Jedit

Chapter 12

"Is that a smile?" called Simone above a keening wind. High aloft, she and Adira toed a thin rope and leaned over a thick yard to furl a balky sail.

"I'm just glad to be at sea!" called Adira. "Even in this bathtub of a bay!"

"We have to make landfall some time!"

"Don't spoil my fun!" Yet Adira glanced at the distant coast called the Goat's Walk. Jagged rocks and cliffs were topped by dark pines. Surf exploded on hidden rocks, a deathtrap for any careless ship that careened too close. Yet despite an angry ocean and gloomy skies, Adira Strongheart laughed to feel a sturdy ship reel under her feet and wind blow in her hair, even if she weren't the ship's master.

The Conch of Corn's was a sturdy caravel like an upturned shoe with high castles fore and aft, buoyant as a cork and easy to maneuver, though it lost miles of steerage way to leeward. The ship carried four stubby masts, acres of gray-brown linen sails, and miles of yellow- and black-tar rigging. Low and stable, she was packed with timber, hides, and raw copper to be sold in Garaboss on the Cape of Hope at the bay's southern end, or else wrestled round the cape to southern cities like Kalan and Enez and Bryce.

Yet always the threatening coast trickled by to port, until secretly Adira cursed the benighted mission that would take them inland. Initially she had discounted local sailors' tales and hoped to land in a jolly boat at Fulmar's Fort. But unless the clashing surf and ugly rocks eased, beaching was impossible. Adira's Circle might have to stick with the ship and debark at Garaboss, then buy fresh mounts and backtrack eastward. Meanwhile, somewhere Johan's sedan train threaded that unrelenting forest, and only the gods knew what mischief he pursued.

Still, two days out of Buzzard's Bay, Adira Strongheart shrugged cares away and enjoyed a holiday. Her Circle of Seven had rated bargain passage because they could make sail-most, anyway. Sergeant Murdoch, late of Yerkoy's land-hugging infantry, hung head down over the gunwale strangling.

As the wind picked up, the sailing master had called to shorten sail, so Adira and Simone furled damp canvas. They'd shucked sea boots and climbed barefoot to better grip the toe rope, their only suspension sixty feet aloft.

Simone's large brown eyes turned westward. "This coast is fey. That horizon brims with dirty weather."

"Your eye is jaundiced," countered her captain, temporarily her mate. "This coast blows foul year 'round. Kiss a fish! I've lost the hang of reefing!"

The job got done, and the topsailmen slid down the ratlines. All except Adira, who climbed the futtock shrouds another six feet and rapped on the crow's nest like a door.

"Hello, Adira!" Peeking over the rim of the tub, with big eyes green under a crown of flat red hair, Whistledove Kithkin looked like a child playing hide-and-seek. The brownie was too small for most shipboard tasks but proved eagle-eyed at lookout, so now bunked in the mainmast crow's nest. At the far end of the mast's enormous lever, the nest rose and dipped while yawing a dizzying circle, but Whistledove liked the sensation and seldom came down.

"Shall I send up Heath to help keep watch?" asked Adira. "Two can see twice as far as one."

"Really?" Unused to the pirates' straight-faced jokes, the brownie was often puzzled. "That doesn't-"

"Forget I spoke," said Adira. "I'm just making the rounds. Are you content?"

The brownie had no complaint, though even the pirate chief found her iron-hard stomach bubbling in the wild pitch and swing. She peered to windward, eyes watering, to study the waves and sky, then slid down the lines to thump on the quarterdeck.

Big blond Edsen was master of the caravel, not captain, for on Jamuraan seas only pirate chiefs and naval officers rated that title.

Adira reported to the Buzzard's Bayman, "Sir, windward grows foul. The waves run gray with whitecaps whipping to spume."

"Is that so?" Like most seafarers on this coast, Master Edsen wore a faded quilt jacket with a bearskin vest and hat. "I wouldn't fret, bosun. We're used to slop such as you southerners seldom see. But d'ya mind hustling Gack-Guts below? He's puked up so many dinners sharks're gnashing our rudder."

"He's-yes, sir." Adira swallowed her temper. It irked her that a mere merchant master dismissed her keen observations with lubberly gibes. Yet Edsen must assert rank, for Adira was just another hand to the four officers and twenty-one crewmen. Adira commanded only her own Circle of Seven as a bosun.

Duckwalking to the rail, Adira levered the seasick Murdoch over one arm and half-dragged him down the aft companion-way.

White-faced and shaking, the soldier groaned, "Mother of the Erg, why does anyone go to sea?"

"No flies nor mosquitoes, for one thing, and it's seldom hot. It beats walking or riding."

Below in cramped passageways and pitch darkness, Adira groped to Murdoch's bunk, rolled him in, and flipped a dusty blanket over him. In the bunk above, she prodded ribs until someone grunted. A female.

"Jasmine?" asked Adira, for it was black. "I thought this was Heath's billet."

"It is." Groggy, Jasmine poked someone deeper in the bunk, then flopped back to sleep. Heath slithered forth, warm as a sun-soaked cat. Adira recognized his scent, an earthy odor of campfires, greenery, and resin from his bowstring.

"Get aloft," said Adira. "See if a leviathan stalks our wake."

"What?" The part-elf reared and banged his head on a beam.

"I jest. Go, but don your jerkin." Finding her own bunk, Adira fished out her leather jerkin, which was heavily oiled to shed sea spray, and laced it over her thick gray-cabled sweater. She'd bought both items for each of her crew, for this coast sent man-killing cold even in autumn.

Stepping on deck, wind snarled Adira's chestnut hair, making her retie her green headband. The air smelt thick with salt, and Adira had the satisfaction of seeing Master Edsen and his sailing master argue about clawing to windward and dragging a sea anchor. Why fret, Adira wondered, unless a storm threatened to drive them ashore?

The sailing master picked up his trumpet and bawled, "Starboard your helm! Closer to the wind, you codfish, or I'll flay you to bones! Hands aloft to shorten sail!" So up the ratlines again went Adira and Simone.

When the sails were reefed once more, Adira trekked through the ship to check the rest of her crew. Forward in the forecastle, Virgil and Wilemina slept soundly, for they had night watch. Peregrine, a lubber, trimmed beef in the galley amidships, not happy but not complaining. Finally Adira squeezed down slimy companionways to the bilges to relieve Jedit. The fearsome warrior had been dubbed the ship's cat by

Master Edsen and ordered to kill rats. Adira grinned but saw no rats. Jedit was glad to seek fresh air.

On deck, Adira felt wind kiss her cheek with wetness. She-plunked on a bucket where Simone unraveled old rope to make oakum.

Picking at hemp, Adira said, "You may be right about the weather."

Simone didn't gloat. Even speaking the word "storm" tempted trouble. Impishly she asked, "Get everyone tucked in their bunks?"

"Ach!" Adira spat. "I should deep-six the lot. Their romantic foolishness makes me spew. Murdoch chases Wilemina's tail, but the devout virgin hoards her greatest treasure. So Jasmine makes eyes at Murdoch, except he's yellow-dog sick. So now when I rouse Heath, I discover Jasmine sharing his blankets!"

"Go easy on poor Jasmine. Her pride's hurt that a druid must chop onions in the galley."

Adira snorted. "It explains why Wil's nose is out of joint. The silly bitch is jealous of something she can't have!"

"You're jealous," Simone teased.

"Me?"

"Aye." Simone grinned, teeth white in her black face. "You miss the fun. You've gone too long without loving, Dira. Order a man or two to warm your bunk, and forget your troubles."

"For three minutes, maybe," groused Adira. Inexplicably she thought of Hazezon Tamar. "Love's not worth tying up your heart and head."

"Too bad Jedit's a tiger." Simone watched the great cat gaze westward. Raised in a landlocked jungle, the enormity of the ocean perpetually fascinated him. "He'd make a fine man. Maybe we can pay some sage to shape-change him again."

"Into what? A furry seven-foot fathead with red hair and big teeth?"

"Perhaps we'd keep the stripes."

"And the tail? And you claim I'm never satisfied?" Both women giggled, but then Adira sobered. "That's another thing. I must bespeak Jedit. I'm a captain, and you're lieutenant, but he thinks he's king."

Rising, duckwalking the deck, Adira hooked a tarred mainstay and parked her hip against a rail. "Jedit Ojanen, we must have words."

The tiger-man regarded her silently. His eyes were slit against the wind so looked to have three parts, green, amber, and green, an unnerving display. Further, Adira was peeved the tiger could stand on a pitching deck without any handhold. Possessing perfect balance, he never stumbled, never blundered, making humans feel spraddle-footed and awkward and stoking Adira's famous temper.

"Jedit, I don't like you striking out on your own hook. It happened half a dozen times in Buzzard's Bay." Adira fumed at the huge tiger. "If you pocket my coin, you obey my orders! Don't order my crew about, no matter how nasty our crisis! If you want to seize command, you'll fight me with matched daggers, elsewise you carry your hat in your hand! Is that clear?"

"Aye, aye," the tiger purred above the shrill of the wind. "If I give offense, I'm sorry. I'm new to human ways and still learning. I appreciate that you let me join your band. Such kind generosity I can never fully repay."

"Oh." Adira's temper sputtered as if doused with ice water. Expecting an argument, Jedit's sincere apology and gratitude flummoxed her. Gruff, she snapped, "Just bear it in mind, Stripes, or blood'll be spilt between us."

Stalking back to Simone, Adira plunked on her bucket and savagely unraveled rope.

"My, my," murmured Simone, "see his fuzzy round ears smoke."

"Shut up."

"Sail!" A cry from Heath in the crow's nest. "Six points abaft the starboard beam!"

Immediately everyone dropped chores to cluster in the ratlines. Simone the Siren scurried a dozen feet above deck to see the new vessel, a stumpy carrack straining under all sail. Some Buzzard's Baymen clucked their tongues.

The pirate lieutenant said, "So we're not the only lunatics to brave the blustery deep!"

"All hands!" came Master Edsen's sudden cry. "Prepare to repel boarders! Crack the cutlass locker! Fetch the spare canvas and netting! Lively, lads! You, Strongheart! Front and center!"

As coasters jumped, suddenly in a hurry, Adira swallowed her temper at being summoned like the rankest cabin boy.

Striding to the deck, she grated, "Sir?"

"What's this about?" Edsen glanced astern as if a tidal wave loomed. His teeth were bared, but his eyes flashed fright.

"What?" asked Adira. "Yon ship chases us?"

"You know damn well it does!" Edsen glared. "This is your infernal trouble-making again, ain't it? Buzzardmen don't attack Buzzards. Even Rimon sticks to that rule. So if Drumfish chases us like a hound after a hen, it's your fault! I've a mind to dump you and your patchwork pirates into a longboat without oars and let Rimon snap you up!"

Already fuming, Adira let slip her temper. "You'd never maroon us in this life, you hamhanded mucker! My crew'd split you brown-water bastards from gills to gullet and chuck your heads to bob in our wake! Jedit! Whistledove! Simone, pipe up the Seven!"

Edsen's crew, busy breaking out boarding pikes, axes, netting, and spare canvas, stopped to goggle. One second Adira Strongheart argued with the master, and the next she was surrounded by her half-mad bodyguard. Even the brownie clinging in the rigging clutched a rapier in her fist.

In command, calm again, Adira asked, "What are your orders, Captain?"

Edsen gulped and looked to officers for support, but they steered clear of mutiny and massacre.

Finally the bayman husked, "Uh, stand by to repel boarders. And get… off my quarterdeck."

Nose in the air, Adira skipped to the main deck with her Circle of Seven in tow. Other shipmates shied away to cluster on quarterdeck and forecastle.

Simone asked with a grin, "Your orders, Captain?"

Glancing about, Adira said, "Looks like these crawfish want us to defend the waist alone. So we shall. Make ready to repel boarders, but watch your backs. One by one, slip below and fill your pockets with anything precious. We might have to quit the ship on short notice."

Adira's pirates nodded, used to crises striking like lightning. The lubbers looked at the angry gray ocean and wondered how cold the water might be, but, shepherded by the lieutenant Simone, they fell to tasks with a will. Adira perched on the ship's gunwale to study the sea, the sky, the ominous lee shore, and the oncoming Drumfish.

The corsairs' ship was a carrack, built like a box to carry diverse loads, with three masts. The versatile sails and lack of a load made the pursuing boat fast but awkward. She skittered sideways as much as punched ahead, her crew tacking endlessly. At this distance, Adira could see her rigging was black with corsairs like spiders in a web. Pirate ships typically carried three or four times the crew of a merchant vessel.

"Edsen's rats'll likely roll over and squeal for their lives. So… eighty-odd fighters oppose my Circle of Seven, or nine, and all the time Edsen's eager to stab us in the back." Adira juggled odds and options and her meager resources. Her eye fell upon, of all things, the druid looking lost as a fish in a forest. "Hoy, Jasmine! Here, woman! Tell me. A ship's built of wood, but dead wood, true? Still, could you…?"

Two frantic hours had passed, and the sun had cracked the western sky just before setting, when Drumfish crept to windward within hailing distance. Both ships pitched and rolled on a steepening sea. Rising wind, harder to fight by the minute, blew toward the forbidding coast and its gnashing rocks a mere five miles away.

The corsairs from Buzzard's Bay were ready. Not as many as Adira had reckoned, some sixty fishermen-turned-raiders were poised with swords and pikes to slam alongside Conch and swarm aboard. Under Edsen, the merchant ship had made only token efforts to arm. Her twenty-odd crewmates carried sharp cutlasses and had lined the ship's sides with a wall of netting and spare canvas, but all the baymen and women hoped Edsen could cave in quickly. More than their cousin corsairs, the sailors feared the coming storm and threatening shore. Only Adira's Circle of Seven expected a fight.

"Ahoy, Conch!" Captain Rimon of the Drumfish bellowed through a leather speaking trumpet. "Give us Adira Strongheart, and you can sail on free!"

"Drink bilge and drown!" came a cry, not from the quarterdeck, but from the waist. Adira Strongheart didn't need a trumpet to bawl above the wind. "Think ye'll take Johan's blood money with one hand and the Circle of Seven with the other? You yellow hagfish! Earn your pay or eat dung like a dog!"

"Don't listen to her, Rimon!" shouted Master Edsen from the quarterdeck. "She don't speak-"

"Edsen's a coward!" Adira drowned out the quavering master. Oddly, she was the only person in sight in Conch's waist, standing beside the midmast with a cutlass upraised. "An eye-picking, gut-eating, bottom-feeding crab! He won't lift a claw to save his own ship! But you're worse, Rimon!

Turning against your own kind to kiss Johan's backside! He killed your kinfolk, yet you skulk the sea lanes at his bidding and break the only truce you ever knew!"

The pirate queen went on to curse Rimon's mother, father, ancestors, and crew in filthy tones. The waiting corsairs fairly chipped their teeth sputtering in anger.

"Die in the deep, Strongheart!" roared Rimon from his quarterdeck. "You're our meat dead or alive! Helmsman, hard a port.'"

Roaring a war cry, Rimon's corsairs braced their feet as the helmsman spun the wheel. Shoved by rudder and wind, the corsairs' carrack jumped through the water and pounced on the Conch, slamming her so hard sailors were jolted off their feet. Two corsair officers called "Loose!" and a cloud of crossbow quarrels flew from Drumfish to stipple the wood and a few Conchers. In the corsair's waist, Drumfishers shoved for elbowroom to lay out grapnels and chains that would bind the two ships for boarding.

Yet a curious sight gave the raiders pause. For along the amidships of Conch suddenly rose a yellowed sail like a theater curtain in reverse. Cleated to a spare yardarm and jerry-rigged blocks-and-tackle, the sail zipped upward and was quickly lashed in place by Adira's crew.

Furious and fuddled, the Buzzard's Bay corsairs, male and female, collectively scratched their heads. The entire midsection of the merchant ship was hidden behind that queer curtain. Granted, it was only old canvas and they could easily peg crossbow bolts and arrows through it, yet the marauders hesitated to attack victims they couldn't see.

"What on the briny deep-" On the quarterdeck, Captain Rimon cursed and wondered if Adira Strongheart had gone crazy. Yet the two ships clashed hulls with an awful racket, so the time to attack was now. Making his decision, Rimon bawled, "Never mind that bed sheet! We'll cut it to shreds in seconds! Hurl the grapnels! Hurry aboard, and fetch me Strongheart's head!"

A whisk! and whap! seemed to answer. Rimon whirled to see his helmsman shot through the chest by a long-fletched arrow. Lacking a guiding hand, the rudder instantly straightened so the ship lost way. A gap of green water churned between the vessels. Shouting for the bosun to grab the wheel, Rimon grunted with satisfaction as iron grapnels on chains soared jingling across the gap to snag Conch's wooden gunwales. Two hooks bounced off the taut curtain-sail and splashed in the water, but corsairs were quick to haul them back inboard.

Rimon bellowed, "Now heave on those lines, you bastards, and bring us alongside! A bonus to the man who cuts Adira down."

Another whicker and whap. Rimon blinked as the bosun who'd gained the wheel slowly keeled over. A black arrow jutted from his liver. Rimon screamed for the sailing master to seize the helm, but the officer balked. Rimon sputtered curses and stepped to grab the wheel, but even he quailed. To touch the wheel was to die. Rimon squinted aloft. Two archers were crammed hip to hip in Conch's crow's nest. They'd kicked a slat out of the wooden tub and hunkered inside, hiding from crossbow bolts while peeking for a chance to kill a helmsman.

Snarling, Rimon raged, "We'll steer by trimming the sails! Jump aboard, lads and lasses!"

"Whoa! What's that thing?" called a voice. Puzzled corsairs pointed overhead and were confused anew.

Something round swung on the end of a rope from below Conch's midmast. It was a barrel, a big one called a hogshead, wrapped with a cradle of rope. Cut loose at just the right moment, the hogshead swung a looping arc, curved through the air as the ship dipped, then hung, poised, not three feet below Drumfish's own crow's nest. Before it could swing back, a vision of orange and black spilled from the barrel.

Immediately Rimon thought of infernal fire, the flaming liquid so often used against castles.

But the barrel spilled a tiger.

Braced by black claws sunk inside the barrel, Jedit Ojanen leaned out with long arms and snagged Drumfish's rigging. For a few seconds, Jedit made a living bridge connecting one ship to the other. Several things happened.

The brownie Whistledove Kithkin scampered like a monkey up Jedit's great frame, hopped onto tarred rigging with a rapier in her fist, and lanced the blade through the eye of the lookout leaning from the crow's nest. Immediately after, Jasmine Boreal, less nimble but game, slithered from the barrel. Grabbing hanks of tiger fur, she scrambled hand-overhand until she caught hold in the ropeworks. Jedit Ojanen gave a roar, obviously a signal, for the line holding the barrel to Conch was chopped free. The tiger relaxed his foothold, and the barrel plummeted. It bounced off a stay, collided with the midmast, then struck the deck with a splintering crash.

Gallons of rancid fishy liquid squirted from broken staves and hoops to splash the raider crew, a longboat, sails, and ropes. A few corsairs recognized the smell and shouted.

High above, clinging to rigging by one hand, Jasmine Boreal jerked a wad of resin-soaked rags from her bodice and gabbled, "Spark of life, bringer of strife!"

As the rags erupted into crackling flames, she dropped them squarely into the shattered spilled mess below.

Whale oil ignited and flared. Flames rippled like fire sprites set free. Shouting corsairs dropped their weapons and yanked off their vests to beat the flames or else snatched buckets to scoop seawater.

Though the fire burned fiercely, the ship could spare a score of sailors to combat it. The rest of the raiders, incensed by this daring and clever attack, rallied to kill the Conch and its quarrelsome crew. Grapnels and chains were sheeted home, so the two ships chafed and thumped like butting whales. Roaring to spur their courage, and ignoring the queer curtain amidships, a score of corsairs leaped the churning gap onto Conch's gunwales and ratlines. Several even took advantage of the taut curtain and flopped against it as a cushion.

Those clever killers died instantly.

Waiting just behind the upraised curtain were Adira, Virgil, Peregrine, Murdoch, and Simone the Siren. The misplaced sail obscured their view of Drumfish, but they clearly saw silhouettes of boarding corsairs etched against canvas by-setting sun behind. Hollering like fiends, Adira's crew shoved boarding pikes into bellies and groins right through the canvas. Drumfishers died as their blood stained the yellow curtain.

Nor was that the only attack. At either end of the taut sheet were poised Adira and Simone, the ablest fighters. Each gripped a cutlass and dagger, and as corsairs thumped on the sides or slithered around the canvas, they stabbed and chopped at heads, hands, and feet. Adira cursed and shouted as she swung wildly with both blades, and she prayed her delaying tactics would work. Dozens of corsairs could easily evade her weird curtain and bloodthirsty crew by swarming aboard at the ship's stem and bow, but Conch's crew would have to deal with those raiders, for even Adira Strongheart couldn't do everything.

High in the sky, Jedit, Whistledove, and Jasmine had carried the assault back aboard Drumfish. Her lookout in the crow's nest died as he peered over the wooden side, for Whistledove's blade rammed into his brain. Jedit Ojanen caught the man's arm and tugged him from the crow's nest to topple to the deck. He shooed Jasmine and the brownie up into the tiny tub as sizzling crossbow bolts came soaring at them from below. The ship's midmast was still two feet thick even at this height, filling much of the tiny shelter, so the three Seveners were jammed cheek to cheek.

The tiger called, "Jasmine, time for your trick!"

"Hush! I don't perform 'tricks!' " Shooting her blue-dyed sleeves, the strawberry-blonde druid plucked an acorn from a pouch on her wide belt and mashed it against the mast with her thumb, chanting, "Soul of the tree, return unto thee!"

Drumfish shivered as if rocked by a wind gust. Jedit and Whistledove grunted as the mast's varnish curdled and cracked, flaking yellow peelings. Smooth wood grew corrugated and crazed, taking on the appearance of live bark. The brownie squeaked as a tiny branch popped out and unfurled a green leaf no bigger than her fingernail.

The ship quivered so much that Jasmine's teeth rattled. An enormous groaning and creaking sounded below. The shouting of corsairs, very loud as they fought both fire and Adira's cutthroats, became a frenzied wail. Jedit nodded as the tiny branch unfurled more leaves.

"Impressive, but if the mast is recalled to life, and sprouts leaves up here…"

"That's right." The druid was smug, almost laughing. "Down below it grows a full set of roots. Where the butt of the mast is stepped on the keel."

Whistledove's big eyes grew round. Jedit Ojanen purred as if to comfort himself. Rising, standing high above the world in the crow's nest, the tiger found no one shooting. The whale-oil fire had scorched a black circle but been knocked down, though a few errant flames crackled up tarred stays. A pitched battle raged along Conch's gunwales until blood painted wood, ropes and canvas, but now corsairs struggled to board Conch not to kill and plunder, but to save their lives.

Drumfish was disintegrating. Deck planks buckled and split around the midmast as it swelled in its narrow socket. Water spurted in jets as the hull breached and caved under the monstrous pressure of spreading tree roots. Ropes and yards strained too far snapped like kindling. Corsairs ran hither and yon, some shouting incoherent orders, some just shouting.

No one got help from their officers. The sailing master and others lay dead or dying in glistening pools of blood on the quarterdeck. Only Rimon could move. He'd sheltered behind the binnacle but even then caught a long barbed arrow through his hip. One leg hung lame, and blood ran in a river. Surely he'd die, he thought, while his ship crumbled to flotsam. Yet he might survive and even gain revenge with one last trick. Gasping in agony, the corsair captain dug in a pouch for the black lacquered nautilus shell given him by the mysterious Johan. Rimon had no clue what it might do except "help him win." With nothing to lose, he popped the wax seal with his thumb and flung the seashell overboard.

Swaying high up in Drumfish's crow's nest, Jedit and Whistledove and Jasmine stared through a wealth of open air at Sister Wilemina and Heath staring back from Conch's nest. From their shocked looks, the two archers reckoned their comrades were in dire straits. Two comrades agreed. Whistledove Kithkin and Jasmine Boreal clutched the tub's edge and peered down into dizzying space. So much rigging had parted, or threatened to snap, they had no trustworthy path to descend. More than a score of corsairs had taken refuge from the churning deck in nearby yards, but even then some were whiplashed into the hungry ocean.

Whistledove asked, "What's the plan to get back aboard?"

"There isn't one," squeaked Jasmine. "Adira said we'd think of it when the time came."

Watching the chaotic fracas below, Jedit Ojanen said, "The time has come, and Adira's busy. I've an idea. Hang on. Better yet, lock arms around the mast."

"Why?" asked both women, but Jedit just slid out of the crow's nest.

New to the sea and sailing, Jedit Ojanen didn't know exactly how ships were held together, but some facts were obvious. From atop the mainmast, he looked around at a dozen tarred ropes called stays that held the tall mast upright. Some of the stays ran all the way to the ship's sides, while others were fastened to the first and third masts. The precise arrangement was bewildering to any landlubber, but Jedit understood one simple fact-cut the stays and the mast would topple.

Starting on the side distant from the Conch of Cards, hanging by one leg and paw, the great man-tiger skittered like a spider over ropework and severed each one either by champing mighty fangs or hooking razor claws. Curious pungs and pings and prongs made weird music, as if a demented giant plucked a harp to pieces. There was an ominous creaking as the magiked mast began to tilt, then screams. Corsairs cowering in the tops howled at the destruction. Marauders on the deck below pointed and yelled. Inside the crow's nest, the brownie and druid hugged the shivering mast until their fingernails drew blood.

Jasmine objected, "This is mad! He'll get us-Whoaaaa!"

To the creak of tortured wood and snapping stays, the midmast-turned-tree tipped farther, then farther, then toppled and crashed amid the upperworks of the Conch. Whistledove and Jasmine barely had time to scream before the tilted crow's nest snarled and stopped dropping. Great furry striped paws caught their arms and hoisted them from the sideways nest. The women clutched warm fur in stark terror as Jedit pinned them with one arm and, single-handed, descended safely to the solid deck.

"By the balls of Boris!" Murdoch slapped the tiger on the back. "I've never seen an escape half as wild as that! Never seen a keener nor more crazy battle either!"

The Circle of Seven laughed, jubilant at their impossible victory'. Adira's crew was spattered with blood and panting with exertion, but aside from cuts and bruises, no one was hurt. Their victory was doubly sweet because they watched from safety while their enemies perished in panic.

The ships were still lashed together by grapnels with iron chains, and ground together with a nerve-grating racket. The corsair's midmast, now more a living tree than dead mast, stayed fetched among Conch's upperworks. Ropes and sails continued to sheer as the mast sawed back and forth. The guts of Drumfish had been torn out by tree roots wrenched awry, so the ship broke up on the angry gray waves, sinking fast. Corsairs shouted for succor while chucking jetsam on the ocean to cling to, knowing they'd never last ten minutes in the frigid water. A few raiders clung to the outer gunwale of the Conch, terrified to return to their dying vessel but more terrified of Adira's madmen. Aboard Drumfish, flames licked at tarred lines like fireworks, ropes and deadeyes dangled and swayed, and the quarterdeck seemed a chamel house with bodies strewn like oyster shells. Blood streaked sails, decking, and lines, and trickled out the scuppers to dapple the dark water. Captain Edsen bawled for his crew to grab axes and cut away the entangling mast before it dragged them under. Men and women raced to obey, for with the corsair ship almost gone, they recalled the danger of crashing on rocks to the east.

Adira Strongheart commanded her own crew. "Belay the backslapping! Help cut that curtain and this rubbish free! Find a crowbar and wrench loose those grapnels, or Drumfish will drag us to the bottom! Whistledove, get aloft and watch for rocks! Jedit, grab what corsairs you can and haul 'em aboard! We need every hand we can spare, and I don't care where they hail from! Virgil, cut loose that curtain-"

"What's that noise?" chirped Sister Wilemina. "It's not the wind, but it howls like a pack of dire wolves!"

"Danger to port!" shrilled a woman from the forecastle. "White water under our keel!"

"What?" Adira Strongheart jumped to the bloody rail and peered overside. White water in a ship's lee could only mean rocks, a spine-chilling notion. Yet they should be safely distant.

Under the stricken Drumfish, the ocean boiled. Adira caught her breath as gray water seemed to sink, a dizzying sight. Two currents ran in opposite directions, one north and one south. The corsair ship lurched as timbers pulled in two directions groaned. The pirate queen cursed in confusion. Conflicting currents meant either a rip or "All hands!" bawled Adira. "All hands drop all tasks and make sail! We skirt a whirlpool bound to suck us under!"