Page 165 of The Sea Witch
Snarling, enraged, the officer kept pushing forward. His expression set in fury, Ben plowed his cutlass’s bell-shaped guard into Oliver’s face. Blood spewed and Oliver collapsed, out cold. With his boot, Ben kicked Oliver down the bulwark, where he lay in an unconscious heap. One of the marines dragged Oliver toward the beached naval cutter.
Alys ran to her crew, and Ben joined them. “I need everyone’s magic to end this. Ben, Dayanna, Inés, keep their men back.”
Stasia placed her hands on Ben and the two women’s swords, recharging them with fresh, glowing energy. He and the crew members positioned themselves at the top of the bulwark. Their swords flashed as they fought back surges of marines. Dayanna cried out when one of the infantrymen slashed across her shin, yet she kept fighting.
“What we need, my beauties, is a storm.” Alys looked at each of the witches in turn. “The biggest, fiercest tempest any of us have ever summoned.”
“Take hold of each other’s hands,” Stasia instructed. “Invite the largest squall you can. Gather the clouds. Implore the rain. Bring them all to us.”
Alys held Stasia’s hand, and she took hold of Thérèse’s, and so on, until everyone was linked. Closing her eyes was an act of faith, when so much chaos and uncertainty surrounded Alys, but there was no choice. She reached toward the magic flowing through her and all the other women.
Their strands wove together in a bright living thing. Twining from many threads into a powerful braid of many colors.
With that braid, she cast out into the sky. She called upon the countless storms that swirled over the Caribbean, all the squallsand tempests and gales scattered over the sea. The water within her own body resounded with the force of so many storms, gathering them.
Wind buffeted her. She opened her eyes. Thick dark clouds raced across the sky toward the island as the leviathan continued to swim toward the shore. The clouds were heavy, shadowed with the promise of rain. The sky turned the color of soot.
Alys pulled the vial from the pouch on her belt. She unstoppered the cork and held the vial aloft, all the while summoning the upward flight of a seabird. Under her breath, she murmured coaxing words.
The potion within the vial rose up in a spiral. It wheeled and dipped through the air as it went higher and higher, until it disappeared into the gathering storm clouds.
The winds howled. The clouds shifted. Their color changed, from dark gray to a shimmering blue.
A streak of lightning pierced the air, followed by a crack of thunder. And then it rained. A blue glittering rain that fell on the island, the ships in the bay, the waves, and the massive creatures in the bay, including the leviathan twisting through the waves toward them.
Rain drenched everyone, dripping from their hair, and gleaming on their skin. Water soaked into the bulwark, and the sand beneath their feet shifted. The fortification buckled.
Fighting to stay on her feet, Alys stared out into the cove, watching, waiting. Hoping.
She pointed toward the creatures. “Their eyes.”
The change was clear. The creatures’ slitted pupils widened. The krakens, the leviathan, and the massive shark all shook themselves as if waking from a dream. For a moment, the creatures seemed disoriented, swimming in circles. Suddenly, they broke away and made for open water. The shark thrashed, breaking its ropes, and also swam free.
As one of the krakens passed the second naval ship, it lashed out with a tentacle, shattering the mainmast. The ship lost its mobility and drifted sideways.
Swimming past theJupiter, the leviathan tore the hull with its claws, scoring long deep holes in the planks. Men shouted in the distance and the flagship listed to one side.
And then the creatures were gone. The storms abated, quieting, but the water containing the potion floated out to sea in shimmering blue eddies. It would spread across the Caribbean and other oceans, other seas, setting free all the creatures that had been forced to fight someone else’s battles.
Alys’s heart lifted, and her crew let out jubilant sounds. Ben didn’t smile, but there was relief in his eyes.
A moment later, the cutters carrying more armed marines, as well as the naval admiral and mage, landed fifty feet down the beach. Men disembarked in regimented order as they prepared to attack. The infantrymen from the first assault kept advancing.
The battle was far from over.
Under Alys’s feet, the bulwark continued to shift and disintegrate. She turned to her witches. “Bring it down!”
She, Stasia, Thérèse, and Susannah stamped their feet into the sand. The bulwark shuddered. Then it collapsed on top of the first group of marines.
Regaining her balance, Alys turned toward the next wave of armed men. There had to be at least two dozen of them. Their postures were upright, their steps assured as they marched up the beach to Alys and her crew. None of them were bent by battle fatigue, as she and her crew were. Holding out against them, defeating them, wasn’t possible.
Alys and her crew had used the fail-safe, but they wouldn’t leave this beach alive.
A thunderous roar shook the skies as cannons bellowed. Streaks of blue and purple and green energy arced across thewater. Magically charged cannon balls crashed into the new group of marines and exploded in a deafening boom. All that was left of the men was smoldering sand.
TheSea Witchsailed back into the bay. Smoke plumed from its cannons.
At the sight of their ship’s return, Alys and her crew shouted in relieved welcome.
