Truthwitch (The Witchlands 1)

“I got rid of it.” Safi motioned to the now-empty waves.

“No! That is how they hunt.” Evrane unsheathed a second throwing knife. “They test the ship—see how we fight. Then they dive. As we speak, both foxes are swimming for the surface, building momentum as they go. They will try to unbalance the boats and grab any men who fall.”

Safi’s mouth dropped open; salty air swept in. “You mean it’s coming back?”

“Yes.” She shoved the knife at Safi. “So take this knife and widen your stances, fools!”

Safi snatched up the knife just as Iseult cried, “Here it comes!”

Wood exploded in a deafening crunch. The boat tipped sharply left … left … Safi angled her body into the deck, against the ship’s rise.

Screams ripped out behind her. Marstoki sailors tumbled for the water, and with their hands bound, they would fall right in.

Safi and Iseult locked eyes—and Safi knew her Threadsister thought the same thing. As one, they stopped fighting the rise of the ship, and instead they fell into it.

The wood grabbed at Safi’s bare soles. Locked her down and forced her into tiny, bouncing hops behind Iseult, whose boots slid more easily over the wet planks.

Iseult reached the other side first, and with a roar, she grabbed at a green tunic right before its owner toppled overboard. It was the bearded Firewitch healer.

“Not so filthy now, huh?” Safi shouted.

But then a cry burst up. A second Marstok—just a boy—fell toward the railing. Safi dove for him. He flipped over the edge. Safi flipped after. She snagged his ankle—and then Iseult snagged hers.

“I’ve … got you,” Iseult gritted, hugging the railing with her bad arm. “Not for long, though—oh shit.”

The boat stopped tipping. Gravity took hold, and the ship fell the other way in a howl of water and resisting wood.

Safi and the boy swung onto the boat, Iseult shrieking from the pain of holding on … until Evrane was there, somehow still on her feet, and towing Safi upright.

The sea fox burst from the waves—way too close to where Iseult was scrabbling back.

Safi threw her knife. It punched into the fox’s eye, inches away from the first knife.

The monster shrieked and dove once more. Saltwater rained down, the ship pitching all the more wildly.

Safi pulled Iseult to her feet. Iseult’s right arm hung limp, her face creased with pain—though she still managed to yell, “Nice aim.”

“Except I was going for the other eye.”

“Stop doing that!” Evrane shouted, several paces away and with the young Marstok beside her. “You’re wasting my knives!” Her sword arced out. She slashed the boy’s bindings. “And stop standing there! We need to free these men while we can.”

Iseult nodded tiredly and staggered for the nearest set of sailors. But Safi was—yet again—weaponless.

Evrane unbuckled her last throwing knife. “Don’t lose this, Domna.”

“Yes, yes.” Safi seized it and twisted for the nearest sailor. With three quick hacks, she had him unbound. She moved to the next man, then the next. One after another, she freed them from their ropes. The unbound men went on to help their comrades, while a handful of free Firewitches moved into a defensive square formation at the center of the deck. Safi spared a glance toward the water—still empty—and toward the Jana.

The sea fox that had terrorized it was also nowhere to be seen.

For half a moment, Safi thought maybe the monsters had given up the hunt … but then Iseult shrieked out, “Here it comes! Southern side!”

Southern side. The exact side on which Safi now sawed through a sailor’s ropes. Shit, shit, shit … She cut through the last of the fibers and the man scrabbled away.

The sea fox erupted from the waves, flinging its head over the railing. Teeth hurtled in—teeth and swirling eyes and a scream to crush her skull.

It was going to eat her. It would snap her body in half and swallow her—

Wind slammed into Safi’s chest. Into her legs. She spun wildly back, away from the monster’s maw. As sea and sky and ship blurred together with Firewitch flames, she spotted Merik flying at her.

Gratitude—relief—surged through her.

Safi hit the deck—as did he. On top of her. Then, as the boat hitched the other way, he rolled off and thundered, “What the hell are you doing here?”

Safi blinked, briefly stunned. Then she scrabbled up and shouted, “You’re giving me to the Marstoks!”

“Not anymore, I’m not!” He unsheathed his cutlass and, in a blur of steel, he sliced through Marstoki bindings. One after the other. And as he moved, he yelled, “Noden has favored me, Domna, and only a fool ignores such gifts.”

“Gifts?” she squawked, sawing at an old man’s ropes and eyeing the waters. “How is a thrice-damned sea fox a gift?”

“Stop talking!” Merik pointed to the ship’s ladder. “Go below and stay out of the way!”

“Don’t do that!” Iseult cried, stumbling toward Safi with Evrane on her heels. Her breath was ragged, her face pinched. “The fox is going for the back. We need to reach the men at the front.”

Without another word, they all bolted for the ship’s fore. Safi and Iseult yanked man after man from the railing and shoved them at Evrane and Merik, who sliced rope after rope. The Firewitches stayed in their tight formation, ready to fight.