Up on the frigate’s bow, red-masked figures turned a hwacha on its pivot to point at Minubo. The mechanism sparked and smoked and, with a hideous buzz like a very troubled hornet, the hwacha fired a quarter of a hundred rocket arrows at the poor prepare-captain, who leapt for cover, and died with steel through her neck and chest. And then Abdumasi was ready to die in defiant battle because fuck them, fuck their smug mechanisms and their neat little ambushes, fuck the impudence of those who believed they could trick and control the thousand-year Mbo, and fuck them in particular for shooting down the prepare-captain, who had given up her career to follow Abdumasi, like she were just a mangy dog.

From the rigging of the enemy frigate, Falcresti marines swung down onto Abdumasi’s ship.

Abdumasi of the house of Abd put up his rapier and advanced. Behind the marines their sleek ship caught on fire: a wave had splashed some Burn up onto the deck. Masked and hooded sailors ran around pouring jars of their own stale piss on the catchfire.

“That’s right!” Abdumasi yelled, banging his rapier’s hilt on the steel bands of a smashed barrel. “Some navy, fighting with your own bottled piss! I bet you drink it, too! I bet you gulp your own piss down and beg for seconds! Come on, take out your little knives! Have at you! Have at you! I am Abdumasi of the House of Abd, master of ships, champion cat gambler, and I challenge you to mortal up-fuckery!”

Six Masquerade marines stared back at him. Red masks stuffed with chemical filters against the smoke. Armored bodies webbed with grenades and devices. Eyes invisible behind dark inhuman lenses as omniscient and indifferent as krakenfly eyes. Abdumasi beckoned to them, joyful, light with the promise of a swift end and a long rest. He could take them on one by one until at last they had to shoot him with their crossbows as they’d shot poor Minubo. Abdumasi had ten years under a swordmaster and four years of real combat—first in the deep Mzilimake Mbo jungle, then out on the Mothercoast, where Falcrest had given the Invijay ships to use for piracy, and Abdumasi had sailed to hunt them down. He might have been born a merchant, but he’d learned how to make men bleed.

The marine with the black slash of an officer across his mask yanked a gas grenade off the rip ring at his chest. The mechanism failed. The grenade’s chemicals didn’t burn, nothing happened.