There were two sounds: first, the keel cracking like thunder, then, like a long-forgotten afterthought, the lightning's crackle, like it moved so fast the noise of it couldn't keep up.
Between those were shouts of horror, screams that spoke of injury, and a huge surge of witchery from every seamaster on the ship. The ocean below them became a bowl, cradling the broken ship as suddenly-frantic sailors darted over the sides to examine the damage. Rasim stayed on board, staring in bewilderment across the sea.
There were clouds scattered across the sky, softening the horizons and skimming high above them, but none of them had the heavy threat of rain, much less the thunderheads that brought lightning. And lightning didn't skitter across the ocean's surface like a stone skipped across a lake. Even if the distant Islands somehow could produce a charge of lightning and shoot it outward instead of up or down, they were much too far away for it to reach the Waifia. Rasim didn't know how far lightning could travel, exactly, but he was fairly sure it was more than the hundreds of miles they still had to go before they reached the Islands.
"Journeyman!" Nasira's furious voice cut through the rest of the chaos. "Rasim, what by Siliaria's blood is happening? Did you do this?"
"No! I don't know what happened! We're under attack!" Rasim knew it was true as soon as he said it, although he had no idea who was attacking, or from where.
"With what?" Nasira bellowed. "Lightning witchery?"
"I guess?" Rasim finally jolted into motion, but long before he reached the main mast, he saw others were ahead of him, scrambling high to scout the horizons. Someone shouted hoarsely, pointing north, and those who could spun to look just as another arc of lighting shot across the water. It burned bright in Rasim's vision, barely visible before it slammed into the Waifia's hull. Explosive fire erupted around the edges of a suddenly-gaping hole, and more screams shattered the air. Rasim closed his hand and the fire went out, sun witchery responding even if he'd had no practice with it.
Nasira, incandescent with rage, snarled, "Someone find that witch and stop them." Rasim spun again and rushed for the railing, but Desimi got there first, and Hassin, was there before both of them.
"Stay," he snapped in the harshest tone Rasim had ever heard from him. "Keep the ship afloat. I'll deal with this." The first mate dove into the water without waiting to see if he would be obeyed, and the water rippled a moment as he propelled himself through it with witchery, moving faster than anyone Rasim had ever seen. In a heartbeat he was gone, throwing himself toward a distant ship all alone.
A third blast arced toward them, shattering the small aft mast into a shower of splinters and Nasira roared with frustration. "What stops lightning?"
"I don't know," Rasim said helplessly. "Earth?"
"We don't have any earth, Journeyman!"
"Wood!" Rasim said. "Wood, Captain, the aft mast is already broken, if we—Arrat! Skymaster Arrat! We need to lift the aft mast into the air, off the ship, we need to—"
"We can't hold that much weight," Arrat shouted back, neither of them using the sky witchery that would make a conversation over several meters easier. "Not without creating winds that will sink the Waifia."
"We can hold it with water," Desimi yelled, drawing everyone's startled attention. "We can lift it out of the water, we can hold the water separately, argh, Rasim, you know what I mean!"
"Yes, yes, right, like the little fire in Ilyara, but we need metal to draw the lightning—"
Another bolt slammed into the ship. Rasim screamed along with everyone else, and Nasira's face went grim as she took a few seconds to survey the damage. There were two vast holes in the Waifia's hold now, both more or less above the waterline, but precariously close to it. The second fire went out without Rasim's help, although he felt a touch of sunmastery and knew Endat or Pynda had taken care of the situation from below decks. Nasira, sharp with fear, said, "We can't take another hit like that. We'll go down."
"Oh." Rasim spoke in a small stupid voice and closed his eyes. "That's what we need to do, Captain. We need to go down. We need to bring the Waifia deep. I bet they can't hit us if they can't see us."
"The main mast is forty meters tall, Journeyman," Nasira said through her teeth. "That's a long way down, and not all of our crew are seamasters." Her voice lifted, though, and she bellowed, "Lower the sails and prepare to sink," although the last word turned to a snarl.
"Dive," Rasim said hopefully. "It's on purpose. We're diving."
"Gnaargh! Get! Go! Pair up anybody who isn't a sea witch with someone who is and if anybody panics I will drown them myself!" Canvas began to fall in huge waves and at incredible speed, the skymasters frantically trying to keep them under control as they came down much faster than they were supposed to. Before they'd touched deck, the bowl of water cradling the Waifia began to deepen, slowly at first, then much more quickly as the crew's witchery harmonized and they became more sure of themselves.
Pynda and Endat appeared on deck. Pynda's eyes were wild with alarm, and even Endat, whom Rasim thought of as unflappable, was visibly tense around the jaw and shoulders as the ship dropped again. A couple of the older crew joined them, muttering promises that things would be all right. Rasim admired that they could even imagine that was true.
"I can keep the water out of below decks, if you want me to, Captain," Desimi said abruptly. "The buoyancy will make it harder to keep the ship deep, though."
"Yes." Nasira hissed the word. "Yes. Do that. Not a bowl, but a sheathe. Do you hear me, Seamasters?" she called. "Let the water close around us and take us down."
The shape of the sea changed around them, surging closer. Desimi's hands spread, his gaze gone dark with concentration as the rising water cloaked the Waifia. Even knowing Desimi's power, watching it rush up to the holes in the hull and then stop there as if glass held it at bay took Rasim's breath away. Air bubbled upward furiously as the ship went deeper, although the deck, and all the witches on it, remained inside Desimi's circle of witchery. Sailors furled the sails at a frantic pace, getting them under control as the ocean closed over their heads and the light changed to the eerie, shimmering blue of shallow water.
Lightning shattered the main mast when it was still well above the water's surface, chunks of wood raining down in rippling splashes. The witchery being worked trembled as panic ran through the crew, but steadied again as Nasira called a reassurance. The ship drifted deeper, light changing from light blue to dark, and a cold trickle of dread threaded its way through Rasim's gut.
The only time he'd been this deep in the ocean, a sea serpent had been pulling him down. The light had all but gone before he managed to kill it, and the swim back up through the darkness had lasted a lifetime.
The last time he'd been deeply submerged at all, it had been in Hongrunn's salt-filled lake, and a third of their crew had died.
He wasn't the only one remembering that. Ilyaran faces went as pale as they could as the Waifia's broken mast sank all the way below the surface, and grim, frightened glances were exchanged. Nasira, softly anyway, but with her voice strangely muted by the hollow of air that Desimi kept carved out so the ship's crew could breathe and work without attending to it themselves, said, "It isn't the same. We're in Siliaria's embrace now, and she will do us no harm. After all." A thread of humor carved its way through the captain's voice. "After all, we carry her beloved with us. Rasim, usually I wouldn't excuse any witch from duty at a time like this, but if your lady comes calling…"
Laughter rippled through the crew and Rasim ducked his head, mortified and relaxing all at the same time. "I'll do my best to worship her, Captain."
Another laugh, much louder this time, rushed through the crew, and someone felt comfortable enough to say, "What now, Captain?"
Nasira pulled a hand over her mouth thoughtfully, studying her crew before gesturing to four journeymen whose skills in the shipyard were well-known. "Go below. Start patching the holes in the Waifia's side. There are some planks, but scavenge anything you need. The galley table should help."
"But dinner!" Dressin, the cook, wailed to the sounds of thin laughter.
"We'll eat on the deck like savages," Nasira promised him, then turned her attention to Desimi. "Can you keep us shielded if we move under our own power instead of just with the current, Journeyman?"
Desimi, through his teeth, said, "I can if it means we'll take out the dogs who broke the Waifia, Captain."
A thin, sharp smile curved Nasira's mouth. "You read my mind, Journeyman. Rasim, you don't seem to be doing much. If it's not too much trouble, perhaps you'd help me turn our ship in Hassin's wake and give those wretches a right surprise when we come up under them?"
"I didn't mean to not be doing much!" Rasim began before the rest of what she'd said settled in, and with a smile as sharp as Nasira's own, nodded. "I think I can do that, aye, Captain."
A roar went up this time as the captain—and, following her lead, Rasim—took hold of the water around them and brought the Waifia in a slow but graceful curve beneath the ocean's surface. Rasim felt Kisia's magic supporting Desimi's, and as the ship began a ponderous journey north, the witchery around him changed a little. A few witches turned to helping Desimi, and someone built thin tunnels through the water to the surface so bad air could be swapped for good. The air freshened quickly, sky witchery assisting an easy exchange.
Most of the crew, though, continued with the effort of keeping the huge, strangely buoyant Waifia far enough underwater that its passage didn't disturb the surface. As they adapted to working entirely underwater and the amount of drag a ship the size of the Waifia commanded, Rasim and Nasira channeled currents to move them along at increasing speed. Then a shudder ran through the flagship's already-weakened bones and somebody yelled at them from below as the sounds of repairs suddenly stopped. Rasim exchanged a glance with the captain before they both pulled back on their speed.
Kisia suddenly whispered, "Look," in an awe-stricken voice. Half the crew did, first at her, then followed her gaze upward until a collective gasp ran through them.
A whale, its pale belly stretching nearly the length of the Waifia, swam above them. It clearly knew they were there, and just as clearly seemed to be aware it had been noticed in turn. A few massive surges of its tail sent it well ahead of the ship before it dived and rolled gently through the water to come alongside them with almost no visible effort. It slowed, examining them with an eye about the size of Rasim's palm, then accidentally outpaced them and had to come back to look again.
Sesin, near the Waifia's bow, gasped as sharply as everyone else had before and whispered, "A baby. She's got a baby," as a whale barely a third the size of the larger one came to investigate, too. It was slower and bolder, spinning next to them as if inviting them to play, then diving beneath the ship to bump it. A shout of alarm rose through the crew and the young whale popped up beside them with a comically distressed expression, although how its enormous, mostly unmoving face could look either funny or distressed, Rasim didn't know.
Its mother came around again, slowing until she drifted in the water beside them, nearly close enough to touch. Kisia, eyes huge with wonder, edged up the railing and cast Desimi a hopeful look. The big journeyman smiled crookedly and nodded, and Kisia carefully put her hand into the water that Desimi was keeping back from the ship.
Rasim supposed the whale was technically holding her breath anyway, but he had the feeling she held her breath as Kisia reached for her. When she couldn't quite touch her, she twitched sideways. Nasira yelled, "Brace!" and the witch power held the Waifia in place as the whale's staggeringly huge body brushed against its side. Kisia put her palm below the tremendous animal's eye, her entire self radiating with awestruck admiration. They remained that way for a heartbeat, hardly even that, before the whale moved again, the whole impossible length of her skimming along beside the ship. Then she dived, her baby following more reluctantly, and the entire ship's crew let out another collective gasp.
For a very long time, silence reigned on the submerged ship, awe overwhelming everything but the concentration necessary to keep the Waifia underwater.
Then someone called, "There are ships ahead, Captain," and all attention returned to the moment, and the fight to come.