The House Of Gaian

panicked as other archers nocked arrows in their bows and took aim.
    Ubel waited until the captain had reached the gangplank, gave the man that moment to think he’d escaped. “Now.”
    Arrows flew, finding their mark in the captain’s back. He teetered on the gangplank, his hands reaching for the hands his crew held out to him. More arrows flew, and the men who had tried to help were felled.
    The captain tumbled off the gangplank and into the water.
    “Now,” Ubel said again.
    The archers with the glass-balled arrows took aim. As the glass balls hit the mast and deck, they exploded, spraying a liquid that burst into flames, burning men, burning wood.
    “The ship’s on fire!” someone screamed.
    Two more glass-balled arrows flew, and more liquid fire washed across the deck, caught the sails.
    People rushed on deck now—women, children, old men, young men. Some jumped into the water. Men, mostly. The women were too burdened with long skirts and arms full of children. They knew they had no chance in the water, so they ran down the gangplank to the dock, as terrified and mindless as rats, uncomprehending that there was nowhere to go, no way to escape.
    And his archers exterminated them as efficiently as they would any other vermin.
    A howl of rage suddenly filled the waterfront. Ubel spun around as sailors, armed with boot knives or clubs, and dock workers, with sharp hooks, threw themselves at the warriors, turning an extermination into an ugly fight.
    Suddenly surrounded by screaming, fighting men, Ubel pushed his way to a clear space on the dock, falling to his hands and knees as he tripped over a dying woman crawling away from the other bodies.
    He’d miscalculated. He should have used the Inquisitor’s Gift of persuasion to quiet that merchant captain, should have handled the extermination more carefully. He should have realized that the sailors had helped sneak people onto the ships, that the dock workers had looked the other way when supplies in the warehouses had gone missing. Should have realized that some of them might have family or friends hidden on the ship.
    As he got to his feet, he noticed two men walking swiftly toward the last dock. The ship he knew belonged to a witch-loving merchant family was already quietly slipping back with the tide.
    “Stop those men! ”
     
    The warriors who had gone ahead of him and had turned back to join their comrades couldn’t have heard him. But they must have seen his urgent hand gestures and, looking in the direction he was pointing, spotted the easier prey.
    “Fire the ships!”
    The Wolfram captains riding anchor in the harbor couldn’t hear him either. No matter. They already had their orders. They knew what to do. Even if that witch-loving bastard captain managed to reach his ship, he wasn’t going to escape.
    The tone of the fight behind him changed. The sailors were no longer fighting the warriors, exactly. Now they were fighting to reach the ships, the smaller fishing boats, anything that would get them away from the docks.
    As if they actually believed they could get out of the harbor.
    “You there!” someone shouted.
    Glancing back, Mihail saw the warriors moving toward them. “Run,” he said, grabbing Craig’s arm.
    No need to say it twice, not when the two sea hawks perched on the dock near his ship suddenly screamed and took flight.
    They ran for the end of the dock. The sailor dropped the wooden plank. It scraped along the dock as Sweet Selkie began following the tide to open water.
    Just one chance. Two other men stood by on board, ready to throw ropes that would keep him and Craig from tumbling into the sea.
    “Go!” Mihail said, pushing Craig toward the plank as his men threw the ropes. Craig grabbed one and hurried up the bucking, bowing plank as fast as he could.
    As soon as his men grabbed Craig’s arms to pull him on board, Mihail rushed up the plank. He was knocked aside by Craig before both feet touched the deck.
    Glass shattered. Craig screamed. Mihail felt a sudden burning along his left shoulder and down his back.
    More screams.
    Mihail twisted—and stared.
    The right side of Craig’s face was on fire. Fire burned down his neck, down his arm. The satchel he was still holding burned.
    Someone beat Mihail’s left shoulder and back, and he cried out in pain.
    “You’re on fire!” a crewman shouted.
    Fire. “Water!” he shouted, putting his heart into the command, the plea.
    Two barrels of fresh water burst open as