I am thrilled to be hosting a spot
on the JUSTICE AT SEA by Christian Klaver Blog Tour hosted by Rockstar Book Tours. Check out
my post and make sure to enter the giveaway!
About The Book:
Author: Christian Klaver
Pub. Date: December 7, 2021
Publisher: CamCat Books
Formats: Hardcover, paperback, eBook, audiobook
Pages: 320
Find it: Goodreads, Amazon, Kindle, Audible, B&N, iBooks, Kobo, TBD
The tides of the Faerie War are turning, but at how high a cost for the Kasric family?
Justice Kasric, her siblings, and her parents are locked in combat on both
sides of the Human-Faerie War. At fifteen, Justice may be the youngest ever
Admiral to command her own ship and lead a resistance, but she has the magic
and the will to do it. If only nearly every other member of her family weren't
either in immediate danger of dying-or attempting to kill her!
Forced to make dangerous pacts with more than one unpredictable ally, only
Justice can decide how far she'll go to save London. Is it worth sacrificing
even a member of her own family?
Praise for Shadows Over London
"Klaver dazzles with an adventure rooted in complex feelings about family
loyalties, and magically full to the brim with faerie mystery." -Tobias S.
Buckell, World Fantasy Award Winner and New York Times Bestselling
Author
"An enchanting and enthralling series opener." -Kirkus
Reviews
"Fantasy at its most fantastic. Monsters, mystery, and magic in a
beautiful and frightening world all their own. Justice Kasric and her strange
family are a delight from first to last." -Steven Harper,
author of The Books of Blood and Iron series
"This first title in a new series slowly builds into a magical adventure
in a world that is dark and unique . . . the plot and world building are sure
to enthrall readers." -School Library Journal
"Klaver's rich, lyrical descriptions augment the fantastical source
material in this engaging series starter." -Publishers Weekly
Grab Book 1, SHADOWS OVER LONDON now!
CHAPTER
1
Estuary
Raid
The Mist.
It pooled
ankle-deep on the deck, moving in little eddies around our feet every
time we moved. A slow, dank current of it flowed silently down the
forecastle stairs in wispy trails, then down to the main deck where it
pooled again before draining out the scuppers and down the hull to the
ocean. But no matter how much fog drained out, there was always more.
Made me itch to grab a broom or mop and get it all off the deck, only I
knew it wouldn’t do any good. There was plenty more where that came from.
All around us, in fact.
I was at the
front rail near the bowsprit, the very forefront of the ship. A lantern
threw yellow light that clung to the deck behind me but didn’t penetrate
more than a dozen feet or so. All I could make out was more fog pooled on
quiet, black, still water. The ship’s prow barely made a ripple as we cut
through the water without a sound. We’d been forced out into the Channel;
coming back towards the English shore had a forbidden feel. We
weren’t welcome here in England anymore. You could feel it.
The mist had
a way of dampening sounds, so that I kept looking back to make sure that everyone
else was still there. I could see the rest of the quarterdeck that Faith,
Sands, and Avonstoke shared with me, but the rest of the ship was lost in
the haze.
Quiet should
have been good. We were prowling in enemy territory. I’d given the orders
for silence myself, but now the heavy feel of it was making my skin
crawl. I thought the darkness was starting to show a little gray in it,
at least, as if dawn might not be that far off.
“Justice,”
Faith hissed from behind me. “We’re too far in!” “Shh,” I said, craning
my neck to listen for signs of other ships, or possibly the English
shore. England used to be home, before the Faerie took it and shrouded it
in this bloody fog. Now it was enemy territory and there was no telling
what changes the Faerie had wrought to it.
“Too far
in!” she said again. I was supposed to be captain, but one of the
problems with having my older sister on board was that she’d never taken
orders from me and wasn’t about to start now. Didn’t matter if I was a
captain, admiral, or a bag of rutabagas.
Faith looked
unnatural in the eerie yellow light, with her white London dress and her
long ash-white hair. No pants for her, despite being at sea. The Faerie
might have conquered London, but they hadn’t made much of a dent in
Faith’s sense of propriety or fashion. At least she’d forgone any hoops
or a bustle.
She stepped
closer, her dark eyes wild with panic. “You know the strain it takes for
Sands to keep the shield up. He’s going to collapse if we keep him at
it.”
I pushed my
weather-beaten wide-brimmed black hat back on my head to peer up at her.
She had to be prettier and older and taller. Life’s not
fair.
“What about you?”
I snapped. “Do you feel anything? Anything at all?”
Faith’s lips
went tight. “No, same as the last time you asked. If I felt anything,
don’t you think I’d tell you? Everyone keeps call ing me a magician, but that’s
all they can tell me. You don’t learn magic as much as feel it, but I
don’t feel anything! I’m about as close to singing fish into a hat as
raising a shield! You have to take us back!”
I shook my
head. “You know we can’t do that. They get one ship across the channel
and it’s all over.” I turned my back on her. She made a smothered noise
behind me and I could sense her frustration.
The worst
part about Faith’s warning was that she was probably right.
Sands looked
an absolute and unmitigated shamble. The man’s face, when I glanced back
again, despite myself, was covered in sweat though he shivered in the cold
damp. His black coat and tails were spattered with salt, and he’d lost
his hat. His cheeks showed two day’s growth around his blonde mustache
and goatee and his blonde hair stuck out in all directions. His eyes, a
startling emerald green under normal conditions, now shone like cat’s
eyes or undersea lanterns, washing the forecastle deck and our
boots with lime, eldritch light. He stared out over the water, looking
for dangers most of the us couldn’t even see.
The Faerie
invasion force had put up the mist to keep us out, of course. The Outcast
Fleet stayed on the edge of the mist, where the rest of humanity couldn’t
reach us, but venturing further in, like we were doing now, was like
taking out a rowboat into a monsoon.
My ghost
eye, which helped me see through Faerie magic, allowed me to penetrate
the first line of defense: the illusions, or glamours, as the Faerie
called them. Dark flocks of predatory birds, specters gliding on top of
the ocean’s surface, that sort of thing. It was enough to scare the crew
into a wailing froth and I was just barely holding that fear in check,
constantly reminding them that the glamours weren’t really there. The
only person not showing any fear was Avonstoke and I had him to thank for
bolstering the crew. Without him, I’d have a mutiny on my hands for sure.
I looked back to where he stood, supporting Sands.
Avonstoke
was tall, a Court Faerie like the stern and uncompromising Faerie marines. But
Avonstoke wasn’t stern, not by a long shot. The average Court Faerie was
slender, with high cheek bones and angular features in a way that was
disconcertingly in human. But Avonstoke wore it better somehow, more
mysterious
than
inhuman, and with that kind of height and broad shoulders, he took the
breath of every woman around him. I found him endearing, distracting, and
exasperating in equal measures, but he’d become a sturdy support, my rock
when things got danger ous, like now. His eyes, like the others of his kind,
were pale gold, without any pupils. They were an echo of my ghost eye, a
solid black marble in my left eye.
That ghost
eye also allowed me to see the visions that really were out in the
mist. Dark shapes cresting the water, ghost ships, an enormous bat-winged
shape far overhead. But only Sands and I could see those, and neither of
us mentioned it to the others.
“Ghosts,” he
muttered when another of the ships went by. “Intangible?” I said, keeping my
voice equally low. “So, they can’t hurt us?” Avonstoke and Faith were
close enough to hear, but I trusted them to keep their mouths
shut.
Sands turned
his glowing cats eyes to me and shook his head. “Probably not.”
There was the hint, like always, of France and other unfamiliar places in
the lilt of his voice. “Ships, or other things, caught by a vortex and
wrenched free of their place in time. If they are ghosts to us, or we are
ghosts to them, I cannot say. Now they move through when, as well
as through where. Let’s hope they are not close enough in the
fabric of time to reach us. Years spent in the mist would leave you quite
mad. I should know.”
I wanted to
ask more, but now wasn’t the time. He turned away, peering out into the
fog with those luminous eyes. What we were really worried about were the
vortexes. Dark twisters, like supernatural tornados, that threatened
either to tear us to pieces or pull us entirely out of the world we knew.
One false step and we could be ghosts ourselves. Or we could just be
dead.
Even as I
watched, another black tornado lurched out of the mist, moving far too
quickly for us to avoid it, and battered itself against Sands’ shield.
The shield, which, through my ghost eye, I could see as a soft green
shimmer around the ship, rippled under the impact. But it held. It was
all eerily silent and unreal. I felt no sign of the impact under my feet,
which was even more unnerving.
But Sands
shook under the impact, as if he had been hit directly. Avonstoke’s grip
on him was the only thing that kept Sands from falling.
Faith wasn’t
wrong. The little blonde man couldn’t take too much more of this.
I could see
back to the rest of the ship, which was a far cry from a comfort. Every
face that peered back was tight with sullen fear, watching me, or Faith,
but mostly watching Sands, our only magician.
Except Sands
wasn’t a full-fledged magician anymore. Since passing his mantle to
Faith, his powers had been slowly fading. To make matters worse, Faith,
his replacement according to Father’s plan, didn’t seem close to taking
his place.
I gnawed my
lip.
The air was
still, the rigging quiet, the splash of water soft, while we all
struggled not to breathe too loudly. Everyone was listening hard enough to make
their ears bleed. The ship itself made barely a creak under my feet. No
scent of land came with the bare excuse for a breeze, even though I knew
we had to be close. The chill off the water was like something off a
grave.
A Prowler
crew member ran up to report, knuckling his forehead. “Foretop lookout is
seeing branches, Ma’am.” “Branches?” I said, raising an eyebrow. The man
blanched, his greenish skin going visibly paler, but nodded. “Yes,
Ma’am.” Sometimes I forgot the reverence the Faerie from Father’s domain,
most of our crew, regarded our family. If they only knew. I opened my mouth to
get a better explanation, but by then there was no need.
“There!”
Faith said, pointing. “What’s that?”
The mist
parted to reveal a tree growing up out of the water, craggy and black and
dripping with lichen and slim. The trunk was easily as wide around as the
Specter was long, with branches angling up in all directions,
long, jagged shapes that disappeared into the fog.
The tree was
festooned with bodies.
There were
dozens of them, all very dead, hanging from the branches on nooses.
They’d been tall when alive, and not at all human, with great horns on
their heads, white or black hair, gray skin, and talons on their hands
and feet that immediately remind ed me of the Soho Shark. The talons swayed,
very gently, though there wasn’t any breeze. Drops of moisture dripped
down into the water with a morose and solitary dripping sound.
“Formori,” Mr.
Sands intoned, his green eyes still blazing. “Leaders of the Faerie once,
but all wiped out by the Seelie Court.” “Much to everyone’s relief, according
to the stories,” Avon stoke said softly behind him. “The atrocities they tell
are enough to make even a hag’s skin crawl.” His handsome face looked
thoughtful and a little curious.
“Formori,” I
repeated grimly. “Like the Soho Shark.” Sands looked confused and alarmed and I
told him and the others, in as few words as possible, about our encounter
with the Soho Shark and Victoria Rose. Just thinking about the two of
them gave me shudders.
Mr. Sands
whistled low. “The leader of the Formori was said to be missing one eye.
A very dangerous individual, if this Soho Shark is the same
person . . .” He frowned, lost in thought, while his hands
plucked nervously at the brass buttons on his vest. He jerked with
surprise when his fingers plucked one off completely.
“Damn,” the
little ex-magician said.
I had Mr.
Starling ready a few crew members with long poles so they could push us
off from the tree, if necessary, but we glided slowly and silently
underneath the long line of hanged Formori.
Immediately
after clearing that grisly obstacle, however, someone shouted up in the
topmast. I heard a grinding sound, then the sound of breaking wood and
the snapping of lines as a piece of the topgallant mast went splashing
into the sea on the starboard side.
“What
happened?” I shouted, breaking my own rule of silence. “We hits a low branch,
we did!” a gravely, squeaky voice shout ed back.
“Was anyone
up in the gallants?” I shouted back.
“Don’t know,
Captain!”
I leaned
over the rail, calling to Avonstoke and Nellie down in the chains. “Have
Wil check that wreckage and make sure no one is in it.”
“Yes
Captain,” Nellie said. She called out in the soft and lilting Prowler
language and Wil’s head broke the surface of the water. “What did you do
that for?” Wil said after Nellie relayed my orders, but then he dove
without waiting for an answer. Two minutes later he surfaced. I couldn’t hear
his words, but Nellie turned and shook her head up at me.
“Thank
Heaven for that,” Faith said.
I nodded in
agreement, too overwhelmed with relief to speak. At least that much luck
was with us.
There was a
shadowy line of the riverbank on the port side now, with the gleam of
white through the fog as the gentlest of surfs broke on the rocks.
“Shoaling on
the far side!” Nellie called out softly.
I leaned
over the rail, pointing so that there should be no con fusion. “Port?”
Nellie
nodded. “Yes, ma’am. Port.”
“Pass along
two points to starboard,” I ordered. The waiting sailor nodded and turned
to pass the message.
A flurry of
breezes came, luffing the main foresail immediately above us with a snap
like the crack of a whip.
“Hear that?”
Faith said.
I stared at
her. The entire ship had heard it.
“No,” she
said, shaking her head. “Not the sail. The singing.” “I don’t hear
anything,” I said carefully.
She frowned.
“It’s gone now.”
Then I spied
what looked like not only a land mass, but a familiar one. The Girdler, a
sandbank, which would put us in the Queen’s Channel. I let out a long
sigh. It was incredibly gratifying to know that this much, at least, of
English geography remained.
Suddenly,
the mist cleared. Well, not cleared exactly, but became more penetrable.
More normal, like regular old English fog and not some supernatural
abomination. There was even enough breeze to catch the sails and I felt
the Rachaela make decent headway for the first time in
hours.
“Well done,
Sands,” I said.
“Thank you,
Captain,” he said. His voice sounded normal, more human than when he’d
spoken under the strain of his spell, but utterly exhausted, too. He
looked more normal now, too. Still disheveled, but more like a man than a
magical beacon. The eldritch light had faded from his eyes. He smoothed
down his hair, then took a rueful look at his vest and trousers. He took
a shaky step and Avonstoke steadied him.
“Through!”
Faith breathed.
We’d thought
it possible, but hadn’t been sure. The Faerie could have had this stuff
over the entire country for all we knew. But apparently not. That was
worth knowing and information I had to get back to the rest of the fleet.
Or what was left of it. Father had commissioned a dozen ships like the H.M.S.
Rachaela, but they had been lost in the mist before I’d taken
command. Now, all that was left was the enormous Seahome and a few
schooners.
This was why
it was folly to brave the mist, but also why it had been so necessary. It
was worth all the risk I’d taken just to know we could navigate it. Now
we could attack the invasion forces, rather than just wait for them to
make a move. One bold move here could outweigh months of ineffectual
engagements.
“Land on the
port side!” came the hoarse whisper from the main deck. “Crow’s nest
reports land on the port side!” They were still relaying messages to
avoid shouting. Good. We were in the Estuary proper, in the
Queen’s Channel just as I thought. I tilted my head, listening hard,
suddenly sure I heard something.
“Take him
below,” I said to Faith, nodding at Sands. “Let him rest while he can.”
As soon as we’d done our business here, he was going to be needed for the
trip back.
She opened
her mouth to say something, then stopped, her eyes wide as saucers. She
heard it now, too. Sands looked around as well.
Voices.
Another ship? Then I could see them. Three dark silhouettes of sails and
rigging slowly sliding across the still water. Yes. More than one ship,
it seemed. The largest looked big enough to be second or third rate,
maybe, comparable to our ship. Only they probably didn’t know we were
here because of the fog and our effort to remain silent. We might be out
of the magical part of the Faerie mist, but fog was still fog. Also, the
enemy ships, from what I could see, didn’t look to have anything like a
full complement of crew on board.
I passed the
word for the spyglass and it came in short order. The nearest ship showed
me silhouettes that were unmistakably men. Normal men, not Faerie.
English men pressed into service by the Black Shuck. Probably not even
sailors, since the Shuck had run out of those.
That didn’t
change what I had to do, because the ships’ holds would be filled with
all manner of Faerie infantry. Enough infantry to get and hold a landfall
in France. Even just a few could be too much for mundane forces and the
Faerie would spread over the continent. The only thing stopping the
Faerie from crossing and taking over the rest of the globe was the
remaining Outcast Fleet. For three months, we hadn’t been able to
penetrate the mist, but we’d easily thwarted an attempt at crossing the
channel because the invading Faeries knew nothing of sailing. But we’d
lost so many ships trying to raid the coast that our defense of the
channel was stretched hopelessly thin. If the invaders realized that,
we’d be in trouble.
Other
figures, tall and angular, moved on the enemy deck. Court Faerie like
many of my own crew, but in uniforms of dark leather and bone. The
Unseelie Court. The Black Shuck’s people.
The Rachaela
might have been outnumbered, but that wouldn’t matter as much if they
were only partially manned and rigged. They barely had any sail up and
all listed and wallowed uncertainly. They weren’t using the wind like we
were; they were being towed by rowboats. Foolish. In addition, something
had gone wrong with the towing ropes of the lead ship and a knot of
the enemy, Faerie and human, were huddled around the prow,
arguing.
Good. The
Faerie still hadn’t learned any real seamanship. They’d never had the
need before now, since all sailing in Faerie was done with magic. That
was our only advantage and I was going to exploit it to the hilt.
“Oh God,”
Faith’s voice came softly next to me. She and Sands were still here. She
sounded like she was going to pass out. Or throw up. Maybe both. I had
the same feelings when I’d been poring over maps and planning the
engagements. I’d have them again, when I was looking over the lists of the
wounded or seeing the damage wrought on my ship.
But now, all
I felt was a sudden, thrilling rush. I could even feel a madcap grin
crawl over my face.
“Oh God,”
Faith said again. “Whenever you get that look in your eye, I know we’re
going to be knee-deep in flying cannonballs right away. I hate cannonballs.”
“That’s why
you’re taking Sands below,” I said cheerfully. “Go on.”
Of course,
cannonballs could penetrate below decks, but mentioning that to my sister
wasn’t going to make her feel any better. I could have had Avonstoke take
Sands below, but I needed Avon stoke up here as much as I needed Sands and
Faith out of the way.
Faith
finally moved to go, and then stopped, glaring at me. “It’s unnatural,
you know.”
“Of course
it’s unnatural.” I turned and stepped past her to bring the spyglass to
bear on the enemy ship again. “We’re at war with the bloody Faerie. Where
have you been?”
“Not them,”
she said stiffly. “You. You’re not supposed to be happy on the brink of
battle. It’s unseemly.”
I waved her
away, keeping my eye to the glass, too busy to bandy words with her now.
But I could feel a delicious thrill rising in me at the prospect of action,
unmistakable now that she’d pointed it out.
“Unseemly,”
Faith said. “Especially for a girl.” She finally took Sands
below.
I turned and
leaned down over the railing aft of us and called down softly to the main
deck.
“Password to
Starling. Bring us about on the port tack. Ready a turn to starboard and
ready the starboard guns.”
•M 12 N•
Justice
at Sea
“Aye,” a
barely-visible crewman called back. They rushed off aft.
“Swayle,” I
hissed at the Faerie marine colonel, also on the main deck. “Have your
people ready.”
“Yes,
Ma’am,” Swayle said. She nodded at her people, who began nocking arrows
to bows and readying themselves at the rails. All the marines were Court
Faerie like Avonstoke, tall, slender, with those same blank, golden eyes. Most
of them looked severe, but Swayle had an expression so stern you could
crack walnuts on it.
She pointed
twice, without speaking, and another detachment of marines started
climbing lithely up the masts to elevated positions, silent as wraiths. For all
that the Faerie weren’t so great at seamanship, war was another matter
altogether.
I looked
back at the enemy ships. Amazingly, they showed no sign of having heard
or seen us. The nearest of them were still arguing over the tangled tow
rope. For once the mist was working in our favor, dampening sound.
Relieved of
being Sands’ caretaker, Avonstoke came and joined me at the front
railing. He didn’t say anything at first, merely stood there next to me,
a comforting presence, tall and reliable.
The ships
were still moving closer. Slowly, so slowly. I’d have to order the turn
soon, but for now, we had everyone ready and our slow progress through
the water only brought things into a better position for our maneuver.
Better to milk our element of surprise for all it was worth. Only it sent
my nerves jangling, knowing I could hear an outcry any minute, but holding,
holding . . .
“Like an
Avatar of Naval Warfare,” Avonstoke murmured, very softly, “watching as
battle draws nigh.” He sighed solemnly and profoundly pained at the
poetic sorrow of it all. “I wonder, perhaps,” he went on, “if an Avatar
should have, I don’t know, a cleaner coat? Or a hat that isn’t quite so
lumpy?”
“Shut up,” I
said softly. “I love this hat. You, I barely tolerate.” A captain had to
keep a certain level of aloof decorum, but I let a whisper of a smile
come out. Avonstoke had a way of bringing that out in me, even at times
like this.
He grinned
down at me, a wild light in his eyes. There never really was any way of
telling what he’d do next, a creature of mercurial urges with so many
apparently random emotions that it wasn’t a matter of detecting them on
his face so much as sorting them out. Did he think of that kiss we had
shared as much as I did? Of course, that had been months ago and now
things were different. I was his commanding officer. I couldn’t look at him
that way anymore, and yet, I couldn’t quite forget.
If he was
having any conflict with how he thought about me, I’d seen no sign.
The fog was
breaking up even more, allowing me to see the full length of the Rachaela
behind me. I made out Mr. Starling, my se ond-in-command, back on the
quarterdeck. He was a burly Dwarf, completely bald except for a tall,
startlingly-red topknot waving above him like a thin scarlet flag. His
mustache and beard were equally red and his mouth, like always, twisted
in a frown. He was also quivering with readiness.
The
increased visibility meant that the enemy now had a clear view of us,
too. Astonishingly, they still hadn’t called out any alarm, though if it
was because they didn’t notice us, or simply didn’t recognize the danger,
I didn’t know. It didn’t matter. No point waiting any longer.
“Bring us
about!” I shouted, no longer worried about anyone hearing us. “Ready
cannon!”
“It’s her!”
someone from the other ship shrieked. “It’s Bloody Justice Kasric!” A
clamor went up, both from the enemy ships and the rowboats down in the
water. That, at least, felt good. I could feel that grin on my face
getting wider.
“Fire as you
bear!” I shouted at Render, another Dwarf and captain of the gunnery
crew.
“Aye,
Captain!” Render said. He signaled one of his gunner’s mates standing at
the hatch, who would then signal the gundeck captains below. Then Render
tapped both gun captains on the shoulder with his riding crop. Both the
guns boomed, shaking the deck beneath my feet and throwing up two plumes of
acrid smoke. The glyphs and sigils on the side of the brass cannon glowed
a fiery yellow, then immediately started to fade. Extra enchantments
to pierce Faerie protections, but also to keep the brass cannon
from falling apart, since cold-forged iron couldn’t be used by the
Faerie at all.
I turned.
“Swayle!” Hardly had the word left my mouth than the deadly twang and
hiss of loosed arrows snapped all around the deck as our marines fired.
Screams from the other ship floated across the water. Swayle’s Court
Faerie archers, unerringly deadly, would rack up as many casualties as
the cannon by the end of this engagement.
Unfortunately,
the enemy archers would be just as good, but we had a few moment’s
respite as they recovered from their surprise.
But the
gundeck below was still silent.
“Render!” I
snarled. “Why aren’t they firing down there?” “Aye, Captain!” He shouted and
rushed to the hatch. Ren der was still new, having taken over as gunnery
captain after the previous one had been killed. He was alert, but still
trying to compensate for both not having enough Dwarves to man everything,
and the bloody slow process of passing commands from deck to deck.
Finally, the
gun captains down there must have gotten it together because more cannon
banged and the ship shuddered with even greater fury. More smoke drifted
up into view off the starboard side and more screams came from the
opposing ships.
One of the
Goblins on our side, a little fellow named Chuck Chuck who had tufted bat’s
ears and a bulbous nose, cackled merrily and a ragged cheer went up from my
crew.
“Back the
topsails!” I shouted. I wanted to slow our progress now that we were in
prime firing position.
“Aye,”
Starling shouted back.
Avonstoke,
still next to me, clenched his hand.
I’d seen it
before but hadn’t gotten used to it. This was shadow magic, and part of
why Father had assigned Avonstoke to protect me in the first place. One
instant, his hand was empty, the next, a dull-black scimitar blossomed in
his fist. It looked like three feet or so of heavy, curved metal, but I
didn’t think metal had anything to do with it. The material, whatever it
was, trapped light rather than reflected it, a thing of shadow with an
occasional glimmer of moonlight that hadn’t come from any sky above us.
The edges shifted slightly any time I tried to get a good look at them,
making the exact dimensions disconcertingly fluid.
An arrow
shot out of the cloud of gun smoke, coming right for me. I ducked, but
Avonstoke batted the missile with a flick of his sword. Seemed the enemy
archers had recovered.
“Glad you’re
here,” I said.
Then the
musket ball shattered part of the rail two inches from my right hand.
I looked at
the broken part of the railing. Two inches. Two inches in the right
direction and I’d never use that hand again, regardless of Avonstoke’s
protective intentions. I hadn’t even caught any of the ragged splinters,
which were deadly enough on their own.
But for now,
I was fine.
The other
ship was still a skeletal gray shape in the mist, with shadowy outlines
on something flat a dozen yards ahead that might have been sailors on a
deck. Some of them must have had rifles, because that’s where the shots
were coming from, but then a dozen more of Swayle’s marines fired and
more of our cannon banged away, shaking the deck underneath my feet,
and then all opposition stopped. Men were fleeing the rowboats and
already two of the three enemy ships were listing. We’d have them demasted
and sunk in a few more minutes and the enemy could do little to resist
us. More Faerie were pouring out of the holds and jumping
overboard.
We’d won the
day.
I could feel
the grin return to my face. The Black Shuck wasn’t going to get any ships
across the channel today. If Sands was strong enough to get us back
through the mist, we’d have dealt the invaders a bitter blow with
relatively little cost to us.
Then the
light wind tore the smoke barrier away and my grin died as I could better
see what kind of damage we’d wrought. Just because we weren’t the ones
paying a cost didn’t mean it wasn’t being paid.
But I kept
my mouth shut and let the firing continue, despite the taste of smoke and
ash in my mouth.
The Faerie
weren’t going to carry their invasion forces across the English Channel.
At least not soon.
We’d bought
the rest of the world a few weeks’ reprieve, at least. After that, it was
still anyone’s guess.
Faith came
back out on the deck while the battle was continuing. If you could call it a
battle. Mostly, it was our gun decks belching flame, smoke, and destruction and
the other, smaller ships screaming. I could see in her face that it would
be no use trying to send her below again. Her thoughts were as clear on
her face as if she’d spoken them out loud. I can’t fire the cannon or
shield us from vortexes in the mist, but I can stand with you here,
now.
She stood,
very close, both our hands on the rails, which trembled under our white-knuckled
grip as the topside guns and those on the deck below continued firing,
over and over. There was little that needed done by way of sailing, so
Avonstoke came and stood with us, too.
Having them
next to me helped, some, but it was still horrible. It was war.
About Christian Klaver:
CHRISTIAN
KLAVER has been
writing for over twenty years, with a number of magazine publications,
including Escape Pod, Dark Wisdom Anthology, and Anti- Matter. He’s the author
of The Supernatural Case Files of Sherlock Holmes, the Empire of the
House of Thorns series, and the Nightwalker series, but has written over a
dozen novels in both fantasy and sci-fi, often with a Noir bent. He worked as a
bookseller, bartender and a martial-arts instructor before settling into a
career in internet security. He lives just outside the sprawling decay of
Detroit, Michigan, with his wife Kimberly, his daughter Kathryn, and a group of
animals he refers to as The Menagerie.
Website | Twitter |
Instagram | Goodreads | Amazon | BookBub
Giveaway Details:
2 winners will receive a finished copy of JUSTICE AT SEA, US Only.
a Rafflecopter giveawayTour Schedule:
Week One:
|
1/10/2022 |
Kickoff Post |
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1/11/2022 |
Excerpt or Guest Post |
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1/12/2022 |
Excerpt or Guest Post |
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1/13/2022 |
Excerpt or Guest Post |
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1/14/2022 |
Excerpt |
Week Two:
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1/17/2022 |
Review |
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1/18/2022 |
Excerpt |
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1/19/2022 |
Review |
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1/20/2022 |
Review |
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1/21/2022 |
Excerpt or Guest Post |
Week Three:
|
1/24/2022 |
Review/IG Post |
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1/25/2022 |
Review |
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1/26/2022 |
Review |
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1/27/2022 |
Review |
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1/28/2022 |
Excerpt or Guest Post |
Week Four:
|
1/31/2022 |
Review/IG Post |
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2/1/2022 |
Excerpt or Guest Post |
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2/2/2022 |
Review |
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2/3/2022 |
Review |
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2/4/2022 |
Review |
Week Five:
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2/7/2022 |
Review |
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2/8/2022 |
IG Post |
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2/9/2022 |
Review |
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2/10/2022 |
Review |
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2/11/2022 |
Review |
Week Six:
|
2/14/2022 |
Review |
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