Chương 165: 15. Blackbeard Bay 1

"Successful breakthrough" often just means trading one way to die for another. The Blazing Yanxia Empire's dragon-ships were genuinely massive—thick hulls, deep draft, turning in coastal waters with all the grace of something being dragged by the tail by a sea god. The sea-dragon crews clearly hadn't expected us to come screaming out of that ancient dock aboard a craft that moved like a deranged flying fish.

By the time they processed what was happening, we'd already punched straight through their blockade, moving so fast they didn't even have time to curse us properly. The problem was that "keeping up" wasn't just their difficulty. My brain was struggling too.

"Left! Left!" I snarled through gritted teeth, wrestling with the controls and cursing at an ancient speedboat that had absolutely no interest in cooperation.

"You are a boat, not a kicked stray dog—stop jumping around—" The boat, naturally, ignored me completely. It just kept hurtling forward at a violently unreasonable pace, the bow knifing through wave crests hard enough to rattle my molars. The entire craft felt like a furious beast trapped in an iron shell—every impact threatening to shake it apart. I couldn't slow down much either, because while the dragon-ships couldn't match our speed, they were still out there, slowly wheeling to widen their encirclement.

This wasn't really a chase anymore. More like hunters on ox-carts watching their prey bolt past on lightning—nothing to do but swear first and figure out how to cut ahead later. Ignicia looked back at the scattered lights on the distant sea.

"They can't catch us."

"I can see that." I gripped the controls, fighting to keep us from skidding sideways.

"But if this thing keeps bucking, we'll shake ourselves to death before they get the chance."

"Then don't let it buck."

"Your Highness, if I knew how to make it not buck, I wouldn't currently be riding what feels like a seahorse that's swallowed gunpowder!" She apparently deemed this unworthy of response, made a dismissive sound, and leaned over to examine the stern. About ten heartbeats later, she spoke.

"Cedric."

"Yes?"

"It's taking on water." I was silent for a moment.

"... I sincerely hope that's some kind of dragon metaphor."

"It isn't," she said with terrifying calm.

"Port-aft seam is seeping. Not fast yet. Keep slamming into waves like this and 'seeping' becomes 'flooding' very quickly." I desperately wanted to look back. Unfortunately, right now even blinking felt like gambling with my life.

"Can you patch it?" No immediate answer. I heard fabric tearing, bags being yanked open—her rummaging through our salvaged junk, improvising with whatever was available.

"Temporarily," she said eventually.

"But this isn't really a boat. It's more like a pot with fire inside. It's not leaking—it's biting into the sea while shaking itself apart."

"Wonderful." I eased the throttle back slightly, trying to keep the bow from launching skyward.

"Once again, the ancients prove they weren't just good at building things—they were excellent at building things specifically designed to give their descendants stomach ulcers." The speed dropped marginally. The vibration didn't immediately follow. All I could do was feel my way through its temperament—which controls couldn't be pushed to maximum, which angles made the hull skip sideways, when to correct early, when to ride the swell. None of this had been covered in my knightly training. Learn it or sink.

Learn it and sink anyway, just later. Very consistent with my recent professional trajectory.

"Starboard ahead," Ignicia said suddenly.

"Behind that reef shadow—calmer water. Cut toward it." I obeyed, angling into the darker patch she'd indicated. The chop dropped immediately, and the craft steadied. The ancient iron heart at the stern was still roaring, the hull still shuddering, but at least I was no longer convinced I'd be launched into orbit with each impact. I let out a breath.

"When did you learn to read waterlines?"

"I can fly," she said, in a tone profoundly deserving of retaliation.

"Watching the sea from above gives considerably more clarity than guessing from deck level." I had to give her that one. You could be reading stolen content. Head to the original site for the genuine story. The lights behind us fell further away. The Yanxia Empire dragon-ships were still repositioning, but those vessels had never been designed for this kind of pursuit. They were built for weight, stability, capacity—troop transport, blockades, intimidation. Not insanity.

As for the sea-dragon people, they were probably still trying to process how two individuals scrambling through an ancient submarine dock had suddenly burst through their perimeter in a vessel that shouldn't exist. That confusion had bought us distance. Distance had bought me enough time to partially understand the boat's personality.

"It burns through fuel aggressively." I glanced at the remaining canisters, listening to the engine note.

"This thing doesn't run on wind or oars. It's consuming that liquid like firewood. Very expensive, very angry firewood."

"How much is left?"

"Not enough for sightseeing." I paused.

"Possibly not enough to arrive anywhere with dignity either." Ignicia didn't mock me for mentioning dignity under these circumstances. She looked back once, then down at the water pooling in the hull.

"We don't need distance," she said.

"We need separation. As long as we clear this sector and put that island far behind us, it's done its job." She said it very evenly. The tone of someone evaluating a horse that had run until its legs gave out—not sentimental, just accurate. I glanced at her involuntarily. Sea wind had pulled her hair into disorder. Her color was still poor from the wound at her side. Her hands bore traces of water and oil from patching the hull.

Yet she sat there with complete composure—as though ancient submarines, light-spears, explosions, pursuit fleets, and a failing speedboat were simply the larger items on today's inconvenience list, rather than the kind of disaster that generates lifelong nightmares. I suddenly suspected that spending time with her had permanently recalibrated my threshold for "unreasonable." The sea ahead began to change. First scattered lights in the distance. Then an entire sweep of amber glow along a bay.

Not the ordered, dignified lighting of the capital, nor the disciplined watch-fires of a proper naval harbor. Something messier—the kind of light you get when alcohol, sweat, lies, and money have all been set on fire together. I frowned the moment that bay entrance came into view.

"That place..."

"Has a port," Ignicia said.

"I can see it has a port." I squinted at the coastline ahead.

"The issue is that places like that don't just harbor ships. They harbor trouble. And we currently look like an entire boatload of trouble that's navigated itself in." She studied it for a moment.

"Which is exactly why we can blend in." Also true. Over-regulated ports were wrong for us. Places too clean would spot us immediately—two people coated in salt, oil, blood, and ancient catastrophe. But a bay that looked disreputable from a distance was far more likely to accept people whose origins weren't worth asking about. Assuming we survived long enough to reach it. Which our speedboat was apparently reconsidering. The engine note changed.

The aggressive roar developed an intermittent wheeze—like a horse pushed past its limits, making sounds that suggested poor outcomes ahead. The hull was riding lower. I didn't need to look to know the water was coming in faster. Ignicia pressed her hand to the pooled water and frowned.

"At this rate, we won't make the docks."

"Can you fly?" Half a heartbeat of silence.

"I can launch," she said.

"Carrying you to the Dragon Lands mainland—no." I didn't ask again. Clear enough. The bay was too far for her in this condition, too close for us to reach safely in this boat. Close enough to see, not necessarily close enough to reach.

"Then let's find somewhere to run aground that isn't completely humiliating." I adjusted course through gritted teeth.

"At minimum, don't let it flip us in full view of an audience."

"If you can also manage somewhere without too many witnesses, within reasonable distance of available vessels, I would appreciate it."

"Your Highness, I'm not selecting a wedding venue."

"Keep talking and it might select your burial site for you." Excellent. This boat, like every woman I'd encountered recently, was completely resistant to input. I steered toward the bay's outer edge, avoiding the brightest section of dock, aiming instead for a darker stretch near weathered wooden piers and shallow beach. A few small boats were moored there, with low buildings and distant tavern lights beyond.

From here, what I was now certain was called Blackbeard Bay looked like an overcooked fish stew: sailors, smugglers, brothels, alcohol, dirty commerce, and everything else best left unmentioned in daylight, all simmering in the same damp night. This place was, in fact, perfectly suited to our current condition. The engine convulsed. The iron heart produced sounds resembling something coughing blood, and thrust dropped sharply. I knew immediately. The remaining fuel was nearly gone.

"That's it," I said quietly.

"I can see that."

"This humble servant merely wished to formally announce that we are no longer navigating. We are coasting toward shore on the final dignity of ancient heritage." Ignicia looked at the water in the hull.

"Forget dignity. Brace." The next instant, we scraped bottom. Not the catastrophic impact of striking a reef—the bow grazed shallow sand first, slid forward another length, then settled into wet sand and gravel at the beach's edge. The craft stopped. The iron heart shuddered twice and died. Across the entire stretch of sea, suddenly there was only the sound of waves and distant harbor noise. I sat there, both hands still locked on the controls, and after two heartbeats, slowly released the breath I'd been holding.

"... We're alive."

"For now," Ignicia said. Anticlimactic. Entirely accurate. She rose first, stepped out into ankle-deep water. I followed a beat later, legs requiring negotiation before they agreed to function. When I finally stood, I discovered my body had been quietly filing complaints—shoulders numb from torpedoes and boat-fighting, arms aching past recognition, mind still locked in tension. I looked back at the craft that had dragged us out of an ancient tomb.

It sat tilted in the shallows, visibly taking on water, stern battered. Pathetic and somewhat pitiable. Thousands of years ago, it had probably been a point of national pride. Thousands of years later, it had pulled two people from another era out of a cursed submarine base and died running aground at a bay full of drunks, smugglers, and broken docks. I was still looking when Ignicia came beside me and regarded it for a moment. Sea wind moved her disordered hair.

She was quiet, then said simply:"For something a thousand years old, it was enough." I looked at her. Not comfort. Not praise. Not sentimental eulogy. Just a plain, quiet assessment. But somehow, hearing it, I understood exactly what she meant. The boat had done what it could. It had carried us away from the tomb where the light-spears were buried, pushed the ancients' ingenuity one final time into the sea wind, and died here.

For something that should have rusted and sunk back into history long ago—it had been enough. I looked toward the bay lights ahead, breathing in sea and alcohol and tar and fish and crowds, understanding that the next category of trouble was already waiting. We needed a ship. Information. A route to the Dragon Lands mainland. And places like this never gave anyone anything for free. I resettled the equipment bag on my shoulder and exhaled.

"Let's go, Your Highness." Ignicia nodded, golden slit-pupils narrowing as they swept the bright, dirty, raucous bay. We walked toward it, carrying salt, water, oil, blood, and the smell of an ancient tomb.