10
THE BATTLE OF MARESG, PART 1
Ves was almost glad the morning the Grace’s navy hit Maresg. The tension had been killing him. Anyway, the tin they’d made from selling the blackvine armor was almost gone.
They struck just before dawn in a simultaneous strike from north and south, just as the rumors had predicted. The first cannon blasts came as distant, rolling thunder, followed by a shudder that rocked the hanging walkways and caused a slow, wafting rain of broad, oval mangrove leaves. Ves, more hungover than usual, half awake, staggered naked to his balcony in time to see the first billows of black smoke drift up from the north side of the city, illuminated by the first streaks of sunlight through the highest branches of the giant trees. Another peal from the south came a few seconds
