by M. J. Kuhn
A Disciple. A real Disciple.
The Guildmaster’s personal army of Adept was small but powerful. All the Adept were dangerous, but the Disciples were far more unnerving than the servants on the mainland. For one, they were stronger than the Adept the Guildmaster sold to the mainland lords and merchants. And then there was the matter of their… personalities. Unlike the gentled Adept the Guildmaster auctioned off every year, the Disciples’ minds were sound. Adept walking around with thoughts of their own—Evelyn had been floored the first time she had seen it for herself. Thankfully, most of the time they kept to themselves, holed up on the Guildmaster’s island.
Father always used to say Disciples only came to the mainland on two occasions: when an Adept baby had been born or when someone had royally mucked something up. Despite her infantile sense of humor, the Butcher of Carrowwick was no baby, so it had to be the second one this time.
Had the Guildmaster somehow found out about Clem’s plans to infiltrate the auction? If so, they were all as good as dead.
“Wait!” Evelyn said, leaping up onto the deck of the cog. “The But—”
“Not you, too,” Nash said, not even pausing to look. “We have about ten minutes to get clear of the harbor before we’re hemmed in by Harpies or worse. You don’t know Ryia. She’ll find us before we take off.”
“That’s not—” Evelyn started as Nash blew past. “She’s right there!”
Evelyn threw her hands up, gesturing back toward the docks, but no one was paying any attention. The Disciple rapidly approached. Faster than a beat of a hummingbird’s wings, it pulled a massive scimitar from beneath its robes.
The Butcher’s beady eyes were locked on the ship. She was trying to outrun the thing… and she was undoubtedly going to get sliced in half. Would the king still award a Valiership if Evelyn only brought him the mercenary’s head?
At the last second, the Butcher dove to the ground, dodging the Disciple’s scimitar. Another blue-robed figure burst from the next alley, raising a slender sword. The tattooed beast brought the gleaming blade down in a vicious stab, skewering the Butcher like an Adalina’s Day pig on the spit.…
Or not. The blade didn’t touch her at all.
The Butcher now stood a few feet away from the Disciples, baring her teeth like a cornered animal, fingers twitching on the handles of her hatchets.
The Butcher said something that was lost to the wind. Then, before Evelyn’s eyes could even make sense of what was happening, it was all over. Both Disciples lay dead on the docks, blood pooling beneath them, dripping between the slats and into the sloshing waters below. The Butcher kneeled over one, freeing a hatchet from its neck.
The Butcher’s eyes were as dark as shadows as she cast them back to the ship. When her gaze found Evelyn, she thought she saw a twinge of fear there, buried somewhere in the crushing blackness.
“Hold up, assholes!” she shouted, darting down the dock and up the gangplank just as Nash’s crew started to pull it in. The Butcher smiled her bone-chilling smile, sliding onto the deck beside Evelyn.
“What does a person have to do to get a Disciple sent after them?”
“Hmm?” The Butcher looked up, as though just noticing her. “Those? Oh, just some old friends of mine.” She gave her usual grin, but the fire behind it was stolen by the fact that her hands were shaking. “You do me a few favors, and I might just teach you some of those moves.”
She reached out, wiping her blood-soaked axe blade on Evelyn’s shoulder before sticking it back into the sheath across her back.
“What the hell happened?” she called to Nash, sauntering across the deck.
“You made it,” Nash said, giving a relieved grin. “I’ll be sure to thank Felice for giving us that much, at least. She’s been a bit of a bitch today, as you can see.”
“The Revenge?”
Nash’s smile grew sour. “Long story. The highlights are Luc is an ass, and now Harlow Finn owns the Seasnake’s Revenge.”
“I see… Well, you didn’t waste time finding a replacement.” The Butcher knocked on the mast. “You know how to sail one of these?”
“If there’s a ship I can’t sail, I haven’t found her yet,” Nash replied, shaking out another line.
“That a euphemism?” Ryia asked. Nash just stared intently at the small red flag at the top of the mast. The Butcher moved to slink away, and Evelyn lunged forward.
“No you don’t!” she hissed, ducking as a stray line snapped overhead.
“I don’t what?” the Butcher asked absently, arrogance threatening to float her head right off her bloody shoulders.
Evelyn snared the mercenary’s sleeved wrist in one hand. “You can’t just—”
Ryia whirled, pulling her arm out of Evelyn’s grasp. Evelyn gritted her teeth as the Butcher leveled a hatchet at her throat. A second later she seemed to get ahold of herself, slipping the weapon back into its sheath and tugging at her sleeves.
“I can’t what, Captain?”
“Can’t get out of this without explaining yourself. You might have gotten lucky that no one else was looking, but I know what I saw. A brace of Disciples in Carrowwick Harbor.”
“… Your point?”
“My point is that this mission is already belly up if the Guildmaster knows what we’re doing.”
Ryia laughed in a way that flushed Evelyn from the neck up. “Don’t flatter yourself. The Guildmaster doesn’t give half a shit about all of you,” she said, gesturing around at the rest of their crew.
“That so? What’s he after you for, then?”
“What does it matter to you?” Ryia stepped sideways to let one of Nash’s men by. “You worried about me, Captain? I knew you’d come around.”
Evelyn gave chase. “It matters because you’re risking this whole damn mission.”
“How’s that, love?”
“He’s the most powerful man in the world,” Evelyn said, nearly shouting now as Nash yelled something about a dock line across the deck. “If he recognizes you—”
Her words jumped back down her throat as the sail above them fluttered free, sending the cog lurching away from the dock at last. Evelyn stumbled, falling into the rail as Nash steered them toward the rushing tendrils of brackish water where the Arden met the Yawning Sea.
As the ship jerkily nosed its way into the open water of the harbor, Evelyn felt the Butcher’s hand trail over her shoulders, her fingers leaving prickling embers of what must be rage in their wake.
“Then I guess you lot will have one hell of a distraction, won’t you?” Her gravelly voice rumbled over Evelyn’s ears like cartwheels on cobblestones.
“Help Collick with the brace, would you?” Nash shouted across the deck. “Unless you want to wait here to see whether the Harpies or the Needle Guard catch us first!”
The Butcher gave Evelyn one last look, fingers walking over her throwing axes in a silent threat. “Sure thing, Nash, since I’m such a fucking expert sailor. What in Felice’s name is a brace?”
Nash rolled her eyes. “Do I have to do everything?”
“Was that a proposition?”
The smuggler seemed to ignore her. Then said, “Heads up.” The yard swung freely, trailing a line that nearly took off Tristan’s head. Nash laughed. “Sorry, kid—gotta pay attention!”
“So do you,” said another voice. Ivan. He stood at the bow, his startling eyes locked on the horizon to the west, where the setting sun was blocked by the sails of half a dozen ships.
Each of those vessels was flying the purple sails of the king’s navy. The Needle Guard were onto them. If they were caught now, Evelyn could forget the Valiership—she would be lucky to avoid a cell.
Nash swore violently, steering the ship sharply to the left. “That’s all right,” she grunted. “They don’t call me the empress of the Three Seas for nothing.”
“Who calls you that, exactly?” asked the Butcher.
Nash didn’t answer. There was a long moment of silence as she cranked t
he wheel farther to the left, guiding them straight across the Arden.
“You do realize there’s a cliff there?” Ryia remarked.
Nash laughed again. This time it was echoed by her crew, all of them apparently unfazed by the massive wall of jagged rock on the opposite bank of the Arden. “Let’s hope Baelbrandt’s men are as blind as you are.”
Nash wove through the other ships departing into the sunset, bringing the cog closer to the raging currents swirling around the cliffs.
The king’s ships were on the move, heading for the mouth of the river, jockeying for position, trying to keep an eye on all the vessels in the crowded harbor at once. As the last rays of sunlight fell on the cliff, Evelyn’s mouth dropped open.
There was a gap.
Not large, maybe fifty feet wide—barely enough for them to fit. She could feel everyone on board holding their breath as they slipped between the massive rock walls and into the stillness beyond.
“Furl that sail,” Nash said, her golden eyes on the cliffs that had swallowed them.
Nash began spinning the wheel to the right. The ship groaned, the rudder protesting as it clumsily made the sharp turn.
Nash gritted her teeth, muscles threatening to snap as she cranked the wheel back to the left.
“Do you actually know what you’re doing?” Evelyn asked, voice taut as her fingers threatened to dent the rail beside her.
The smile Nash gave her could have charmed the quartermaster at the Linley estate. “At the helm of a ship, I always know what I’m doing.” She shot Ryia a wink. “Feel free to take that as a euphemism too.”
Ryia gave a rasping chuckle as they rounded another spire of rock. Then the salt breeze of the Yawning Sea hit Evelyn in the face harder than one of Mother’s slaps. The broad expanse of the sea rolled out before them, spitting them into the ocean some two miles down the coast from Carrowwick Harbor.
“It’s almost like it’s my job to know every route to open water along the western coastline,” Nash said.
Tristan whooped in relief. Evelyn sagged forward, letting out a breath she had been holding for at least a minute. Even Ivan looked pleased in a flat sort of way.
“Great, so we’ve made it through literally the easiest part of this entire shitshow.” A muscle in Evelyn’s jaw twitched as Ryia cut through the celebrations. “Congratulations. Now, does someone want to grab Clem from below so he can tell us what the hell we’re doing next?”
Clem.
The name sucked the excitement from the air.
The Butcher looked around the deck. “Is there a problem?”
Silence. Then Nash cleared her throat. “Cal may have been arrested by the Needle Guard.”
The Butcher’s monstrous face twisted into an emotion halfway between amusement and horror. “You can’t be serious.”
“We should go back for him,” said Ivan.
“Go back? And do what, break into the Carrowwick dungeon?” Evelyn asked, incredulous.
“Ryia could do it,” Ivan said.
“Not if I have anything to say about it,” Evelyn said. She had helped break into the archives, and she had helped steal a bloody ship, but she wouldn’t help break a criminal out of the cells under the Bobbin Fort. She had crossed more than a few of her personal, moral lines in the past few days, but there was a limit to what she would do. There had to be—otherwise she was no better than the guttersnipes all around her.
“You wouldn’t be able to stop me,” Ryia said. The picture of bloody arrogance, this one.
There was a long silence. Then Tristan said, “The whole harbor is on lockdown. We barely got out—could we even get back in?”
Nash hesitated. “It would be tricky… but if we wait until after dark…” She looked at the remaining members of her crew. “I think I could do it.”
Another period of silence as everyone’s minds tried to untangle the same knot. The Butcher finally broke it. “Think this through carefully. This would mean scrapping the whole mission. No payout. And we have no guarantee Clem’s even still alive.…”
The air aboard the stolen cog grew tight as the words sunk in. No guarantee Clem’s even still alive. No doubt the rest of them were thinking about what would happen to the Saints without the protection of the infamous Snake of the Southern Dock. Their enemies were already closing in around them… without Clem, they were probably all screwed. Dead Saints would be washing up on the shores of Golden Port in no time, as the Butcher had said the night they broke into the Needle Guard barracks. But Evelyn had her own problems.
The bargain she had made, the whole reason she was even here, was with Clem and Clem alone. The Snake had made it clear she would receive no payout if he didn’t get his bloody prize, so if they killed the mission, she could say goodbye to her chances at earning her Valiership… but if they didn’t turn back now, he might not even be alive by the time they returned to the city. The kingdom of Dresdell did not take death penalties lightly, but this was Callum Clem they were talking about. One of the most dangerous, infamous criminals in Carrowwick. If anyone’s misdeeds earned them a trip to the gallows, it would be him.
The Butcher finally cleared her throat. “It looks like we have a decision to make.”
“What are our options?” asked Tristan.
“Try to rob the most powerful man in all of fucking Thamorr, without any plan or help from the one man who could have pulled off this suicidal job,” Nash said.
Tristan’s eyes widened. “What’s another option?”
“Give up the only payout that could save the Saints from complete destruction to go back and try to save a man who might already be dead,” said the Butcher. “And also probably die.”
“And… the third option?” Tristan asked hopefully.
“Throw yourself into the Yawning Sea right now and drown.”
“That is not helpful, Ryia,” Ivan replied.
“Helpful? No. But it’s accurate. Without the payout from this job, the Harpies and Crowns will eat the Saints alive.”
“Without Clem the Harpies and Crowns will eat the Saints alive,” Ivan countered.
“Well, that ship has already sailed. No pun intended,” the Butcher said.
“I say we go to the island,” Evelyn announced.
Certainly, if Clem was executed before they got back she wouldn’t have a prayer of collecting her prize… but the Snake of the Southern Dock was a slippery bastard. There was a chance he’d get himself out of the mess he was in, and if that was the case, Evelyn’s only hope of getting what she had been promised was completing this mission. It was a small chance, but if they went back to Carrowwick now she was guaranteed to get nothing.
“Well, well, well, look at the balls on this one—metaphorically speaking only, of course,” the Butcher said, chortling.
“Without Clem’s plan, we will never make it off of that island,” Ivan said stiffly.
“Without the payout from this job, we won’t make it until the end of the summer in this city,” the Butcher said. “If Clem’s already dead, then the Crowns and the Harpies will have no reason to hold back—they’ll pick us off one by one until there’s not a Saint left in Carrowwick. You know Finn and Asher would love the opportunity to disembowel Clem’s organization—and all its members. This job could give us enough coin to rebuild and keep them off our backs.”
“And if he is still alive?” asked Ivan.
Ryia grinned darkly. “If he’s alive… failing this job is probably as good as handing in our resignation, isn’t it?”
“You can’t just resign from the Saints,” Tristan said. Something in his tone told Evelyn if that were an option he would have taken it already.
“Exactly,” said the Butcher. Tristan paled as he caught her meaning. “Now, call me crazy, but I’d rather be mostly fucked than entirely fucked. Or do you disagree?”
Silence stretched among them as each member of the crew weighed the odds. Evelyn’s calculations were already made. It didn’t take long for the oth
ers to reach the same conclusion. Both options were shite, but only one had even the slightest chance of success.
Finally, Nash took the helm. She steered the ship south, setting a course for the Guildmaster’s island. “Felice help us all.”
15
NASH
For Nash, setting off into the ocean always felt like coming home. This time, it would have felt more like home if the deck beneath her feet had belonged to her ship. If half of her oh-so-loyal crew hadn’t sold her out for a few free trips to the Tail. If the only man capable of pulling off this goddess-forsaken job wasn’t trapped in a Bobbin Fort cell fifty miles up the coast… but Nash had never had much use for complaining.
Complaining about a bad hand did nothing. A good gambler always played her cards as best she could. A good cheat just stole a new set of cards… or, in this case, a new ship.
A gust of southern wind washed over the deck, causing the sail to luff. Nash peered at the tell-tale, bearing off a bit farther starboard. The sail sprang taut again. These summer winds would be murder on their schedule. It was always hell to get to Briel when the wind wanted to push her the wrong way the entire journey. At this pace, they were likely to miss the whole damned auction. They’d have to make up some time once they cut east into the Luminous Sea.
She turned at the sound of splintering wood on the stern. The Butcher stood over an odd pile of crates, pawing through them like an ice bear through a fur trader’s campsite.
“Is there anything edible on this ship?” Ryia asked, lifting a piece of salted beef with two fingers. Obviously the dregs of the supplies from whatever voyage this tiny ship had last taken.
Nash pointed at the beef with her chin. “Looks like you’re holding it.”
Ryia gagged, thrusting it from her and wiping her fingers on her cloak.
“Scared of a little mold?” Nash laughed.
Tristan skipped across the deck, ducking beneath the lines. He had come alive the moment they’d hit open water, though he clearly knew nothing about sailing. Maybe he really was a merchant’s brat after all.
