Siege of Stone

CHAPTER 78

Ten Norukai ships smashed into Serrimundi Harbor, skirting the wreck of the kraken hunter, like wolves ignoring prey they had already killed.

From the docks, Nicci shouted, using her gift to manipulate the air so that her voice boomed out. “The Norukai will destroy the harbor. Prepare to fight.”

The wishpearl divers forgot about their lewd laziness. “The woman isn’t lying.”

A second diver looked appalled at what he witnessed. “We have seen Norukai before. They are animals. They don’t care about money or wishpearls, just flesh.”

“I heard just this morning that Effren was burned to the ground, everyone slaughtered by Norukai raiders. I didn’t believe it.”

Nicci narrowed her eyes. “Believe it. Are you going to help fight now?” She was surprised the men actually lurched to their feet.

The burning krakener sank slowly at the mouth of the harbor. Sailors raced back to their ships from the city streets and dockside taverns. Once aboard, crew members climbed the rigging, unfurled sails. Several ships anchored in the open water prepared to set sail, though Nicci doubted they could get past the Norukai vessels blocking the exit to the sea.

Farther down the wharf, Captain Ganley of the Mist Maiden yelled for his sailors to return. “We need to get to open water, where we can defend ourselves!” Half of his sailors obeyed, crowding the deck to fight for their ship, while the less brave ones bolted into side streets to hide in the fish markets and warehouses. Other Serrimundi residents fled into the hills.

The ten serpent ships pressed into the harbor in search of easy targets. A volley of flaming arrows set a cargo ship alight, and as its sails caught fire, many of the crew dove overboard to escape. A Norukai vessel careened against its hull with a crash and crack of splintering wood. Scarred raiders leaped over the rails wielding axes, swords, and clubs to slaughter the remaining sailors on the cargo ship.

Harborlord Otto ran down the dock with his daughter in tow. Seeing Nicci, he cried out. “Sorceress, you warned us! I’m sorry. Now we have to fight. What should we do?”

“You should have maintained defenses all along,” Nicci said in a harsh voice. “Did the Imperial Order teach you nothing?”

Otto was flushed. “Emperor Jagang spared us because we had no navy. We paid him heavy taxes, and his armies moved up the coast without wasting blood or effort on conquering us. We thought Serrimundi was safe.”

“The Norukai are not interested in a tithe or your surrender. They are here to destroy. I watched them burn Renda Bay. Serrimundi is just a bigger target to them.” She wondered how many other coastal towns the raiders had already struck.

Nicci stared at the oncoming serpent ships and the coordinated rows of oars that propelled them forward. Two of the ominous vessels closed on either side of a cargo ship that lumbered toward the mouth of the harbor. They crashed into the helpless ship, boarded it, and methodically killed every sailor aboard in a very short time.

Otto squeezed his daughter’s shoulder and gave her a push toward the city and the hills. “Go to the old house, Shira. Find your children and hide. Barricade the doors in case the Norukai make it into the city.”

The young woman’s eyes filled with tears. “I can’t leave you, Father. I can’t leave my fiancé.” She gestured back to the Mist Maiden.

“You must not leave your children,” he said. “Now, go!”

Nicci added, “If the Norukai get into the streets and ransack the city, then that means your father and husband are already lost.” She turned her hard gaze to the harborlord. “We can’t let that happen.” She regarded all the vessels tied up to the docks, including the Mist Maiden. “We need to make use of these ships. They cannot just wait here to be burned and they cannot try to flee. Look—you have a navy here, and it is ready to launch, if the captains and crew are willing to fight.”

“They are—or they will be.”

With booming drums, the serpent ships pressed into the harbor, attacking any vessel that attempted to get away. The Norukai launched volleys of fire arrows. Most of them fell short, but some struck the extended piers of Serrimundi, while others hit smaller fishing vessels. The flames started to spread.

Nicci held out her hands, called upon her gift, and pushed, sending a focused whirlwind to scour and whip past the ships. The wind snuffed out the small fires before they could catch hold, and she hammered again with an even stronger wind, raising whitecaps that rocked the foremost Norukai vessel.

After Shira ran off, Otto turned to Nicci. “Now that I know she is safe, what do we do?”

Nicci saw that the Mist Maiden was almost ready to depart, with Captain Ganley shouting orders. His sailors untied the hawsers from the docks. “That will be our flagship. You know the captain. Will he follow orders?”

“He will know he has to save sweet Shira and her children.”

As Nicci turned to run with the harborlord toward the three-masted ship, she called to the four wishpearl divers, “You want to fight? I have a job for you. Are you brave enough?”

With a haughty retort, the man who had made the lewd comments said, “Don’t insult us.”

“Then don’t give me reason to. Come!”

The shirtless men sprinted after her to the Mist Maiden, running up the gangplank. Captain Ganley bellowed to the crew members who had stayed with him to defend the ship. His well-practiced sailors moved the webs of lines, stretching the sails, and Nicci used her gift to nudge the sailing ship into motion. Other vessels nearby were also setting their sails. The crews armed themselves with boat hooks and staves.

Harborlord Otto ran to the Mist Maiden’s bow and shouted to the other ships. “We have to drive off the invaders or they will burn Serrimundi. Fight for our city, fight for our families!”

Captain Ganley said, “Many of those ships don’t even hail from Serrimundi, Otto.”

“Then they will fight for their own lives,” Nicci said. “That should be enough reason for anybody.”

She pushed with the wind, assisting the sails, and the Mist Maiden pulled away from the docks, accompanied by three nearby ships. At the edge of the harbor, near the stone figure of the Sea Mother, the krakener had dwindled to a mere curl of smoke, its blackened hulk submerged.

The attacking Norukai rowed swiftly, and the first serpent ship careened into the outlying piers. Raiders swarmed off the decks, and the townspeople rushed to defend the city, but Nicci couldn’t help them, not yet. Right now, she guided the naval attack against the other serpent ships.

“I will try to destroy five of them,” she said to Captain Ganley and Harborlord Otto. “For a start.”

“What are we supposed to do? How do we help?” demanded one of the wishpearl divers. “We didn’t come aboard just to watch.” His companions grumbled as well.

Instead of answering, Nicci turned to Ganley. “I need glass bottles with stoppers, one for each of these men. They will be carrying deadly weapons.”

Frowning, the captain turned to Otto. “What does she—?”

“Do as the sorceress asks. She warned us we might be attacked, and I refused to listen. I will heed whatever she has to say now.”

That was enough for Captain Ganley. He barked orders, and soon his first mate returned with four brown glass bottles from the galley. He uncorked the stoppers and poured the contents over the side, then handed the empty bottles to Nicci. She smelled the pungent tang of spiced liquids, pepper oils, and vanilla tinctures. “These will do.”

Ganley stood on the foredeck and shouted orders as the Mist Maiden moved forward, driven by Nicci’s magic. The serpent ships closed the distance, propelled by pounding drums and lines of razor-edged oars.

Nicci reaffirmed in her own mind how she would destroy five of them. She turned to the surly wishpearl divers. “You have strong lungs. Can you truly hold your breath for a long time?”

“That’s why we bear these marks!” The men indicated the tattoos on their chests.

“Then I need you to swim—deep,” she said.

Carefully, using great dexterity with the gift, Nicci conjured a small ball of wizard’s fire no larger than a grape and dropped it into the first brown glass bottle, suspending it with another spell to keep the destructive force bottled and ready. She pushed the cork into place, and the brown glass container blazed like a lantern. “This is what you need.” She handed it to the first diver, and created another ball of wizard’s fire to put into the second bottle, and then made two more, so that all four wishpearl divers had one.

“The raiders are closing in!” Ganley yelled.

With booming drums, the serpent ships approached the Mist Maiden. The crew cried out in defiance, building their anger in a desperate attempt to overcome their fear.

Otto turned to Nicci. “We are ready to fight, Sorceress. I hope your plan works.”

“Fight them and kill them,” Nicci said. “That is the plan.”

The Norukai aboard the approaching ships rallied an even louder cheer. With their mouths slashed and cheeks tattooed like serpents, the raiders looked like an inhuman army, but Nicci wasn’t so easily terrified.

“Overboard, now!” she told the wishpearl divers, after explaining what they needed to do. “You can win half the battle for us, if you succeed.”

Clutching their blazing glass bottles, the divers agreed upon their targets and plunged overboard, swimming deep.

Nicci looked over the rail and saw the bright lights submerging like glowing night wisps, which then began to move toward the serpent ships.

At the rim of the harbor, Nicci watched two more serpent ships crash among the docked vessels that had not yet managed to set sail. The Norukai threw torches to light the ships and piers on fire, and the blaze would surely spread to the warehouses. Serrimundi could become an inferno.

But before Nicci could fight that battle, she had to destroy these other attacking ships.

The crew of the Mist Maiden waved staves, swords, boat hooks, harpoons. Nicci targeted the carved serpent at the prow of the foremost ship and released a blast of wizard’s fire. The searing flames turned the serpent figurehead to ash.

The Norukai roared their outrage, and Nicci used wind to deflect the oncoming lead ship, shoving it aside so that instead of ramming them, it barely grazed the Mist Maiden. Even so, the ships were close enough that the Norukai men and women leaped across the gap, swinging axes, spears, and swords in mad bloodlust.

Nicci recognized their leader in his sharkskin vest and the implanted fang that protruded from his bald scalp. It was Captain Kor, one of the traders who had come to Ildakar to sell slaves. As his crew swarmed aboard the Mist Maiden, Kor sprang onto the deck. His hard boots landed with a thud. Screaming loudly, more raiders came across, ready to slaughter Captain Ganley’s crew.

The Mist Maiden’s sailors rushed to meet the enemy. Nicci strode forward, her ragged blond hair drifting in the wind, her black dress rippling as she built up her magic. She faced the Norukai captain, ready for blood.