Free The Spell of Undoing by Paul Collins Page A

the spyglass to Borges who took it reluctantly but put it to his eye. After a moment, he said, ‘She'll not make much headway with those sails. They're full of holes!’
    ‘Take a look at the propellers.’ Borges did so. The propellers were a blur of motion. Verris went on: ‘She's making ten knots, or I'm no sailor. So we've less than an hour till she comes alongside and tries to board us.’
    ‘You guessed right,’ said Borges.
    ‘The girl guessed right. Or saw rightly, whichever it is. Thanks to her we have a chance.’
    Borges lifted his eyes upside and cursed. ‘If our people were up there we'd be travelling a darn sight faster.’
    ‘We might,’ Verris agreed, ‘but then we'd have no one to repel boarders. Quickly now, spread the word. Leave only a skeletal squad to the starboard. They'll swing to our leeward.’
    ‘Unless they keep to the heights and rappel down atop us.’
    ‘They'll not risk losing their propellers and rudders,’ said Verris. ‘Besides, they want us intact. There's no plunder in a crushed city.’
    He was right. But Quentaris wasn't going to make it to the thick scudding clouds in which they might have escaped. Being larger and heavier, Quentaris couldn't hope to outmanoeuvre the Tolrushians. Nor offer a decent fight. Because of the siege, Tolrush would have had its entire populace inside the city walls when it was wrenched through the rift vortex – it would thus outnumber Quentaris by quite a margin. Worse, Tolrush had been a military city-state for over a century, its people groomed for war from when they were toddlers.
    Quentaris lost its lead within half an hour.
    Battle stations sounded, and all hands scrambled on deck or squirmed up the rigging. Citizens grabbed whatever they could: broomsticks, clubs, pots and pans, anything that could be used as a weapon. Magicians assembled on the walls along with Verris’ marines and what sailors could be spared from upside.
    And then they waited.
    Above them, every inch of canvas strained against the wind. Rigging whipped and jiggled, and the masts, with their cross-spars outstretched like arms, creaked under the load. To port and starboard, thick black smoke belched from the array of funnels atop the great engine-houses; and projecting from the sides, the enormous propellers were spinning as fast as they could. Even so, the marauding city rumbled closer by the second.
    Ten minutes later, the predator city came alongside, moving into Quentaris’ wind shadow. Immediately, they dropped sails, and Quentaris shuddered as the two land masses ground into one another, prow to prow. On each side, magicians cushioned the impact with spells that exhausted them almost at once. Despite this, masts shook and rigging twanged. Two sailors dropped to their deaths as the jolt unseated them.
    Then came grappling irons, looping through the air, snagging onto battlement and rigging. Within minutes, hundreds of Tolrushians had leapt across to Quentaris.
    ‘All hands, repel boarders!’ Verris screamed.
    The fighting was fierce, mainly concentrated a long the portside perimeter wall and in the rigging above. Verris was not fool enough to pull all the defences from other key spots though. Tolrushians were known for their devious tactics: they might just take it into their heads to send a lifeboat, charmed to float, under Quentaris and up onto the other side. This meant that fully a fifth of his forces were doing nothing, but it couldn't be helped.

    Nor did he have much time for regrets. Within moments of the two cities joining battle, he was in the thick of it. A mid-sized mountain troll leapt at him wielding a great battleaxe. Verris ducked beneath the arcing blade and thrust his sword up into the troll. The troll gasped, staggered back, and flipped over the parapet, dropping out of sight.
    Then two Tolrushians came at him, trading blow for blow, trying to pierce his defensive swordplay. He parried, thrust, feinted, and parried again. One of the Tolrushians