Igniting Darkness (His Fair Assassin 5)

None of these hold cannonballs or stones, but the specially made projectiles and fire pots filled with the Dark Mother’s fire.

Behind the artillery, fire pits roar, their flames crackling, eager and hungry for their work.

Across the water, just within sight, are the machines of the second group of charbonnerie. By the time the ships see us, it will already be too late. The passage is too narrow here, and the way forward blocked by the chain, which the initiates of Saint Mer, along with six teams of oxen, helped retrieve from the deep.

My blood fair bubbles with—I do not even know what I am feeling. The tension and apprehension before any fight, yes, but also a sense of standing on some precipice beside the Dark Mother herself.

When the first of the ships finally reaches our location, my heart begins to beat faster, and a murmur of excitement runs through the charbonnerie. “Not yet!” Lazare says, his voice loud enough to reach them, but not so loud as to carry over the water.

I keep my eyes glued to the ships. Men scramble on deck, trimming their sails, manning the rudder, and readying the anchor. Do they have any inkling or premonition of what is about to rain down on their heads?

More ships come into view, filling the wide bay with their wooden hulls, canvas sails flapping in the wind. There are more here now than came to the duchess’s aid over a year ago.

“Steady, steady,” Lazare says. We have set the artillery up behind a thin screen of trees and bushes so that the English will not catch sight of it, but with wide enough openings that our missiles can get through.

At last, the first ship reaches the chain, which stops its progress altogether. The crew appears confused, growing more active as they try to see what the problem is. Then their confusion becomes alarm as the following ships draw ever closer. But still our signal has not come. The last of the ships has not yet entered the bay.

“My lady?” I turn at the sound of Lazare’s voice. He holds up a burning torch. “Would you do the honors?”

He means for me to light the incendiaries. “Have you forgotten how?”

He does not rise to the bait. “The men would prefer that you light the first fire.”

I draw in a sharp breath, but do not refuse. Instead, I take the torch from Lazare and wait for the three flaming arrows to arc up into the sky—our signal.

May the Dark Mother bless this fire, I pray. And me, I add, for lighting it. I set my torch to the tightly bound and weighted explosives in the bucket of the catapult. The men bow, then Lazare takes the torch from me, and in the same time it took for me to light one weapon, they have lit them all.

“Now!” Lazare orders.

The wooden frame creaks as it lurches forward, followed by a ground-shaking whomp as a ball of flame is launched at one of the ships. The sailors barely have time to see it coming before the incendiary crashes onto the deck and explodes into a mass of thunderous flames. Screams quickly follow.

A second incendiary is launched, then a third, each one striking a ship with deadly precision. Within moments the first six ships are consumed in flames. Behind them the crews on the other ships panic, but there is no room to maneuver, no room to tack or order the ships to turn around. In the distance we hear the boom of cannon as they launch similar loads into the last of the ships at the mouth of the bay.

With the first dozen ships nearly engulfed in flames, it is time to move to the second stage of our plan.

Once Lazare checks to make sure the charbonnerie have everything they will need for the second launch, we mount and, along with two dozen knights, begin riding north again. As Beast said, the bay is five miles long, and while our fires will take out the majority of the men, it is inevitable that some will escape. We must be ready for them.

Along each shore, we have placed Arduinnite archers at quarter-mile intervals. Between their extraordinary hearing and their uncanny accuracy with their bows, they should be able to pick off individual sailors as they come stumbling out of the water. Beast and Maraud ride along the opposite shore, each with a force of fighting men. The direction of the wind will push any disabled ships in that direction rather than ours.

For even as skilled as the charbonnerie are, it is impossible that they will hit each of the ships. Especially those in the middle, where the bay widens to its greatest distance. We have no way to get projectiles that far. And so we ride for the fire ship.

Halfway between the chain and the coast, we pull in our horses and head toward the craggy outcropping. There is a small cove where the old ship has been waiting. It has been packed to the rafters with every flammable material imaginable: oil, pitch, straw, kindling, and resin. Two dozen of Saint Mer’s maids stand on the beach next to the charbonnerie. As Lazare rides into view, he raises his arm. Making no sound, the maids slip into the water while the charbonnerie use three culverins to launch three burning spears at the ship.

It ignites immediately, the flames catching greedily. Slowly the ship moves away from the cove, the Mer maids in the water pushing it inexorably toward the English sitting in the middle of the bay.

It is the stuff of sailors’ nightmares, a ship of fire heading straight for them. It does not take much for a ship to ignite. They are held together by pitch—a most eager fuel. One brush against flame, a falling ember, that is all it takes.

The fire ship works even better than I could’ve imagined, careening through the bay like a drunken sailor, igniting each ship it touches.

The crews do their best to put it out, but the Dark Mother’s fire is impervious to their efforts. Even when they pour water on it, the fire simply spreads faster.

“How do you do that?” I ask Lazare.

His eyes never leave the flames. “A charbonnerie secret.”

“I thought I was allowed access to those?”

He smiles. “Not all.”

As we talk, we scan the shore, looking for any stray soldiers who may have slipped over the railing of the flaming decks and decided to take their chances in the water.

We had thought my ability to detect heartbeats would help with locating survivors, but the noise of all the panicked heartbeats on the burning ships, combined with those of us attacking it, the roaring of the flames, and the mass exodus of souls leaving their bodies renders that skill useless. I join the Arduinnites in patrolling the shore, quietly slitting a throat here, or breaking a neck there. I feel no guilt, for this is war, after all, and this seems a far easier way to die than by fire.

Chapter 87

Genevieve

It is a sea of flame. Of roiling, bubbling fire and the charnel of charred ships. The heat coming off the bay is hot enough to peel skin, so I wrap my scarf around the lower half of my face. The water churns—with falling timber, flailing men, and the eager arms of the Saint Mer’s maids who greet them. Those in armor do not even put up a fight, the weight of their breastplates and chain mail ensuring their fate. I hope the Mer maids at least make it more pleasant.

Others leap into the water and strike out toward shore, struggling to avoid the flaming debris. The charbonnerie fire does not extinguish in water, but spreads.

I watch one man dodge a flaming mast, go under it, then come up on the other side, only to be met by a Mer maid. He shoves away from her and swims hard for the shore.

The relief he feels when he reaches land is palpable. Such odds he has overcome. But I can still feel his heart beating. One of Arduinna’s arrows, so swift and silent that he must look down at his chest to understand what is happening, claims him. His soul does not hover or return to his body, but is caught in the massive updraft of the fire and carried aloft like ashes on the wind.

This happens time and time again, too many for me to count. When enough come ashore at once or are out of the archers’ range, I am there to greet them as they crawl from the wreckage. They are surprised at first, relieved it is a woman, mayhap with a tender heart come to bestow mercy.

And in a way that is true, although the mercy I grant them is not what they are

hoping for. I smile at them, always a smile, to acknowledge their valiant struggle, to acknowledge their humanity, to grant them a welcome as death claims them with a swipe of my knife across their throats.

I try also to bless their souls, but the updraft of the fire is so great they are gone before I can utter the words. I like to think they can hear them anyway.

I do not know how long this grisly task takes. It feels as if we have been at it forever, but by the faint glow of the sun behind the thick haze of smoke, it has been no more than a few hours.

A few hours to create such devastation.

A few hours to prevent an enemy force from bringing more war to our land.

As Aeva and I follow the curve of the shore, there is a lull in the chaos, the roar of the ships’ fires finally diminishes somewhat, or mayhap the wind simply shifts, carrying the sound to the far shore instead. But in that lull my heart begins to beat so frantically that I can barely hear the sound of clashing metal, thudding blades, and shouts of men. And then, as if it were the gentle stroke of his finger against my cheek, Maraud’s heart rises above the others. No!

“Aeva!”

We scramble over a rocky outcropping covered with scrub brush. Two ships—untouched by fire—have drifted aground in the shallows. On the shore below is a narrow path from the river bank blocked by Maraud, who is cutting the enemies down as soon as they appear. So why the heartbeat?

“There!” Aeva points.

Slightly upriver, one of their captains has pulled the bedraggled remnants of his army into a decent fighting force. They are approaching from the north, hidden by the trees. And while they are on foot, they are armed, and there are nearly a hundred of them.

“Behind you!” I scream, trying to get their attention over the noise of the fighting.

Led by Jaspar, most of Maraud’s small force wheel their mounts around and charge toward the coming attack. Andry stays back to cover Maraud and Tassin as they try to finish off the encroaching stragglers. I unhook the crossbow I have been carrying all morning.

Aeva reaches for her bow as well. “It will be hard to avoid our own men, so stick to the fringes where the bulk of the enemy are.”

“That shouldn’t be hard,” I mutter, “as there are six times as many of them.” Maraud’s heart is still beating frantically, as are dozens of others. Just inside the trees, the commander motions with his hand. Twenty archers run forward.

“Archers!” I bellow down at the others. As if spurred by my words, Maraud administers two final sweeping blows, then wheels his horse around and rides directly for the bowmen, cutting through them like kindling.