Bloody gods, calm yourself, man! Just get up and walk away.
Then the song began. The common room had grown uncommonly still. To leave now would invite unwanted attention. He sat, pinned to his chair by the words the bard sang, feeling each syllable like a dagger in his gut.
It had been a long time since he’d heard his song.
A shade in the night
Silent and sleek
To still your true heart as it beats
When he comes for your life
He sings with his knife
And the name of the ballad is Bloody Bastian.
The Zak’reth were first
To taste of his wrath
We whetted his blade on their pain
A frenzy of death
Left few with a breath
And those that did screamed ‘Bloody Bastian’
A taste for the gold
As well as for blood
Turned his lust into a trade
Warm bodies grew cold
Their lives bought and sold
By those who could afford Bloody Bastian
Beware, he still lurks
Sailing the seas
On a ship black as night and called Dread
For no one is safe
Be they villain or saint
As even rapers and killers fear Bloody Bastian.
The last note was plucked on the lute, hung in the air, and then dissipated. The patrons were silent for the space of a heartbeat and then broke out into a smattering of applause and nervous laughter. Selena shivered. Sebastian couldn’t look at her but waited, like a prisoner awaiting the magistrate’s sentence.
“How awful. Had you ever heard of this man? Sebastian Vaas?”
“I have,” he said.
“Surely the lyrics are somewhat fanciful. They’re not true…are they?”
My ship is not named Dread, as you well know, Paladin.
“Aye, every one is true,” said their helpful neighbor. “Isle Parish has a bounty on his head and it’s said that Raven himself is on the hunt for him.”
“Who is the Raven?” Selena asked.
“The best bounty hunter on Lunos,” said the Nanokari. “A spice merchant told me Isle Parish is looking to pay the Raven a thousand gold to bring the Bastian in alive!”
Four years ago it was three thousand. I must be slipping.
Sebastian felt a mad laugh burble up in him. He hid it behind his mead. How many had he had? Six? Seven? He’d lost count.
“It’s a shame he hasn’t been caught and brought to justice,” Selena was saying and Ilior was concurring.
Sebastian sneered. Sanctimonious bitch. I thought her beautiful? I’m drunk, is all.
“I wonder where he is right now,” piped Niven.
Sweet, innocent little Niven who would piss his britches should he learn where, exactly, Sebastian Vaas was right now.
The assassin hauled himself to his feet, and cursed as the floor spun in a lazy circle. He muttered something about stretching his legs and wended his way between the tables, intending to go to his room in the inn and sleep it off. He glanced at the bard who was now tooting a flute like a court fool. Sebastian had a bleary, maniacal fantasy of pulling out his flintlock and blowing the bard’s brains all over the wall behind him.
The room swayed and canted like a ship tossed on a squall. Sebastian steadied himself at the bar where Hilka polished a glass and stared him up and down.
“Having a little too much fun, are we?” she drawled. “I didn’t think nothing was to tear ye from our sweet Paladin o’ the god.”
“Rum,” he said. “And not from the bloody Isle of Lords. Your hardest.”
“Right away, young cap’n.”
Hilka set a glass down on the bar. Sebastian wanted to quaff the whole thing but forced himself to sip it lest the room spin out from under him completely. Selena watched him. Her and Ilior.
I’ll kill them both.
His bleary imagination conjured Selena’s beautiful face smeared red, and Sebastian thought he might be sick.
“What do ye think of our singer?” Hilka leaned over the bar so that her breasts were pushed to the edge of her blouse. “He’s quite the storyteller, ain’t he?”
“Singers can go to the Deeps.”
Selena was no longer looking at him but he felt her attention, like a light, tremulous breeze blowing his way.
He turned his gaze to Hilka. Her copper hair was showing the first hints of gray but still glinted brightly. She was rounded at hips and breast, smoothed by years of cold wind, and just as blustery. Her mouth was cherry-red and slightly open as her dark eyes raked him up and down.
“My room is unsatisfactory,” he said.
“Is it now?” She ran her tongue over the edge of her lower lip. “Will you be requiring a diff’rent one, mayhap?”
“I might.”
“Well, well,” she said. “I aim to keep all me customers happy.” She trailed her finger over his hand. “Whatever it may take.”
“Small town,” Sebastian said, conscious he was slurring his words. “Tongues wag. Heard you had a husband…”
“Aye.” She didn’t take her hand off his. “But he’s out with our boys. They’re learnin’ the trade. They come back late.” She leaned closer, her breasts pushing against the bar. “I get so lonely waitin’ for them.”
By the hearth, Selena was shivering again. She sat hunched as close as she could get. Ilior did the same. Like a worn-out married couple, warming their old bones by the fire.
“And what happens if I take this other room?” he asked.
Hilka bent close. Her breath was hot in his ear. “I fuck ye silly is what, me young cap’n.”
Sebastian tossed back the rum. “I’ll take it.”
The Girl
Sebastian stepped out of Hilka’s room, and closed the door softly behind him so as not to wake her. His body felt pleasantly spent and heavy, and after a short sleep, his head was clear of all the mead he’d drunk. Even so, he had to pause a moment in the hallway to get his bearings. As sponsor of the voyage, Selena had paid for rooms for the crew of the Black Storm. Had they been anywhere besides the Ice Isles, Sebastian would have refused. The men would expect such luxuries forever after and that was unacceptable. But Nanokar was too bloody cold to allow his men to suffer frigid nights in hammocks on the ship, cradled in icy water. He had agreed to take rooms and Selena had paid for a rather extravagant one for him on the top floor of the White Sail that boasted views of the township and the bay in every direction. He found the staircase that led to the upper floors but didn’t take them.
The inn was quiet now. The notes of the bard’s ballad seemed to hang in the air, reverberating around the eaves, like echoes. Selena was sleeping in her room, Hilka in hers. The pleasant heaviness evaporated. Suddenly Sebastian wanted the solitude of his cabin aboard the Black Storm. Instead of going up, he went out.
The innkeepers’ living quarters were situated behind the common room. He took the hallway and slipped into the large room where the boisterous revelries had gentled down to snapping remnants of the dying fire and the snores of a half a dozen revelers who slept among their cups. Sebastian opened the front door and Grunt was there.
The old crewman made a sign and Sebastian shook his head. “Outside.”