Page 8 of Take No Prisoners
"That should sink her," Olivia said.
They'd done a little too well. The ship was sinking fast.
"Stan?" Efren looked to the earth weaver for his assessment.
"Total loss. We'll have to work quick to scuttle her. I'll be able to salvage anything that floats, but I can't repair her enough to keep her from sinking. She's just too big."
That was Efren's assessment, too. He could hold back the water for only so long.
"All right. We'll board her, capture Vadim, put his sailors in the hold for questioning, and rescue any conscripted weavers we can. Agreed?"
"Yes, Captain."
"Wish we had a seeker to know where the prisoners are," Olivia said.
Efren wished the same thing, but there were too few and the emperor paid seekers too well to turn them to piracy. They could identify weavers among the mundane, even when they weren't using their powers. Efren had been lucky to be around suppressors his whole life, first his uncle, and now Olivia. They'd been damn lucky Vadim hadn't turned them all in five years ago, too. Why he hadn't was beyond Efren. Vadim had seen them all in action and could point out their specific skills to the general in a line-up.
Maybe now Efren could extract some answers.
They pulled alongside the sinking ship expecting a fight, but the crew held up their hands and one waved a graying dishrag in surrender.
"Where is your captain?"
"I'll come willingly." Vadim stepped out of the shadows of the cabin. He raised both of his hands to show they were gloved. No fight, then. This wasn't what Efren had expected at all.
"Olivia, cuff him and take him to my cabin. We'll put the others in the false hold. Where are the prisoners?"
"You'll be lucky if any are left, waterspout." A sickly young man with auburn hair and a hard sneer crossed his arms over his chest.
"That's the seeker," Olivia confirmed. She locked Vadim in irons and pushed him toward the plank between their ships.Imperial Foolwas so deep in the water now that it was almost a straight shoot across.
"You'd better hurry," Vadim said. "It might be better if they died. If General Coryn can do what she thinks she can with her new toy, we're all in deep shit."
Efren rushed across the gangplank. He ordered his crew to tie up the sailors and take them for questioning. Most were conscripted weavers and would be set free at a port as far from the emperor asStarlight Spectercould take them.
Vadim cried out as though something had attacked him and fell to the deck.
"What the fuck is wrong with you?" Olivia kicked him in the side.
In two strides, Efren fell to his knees beside his former lover. Vadim writhed on his back, gripping his head with both gloved hands, the chain rattling between them.
"Find the potter from Landale," Vadim whispered, "before he takes us all down with him."
Efren dashed down the stairs into the dark hold. The top hold was already half-full of water. There was a second level below, and from the way the ship was sinking, that level was already full.
He dipped his fingers into the water, searching for signs of life.
∞∞∞
Niall
Dead. Everyone else in the hold was dead. Niall didn't know how he knew it, but he knew.
Wait. There was one little trickle of life in the water. A little girl, barely over the age of seven. Fire. She could weave fire, and she was terrified of the water filling her cell, but she couldn't leave her ... brother. Her brother had been an earth weaver.
There was water in Niall's cell, too, but he didn't experience the same level of dread as the little fire starter. He'd been around water all his life. He'd loved sailing on his parents' sloop. Once he'd been apprenticed, the pottery shop was close enough to the wharf he could sneak there to dip his feet in the water whenever Master Othelio's expectations were too high to reach, which had been often.
Fortunately, the blast that had torn a hole in the side of the ship had also damaged the locking mechanism on Niall's cell door, and he was able to swim to them. He didn't know how he'd survived the blast or the smoke, but he didn't have time to wonder. They needed him.
