The fog above the Dead Tide looked like green glass from below. Four boats crowded the surface above him. The schooner sat in the middle. Three corsair catamarans pressed it on the sides, each with two narrow hulls joined by a deck. The boats had met at slack water, but the ebb had begun. It reached him first as a pull along the coral. Pei Jing swam along the coral wall while the undertow carried him toward the ships.
Harpoons struck the Sea-Serpent’s oak. He heard axes bite into the rail and deckhands shouting as they held the boarding nets. Bolts came down through the surface in trails of silver bubbles. Within a few feet, the water slowed them to a drift.
Pei Jing rose under the stern of Iron Fin Wu’s flagship. The current rushed between the catamaran’s twin hulls. He took hold of the stern and brought the Cloud-Splitter around with his free hand.
The cleaver still carried the edge he’d worked on since the voyage began. He knew how much water the broad steel could push aside before it slowed. Here he had enough room for the short stroke he’d practiced against the swell.
He let Foundation Gang Qi run down his arm. A thin seam of bubbles formed on the edge. The steel hummed under his fingers.
