Snake Heart (Chains of Honor #2) -Lindsay Buroker Page 0,51

hole in the deck. “We’re waiting on you.”

The pirates flung Pey Lu’s door open as Dak reached the officer’s cabin. Yanko couldn’t fling his attack with Dak standing in front of the doorway. He sensed one man lifting a pistol to fire. With his back to them, Dak couldn’t see it, couldn’t dodge.

“Move,” Yanko barked and hastily constructed a barrier between Dak and the shooter, as he had done to thwart the trap. He didn’t know if it would be enough to stop a pistol ball and was glad when Dak leaped sideways into the room.

The pistol fired. The ball halted in midflight, lodging in Yanko’s wall of air. It hung there until Dak shut the door, and Yanko’s concentration disappeared. Arayevo and Lakeo had already gone through the hole.

“Go,” Dak said, throwing the lock on the door.

Yanko hesitated. Blood saturated Dak’s shirt in front of his shoulder—one of those bullets had caught him. There were numerous other rips, showing gashes in his arms and torso.

“Maybe you should—”

“Go,” Dak ordered, grabbing Yanko and propelling him toward the hole.

Something—or someone—slammed into the door. It held, but Yanko remembered Dak knocking open the other door and knew it would not stand against much of an assault. He jumped through the hole into the brig, only to find Arayevo and Lakeo fighting two pirates. Lakeo was holding her own, but the big brute facing Arayevo was pushing her back.

Yanko took several steps to get out of the way and give himself space to formulate an attack. He channeled a tiny stream of air and aimed it at the pirate’s sword hand. The man dropped his weapon as if bitten and jerked his hand back. His eyes widened as he glanced at Yanko.

“Wizard,” he shouted over his shoulder, backing away from Arayevo since he no longer had a weapon. “There’s another wizard. Get—”

Lakeo was close enough to him to break away from her opponent and slash him across the shoulder blades. That quieted him and knocked him to the deck. He scrambled away on his hands and knees. Dak landed beside Yanko, as a bang came from above, someone slamming that locked door open.

Without hesitating, Dak charged past Lakeo and Arayevo. In a blur of movement that seemed impossibly fast for someone so big, he cut down both of their opponents. He raced toward the stairs that led back into the hold, a hold now nearly flooded with water. Voices came from within it, orders to seal the hole. Dak ran down the stairs, splashing after the first couple of steps. Shouts and the clangs of swords sounded as he engaged the pirates.

“Yanko,” a voice full of controlled fury called from the other end of the passageway.

He had been about to follow Dak down the stairs, but he looked up at his name, not surprised to see Pey Lu there, framed by the sunlight. Energy crackled around her. Had she been coming to fight him? Or to do something about the hole?

“Move, move,” Lakeo whispered, pushing him from behind.

Pey Lu lifted a hand, visible energy dancing between her fingertips like lightning. Yanko threw up another wall of air, reacting again. There was no time for anything else.

White lightning streaked through the air, turning the dim passage to daylight. It was aimed at Lakeo, not Yanko, but his barrier absorbed the attack, the power almost driving him to his knees. Even though the lightning did not get through, it was like blocking one of Dak’s sword blows—it jolted every joint in his body.

Yanko set his jaw and channeled more power into the shield, fully expecting to have to block another attack. He stepped away from the stairs, so Arayevo and Lakeo could get down.

Pey Lu’s eyes were as dark and hard as obsidian, though the rage she must have felt at having her ship sabotaged did not show on her face. She merely raised her hand for another attack.

Lakeo scrambled down the stairs. Arayevo paused behind Yanko’s shoulder. He could not say anything or look at her. More lightning coursed down the passageway toward them. This time, absorbing the power drained him so that he dropped to one knee. His entire body trembled from the effort of maintaining the barrier.

“Yanko?” Arayevo whispered.

“Go,” he barked and thrust the journal back toward her. “Help our people.”

She hesitated, and he shouted, “Go,” again as his mother readied another attack.

Arayevo grabbed the journal and raced down the stairs. The shouts and bangs of metal in the hold had stopped.