Chapter 19: The Boarding
The world had shrunk to water, wind, and the groaning of timber. The cutter Swift lived up to its name, riding the storm swell like a blade flung from a god’s hand. It was a terrifying, exhilarating thing. One moment they were suspended on a wall of black water, the next they were plummeting into a trough where the sky vanished completely. Caspian gripped a stay, his knuckles white, his stomach somewhere near his boots. He’d read about this. It was nothing like reading about it.
Lyon stood beside the wiry Sellen captain, Brak, both of them lashed to the mast with rope. They were shouting coordinates over the gale, their voices ripped away.
Ria clung to the base of the mast, her body braced. The acute pain in her abdomen had been bludgeoned into a widespread, screaming ache by the constant battering. It didn’t matter. Ahead, glimpsed between sheets of rain, a darker shape cut across the roiling grey. Lanterns, hooded and faint, swung from its deck.
The Stormdancer.
It was larger than they’d hoped, a three-masted frigate, its lines sleek even in the chaos. It was fighting to make headway, its sails reefed tight, its bow slamming into the waves. They were coming up on its starboard flank, the storm hiding the Swift’s approach like a cloak.
“They’ll see us at the last second!” Brak yelled, saltwater streaming from his beard.
“That’s the point!” Lyon roared back. “No time for broadsides! Ready the grapnels!”
Caspian stumbled to where Ria was uncoiling a heavy hook attached to a thick rope. Her movements were efficient, automatic. She didn’t look at him. Her gaze was fixed on the frigate, her grey eyes reflecting the distant lantern light like chips of ice.
“Ria,” he shouted, the wind stealing his voice. He touched her arm. She flinched, a fractional thing, then stilled. “The captain’s quarters. Stern. Or the hold. That’s where they’d be.”
She gave a sharp nod. “You take the stern. I’ll go down.”
“You shouldn’t—”
“I’m going down,” she repeated, and there was a finality in it that brooked no argument.
The distance closed. Two hundred yards. One hundred. A cry went up from the Stormdancer’s watch. A bell began to clang, a frantic, muted sound. Figures scrambled on the higher deck.
“Now!” Brak screamed.
The Swift’s crew, four hardened river-rats who feared no water, hurled the grapnels. The iron hooks flew, arcing over the churning gap. Two caught on the frigate’s rail with a shriek of metal on wood. One splashed into the sea. The last, thrown by Lyon, snagged the rigging itself. The ropes snapped taut. The cutter shuddered, its prow grinding against the frigate’s hull with a sound of shearing oak.
Ria was moving before the impact finished. She had a stolen cutlass in her left hand, its grip slick. She didn’t think. She climbed the rope, hand over hand, her feet scrambling against the wet, barnacled side of the warship. The wind tried to pluck her off. A crossbow bolt thwacked into the wood by her head. She didn’t pause.
She crested the rail and rolled onto the deck, coming up in a crouch. The scene was a blur of confusion: shouting men in imperial blues slipping on the wet deck, a lieutenant trying to rally a line, the storm howling through the torn shrouds. The lantern light swung madly, casting frantic, leaping shadows.
A sailor lunged at her, a boarding pike in his hands. His face was young, terrified. Ria didn’t parry. She dropped under the thrust, came up inside his guard, and drove the pommel of her cutlass into his temple. He dropped like a sack. The violence was clean, clinical. A thing learned in a different kind of darkness.
She saw Caspian vault the rail behind her, his own blade flashing as he engaged two crewmen. Lyon was a storm of his own, his larger sword clearing space with brutal efficiency. Brak and his men followed, howling river-war cries.
Ria pushed forward, toward the main hatch. A hulking petty officer barred her way, a curved knife in one hand, a belaying pin in the other. He grinned, showing rotten teeth. “Lost, little rat?”
She didn’t answer. She feinted with the cutlass, and when he shifted to block, she kicked, her bare, scarred foot connecting squarely with his knee. Something cracked. He roared, stumbling. She brought the cutlass down on his wrist. The knife clattered to the deck. She kicked it overboard as she passed him, stepping over his writhing form.
The hatch was barred from the outside. A heavy timber settled into iron brackets. She threw her shoulder against it. It didn’t budge.
“Here!” Caspian was suddenly beside her, his face splattered with someone else’s blood. He wedged his blade between the bracket and the timber, levering with all his weight. The iron screeched, groaned, then gave way. The timber slid loose.
Ria yanked the hatch open. A stench wafted up—unwashed bodies, fear, stale brine. And beneath it, a faint, sweet medicinal smell. Sedative.
She dropped into the darkness without a second’s hesitation.
The hold was a labyrinth of crates, barrels, and roped-down cannon. The ceiling was low, the only light a single storm lantern swaying from a central beam. Shapes huddled in the shadows. Men, maybe twenty of them, imperial marines left below decks. They blinked at her, surprised by the sudden invasion from above.
At the very stern of the hold, separated by a makeshift barrier of crates, she saw two small shapes on pallets. Blankets. Small feet.
A marine stepped forward, drawing a short sword. “Halt! Prisoner cargo is off—”
Ria didn’t let him finish. She screamed it, the sound raw and torn from a place deeper than her lungs, a sound that had been pent up for seventeen years. “Those are my children!”
She charged. Not with skill, but with a feral, desperate abandon. The marine was trained, prepared for a fighter. He was not prepared for this wild thing with the grey eyes that reflected the lantern like a wolf in a cave. She took a shallow cut on her forearm but slammed into him, driving him back into a stack of grain sacks. The cutlass was a clumsy tool in the close quarters. She dropped it, her fingers finding the dagger at her belt—Lyon’s dagger. She drove it up, under his ribcage.
He gasped, his eyes wide with shock. She let him fall.
The other marines stared, unsure. This wiry, blood-smeared woman, standing over their comrade, her chest heaving, her grey eyes scanning them and seeing nothing. She was looking past them, at the crates. At the pallets.
A soft, muffled whimper came from that direction. Not a cry. The sound of a child too drowsy, too confused to properly scream.
The sound undid her. The last thread of control snapped.
She walked toward the barrier. The marines, perhaps ten of them, edged back. They had their orders, but this was not a fight they understood. This was something else.
One, braver or more foolish, moved to block her path. “You can’t—”
Ria didn’t break stride. She picked up a marlinspike from a nearby barrel. As he raised his arm, she swung it sideways, connecting with his elbow. The crack was loud in the confined space. He screamed. She walked past him.
She kicked the crates aside. They were light, empty. A screen.
Behind them, on two rough pallets, two girls lay under thin grey blankets. One was about five, her dark hair plastered to a sweaty forehead, her eyes half-closed, drifting in a drugged sleep. The other was smaller, maybe three, her thumb in her mouth, her little body shuddering with silent, drug-induced sobs.
Ria stopped. The world, the storm, the battle above, the groans of the dying marine—it all receded into a muffled roar. There was only the wet, ragged sound of her own breath and the shallow, artificial sleep of the children.
She knelt. The floor was slick with bilge water. She reached out a trembling hand, her fingers streaked with grime and blood, and brushed the hair from the older girl’s brow. The child stirred, murmuring something unintelligible.
A memory, sharp and sudden as the dagger’s bite: a warm hand on her own brow. A hummed song. A feeling of absolute safety. The warm feeling. It was a scent. Lavender and sunshine.
It was gone as quickly as it came, leaving a hollow, aching cold.
She looked up at the marines who still hovered, leaderless. Her voice, when it came, was quiet, but it carried through the hold like the edge of a knife.
“Get out,” she said. “Or I will kill every one of you where you stand.”
They looked at her face. They looked at their two comrades on the floor. They believed her.
One by one, they backed away, toward the forward ladder, leaving her alone in the dim light with the two sleeping girls and the rising, rhythmic sound of the older one beginning to cry in earnest, a thin, hopeless sound that was the only real thing in the world.
Ria’s breath caught as she cried, and for the first time in years tears slid down her own cheeks. “Mamas here, baby. I finally found you. Wake up, sweet girl, let’s go home.” Her voice trembled and cracked. Her hand trembled but reached out to stroke her cheek softly.
Her fingers traced the curve of the little girl’s cheek, the skin fever-warm and damp. The child’s eyelids fluttered, two dark lashes stuck together with tears and medicine. A low, thin wail escaped her, more confusion than protest.
Up on deck, the clash of steel and shouts reached a crescendo, then fractured into abrupt, ringing silence. Heavy boots thudded toward the hatch. Ria’s body coiled, the marlinspike rising again in her grip. She positioned herself between the ladder and the pallets.
Caspian’s ash-dusted head appeared through the opening, his sharp eyes scanning the gloom. They found her, wide and defensive in the lantern light, then dropped to the small forms behind her. His shoulders slumped with a relief so profound it looked like pain. “Clear up top. Lyon’s securing the captain.”
“They’re drugged,” Ria said, her voice hoarse. She didn’t lower the spike. “The little one can’t even cry properly.”
“We need to move them. Now.” Caspian dropped fully into the hold, his movements careful. He approached slowly, hands open. “The storm’s not easing. This tub is taking on water from the ramming, and Brak says the cutter won’t stay lashed for long.”
The older girl moaned, her head lolling. Ria sheathed the spike and slid her hands under the child’s back and knees. She was a light, limp weight, all loose limbs and damp hair. The scent of lavender was gone, replaced by that cloying medicinal smell. It made Ria’s stomach turn.
“I’ve got the little one,” Caspian murmured, gathering the toddler. The child whimpered, burying her face in the wool of his cloak. He held her awkwardly, his swordsman’s hands impossibly gentle. “Stairs will be tricky.”
They ascended one careful step at a time, the ship groaning and tilting beneath them. Cold, stinging rain hit Ria’s face as she emerged onto the main deck. The scene was one of controlled chaos. Two imperial sailors were heaving a body over the rail. Lyon stood over a bound and kneeling officer, his sword point resting lightly between the man’s shoulder blades.
Brak was already shouting orders to his crew, unlashing the grapnel lines. “We need to transfer and cut her loose! This frigate’s got a wound she won’t recover from!”
Lyon looked over. His fierce expression fractured when he saw the bundle in Ria’s arms. He took a step toward her, then stopped, as if afraid to get closer. “Are they…?”
“Alive,” Ria said, the word a vow. The wind whipped her matted hair across her face. “They need warmth. And a physician.”
“Sellen outpost has both,” Caspian said, shifting the toddler who had begun a weak, hiccupping cry. “But we need to get back on the Swift. This ship is descending.”
The Stormdancer gave a deep, mournful groan, listing several degrees to port. The deck tilted, and Ria staggered. Lyon was there in an instant, his hand steadying her elbow. His gaze was locked on the pale face of the child she held. “She has our mother’s nose,” he whispered, his voice rough.
A sharp, panicked shout came from Brak. “The lines are fouled! The cutter’s pulling us down with her!”
The Swift, still tethered, was being dragged against the frigate’s holed hull with each crashing wave. Timbers squealed in protest. If they didn’t separate cleanly, both vessels would be shredded.
“Cut them!” Lyon barked, turning from Ria.
“My men are on it!” Brak yelled back, already scrambling with an axe toward the nearest taut rope.
Caspian thrust the toddler into Lyon’s surprised arms. “Hold her.” He sprinted across the slippery deck, drawing a dagger, and began sawing at the thick, waterlogged hemp of the second grapnel line. Ria stood frozen, clutching the older girl, staring at the violent, churning gap between the two ships.
With a final, wrenching snap, Caspian’s line parted. The Swift swung violently away, then surged back on a wave, its bowsprit like a spear aimed at the frigate’s deck. Brak’s axe came down once, twice. The last line severed.
The cutter bobbed free, a dozen feet of frothing, black water now between them and escape. The distance was widening with every second.
“The longboat!” the imperial captain on his knees suddenly spat, a desperate gleam in his eye. “You’ll never make that jump, not in this sea, not with children.”
Lyon looked from the cutter to the furious sea. His jaw worked. “He’s not wrong.”
Ria’s mind clicked through options, each one worse than the last. The longboat was a tiny shell on the davits. The jump was impossible. The Stormdancer groaned again, its list increasing. Water sloshed over the scuppers.
Caspian wiped rain from his eyes, staring at the Swift. “Brak! Can you bring her in close again? One more pass?”
“I can kiss her close, but you’ll have one chance!” Brak roared from the cutter’s helm, already spinning the wheel. “And you jump, you hear? You don’t wait!”
The Swift came about in a tight, reckless arc, riding the crest of a monstrous wave. For a moment, it seemed to hover alongside the listing frigate, its deck nearly level. The gap shrunk to four feet. Then three.
“Go!” Caspian shouted.
Lyon went first, the toddler clamped tightly to his chest. He leaped, a powerful surge across the void, and landed in a stumbling crouch on the cutter’s deck, where hands grabbed him.
“Your turn!” Caspian yelled at Ria.
She looked at the churning water, then at the child’s sleeping face. Her muscles, burnt out and screaming, locked. The gap widened again to five feet. Six.
“Ria, now!”
Caspian didn’t wait. He moved behind her, placed a steadying hand on her back, and in that contact was an absolute certainty. “Together,” he said, his voice low in her ear. “On three. One.”
The Swift surged up on another swell.
“Two.”
She bent her knees, every instinct howling not to jump.
“Three.”
They pushed off as one. The world became a chaos of wind and spray. The deck of the Swift rushed up to meet them, harder than she expected. They hit and crumpled together, Ria curling instinctively around the child in her arms. Strong hands hauled them back from the rail.
She lay on the wet planks, gasping, the little girl’s heartbeat a frantic bird against her own. The Stormdancer, freed of the cutter’s weight, gave one final, deep-throated sigh. Its stern rose as its bow pointed toward the depths, lanterns still burning as it slid beneath the black water.
The sudden silence was filled only by the storm and the ragged breathing of the survivors. Ria sat up, pulling the child closer. On the other side of the deck, Lyon was rocking the sobbing toddler, his face pressed into her hair.
Caspian got to his feet, bracing against the cutter’s roll. He looked at Brak. “Sellen. Fast as you can.”
Brak just nodded, his face grim, and turned to his crew. “You heard the man! Let’s get the hell out of this weather!”
Ria finally looked down. The older girl’s eyes were open. They were a deep, soulful brown, glassy with the fading drug but aware. They stared up at Ria, unblinking. A small, grimy hand came up and patted Ria’s cheek, once, twice.
“Cold,” the little girl whispered, her voice a thread of sound.
Ria pulled the ratty blanket from her own shoulders, the one she’d escaped the capital in, and wrapped it tightly around the small, shivering body. She held the girl against her, rocking slightly as the Swift turned and raced for the river mouth. “I know, baby,” she murmured into the damp, dark hair. “We’re going somewhere warm.”