Authors: Stephanie Laurens
Dorcas glanced at Emily. “You’d better stay here.” With that, Dorcas went up the ladder.
An instant later, Emily stood looking up the steep stairway at blue sky—intermittently broken by a passing body.
She couldn’t tell anything from the shouts, grunts, and the thudding of feet. Couldn’t tell how many they were battling, or who was winning.
Dorcas was right—she had no weapon, so she couldn’t help. But…
She crept up the stairs. Standing one rung down, she peered out. All she could see was a shifting mass of bodies filling the stern. Taking the last step, clearing the companionway housing, she looked back along the schooner—everywhere she looked was the same.
Then she saw the ship that had slipped in close alongside. There were cultists on board. Every time the swell pushed the vessels close more jumped across onto the schooner’s deck.
Snapping her gaze back to the action around her, she realized Arnia was right—they would need every hand fighting to win this time.
Her assessment had taken less than a minute. Expecting to be noticed by some cultist at any second, she frantically looked around for something to use…and saw the trusty pail she’d wielded before. Avoiding a wrestling pair, she inched around, stretched out, and snagged the pail—just as a cultist focused on her.
Thin lips stretched in a vicious grin. Uttering a horrible yell, he flung himself through the melee at her.
She just had time to draw the pail back, then swing it forward—upward this time. It caught the cultist under the chin and lifted him off his feet, throwing him onto the backs of two other cultists. The three collapsed in a writhing heap. The sailors who’d been fighting the other two leapt on top.
Emily left them to it as she swung the other way—swung the pail again.
She knocked out another cultist, but…“Oh, no!”
Her fingers slid off the pail’s handle and it went flying into the melee.
She had to find something else. She’d rounded the stern housing. As she shrank back against the side, her heels stubbed against something. Looking down, she saw a long wooden pole.
Ducking down, she grabbed it and pulled it to her.
And discovered the pole was for dragging in sails—it had a wicked-looking brass hook on one end.
She rose with the pole held between her hands, as she’d
seen her brothers do when they fought with staffs. The hook was heavy and weighed down that end. She juggled, found the balance—just as a cultist stepped away from a knot of shifting bodies and, grinning, came at her.
She stood her ground and flicked the hook end up. It caught the cultist in the throat and he halted, gurgling, then went down.
She felled two more, but of course they didn’t stay down, but then Bister popped up out of the melee and used his short sword to ensure they did.
Emily seized the moment to take in what was happening around them. The sailors were holding the rest of the ship, while their party were fighting mostly in the stern. Bodies—all cultists as far as she saw—were piling up. The throng was thinning, but four cultists still had Gareth and Mooktu backed against the stern railing. Jaw setting, she hefted her pole.
“No—wait!” Bister frantically signaled her to give him one end. “Like this.”
He crouched, held the pole low, waved with his other hand.
Emily saw what he meant. Holding her end, she crouched, too, and she and Bister swept in behind the four cultists.
The pole took them across the backs of their knees. With yells and flailing arms, they tumbled back—and Gareth and Mooktu sprang forward and finished them.
Emily was now behind Gareth, pressed up against the rails, with Bister in a similar position on the other side. Mooktu had seized the moment to leap forward and, sword slashing, win through to Arnia and Dorcas, who’d been fighting with Watson, Mullins, and Jimmy off to the side.
And still the cultists came on, hurling themselves forward, but the ranks behind were lessening. Further down the schooner, Emily glimpsed Captain Ayabad, sword swinging, a feral grin on his face, his massive Nubian first mate wielding a scimitar beside him.
The clang of swords at close quarters snapped her attention back to Gareth and Bister, who were furiously defend
ing against another three cultists. Hauling her pole back up, she angled behind Gareth, picked her moment—and jabbed the nearest cultist in the throat.
He recoiled, and Gareth stepped forward to deal with him, allowing Emily to slip past behind him and engage one of the two cultists Bister now faced.
Her intervention allowed Bister to gain the upper hand, then Gareth joined in…and suddenly they were free.
But there were still writhing knots of men covering most of the deck.
Emily drew in a huge breath, looked to the side—then grabbed Gareth’s sleeve. “Look!”
She pointed to the cultists’ ship. It had drifted sufficiently so the gap between the vessels was just too great for men to leap across. On the other ship’s deck, a few dozen cultists yelled and shook their swords in their impatience to get aboard the schooner and fight, their attention locked on a number of their fellows, who were attempting to fling grappling hooks over the schooner’s rails.
Gareth swore, jammed his sword into his waistband, and grabbed Emily’s pole. “Come on.”
He leapt over bodies to the side railings. Leaving Bister, who had followed, to cut the ropes to the grapples that had successfully lodged over the schooner’s rails, Gareth half straddled the rails, set the end of the pole below the deck line of the cultists’ smaller vessel, and pushed.
Using all his weight, he managed to keep the smaller ship from getting any closer, but…“Mooktu! To me!”
A minute later, Mooktu appeared, looked, saw, then vanished.
A minute after that, he reappeared with a similar long pole, and set it to the other boat closer to the bow. And pushed, too.
Bister went to help Mooktu.
Emily grabbed Gareth as he nearly overbalanced. Sinking her hands in his robes, leaning back, she anchored him in place.
The cultists were all screaming, trying to find poles to knock theirs aside and pull the ships closer.
Gareth snapped a look over his shoulder. “Mullins! Jimmy!”
The pair had just fought free of their assailants.
“Get more sail on—quickly!”
Jimmy leapt up onto the stern housing. Mullins clambered up behind him. Together they managed to unfurl a small midship sail, then they hauled and tugged—and the topsail unfurled.
For one instant, the sails billowed, then they filled, grew taut.
The schooner leaned, then leapt forward.
The cultists on the smaller ship screamed in fury, then raced to let their own sails down. But the schooner was bigger and carried much more sail. As the smaller ship fell behind, Gareth turned his attention to the cultists left on board.
But seeing they were now on their own and couldn’t win, this time the cultists remaining dived overboard. Within minutes, all the fighting was over.
Captain Ayabad gave orders for more sail to be set. They’d come out of the narrow channel from Suakin on only the jib, which was how the other craft had been able to slide so close so easily.
Eventually Ayabad made his way to the stern, where Gareth and the others were all slumped, catching their breaths after disposing of all the bodies overboard.
Ayabad nodded to Gareth, bowed to Emily. “My apologies. I should have been more aware, but I did not think these vermin would attempt to board like that.”
Gareth grimaced. “Neither did I.” He glanced at the exhausted members of their group. “A few cuts, some bruises and knocks, but we took no lasting damage.” He looked at Ayabad. “Your men?”
“Some injuries, but none life-threatening. These cultists—they are not well trained.”
“Most aren’t,” Gareth replied. “Those used as guards and
assassins are, but the majority are farmers with knives in their hands.”
Ayabad nodded. “It shows. However, after this, if you have no objection, I am inclined to make for Suez by the fastest possible tack.”
Gareth nodded his agreement. “We’ve been lucky so far—no sense in inviting another attack.”
By evening the schooner’s decks were clean once more, with everything shipshape and as it should be as they cleaved through the shallow waves under full sail, running before an increasingly stiff breeze.
After tending the injuries of their own small company—a number of slashes and two deep cuts—Emily had gone with Arnia and Dorcas to offer their potions and salves to Captain Ayabad and his crew. The sailors were happy enough to have more gentle hands patching their hurts, but Emily gathered from their comments that, much like their captain, they’d enjoyed the battle.
After dinner, once the sun had set and night had wrapped the waters in velvet darkness, she went up to the stern deck. Given their speed, she doubted there was any lingering danger. Leaning on the stern railings, she stared out into the night.
As she’d hoped, Gareth joined her.
She heard his footsteps before she sensed his large body beside her.
He leaned on the railings, much as she was doing, looking out over the rippling water of their wake. “It’s a lovely night—so peaceful. Who would have thought that just hours ago this deck was a battlefield?”
She glanced at him. The light of the moon reflected off the water, sending shadows to dapple his face. “That’s life, isn’t it? The battle and the triumph?”
His lips curved. He inclined his head fractionally. “This time, our injuries were minor, so I suppose the triumph is ours to enjoy.”
“Do you think, after today, that we’ll reach Suez without further incident?”
He glanced back and up at the sails. “Given our speed, with luck, we might. Those we left behind will have to report back to someone. The general cultists operate under the orders of more senior members, and I doubt there were any of those more senior men on that ship. So I don’t think we need to worry about being chased. However…” After a moment, he went on, “We have to assume there’ll be cultists keeping a watch in Suez—not specifically for us but for any of the four of us who might pass through there. It’s one of the major staging points on various routes back to England.”
She nodded. “So once we reach Suez, we’ll need to be on guard again.” She glanced at him. “How do you plan to travel on from there?”
He shook his head. “I don’t know.”
Gareth saw no reason to explain that, until he’d had to take her and her party under his wing, his mission had had a somewhat different tone. Then, he’d intended to act as an open decoy and draw as many cultists after him as he could. With Mooktu, Bister, and Arnia all capable of looking after themselves, he wouldn’t have had to worry unduly about the danger.
Having her with him changed all that.
He straightened from the railing. “I’ll have to call in a few favors, and work out the best route and manner of transport to ensure we evade the cultists’ notice. Suez will also be the last city in which we can be sure of getting suitable supplies this side of Marseilles, so we’ll need to attend to that, too.”
“All without being seen by the cult?”
“Indeed. And speaking of the cult…” He met her eyes, then grimaced. “While I should disapprove mightily of your coming up on deck in the middle of a fight, I can’t be such a hypocrite.”
She held his gaze for a moment, then her lips curved. She looked out over the water again. “Arnia said something about how foolish it was for women to cower and hope their men won,
if the women’s presence in the fight might tip the scales and ensure it. I’ve decided I agree with her. Her philosophy might not apply to battlefields and army engagements, but with the sort of skirmishes we’re having to face, she has a valid point.”
No matter how much he recoiled from the notion, not addressing the issue might be worse. She’d managed today, and in the earlier fight, but finding impromptu weapons was relying on sheer luck—which next time might fail.
Quelling his instinctive reaction, he asked, “You don’t know much about weapons, do you?”
Her smile broadened; she cast him a quick glance. “I know a sword has a pointy end, and usually only one sharp edge.”
He snorted. After a moment’s consideration, he said, “Bister is very good with knives, and so is Arnia. I’ll ask them to give you lessons, and find you a knife or two of your own. As you say, given what we have to face, it’s better that you shouldn’t be defenseless.”
She’d swung to face him as he spoke. Now she straightened from the railings. Even in the faint moonlight, he could see her expression; it held something more than gracious delight.
“Thank you.” Her lips were lusciously curved. Her eyes seemed to softly glow.
Her movement had brought her close. She stood less than a foot away.
For a moment, they stood locked in each other’s eyes. He could have sworn the moon, the earth, and the heavens stood still. That there was no other reality beyond the pair of them standing in the soft darkness, with the breeze sending loose tendrils of her hair streaming, and plastering her gown to her svelte frame.
He caught himself as his hands rose, but he couldn’t remember why he shouldn’t. She’d kissed him to thank him—he could do the same in reverse.
Then his hands settled around the delicate curves of her face, his hard palms cradling the fine skin of her cheeks, brushing the fragile bones of her jaw as he tipped her face up to his.
He bent his head. “Thank you for today—for saving me.”
She lifted her lips, and they brushed his. But this time it was he who kissed her, who pressed his lips to hers—gently, slowly, achingly carefully.
She didn’t back away. He felt her hand rise and cup the back of one of his, anchoring her, him—them.
Accepting.
Urging.
He angled his head, and pressed just a little harder, persuaded—when her lips parted, he teased them further, then, still riding his instincts hard, reining them in, he entered, slowly, deliberately, but definitely.
When she made no demur, he pressed deeper, and laid claim.
And something flared.
She moved into him, sending a shocking wash of heat cascading through him. Her lips moved beneath his, drawing him deeper, returning the caress.