As the first shot from the Langur’s chase guns hit the Paso Fino, the grounders fanned out into protected pockets of the ship. They had trained strategy depending on where they would be boarded, and the more senior had directed the newcomers as they waited. It was a smooth operation, even under stress.

  Another volley hit their port side. The Paso Fino responded with the few cannons that could land a shot on the narrow bow of the Langur.

  Nessa and Lotti were performing strongly against the Langur’s sages, though she could tell by Lotti’s face that they must be outnumbered. Nessa looked like the calm of a scrying pool, but she had not moved an inch since the ordeal began. They both had two complicated jobs. On top of sabotaging the Langur, they were responsible for positioning the Paso Fino.

  It wouldn’t be long until the sages lost the support of the sailors, who were currently collecting swords from the armory. The Langur would likely maintain its sailors, as it wasn’t their ship being boarded.

  Grey estimated that the Paso Fino had secured the advantage due to the archsages. This positioned the vanguard, led by Callum, a little further back on the deck. He would greet the boarders at their choke point at the bow of the Langur, along with Raya, Nile, and five other quality grounders.

  Finnean would navigate the high points in the sails, raining arrows on those escaping the vanguard and fixing other problems across the two ships. He was also the main defense against the other ship’s archers, a tall task with so many ebbjacks on the Langur. He had placed hundreds of arrows along the lower yard and tucked in the ratline and was currently raining long shots on poorly positioned sailors.

  Grey was stationed in the middle of the stomp deck, ready to clean up behind the vanguard. Callum and his grounders would funnel fighters to her, those he thought would overwhelm them or others that made sense strategically. Her fighting style appreciated room to move, and she would control the deck. Callum’s fighting style was a clusterfuck, and the choke point suited him.

  The majority of the grounders would stay spread around the skirts of the deck, keeping them somewhat shielded from arrows and allowing them an opportunity to move in and out of the fray. Callum and Grey would normally use their riptide bows, but half of their job today would be keeping arrows out of their grounders’ necks.

  The captain waited at the wheel, the last line of defense for Nessa and control of the Paso Fino.

  Grey parried down a few arrows launched from the Langur’s ebbjacks and checked again that everyone was in place. Aisling walked to her side, knocking an arrow out of its path as she did. They both looked towards Saphir, and Grey saw, with a sinking stomach, the Storm Eel cresting the waves at full sail.

  “You don’t prefer the spars and ratlines?” Grey asked, nodding upward and then looking down at the woman in muted charcoal cloaks. She had expected Aisling to be launching around overhead with Finnean.

  “I thought I might watch your back today, if that’s amenable, Lieutenant.” Her nose scrunched as if the next arrow she knocked away from Grey’s face was only a wasp.

  Her blade flashed in Grey’s line of sight as she did. It was single-edge, light, and expertly crafted. There were intricate knots on the small hilt, but Grey didn’t recognize the style. The ebbjack hadn’t revealed her secondary yet, if she used one.

  “I’m happy to have you, Madame,” Grey replied with a grin. Her confidence wasn’t a show. Even with the odds, she felt good about their position.

  The two were looking at each other when the Langur crashed into the broadside of the Paso Fino. They crouched and rode out the collision while the boarding ramps slapped down in front of Callum. He had no reason to kick them off. The Paso Fino was outnumbered when it came to ranged fighters, and it would be better to get them on board. He kicked one off anyway, to amuse himself, and launched a black powder bag onto the Langur’s deck.

  The Langur chose to send a round of grounders first. Grey disliked that tactic, but it worked for her as the recipient. The recruits would get to see a dozen of their enemy slaughtered like sheep without the support of their rippers. Perhaps it would reduce the chance of the newest ones turning tail.

  Callum’s vanguard started picking off who they wanted, sending several back to Grey and Aisling at a time. Grey parried and swept fighters to Aisling or the closest group of Paso Fino grounders, not usually dispatching them herself. She focused on stopping arrows and calling out problems to Finnean.

  Aisling’s skill couldn’t be questioned, but her speed was shocking. Her cape obscured the flashes of steel, and it was often difficult to track her movements, even for Grey. A boarder wouldn’t have hit the ground before her short sword was in another’s neck. The only thing hindering her massacre was that she was staying tight to Grey.

  As the first wave of grounders dropped, Langur rippers started moving over the planks to the deck. Grey kept an eye on the bow and stern. Lotti and Nessa were under the protection of pockets of grounders at their stairs and by Finnian from the sails. Nessa also had the Captain at her side, who was worth more than the rest combined.

  The sages would be working hard to keep the Paso Fino in a position to outrun the Storm Eel when the battle was won or, if they were lucky, break the boarding hooks prematurely if the opportunity presented itself. They were critical to the ship’s survival.

  A case of content theft: this narrative is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

  Unfortunately, the Langur knew that. Callum sent the first three rippers through, and as if they were reading Grey’s mind, they ignored her and charged the stairs closest to them. They would try to ascend to the bow and take out the wind sage, putting an end to the Paso Fino’s chance of escape.

  Grey moved to intercept as Finnian began to rain arrows on them from above.

  Simultaneously, Callum took a hard blow from a boarding ripper and fell back, blood spewing from a broken nose. The vanguard was forced to kick back a wave of enemy grounders or break altogether. He roared and mauled the face from the Langur riptide’s skull with his fish hooks, saving his vanguard and reforming their line. It was too late to stop those that got through, and he launched another black powder bag at the Langur out of spite.

  The Langur rippers were defending each other from Finnean’s assault, but Grey was bogged down by the wave of grounders that had broken through the vanguard. The enemy riptides would cut down the bow’s defending contingent; it was just a matter of when. Lotti was a force to be reckoned with, but wouldn’t win a melee fight against three battle-hardened riptides. Grey’s confidence was washed away by true, churning fear.

  Grey knew leaving her position would leave a massive hole in the Paso Fino’s defense, but it didn’t even cross her mind to stay. She launched herself against the grounders, brutally dispatching them as fast as she could. It was reckless, but she would have to get through them faster than three Langur riptides could get through hers.

  She twisted and slashed, using her shortsword as efficiently as she could. She popped throats from spines, cleaved arteries, and veins, and emptied guts onto the deck. She massacred the grounders in her way, one after the next. The deck was becoming slick with blood where she worked.

  As they cleaned up the Langur outside of Grey’s path, the Paso Fino grounders started their slow chant, “Osprey... Osprey... Osprey...”

  When the last grounder in her way hit the deck, his head nearly severed from his body, she took stock. The bow’s defense was all dead or mangled on the stairs, which meant the rippers had already ascended. Grey charged up them, jumping several at a time, looking for Lotti. She hoped with everything she had that the sage had been able to hold them off.

  Lotti was a pool of lavender and crimson on the bow. She was as still as a stone, crumpled awkwardly against a crate full of arrows. Grey’s heart dropped out of her chest.

  Then, her chest rose in a breath. Her eyes were closed, and an arrow was lodged in her shoulder. Her golden hair was whipping across her face, and her long stormsilks were flying. Grey was relieved, but couldn’t understand how she had survived.

  “What the fuck?” Grey said. She spun to the other side of the bow. Aisling was in the middle of two rippers and two ebbjacks, blood dripping from under her cloak. One Langur riptide lay dead at her feet, a throwing knife protruding sickly from his neck.

  “Shut up, Osprey, I’m trying to concentrate,” Lotti muttered behind her.

  Grey charged the group. She pulled the tie to her largest pouch, slung her arm, and filled the bow with gray smoke. She lept and engaged a riptide that was swinging on Aisling, and then launched onto the second, throwing them both off balance.

  She hadn’t dared pull a pouch on the deck. Her grounders would have been just as hindered as the Langur’s. But now she hoped that because Aisling was an ebbjack, she would have an advantage in the smoke, but at the very least, she'd be on the same playing field. As for Grey, her amber eyes glowed through the haze, choosing her targets by the threat they presented to the merchant.

  The Langur rippers were swinging wildly, but their ebbjacks appeared to be managing. Aisling was defending against the group, swirls of smoke blending with her cloak, making it easy for her to disguise her attacks. She had drawn her secondary weapon, a shorter blade made in the same fashion as her sword.

  Grey rolled under the swinging riptides and pulled a leg from one of the ebbjacks facing Aisling. As he tried to correct himself, she pushed off the deck to slam her head into the inside of his knee, snapping the delicate ligaments and sending him to the deck. Almost immediately, one of Aisling’s throwing knives protruded from the downed Ebbjack’s neck, ending his life and eliminating him as a threat.

  The rippers had seen the motion, and Grey had to roll backward to keep from being impaled by a downward stroke. She regained her feet, parrying the charging riptides. With her free hand, she pulled daggers from her bracers and threw. Both were parried easily as the rippers bore down on her. These were experienced fighters, not the trash that often wore the leathers.

  The smoke would have been clearing by now, but Grey saw by its rounded edges that Lotti was giving her more time. The larger of the two Langur rippers swung hard, intending to follow with the fishhooks strapped to her left bracer. Grey ducked forward just in time, dropping her sword and snatching a loose board and its tangled rigging from the deck. Luckily, the ripper repeated the attempt, hoping to close the distance this time and rip Grey’s face from her skull.

  It was obvious she was having trouble with the smoke. On her follow-up swing with the hooks, Grey let her dig deeply into the board, then twisted savagely. The movement opened the riptide’s defense, and Grey launched the crest of her head into the ripper's nose. She felt the crunch and knew she had connected where she intended to. As the woman’s head snapped back, Grey pulled one of her thin thigh blades and sank it in the riptide’s throat.

  Grey heard a body hit the deck. She turned and breathed a sigh of relief when she saw Aisling standing, the ebbjack’s opponent gushing from her femoral artery, moments from death.

  The remaining ripper swung wildly between Aisling and Grey, the whites of his eyes clear as day through the clearing smoke. As they both advanced, he froze, and the point of a dagger appeared in his neck, slid through his carotid.

  He crumpled to reveal Lotti standing tall behind him, the arrow in her shoulder weeping blood. With a wave of her hand, the smoke blew from the bow. Grey could see the grounders on the stomp deck cleaning up the last few Langur sailors and Finnian wearing a mess of their ears around his neck, grinning like a maniac.

  Lotti looked pale but smiled, “It’s over.”

  “The hell it is,” Grey growled, whipping around to search for the ship she knew would be advancing over the waves.

  She adjusted herself to look at what the wind sage was focused on. The Storm Eel was still a nautical mile away, sails blown to shit, and its foremast snapped in half.

  They had been stopped in their tracks, not fifteen minutes from boarding the Paso Fino.