Page 102 of The Sea Witch
The marked men collapsed to the deck, dazed and motionless from the skin-to-skin contact. Women without magical power dashed forward, binding the men’s hands.
The mage spun around, anger bright in his cold eyes. He reached for a pouch hanging from his belt.
Blade out, Alys sprung toward him. Her cutlass slashed through his belt, and, using the tip of her sword, she flung the belt to the other side of the deck.
The mage kicked her in the stomach. She gasped as she flew backward.
He clapped his hands together, sending out waves of invisible force. The ship rocked.
“A signal,” she shouted to her crew. “For reinforcements.”
The mage chuckled. “Enjoy your last moments alive, witch.”
Alys ran at him. He pulled his cutlass, charged with glowing green energy. He leapt at her and she spun to evade his sword. She parried another strike, jolting from the force of his magic-infused weapon. Regaining her balance, she countered with her own blow. The mage snarled as they fought past the forms of dozens of marines and seamen littered the deck. Groggy and stupefied, they could only mutter and flop bonelessly as pirates bound their hands.
One of the seamen still on his feet turned a swivel gun toward theSea Witchand prepared to fire.
Gritting her teeth, Alys hurled lightning toward the swivel gun. The gunpowder in the weapon ignited and it exploded.
Pain blazed in her thigh. She screamed as the mage’s power-charged cutlass struck her in the leg. The wound was exactly where she’d cut him.
She buckled from the pain as his weapon remained stuck in her leg.
“Retribution tastes sweet.” He loomed over her, his hands upraised with the red light of a killing spell.
“Like honey.” She pulled the sword from her thigh and stabbed it through his foot. The blade sank through the leather of his boot, into flesh, muscle and bone, and into the deck.
The mage screamed. Yet when he tried to leap back, his pinned foot kept him trapped.
With her own cutlass, she stabbed into the center of his chest. The mage looked down at her sword, stuck between his ribs. He tried to pry the blade from his body, then fell backward. His lifeless eyes no longer glowed. His body went slack as his foot remained pinned to the deck. Blood, tainted with the glittering gleam from the potion, pooled on the wood.
Alys panted and stared at the mage’s body. Her leg buckled beneath her as blood poured from her wound.
The captain took a step toward her, his rapier raised.
“I would not.” Olachi pressed the tip of her cutlass against the captain’s throat. Slowly, he lowered his sword.
“She has a far better use for your ship,” Alys said to the captain, and Olachi nodded.
One by one, the remaining conscious seamen and marines laid down their weapons. They raised their hands in surrender.
Stasia was at Alys’s side, supporting her when she could barely hold her own weight. “Let us finish this.”
“Get the navy men in the jolly boats and cutters,” Alys commanded her crew as more blood flowed down her leg. “Lively, now. The hourglass quickly empties.”
The women did as they were instructed. They loaded theAjax’s crew into two jolly boats and two cutters. The boats lay low in the water, overfilled with the crew.
The captain was the last one set into a cutter. Just as he climbed into the small vessel, both theAjaxand theSea Witchjolted.
“Good. Fucking. God,” Alys growled.
Everyone, even the sailors and naval officers, cried out in alarm.
The sleek, sharp scales of a leviathan broke the waves. Circling theAjaxand theSea Witch,it twisted and spun in the water, long and serpentine, and impossibly huge. Its head, the size of a jolly boat, breached the surface. Glowing eyes with slitted pupils stared up at her. Opening its enormous mouth, rows of teeth like cutlasses flashed.
This was the nearest she’d ever been to a leviathan. Alys had seen one from a distance, back in St. Gertrude, when one had destroyed theDiabolique. This close, the size of the beast stole her breath. Fighting a creature such as this was hopeless.
Only one leviathan was known for attacking ships. Where that beast was, the naval flagship wouldn’t be far behind.
