by Kris A Hiatt
“It’s not exactly a prime swimming spot with the rocks and all,” Moffred pointed out.
“It was all I could come up with. It worked so shut up,” Kiril told Moffred.
“I can’t believe he bought it,” Treace said.
“I gave him a kaden, and I may have used my charms,” Kiril admitted.
“Ample ones at that,” Moffred observed.
Treace could see Moff’s lewd wink even in the meager light. If she had given the man a kaden, he wondered how much Brental had put in that coin purse.
“I hope he brings you a dress,” Kiril told Moff.
“Me too,” Treace agreed.
“You can’t blame the man for buying the story,” Moffred said ignoring their remarks. “It’s probably the most excitement he’s had in months. He’ll be telling that story for years to come. The night he found three ladies swimming nude at the docks.”
“I’m sure,” Kiril said half-heartedly.
“No, you don’t get it,” Moff protested. “It’s perfect. Even if he later hears that two men and a woman escaped, he’s already made up his mind that there were three beautiful, naked women that he helped get clothing for. He’ll never think it was us.”
“Is that all it takes to make you men lose the ability to think?” Kiril asked testily. “Just a pretty face and a pair of breasts?”
“Yes,” Moffred admitted. “It is.”
“Stupid,” Kiril said, nearly to the point of disgust.
“We are,” Moffred agreed.
Treace disagreed. At least to some degree. “I think he’ll figure it out later, but he won’t admit it. A guard fooled by a bosom isn’t going to be in the good graces of his captain. I’d wager his story changes and that he saw three women in the water, not just one. At least that’s what it will be when he finds out he most likely helped us escape.”
“At least all men aren’t idiots,” Kiril said, relief clear in her voice.
“No, he’s still an idiot,” Moffred replied, obviously speaking of Treace. “Just in a different way.”
“Here he comes,” Treace said, ignoring them and pointing to the man even though it was clear that Moffred could easily see for himself and Kiril couldn’t see him point from her spot under the dock.
“Get in the water. Quietly. And then shut up,” Kiril told them.
Treace did as he was commanded and slid off of the dock and into the water.
Moffred splashed in next to him and grabbed ahold of his shoulders. Treace barely reached the dock post before he was pulled under the water. For a minute there, he had forgotten that Moffred couldn’t swim.
“Here you go ladies,” the guard called out, swinging his torch to and fro.
Treace could see the man’s smile through the deck boards. He was clearly swinging the torch back and forth trying to get a look at the ‘ladies’ in the water. Treace swung around the post, trying to put it between him and the speaker so he wouldn’t be seen.
“Thank you,” Kiril said sweetly. “We’ve got it from here.”
“Sorry, but they’re men’s clothes. It’s all I could find. I’ll just put them on the dock here,” the guard told her. “If you need me, I’ll be at the front of the dock. I could walk you home if you wanted.”
“I bet he would tell her he loved her,” Moffred whispered in his ear.
“No, we wouldn’t think of taking up more of your time, but that’s very sweet of you,” Kiril said in her overly-kind voice again.
“Oh, okay,” the man replied, obviously down at not being taken up on his offer to walk her home. “Just be safe and remember to keep your clothes on dry land next time you go skinny dipping.”
“We will,” Kiril assured him. “Goodbye.”
“Bye,” the man said before scratching his head and walking away.
“Help me up,” Moff told Treace.
“Wait,” Kiril instructed. “Let me go first. And turn around, you’ve seen me naked too many times already.”
“Alright, go ahead,” Treace told her as he turned around. He couldn’t be certain, but from the way Moffred was pulling on his neck, he thought his friend was trying to get another look.
Treace dropped himself in the water, keeping one hand on the dock pole to keep him under. It was slick, but he managed. He wondered if Moffred was going to let go and try to swim on his own, but his friend hung on.
After several seconds, Moffred began slapping Treace’s chest. He guessed his friend had run out of air.
He pushed off of the pole and swam to the surface. He immediately heard Moffred choking out water and taking in big gasps of air.
“I guess I deserved that,” Moffred sputtered after a few seconds. “Though it’s too dark to see anything anyway.”
“Come on up,” Kiril instructed a moment later.
Treace helped Moffred up onto the dock.
When Moffred’s face and extended arm came back over the edge a few seconds later, he was grateful. His body was tired and didn’t know if he could make it up on his own.
“I won’t peek,” Kiril said in accusing tones, turning around.
“Your loss,” Moffred told her.
“You should have let him drown,” Kiril said, speaking to Treace.
“I can still push him in,” Treace offered, pulling off his pants.
“No, I wouldn’t want that,” Kiril remarked.
“See, I knew you cared about me,” Moffred chimed in.
“I wouldn’t want to feel like I wasted money on those clothes,” Kiril said, snickering.
“You two are perfect for each other,” Moffred told them.
Treace didn’t bother to reply and was encouraged when Kiril didn’t rebuke Moff’s statement.
Treace heard the sound of tearing fabric in front of him. A few moments later he heard it again. “What are you doing?” he asked Kiril.
“The pants are too big. I’m making a belt.”
Treace pulled on his pants and quickly realized that he’d need to do the same thing. The pants would fall to his ankles if he didn’t hold them up. “I need one too.”
“Tear off your sleeves,” Kiril told him. “And tie them together.”
“Mine fit just fine,” Moffred mentioned.
Treace picked up his shirt and did as Kiril instructed him to do. Once done, he tied the makeshift belt around his waist, cinching it tight over the loose pants. “I’m good now.”
“I wish he’d just move,” Kiril said, motioning to the man at the front of the docks.
“He wants to walk you home,” Moffred stated.
“The sun will be up soon,” Treace pointed out, noticing the hint of orange on the horizon. It was still too dark to see the man without his torch, but soon that wouldn’t be the case. In fact, Treace could already see Kiril several feet in front of him.
“We’ll be in the open then,” Moffred cautioned.
“Not before the fishermen come,” Treace said. He knew fishermen were always out before the sun came up. They were always ready to get a full day’s catch and some of the best fishing was at dawn. At least that’s the way it was on Coldwater Lake.
“We don’t need a fisherman,” Kiril argued. “We need a cargo ship.”
“How much money do you have left?” Treace asked her.
“Three kadens, why?”
“A fisherman will work just fine,” Treace assured her, thinking of the fishing ships that were converted to ferries during his initial trip to Kilindric. All they had to do was pay the man more than he’d get for his fish during the time he was away. And the man wouldn’t have to do anything other than sail. Easy money compared to the rigors of fishing.
“How did you know?” Moffred asked with awe as people started appearing on the docks.
“They’re fishermen,” Treace explained. It made him think of Red then, and of how the man’s response of ‘I’m a bartender’ seemed to be enough of an answer for any question.
It wasn’t long before a few men began walking down the dock
they were on. Treace figured it was a captain and two crewmen.
“How are we going to convince fishermen to take us all the way to Haven?” Kiril asked.
“For three kadens, he will.”
“I spend three kadens at a single bar,” Moff mentioned doubtfully.
“That’s because you’re a spoiled nobleman,” Treace shot back. “Three kadens would feed this man and his family for months. We’ll get to Haven, if not, Kilindric for certain.”
Moffred didn’t reply.
“They are getting closer,” Kiril pointed out. “Do you have a plan?”
“I do, actually,” Treace said, thinking of Moff being a spoiled nobleman. “Give me the coin purse.”
She looked at him doubtfully, but handed it over.
“Look hungover, dejected, and tired,” he instructed them.
“Shouldn’t be hard,” Moff said dejectedly.
“Perfect,” Treace told him. “Now follow me.”
Treace walked the twenty or so paces to the fishermen, who were just starting to make their ship ready to sail. “Good morning captain,” he hailed, waiting to see which one spoke up.
“Morning,” one man said, not stopping what it was he was doing.
“I was hoping to make a deal with you this morning.”
“What kind of deal?” the man asked with no curiosity in his voice.
“One that will pay you more than what you’d make fishing for the next week.”
That made the captain, and his men, stop what they were doing and look up.
The captain grabbed his torch and walked over to the edge of the ship, holding it high so he could see them clearly. “Is that so?”
“I need to get these two idiots back to Haven,” Treace told him. He wanted to see what the man’s reaction was to his intended destination. With the strangled trade, he wondered if the man would risk the trip or not.
“Is that so?” the man asked again.
If he was bothered by the destination, he didn’t show it. “This asshole of a noblemen’s son decided to take his girlfriend on a joyride to see Kadenton before the ports were closed to foreigners,” Treace said, again pausing to see the man’s reaction.
The captain spat on the deck in Moff’s direction and gave him a hard look. His men went back about their business.
“Her father hired me to find them. Now I have and now I’d like to get back home. It seems they’ve been on a drunk for nearly two weeks. Frankly, I don’t know how they’re standing upright.”
“Uh, huh,” the man replied, seemingly unconvinced.
“Don’t let the clothes fool you. That one,” he said, turning his head and pushing his chin in Moffred’s direction. “Vomited all over us. All three of us. This was the best I could find at such late an hour.”
“You said something about making money?” the captain asked.
Moffred belched mightily beside him.
“Excuse me,” Moffred said in feigned drunkenness.
“I’ll give you a kaden to take us to Haven,” Treace told the man.
That caused his eyes to widen briefly and his men to stop working again.
“Make it two,” the captain told him.
“We both know one is more than fair. You’d likely make a quarter of that from fishing for that same amount of time. This way you don’t even have to cast out your nets, toil to get them back in, or clean the fish. All you need to do is sail.”
“Yeah, so?” the man asked. “If he’s a nobleman, what’s one more kaden to him?”
“What indeed,” Treace admitted, giving Moffred a sideways glance.
“So two then?” the captain asked, appearing to be nonchalant.
The man was a decent negotiator, but Treace clearly heard the interest in the man’s voice. He’d probably do it for one, but two would easily seal the deal. “Two it is,” Treace told him.
“Then climb aboard,” the captain said, giving Kiril a hand and a long look.
Treace noticed that look and had anticipated it. While Kiril and Moffred stumbled aboard—they were pretty decent actors—Treace remained on the dock.
“You coming?” the captain asked.
“A word, sir?” Treace asked, jutting his chin to the dock next to him.
The older man shrugged and stepped off his fishing boat.
“Here’s three kadens,” Treace told him, handing him the coins. “See that nothing happens to the girl. I’m a man of honor and I promised her father no harm would come to her.”
The man nodded and took the coins.
“Any of you assholes touches the girl,” he called out. “And you’ll be swimming home.”
The men didn’t seem overly bothered by the proclamation, but Treace figured it didn’t hurt for it to be said.
“Good enough?” the captain asked.
“Yes, thank you.”
“Snail!” the captain called out, stepping back aboard his ship.
“Yeah cap’n,” one of the two men said, coming to stand before the man.
“Two weeks of food and drink for four,” he told the man, handing him several coins.
The sun hadn’t crested the horizon yet, but the darkness was receding. Treace could see that the coins the captain handed the man weren’t golden kadens, but instead were silver onner. The man said to get rations for four, but there were six of them in total.
Snail nodded his understanding and ran down the dock. The man was fast and it made Treace wonder where he got his nickname.
“I don’t mean to tell you your business,” Treace offered. “But there are six of us good captain, not four.”
“Only on the way there,” the man said without looking at him.
Treace understood his rationale then. Six people for the trip there, three people for the trip back. The man wasn’t short with the supplies at all. He nodded his head even though the captain wasn’t looking to see it.
He climbed aboard the ship.
“Something’s going on up there,” the captain observed a short while later.
Treace followed his gaze and his heart skipped a beat. There were torches all over the palace walls, moving all along what Treace thought were its walls. He knew their escape was now known. It wouldn’t be long before guards were dispatched to the docks. “Probably some idiot nobleman drank himself to death,” Treace offered.
“We could only be so lucky,” the man said, giving Moffred a quick glance.
Moffred looked like he wanted to rebuke that statement, but Treace shot him a baleful look that made him snap his mouth shut.
“Bout time,” the captain said.
Again, Treace followed his gaze and spotted Snail pulling a cart of goods behind him on a small wagon. Treace was mildly relieved, but he wouldn’t relax until Kadenton was fully out of sight.
“Let me help you,” Treace offered once Snail arrived at the ship.
“Mighty kind, but Snail’s quite good at it,” the captain said, stopping him.
A short time later they set sail and Treace watched as the people on the docks got smaller and smaller. He thought he saw some guards on the docks before they were out of sight, but he couldn’t be sure. He was just glad to be out of that place.
He watched Kadenton become nothing more than another dot in the distance and that was just fine with him. He closed his eyes, took a deep breath, and exhaled deeply.
It felt good to be free.
Chapter 26
Brental looked out over the docks as the first few ships sailed off into the morning light. He hoped Jons’s ship was among them. If so, that meant the man had found Treace and they were safely out of Shamir’s grasp. Not because he cared for Treace, but simply because Drokier didn’t deserve to be known as the man that killed The Wolf. Especially when it wasn’t even a fair match. That would elevate Drokier’s station higher than Disdane’s. And Brental couldn’t have that. It was better to blame Raythien for Treace’s escape and prevent Drokier from having his time in the light. He didn’t save Treace’s
life because he cared for him, he did it because it was the best option to secure his, and Disdane’s, spot in Shamir’s pecking order. He wanted that spot to be as high as possible after Shamir was named the one true ruler of the world.
He originally thought about having Jons kill them at sea, but it seemed a better idea for Disdane to meet Treace on the battlefield. With Treace and the rest of Liernin’s army destroyed, Shamir would take over Haven. Once they were in control of the city, his spot as the King’s advisor would be secure. Their victory was already all but assured.
After that, who knows, the King may tragically die. They would honor him and bury him of course, but after that, they’d need to find a new King. In Brental’s mind, who better than the man that lead the army in their decisive victory? Not only that, but he was the one who had killed The Wolf. While Disdane had surprised him with his intelligence, Brental still considered him nothing more than his puppet. And as the puppet master, he’d be the real King. And he wouldn’t even have to deal with all the annoyances that went along with it. He could simply lead from the shadows. He reminded himself that they first needed to take Haven. After that he could plot against Shamir.
The thought of it made him smile.
“Sir!” a guard said, bursting through his door and startling him. “The prisoners have escaped.”
“How? Has the search began?” Brental asked after the initial shock or being surprised went away.
“We aren’t certain yet, sir. But it seems as if they’ve killed dozens of men during their escape.”
That was a lie. Disdane had killed fourteen men and Treace had killed one. Fifteen in total, barely a few hours ago, and already the story had it at dozens. He thought by the end of the day the story would have it over fifty men. “And you’re sure it was them?” Brental asked sternly.
“Certain of it,” the man said with confidence.
“Well stop standing there like an idiot and find them!” Brental yelled in mock anger.
Once the man was out of the room, Brental went back to his window and smiled yet again. Today was going to be a wonderful day. He knew he’d need to remind himself not to smile. He thought that might prove to be a difficult task.
