Mikaen understood, his eyes narrowing. “Or cut by the passing keel of a swyftship.”
“Before it raced off again,” Haddan added, letting the prince go.
“You think they dropped something—or someone—off down there.” Mikaen glared over at Haddan, but his anger was not directed at the general.
Kanthe …
Haddan sighed his agreement. “While those we hunt had been aboard that swyftship, I now believe they’re backtracking to Havensfayre.”
“What do we do?” Mikaen asked.
“We continue with the original plan. My men across the lake will bring down that swyftship and haul anyone who survives over for questioning. In the meantime, the Tytan will close the noose below. Once we reach the town’s mooring fields, we’ll offload our forces and scour Havensfayre, scorching our way from one end to the other.”
Mikaen glanced back to the marked-up map and acknowledged the wisdom of this dogged strategy. He forced his hammering heart to slow. “Plainly I still have much to learn.”
“You’re still young.” Haddan clapped him on the shoulder. “But fear not, with time I will forge you into a war king, one cunning and bold enough to challenge the gods.”
Mikaen straightened under his hand, accepting this truth—and another.
Before that happens, I must first rid the Crown of my brother, a bastard sister, and that accursed knight.
* * *
CROUCHED OVER THE wheel of the sailraft, Graylin raced his small skiff along the shoreline of the Heilsa. He stayed hidden in the mists, keeping the bright waters glowing through the fog to his right, using it to guide him around the lake.
Earlier, he had shot out of the back of the Sparrowhawk as soon as the swyftship had entered the mists on Heilsa’s far side. Darant had turned his craft sharply to the east, allowing Graylin to jettison to the west.
Darant’s larger craft had fired its forges with bright spirals of flashburn and lured the wolves in the clouds along his blazing trail, affording Graylin the opportunity to escape unseen. Once free, he sped the skiff—specially designed by the pirate with larger flashburn tanks for attacking sailing ships—and circled around the western shore of Heilsa.
He finally reached the blasted path left behind by the warship. He turned to follow, intending to close upon the larger ship in its wake. Still, he felt like a minnowette hunting a rockshark.
As he flew, his boots worked the pedals, firing the port or starboard flashburn forges to wing his narrow craft back and forth, from cool mist to hot smoke and back again. He only fired his forges when the skiff sailed over the smoky trail left by the warship. The conflagration below helped mask his raft’s tiny flames. Each fiery burst boosted him faster, so when he reentered the foggy mists, he could go dark and sweep silently through the cloud layer.
Burst by burst, he sped after his huge target. He was a weaving arrow, relentlessly aiming for the warship. Behind him, the hold of the sailraft was lined by two rows of wooden barrels, all on their sides and lined atop a slanted, oiled rack. The slope pointed out the open stern of the skiff. The alchymical-filled casks were held in place by ropes. His knees bumped against the levers to either side that would free those ropes and send a barrage raining out the back.
But first I have to reach that sarding gasbag.
Darant had warned him of the futility of such an attack, even offering to send one of his own crew on this attempt, a brigand who he claimed would be far more skilled at such a raid.
Graylin had refused.
I must do this.
He would not sacrifice another to settle the debt he owed Marayn’s daughter. He gripped the wheel harder. He had left Kalder with the pirate, so if Graylin failed here, he would have honored his word to the man. Darant would have the vargr promised to him.
But more than anything, his words to Marayn’s daughter were etched across his mind’s eye, as fiery as the path he followed. I abandoned you and your mother long ago. Hoping to lure the king’s legions away. I won’t fail you this time.
“And I will not,” he swore aloud.
He continued east along the northern shore of Heilsa, winging from smoke to mists, keeping the glow of the open lake to his right. Finally, the fiery trail smothered out, marking where the warship had drifted out over the water.
Graylin did not slow. He raced ahead until the brightness to his right was eclipsed by a dark shadow.
The warship …
He turned toward it with a spin of his wheel. His boots hovered over the flashburn pedals, but he held off slamming them down. Not until the last moment. He could not risk exposing his presence until then.
Still, his caution was to no avail.
High and to his left, a dark shadow shredded through the clouds, spiraling the mists in its wake.
Then Graylin’s sailraft shot out of the mists and over the sunny lake. The warship towered ahead. A cannon smoked from its port flank. Others fired with spats of flames. A barrage of black iron filled the sky.
Graylin realized several details at once. He had exited the clouds too low. The sailraft had come out even with the massive ship’s keel. Still, it was his low height that spared him now. The cannonballs shot over his craft and into the forest behind him.
He slammed both pedals. Fire shot out the skiff’s stern, shooting the sailraft forward. He hauled on the wheel, driving the nose up. He was thrown against his seatback, but he kept his legs braced to the pedals, never letting up on his burn.
The raft slipped behind the first salvo of cannon fire.
Before the legion’s forces could reload and firm their aims, he blasted toward the warship. The skiff climbed the levels of the huge craft. It grew to fill the raft’s windows. He passed the long row of cannons bristling from the hull. As he cleared the height of the rails, he spotted men racing across the middeck.
Graylin leaned over his wheel, craning upward. He still had to get above the balloon, a mountainous ascent that looked impossible. He held his breath, praying for the tanks of flashburn to hold out long enough until he could summit this gasbag’s peak.
But the cannons were the least of the warship’s armament.
Fiery spears suddenly lanced through the air all around him, shot from the line of ballista that fringed the deck rails. Smoky trails barred the skies all around.
He held his breath, never slowing.
He prayed to all the gods to grant him this one bit of salvation.
He was judged not worthy.
A spear of iron, trailing a swirl of flames, shot past his window. The raft jolted violently as the balloon was struck—then a whooshing blast of fire spun the skiff through the air.
As the raft plummeted, Graylin fought the whirl by releasing one pedal and keeping the other pressed hard. Fire died on one side and blazed on the other. The dizzying view outside slowed enough for him to catch stuttering peeks of the warship’s balloon rising next to him as his skiff spiraled downward.
He ground his teeth.
Before I die, I’ll do what damage I can.
He aimed the nose of his juddering raft at the open deck as it rushed up toward him. He shoved both pedals, firing all tanks. The kick of fresh flames drove his skiff toward the middeck, dragging the shredded ruins of his balloon behind him.
He watched men dash across the deck, running to either side.
The prow of his raft shattered through the portside rail and crashed between two giant ballista. The skiff’s keel skidded across the deck, sending the craft spinning like a flat rock across still waters.