14
HE GRINNED, gasping for breath, and concentrated on holding his own crossbow level with the left eye of his opponent; they were close enough that they would catch most of one another’s blood, should they both twitch their fingers at the same time.
“Be reasonable,” said the man facing him. Beads of sweat left visible trails as they slid down his grime-covered cheeks and forehead. “Consider the disadvantages of your situation.”
Locke snorted. “Unless your eyeballs are made of iron, the disadvantage is mutual. Wouldn’t you say so, Jean?”
Jean and his foe were toe-to-toe with their crossbows similarly poised. Not one of them could miss at this range, not if all the gods above or below the heavens willed it otherwise.
“All four of us would seem…to be up to our balls in quicksand,” said Jean between breaths.
On the water behind them, the old galleon groaned and creaked as the roaring flames consumed it from the inside out. Night was made day for hundreds of yards around; the hull was crisscrossed with the white-orange lines of seams coming apart. Smoke boiled out of those hellish cracks in little black eruptions, the last shuddering breaths of a vast wooden beast dying in agony. The four men stood on their pier, strangely alone in the midst of light and noise that was drawing the attention of the entire city. Nobody in the boats was paying any attention to them.
“Lower your piece, for the love of the gods,” said Locke’s opponent. “We’ve been instructed not to kill you, if we don’t have to.”
“And I’m sure you’d be honest if it were otherwise, of course,” said Locke. His smile grew. “I make it a point never to trust men with weapons at my windpipe. Sorry.”
“Your hand will start to shake long before mine does.”
“I’ll rest the tip of my quarrel against your nose when I get tired. Who sent you after us? What are they paying you? We’re not without funds; a happy arrangement could be reached.”
“Actually,” said Jean, “I know who sent them.”
“What? Really?” Locke flicked a glance at Jean before locking eyes with his adversary once again.
“And an arrangement has been reached, but I wouldn’t call it happy.”
“Ah…Jean, I’m afraid you’ve lost me.”
“No.” Jean raised one hand, palm out, to the man opposite him. He then slowly, carefully shifted his aim to his left—until his crossbow was pointing at Locke’s head. The man he’d previously been threatening blinked in surprise. “You’ve lost me, Locke.”
“Jean,” said Locke, the grin vanishing from his face, “this isn’t funny.”
“I agree. Hand your piece over to me.”
“Jean—”
“Hand it over now. Smartly. You there, are you some kind of moron? Get that thing out of my face and point it at him.”
Jean’s former opponent licked his lips nervously, but didn’t move. Jean ground his teeth together. “Look, you sponge-witted dock ape, I’m doing your job for you. Point your crossbow at my gods-damned partner so we can get off this pier!”
“Jean, I would describe this turn of events as less than helpful,” said Locke, and he looked as though he might say more, except that Jean’s opponent chose that moment to take Jean’s advice.
It seemed to Locke that sweat was now cascading down his face, as though his own treacherous moisture were abandoning the premises before anything worse happened.
“There. Three on one.” Jean spat on the pier. “You gave me no choice but to cut a deal with the employer of these gentlemen before we set out—gods damn it, you forced me. I’m sorry. I thought they’d make contact before they drew down on us. Now give your weapon over.”
“Jean, what the hell do you think you’re—”
“Don’t. Don’t say another fucking thing. Don’t try to finesse me; I know you too well to let you have your say. Silence, Locke. Finger off the trigger and hand it over.”
Locke stared at the steel-tipped point of Jean’s quarrel, his mouth open in disbelief. The world around him seemed to fade to that tiny, gleaming point, alive with the orange reflection of the inferno blazing in the anchorage behind him. Jean would have given him a hand signal if he were lying…. Where the hell was the hand signal?
“I don’t believe this,” he whispered. “This is impossible.”
“This is the last time I’m going to say this, Locke.” Jean ground his teeth together and held his aim steady, directly between Locke’s eyes. “Take your finger off the trigger and hand over your gods-damned weapon. Right now.”
III
CARDS ON THE TABLE
“I am hard pressed on my right; my center is giving way; situation excellent. I am attacking.”
General Ferdinand Foch
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
SCOURGING THE SEA OF BRASS
1
JAFFRIM RODANOV WADED in the shallows by the hull of an overturned fishing boat, listening to the waves break against its shattered planks as they washed over his ankles. The sand and water of Prodigal Bay were pristine this far from the city. No layers of night soil slimed the water, no rusting metal scraps or pottery shards littered the bottom. No corpses floated as grim rafts for squawking birds.
Twilight, on the seventh day of Aurim. Drakasha gone for a week now. A thousand miles away, Jaffrim thought, a mistake was being made.
Ydrena whistled. She was leaning against the hull of the abandoned fishing boat, neither too close nor too far from him, merely emphasizing by her presence that Rodanov was not alone, and that his attendance at this meeting was known to his crew.
Jacquelaine Colvard had arrived.
She left her first mate beside Ydrena, shrugged out of her own boots, and waded into the water without hiking up her breeches. Old and unbent Colvard, who’d been sacking ships in these waters when he’d been a boy with his nose buried in musty scrolls. Before he’d even seen a ship that wasn’t inked onto a sheet of parchment.
“Jaffrim,” she said. “Thank you for humoring me.”
“There’s only one thing you could want to talk about at the moment,” said Rodanov.
“Yes. And it’s on your mind too, isn’t it?”
“It was a mistake to give Drakasha our oaths.”
“Was it?”
Rodanov hooked his thumbs into his sword-belt and looked down at the darkening water, the ripples where his pale ankles vanished into it. “I was generous when I should have been cynical.”
“So you fancy yourself the only one who had the power to forbid this?”
“I could have withheld my oath.”
“But then it would have been four against one, with you as the one,” said Colvard, “and Drakasha would have gone north looking over her shoulder all the way.”
Rodanov felt a cold excitement in his gut.
“I’ve noticed curious things, these past few days,” she continued. “Your crew has been spending less time in the city. You’ve been taking on water. And I’ve seen you on your quarterdeck, testing your instruments. Checking your backstaffs.”
His excitement rose. Out here alone, had she come to confront him or abet him? Could she be mad enough to put herself in his reach, if it was the former?
“You know, then,” he said at last.
“Yes.”
“Do you intend to talk me out of it?”
“I intend to see that it’s done right.”
“Ah.”
“You have someone aboard the Poison Orchid, don’t you?”
Though taken aback, Rodanov found himself in no mood to dissemble.
“If you’ll tell me how you know,” he said, “I won’t insult you by denying it.”
“It was an educated guess. After all, you tried to place someone aboard my ship once.”
“Ah,” he said, sucking air through his teeth. “So Riela didn’t die in a boat accident after all.”
“Yes and no,” said Colvard. “It happened in a boat, at least.”
“Do you—”
“Blame you? No. You’re a cautious man, Jaffrim, as I am a fundamentally cautious woman. It’s our shared caution that brings us here this evening.”
“Do you want to come with?”
“No,” said Colvard. “And my reasons are practical. First, that the Sovereign is ready for sea while the Draconic is not. Second, that two of us putting out together would cause…an inconvenient degree of speculation when Drakasha fails to return.”
“There’ll be speculation regardless. And there’ll be confirmation. My crew won’t bite their tongues forever.”
“But anything could have happened, to bring one and one together on the high seas,” said Colvard. “If we put out in a squadron, collusion will be the only reasonable possibility.”
“And I suppose it’s just coincidence,” said Jaffrim, “that even several days since you first spotted my preparations, the Draconic still isn’t ready for sea?”
“Well—”