Lhind the Thief (24 page)

A pang shot through my temples. I almost lost my
concentration, but I forced myself to listen.

This sending is
remarkably clear
, Thianra went on.
Where
are you?

Heading north and west
into the Azure Sea,
Hlanan answered.
We’re
going the northern route.

Kuraf will be pleased
,
Thianra said.
I hope you escaped the
vicious blizzard that hit us just days ago. Came from the south. You’d know
better than I, but it seemed to have been magic-driven, if not magic-caused—

A warning flashed from Hlanan to Thianra. No words, but it
was distinct. Puzzled, I felt around in my mind for anything that might be
wrong — and I sensed a familiar tendril of awareness, drifting
near . . .

“Dhes-Andis,” I breathed, shutting my eyes.

Dizziness smacked me from the inside: I could not tell what
was up or down, and I fell back onto the bunk.

“Dhes-Andis? The Emperor of Sveran Djur? How do you know
that?” Hlanan demanded.

I opened my eyes and tried to study his revolving face.
“Ugh,” I said, closing my eyes again. “Hey, it was you who sent that silent
‘shut up’ to Thianra—”

“That silent ‘shut up,’” Hlanan retorted, “was because I
didn’t want it to get about that you’d been the cause of the havoc wrought on
the region.”

“Me?” I croaked, trying to rid myself of the dizziness.

“Did you
really
think that magnitude of fire-spell would not have a reaction?” he said with
pent-up frustration. “Or have you been playing us for fools all along?” He took
hold of my chin, forcing my head up. “Where is Dhes-Andis? How did you know he
was scrying?”

“Well, I’m not sure, but I think—” I gabbled, trying
desperately to think of some believable explanation.

“For once, Lhind,” Hlanan as close to anger as I’d ever seen
him, “
no lies
.”

Just then a wild clamor of unmusical bells claimed our
attention, followed by a distant cry of “All hands! All hands!” Running feet
shivered the wooden decking, and Tir let out a squawk of fright.

Hlanan let go of me, and Kee sprang to the door. “Is that an
alarm?” she asked, her face pale in the flickering candlelight.

“Yes.” Hlanan straightened up, then sent me a troubled look,
his mouth pressed in a thin line. “We’d better see what it is, then we will
return to this conversation. Stay here,” he added to both of us, and he went
out.

Neither of us heeded his command. Kee beat me out the door
by a nose, only because I paused to jam my hair under my cap, then we ran forward
in silence. Torchlight flickered down the caravel’s length, revealing the
captain shouting hoarse commands to grim-faced sailors running about
purposefully.

Beyond our ship, ghostly in the light of the new moon, a
long, lethal shape glided through the water directly across our bow. And beyond
that one, another similar shape. Warships. Fast ones—ones I recognized, causing
a bone-deep shiver of fear.

Hlanan stood at the rail, his face drawn as he stared at the
sinister vessels converging on us.

“What are those ships?” Kee whispered, pointing.

Hlanan didn’t even seem to notice us. “Maker protect us,” he
muttered. “The Skull Fleet.”

“Hard alee!” the captain bawled.

The caravel slanted away from the wind, masts and timbers
creaking—the only thing the captain could do was run and hope to outsail the
enemy. Waves splashed up over the lee rail, sending water running down the
deck. Passengers darted about, some slipping on the wet deck. A few ran with
purpose to fetch weapons, but most seemed to be running around in a panic,
hooting questions at the laboring sailors, as if they sought a comforting
answer.

“We’re carrying
wool
,”
one elderly man groaned to no one in particular as he tottered by. “What would
pirates want with wool?”

“What about your magic?” I asked Hlanan.

“My knowledge is useless for this,” Hlanan said shortly.
“We’d better prepare for a fight.” He ran to the hatch and worked to go down as
others scrambled to the deck, adding to the confusion. Muttering fretful cries,
Tir sailed around in a circle above the hatch, watching for him.

“Come on,” I said to Kee. “Let’s get ready.”

We fought our way down to our cabin, shutting the door and
breathing hard.

“I don’t care if I ruin our disguise. I’m not fighting in
this dress.” Kee kicked her way out of her gown, and yanked on her old clothes.

I watched, wondering what to do. Kee’s chin jutted
determinedly but her hands shook as she braided her hair tightly and pinned it
up. I didn’t fault her. I knew what the Skull pirates were like. Whatever she’d
been told probably wasn’t nasty enough.

What to do? I already had my burglary tools on me. The only
thing I’d stashed was my knife, which I now fetched from under the mattress on
the bunk. I thrust it through my sash, then turned my attention to my booty.

Faryana’s diamonds lay in my tool pouch. I hauled them out
and put them on. The whistle sat safely in my sash, where I’d put it when we
came on board. I’d avoided communicating with its imprisoned sorcerer until I’d
thought out the fire spell experience a little. Except I hadn’t thought it out.
I’d pretended like it never happened.

There were fewer people below now. I ran to the ladder and
swarmed up to the deck, catching hold of a shroud and pulling myself up so I
could see. A third ship had slid out from behind one of the little islands we’d
been threading our way through. A trap, I thought. Why else would three Skull
cruisers just happen to be here in the islands—and why would they drop on a
merchant vessel?

So if it’s a trap, it means they’re expecting someone. One
of these other passengers?

Or maybe
us?

I brought the whistle out and examined it in the uneven
lamplight. It was a pale, long shape, with odd shapes etched on the sides. I
rubbed my thumb absently over these, and felt that strange tingle again. Should
I ask that sorcerer for help?

The fire spell had been a spectacular success on land, but I
wasn’t going to use it now. We’d all go down together, pirates and passengers
alike. Ask for another spell? I was reluctant to contact that sorcerer unless
there was no other option. Prisoner or not, he made me more uneasy every time
we communicated.

The whistle was useless otherwise—

Useless? It was, after all, a whistle.

I opened my bag again, and carefully removed my little
wallet of liref, which had broken down to a very fine powder. Still potent,
though: an inadvertent sniff made me reel on my perch, as if a bale of cotton
had bloomed behind my eyes.

Holding my breath, I took a big pinch and shoved it into one
end of the whistle. I jammed an even bigger pinch after it, just in case. Then
I placed the whistle into my sash, and put the bag away.

Blowing liref into an enemy’s face wasn’t much of a defense,
but it was all I could think of. Shimmers would be no good against three ships,
even if I could hold them long enough.
I
won’t use that fire spell,
I vowed to myself.
I won’t
.

Kee and Hlanan joined me. He, too, had changed out of his
flowing robe, into his worn gray tunic and riding trousers. He carried a sword
he’d been given by a sailor. “If either of you can use one, they have a few
extra,” he said.

“I’m better with a knife,” Kee said flatly.

A cry followed by wild sobbing yanked our attention away.
One of the aristo passengers dealt her serving-woman a ringing slap across the
face, and the servant abruptly subsided, covering her face with her hands. “ If
you can’t fight, get below,” the captain yelled, advancing on the crowd of
passengers and waving his sword.

One of the pirate ships maneuvered almost alongside,
ignoring the rain of arrows being fired from the foremast by a group of
defending sailors. Another cut across our bow, catching the caravel’s bowsprit
in the pirate’s rigging. As we watched helplessly the grappling hooks were
flung over.

“Repel-boarder parties for’ard!” the captain yelled.

Thick netting reached from the rails to the rigging; the
repel boarder crew were busy with booms and other weapons, disengaging the
grapplers as fast as they could, though here and there they gave cries and
slumped, or fell into the water, from pirate-shot arrows.

The useless passengers had finally retreated below,
presumably to hide, or to make a last stand in their cabins. A second set of
sailors—the ones not working the sails—waited in silence, weapons to hand. Here
and there an elegant sword gleamed in the jeweled hands of one of the
well-to-do passengers, and several silent, grim servants stood with plainer
weapons held ready.

The first boarders to come over hacked at the nets with
well-honed blades. Sending up a cry, the sailors attacked them. These nets
probably gave the defenders an extra edge in normal circumstances, but they
hardly stopped the black-clad pirates, who struck net and foe down alike with
cold-blooded ease.

In addition to the creak of sail and mast rose the clash of
swords and cries and groans. My palms began to sweat. At my shoulder, Kee
gripped her knife, shifting from foot to foot as she watched.

Then Tir’s mental voice speared into my mind:
Look who waits.

And, seen from the bird’s perch in the rigging of the pirate
ship next to us, Geric Lendan lounged against the rail, smiling expectantly.

On our deck, the pirates fought their way through the
passengers, not slaughtering as is their usual practice—but searching. Short
people specifically.

It’s not us, it’s me
they want.
I knew it with deadly certainty.

Quick as thought I leaped up onto the forecastle, and from
there into the rigging of a mast. Swinging in the salty ropes, I felt my cap
twitch askew then go spinning into the wind. My hair, now loose, helped me
catch my balance. Realizing that disguises no longer mattered, I clung to the
ropes with one hand and with the other used my knife to slit the back seam of
my trousers so that my tail was free at last. I found a perch on the foresail
yard, its sail snapping and thrumming beneath me and sending vibrations through
my feet.

Below, sailors and pirates fought in furious knots all along
the companionways. I saw three or four pirates chase passengers down the length
of the deck, and I wished I had something to pot them with. Smoke drifted out
of the hold, amid distant cries and clashes.

It was over quickly. Pirates began systematically searching
the cabins, occasionally dragging out passengers. The pirates herded their
prisoners aft, and relieved them of their weapons, Kee among them. Most were short
young women, but among those were wealthy-looking merchants, obviously
candidates for ransom.

At last a plank was put across and the Skull captain and
Geric strolled across to the deck below me. Longing for some itchwort to drop
on them, I fingered the whistle in my bag and the hard lumps of Faryana’s
diamonds beneath my tunic.

Faryana?

Nothing.

Are you afraid of me?
The familiar amusement swirled out of vast darkness.

I jumped, looking down at the whistle in my hand. So one
could communicate by just touching it with fingers, and not head?

Why don’t you ask my
help instead of begging aid of a moral-prating hedge-witch who failed her first
post?

Who says I need help?
When in doubt, assume bravado.

Lendan sees you now,
was the reply.

And from below came an angry voice, “There’s the
light-accursed Hrethan thief.”

A ring of torch-bearing pirates encircled my mast, all
looking up. Wishing I had a cauldron of fish gumbo to dump on them, I crouched
in a small ball lest they throw things up at me.

“We’re waiting, thief.” Prince Geric appeared directly below
me, his upturned face angry and triumphant, apricot hair streaming over one
shoulder, shirtsleeves snapping in the wind. “Or we’ll slit the throats of
everyone here. Beginning with them.”

He gestured and two pirates came forward, flinging a
disheveled, bloodstained Hlanan down on the deck. He was unconscious. Another
muscled Kee up next to the mast and yanked her head back, holding a knife at
her neck.
No fire! No fire! What, then?

A fire spell would be
stupid,
came Dhes-Andis’s smooth voice.
The
most effective defense is a mind-thrust. I can teach you easily.

Memory-images shot into my mind, and I shoved them violently
away.

But not fast enough.
So
you do know mind-thrust
, Dhes-Andis mused.
You tried it once?

This exchange was quick, hardly taking the time of one
indrawn breath. Below, Geric Lendan and his pirates waited for my answer, all
motionless as statues except for the wind playing through hair and clothing,
and the streaming torchlight.

It was an old man,
caught doing sorcery in Tu Jhan
. The words—memories—flickered faster than
my heartbeat.
He wasn’t anyone I knew or
even wanted to. He’d tried to ruin a rival’s pottery by a rot-spell. The gang
wanted to see the burning. How he screamed! I couldn’t bear it. The guards, the
crowd, all were enjoying it.

So you attempted a
thrust against the patrons of the spectacle?
Acid amusement drifted through
the dark stream of Dhes-Andis’ thoughts.

No. I tried a thrust
against the guards, to save the man. But I learned you can’t do it unless you
hear someone’s range—and then only one at a time. Those screams. They gave me
the old man’s range. And when he kept begging for someone to finish him fast, I
did.

Very effective.
The voice conveyed cool approval.
If you
do escape him now, Lendan will only hound you to death. You and those people
you are protecting. Thrust now. I can give you his range, if you haven’t it
already.