A Mutiny in Time (Infinity Ring #1)

To their left, Christopher Columbus was battling with Salvador, the steel of his blade clanging against the man’s axe. Ahead of them, Eyeball had just clobbered a guard and was now charging forward to help the captain. To the right, below the deck on which they stood, Ricardo and his two friends were fighting a couple of guards, and they even seemed to be winning. Battles raged everywhere, and the Riffraff army was helping the sailors turn the tide against those loyal to the Amancios.

We just might win, Dak thought.

Lightning suddenly lit up the sky, its thunder booming almost immediately. The clouds opened up and rain fell in torrents. The ship rocked as if a big wave had just crashed into its side. Dak bumped into Sera and they both stumbled across the deck until they slammed into the wall of the cabin. Dak was able to right himself but Sera fell to the floor, right at the feet of Columbus, who appeared to be gaining the upper hand against Salvador — thanks to Eyeball, who’d attacked from the other side.

Dak was just about to reach down and help Sera when he heard a man shouting at the top of his lungs — the scream of a madman. Dak looked up to see Raul charging at him, his eyes filled with insane rage. Before he could react, the man tackled him, wrapping his arms around Dak’s torso and throwing him to the ground. They hit the stairs and tumbled down, rolling over each other until they hit the bottom. Dak felt like every inch of his body had just been punched at once and his head spun with dizziness.

Raul’s screams didn’t stop. He gripped Dak even tighter and lifted him up, struggling to his feet as he held the boy in his arms. Dak squirmed and kicked — tried to free himself — but the man was too strong.

“I don’t care what else happens,” the Amancio brother shouted over the rain and thunder and sounds of battle. “But you will die! Tonight!”

Then, with another shriek of lunacy, the man ran forward to the railing of the ship and threw Dak over the side. Screams now erupting from his own throat, Dak plummeted into the dark depths of the stormy sea.





THE OCEAN swallowed him.

It was cold — like a living creature of ice that bit every part of his body at once. He was dizzy and hurt and disoriented. Everything was dark and freezing and he couldn’t tell what was up or down. His lungs screamed at him to breathe, to take in air — now, now, now! But he overpowered the urge, knew that he if he did so he’d only pull in water and drown. So he struggled, kicked, and flailed, tried to push himself to the surface, hoping that he’d naturally go in the right direction.

A pain throbbed in his skull. His insides felt as if they might explode. He scissored his legs in the thick water, pulled at it with his arms. The need for air became all powerful, an inferno that roared in his heart and through his veins, squeezing his lungs as if someone had wrapped ropes around them and were cinching them tighter and tighter. He wanted to scream, but knew that would be the end, too.

He broke through the water’s rough surface.

After sucking in a huge gulp of air, he sputtered and spit out the seawater that came in with it. Pumping his arms and legs to tread in the choppy ocean, he stuck his mouth as high as he could to breathe. Lightning still ripped white, jagged streaks in the sky above, and the rain lashed at his face. His body felt like it was stuck on a slow-motion trampoline that just wouldn’t stop, the sea moving him up and then down again, up and then down again. And the cold. He was already losing feeling in his hands and feet.

He twisted around to see that the ship was about a hundred feet away, its lanterns’ glow eerie in the midst of the storm. With the rain and the bobbing of the waves and the lightning flashes making the darkness more stark when they vanished, it was hard to tell how the battle was going. But he caught the silhouette of a man standing straight and tall at the railing, looking right at him. And he knew who it was.

Christopher Columbus.

They’d done it. They’d really done it. Too bad Dak was going to celebrate by getting eaten by sharks. Or drowning. He couldn’t decide which was worse.

“Dak!”

Impossibly, he heard a voice coming from somewhere nearby. Still treading with all of his strength, he looked around, straining to see through the darkness and pounding rain. There was another flash of lightning and he saw a small boat just a dozen feet away, its occupants rowing mightily. Sera. Riq. Eyeball, his namesake body part seeming to glow as it stared him down.

Pure elation filled Dak from top to bottom. He waved a hand into the wet air. “I’m here! Right here!”

“We know, you idiot!” Eyeball roared with a laugh.

Sera leaned forward to be heard over the storm. “We did it! Salvador is dead and his brother was thrown overboard right after you! Columbus is in charge and the battle’s over!”

Dak’s heart leapt at the news. And it had never felt so good to see his —

Someone grabbed him from behind, gripping an arm around his neck like a vice. Dak gasped, beat at the thick muscles of the forearm that had begun squeezing the life out of him.

“Dak!” Sera yelled. “Dak!” She was helpless on the boat, could do nothing but shout his name.

“I told you,” a man whispered into his ear. “I said you’d die, and now you will. You and me both.”