“Good,” Isabelle said, glad that the situation was well in hand, even though it made her redundant to needs. “But we have another problem. The brig is a decoy. Their real target is la reine’s cradle. Also, someone hijacked la reine’s bloodhollow and used it to gas our keel.”

Vrain’s sweaty, smoke-smudged face betrayed emotions at roughly half the speed and intensity as other men, so the pallor that washed across his visage must indicate an existential dread. “Compromising a bloodhollow isn’t possible.”

“So I’ve been told, but either someone else was riding that bloodhollow or la reine wanted us dead,” Isabelle said repeating Marie’s logic. “I need you to get back to Rocher Royale and inform l’impératrice personally.”

“Yes, Capitaine.” Vrain saluted, then hurried below, out of the direct sight of the enemy guns so he could concentrate on casting his presence all the way back to Rocher Royale. Isabelle pulled out her spyglass and focused on the brig. Defeating the brig was vastly less important than retrieving Dok, the key, and Jean-Claude, but she didn’t want to break off and leave the enemy in any condition to harass the Thunderclap either.

The forward turvy mast of the Skaladin brig creaked and shrieked and finally shivered, falling away from the bottom of the ship in a great clot of tangling rope and collapsing sails. It was like watching a man being hanged, only much more slowly.

Bitterlich darted through the web in the form of a falcon, changed shape, and slammed into the main spar of the aft mast as a massive flying ram. The yard swung around, snapping ropes as it went. Skaladin turvymen plunged, screaming, into the deep sky.

Sharpshooters in the brig’s lower hold fired at him through their murder holes. Bullets whizzed by on all sides. He ducked into the form of a bat and darted out of the way just as the Thunderclap fired. Cannonballs flashed by. One clipped the weakened aft turvy mast, sending cracks along its length. Bitterlich looped around, got up a quick burst of speed, and then transformed into a great gray-backed mountain bear. He crashed into the damaged mast and snapped it in two. It joined the foremast in its fall.

The brig, now top heavy and with wind still in its sails, rolled like a pig in muck. More raiders fell from the rigging and tumbled shrieking into the Gloom.

For the first time in an hour, the cannonade stopped, leaving nothing but the creak of wood and the screams of wounded men to compete with the rush of the wind.