Raiders' Ransom (32 page)

I know it's bad, but I had to choose somehow, so I went by age. Lexy's littler than Zeph. He's a fighter, a raider. He'll be all right, I know he will. So here I am headed out toward the wreck of Randall's flagship. Heading into the battle, into the flash and boom of cannon fire, the scream and roar of rockets. Cat ain't wailing anymore, he's working now; tail and ears twitching, meowing at the wreckage and smoke. It makes me feel a little bit less like I'm going to get blown up any minute.

The battle keeps on. Every English ship that ain't on fire has got red-sailed raider ships all about it, and now there's flashings of swords and the screams and howls of fighting. And another sound:
ratatata!
Rifles firing.

BOOM!
Something explodes in the water nearby, making me and Cat jump like fleas, spraying us with cold seawater.
My heart's pounding, waiting for the next one, the one that'll get us. But we sail through the frothing white water and nothing else comes near. I hope it was just a stray. I hope we ain't anyone's target.

A sooty plume drifts over the water from one of them burning ships and wraps us up in coughing grayness. With it comes that smell again, the one like roasting meat. I try and keep a course for where I last saw Randall's flagship, but it's hard, cos the smoke swirls about us, clearing sometimes, sometimes covering us like thick fog. It chokes up my nose, getting in my eyes so I can't see for tears. But maybe that ain't just the smoke.

There's people now. Floating in the water. Bumping against the boat. Floating faceup, facedown. Clothes and hair billowing in the red-soaked water. Drifting past, so close I could touch him, is a young raider with a mess of meat and innards where his chest should be. And when he's gone by, a blue-coated soldier rolls in the waves, dead eyes staring at me out of a black and blistered face. My stomach lifts and heaves, trying to get out through my mouth, and I'm shuddering inside each time a new body floats past.

Thud, thud, thud,
go the bodies against the boat.
Boom! Roar!
go the cannons and rockets out there beyond this smoke. None of the bodies show any sign of life, but some people must have survived. They must have, cos I can hear men's voices out in the water, crying, screaming, pleading for someone
to save them. But I don't know where they are. Don't even know where I am.

Just as suddenly as the murk swallowed us, a strong gust of wind blows us out again. Out into the wide chopping waters of the bay: gray smoke rising up to meet the dark clouds, white sails smoldering into ash, red dragonboats foundering or split apart. And where there's anything left to fight over, raiders are hacking away at English sailors, or English soldiers are firing at the raiders. In between the ships is wreckage, and bodies, and rowboats filled to bursting with survivors of broken ships. Some are rowing, like they're trying to get somewhere, and some are just laid out in their boats, crying and groaning. In the water, here and there's a man swimming toward a rowboat, trying to get to safety, crying out to his mates. None of them is anywhere near me, though. And most of those in the water ain't crying, or swimming, or doing anything at all.

Dead ahead is what's left of Randall's flagship. Her stern's still sticking out of the water, but everything else is gone. Even her masts have toppled now, lying like dead trees in the water and covered with men, clinging on like ants. On what's left of her decks, a squashed-up crowd of panicky, shouting sailors and soldiers are lowering boats down onto the water, or clinging to their places, or just jumping out into the sea. And in the sea all about there's a great slick of broken wood.

I push my boat on through, and now the
thud
of bodies changes to the
clunk, clank, clunk
of wood hitting the hull. But there's still thuds, and when there is, I look, with my heart stitched up in my mouth. Look for the pale little face of a girl, in among all these men.

It's something flashing that draws my eyes up. Flashing silver. A sail. Not red or white, but the silver sail of a Scottish sunship. By the look of things, it's doing the same as me, skirting around the wreck of Randall's flagship, pushing through the broken wood and bodies. There's someone at the prow, staring out at the water. Same as me.

I ain't never seen a sunship before, 'cept only way off in the distance. It's beautiful. Gleaming and new-looking, the silver of the solar sail lighting up the water around her, right across the slick of wreckage. Cat suddenly sets up a great meowing and screeching, and with that extra light I see something. Among all the wood, and all the bodies, there's people alive. Definitely alive! They've got their heads up, and they're holding on to the remains of the ship. Not just floating among it. There's two near each other, and a group of four or five farther away. The men in the larger group are waving their arms at the sunship. But it's the two together I care about. One of them's definitely Jasper, and the other's got a little white face. I breathe in. Take my first proper breath since I saw the firing start.

“Lexy! I'm coming to get you!”

She twists around and looks at me.

“Lilly!” she shouts, and starts waving with one arm. I start laughing. Or maybe I'm crying.

It doesn't take long to reach them, even though the wood makes the water thick and stiff. Lexy's holding on to a piece of wreck and Jasper's holding her on to it.

“I'll haul you in,” I call.

But Jasper shouts, “No! We aren't going with you.”

“What?” I can't believe it, and Lexy looks like she can't believe it, neither.

“I'm cold,” she cries. “I want to get out and be with Lilly.”

“Don't be ridiculous. We're waiting for a sunship. It'll be here any moment.”

“You're an idiot!” I shout. “If you want to freeze to death, you can. But I ain't leaving Lexy in the water to drown!” And I get as close as I can, then I grab hold of Lexy's arm. I haul her in, and she's blue and shivering. But she's alive. I put my hand out to Jasper, but he snarls at me.

“Where are you going to take her?” he asks from shivering lips. “That boat of yours won't last a minute. You won't make it back to the island alive.” His teeth start chattering, but he still won't get in my boat.

“She's better off than being in the water,” I say. “You can wait for the sunship if you want.”

I wrap Lexy up in an oilskin and rub at her arms and legs. When she's a bit less blue, I sit back down at the helm,
getting ready to sail us through the wreckage to the other survivors. 'Cept the silvery sunship has already reached them. It launches a little boat to pick up the men in the water, the Scottish sailors dressed in perfect white, like the perfect black Jasper always wears.

“Ahoy there, unknown vessel. Are you combatant?” one of them shouts at us.

“What's a combatant?” I ask.

“Are you fighting? That's what they mean,” snaps Jasper from the water.

“No, I ain't!” I shout.

The little boat the Scots have launched is bright green and made out of something I ain't never seen before. Not wood nor plastic. There ain't any oars on it, neither, but even so, it pushes quickly through, and the two sailors on board haul the survivors in quickly. They lay them down, and wrap them in silvery blankets, like their sail. Then they shout over, “What about him?” and they point to Jasper.

“He won't come on board with me,” I call back, “he's waiting for you.”

The Scottish sailor nods, and their little boat plows through the wreckage toward Jasper. As they get close, one of the sailors spots Lexy next to me. He stands up, holding something. “Looks like you'll be needing these!” and he chucks a couple of gleaming parcels toward us.

I catch them, and they turn out to be them light silvery blankets and some packets of food.

“For the little girl,” shouts the sailor. So I wrap a blanket round her, and instantly she starts to look better. Pinker.

The Scottish sailors haul Jasper into their boat.

“Stop fussing!” he snaps when they try and wrap a blanket round him. And he won't sit down, staring back at us.

“Alexandra,” he calls, “you must come aboard the sunship with me. You'll be safe with us. No one will attack a neutral ship. And there'll be warm clothes for you, and food.”

It sounds like a good deal, but Cat doesn't think so.

“Hissk,” he says, glaring with his green eyes at Jasper.

Lexy looks at Cat, then me.

“No,” she says slowly. “I'm staying with Lilly. When I'm with Lilly, things get better. When I leave her, things get worse.”

Jasper's face goes hard.

“Don't you want to see your father again?”

“Daddy left me! He got picked up by that boat, and he just sailed away. I called and called, but he didn't come and get me.”

“He just didn't hear you, that's all. I was calling, too, remember? Your father loves you, of course he does.”

But Lexy doesn't answer, just presses her mouth shut in her face.

Jasper turns to one of the sailors. “Take me closer, I need to get the Prime Minister's daughter.” The small green boat starts gliding toward us. Lexy grabs hold of my hand.

“Don't leave me, Lilly,” she says. “I don't want to go with him.”

“It's all right,” I say, “I'll keep you safe.” But I'm wondering how.

“Come on, Alexandra,” calls Jasper when he's a boat's length off. “Don't be foolish. Your father would want you to be safe with us.”

“Daddy left me,” is all Lexy says, and she takes a tighter grip of my hand.

“She wants to stay with me,” I say. Jasper's face twitches like he's angry inside but holding it in.

“Alexandra, if you won't come aboard, then at least give me the computer. I only gave it to you to look at.”

Lexy fixes a stony face at him. “When I fell in the sea, I dropped it.”

“YOU WHAT?”

“I dropped it,” says Lexy, calm as anything. But down where Jasper can't see, Lexy holds something out in her hand. It's the jewel, in some kind of clear case.

“It belonged to my aunty, so it's mine, not his,” whispers Lexy.

In the Scottish boat, Jasper boils over.

“Do you know what you've done?” he yells. “You've lost one of the most valuable artifacts of the pre-Collapse era. You saw what it could do! We could have done so much with it, and now it's gone! Well, good for you, now you get to carry on living in the dark ages, scraping about in disgusting poverty, constantly going on with petty wars between a scrag end of England and a bunch of scavenging refugees.” He stops, like
he can't bear to speak for a moment. “You could have had a life in Scotland, one you could only dream of. But why should I help you now, when you've ruined everything?” He turns his back on us, and growls at the crew.

“Let's get out of this madness.”

Hands. They're grabbing at my shoulders. At my hair. They're pulling me. Up, out of the water. Out of the cold, quiet water. My head comes out into roaring, noisy, wave-battering air. There's a horrible gasping noise. I think I'm making it.

“Zeph!” come voices from above.

High voices, light voices. I know them, but I don't know where from. The hands keep pulling at me, trying to lift me out of the water.

“Help us, Zeph. You're so heavy.”

Some part of me that ain't completely stupid with cold starts struggling to get out of my leathers. Shuffles my frozen arms out of sleeves. Off floats my jacket. Waves splash about me, and pieces of wood. It's like before, except I'm looking at something solid, a boat. And there's two faces staring down
at me. They look like they're crying; they look like they're happy.

“Zeph, just grab hold of the side, and we'll pull you in.”

I grip on to a solid edge of wood, the four hands gripping my shoulders give a last yank, and I'm up. Out of the water. Tumbling, retching in the bottom of the boat.

“I always knew them leathers were a waste of time,” says Lilly as she wraps something round me. It's bright and crinkly, and as soon as it's round me, I start to feel warm again.

“What about your brother?” she asks. “He's been shouting and swearing at us. Telling us to get him and leave you to drown.”

“You puking fishguts!” comes Roba's voice from the water. “Go ahead and save the little English-lover, then! I'll still see him spiked out on Traitor Island.”

“Leave him,” I say, from somewhere hard and cold inside me. Lilly stares out at the water, out at Roba.

“You killed my granny,” she says. “And then you laughed about it. I hope you drown.” She sits back down in the boat. Her face is all strange; I can't tell what she's thinking.

And so I do to Roba what he tried to do to me. And I don't care, don't feel a thing about it. Father's dead, and Roba tried to kill me, but I survived.