Starsinger

The Bloodhound

The wind ripped at Katrina's hair. The ocean spray sang against her skin. Her heart pounded with the furious waves. Vengeance.

She bellowed commands to her scurrying crew. Faster, that's my girl, faster. The Drake cut through the ocean, straining every sail, and gaining on her prey. The Bloodhound was heavy in the water, armed with one forecannon and a dozen archers crowding the rail.

Katrina's lips curled in a cruel smile. Not enough. But she wasn't taking any chances. "Cally!"

From an empty cannon hole below, the young girl's hands appeared as she hoisted a copper bundle over the side. It hit the water and slowly began to unfurl, a loose net of copper threads spreading through the waves like a fist cracking open, fingers outstretched.

They pulled in front of the Bloodhound, squarely into cannon range. Katrina eyed the clot of activity at the ship's fore. Every moment in this position they were vulnerable.

But the trailing fingers of the net had drifted under the Bloodhound. She dropped belowdeck. "Neal!"

The mage lurched for the wooden crank Raelyn had assembled, setting the magnets of the device spinning around each other. A thick tension grew in the air. Static crackled along the wire that trailed into the ocean, weaving into the underwater net.

Katrina felt a shudder of anticipation. Neal, starting to sweat, grabbed a vibrant ruby hanging from his earlobe and hissed an old Vlynnish word. He pulled his hands free and the lightning device kept spinning, faster and faster, glowing teal.

Alright, Robin, let's see if your hatchling can fly. Katrina hoisted herself up to the deck. The crew of the Bloodhound was shoving powder into its forecannon. She braced herself for the boom.

Instead there came a hiss and a pop, and a shout as one of their powder monkeys jumped back from the rail, where the ocean had begun to boil.

All around the Bloodhound, the ocean fizzed and sprouted, shooting geysers high enough to spray the enemy deck. Along the thin copper wires of Raelyn's nearly invisible net, the chemical reaction intensified, and the geysers became explosions. Then came the first scream.

"Kur!"

Katrina watched with gleeful satisfaction as the crew of the Bloodhound broke. Some dove over the side, desperate to leave the doomed ship. Others scrambled for the crow's nest. Still others reeled about in fear, too panicked to obey Niko's barking commands.

Niko. She could see him now, in his ridiculous hat, trying to pull his crew together. Does he know it's a machine instead of a monster? He would soon enough, when the exploding tentacles of Great Kur failed to emerge, when Neal's force spell wore off. Just thunder and theatre.

But Katrina had the advantage now. Her blood was pounding in her ears. Niko. His sword sliding through Matty's stomach, gutting him like a fish. Matty's warm eyes, still as glass. Niko's smirk.

Gods, how she needed him to bleed.

"Fire!" The Drake fired off a round of cannons. All but one went wide. The other shattered the Bloodhound's starboard rail. Katrina shouted at her crew to bring the Drake around, slide the ships up deck to deck.

She was close enough now to see Niko's face. They locked eyes. His expression froze, and something hot snaked through her.

Katrina drew her sword. "To arms!" she yelled, and her crew screamed back in glorious fury.

For Matty.

The ships brushed together.

Hooks flew as the sailors lashed the two vessels together and Katrina's hand slapped against the rail as she launched herself over onto the deck of her enemies.

Two crewmen lunged for her and she opened their throats with a slash. Blood rushed out, hot and warm.

Are you proud of me, Matty? Probably not.

Another fellow rushed her and Katrina buried the edge of her blade in his belly. Niko was coming towards her now, slashing through the fray.

If you wanted me to be good, you should've stuck around.

They came together like a thunderclap. Metal collided with metal, vibrations shuddering up her sword arm and into her teeth. Niko bore down on her, trying to break her with his strength.

Kat slid her sword up his with a sound like glass grinding. She twisted Niko away and sucker punched him in the kidney. He choked and grabbed at her hair, yanking her head up and back. Katrina grit her teeth and dove forward before his blade could come slicing down on her neck, her scalp screaming as the handful of hair ripped from her head. She shoved her sword blindly toward his lower half and was rewarded with the feel of blade cutting through thigh to hit bone. Niko shouted and stumbled – and a slice of pain opened along her back, knocking her flat.

Katrina felt warm blood seeping from the wound, sticking her leather armor to her shirt and skin. Niko was regaining his feet. He was raising his sword high above his head. A death blow, if she didn't move.

But he'd left his middle wide open. For Matty.

A second before she lunged, she saw his face – soft beard, warm eyes, afraid for her, and angry. Matty wouldn't want this. He wouldn't want any of this. She could practically hear him yelling at her, his voice already an echo of a memory. Not for me, Kat. Don't do this for me.

She clenched her sword tight.

Fine. For me, then.

She launched forward and drove her sword up through Niko's stomach.

He froze, and his eyes went big and round as the moon. Kat realized belatedly that his sword was buried in her shoulder, not deep, his swing interrupted. For a moment they stood there, chest to chest, so close they shared breath. Katrina clutched the hilt of her sword where it pressed into his body. His blood poured over her clenched fists like warm water. He died.

And instead of vengeful satisfaction, she felt a catastrophic sense of nothing. A yawning emptiness that had been chasing her for weeks, since the night Matty died, finally swallowing her up. Her body was a void, hollowed by grief, icy and hungry and screaming.

But at least the nothing was hers.

A hatch on the middeck flew open and Katrina turned, pulling her sword free and letting Niko's body slump to the deck. From the hatch two hands appeared, a crop of bronze hair, and then two dark, bottomless eyes.

Katrina fought the urge to vomit at the wrongness of it. Ravens. That's what Robin had called them. A sudden terror froze her in place.

The Raven hoisted himself up on deck and raised his arms. Katrina saw his thin lips moving and lunged, too late. Crimson fire burned at his fingertips and flickered through the air. The Drake's topsail caught and roared with flame.

Katrina howled in agony. She sliced at the Raven but he stepped back at the last second. Another body was pulling onto the deck and she realized there were more of them coming, dozens maybe, climbing up from below, their black eyes pulling her in.

A burst of emerald light crashed into the Ravens, knocking them backwards. More spells rained down on the two ships in a glittering cascade of light and color. The Apprentices, Katrina realized, glancing up at the towering walls of Aster, where tiny figures hurtled magic towards the Drake and her enemies. They came through.

Before she could remember how to grin, three sailors heaved open an enormous trap door over the undercastle. A massive feathered shape launched towards the sky, a dark streak against the wide grey-blue. The Drake's archers raised their bows but the gryffin was already too high, beating its wings fiercely as it carried its rider towards the highest spires of Aster.