The Red Sea (18 page)

"Suppose they ran off?"

"It seems likely. Though it is also possible they are drunk."

"Do you want to strike this morning? Or give your people another day to show?"

Naran clasped his hands, rubbing his palms together. "If your friend can bring back as many arms as he claims, we'll strike tonight. We'll leave word in the taverns for those we've left behind."

Dante stretched his legs, then sat on a crate. Checking within himself, he found the dark spots of his sickness weren't visibly larger. He could feel them, though. He was glad Naran had pushed up the attack. If they left that night, they could be back in Kandak within a week. Dante hoped he'd last.

Well after the nine o'clock bells, Gladdic's door opened. A wizened man entered, completely bald, nose bent like a claw. He leaned on a tall white staff bearing a ruby the size of a walnut. The Eye of Taim. Mark of the Eldor, the highest station in the Mallish priesthood. The staff was so famous it was a stand-in for ethereal power; when children dressed up for Falmac's Eve, any number could be found dashing through the streets bearing a whitewashed branch topped with an apple.

Gladdic leaped to his feet, then kneeled, bowing his head. "Your Righteousness. Forgive me. I did not know you were coming."

"That is because I didn't tell you," the old man said. "So get off your knees already. Unless you find that makes it easier to speak."

Gladdic stood, keeping his gaze lowered. "How may I assist you?"

"Your nethermancer. I hear he remains at large?"

"The fault is my own. I should never have left him unwatched. They are as devious as they are vile."

"Indeed."

"My inattention has profaned the city. My life is yours to take."

The Eldor chuckled. "Your piety, as always, is second to none. Fortunately for your sake, I have been corrupted by the ways of the world, and lack the zeal to destroy valuable assets out of pique. Especially when those assets may be employed to correct their failure."

Gladdic bowed. "If that is your will."

The old man clumped toward the window, looming in the moth's cockeyed vision. "Given our circumstances, however, I think now is a poor time for failure. You will catch this offender. And if you can't? You will
say
you have. Am I understood?"

"Perfectly, Eldor."

"Wonderful. I'm very old, you see. Repeating myself reminds me of how little time I have left."

He smiled and tottered out of the room.

Gladdic closed the door and bolted it. He sat at his desk and closed his eyes, hands shaking. Below, a carriage clattered, drawing away. Gladdic's eyes snapped open. He withdrew a steel scalpel from his desk, pulled his robe past his left shoulder, baring it, and cut a half-inch incision. As blood swelled from the wound, shadows zipped from beneath chairs and rugs, wrapping the priest's shoulder in darkness.

In the warehouse, Dante folded his hands and pressed them against his mouth. Killing Gladdic was going to be even more dangerous than he thought.

Blays didn't make it back until two in the morning. He smelled of rum and looked quite pleased about it. "Sorry for the delay. Winston waxed nostalgic upon my return and insisted we take a tour of the old neighborhood. Were you aware this city is full of pubs?"

"Please tell me you didn't spend all this time drinking," Dante said.

"Of course I did. How else was I going to convince my former employer to sell me an entire armory?"

With Jona's help, he guided a hand-drawn cart into the warehouse. This was laden with swords, unstrung bows, sheaves of arrows, hard leather caps, iron-studded bracers, and pieces of assorted armor that looked as though they would be dashed apart by an angry glance. The sailors had left their hardware on the ship, however, so they spent the next hour trying on bits of boiled leather and testing the balance of the available blades.

Naran sent a runner to a pub Captain Twill's crew had always been welcome at, asking the owner to inform those members who remained in the wind that the ship had departed, but would return in three or four weeks, if they wished to rejoin it.

As soon as the runner returned, Naran stood, holding a saber alongside his leg. "In the last few days, we have lost our ship. Many of our friends. And our captain. One of these things is lost to us forever. But tonight, we will retake the others—and when we return to this accursed city, we will pay them back in full."

His men responded with a compromise between a cheer and a determined grunt. They moved out into the street. Naran's most recent scouting report claimed the city had a mere four soldiers remaining on the dock, and zero monks. Dante could neutralize four guards in a wink. While the crew launched the ship, he and Blays, aided by a handful of the more physically-inclined sailors, would search the boat, do away with any further resistance, and free the indentured crewmen.

They stopped two blocks away, hunkering in the shadows while sending a scout ahead into the square. He paused, sniffing dramatically, as if savoring the redolence of the night air, then disappeared, only to jog back to the group less than a minute later.

"Sir." His voice was choked. "You need to see this."

Naran loped forward. The square was quiet and deserted. Beside the dock, moonlight glinted on the water. The
Sword of the South
was nowhere to be seen.

"You have to be kidding me," Dante said.

"I'll be damned." Jona glanced around the plaza. "Could they have moved her to a different dock?"

Naran made a choking noise. He rocked on his heels, then continued toward the only person on the scene, a man sprawled at the base of the dock cradling a bottle.

"The ship that was berthed here," Naran said. "Where did it go?"

The man swung up his head, mouth wide open. "Sailed out less than an hour ago. In a right hurry, too."

"Did you see which way it went?"

"With the current." Clumsily, he swept his arm south. Out to sea. "I suppose they thought that must have been easier than fighting it." He laughed heartily, drunk enough that obvious statements registered as profound wit.

Naran held fast to the hilt of his sheathed saber. "Did they say anything about where they were going?"

"Not that I heard. Then again, they weren't taking me, so what should I care?"

Blays folded his arms, contemplating the dark water. "Should we have a look around?"

"What for?" the quartermaster said. "It's gone. To sea."

"Maybe they're just seeing how she handles. Or they ran into a snag and they're still in the middle of the river. What can it hurt to look?" He jogged south along the esplanade.

Listlessly, Naran instructed his crew to canvass the area to see if anyone knew the schedule for the
Sword of the South
. Dante hung about to provide protection. With dawn approaching and no leads, they returned to the warehouse, where they took off their swords and their piecemeal armor and sat among the cobwebs, eyes downcast.

Naran lowered himself to the cask beside Dante. "The ship is gone. After Gladdic's proclamation, no captain in Bressel will dare take you to the islands. If you wish to survive, I suggest you get a horse and ride to another port at all possible speed."

"You're going to give up, then? What about the rest of your crew? They're still slaves of the king."

"How can I free them when I don't know where they are?"

"Someone must know where they're headed. We just have to figure out who that is."

"Even if we knew their destination, we would have no way to get there. All I can do is wait here for the ship to return. Or for you to come back from the islands, so that we might kill Gladdic together."

He got up and circulated among his men, speaking in low tones. Dante ran through his options. Allingham was the largest city south of the mountains separating Mallon and Gask. He could probably find passage to the Plagued Islands there. However, even if he refreshed his horse with nether, and pushed it to the brink of death, it would take at least three if not four days to get there. It was further from the islands than Bressel, too—at least eight days, and more if the captain didn't fancy sailing as close to the Mill as Captain Twill had. Two weeks or more, then. It would be the death of him.

He'd have to find somewhere closer. And gamble that he could bribe or threaten a captain into taking him on. He'd have to steal two horses first, though. They'd spent the last of their money on weapons for Naran's men.

He was still sorting through the details when Blays arrived from the docks, looking tired but in reasonable spirits. He drew Dante aside.

"I'm going to present you with a fact," Blays said. "I'm not going to tell you what to do with it, though. That's up to you. Here it is: four piers down, one of the king's ships is tied up. And all ready to go."

"You want to steal the king's ship."

"Why not? I imagine he's lousy with them, considering how casually he snatches them from other people. He already took ours, and we only had the one. So who's the real ship-thief here?"

"We might be able to talk Naran into that," Dante said. "He gets a new ship. I get passage to the islands. Then we come back and stick a knife in Gladdic. A win all around."

"I was thinking more like we use the crown's ship to take back the
Sword of the South
."

Dante crossed his arms. "Aren't we introducing unnecessary links to the chain? If we've got one of the crown's vessels, why bother with the
South
?"

"Because it's full of slaves. Who lost their freedom in the course of helping us."

"They were being paid to do that. If they didn't like the idea of going to the islands, they could have hopped ship."

"Which they well might have, if they'd had any idea they were transporting someone the Mallish legal system considers more dangerous than an erupting volcano. We can't leave them in the king's fetters."

"We don't have time for this. We have no idea where they've gone."

"They barely have two hours on us. And as for where they've headed, I think you can figure that out easily enough. You once tracked me across the entire continent, didn't you?"

Dante bit his lower lip. "We'll take the crown's ship. If one of the sailors here has something I can use to find the
South
, then we'll go after it. But if not, we'll head straight to the islands. Deal?"

Blays stuck out his hand. "Deal. And let's never tell them that we had this discussion."

Dante moved to the middle of the room. "The
Sword of the South
is gone, but we've still got a chance to find it. Does anyone here have anything that was once owned by one of the members who's been indentured? A personal effect of some kind?"

The men glanced between each other. After a moment of silence, a man rooted through his pockets and produced a folding razor. "This one was Frazer's. I won it playing Pig."

"Exactly the sort of thing I'm looking for." Dante accepted the razor with a smile. If he had any piece of a person's body, he could follow the nether within that portion to the nether inside the rest of them. He found no blood along the razor's edge, however, and when he sank into the few shadows clinging to the metal, he felt no resonance within them. He handed back the razor. "Anything else?"

A sailor handed over a comb that appeared to be made from the spine of a fish, with its ribs serving as the teeth. Hairs snarled the ribs, but when Dante touched the nether within the strands, the pressure that formed in his head pointed straight to the man who'd given him the comb. Someone gave him a coin stamped with the face of a foreign king—a good luck charm given to him months earlier—but this turned up nothing. Neither did the half dozen other trinkets the crew scrounged from their pockets.

That ran them out of objects. Dante sighed and let the nether slip away. "They're lost then."

"Well," Blays said. "Shall we move on? What's next? A little land-piracy?"

"Hold up." A sailor who was little more than a boy shuffled forward, cradling one of the bone flutes they carved at the islands. "This was Kerrick's."

Jona snorted. "So
you're
the one who stole his flute? He didn't shut up about that for three months!"

"Only used it once. Felt too guilty. But if I'd given it back, he'd have known I was a thief. Thought about pitching it overboard, but I couldn't bear the idea. He treasured the stupid thing like it was his own son."

"That's because it was given to him after he saved an island child from drowning!"

The boy blinked back tears. "If he hadn't made such a big deal about it, maybe I wouldn't have taken it."

"Let me see." Dante took the flute. There was nothing out of place on its outside, but a thin sheen of nether clung to its interior, perhaps where Kerrick's spit had dried. Faint pressure bloomed in Dante's skull. Slowly, he turned in a circle. As he came to face south, the force increased. He grinned. "You may be a thief, but Kerrick will have to thank you for it. Because you've saved him from years of servitude."

* * *

The eastern clouds glowed gray in the coming morning. A light mist sifted from the river. This wasn't thick enough to provide any meaningful cover, so rather than advancing in a single suspicious cluster of seventeen men, they moved down the esplanade in groups of two to four. The morning's first shifts were already on the move, but the longshoremen trudging toward the docks were too bleary-eyed to pay the small groups any mind.

They stopped two blocks from the Mallish royal vessel. It was a trim-looking caravel, its two masts sporting tall triangular sails. A nice bit of luck. Dante was no grizzled mariner, but she looked plenty fast. Assuming the crew knew how to rig it, he had no doubt they could overtake the
Sword of the South
.

Around him, the men looked eager to try. When Blays had voiced his plan to them, and Dante explained that he could track the missing ship, they'd agreed without a single complaint. This despite having been up all night and suffering the shock of losing the
South
in the first place. Now, they were on their way to the first of two hijackings. Dante would have expected some of the men to have quietly slipped away, yet not a single one had abandoned the others. Twill's loyalty and respect were paying off beyond the grave.

Dante had already reconnoitered the crown vessel with a dead rat and discovered the sailors sleeping belowdecks were chained to their bunks. They too were indentured or enslaved. This was strange (was Mallon really that hard up for workers?), and not so lucky for the sailors themselves, but it would make Dante's job a little easier.

"Don't get all heroic in there," Dante told Blays. "If things take a turn toward chaos, jump right back over the side."

"Abandon you to your fate. Got it." Blays finished stripping down to his smallclothes, his swords strapped to his back. "See you in a minute."

He strolled down the muddy banks and waded into the water. As Dante kept watch on the ship's deck, Blays swam alongside the dock, approaching the boat in perfect silence. As he neared the hull, he vanished.

Dante nodded to Naran, then walked alone down the dock. A gangplank ran up to the ship. Earlier, a pair of soldiers had stood around it, but it was presently vacant. He crossed the gangplank and descended to the deck. Seeing no one, he cleared his throat.

A man wearing a blue cap and a sword appeared from the crates stacked around the aft cabin. "Stop right there. Who are you?"

"My name is Holton," Dante said, "and I was sent here by Gladdic."

The anger fled the man's face. "Gladdic? What's this about?"

"Yesterday's execution. I need to speak individually with your troops."

"But none of us were there, sir."

"Then my interviews will be blessedly short. If Gladdic learns I didn't conduct them, however, then the only thing shorter than our chats will be my life."

Two more blue-capped troopers exited the cabin to stand behind the first man, who narrowed his eyes. "May I see your writ, then?"

Dante scoffed. "Why else would I be here at this unholy hour?"

"I'll need a writ, sir. Or I'll need you off this ship. Sir."

"There's no need for this. Get your people up here and I'll be out of your way in five minutes."

"I said move." The man reached for his sword.

Blays materialized behind him and drew the man's blade, whisking it to the side of his neck. "You, meanwhile, should embrace stillness."

"That goes for all of you." Dante gathered the shadows in his hands and made the dark swirls visible. One of the soldiers yelped. "We're commandeering this boat. You have a choice. Keep your traps shut, and we'll drop you off on our way out of the harbor. Or make a ruckus, and I'll drop you off in a hundred miles of open ocean."

They put their hands up. Dante kept eye on them as Blays tied their hands and gagged their mouths.

"I count five free men belowdecks," Blays said. "Only two of them are awake yet. Everyone else must be on shore."

Dante turned to the pier and waved both arms above his head. Naran jogged forward, his men a dim mass in the dawn. Once he arrived, they'd take the hostages downstairs and convince the remaining men to give up without a fight. Naturally, this bloodless scheme was Blays' idea. Killing them all would have been easier and less risky, but Dante had to admit there was a certain thrill to executing their plan so efficiently.

As Naran's men arrived and piled onto the boat, a frantic bell clanged from the mainmast. A silhouette stood high in the rigging. "Help! We're being boarded! For the love of King Charles, send aid!"

Dante swore like the sailor he wasn't and hurled a spear of shadows into the rigging. The alarums and shouting stopped cold. The silhouette leaned backwards, then plummeted to the deck, landing with a crunch.

"I thought you'd checked this thing out!" Blays said.

"I always forget boats have three dimensions." He found Naran's eye. "Get underway. We'll secure belowdecks."

Naran nodded. Boots thumped about below them. The lantern that had been illuminating the lower level went out; a door slammed. Keeping the nether close, Dante started down the ladder. Once he was a few rungs down, he jumped, casting light across the hold as he landed on the wooden floor.

Crates and bins lined the walls. Blays slid down the ladder and drew his swords. Dante moved forward into a bunkroom, hammocks slung from the walls. Faces stared from each one, eyes bright in the harsh glare of his nether-fed light. One man raised a hand and pointed behind them to a closed door set into the rear wall.

Above, Naran's crew called back and forth, stomping around like parade ponies. A heavy chain—the anchor, most certainly—clunked against the hull as it was drawn in. Dante moved to the door, Blays by his side. He tried the handle, but the door was lodged firm, bolted.

"Go ahead and stay in there if you like," Dante said. "But in about ten minutes, we'll be on the high seas."

A wary voice sounded from the other side of the door. "How many of you are out there?"

"Just two. We don't mean to hurt you."

Wood scraped. The door burst open and a man charged forth, leading with his sword. Before Dante could put him down, Blays lunged, parrying the blade and impaling the man's chest. A second thrust put him down for good. Five other men in blue caps waited inside the doorway, swords in hand. One edged nearer.