CHAPTER 23

Strange, Beautiful, and Deadly

Cannek Reed awoke to the sound of the water whispering, Soon, soon, soon.

He staggered from his quarters, pulling on his coat. In the frosty predawn, Horse and Doc were the only other two people above deck, sitting beneath a blanket in the crow’s nest, watching the constellations disappear. Smoke curled from the galley stovepipes, smelling of cinnamon bread. The rest of the Current seemed to be asleep—the crew dreaming in their bunks, the timbers creaking and groaning like the breathing of some enormous slumbering beast. From above, Doc and Horse looked down at him, and the carpenter smiled one of his broad, encouraging grins, the kind that could light up the darkest of hearts. Tipping his hat to them, Reed gave the rail a quick pat and strode down the gangway.

As he reached the dock, he saw that the waves lapping at the hull were full of stars. Soon, soon, soon.

The outlaws and Ianai’s war council had spent the previous day arguing. Would the remainder of the Black Navy sail to Oxscini to save their Rokuine brethren, trapped in Tsumasai Bay? Would the outlaws again risk their ships for the sake of a kingdom they had no stake in?

According to the messenger, King Darion Stonegold and his two generals, Braca Terezina III and Serakeen, had a fleet of over two hundred. Even if every outlaw vessel agreed to sail to Oxscini’s aid, they’d still be outnumbered, fifteen to one.

What could they hope to achieve?

Reed’s footsteps echoed on the wooden planks as he passed the Crux and the One Bad Eye, inhaling Braska’s characteristic smells of sea, sage, and sulfur. Beneath his feet, the water still called to him. Soon, soon, soon.

At the other end of the harbor, where the civilian vessels were moored, he rented a skiff from a fisherman and set off across the still waters of Blackfire Bay.

Soon, the ocean murmured.

Nearly six years ago, it had promised him he’d die at sea. He’d get one last kiss from the lonely salt breeze. The Executioner would be in his hand. He’d see a white dandelion hovering above the decks.

Would it happen in Oxscini, if he took the Current into battle there? Even if it wasn’t the season for dandelions?

Then the explosion?

The end of him? The end of his ship?

If it was going to happen in Oxscini, could he ask his crew to go?

Reed turned the skiff south, around the jagged shores of Roku’s largest island, leaving behind the smoke-smudged districts of the capital. Above him, the cliffs rose black and sharp.

Look to the horizon, he told himself. That’s where the adventures are. If it was going to happen soon, he was going to see something he hadn’t seen before.

Leaning over the side of the skiff, he touched the sea. It nuzzled his palm, cold and familiar.

“Bring me an adventure,” he murmured.

And the water complied.

It brought him past the coastal mountains, so tall their heads were lost in the clouds, past the waterfalls diving headfirst into the ocean, past spikes of black stone jutting from the seafloor, until he reached the south side of one of Roku’s most active volcanoes. Unlike the majestic cones you could see from the north side of the island, it was little more than a hill at this distance, scooped out on one side, with a coursing river of molten rock carving channels along a sprawling black plain, all the way to the sea. Along the coast, streams of fire seeped from the shore, dripping red-hot into the surf, where the breakers hissed and spat, exhaling clouds of steam.

Reed sat back in the skiff, lacing his hands behind his head. “Not bad,” he said. “Not great, but not bad.”

He watched gas pockets in the molten rock ignite as they spilled into the water, flaming brilliantly before being extinguished in the sea.

How many losses had the Oxscinian Royal Navy sustained trying to defend the Bay of Batteram? If they had enough ships, they might still be evenly matched against the Alliance . . . and sixteen outlaw ships might be enough to tip the scales.

Or they might all be gunned down before they reached Kelebrandt.

The capital was on the north side of Tsumasai Bay, which had four points of entry. The west entrance was so shallow, Stonegold’s warships couldn’t hope to make it through. The two east entrances were the widest and most difficult to defend; the Alliance would be concentrating their forces there.

The south entrance, though . . . it was the narrowest and farthest from Kelebrandt. A dozen ships were all that was needed to defend it from either side. More than twenty would be a waste.

If the outlaws attacked the Alliance forces at the south entrance, they could break the siege. The Oxscinians could circle back on the bulk of the Alliance fleet and attack on two fronts.

And sixteen outlaw ships would have made all the difference in the war.

But what would it cost?

Soon, the water murmured.

“Can you be a little more specific?” Reed drawled.

The water was silent.

Sighing, he touched the outline of the Resurrection Amulet between his shirt and his tattooed chest. There was a chance it would work without its missing piece, but he knew it wasn’t likely. Without the last piece, it was just a hunk of treasure like any other. It couldn’t save him.

He could go after the piece. He could leave now, for the Citadel of Historians in Corabel, in search of the Amulet’s folklore, and hope to elude the Alliance patrols, somehow.

But could he leave Oxscini to fall? Could he leave his fellow outlaws, if they decided to go?

As he watched the burning shore, he saw something stir on the black cliffs—something big, and fast, with a dark, rough hide that camouflaged it among the rocks—crawling down the jagged stone and slipping into the water without so much as a splash.

What was it?

For a moment, he barely breathed.

Then a large, diamond-shaped head arose from the waves. Red lava dripped onto its forehead, hissing, and pearled off its scaled snout, dropping into the sea.

A dragon.

A real dragon. Reed had thought Dimarion killed the last of them.

Slowly, the creature swam toward him, its long body undulating through the waves like that of a crocodile. Its back and tail were armored in thick plates. It could snap the skiff in half like a twig. It could take one of his arms in a single bite.

But he was Captain Cannek Reed.

He lived for things like this.

He scrambled to the prow of the boat, leaning out over the water as the dragon approached. It paused a few feet from the skiff, peering up at him through slitted yellow eyes.

“I ain’t gonna hurt you,” Reed murmured.

In answer, the dragon let out a sound somewhere between a purr and a growl. Bubbles escaped from between its teeth. It rose from the waves—the wide, viper-like head, the elegant neck, the taloned forepaws flexing just beneath the surface. It smelled like the sea. It smelled like iron and earth. It seemed to study him for a moment, its head swaying from side to side.

Cautiously, Reed lifted his hand.

Hot breath, smelling of fish, wafted over him. It was like lifting the lid on a stew pot and being blasted with steam.

He waited.

Then the dragon pressed its nose to his palm. Its scales were almost too warm to touch, but he didn’t draw back. From deep in its throat came that soft rumbling again, like the distant churning of rock.

After a moment, the creature slunk beneath the waves again, flicking its tail, and dove under the skiff on its way out to sea.

Reed watched it until he could no longer see its dark shape beneath the surface. Then he hoisted the sail.

The old ways weren’t dead. The outlaws were still here, and there were still adventures to be found, uncharted waters to sail, strange and beautiful and deadly things to experience in this wonderful and terrible world.

If he was to have only one more story to add to his collection before he left the world, what did he want it to be? Did he want it to be in pursuit of something he might never find, gunned down on an ordinary day by an Alliance patrol somewhere off the coast of Deliene? Or did he want it to be fighting for the old ways, the wild ways, the ways of the free?

Because if Oxscini fell to the Alliance, it wouldn’t be long before the rest of Kelanna did too . . . and the outlaws with it.

Would they tell stories of his last battle at the entrance to Tsumasai Bay—an outlaw, a siege breaker, a hero, chasing impossible odds?

There were worse ways to die. Worse things to be remembered for.

Captain Cannek Reed was going to war.