The base marines reloaded and fired again, but the ship had risen above their level and the bulwarks absorbed their fire. The Sanguinaire officer regained his feet. Half his body was burned black from Rebecca’s ghostfire, but he turned his battle lantern up as bright as day and hurled his bloodshadow at the hull. Creepers of crimson shadow wriggled over the bulwarks and flowed onto the deck, blindly seeking human shadows to gnaw. Malgiers lit his own lamp and beat them back. A telegraph tower flashed over the headquarters on shore and was answered by the shore batteries on the horns of the harbor.

“I hope the Breaker’s given you some way of dealing with the harbor guns,” Similce shouted over the clatter of muskets. “Those are giant killers.”

“Shore guns has crews,” Djordji said, joining their conclave. “We has sorcerers who can get to them.”

More troops arrived dockside. Squads of marines piled into harbor skiffs. They unshipped their feather oars and pulled into open air. Still more soldiers rolled up with a gun carriage and wheeled it into position. Isabelle glanced up at the pennon dangling from the topmast, willing it to catch wind.

“More pressure to the chamber!” Similce shouted, and the boatswain carried the message down to the keelmaster. Higher up there was a better chance of wind if they didn’t drift over land and crash.

Rarely had Isabelle felt so useless, so much like a damned passenger. She hated fighting and violence of all kinds, but she did not appreciate being a sitting duck either. Her ancestral chorus yammered at her with suggestions, and Primus Maximus loomed like a shadow at the edge of her vision. Downing those skiffs will buy us time.

No. Isabelle splashed Maximus, but could not banish him completely. Those marines were her countrymen, misled by a cabal of traitors.

They offer you no such mercy, Primus pointed out. Nor will they offer it to any of your friends. Your inaction betrays those whom you love most.

Primus’s words carried with them the fog of doubt. The skiffs scudded closer. Marines readied grapnel guns. What sense did it make to wait until they came aboard to repel them? She risked the death of her own for nothing.

Shoot them down.

No. There had to be a better way. Isabelle rushed to the rail opposite the incoming fire. In the distance on the horns of the bay, the great shadowpults that were part of the shore batteries were lighting up. Their carminite reflectors magnified the power of a bloodshadow many times over so they could reach out nearly a kilometer and peel ships like grapes. The clouds drifted listlessly high overhead, portending no good wind to be had by climbing.