Karina grimaced and grabbed onto the railing with one hand and her safety line with the other. Some miracle allowed her to stay on her feet as the Amaranth shuddered beneath her. From the veracity of the shaking she could tell that this hit was particularly bad. Moments later she could hear the muffled sound of men's screams over the ringing in her ears. Gathering herself up, she grabbed her skirts with one hand and hurried the rest of the way up to the upper decks.
Despite her promise to herself, she could still feel tears welling up as she looked around the deck. She tried to tell herself that it was just the smoke, but the truth was her goggles were doing a fairly good job of protecting her piecing green eyes.
Every which way she looked the signs and consequences of battle surrounded her. Two of Amaranth's masts were missing completely and three members of the crew were desperately hacking away at a third. The ship's remaining golden sails were tattered and burning. Metal and wooden debris, bloodstains, bits of gore, and even a few small fires littered the deck. Along the starboard side, nearly the entirety of the beautiful brass and wooden railings were gone and at least two of the cannon were conspicuously missing. The port side wasn't fairing much better.
She looked out over the starboard side where the two of the ships making up the remains of the British fleet floated only a few hundred yards away, so close she could see the men preparing to fire the cannons. Trying to ignore those ships and the dozens of others that hung in the night sky, friend and foe alike, she made one more desperate search of the Amaranth's deck.
At last, she saw him, standing at the top of the sterncastle, holding on to one of the few remaining sections of the rail with one hand and gesturing with his sword with the other. Joshua Ravenhollow was too far for her to see the hints of grey in his hair or the creases that she knew defined his eyes and forehead, creases she knew intimately from hours spent running her hands over them. It never ceased to amaze her how close she had become to this man that kept others to such a distance that he even often identified himself using only his last name.
As whatever orders Ravenhollow was making were relayed, she allowed herself a moment of relief that the man she had grown to love was still alive. She even allowed herself a moment of hope that they might live through this to see her daughter once more.
Then another explosion rocked the deck momentarily blinding her and causing her stumble and the moment was gone. Coughing, she felt heat nearby and realized something was burning. She took a few tentative, half-blind steps before tripping over something.
No, not something, she realized as she fell across the obstacle, someone. As her vision cleared, she recognized one of the men that had been cutting the broken mast free was now lying motionless under her. She managed to get to her knees, and checked him over quickly.
He was still breathing but a large bump on his head showed he would not be much use for a while. Worse still, he was bleeding profusely from a large gash in his arm, possibly from the hatchet he still held.
Sparing a quick glance at the now dangerously burning broken mast, she grabbed a handful of her skirt and tore off a makeshift tourniquet wrapping it tightly around his arm above the gash. She then pulled him into a semi-sitting position. Grabbing a safety line she wrapped it around his waist a couple of times before clipping it to him.
Once she was satisfied he was satisfied he was as secure as she could make him, she took the hatchet and hurried over to the burning mast. Working beside the two crewmembers that were still somehow on their feet despite their injuries, Karina helped chop at the base of the mast. After a handful of minutes of chopping and trying to ignore the shifting of the deck every time the cannons fired or the ship suffered another hit, there was a loud crack and the mast started to fall away, causing the ship to rock dangerously, before coming to rest hanging from the ship by means of the rigging and lines that still needed to be cut away.
YOU ARE READING
Brass Skies Vol. 1: The Battle of Chesapeake
Science Fiction"Declaring our Independence From the British One Airship at a Time." The colonies tried to protest once. They were brutally and ruthlessly crushed by the Red Coats. Now, no one thinks of rebelling. Not when the British have forts all throughout t...
