The first Marine unit came around the corner of the castle wall just as Lucien cleared the gate.
There were twelve of them, rifles up, already forming a line across the road. The officer at the front raised his hand.
"Stop. Put the child down and surrender your weapons. This is your only —"
Lucien went through the line.
He did not stop, did not slow, did not put Law down. He hit the formation at full sprint with his shoulder dropped and the Marines on either side of him went sideways. The ones in the middle tried to hold and found out quickly that holding was not an option. Law kept his arm around Lucien's neck and his head down.
Idris came through the gap behind him, pistol out, and put two shots into the ground in front of the regrouping Marines. Warning. Back off. Most of them listened.
The town was not large but it was not small either and the Marines had already started moving through it to cut off the port. Lucien could hear them on the parallel streets, boots on stone, the crackle of a den den mushi relaying positions. Someone was coordinating this from somewhere, which meant they had maybe three minutes before the routes to the dock were completely sealed.
"Left," said Idris, who had already worked this out.
Lucien went left.
The street narrowed as they went deeper into the town's older quarter. Tighter buildings, lower rooflines, washing lines strung between windows. A Marine squad appeared at the far end and started running toward them. Another came out of a side alley to the right.
Lucien looked at the building on his left. Three storeys, old stone, a wooden balcony on the second floor.
He jumped.
One hand caught the balcony railing and he pulled himself and Law up in one motion, landing on the balcony as the Marines below converged on the spot he had just been standing. Someone on the street shouted. Idris was already scaling the drainpipe on the adjacent building with the rifle across his back.
They moved across the rooftops.
It was faster up here and harder to coordinate against from street level. Lucien ran with Law still against his chest, jumping the gaps between buildings, the town spreading out below them and the port visible now in the distance, the water catching the late afternoon light. Their boat was where they had left it, tied at the far end of the dock.
There were Marines on the dock.
Six of them, plus a rowing boat that had come out from a Marine vessel anchored in the bay. The vessel itself was a mid-sized warship, nothing enormous, but it had cannons and the crew were already moving.
"The boat first," said Lucien.
He dropped off the last rooftop onto the dock, landed, and kept moving. The Marines on the dock had a second to register what had just fallen out of the sky before Lucien was already among them. It was fast and it was not gentle. He put three of them in the water and two more into each other and the sixth decided the water looked appealing on his own.
Idris hit the dock a moment later and went straight to the mooring line and cut it.
Lucien set Law down on the deck. "Stay low."
Law sat down against the mast without arguing.
Lucien got the sail up. Idris was already at the back of the boat, checking their heading, reading the wind. They moved away from the dock as the Marine warship in the bay began to turn toward them.
The first cannon shot hit the water thirty metres to their left.
The impact threw white water across the deck. Law did not flinch. Lucien adjusted the sail and pushed more wind into it, reading the current, looking for the angle that got them out of the bay fastest.
The second shot was closer. Twenty metres, maybe less. Close enough that the shockwave rattled the hull.
"Idris."
"I see it."
Idris had the rifle out and was lying flat on the port side of the deck, using the railing as a rest. The warship was three hundred metres away and moving. He watched it for a moment, reading the roll of his own boat against the roll of the target, waiting.
He fired.
The shot took out the helmsman on the warship's wheel deck. Not dead. Idris had aimed for the shoulder, but down, and the ship immediately began to drift off its heading as the crew scrambled to correct.
The third cannon shot went wide by fifty metres.
Idris reloaded and fired again. This time, at the cannon crew, specifically, picking off the loader and then the operator on the nearest gun. The fourth shot never came from that side. The crew on the second cannon hesitated, looking at what had just happened to the first crew, and that hesitation was enough.
Lucien had the boat moving fast now, cutting across the wind at an angle that was taking them out of the bay and into open water. The warship was still trying to correct its heading. Another Marine vessel was moving in the distance, smaller and faster, trying to intercept.
"They are going to cut across," said Lucien.
"I know," said Idris. He was already tracking the second vessel.
He waited until it was close enough that missing was not an option and put a shot through the rigging on its mainmast. The sail came down halfway, tangling on the mast and the deck below. The vessel slowed immediately, crew scrambling to clear it.
By the time they had it sorted, Lucien and Idris were in open water.
The warship in the bay had corrected its heading, but they were already too far out. Two more cannon shots came, falling well short, sending up columns of white water that meant nothing at this distance. Then no more shots. They had made the calculation that pursuit was not worth it or they did not have the speed to close the gap.
Lucien held the heading for another twenty minutes until the coast of Hotaru was a thin line behind them and nothing was following.
Then he dropped the sail back and let the boat settle into the current.
He walked across the deck and sat down in front of Law.
Law was still sitting against the mast where Lucien had put him. His hat was still on. His hands were in his lap. He was looking at the water off the side of the boat, at nothing in particular.
Lucien sat down and did not say anything yet.
The sea was quiet. Just the sound of the water against the hull and the wind and somewhere behind them, already too far to matter, the kingdom they had just left in a complete state of panic.
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1 Chapter For Every 50 Power Stones. Please Do Support.