Page 99 of Hijack the Seas: Seismic

“You are now.” I looked at Alphonse. “That’s all it takes, right?”

A huge shoulder shrugged. “As far as I know. But you won’t catch him, not carrying two. And not on that thing,” he added, nodding at the stall where Pritkin’s mount had been a few moments ago.

It held another, although it was obviously a case of the palace being funny. Or maybe they thought that, given my lack of expertise, it wouldn’t matter if they gave me an old, decrepit-looking nag that even my inexperienced eye could tell was on its last fin. That thing wouldn’t catch Pritkin swimming alone, much less carrying two.

But there was no other choice. I couldn’t ride and Enid wouldn’t be allowed in the race without me. So we were going to have to figure out a way to make this work, although I didn’t see—

And then I did.

“Come on,” I told her, because another mount had been left behind, one which had just thrown off its rider.

Her eyes got even bigger as she followed my line of sight. “You can’t be serious!”

She was actually backing up until Radu, who hadn’t said a word in all this, proved that he was a Basarab, after all. “I can’t blame you,” he said diffidently. “I wouldn’t touch that thing, either, and I’m freeborn.” He looked at me. “You expect too much from a slave, Cassie. Alphonse will go with you.”

“Alphonse will?” the man in question asked.

But Alphonse didn’t. Because the next thing I knew, a furious redhead grabbed my hand and dragged me over the railing, through the middle of a bunch of startled-looking, peacock-armored guards, and over to the stall where Galygos was tossing his pretty head.

His pretty huge head, because damn. I’d forgotten how large he was, even compared to the other mounts. Which, for the record, was a lot.

Well, here goes nothing, I thought grimly and grabbed the reins.

Chapter Twenty-Nine

The shrimp saved me. To be precise, the spill of firecracker red shrimp that I hadn’t finished because they were too hot for me. But not, it seemed, for Galygos.

After tossing his head in outrage over anyone daring to try to control him, and lifting me about four feet off the ground in the process, he abruptly stopped. And sniffed. And started nuzzling me all over before zeroing in on the spill of shrimpy goodness that I was somehow still clutching in one sweaty palm.

“Get on!” I yelled at a frozen Enid, who had been watching this display with something approaching horror.

I guessed she expected to be eaten next.

But I made some shooing motions with the arm that wasn’t halfway down a seahorse’s gullet, and she snapped back into action, mounting the great creature as several guards ran at us, thankfully part of the peacock brigade. Maybe because the last of Feltin’s guys had just disappeared after Pritkin. Damn it!

“She’s with me,” I told them breathlessly, and they just stared as if they couldn’t believe we were planning to ride the giant bastard.

“What about me?” the former rider demanded, clambering back to his feet, with his wetsuit barely concealing a sizeable paunch.

It matched his ego if he’d demanded Galygos for a ride, I thought, finding my feet again. And grabbing the forearm that Enid extended before scrambling up the horny hide. And even though the great beast was mostly submerged, it wasn’t easy because he was still as tall as a house!

But I felt a subtle force field under my foot, helping me, and I managed to clamber up behind her.

“Did you hear me?” the paunchy fey demanded, his lard jiggling with outrage. It made all the bling on his wetsuit flash in the sunlight, but bling didn’t matter here, only skill. And I thought he should be grateful.

Galygos would have killed him.

Of course, there was a better-than-average chance that the same thing would happen to us as soon as the shrimp ran out, but it was a chance I had to take.

“You can have that one,” I yelled, gesturing at the nag the palace had seen fit to give me. Then we were off, not bothering with the pretty prancing-around-the-drain thing that everybody else had been doing but diving straight into a vortex of bubbles that was going to drown me any second now if it didn’t pull me apart first!

It did neither because I’d picked the right racing partner. Enid wrapped a ward around Galygos’s middle, covering the area around the seat and shielding us from some of the turbulence, although I still got battered about like a stone inside a maraca. Probably because she wasn’t exactly flush with power right now, either.

And then the drain, or whatever was down there, caught us and felt like it was launching us at approximately the speed of sound, only I couldn’t see where. There was nothing but thrashing water, frothing bubbles, and whirring fins. I concentrated on holding on for dear life, clutching the horny hide until I lost feeling in my fingers, my cheek pressed hard against Enid’s back, and my legs already crying out for mercy because the saddle was all but useless.

And then we were through and out into something different but no better. No better at all, I thought, as we found ourselves racing down a “track” with transparent sides, like the one the merfolk had been working on and which I had very bad memories of. Especially now, as the tubes were flooded, with water filling the inside as completely as the ocean we were racing through.

I didn’t see the point of having a track if the entire thing was just a water-filled tube! And then I did, watching a competitor get thrown into one of the walls and be zapped as if hit by a lightning bolt. Wards, then, and punishing ones.

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