Page 40 of The Queens and the Kings
Sensing movement out of the corner of his eye, Henrik ducked. A hatchet whizzed overhead and slammed into the main mast. The wood split. The hatchet dropped with athunkthat echoed in the sudden quiet.
Henrik leaped to his feet as the hatch nearest him exploded open. Sailors climbed up the ladder, but notsailors. Scrawny, dead bodies with mottled blue skin peeling off in sections stumbled onto the deck. Their limbs, rigid and ungainly, slowed them. Bloodshot eyes, white irises, sluggish movements.
He might have laughed if their presence hadn’t been so shocking.
“Ondeds!” Einar muttered.
Henrik swore.
“Einar!” Agnes screeched. “Get out of there!”
As the half-dead sailors stumbled close, Einar and Henrik ducked their weak advances. One fell, shattered to bones and the same dust coating the ship. It billowed from the shattered body, expiring to ash and dancing on the wind.
Knife unleashed, Henrik slammed his weapon through the neck of the closest staggering onded. The moment it contactedthe putrid frame, the onded fizzled into a poof. Henrik tripped away, his stomach lurching.
Did he imagine the sky tilting?
His head whirling?
He slammed into Einar, who dropped to his knees, both hands on his head. He shouted unintelligibly.
“Idiots!” Pedr shouted, sputtering. “Stupid arcane! Get back here! I can’t leave the bloody ship to save your lives. Britt!” Pedr roared, “don’t you dare!”
A whirling sensation filled Henrik’s head as he struggled to stay upright. The dust filled his nose, gummed the corner of his mouth. Distantly, he heard Agnes cry out, Britt shouting. The awful thought that she might come over here, touch this horrid stuff, shoved him to his feet. He stood, fell, and attempted again. On this third try, after fending off another oafish onded, he kept his feet.
Pedr shouted. “Jump in the ocean! Get it off of you.”
Henrik grabbed Einar, hauled him off the deck. Ondedsstaggered toward them. One, bent backward at the waist, swung a fleshy arm toward Einar. It detached halfway. Einar sliced the rest off with his knife and powder exploded. Henrik tried to hold his breath, but the sticky cloud settled on him, regardless.
A headache exploded through his skull. The air thickened. Another hatchet whizzed past his head, whistling as it skimmed his ear, so close the cold graze snapped him from his torpor. The strength behind the throw sent it across the gap, where it shattered against Pedr’s ship.
Shite.
They had tomove.
But movement wasn’t easy. His elbows didn’t bend, nor his knees. His thickening blood felt like paste. Every heartbeat hurt. Somewhere in the distance, Pedr’s belligerent rage echoed through a tunnel. A spin-on-the-spot tunnel.
Henrik could have laughed.
What was this?
He stumbled over to the side of the ship, Einar in his grip.
“The water!” Pedr screamed, irate. “Get. In. The. Water.”
An ondedset his putrid hand on Henrik’s shoulder. He dodged it, nearly dropping Einar, and his hip slammed into the railing. Clutching Einar, Henrik grunted, yanked Einar half over the wall, and pushed. Einar tumbled over the side of the ship.
As Henrik threw his almost-paralyzed leg over the sidewall, his eyes locked with the yellowed whites of an armed onded. The mad-eyed, mouldering worm of a body smiled, revealing a skeleton’s teeth and a hole in the face where its nose should have been. It hurled a hatchet with shocking strength.
Henrik dropped.
He slid into the narrow strip of ocean between the ships, sliding below the waves as a scream sounded above.
The cool kiss of water was an instant balm. The itchy heat, the onded’s slimy grip, and the horrendous mixture of rotting flesh and mutilated life vanished. Sweet seawater peeled the filth away with a soothing balm.
Henrik didn’t battle for the top. He hovered, allowing his mind to clear. The nauseating spin ceased, leaving him level-headed. Regaining his mental grip, he paddled upward, releasing bubbles to satisfy his burning chest.
Another splash sounded above.
