I look up. Cold air, white fog, white dark sky, dark and bright at once. Soldiers near to me pointing and shouting in alarm—past their pointing fingers spots are moving deliberately on the horizon. Two far off and one in the middle distance and we’re heading nearly straight into them. Angling away from us, a steel-flanked cruiser larger than our ship is trying to bring its broadside to bear. Its outlines shiver a moment and now crashing erupts on all sides, gouts of foam as the sea face is mauled by their shot, rags of spray all over, but no jar, no hitting. I dash for the steps trying to find my usual refuge with Makemin, running half doubled over—as I climb, a flapping mass flies past the top of my head arcing down over the side. Saskia strikes the water feet-first and sinks only as far as her waist. She kicks her feet vigorously and begins to rise and move weirdly along the surface as I look down on her from nearly over her head. She has on her Yeseg legbands, and she bounds sideways across the water in a long arc, swinging her out toward the nearest enemy ship.

A couple of soldiers are trying to force or unhinge the hatch to the wheelhouse, and another looks speculatively around to its front windows, meditating an attempt to climb in? Saskia has a loyal following among the former asylum inmates; she’s set one of them at the helm, and he has locked and wedged all the hatches, sealing himself in. He stands singing and cackling gaily as we streak in toward the enemy ships, cannonballs splattering all around. Every now and then he seizes hold of the clapper belonging to the brass bell that hangs near the wheel, jangling it and screeching. A ball rips the froth within ten feet of the bow on our side and even Makemin jerks. I see Nardac scramble crabwise from her bed, crawling and keeping the weight off her injured leg, to duck into the mess.

The hatch gives way. The mad helmsman spins, a knife in his hand, his eyes glassy, his mouth a line. He looks back and forth—a thud I can feel in my gut and the boat wallows from side to side.

Makemin shouts, “Bring us around!”