by Kirby Crow
He knew it was unwise to keep going, but he was unwilling to say he’d had enough. When a counterstrike came dangerously close to Scarlet’s throat, he thought Liall would stop immediately, but Liall was lost in the pleasure of movement and did not see Scarlet's weariness. Liall pressed forward as Scarlet dropped his guard.
The sun was setting, and the reddish haze was reflected off the edge of Liall’s knife into Scarlet’s eyes. For one instant, the sight threw Scarlet back to a time before Lysia was burned, when a bandit Kasiri had held him pinned and helpless in the snow with the point of a dagger at his throat: a dagger that caught the red light and flashed it into his eyes.
Scarlet flinched and backed up too quickly. His boot heel caught a ridge in the deck and he tripped, his rump hit the deck, and the knife fell from his right hand and landed with a muted clang.
Liall froze. “Scarlet?”
Scarlet blinked to clear his vision of phantoms. “I’m sorry, my arm—”
Liall’s face changed. “You are tired. I did not see it.” He took a step forward and bent to pick up the fallen knife as Scarlet got to his feet.
Once on his feet, Scarlet looked away from Liall in embarrassment, ashamed of his weakness. Liall’s brief good mood had evaporated.
“I frightened you,” he said.
Scarlet nodded. He felt like he should apologize, but knew it would be unwelcome. He could only gaze at Liall’s hard, set face in distress.
“Do not... what is it you say? Don’t vex yourself,” Liall said. “It happens to the best of soldiers. You were only remembering. It is nothing.”
Scarlet realized Liall believed he was flashing back to the pirate battle. “I’m sorry.”
“For what? You have done nothing. Shall we return these blades to the captain? The sun will be down soon, and all our warmth gone if we stand here.”
Scarlet gathered up his coat and handed his blunted knives to Liall. “Will I improve, you think?”
“You will,” Liall said with certainty.
“Can we spar again sometime?”
“I think not,” Liall answered curtly, avoiding his eyes.
“Why?”
“Stop chattering,” Liall ordered. “Come.”
Liall lead them back to the captain’s cabin in silence, and Scarlet snuck a look at the hard lines of his profile. I've offended him somehow, he thought, but he could not recall a single thing he had done.
Qixa was not in his cabin. Liall pointed to the aft. “You will return to the cabin. I need to speak with Qixa on another matter.”
Scarlet nodded. “All right.”
“And do not speak to the crew,” Liall warned.
“Wasn't planning on it,” Scarlet said sourly before turning away, and he had the brief satisfaction of seeing Liall's composure crack a little before turning away.
5.
Malice
Liall negotiated his way up the slippery wooden steps to the quarterdeck where Qixa was stationed. The captain was grimly staring at the gray horizon as if he could intimidate it, a brass spyglass clenched in his beefy hands.
Liall's thoughts were as shaky as his feet were steady. Scarlet had tired easily, but he fought well and his mind had been on target, watching Liall’s body and anticipating each move and turn. For Liall’s part, the match had been vastly different. He sparred with Scarlet out of habit, his limbs moving almost automatically. Other thoughts occupied the dark spaces in his brain, the corners he seldom touched, and they all whispered to him of the same fear, the same prayer: Do not let me love this boy.
The argument had been ridiculous. It was the sort of thing one might read in love stories, wherein two tortured lovers clawed and tore at each other’s addled sensibilities on their fumbling parade toward the mating-bed.
I am, Liall supposed, the bridegroom in all this, though I feel more like the fool. What will they make of such an innocent in Rshan? I have told him that the mariners are dangerous, but I have said nothing of what we will face once we make landfall. Is that wisdom on my part, or merely cowardice?
Then Scarlet had tripped and fallen backwards and the point of Liall's blade had been suddenly close to Scarlet’s throat, and for one instant, madness ruled Liall’s soul. He thought it would be wise to kill the Hilurin now, before they came to Rshan, and before any more damage could be done to either of them.
They will tear him apart, he had thought in a kind of near-panic as Scarlet looked up at him from the deck. And through him, you. Save yourself. Save him.
His focus had narrowed down to the sight of his hand clenched around the hilt of the sparring blade. Move, he commanded it. It would not, and he comprehended with dull resignation that it was already far too late.
He had dropped his stance, helped Scarlet to stand and apologized to him, and then sent him off to the cabin with a muttered excuse about finding Qixa.
As Liall approached, Qixa fitted a long spyglass to his eye and stared south, his lips peeled back from his teeth as if snarling at the waves.
“Something amiss?”
Qixa lowered the glass and handed it to Liall. “See for yourself.”
Liall gazed through the lens for several moments. There was little to see. A misty fog hovered over the wave caps and limited their visibility to about three hundred feet. It had been the same yesterday. “Nothing,” he said, offering the instrument back. He watched Qixa wrap his hands around the smooth brass barrel of the spyglass. “Your nose tells you otherwise?”Qixa nodded shortly. “Aye.”
He said nothing more, and Liall knew without needing to be told that he had offered a mariner’s instinct: there was danger ahead that Qixa could not see, but only sensed. Liall had been warned.
He bowed respectfully to Qixa, equal to equal, and left the quarterdeck, the sparring blades still in his hands. He had forgotten about returning them.
Once Liall was out of sight, Scarlet slowed and moved more carefully across the deck, which was still patchy with ice. He crossed a short expanse with delicate steps, mindful of losing his balance, then continued with more confidence. The main deck had gathered more ice while he was away, and just before he reached the cabin, he slipped and his back hit the deck, hard.
All the breath was driven out of his lungs, and he barely felt the wind tear his coat from his fingers. The coat rose up briefly and twisted before his eyes like a red bird before fluttering away toward the bow. Above him, the gray sky whirled like a pinwheel and a few brilliant spots of light danced before his eyes. I will not pass out, he told himself sternly, and forced his lungs to work, to inhale.
He heard a man's laughter nearby, but could not summon the dignity to care. Resigned to being mocked, he rolled over and tried to clamber upright, his boots sliding on ice. Suddenly, two big hands pulled him to his feet and drove his arms against his middle.
Scarlet craned his neck to see who held him and glimpsed that it was Oleksei, who had often cast lustful glances at Liall. It surprised him very much that this one should help him, but only for a moment, until Oleksei clamped a hand over his mouth and another arm over his chest. Even then, Scarlet did not begin to truly fight until Oleksei began to haul him away from the cabin. It was shock that held him back, and then fear slipped into his veins and gave him strength. Later, he would pride himself that he blackened both the mariner’s eyes by slamming his head back hard enough to feel the man's nose crunch against the back of his skull.
Oleksei’s fist hit him on the back of his neck and Scarlet went down, the world graying out around him. Dimly, he watched as Oleksei kicked open a nearby lower hatchway, then everything was spinning air and darkness as he was hauled over and dropped into the hold. He landed hard and only managed to scramble to his knees before his arms were seized. Someone grabbed him again from behind, clamped a hard, filthy hand over his mouth and bent him face first over one of the wide water barrels.
Though biting was not honorable, Scarlet turned his head and bit hard into the thumb pressed against his mouth. Warm blood bro
ke over his teeth and flowed over his tongue, and the mariner roared and jerked his hand away. A hammer-like blow to the back of his head made his ears ring and his vision turn dark and smoky, and he slumped over the barrel in a daze.
Too stunned to shout for help or even to move, he moaned as blows rained down on his back and shoulders, and it began to dawn on him that this was more than simple lust. This was spite.
Fear roused him enough to stir, for he sensed murder in the air, and then there were two bodies holding him while someone’s hands fought to tear his breeches down. Panic gave him a last burst of strength and he broke free once and kicked backward, hearing a man grunt in pain. A hand pressed down on the back of Scarlet's neck, fingers hard as stone, and ground his face against the rough, splintered wood. Heavy boots kicked at his calves, pushing his legs wider apart, and a mariner’s hands—probably Oleksei’s—worked the laces of his breeches loose, jerking and tearing. Cold air rushed over his bare skin, and there was a rough whisper in his ear, the silken brush of long golden strands against his cheek.
“Lenilyn whore,” Oleksei hissed. His fingers pressed between the cheeks of Scarlet’s rump, probing crudely.
Pinned down, Scarlet whimpered and considered begging, as he had once considered begging Cadan for his life. Then, as now, he knew that it would be useless.
Then Oleksei’s weight was suddenly lifted off him. There was a loud crash and a rising chorus of shouts. Scarlet did not hesitate, but tore his wrists out of the mariner’s grasp and fell to the floor on the other side of the barrel.
Liall stood under the hatchway, the dying sunlight turning his white hair to red gold. He held the sparring blade and he was raging at the mariners in his native tongue. The point of his blade, sharp enough to puncture though all the edges were blunted, was pressed to Oleksei’s throat.
Scarlet groped to his feet, shaking and holding his breeches up with one hand.
Liall’s pale blue eyes snapped to him. “Move.”
Scarlet braced himself against the crate and limped over to stand behind Liall. Liall’s voice was cold with rage. “What say you, Scarlet? Does he die?”
“No,” Scarlet croaked, and licked his lips. He tasted blood and touched his lower lip to find it swollen and split.
Another figure dropped into the hold. Scarlet tensed when he saw it was the quartermaster, but the man took up stance beside Liall, holding a short dueling knife out toward the mariners. The quartermaster regarded his men with displeasure and barked orders in Sinha.
Liall glanced at Scarlet briefly. “No?”
“No,” he repeated, conscious of the quartermaster’s eyes on him. “I’m alive. I don’t want any more deaths on my conscience.”
That got him a curious look from the quartermaster, and Scarlet realized that the man did, indeed, speak Bizye.
“I think it a mistake,” Liall said, his eyes on Oleksei, “to let this man live. If he crosses me again, I will surely kill him.” He looked at the quartermaster. “You will deal with this,” he commanded.
The quartermaster nodded shortly and beckoned to Scarlet to follow him. When Scarlet did not move, Liall grabbed his arm and pulled him aside to let another mariner jump down into the hold. Liall handed the second mariner his blade and knelt to give Scarlet a lift up.
“I can do it myself—” Scarlet began.
“You cannot,” Liall snapped. “Do as I say.”
He put his boot in Liall's hand and Liall boosted him high enough to grip the edge of the hatch. To his surprise, Qixa himself was there. The captain reached down to haul him up to the deck.
Scarlet peered down into the hatch, waiting for Liall to follow, but Qixa shook his head. “He will come soon,” the captain said gruffly in passable Bizye, taking Scarlet's arm.
“My thanks,” Scarlet said, trying to step back from him. Qixa’s iron grip held him fast. “I can walk on my own.” He felt warmth sliding down his neck and realized his face was bleeding heavily.
Qixa eyed him for a moment before letting go, but walked behind him until they reached the cabin. The wind had turned bitterly cold and the red light of the sunset seemed to mock Scarlet's every halting step. He wanted to rage at someone or something, to lash out and strike, but there was no target for his fury. The only person Scarlet wanted to attack was Oleksei, and he was no match for the mariner. That had already been proven.
Qixa opened the cabin door for him, and Scarlet slipped inside. He closed it in Qixa's face and leaned his back against it for a moment, then limped over to huddle on the bed. Tremors wracked his body and he was aware of the steady drip of blood onto the floor. He was still shaking when Liall arrived with a basin of water and a clean cloth, his mouth drawn down into a hard sketch of anger. A bared, razor-sharp long-knife was in his other hand.
Liall put the basin on the floor and sat down next to him very carefully. He had to clear his throat before speaking. “How badly are you hurt?”
“Not very.” Scarlet’s hands were still clutching his middle, holding together the closure of his breeches.
Liall made to put his hand there. “Let me—”
“No!” Scarlet jerked away from him. “They did not.”
“No?” Liall sagged in relief. “I thought... if I had been only a little later.”
“They did not,” Scarlet repeated. “It didn’t happen. It’s over, just like...”
Liall put his arm around him with great care. “Just like?”
“Cadan,” Scarlet said simply.
Liall’s head bowed. He closed his eyes tightly and uttered a curse. “I am overjoyed that you killed him. I hope it was painful and very slow.”
“I remembered your dagger in my boot when they were holding me down,” Scarlet went on, still stunned, his words slow and halting. “The others... I think it frightened them, all the blood. They were not expecting that any of them would die that day, and so I escaped that time, too.”
Liall made a noise of disgust. Scarlet despaired suddenly as all the terror and pain seemed to catch up with him at once. “Is the whole world like this, Liall?” he asked plaintively. A drop of blood splashed on the back of his hand. He wiped his face and then stared at the swath of bright red painted across his skin. The splintered wood of the water barrel had caught and cleanly torn the skin over his right cheekbone, leaving him with a long wound just under his eye.
Liall reached for the basin and knelt on the floor in front of Scarlet. He carefully cleaned the cut with a wet cloth while on his knees before the pedlar. It was deep.
There were hard lines of fury around Liall’s mouth. “Oleksei has scarred you,” he said lowly. “I will cut off his hands for it.”
Scarlet shook his head. “No.”
“No? Why should I spare that pig?”
“Because,” Scarlet said tiredly, “it’s not justice to demand death for insult, a pair of hands for a cut on my pretty face. That’s revenge.”
“Do you not deserve revenge?”
Scarlet hesitated. “Maybe. But I don’t want it. Not that way.”
Liall gritted his teeth. “But why?”
“Deva wouldn’t approve. And besides, it’s not honorable. I shouldn’t send another man to do what I can’t do myself.”
“I do not share your sense of honor. You know this.”
“That’s why you were so mad at me that last day, when you cut the dress off me.”
Liall froze at the mention of that dawn in the Kasiri camp when he and Scarlet had come to blows.
It was the culmination of a struggle that began between them when Liall had demanded a kiss in payment for the toll and Scarlet had refused. After several other tricks had failed, Scarlet had dressed in his mother’s clothes and tried to sneak by the Wolf. Liall had not been fooled, and had laughingly cut the costume from the pedlar’s body, scalding Scarlet’s pride and leading him to call Liall a rapist and a probable murderer. Liall had reacted so badly that Scarlet had feared he would die.
“I was no better, I admit i
t. I frightened you and tried to break your pride,” Liall said, his mouth twisting as if he would spit. His hands were gentle as a woman’s. “It was not the battle you were remembering on the deck today. It was me.”
“Liall—”
“No, I know. I was cruel to you when we first met. I was.” Liall took a deep, controlled breath. “No more talk. We must see to your injuries.”
Scarlet’s teeth were chattering. “How did you find me?”
“I found your coat on the deck,” Liall explained. “You would never have just left it there. Not you. You’re too neat and you hate the cold too much. I knew you had to be in trouble.” He clucked his tongue in distress and dropped the bloodied cloth into the basin. “There’s so much blood on your clothes. Let me clean you up and get you warm, t’aishka.”
Scarlet did not have the strength to argue. T’aishka. The word sounded exotic, but pleasing. He tried to pronounce it and failed, and saw the flicker in Liall’s eyes at his rude attempt at the word. “What does that word mean?”
Liall did not smile, but his gaze was strange and powerful. “I will tell you some day when... when you are as certain as I am. I am certain now, and that is enough for me to say it.”
Crouching, he rinsed the cloth in the bloody basin and carefully began to wash the rest of Scarlet's face, his expression stony. Scarlet noticed Liall’s hands had a noticeable tremor.
“I’m not hurt bad,” Scarlet said, touched.
“I know, but I am angry. You must allow me that. You were angry in Volkovoi, no?”
He had been, and had wanted to kill the bravo on the edge of his blade. Liall nodded and he cleaned more of Scarlet's face and throat, then helped him out of the shirt and fetched a clean blanket from the cedar chest.
Liall then made him raise his arms and take several deep breaths. “No pain when you breathe in? Good. Your chest is only bruised, then,” he pronounced. “They look nearly as bad, I do assure you. Oleksei will lose his thumb, most likely: it is bitten almost clean through. You did very well, Scarlet.”
