Snake Heart (36 page)

The alarm continued to wail, and ominous black smoke poured from the stacks. Someone opened a hatch, and heat flowed out, momentarily making it feel like they were back in the tropics. Shouts came up from below, from whatever engine room powered the vessel.

Though he could feel the fear of the soldiers and knew the ship could blow up, Yanko’s gaze was drawn toward the horizon where more and more peaks and ridges poked above the water, growing upward like plants on a warm sunny day.

The ironclad’s helmsman must have figured out that the boiler wasn’t their only problem, that the vessel might be stranded on land thousands of miles from Turgonian shores, with no way off. The ship steamed northward, following the rest of the fleet, a dozen ironclad ships pouring ribbons of black smoke into the sky from their stacks. The other ships were outdistancing this one. Yanko rubbed his face, wondering what exactly Sun Dragon had done before being swallowed by lava. He also wondered if it was horrible that he looked upon the land rising from the ocean with awe and satisfaction, instead of seeing a problem. Being stranded would be problematic, but he couldn’t help but see that as a future with more possibilities than being taken back to Turgonia.

An alarmed squawk sounded as Kei flapped into sight and banked toward Yanko. Relieved to see the parrot, Yanko did not mind the pain that came with talons sinking into the bare flesh of his shoulder or the request for seeds that popped into his mind.

A couple of the soldiers twitched, the barrels of their rifles shifting toward the bird. What, did they think Kei was some vile wizard’s familiar? Yanko prepared to shield himself and the parrot in case one of the men fired, but they lowered their rifles to the original target: Yanko’s chest. They did shift uneasily, glancing from Yanko to Kei and back again.

“You made an impression on them,” Lakeo muttered.

“I liked it better when everybody dismissed me as a harmless boy with four chin hairs,” Yanko murmured back. He had no idea if any of these Turgonians spoke his language, but they might object to open chatting.

“Did you? That seemed to irk you.” Lakeo glanced at Arayevo, who did not respond to the conversation. She gazed toward the railing and the points of land rising from the sea all around them, the setting sun burnishing the wet earth a deep red.

“Because in my naive youth, I didn’t realize it was better to be underestimated than overestimated.” Yanko gripped his arms, resisting the urge to stuff his hands into his armpits. Fierce wizards probably weren’t supposed to shiver in front of their enemies, even if their robes had been stolen.

Lakeo eyed the rifles pointed toward Yanko. “Oh, I think they’re estimating you just about right. They may be underestimating
me
.” She sniffed.

“Jealous that you don’t have more firearms pointed at you?”

“Slightly.”

“Maybe a janitor will push a mop bucket past, and you can do nefarious things to it.”

“Don’t tempt me.” Lakeo folded her bare arms over her chest and gazed—or glared—out past the railing. She watched a ridge of land drift past as the ironclad continued north. “I hate to say it, Yanko, but your continent is ugly.”

“It is not.”

Yes, it was bare of the normal grasses and trees and shrubs that an island would typically have developed over thousands of years. Instead, it claimed a lot of silt, sand, and seaweed and kelp that would have floated colorfully under the water but which had now flattened onto the terrain, where it would die, deprived of its salt-water habitat. Starfish and other sea life that hadn’t been ambulatory enough to escape when the landmass arose would suffer the same fate. Yanko regretted that, but he also suspected that the earth that was left behind would be full of nutrients and welcoming to crops eventually. That
would
take time, and someone would probably have to start out planting species from coastal marshes that could thrive in salty soil, but in his lifetime, he could imagine this becoming a fertile land, so long as it had the right stewards.

“Turgonian stewards or Nurian stewards?” he wondered, glancing at the guards with the rifles. It was hard to imagine the burly soldiers as farmers.

“It looks like the gods vomited on a sandbar,” Lakeo said.

“I’m inclined to agree,” Arayevo said, “but I’m also hungry, so that may make my imagination less... imaginative. What are the odds that our captors will let us have our cabins back? And a snack?”

A clang sounded, the hatch opening again.

Dak stalked out, his face, hands, and shirt coated with black soot. Yanko barely recognized him. A white bandage wrapped around his right hand was the only clean thing on him, and even it had a few black smudges.

Four young armed soldiers trailed after him, trading nervous glances with each other. One of them broke away and jogged over to the senior soldier holding Yanko and his friends against the bulkhead. They shared a few whispers in Turgonian.

“What’s going on?” Yanko asked Dak, noting the displeased thundercloud storming on his face.

“The boiler explosion has been averted,” Dak said, his voice hard and terse, as if he were speaking about their imminent sinking rather than a problem being solved.

Another thunk came from the hull of the bow, followed by a disturbing squealing scrape. The ironclad veered onto a new course with surprising alacrity for such a large craft. Yanko allowed that they still had a problem.

“We’re going to the brig,” Dak said, and jerked his chin toward a different hatch that led below decks.

Yanko sighed, though he was hardly surprised. “Will they let us out if we run into a mountain and start to sink?”

The Turgonians spoke rapidly to each other, then waved their weapons toward the hatch, making it clear that Yanko was to lead the way.

“I wouldn’t bet on it,” Dak grumbled.

He walked behind Yanko, Arayevo, Lakeo, and the mage hunter. The soldiers crowded around them. Yanko thought about pointing out that he could protect himself and his friends if they decided to shoot, but there wasn’t much to be gained from reminding them that he could access the mental sciences.

They wound through dark corridors and down two flights of stairs. More soldiers waited in the brig. One kindly opened the gate to a cell for Yanko. He, Arayevo, and Lakeo were directed into it, while Jhali was placed in the one adjacent to them. A guard with a first-aid kit went in after her, while another stayed nearby to keep a pistol aimed at her. Yanko would make sure he did not fall asleep anywhere close to the shared cell wall.

Kei sprang from his shoulder and chose a perch on the horizontal bar that ran between the vertical ones. Yanko rubbed away blood from his skin, wishing to have his robe back for more reasons than one.

“Dak,” Yanko said, “if we make it back out to the sea before—” A scrape against the hull sounded, the noise much louder down within the bowels of the ship. “If we make it back out to sea, can you—”

“I can’t do anything, Yanko,” Dak said.

“But—” Yanko broke his protest off before it had started, his mouth dangling open as Dak was pushed into a third cell, one across the way from Yanko.

The guards spoke rapidly to each other, then shoved his gate shut with a clang. One turned a lock in the keyhole, then did the same to Yanko’s gate. Yanko barely noticed. He kept staring at Dak, trying to figure out if he was grasping the situation correctly. What could have happened? Why would his own people imprison him?

Once the gates were locked, half of the guards left, their boots clanging on the metal decking as they strode out of the brig. The other half of the contingent, eight men, remained behind, taking up guard positions and looking like they intended to stay for a while. The other three cells were empty, so all of these people were there for the mage hunter and for Yanko. Yanko and... Dak.

“Uhm, Dak?” Yanko asked. “Are you here to guard me again?”

Dak glowered through the bars, and for a moment, Yanko did not think he would answer.

Finally, he said, “I’m here because I’ve been confined to the brig for assisting a rogue Nurian criminal in killing a Nurian diplomat. Admiral Ravencrest plans to take me back to Turgonia, where my superiors can sort out my actions and figure out if I was working against my nation.” His nostrils flared as he inhaled distasteful air.

“But I...” Yanko groped for words, all too aware that he had pleaded with Dak to help him against the mage. “Sun Dragon isn’t—wasn’t—a diplomat. How can they not see that? He wanted to strand your entire fleet there when the land rose up, and he had arranged for someone else to pick him up.” Yanko admitted that he was guessing at the latter, but Sun Dragon had implied as much.

“I don’t suppose you have any proof of that,” Dak said.

“No. He spoke to me in my mind.”

“Wonderful.”

“How can they—I mean, you’re the president’s nephew, right?” Yanko asked, ignoring the surprised looks that Lakeo and Arayevo gave him. Even the mage hunter looked over, her eyebrows slightly elevated. “They must know that you wouldn’t act dishonorably or betray your nation.”

“As I told you, being related to someone important doesn’t mean anything in Turgonia. All that matters are one’s actions. And mine have been—” he ground his teeth, a muscle in his jaw twitching, “—called into question. If I hadn’t been integral in helping with the boiler, I might be receiving worse punishment than a stay in the brig.”

“But Sun Dragon isn’t influencing the admiral anymore,” Yanko reasoned. “He shouldn’t be... Why wouldn’t he believe what you told him? That I’m... not a rogue Nurian criminal. I’m...” Yes, what exactly
was
he? Until he cleared his name, he
was
a Nurian criminal. “Working for Prince Zirabo.”

“Do you still have the letter?” Dak asked.

“I—” Yanko patted his chest, checking for the familiar feel of the letter in his tunic before remembering that he was shirtless. He almost said that it would be in his clothes, but when was the last time he had checked for it? Before swimming out of Pey Lu’s ship? What were the odds that it still remained in that pocket? Even if it did, would the Nurians truly care? “It might be in my tunic.”

“It’s not. I was there when they dumped out your gear and searched everything.” Dak’s jaw clenched again. “They searched all of my gear too.”

“Oh.” Yanko didn’t know what else to say. Without that letter, he was... everything that Dak had said. Everything this Fleet Admiral Ravencrest apparently believed.

A ringing bleat sounded, something different from the alarm of earlier. A call to attention? After it finished, a man spoke in Turgonian over some contraption that piped the words down, even into the lower levels.

Cheers sounded, muted by the intervening bulkheads, but their pleasure was nonetheless decipherable.

“What did he say?” Yanko asked.

“We’ve cleared the landmass.” Dak glanced at the guards, then held Yanko’s gaze across the passageway. “We’re going to Turgonia.”

Yanko gripped the bars of his cell. He could burn through the lock with his mind, and maybe he could even get past the guards without being shot, but unless he could control Admiral Ravencrest’s mind the way Sun Dragon had, how could he get off this ship and back to his people? How could he find Prince Zirabo and tell the Nurians about the new continent before the Turgonians heard about it? How could he avoid being shot as an enemy, both to his own nation and to Turgonia?

“What would you do if you were in my position, Dak?” Yanko asked quietly, aware of the guards watching on.

Maybe it was unfair or selfish to ask for advice from someone who might be in an even worse position than he was, thanks to the help he had offered, but Yanko couldn’t stop thinking about his mission, about the honor he had sworn to return to his family. He had to try whatever he could to find a way back home, talk to whoever might have information he could use.

Dak backed away from the bars. “Listen, Yanko. For the sake of my career, I can’t help you anymore. This has turned into enough of a morass without further muddying the waters. I hope you will consider my debt repaid.” He inclined his head once, then turned and sat down, his back to the bars. And to Yanko.

Yanko swallowed and rested his forehead against his own bars. He still had Arayevo and Lakeo, but he couldn’t help but feel that he had just lost a friend. Perhaps forever. To add to the insult, he’d failed in his mission, he’d possibly brought more dishonor to his family, and he was on his way to the enemy nation, thousands of miles from home.

Arayevo swatted him in the shoulder. “Forget your grumpy cellmates, Yanko. I’ll tell you what we’re going to do. Escape.”

“From a Turgonian warship in the middle of the ocean, surrounded by a dozen other warships?”

“Of course. Are you or are you not Yanko White Fox, someone who very nearly qualified for Stargrind?”

He snorted. “Very nearly, yes.”

“That makes you the most powerful wizard around.”

“An alarming thought.”

“We’ll come up with something. I heard Lakeo is talented with mops.”

Yanko could think of plenty of ways to destroy the ship. He could think of fewer ways to convince it to turn toward Nuria and take him home, preferably before reporting back to Turgonia with word of the continent.

“We’ll come up with something,” Arayevo repeated softly.

Yanko nodded. “Yes.”

They had to. There was no other choice.

THE END

The adventure continues this fall with the third book in the Chains of Honor series
.