-Holly-

  ‘She’s Polity!’ Billy hissed, his eyes wide with disbelief.

  ‘There’s no point hissing. She’s right there. She can hear you perfectly.’

  ‘Holly! You can’t be serious!’

  She sighed. ‘Look at her.' Ilya was curled up in a ball, sobbing and shivering, skinny arms wrapped around her bony knees. Next to her, Holly lay across the platform of the crow’s nest, one arm over her face. 'What do you think she’s going to do, chokeslam us both over the side? She’s in no state to attack and even if she did, I doubt she’d manage to do more than piss us off.’

  ‘Ken says we have to kill her!’

  ‘Go on, then.’

  Surfacing always brought out the worst in people and the worst of Holly was disdain and apathy. She kept them in check day-to-day, but now it was a fight she had no strength for.

  Billy stared at the two women, his mouth half-open. His eyes unfocused briefly as he communicated with their distant leader.

  ‘Holly come on! He says we have to!’

  She lowered the arm that covered her eyes and fixed him with a glare that she knew her bloodshot eyes would make doubly unsettling. ‘I’m afraid I’m presently incapacitated, and I’m unlikely to ever see Ken again anyway, so I’m sure you’ll forgive me if I blow you both a raspberry on this occasion.' She replaced the arm. 'But don’t let that stop you,' she added brightly. 'I’m sure you’ll make an excellent job of it.’

  Billy hesitated for a moment, uncertain. The unkind side of Holly enjoyed watching him struggle with himself. She was sure he would just sit down and huff at her, so it astonished her when he took a step towards Ilya, reaching out an arm to grab her.

  ‘Right. Come on, you. Over the side,’ he said in a brusque and businesslike manner.

  ‘NO!!’ the girl screamed, jerking violently away from him, causing him to recoil like a child trying to pick up a flapping chicken. If Holly had been feeling any less wretched she would have laughed.

  ‘Holly!’ he complained, his repertoire of offensive strategies exhausted. ‘Come on! You have to help. You know I can’t risk myself! I’m-’ His mouth narrowed to a frustrated line as he cut himself off.

  ‘What? A spineless weasel?’

  ‘No. That’s not what I meant. You- forget it. I’m not talking to you when you’re like this.’

  ‘That’s very considerate. Thank you.’

  She closed her eyes. Whatever happened now would happen whether she paid attention to it or not. There was no point in-

  ‘Holly! You can’t go to sleep!’

  She pushed down her rising irritation. She was surfacing from a dive that had saved the lives of every damn person on the ship, including him, and surfacing people were supposed to be left alone. That was basic respect. He knew that as well as anyone.

  ‘There’s literally a Polity woman in here with us! Holly!’

  With great effort she moved a leg and tapped Ilya with her foot.

  ‘Ilya,’ she said, her voice low and stern. ‘Ilya. You have to promise not to try and murder us. Otherwise he’s going to keep trying to touch you.’

  There was no response, so she kicked the girl harder, an edge entering her voice; ‘Ilya. If you try and attack us I’m going to jam my crusty toenail into your creepy eyeball. Do you understand? Nod if you understand.’ Ilya continued shaking and rocking, but she nodded jerkily.

  ‘There,’ Holly said. ‘We’re safe. Now will you shut the-’

  The platform vibrated. A shockwave travelled up through the wood and they all felt it at the same time they heard it. Something had slammed into the mast.

  The three looked up at one another. Ilya’s face was pleading and terrified, and Billy’s eyes just darted wildly from her to Holly. ‘What was that?’ he asked, stupidly.

  Holly made a note to hold Billy’s patheticness against him long-term and reluctantly gave up on the idea of rest or recovery. She forced her exhausted body to crawl to the edge and peered out over the side.

  What she saw made her gasp.

  Another impact shook the the crow’s nest. The figure of Lady Broadwood whirled below, a prisoner in each hand.

  Another body slammed into the mast. The woman roared as she span, flinging the two smashed corpses in opposite directions, high over the railings and out into the sea.

  She had sobered up.

  One man stood opposite her—seemingly the only one left of his squad—in a fighting stance. One-on-one, there was no contest; she darted forwards with speed that belied her stout legs. One of her arms lashed out, impossibly long, her range three times that of a normal person. He dashed back, raising his arms in defence, but the blow caught him, sending him rolling across the deck, and she rushed forwards to follow up. Another squad was sprinting across the ship towards them, but they were too far, too late. The man managed to sluggishly get one knee under him then raised his head and froze as he saw his death running to meet him. Holly gasped, but couldn’t stop herself from watching. Lady Broadwood bore down on the defenceless man, both arms raised, ready to deliver a hammer-blow that would crush him.

  She tripped. Almost comically, she went instantly from vertical to horizontal, splatting into the deck with a thud, enormous arms splayed out in front of her. Holly stared, uncomprehending—there was nothing there she could have tripped over. Surely she hadn’t simply slipped?

  Then, she saw it and the realisation glowed through the cloak of her misery, an involuntary smile spreading across her face.

  Lady Broadwood rolled and began to right herself, but as she rose, her head suddenly snapped to the side and she collapsed back to the ground. Straining her eyes, Holly could just make out the faint, slightly darker blurring of the air that marked the presence of a Selfborn.

  The air shimmered as the figure moved and Holly lost sight of them again. Whoever they were, they were deep, too deep to be seen. And that meant too deep to see, and that in turn meant too deep to fight safely. They were in danger. she willed the unseen fighter, the presence of one of her own drawing her into the battle. Once Lady Broadwood realised what was happening she would only have to swing her arms around once to make contact, and it would be over.

  She did exactly that.

  Holly tensed as the huge arms windmilled, flailing. The woman span, seeking to catch her assailant—those arms were so long, Holly felt sure the hidden fighter couldn’t have got far away enough in time—but they passed harmless through empty air. Holly breathed out heavily with relief. They had gotten away. She silently celebrated as the approaching squad of four arrived. One of the arms caught one and sent them spinning away, but the others fell upon her, pulling her to the ground. The man she had knocked down before was back on his feet, and joined the fray. This time, it was five against one. For the second time that day, Holly wrestled with her unwillingness to watch Lady Broadwood die, and turned away.

  On the other side of the mast, Gennara and Belle had been cornered by a crowd of prisoners. Holly gasped again as she saw the array of bodies surrounding the scene. She counted. There were nine of them, all prisoners. All dead. No, she realised with horror. They weren’t all dead. She watched as one rolled over onto its side and curled up in pain, holding its stomach, leaving behind a dark stain.

  Though they had Gennara and Belle surrounded, for some reason the prisoners weren’t attacking; instead it was like they were trying to just keep them there, as if someone else was going too show up and deal with them. It didn’t make sense. They had the numbers to overwhelm them, but instead they hesitated, carefully staying just out of range of the spears. As a tactic, it was madness—it would only get them killed more slowly, buying time for the others to sober up and regroup. Holly had felt Igor’s Urge earlier, when she stood on the hatch; it was raw animal bloodlust, all teeth and claws. Properly under its influence, they should be piling atop the two enemies, tearing them apart with no thought for their own safety. There was only one thing that could hold them back under an Urge that powerful.

  Another Urge. Gennara’s. Holly had felt it earlier, when Gennara gave her speech. Although she knew every word of it to be empty propaganda, somehow she had found herself moved by it. She had almsot laughed and cheered along with the rest of them. The more Gennara had talked, the more she had started to smile, warming to the idea of the Polity taking charge, of her having a place in it. It wasn’t until she she caught herself and paid attention that she had noticed the faint tingle of an Urge in her nerves.

  Realising it was Gennara’s had chilled her to the bone. Gennara was Skyborn—all Polity were Skyborn—so she shouldn’t have been able to use the innate abilities of other Affinities, at least not with any degree of skill. She was already powerful enough as a Skyborn to be elite in the Polity; an Urge in addition to that made her almost incomprehensibly powerful, more like a hero from a children’s story than a human being.

  And like all Skyborn, there was no way of guessing her age. Given what she’d seen, Holly suspected she was old. Very, very old.

  She wanted to tell the others, especially Igor, but there had been no time; the moment the hatch had opened she had run for her life and since then, the only person she had had contact with was Billy. Now Gennara was down there, fighting Igor’s Urge back with her own, a weapon he didn’t know she had. She could see its effectiveness; it was sapping the prisoners’ courage, making them dither and pause while she picked them off… and the Polity sobered up.

  Unless someone did something, it was going to get them all killed.

  -Saskia-

  Slowly but surely, they were being killed.

  The prisoners surrounding them in were growing more nervous, moving further back. Her spears flashed out more frequently and with every new corpse, a little more fear crept in.

  If she broke their resolve, if they turned and ran… Saskia imagined her riding among a disorderly crowd of fleeing prisoners, stabbing and trampling. It would be a massacre.

  She wondered. The crackle and sparkle that had flowed through them, driving them forwards, filling them with strength, convincing them they couldn’t fail, had all but burnt out; now, she was increasingly having to fight down the chilling awareness that she was locked in a fight to the death with the Polity, on their ship, with nothing but an group of untrained, starving criminals she didn’t know, and no weapons.

  They needed the Urge. With the Urge, they were an army—without it, they were the same scared people who had all agreed, down in the hold, that to go through with this would be suicide.

  Where was Igor? She hadn’t seen him since they had come out of the hatch. She knew that the further they were from him, the weaker the effect of the Urge was. Did that mean he was at the other end of the ship? Or did it mean…

  There were so many thoughts she was trying not to think. She needed to focus. She needed to fight! There was only one way out of this and it was killing the Polity; there was no running away, no surrendering, she that, it was just… she didn’t it any more. She felt…. Hopeless. Scared.

  She shook herself mentally. Someone had to do something. had to do something. No one else was going to. She was close to panicking, and if she was feeling like that then so was everybody. It had to be her. She looked up at the mounted woman again.

  ‘Sshhh,’ a voice whispered in her ear.

  She span around to see who was there. She was alone.

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  The voice came again, closer, this time in her other ear. ‘Stop it. Don’t draw attention.’ it commanded, still whispering. ‘It’s me. Phil. The Selfborn.’

  Her eyes widened. She kept her gaze focused on the mounted woman, but nodded understanding.

  ‘You’re thinking about tackling her off that Goblin.’

  She nodded again. The weight of a hand rested on her shoulder, and squeezed gently. There was no need to say what it meant. She understood. It was approval, and commiseration.

  ‘But you’re losing your nerve? Same as that lot?’

  Nod.

  ‘As it is now, they just need an opening. Don’t worry about them, scared people can be just as violent as angry people. But don’t do it now. If she sees you coming, you’ll have less chance of taking her out. You’ll die for nothing.’ The weight of those words hit her squarely in the chest. ‘Let me get round the other side of her. I’ll slip to the front of the crowd and jump on her. As soon as you see her distracted by something, start your run up. Okay? I’ll only be able to buy you a few seconds-worth of distraction.’

  He was offering to die with her. And obliging her to die with him.

  She nodded again and the unseen hand squeezed once more. ‘Don’t think. Just do it. We’re saving them.’ And with that, it was gone.

  she repeated to herself. She fixed her eyes on the woman—she was moving around less now, and the wildness seemed to have gone from her eyes. She was analysing the prisoners. Sizing them up…

  Saskia narrowed her eyes. She didn’t need the Urge. She didn’t need Igor. She could do this. Whatever he was doing, he probably-

  She cancelled the thought. Her focus narrowed. She would be her own Urge. She waited—when she saw the woman distracted, she would start running. Towards the woman. Towards-

  She shifted he weight, ready to run.

  And then the woman turned her Goblin, presenting a brief opening that the cowed and hesitant prisoners did not move to take… and attacked.

  On some unspoken command, the man with the tail leapt up onto the back of the Goblin as it took one threatening step forwards, scattering prisoners. Its bulbour muscles bunched up under it as it crouched, then it leapt. It didn’t jump high enough to clear the ring of men and women surrounding it; instead, it flew through them, its legs thrashing, sending bodies flying. It landed, trampling more, and once clear it ran to the far end of the deck, where it turned to face the stunned group from a distance. Some had begun chasing after it, but when they saw it facing them down, the woman astride it with a spear in each hand, the tailed man at her side, they faltered.

  They were now near the front of the ship, where the deck narrowed to a point; a few feet of empty space stood to either side, between her and the railings. There was no space behind her, and none to the sides; the only way to attack her now was head-on.

  When she shouted, her voice blared like a horn. ‘To me!’ she cried, and the sound filled the night. ‘Polity, to me!’ Saskia’s eyes flashed from side to side, taking in the situation.

  With that one change of position, she had changed everything. She was now almost impossible to attack without suffering enormous losses, and even if she were overwhelmed, she would be more likely to be forced over the railing than killed. Saskia had no idea how well she could swim, survive cold, or grip wood, but like any of the Polity she would not assume that a fall over the side would be enough to kill her. Especially not her.

  The prisoners stood in the middle of the deck, exposed, with her on one side, and…

  ‘To me!’ she roared again. ‘Polity, to me! Surround them!’

  The prisoners stood between the woman and the centre of the ship, where the mast and the wooden hut obscured the view of the far end. Saskia had no idea what had been happening on the other side of the ship since she had run over to this end; who had killed whom. How many had died. Whether Igor was alive or dead.

  What had happened on that unseen other side, she realised, would determine who came around the sides of that hut next. And who came round the sides of that hut would determine everything. If it was their side, there were probably no Polity left except these two.

  If it was Polity, they would be surrounded. It would be over.

  She stared at the hut. Time seemed to stretch as they waited, delaying the moment when all their fates would be decided, as though it were too important to simply happen. She stared, and stared. Nothing came around the sides of the hut, followed by more nothing; the two empty spaces loomed in front of her like the tips of blades.

  Something streaked past at head height and smashed into the thinning crowd. The prisoners, their nerves already frayed, their resolve already weakened, screamed and scattered. A thick rope extended from a point in the floor among the screaming crowd and up to the roof of the hut. It was pulled taut, and Saskia saw a huge, oaken harpoon arrow embedded in the deck. It had missed the prisoners, but it had done its job.

  Chaos ensued. Saskia thought to herself, but there was nothing she could do. The Goblin immediately leapt forwards. The spears whipped and flashed at distracted, panicking people. More began to scream as they perceived the threats from both sides.

  The harpoon-arrow ripped out of the deck with a splintering crack and was dragged back towards the hut by its rope. On the hut’s roof stood a stout woman with short, fat legs and strong, monstrously long arms, wielding a harpoon-bow taller than she was, turning it diagonally to keep it from hitting the deck.

  Saskia watched in helpless, silent horror as she pulled back the drawstring—which was more like a rope than a string, the bow was so huge—and aimed at the crowd, which was beginning to cluster on one side against the railings, presenting a perfect target. She didn’t fire. She didn’t need to.

  The mounted woman and the man with the tail slowly walked forwards, as if to prove that the battle was over. The prisoners huddled against the railing like herded sheep.

  ‘You were under Urge. We will be lenient,’ was all she said. The force of her Urge flared and Saskia’s soul was buffeted by cold despair. She knew then that they had lost. The Polity were simply too powerful. The battle was over. The prisoners looked at one another, their expressions fearful and uncertain.

  One man stepped forwards from the crowd. Keeping his eyes fixed one the woman, he raised both his hands, showing the palms… and then, as slowly as the collapse of an empire, he went down onto one knee with a d

  Then both.

  He surrendered.

  Saskia screamed internally. But before her eyes, more prisoners began to raise their hands. One by one, slowly at first but picking up speed as consensus spread through them, more knees thudded gently against the planks.

  She wanted to scream at them, to remind them what they were fighting for. That there would never be another chance like this.

  Was there nothing she could do? After all this, was there really nothing she could do but stand and watch it all fall apart?

  As she watched her allies surrender, like a cold light, reality dawned on her, making the world at once brighter and more terrifying.

  There would be no mercy for her. No mercy for any of them. The Polity did not forgive. What they had planned for Marco would be done to all of them.

  She would face a cleaner death over the side of the ship. She was close to the railing now. Their attention was on the prisoners. She may not get another chance to jump.

  Suddenly three sounds filled the air: an ear-piercing scream, rising in volume, cut off by the crack of splintering wood, and a deep, hollow thud. All eyes turned to the roof of the hut, where the sounds had come from. Right where the woman with the bow had stood was now a gaping hole and mess of smashed planks. The entire roof was caved in, as though the woman had suddenly become too heavy for it and fallen through. Or, Saskia realised, as if something had been dropped…

  Her eyes turned towards the crow’s nest above. Was there-

  Then, as they all stood gawking at the newly-appeared hole, wondering what had just happened, Igor appeared.

  She felt him before she saw him. A faint spark in her stomach. A tiny, distant hint of what she had felt before, a candle-flame in the dark, but it was unmistakable. It was there. And it was enough for her to know he was alive. And if he was alive…

  She looked over at the prisoners. Those on their knees stayed down, but no more were surrendering. They looked around, wide-eyed, confused. They felt it too; the faint, distant call to battle, the stirring of power.

  The woman on the Goblin looked up, towards the unseen man beyond the hut, and snarled. Her lips pulled back from her teeth, her arms flexed, her grip on the spears tightened. Beneath her, the Goblin twitched, muscles bunching as the pair took a battle stance. They remained like that for a long moment, the spark of Igor’s Urge fizzing in every gut, no one moving. The sound of the ship’s creaking wood, the wind, the sea, suddenly sounded like the baying of a crowd, sensing imminent bloodshed. Like a countdown.

  Igor stepped through the gap at the head of a kill squad.

  He was soaked in blood. The firm authority was gone from his bearing; now he hunched, his teeth bared, and they, too, were red with blood. His eyes shone with a wildness she had never seen, his expression unfamiliar, alien, animal. He let out a guttural hiss. And his Urge exploded.

  Like a sun, like a bomb, like an army, like the entire sea crashing into her at once, suddenly it detonated. The spark blossomed into raging hellfire, burning the cold wind of the enemy’s Urge away. Saskia’s own lips parted and she felt the wind on her teeth as energy flowed down the backs of her legs and up her spine; her fingers flexed, muscles hardened; in the space of a moment, it all returned. Purpose, strength, the conviction that murder was her only purpose in this world all engulfed her body, a body full of the intent to do harm, willing to break and be broken, for the greater good, for rightness, for the future of the world she loved. Her eyes sharpened, focused, saw the enemy.

  Prisoners were standing back up. Their eyes blazed, just as they had downstairs in the hold. Their postures had changed, their arms raised, their jaws clenched; they began to spread out, facing the two Polity. Saskia heard footsteps. Igor was striding across the deck towards the Goblin-rider. None spoke.

  The Goblin lunged forwards as if to strike but instead of scattering in fear, three prisoners rushed forwards to meet it as others flowed out the sides, ready to surround it if it advanced further. A spear lashed out and the tip caught one in the shoulder, but the Goblin was already jumping backwards and the wound was shallow. The prisoner barely seemed to notice. Igor pressed on towards her, closer. Saskia saw anger in the woman’s face, now tempered with uncertainty.

  Igor’s footsteps stopped. The two faced one another, Igor with a bloodthirsty mob at his back, she protecting her single, terrified minion. She danced her Goblin back another step. Levelled her spears. Furrowed her brow.

  And just as it seemed she was about to charge, she stopped. An almost peaceful look came over her. She lowered her arms, closed her eyes, and unleashed the full force of her Urge.

  Ice met fire. The opposing Urges tore into on another, erupting, engulfing the ship. The air froze and burned at once, made heavy with the sheer magnitude of force. It pushed Saskia down, forcing her to one knee as tiny blue sparks flared and flickered, scuttling across the deck and through the air like disturbed insects. Her vision flashed with something like light, something like darkness, somehow both at the same time, an anti-light that left her dazzled and sightless, a negative image of the two Urge-users burned onto the inside of her skull as sound assaulted her, a sound like flies swarming and glass shattering inside her, like nature itself screaming in protest at the forces tearing at the fabric of the world. Her ears, her teeth, her bones, her ribs all rattled with it as it rose in pitch and intensity, becoming unbearable. She collapsed onto the deck. The sound; the light; the pressure; they hurt. Did Igor know? Dying from being caught in an Urgestorm was unheard of but then, power like Igor’s was unheard of. Two Urge-users of this level coming face-to-face…

  She was blind, deaf and immobile. The other prisoners must surely all be like her, helpless and suffering, their senses overwhelmed. The pressure increased, the noise piercing… If the Urgestorm went on, if the pressure increased, If something didn’t stop them soon, it would kill them all.

  And then, with a sound like a fingernail flicking a wineglass in a huge, empty room, it stopped. The sound echoed, reverberated, and died away.

  Then, silence.

  Abruptly, sound and sight returned. The crippling pressure lifted. Saskia raised her head in surprise. She was free to move again. It was over. One of them had won. Which meant one had lost.

  Igor—he was there, but he was down, palms on the ground, his head bowed, his face hidden. He looked defeated. With that demonic face hidden and only the back of his head visible, he looked weak, vulnerable, like any other person.

  If he had lost, that meant…

  A shout went up. A deep male voice, bellowing anger and surprise. She looked towards it. The mounted woman was still on her Goblin but she and her bodyguard were wrestling one another, pulling and tugging, as though trying to pull one another off balance, the tailed man jumping up to try and get his arm around her. Saskia stared, bewildered—why would they fight one another? What was going on? The man was roaring wordlessly, the woman thrashing her spears around, one arm seemingly pinned against her body by… something.

  Then the two both got their arms around the something, and bore it to the ground. A shape. Something Saskia couldn’t see…

  Phil.

  Instantly, she understood. The noise and light and pressure of the Urgestorm had debilitated everyone—everyone whose senses were open to them. Phil had been diving—half-blind, half-deaf, half-numb. Shielded.

  Igor hadn’t won. Nor had he lost. Phil had seen his opportunity and taken it. He had attacked the mounted woman, distracting her, snapping her Urge off, leaving Igor’s raging unopposed at full power. She almost heard the as it engulfed her.

  The seconds that followed were both the fastest and the slowest of her life. They were also the last.

  The Urge, already a raging fire, conflagrated and the need to fight suddenly burnt so strong it almost hurt. Her fingers prickled, desperate to grip and tear, her shoulders aching with unreleased strength. Her boneblades felt like new teeth, itching, desperate to be ground against something hard. She couldn’t help herself; she began to march towards the woman—it was that or attack the nearest ally. As Saskia accelerated, the woman turned, levelled her spear. Saskia didn’t care; even with ten spears in her, she would tear the meat from her bones and laugh as she did it. She had the power of mountains and the fate of the world in her hands. She would use those hands to ruin anything that stood before her.

  Somewhere in the back of her mind a tiny voice screamed caution, but it was the voice of a rabbit screaming in a volcano. Her legs began to move faster. She leaned forward. Her eyes locked onto her enemy’s, which narrowed with contempt. She imagined the crunch of the woman’s bones and grinned widely, meeting her gaze. If she died, she would die happy at the damage she caused, and it would be worth it. She cared nothing for her own life, only for the viseceral joy of ending others’. She was running now, flying. They were yards apart, the gap closing. Saskia felt drool escape her mouth, her eyes so wide the sockets hurt. Her legs propelled her forwards, arms whirling, towards death, towards the blood she longed to spill. She roared and time slowed and the air parted as she sliced through it, her arms scything forwards, targeting the woman’s chest, which moved, the whole of her moved as she twitched off to the side, out of Saskia’s path, unbelievably fast but Saskia was fast too, she saw the movement and turned to follow it but her legs were no longer in contact with the ground. She travelled inexorably forwards, turning her head to see a spear flick up, its point aimed at her, moving towards her, slow enough for her to see it, slow enough to dodge easily but her own body moved slowly too, slower even than the spear, as it came closer and closer, its tip growing.

  She did change direction, then, as the spear’s impact pushed her torso, rotating her to face back the way she had come as she doubled up around its point and her momentum ripped it out of the woman’s hand. She looked down at it with curiosity as she flew, marvelling at its clean entry into her body. The place it had pierced her—her mind cast itself back to her body science lessons, yes, the heart was on the left, and the spear had gone in on her—she had to cast her mind down to her feet and imagine putting her shoes on to remember which was which, she had never been able to remember without doing that—yes, it had gone in on the left. She breathed in.

  Prisoners were rushing towards the two Polity. She could feel the thuds of their feet through the deck. She distantly realised she had landed, the spear sticking out like a broom tucked under her arm. If she had the strength, she could have waggled it—look, Igor, I’ve got a spear!—but she didn’t. She breathed out. She was fading. The Urge was gone. She felt cold without it. She wanted it back. She breathed in. From this angle, she could see Igor’s face. He was shouting something. Reaching towards her. He looked sad. She didn’t want him to look sad. She liked him. He was a nice man. A good man.

  She breathed out.