Page 37 of The Sea Witch (Salt & Sorcery #1)

Nearing its zenith, the moon gleamed in the night sky. It wouldn’t be much longer now.

Alys was on one oar, Stasia, Jane, and Thérèse on the others. With Eris on her shoulder, Stasia whispered under her breath,

calling forth waves to push the mostly empty cutter quickly toward the shore. Thérèse added her own spell, spoken lowly, to

muffle the sounds of their oars and dull the sound of the cutter’s prow through the water. Even so, Alys’s breath came quiet

and shallow.

Silently, they made their way to the beach. Tiny lights ahead drew Alys’s attention. Torches lined the heavy walls surrounding

Kinnear’s compound. Against the flickering flames, she counted silhouettes of five guards on top of the walls. They stood

ready, yet no one seemed in a state of alarm. Not yet.

A forty-foot-wide strip of beach met them as they landed. Alys readied to jump from the cutter. Magic still clung to the cutter,

muting their splashes as they eased out of the boat. Soundlessly, they dragged the cutter onto the sand.

Alys nudged Stasia, then pointed to a dock jutting out into the way. An unmanned cutter was tied to the pier, rising and falling

as it sat upon the water.

From their own boat, Alys grabbed a small ceramic pot and boar-bristle paintbrush. She tucked the brush into her belt, double-checked that her pistol was primed and ready and then pulled tatters of shadows to cloak her and her crew so that even as the moon glowed, darkness engulfed them.

Sand muffled their steps as they crept up the beach. Kinnear’s fortress emerged from the gloom, its bulky black shape growing

more menacing the closer they got to it. The walls loomed, easily twenty feet high. A massive oaken door kept the compound

secure. A guard tower stood atop the wall. Flickering torchlight revealed two sentries beside the tower, leaning on their

long guns, and their voices drifted down to where Alys and her crew slunk closer.

“...ready to find me some company...”

“...in Bridgetown... heard they’ve... can’t walk straight for a week...”

Alys and Stasia pressed against the wall beside the door, and Jane and Thérèse took the other side. The heavy stone was cold

and jutting against Alys’s back.

The moon slid higher in the sky. Only a matter of minutes before it reached its peak.

With shadows still clinging to her, Alys hurried to the giant door. She opened the small ceramic pot and the sharp scent of

oil and ground tamarind rose up. After dipping the brush into the pot, she began painting a lightning bolt and angled stripes

on the door’s thick wooden planks.

She couldn’t render the symbol and keep the shadows around her and the crew. The darkness around them sifted away.

At the same time, the moon reached its highest point.

The ground beneath her feet shuddered. An explosion ripped through the night. Shouts rose up on the other side of the door,

and gunfire popped.

It had begun.

Alys hurried to finish painting while sentries on the wall above fired into the compound. Someone cried out.

As Alys worked, Stasia, Jane, and Thérèse moved away from the wall. They aimed pistols at three guards gathered atop the barricade, then fired. The men pitched forward as magic-charged bullets pierced them.

Three more guards ran along the parapet and fired down at Alys and her crew. Stasia threw up a shield, and the bullets ricocheted

off the spell, slamming into the wall and sending down chips of stone.

At last, the symbol was finished.

“Take your positions,” she called to her crew.

She and the others sprinted away from the door. They hurled themselves down into the sand. Alys raised up and threw a magical

flare of light into the sky.

From far off came the sound of the Sea Witch ’s cannon booming. A streak of green arced through the sky. The cannon ball went wide, a blaze of light trailing after it.

Harsh laughter sounded from atop the wall.

“Can’t even fire your guns proper,” one of the guards jeered.

A rushing sound filled the air. The cannon ball, painted with its own lightning bolt, veered in its path and flew over Alys

and her crew’s heads. It now charged directly toward the symbol painted on the door.

The ground shook again and another explosion shook the night as the magically-charged cannon ball slammed into the door, flinging

rocks and splintered wood high in the air and across the sand. Alys and her crew threw their arms over themselves, burrowing

into the sand

When the debris stopped falling, Alys lifted her head.

A massive hole now stood where the door used to be. Part of the wall was gone, too, the guard tower collapsed, and two sentries’

motionless bodies splayed in the sand.

Nearly a score of women poured out of the compound. Some wore panicked, fearful expressions. Others looked fiercely determined.

Alys and her crew leapt to their feet. Thérèse and Jane ran toward the fleeing women, ushering them down the beach and toward

the waiting cutters.

As her crew tended to the escapees, Alys and Stasia plunged through the smoldering remains of the door, into the compound.

People were everywhere, running in confusion. Flames engulfed numerous buildings that squatted inside the fortress walls.

The sky was lit with a reddish glow from livid fires. Smoke poured dark and thick into the sky. Coughing, Alys pulled the

kerchief from her hair and wrapped it around her nose and mouth.

A bulky man charged at her, his blunt sword raised. She whirled and fired her pistol. The man fell to the dirt.

Women in ragged clothing dropped torches as they fled toward the huge hole in the wall.

“Boats wait for you at the beach,” Alys shouted at the women.

The escapees moved in a group out of the stronghold and down the sand.

Frightened neighing echoed around the compound when over a dozen horses ran from the burning stables. Alys and Stasia dodged

the panicked animals, and slapped their haunches to urge them toward the beach. The horses galloped through the hole and disappeared

into the night.

Huge flames danced atop the disintegrating roof of a large two-story building, built in a more elaborate style than the rest

of the structures in the compound. A smaller squat building also blazed. A section of its wooden wall collapsed, revealing

rows of cots crammed side by side.

An African woman stood outlined against the flames. Richly woven, brightly patterned cloth hung in tatters around her. Her

posture tall and regal, she threw a torch into the open doorway of another dormitory. She wore her mass of loosening braids

like a crown as she watched the destruction. Above her, Anwuli dove and swooped, as if guarding her mistress.

Alys and Stasia ran to her.

“Olachi?” Alys asked.

“I am she. And you must be Captain Tanner.” Olachi spoke with the accent of the Igbo people.

“I am. And my quartermaster, Stasia Angelidis.”

Stasia and Olachi exchanged quick nods.

Alys handed Olachi the long dagger that had been tucked in her belt, and a primed pistol. “I bring you a present. Two presents,

actually, if you count the Sea Witch .”

“I will count her amongst my gifts,” Olachi answered. “I sprang the locks with magic, but we could not flee without a ship

to carry us away. You see what I did with our captor.”

Richard Kinnear lay in the dirt, staring without sight at the sky.

“We have a boat,” Stasia explained, “and there is an empty one tied to a pier just up the beach. Everyone is out?”

“My friends are accounted for,” Olachi said, looking around the compound.

“What about him?” Alys nodded toward a cage that stood within the yard. A man was locked within it, his clothing filthy and

ragged, his hair a dark lank curtain around his face. He gripped the bars and watched the fighting intently. “He with you?”

“That man was here when we were brought in. I heard one of the guards call him...” Olachi searched her memory “...Pasquale.”

In disbelief, Stasia demanded, “Luca Pasquale?”

Alys shared a look with her second-in-command. In a sea teeming with infamous figures, Luca Pasquale was notorious.

“I have never seen this mage with my own eyes,” Stasia admitted.

Alys turned to Olachi. “Have you done what you need to?”

Olachi gazed around the burning compound. “I have.”

“Go, now,” Alys urged. “Get to safety.”

When Olachi raced through the hole in the wall, Alys hurried to the cage holding Pasquale, with Stasia close at her heels.

The mage stood in the cage. He stared at them from behind his grimy curtain of hair.

Gaunt and filthy, it looked as though he hadn’t been properly cared for in a very long time.

Yet he smiled, as if meeting them in a raucous tavern, surrounded by wenches and fragrant wine, instead of dead mercenaries and the smell of gunpowder.

“Hell of a party, Captain Tanner,” he said, his Italian-accented words polished.

“You know of me,” she replied, surprised.

“Rare birds, pirate witches,” he answered.

“You are wanted by no fewer than five governments,” Stasia exclaimed. “Seven pirate captains have sworn to cut off your head,

if they ever cross your path.”

“I’m a lucky bastardo.” He eyed the bars surrounding him. “Safe and secure in these luxurious accommodations.” With a wink,

he said something to Stasia in Greek, and she turned pink.

She snapped at him in the same language, but his response was to give her a lopsided smile. Stasia reddened even more.

Even Alys’s heart gave a small leap in response to his dangerous smile.

“The hell are you doing here?” Alys demanded.

He rolled his eyes. “I’ve got a price but this time I couldn’t be bought.”

“Athena only knows why you refused,” Stasia said.

“I don’t use my power to secure human cargo.”

“An unfortunate attack of ethics?” Stasia barked out a laugh.

“Every now and again.” He shrugged. “My coat was white when they locked me in.”

Alys grimaced at the dull gray hue of his coat. Unlike other mages, however, he wore no black sash.