his eyes.

All around her was chaos as Maarin fought Cel in pitched hand-to-hand, the Maarin on the Furia throwing hooks on the starboard side, then swiftly boarding to add their blades to the melee.

The deck was slick with blood, pitching from side to side on the rough seas, the screams of the injured and dying deafening.

Her arm shuddered from the impact of the soldier’s blows, but Teriana gritted her teeth and kept matching him. His foot slipped, and she struck, stabbing him in the chest. He toppled sideways, jerking her weapon out of her hand.

Another gladius stabbed at her, and she threw herself sideways, rolling into the legs of those who were fighting before regaining her feet, her knife in hand. “Get to the hold!” Teriana screamed, and raced to the hatch, leaping over the fallen.

Not all of whom were Cel.

Her heart ached, but there was no time for grief. She reached the hatch at the same time as Yedda and Polin, the three of them pulling it up while others defended their backs.

“They’re going for the powder! They’re going for the powder!” the captain screamed. “Scuttle the ship!”

Teriana leapt into the hold, then barely got her knife up as a shrieking Cel sailor came running at her. His deflected blade sliced across her forearm, and she hissed in pain, stabbing him in the neck. As he dropped, she took a step forward and peered into the darkness.

The hold was full of small casks, each about the size of her torso.

“Gods,” she breathed, entranced and horrified by the danger. The watertight casks packed the space, and all of it would be destined for Emrant, which meant that Marcus intended to use explosives in some capacity.

Yedda dropped next to her, her eyes going immediately to Teriana’s injury. “You’re hurt.”

“I’m fine. We need to get these casks out of here.”

Bracing, she lifted the one nearest to her, which was heavier than she’d anticipated. With shuddering arms, she lifted it to Polin’s waiting hands. “Go!”

He disappeared and another Maarin replaced him, his thick arms reaching down for the cask that Yedda held up.

But they needed to be faster.

The battle still raged above, and Teriana knew that her crew was falling to Cel blades, the soldiers on this ship too well trained to go down easily.

Teriana passed another cask to waiting arms. Then another. She was raising another still when Bait’s face appeared.

“You were supposed to stay put!” she shouted at him, but he gasped out, “The ship’s on fire! Get out!”

“Oh, gods!” Catching hold of her aunt’s waist, she lifted Yedda to Bait. “Unlash the ships! Go! Go!”

She jumped, Bait catching her wrist and heaving her up.

The deck was thick with bodies and blood, black smoke choking the air, the flames climbing the rigging. And spread across the deck was black powder from a smashed cask. The woman who’d been carrying it lay in its midst, a knife in her back.

And the flames were racing closer.

“Run!” Teriana screamed. “The ship’s going to explode!”

The lines holding the Quincense were cut, her crew using oars to separate the ships. But it wasn’t fast enough. Wasn’t far enough.

“Magnius!” She sprinted toward the rail, Bait’s hand clutched in hers. “Help them!”

Maarin sailors leapt off the side of the Cel ship into the water, and as Teriana climbed onto the rail, she saw Magnius below, head braced against the Quincense, pushing her away.

“Jump!” Bait shouted, and then she was flying, water racing up to meet her as a flash of light burst from behind.

Boom.

Water closed over Teriana’s head, but the noise still rattled her skull as Bait dragged her deeper.

Because the worst was yet to come.

The force of the casks in the hold exploding was unlike anything she’d ever experienced. It ripped her from Bait’s grip and sent her tumbling through the water, driving the air from her lungs.

Everything was white, bubbles and froth blinding her, and Teriana could not see which way was up.

Then an arm wrapped around her waist and heaved. She kicked her feet, desperate to breathe, but as her head broke the surface, part of Teriana wished she’d stayed under.

Burning debris surrounded her and Bait, what remained of the Cel ship sinking beneath the waves. But it was the sinking ship beyond that gutted her, because the burning sails were blue.

The Furia groaned, mainmast toppling slowly sideways and taking everything still vertical with it. Injured Maarin leapt off the sinking ship into the water, and though the three other ships in her fleet were moving to aid, far too many would be lost.

Slowly, Teriana turned in the water, bittersweet relief filling her as she saw the Quincense . Her crew raced to put out small fires, but her ship was mostly unscathed.

Please let this have been worth it, Teriana silently prayed, taking in the still forms floating among the debris. Please don’t let their deaths be for nothing.

“Help who you can,” she said to Bait. “The Cel will have seen the explosion from shore, which means we need to hurry.”

Teriana swam to the Quincense , then climbed the ladder that had been dropped. Her guts churned with fear over who from her crew had been lost. Who she’d have to add to the list of names she already grieved.

Hands caught hold of Teriana’s wrists and pulled her over the rail. She landed with a thump, then looked up into her aunt’s eyes. Yedda was bleeding from a cut on her brow but otherwise seemed unscathed. “Polin?” Teriana whispered, afraid of the answer.

“He’s all right.”

She wanted to ask how many they’d lost. Who they’d lost, but Teriana forced herself to ask the more critical question. “How many casks?”

“One.”

That was impossible. There had to be a mistake.

“Only one?”

“The others were on the Furia .”

Teriana wanted to scream. And scream and scream, because so many of her people had died for so little.

“Ships incoming!” someone shouted from above, and Teriana pressed her fingers to her temples.

“There’s no time to try to salvage. Get the injured out of the water.”

“We can target another ship,” her aunt said. “Try to steal more powder.”

A raindrop struck Teriana on the forehead, then another and another until it was a deluge pouring from overhead. Baird approached. “I can’t stop the storm,” he said. “It will hit land in another hour, and if you wish to use it as your cover, we need to move.”

All across Reath, the attacks would already be underway. Her allies stealing the legions’ supplies of black powder, hopefully with more success than she had.

Teriana had watched enough battles to know that nothing ever went precisely according to plan, but Marcus had always made it look so simple, adjusting his strategy without hesitation.

This was anything but simple.

“What do you want to do?” Yedda asked. “It’s your call.”

Teriana drew in a deep breath. The next step would cost her dearly, but there was no turning back now. “We’re going to make that cask count.”