In Dawn and Darkness Read online

  He’d been itching for a fight, and here it was. Kit straightened as if unfolding himself, as if he too had something to shake out of his blood.

  They stood nose to nose, both seething.

  “You’re being stupid,” Kit said. “Don’t push your luck. You don’t want to challenge me.”

  In response, Nol stepped even closer.

  Garren was grinning in delight. Myo looked resigned.

  “Stop,” I said. “Stop baring your teeth at each other like a couple of dogs and listen to me. We don’t have time for this. Nautilus’s ships are waiting to attack.”

  “What’s this about you fighting?” Kit asked. As his anger faded, he looked worried. He and Nol wore equal expressions.

  “I’m good with a spear. You two, of all people, know that,” I said.

  “Aemi, this isn’t a tussle with a few village idiots,” Nol said. “If this were about throwing spears, I’d be the first one to nominate you. But those warships are going to burn the village to the ground. What do you possibly think you can contribute? What could any of us realistically contribute?”

  “Hear me out,” I said. “Before Primus was seized, the senate was discussing arming the surface villages. Annah moved to do so, and Vial seconded it. If we could get word to my grandmother, perhaps she could do something.”

  “We’re almost a day’s travel from Verdus,” Valus said. “There’s no way to get word.”

  I hadn’t noticed him standing in the doorway listening.

  “We can send a relay,” Keli said. “There are signal stations between here and Verdus. A passing ship might hear it if they’re nearby.”

  “Thank you,” I said. “At last, someone who isn’t full of utter gloom.”

  “Men,” Keli said with a conspiratorial eye roll.

  “Send a message,” I ordered. “Tell whoever you can find that we need troops and weapons to fight Nautilus’s men on the surface. Myo, help her compose it. Tell them... tell them we fight for the Remnant.”

  “My lady,” Myo began.

  I looked at him. “Send the message,” I repeated. With my eyes, I dared him to tell me not to do it.

  “I was going to say,” Myo murmured for my ears only, “that perhaps you should try Arctus, as they might be closer.”

  Surprise shook me, as I hadn’t thought he would care. Myo seemed to exist above the struggles of the nation.

  “Come,” I said. “We should see what weapons we have in the storage bay.”

  “Whatever truskets and guns we might be able to scrounge up are not going to be enough,” Valus said from the doorway where he’d been listening. “If my father’s ships are coming, then we’re doomed if we try to stop them. We’ll either be shot to death by their truskets or burned alive by the fires they set to draw the people out of the houses. Or, of course, we might be captured and killed slowly at the pleasure of my father—”

  “Your optimism is very helpful,” Nol said. “Perhaps you should tell us more ways that we’re going to possibly die.”

  “My pleasure, Dron,” Valus snarled.

  “Silence, everyone,” Myo said. “If we’re going to do this, we might as well make it count for something.”

  “What do you mean?” I asked.

  He smiled. “I have a few ideas.”

  ~ ~ ~

  The stars glowed like a mist against a dark purple night sky as we waited, weapons in hand, the wind singing softly in the trees above our heads and the waves murmuring against the shore. My legs cramped from holding the same position for hours, and anxiety rioted in my veins. A trusket hung heavy over my left shoulder, with extra ammunition strapped across my chest. On my left, Kit was motionless, the curve of his shoulder the only thing visible in the starlight. On my right, Nol breathed softly, hidden completely by darkness, so close he brushed my arm every time he shifted. We crouched between two shallow-bottomed boats, hidden by a tangle of trees and brush at one end of the rocky shore. In the distance, the village lights glinted like fireflies.

  “Are we sure they’re even coming?” Valus whispered from the darkness. “This might be for nothing. Perhaps we should return to the ship.”

  Garren spoke with thinly veiled irritation from behind Myo. “One might think you were nervous, boy.”

  “Well of course I’m nervous,” Valus said indignantly. “I’m hiding in the brush on a surface island, waiting to take part in the most foolish—”

  “Shut up,” Nol said. “Garren, make him shut up.”

  Garren made a sound of genuine pleasure in his throat as he moved toward Valus, disappearing into deeper shadow. A scuffling noise came from the brush, and then a thud.

  “You need me,” Valus snarled, and his face sounded suspiciously muffled, as if pressed into the dirt.

  “A bruise or two won’t keep you from doing your job, Itlantean,” Garren said.

  They were frustrated and afraid. We all were. Taking it out on Valus wasn’t the solution.

  “Leave him alone,” I said sharply, and I heard Valus grunt as if dropped. Garren returned to his former place.

  “I don’t trust him not to betray us,” Nol said to me under his breath.

  “None of us trusts the other. Why should Valus be an exception?”

  Nol was silent. My words must have stung him.

  I didn’t have time to regret saying them, for the sound of the sea changed, and my blood turned to ice as a memory filled my head.

  I lay without moving as I listened, trying to understand what had pulled me from my sleep, and gradually, I realized that the sound of the sea was much, much louder, as if the shape of the shore had changed.

  Pushing myself up from my bed, I smothered a groan at the stinging in my back as I padded to the window that overlooked the interior of the village. I could see the pool in the center of the village, a silent sheet of black water in the night, without a single ripple to mar its surface. I could not see the ocean.

  Somewhere in the village, in another window, a light went on. The breeze fanned my face, smelling of sea and stone.

  “They’ve surfaced,” I said. “Listen to the ocean. The waves have changed.”

  “They’ll be docked offshore. They always use diving masks to leave the ship,” Kit said.

  “Give the signal,” Myo murmured, and Nol disappeared into the brush with a rustle.

  The rest of us grabbed the edges of the first boat and lifted it. Valus swore as he stumbled over a tree root in the dark, and Garren growled for him to hush. Our feet scraped over rocks and then we were in the water, the sea hissing around our ankles. Valus and Kit went into the boat, and Myo, Garren, and I returned for the second one. Nol returned as we were lifting it, and the four of us hoisted the boat and struggled to the sea. Waves slapped the edge of the boat as I climbed inside, Nol and Myo after me, Garren slogging to the other one. The sea was a dark, whispering thing that blurred with the sky. My breathing rasped in my ears.

  In the distance, fire lit the sky.

  The village.

  Screams echoed through the night, bouncing off the rocks and water. Dark figures streaked from the shadows as the roofs of several houses ignited. The blaze licked the sky.

  “Go,” Myo whispered, and oars slipped into the waves, barely making a sound as they cut the water.

  The warships were great dark shapes of nothing, bits of oblivion where the dark water no longer reflected the light from the stars. We reached the hull of the closest one and bumped against it, bobbing on the water. Kit reached out and grabbed the edge of the ship. Valus clambered awkwardly onto the hull as the boat rocked. The firelight from shore caught his eyes and made them gleam, and I saw a flash of fear cross his face before he turned and was in shadow again.

  Garren followed Valus, then Kit leaped from the boat last of all, and the three of them stood outlined for a moment as an explosion rocked the beach. Kit found me with his eyes, and worry creased his forehead and pulled his mouth taut, but there wasn’t time, and we’d already agreed this wa
s the only way to split the groups. Then they were disappearing through a door in the hull that Valus had opened, and the rest of us were rowing for the second ship.

  “Quickly,” Myo said as we reached the warship. I leaped onto a narrow ledge, slipping a little on the slick metal, the trusket strapped to my back thumping against my shoulder. Nol was behind me, his hand on my arm, and then Myo was kneeling beside a yawning hole that led down into the ship, and I was following Nol down a ladder into darkness illuminated by lines of light that outlined the corridor below. My heart drummed against my ribs, and my lungs burned. My feet touched a slatted metal floor, and Myo closed the opening above us before descending.

  Nol looked at me, his expression raw. Sweat gleamed on his face in the dim light of the ship’s interior, and a wordless communication passed between us. His chest rose and fell in a quick breath as he fortified himself, his features shuttering into impassiveness before Myo reached us.

  “Arm yourselves,” Myo said when he reached the bottom, but Nol had already disappeared to the end of the corridor, the trusket pressed against his shoulder at ready as he scanned it for the enemy. I pulled the weapon from my back, and it felt clumsy in my hands, too heavy and too bulky. Myo motioned to Nol, who signaled that the way was clear. Myo looked at me, and then the trusket in my hands.

  “We should have left you on the Riptide,” he said with a sigh.

  “You need every person you can get to pull this off,” I countered, reminding him of the fact that had convinced everyone, including an unhappy Kit, that they needed me along. We’d already argued about this earlier, and I’d won.

  He didn’t miss the way the trusket trembled in my hands, though. His mouth tugged down in a faint scowl.

  “Stay back, and don’t try any heroics. You’re worth far more to everyone if you’re alive.”

  We moved forward to join Nol where the corridor split into four directions. Myo studied them a moment and then chose to go straight.

  Creeping through the interior of the warship gave me flashbacks. Once before, we’d been on such a ship, Nol and I—perhaps even this same ship, and we’d stolen along the corridor with Myo as our guide, both of us breathless with fear.

  Nol pressed his back to the wall when we reached another intersection of hallways, clutching the trusket close before peering to see if the way was clear. Behind him, Myo paused before a round door and entered a code. The locks hissed as they released, and Myo twisted the wheel to open it.

  A metal plate above the door read ARMORY.

  “What’s this?” Nol demanded.

  Myo glanced at him with one eyebrow raised, then stepped into the gloom inside. I followed.

  “Myo?” I whispered.

  He tossed a spear at me, and I caught it reflexively with one hand.

  “I hear you both have some skill with this weapon. Perhaps Aemiana would be better suited to carrying it instead.”

  I slung the trusket back over my shoulder and tested the weight of the spear. It was a good size for me.

  “Let’s go,” Nol said. “We don’t have much time. Every moment we are on this ship is a risk.”

  We left the armory, keeping close to the wall as we followed the curve of the hall.

  Voices drifted from a room ahead. Myo held up a hand, listening, and then he smiled and signaled for us to raise our weapons.

  “...A dull job,” one voice was saying. “These villagers are all the same. They scatter like fish, they scream, and when there’s nowhere else to run, they are easily gathered up.”

  “I’d rather be there than here,” another replied. “What’s duller than an empty ship? I was promised action. Battle. Not this tired routine of herding slaves and watching empty scanners for ships that never come. We might as well be back shooting religious freaks on Magmus.”

  “I’ve heard rumor that battle may not be far off,” a third murmured.

  I halted, grabbing Nol’s arm as I listened.

  “With Primus captured, it won’t be much different than with the surfacers,” the first voice said with a laugh. “We’ll set a few fires and pick the people off as they run.”

  I drew in a quick breath. Myo motioned for us, and we moved in tandem.

  Our feet clattered on the floor as we burst into the control room, and three shocked soldiers in black bodysuits slowly raised their hands in response to Nol’s barked order.

  Myo nodded to me. “Let’s put them where they keep the surfacers.”

  “They want excitement,” Nol said. “Perhaps we should drag them behind the ship for the sharks to eat.”

  He was breathing hard, his neck tight with fury, the muscles in his jaw twitching.

  The soldiers looked terrified.

  “No,” I said. “I want to know more about these rumors.”

  A sensor beeped loudly. Nol crossed to the panel to see what was setting it off, and his shoulders tensed as he stared through the glass at the sea above us. “Ships,” he reported. “Several of them, large ones.”

  Terror lanced me as I rushed to his side and stared up at the dark shapes appearing out of the dark ocean water, lights lining their hulls. Had reinforcements arrived? Had the others been captured, Nautilus contacted?

  Lights flashed at us, signals. I broke into a laugh as relief rushed over me.

  “They’re Itlantean. They received our message. They’re here to help.”

  “Inform them,” Myo said, “that we have acquired a few new ships for the Itlantean-Dron alliance. And inform them that the on-shore resistance will have quite a few prisoners captured for them to interrogate.”

  “Alliance?” one of the soldiers repeated. His face was pale. “Resistance?”

  Nol bound their hands while Myo pointed a trusket at them. They were bewildered and shaking, their bravado about battles abandoned. They were little more than boys. Had Nautilus run out of men?

  When Nol finished, Myo stepped closer. His trusket stopped an inch before the face of one of the soldiers, the one that looked the most frightened.

  I pulled out my spear.

  “Tell us more about these rumors,” I said.

  CHAPTER TEN

  AT FIRST, I thought the sky was still bright with flames as we emerged from the warship, but it was the dawn breaking over the trees of the island. Smoke rose in spirals from the village, but no buildings still burned. On the shore, Itlantean soldiers dressed in the green of Verdus led away groups of captured men in Volcanusean black bodysuits and armor. Surfacers tended to the wounded and dragged debris from destroyed buildings away. A few of the Itlanteans wore bewildered expressions, as if they couldn’t quite believe that they were breathing air and not asphyxiating. The surfacers stared, skittish but receptive to the strangers who had come to their rescue.

  Kit and Garren met us at the beach. Bandages swathed Garren’s forehead. Kit winced as he helped me out of the boat. I saw bloodstains on his right shoulder.

  “What happened?” I said, alarmed.

  “We had a bit of trouble when we took the ship,” Kit explained briskly. “Two soldiers jumped us outside the armory.”

  Garren grinned, revealing a chipped tooth. “They learned what they can expect from a Dron in a fair fight.”

  “Where’s Valus?” I scanned the shore and didn’t see any sign of Nautilus’s dark-haired son among the milling surfacers and Itlanteans. A sudden pang of panic seized me, startling in its intensity.

  Had we lost him?

  “He didn’t want to be seen here,” Kit said. “He’s back on the Riptide now.”

  I breathed out in relief but said nothing. My legs had begun to shake as the full force of what we’d accomplished hit me. We’d thwarted an attack. We’d captured two warships.

  We’d all survived.

  Nol surveyed the crowd near the village. “Look at them. Like two species meeting for the first time.”

  A few of the surfacer children dared to get close enough to touch the shimmering bodysuits and flexible armor of the Itlanteans. On
e laughed, a startling sound in the grim silence.

  As we climbed the pebbled slope and left the surf behind, a figure turned toward us, and I paused. Straight black hair, olive skin, full lips. A face more suited for a ballroom than a battlefield, yet here he was, streaked in sweat and blood, clad in armor and carrying a trusket over his shoulder.

  Darek.

  He spotted me and stared as if he’d seen a ghost. I suppose he thought he had. After a moment, he bowed as if we were in that proverbial ballroom rather than a beach crusted with carnage and then clasped my hand. “My lady Aemiana,” he said. “You’re alive? How? I don’t understand.”

  “Please,” I said. “For my safety, because of the threats on my life, we faked my death.”

  He kept standing there, holding my hand. “I attended your memorial,” he said.

  “I’m sorry about the deception. It was necessary.”

  He nodded. “I suppose I should expect no less from a Graywater.”

  The words were warm, and not meant to sting. He gave me a beautiful smile and released my hand. “My brother will be delighted to know you are alive.”

  “No! Don’t tell him. You must keep it secret. Please, Darek.”

  Darek nodded reluctantly. “Of course,” he said. “The republic thanks you for your message. You’ve done us a great service today.”

  I surveyed the Verdusean soldiers swarming the hills. “I’m just glad someone listened.”

  Darek smiled, showing straight white teeth. “They almost didn’t. There was quite the debate in the control room—you’re a controversial figure, you know, and some argued that with the senate in pieces, such things decided in the past did not need to be honored. Senator Jak was on board. He gave an impassioned speech about protecting our own. But then one of the captains asked why these people weren’t our own now, if we were just a remnant ourselves, and in the end, we came.” He gazed around us. “And now, we have two of Nautilus’s warships.”