Steal the Sky

by Megan E. O'Keefe

  “Bribes?” Ripka clucked her tongue. “You must think you’re talking to someone else.” She caught the man’s gaze and flicked her eyes to the crate. “Break that open completely. Now.”

  The man shifted his weight, fingers going white around the neck of the bottle he’d presented to her. The woman chewed her lip, and Ripka allowed herself a small smile at the recognition of nervousness, of distress.

  “Scatter!” the woman yelled loud as her lungs would let her.

  Before Ripka could get a shot off, the man threw the bottle at her feet, a foamy explosion of alcohol-drenched honey sweetening the air. She swore and fired at the woman, swore again when she saw the bolt skim off the woman’s cheek without causing more damage than a rockcat scratch.

  Banch loosed his shot, missed, then leap-tackled the man who had thrown the bottle as he bolted right by him. Ripka jumped over the tangled pair, reloading her bow with practiced ease as she ducked into the warehouse after the woman.

  Mountains of identical crates dotted the warehouse, great stepped pyramids of them rising up on all sides. Ripka spared them only the briefest of glances. Some part of her couldn’t help but register the expense involved in such an operation. Her steps were silent, the dirt-packed floor smoothed by the passing of many feet. Half of the wall sconces had been lit in anticipation of the night’s work, the flickering flames throwing strange shadows in her path.

  “Turn yourselves over, and we won’t use force,” Ripka called, though the words felt pointless, perfunctory. These people, whoever they were, had been ordered to run. Which meant that they more than likely had orders to keep themselves out of official hands at all costs.

  “Captain!” Taellen yelped from around a pile of crates to her right, his voice high with surprise.

  Before she could move two steps in his direction a crash broke through the night, the splintering of wood and shattering of glass louder to her overstrained senses than any crack of thunder.

  Rounding the crate-pile, her foot went out from under her. The world skewed as she crashed down hard on one knee, bright spikes of pain lancing up her leg. Ripka got a hand down to steady herself, old instincts overriding momentary terror. The floor was sticky mush, sugared mud. She peeled her hand free and glared down at the syrupy muck coating her palm. Tried to ignore the needles of pain radiating from the knee she had fallen on.

  “Look out!” Taellen barreled into her from the side just as a crate went flying through the air where her head would have been. Ripka grunted and gasped once, quick to recapture the air that had been driven from her lungs. Taellen rolled away from her and sprang up, the easy agility of youth driving his knees. He dragged his cudgel free and brandished it, the crossbow lost.

  Ripka heaved herself upright with, she supposed, far less grace but just as much effectiveness. The cart driver was opposite them, his scrawny arms flailing like a broken windmill as he clambered up the stepped mountain of crates. Where in the pits did he think he was going? The ceiling?

  “Easy now,” she called, reining in her anger. “That’s not the most stable of locations.”

  “To the pits with you!” he screeched and whirled around. Ripka blinked, slow as honey rolling downhill, as the driver grabbed a crate from the pile he was climbing and flung it one-handed straight at her. She skittered away and the cheap wood crashed into dozens of pieces, throwing its delicate cargo high into the air.

  The crate’s bottom broke, spilling weapons onto the liqueur-drenched ground. They gleamed in the flickering light, wicked expanses of steel winking at her out of the dark. She took a half-step back and scanned the mountains of crates all around her once more.

  There were thousands. Did they each carry a deadly gift?

  And how had he managed such a ferocious throw? The crates weren’t big – they barely came up to her knee – but they were laden with thick glass bottles, liqueur, and steel. Too heavy by far to pitch around like toys.

  Another crate burst upon the ground, just before her feet, and she flinched back into reality.

  “Cease this immediately!” she demanded, keeping the man in her line of sight as she skirted the detritus, looking for her crossbow. Where were Banch and the others?

  “Blasted skies he’s strong!” Taellen called out as the man flung yet another crate one-handed without so much as a grunt. The heavy wooden box sailed through the air as if it were as light as a paper airship. Ripka froze, squinted down at the thick puddles, their surfaces pockmarked with tiny bubbles, and realized just why the man found the crates so light.

  “Surrender!” Banch’s voice echoed all around, the heavy tromp of the other five watchers hard on his heels.

  The cart driver’s eyes went wild – mad.

  “He’s sensitive! There’s sel in the booze! ’Ware the crates!” Ripka yelled.

  Too late. The man’s hand shot out toward a pile opposite him, his fist clenched around empty air, and yanked. The crates groaned, shifted, wood cracking as the heavy contents pushed against the friction of being stacked one atop the other.

  Ripka spun around, saw her watchers running her way, faces red with exertion and boots slamming the ground so hard they could scarcely hear the complaint of the wooden heap beside them. It twitched, leaned.

  The face of the cart driver went red, sweat sluicing down his cheeks. Ripka made her decision, and sprinted.

  Her knee complained, her shoulders burned, but still she flung herself at the pyramid the man had climbed and heaved herself upward. He saw her, his expression of intense concentration flickering only a moment as he catalogued this new threat. In that moment he lost his tug on the crates threatening her people. It was enough.

  With a roar of effort she leapt upward and threw one arm out, cudgel raised high, and brought it down in a punishing arc against the side of the sweating cart driver’s head. He slumped, a leaf cut free of its branch, and began to slide down the stacks. Ripka scrambled, gathering the fabric of his coat in one numb fist, and leaned her weight against the mountain, breath coming in sharp gasps.

  “Captain!” Banch called from the ground below, his expression a mix of bewilderment and fear.

  “Get ready to catch this sonuvabitch, because I can’t hold him much longer,” she called back.

  The five scrambled to get into position, and she tossed the cart driver so that he wouldn’t bounce all the way down the sharp corners of the crates. When he was safely in hand, she let herself down with care. By the time her feet touched the ground they had bound the blasted man.

  Taellen offered her an arm of support. She was grateful to take it.

  “The others?” she asked Banch.

  “Our rear guard detained the woman, but the man made it out.” Banch glanced away as he spoke, a flush of embarrassment mingling with the fresh bruise on his cheek.

  “That will have to do.” Ripka ran her hand through her hair, then immediately regretted it as her hair stuck up in a mass of sticky spikes. She sighed. “I need a bath.”

  Banch chuckled and clapped her on the shoulder. “I’ll secure the area, don’t you worry captain.”

  Shrugging off Taellen’s support, she directed the loading of the prisoners into the donkey cart, making sure to offload all the selium-enriched bottles of liqueur just in case the sensitive were to awaken. The last thing she needed was another avalanche of overly sweet booze coming her way.

  Taellen grabbed the reins to the cart and she took up guard in the back with another of the Watch. Her sticky crossbow she kept close to hand, but it was one of the smuggled blades she held, turning it over in the slim light as Taellen drove the donkey back to the station house.

  The metal was smooth, the forging done well enough to keep any pits from marring the surface of the blade. It had been oiled recently, an unctuous film coating her finger as she stroked the length of steel. Ripka sniffed the smear on her finger and frowned when she did not recognize the scent. Where had these weapons come from? And why so many? Importing weapons was not illegal in Ara
nsa, but clearly someone wanted to avoid raising suspicions.

  Someone. Hah. She knew full well who had done this, even if she couldn’t prove it.

  “Captain.” Taellen’s voice drifted back, soft and uncertain.

  “Yes, watcher?”

  “How’d you know?”

  “Know what?”

  “That he was a sensitive… That there was even sel in the liquor.”

  She smiled to herself. “Simple observation. As you commented yourself, the man was unusually strong.”

  The watcher keeping guard alongside her snorted, shifted his weight. Ripka raised her brows at that, but the man didn’t look at her, just kept his gaze tight on the prisoners. As he should. And yet… Something in the stance of his shoulders, in the purse of his lips, set her ill at ease. What was his name, Jetk? She shook her head. The Watch was getting too big – too fragmented.

  “Oh. Thought you might be sensitive yourself,” Taellen said.

  A cold knot formed in Ripka’s belly. “No. Not even a little bit. Don’t forget it.”

  Taellen grunted apology, but Ripka couldn’t shake the serpents of dread worming their way into her thoughts. The last time someone had accused her of being sensitive she hadn’t been able to prove otherwise. It was so obvious to her, the way sensitives worked. Illusions broke down under hard scrutiny, subtle movements gave away attempted mirror manipulations.

  She never could understand how anyone else didn’t see it. But after rumors began to spread through the Brown Wash that she was hiding sensitivity her fights had grown more violent, the crowd’s taunts more pointed. No one had a kind word for the woman they thought was shirking the duty that bound their own loved ones.

  The second night she’d left the ring to find some flea-bitten bastard waiting for her in the alley with a broken bottle and lungful of curses, she’d taken her prize purse and left the Brown Wash behind, joining Faud’s mercenaries on the long caravan to Aransa.

  She clenched her fist on the blade’s grip, watching her knuckles grow so pale the scars didn’t show. In Aransa, she was watch captain, not some cracked-toothed fighter living from purse to purse. She had sway here. Allies. And it was true, anyway – she was no sel-sensitive. They’d believe her.

  Chapter 8

  By the time he returned to the bath their salt brick was halfway gone. Detan eased himself into the hot water and tipped his head back with a hearty sigh.

  “You look right pleased with yourself.”

  “I am right pleased, old chum. This is a lovely establishment Lord Tasay has left us. Shame his line died out, or Thratia wouldn’t be able to muss it all up by angling to get herself elected warden.”

  “Right,” Tibs drawled, “because the rule of heirship has worked out so well for the other landed families and their cities.”

  Detan scowled and scratched the Honding brand seared into the flesh of the back of his neck, deciding to ignore Tibs’s dig.

  “Now,” he scooped up the little bell and gave it a good, bold ring, “where is that New Chum? Somebody drank all our booze and I’ve worked up quite a thirst.”

  The steward came loping down the hallway, a bottle in one hand and a cheese plate in the other. Detan gave Tibs a triumphant grin, but the codger just rolled his eyes. Not a fan of subtlety, his wiry old mechanic.

  “Would sirs care for another drink?”

  “You’re a wonder, New Chum, a wonder!”

  The steward poured out the drams and, while Detan watched, the young man’s nose began to wrinkle. “Do either of you sirs smell something burning?”

  Tibs gave him a glare that could cut glass, but Detan ignored it and leaned forward over the edge of the tub, sniffing the air. “I do! Is that normal?”

  With a face like an undercooked fish, the steward set the bottle and cheese down and scrambled to the end of the walkway. He stuck his head over the edge and peered about while Detan downed a few of the cheese bits. Tibs followed his lead. He’d never been the type to turn down a free plate.

  “There’s something burning on one of the vents!” The steward pointed and Detan dragged his gaze along the man’s finger as if he hadn’t known where he’d be pointing. He let loose with what he hoped was a heart-broken screech and leapt to his feet, sending bath water flying in all directions.

  “My hat!”

  Tibs got the picture then, and lurched to his feet. “My hat!” But his mouth was full of cheese, which rather ruined the effect.

  Regardless, Detan thought they both looked positively dashing as they leapt from the bath and snatched up their towels. With a hasty wrap for modesty, they charged down the perilous steps, the steward nipping at their heels, and spilled out into the dangerous terrain of the venting ground. Detan hesitated, drawing back an anxious step and chewing on his lip.

  “Follow me, sirs, the way is treacherous.”

  The steward strode ahead, and Detan forced himself to check his pace as he scurried along behind. His legs were longer than the young man’s, and he’d scouted the area ahead of time, but being first on the scene would let the sel out of the sack and bring the whole thing crashing down in a hurry.

  When they finally made it to the vent in question, Detan pushed ahead of the steward and grabbed up his hat. Tibs’s hat. Detan was rather fond of the old thing, so he’d left it sitting on the edge just close enough to give it a character-building singe.

  “Someone has burned our clothes!”

  “It must have been a mistake, sirs, I can’t imagine that anyone here would do something like that.”

  Detan floundered a little, but good old Tibs had caught up now and gotten all the gears of his mind grinding away.

  “Whose vent is this?” Tibs demanded.

  “Oh, well…” The steward flicked out the guest list folded in one pocket. Detan grinned, recognizing it from the pad the ticket-taker had written their names on. Perfect.

  New Chum’s face went fishy again. “This would be the vent below the bath of Renold Grandon and his party, sirs. The man with whom you had the small confrontation on the sel bridge.”

  Detan pumped his fists in the air in victory, but he hoped it looked more like anger to the young steward. Either way, it was energetic enough to set the man reeling. “That mounded ass! Come, Tibal, let us go claim our compensation. Quickly, to the cubbies, before that demon can make off with any more of our personals!”

  Allowing the steward to presume he had learned the way from their walk to the vent, Detan shoved the singed hat on his head and charged off through the craggy ground after the culprits.

  The timing was sweet as sel wine. Just as Grandon and his group arrived and began to attire themselves, Detan and his entourage of two burst in upon them.

  “You!” He pointed a quavering finger at the man, making his eyes wild and wide.

  Grandon looked up, yawned, and began toweling off his feet. Detan rather wished he’d left the towel where it was, but he was on a roll now and not about to stop for modesty’s sake.

  “You bulbous, petty thief!”

  That got his attention. The granite-fleshed man secured his towel and crossed his arms under what, Detan was disturbed to realize, were the male equivalent of bosoms.

  “Are you accusing me of something, little man?”

  “You and your foul aficionados stole my and my man’s clothes and tossed them to the vents!” He pointed at the singed edge of his hat. “This dear old thing barely escaped your brutality.”

  Grandon grunted. “If your clothes were burned it was probably because the cleaning staff thought they were rags. You have no proof.”

  “Proof! I have all I need!” He took the hat off and waggled it at Grandon. “No one would be stupid enough to go to the vents without a guide.”

  “A terribly stupid thing to do indeed, sirra.”

  “Yes. As I was saying, no one would brave the danger of the vents alone, and therefore you and your gaggle are the only ones who had access to the thing! A simple task, to tip them over the
edge from your tub.”

  “He does have a point, sir,” the steward said, and Detan jumped a bit because he’d damned near forgotten New Chum was standing right smack beside him.

  “A point? That rat? Do you have any idea who I am?” Grandon hauled himself up to his full height and pinched his face in a way that might have looked hawkish on a narrower man, but in truth just ended up looking constipated.

  “I reckon you’re Renold Grandon.” Detan tapped the guest list poking out of the steward’s breast pocket. “Like the paper says.”

  “You’re blasted straight I am! Got a ten percent ownership in Aransa’s selium mine, and I will not be treated like this by some withered example of wormwood.”

  Detan re-adjusted his slipping towel. He was not about to back down on account of an accurate insult.

  “And do you have any idea who I am, Grandon?”

  “Oh, sirra, I don’t think that’s really nec–”

  He shushed Tibs with a wave of his hand. His heat was up again, something about this fellow just didn’t sit right in Detan’s mind, and some things were worth sticking your neck out over. Things like his own sorry pride.

  “Yes, I do.” Grandon smirked.

  He swallowed. Had he miscalculated? Had he swindled this overinflated sack in the past? Is that why he got his goat up so easily?

  “Oh yes.” Grandon trudged forward and stabbed a finger at Detan’s chest. “I know your type, boy. You spend your time slithering about the downcrust scraping together coin from sap to sap until you’ve got enough in your filthy fist to think you can make it up here with the Right Sort. Well, you’ve pushed the buttons on the wrong man, you swine. I will have you run out on the Black Wash with the morning sun for the mild inconvenience you’ve caused me and mine. You understand? I will see you burn for wasting my time.”

  Detan put his hand out and laid it flat on the big man’s chest. He quirked a smile, saw Grandon’s confusion, and gave him a light shove. Grandon had to either take a step back, or topple.

  He stepped back.