Page 78 of The Sea Witch
Ben pressed a hand against his stomach, yet it leapt and quivered as the moon rose in the night sky.
A strip of land appeared on the horizon. They drew closer and closer, until Ben could make out a beach and the walled fortress beyond it. The citadel was low and brutal, thickly walled, an ugly hulk squatting two hundred feet from the water’s edge. A few high cliffs jutted out and partially covered the walls, scuttling any attempts to fire on the fortress from the water.
Nausea rose in Ben’s throat. There had been a time, not long ago, that he hadn’t allowed himself to consider the implications of Kinnear’s trade. Yet looking at the enslaver’s compound, evasion was impossible. Cruelty was baked into the heavy walls, designed to keep human beings penned in like cattle.
And the navy hadnegotiatedwith him, to protect hisbusiness.
“Time to help our sisters,” Alys said when Stasia, Jane, and Thérèse approached.
As Alys climbed down into a waiting cutter, she sent Ben one searing look. And then she was gone, off on her mission.
Chapter Seventeen
Nearing its zenith, the moon gleamed in the night sky. It wouldn’t be much longer now.
Alys was on one oar, Stasia, Jane, and Thérèse on the others. With Eris on her shoulder, Stasia whispered under her breath, calling forth waves to push the mostly empty cutter quickly toward the shore. Thérèse added her own spell, spoken lowly, to muffle the sounds of their oars and dull the sound of the cutter’s prow through the water. Even so, Alys’s breath came quiet and shallow.
Silently, they made their way to the beach. Tiny lights ahead drew Alys’s attention. Torches lined the heavy walls surrounding Kinnear’s compound. Against the flickering flames, she counted silhouettes of five guards on top of the walls. They stood ready, yet no one seemed in a state of alarm. Not yet.
A forty-foot-wide strip of beach met them as they landed. Alys readied to jump from the cutter. Magic still clung to the cutter, muting their splashes as they eased out of the boat. Soundlessly, they dragged the cutter onto the sand.
Alys nudged Stasia, then pointed to a dock jutting out into the way. An unmanned cutter was tied to the pier, rising and falling as it sat upon the water.
From their own boat, Alys grabbed a small ceramic pot and boar-bristle paintbrush. She tucked the brush into her belt,double-checked that her pistol was primed and ready and then pulled tatters of shadows to cloak her and her crew so that even as the moon glowed, darkness engulfed them.
Sand muffled their steps as they crept up the beach. Kinnear’s fortress emerged from the gloom, its bulky black shape growing more menacing the closer they got to it. The walls loomed, easily twenty feet high. A massive oaken door kept the compound secure. A guard tower stood atop the wall. Flickering torchlight revealed two sentries beside the tower, leaning on their long guns, and their voices drifted down to where Alys and her crew slunk closer.
“...ready to find me some company...”
“...in Bridgetown... heard they’ve... can’t walk straight for a week...”
Alys and Stasia pressed against the wall beside the door, and Jane and Thérèse took the other side. The heavy stone was cold and jutting against Alys’s back.
The moon slid higher in the sky. Only a matter of minutes before it reached its peak.
With shadows still clinging to her, Alys hurried to the giant door. She opened the small ceramic pot and the sharp scent of oil and ground tamarind rose up. After dipping the brush into the pot, she began painting a lightning bolt and angled stripes on the door’s thick wooden planks.
She couldn’t render the symbol and keep the shadows around her and the crew. The darkness around them sifted away.
At the same time, the moon reached its highest point.
The ground beneath her feet shuddered. An explosion ripped through the night. Shouts rose up on the other side of the door, and gunfire popped.
It had begun.
Alys hurried to finish painting while sentries on the wall above fired into the compound. Someone cried out.
As Alys worked, Stasia, Jane, and Thérèse moved away fromthe wall. They aimed pistols at three guards gathered atop the barricade, then fired. The men pitched forward as magic-charged bullets pierced them.
Three more guards ran along the parapet and fired down at Alys and her crew. Stasia threw up a shield, and the bullets ricocheted off the spell, slamming into the wall and sending down chips of stone.
At last, the symbol was finished.
“Take your positions,” she called to her crew.
She and the others sprinted away from the door. They hurled themselves down into the sand. Alys raised up and threw a magical flare of light into the sky.
From far off came the sound of theSea Witch’s cannon booming. A streak of green arced through the sky. The cannon ball went wide, a blaze of light trailing after it.
