The wager had seemed so simple in the relative quiet belowdeck. Now, with the prospect of fresh battle rearing its head, Zala had to face the actual challenge before her. Even with Fon’s help, it would be no easy feat.
Suppressing the thump of blood coursing through her veins, she ducked her head back under the hatch and let out short and jagged breaths. “It’s still chaos out there,” she told Fon.
“Yeah, the crew could probably use some help,” Fon said with a sardonic eyebrow.
Despite their talk of “ladies first,” Mantu and Sniffs poked their heads out of their own hatch without waiting. They each let an arrow loose at a sudden break in the fog. Any hint of a crow’s nest with a bowman or a passing merchant or soldier was met with their attempts at decent archery. They both kept missing again and again. So they adjusted their tactic, waiting for a clear break in the thick mist before taking new shots.
Fon tapped Zala on her shoulder. “You gonna let them get a lead on you?”
Zala inhaled through her nose, braving another look above. The clouds never seemed to cease, nor did the battle around them. But unlike the pair of men, she didn’t need to wait. She drew up her bow, and before long Fon tapped her on her right knee. Zala moved her arrow a finger-length to the right. Fon gave her another tap. She moved another touch. When Fon held Zala’s knee, Zala knew she was on target.
She let her arrow fly free, but there was no satisfying thud or high scream that usually followed. She frowned. That had been as sure a shot as any.
“Archer!” an enemy cried out from the fog.
Zala quickly let the hatch fall at the sound of the shout, hiding belowdeck with more gulping breaths of air. She hadn’t expected to be marked so quickly.
“How you gonna shoot what you can’t see, chana?” Mantu laughed from his own ladder. He and Sniffs must have been hiding as well while they waited for the right time to spring out once more.
Zala turned wide eyes to Fon, who only shrugged.
“I told you right,” Fon whispered. “I could see him glowing through the ship. You were aiming right at him.”
Shoulders slumped in discouragement, Zala took another look above deck. “Not blamin’ you, Fon…”
The cloud finally broke, and they all saw the enemy’s crow’s nests—two bowmen perched within, looming overhead. Before Zala could turn her bow on them, Mantu and Sniffs loosed their arrows. But they shot wide just as Zala had, the whistle of a gale coming overhead.
“Shit!” the men said in unison, retreating belowdeck.
“It’s just the damn wind,” Zala whispered to Fon. “Need to aim more to the left.”
Zala peeked her head out again. The cool air brushed her face as she nocked her second arrow. Fon tapped Zala on her left knee this time. Zala adjusted. The hand held firm, confirming the shot. At the apex of her draw, Zala shifted her aim a touch more to the left, then let the arrow cut into the white wisps of fog.
The thwack and scream she had listened for before came sharp and loud, confirming her first kill.
“That’s one, kijana.” Zala turned to the men as she ducked belowdeck again, chin held up high.
“Beginner’s luck!” Sniffs pounded his thickset hand into the ladder, cracking its base into thin hairlines.
“Hah, I’ve been shooting since before you two knew port from starboard,” Zala gloated. Sniffs tilted a puzzled expression from over Mantu’s shoulder. Fon gave them a playful snort.
Mantu scowled. “She think she can sing like some famed Ya-Seti archer. That bow don’t make you one of them, chana.”
Zala shrugged. “All I know is that I have one and the pair of you have nil.” She took another look out of the hatch.
Sniffs furrowed his brow in confusion. “What’s nil?”
Zala often forgot her vocabulary was a touch over the pay grade of the other pirates. She always tried her best to simplify her speech, but she couldn’t help it. It was the way she was brought up. When she opened her mouth to explain the term to Sniffs, Fon tapped at her right knee.
Zala twisted her shoulders forward, her body and bow locked in a statuesque pose. But just as she was about to shoot her arrow, the deck cleared. Almost in unison, Mantu and Sniffs loosed their own arrows. This time, everyone could see where their marks landed—right in the enemy’s chest.
“I got ‘em!” Sniffs yelled.
“Finally got one!” Mantu threw his fist in the air. Zala hated the way he leered. His lips thinned when he did, disappearing into his forest of a beard.
“I thought you said you took down two before we got here?” she asked.
“I-I meant just now!” Mantu stuttered.
Though the cloud break allowed them to see where they were shooting, it also exposed their positions. Zala’s heart raced when she saw more soldiers than merchants among the Vaaji—maybe they weren’t just guards for hire after all. Her fellow crew were experienced fighters, for the most part, but the Vaaji outnumbered them. At some point, fatigue would set in for their people. It wouldn’t matter how much better they were if they didn’t have the energy to fight on.
“The archers!” she heard one soldier shout. “They’re at the hatches.”
Several soldiers turned toward the quartet and rushed over. But they were met with another set of pirates that seemed to sprout from between a pillar of stacked crates. Both groups were more than eager to exchange steel. Before Zala could nock an arrow to help her crewmates, the fog filled the deck once more.
“All right, then, Mantu,” Zala whispered to herself, focusing her attention toward the thick cloud. Fon tapped at her knees. Before Mantu or Sniffs could lift their bows, Zala had already found her second mark. She released her arrow. This time, the enemy archer fell with a splash into the ocean below.
“That’s two, right?” Zala cocked her head to one side as she taunted the other pirates. She nudged the aziza with her elbow. “Am I counting that out right, Fon?”
“I think so,” Fon replied brightly as she smiled in Mantu’s direction. His face went beet-red and Sniffs’ mouth fell open in frustration.
“How she doin’ that?” Sniffs shouted. “The chana can’t even see ‘em when she shoot!”
“It’s her.” Mantu pointed down to Fon. “What they say about the aziza... they can see a person’s soul, or something?”
“Or something,” Fon replied shrewdly.
“You cheat!” Sniffs rushed for Fon, but Mantu stopped him.
“Let them have their fun,” he said. “We’ll still get the win. Focus on the ones fighting our crew. There, look, help Rishaad at portside.”
They could do as they pleased for all Zala cared. She knew there was no way she could be beaten when she had an aziza aiding her.
Fon tapped her again, this time higher on her knee. Zala lifted her bow. Fon tapped her again. Zala moved up. Fon tapped once more.
“How high up do you want me to go?” Zala asked incredulously. But she didn’t need Fon to answer. There was another shift in the fog, the largest one yet.
Now, Zala could see the entire ship.
Three red, white, and green flags flew high against the early-morning winds—at the center of each was an emblem sewn into the cloth: one sword with a star backing its center. The insignia was the national flag of Vaaj. But this was no ordinary trading vessel. Zala realized she had not been shooting at their crow’s nest. This ship went much higher than that. Where their own pirate ship had a mainsail and foresail, this Vaaji one had too many sails to count in one sweep alone.