by K L Reinhart
“You’re Thorogood,” Terak said, as he tucked the long white tabard of an Enclave house staff into his black trousers and pulled the green jacket of the Lady’s crew colors over the top.
“Congratulations,” the man grunted, looking at Terak critically. “Tie it up.”
Terak tied the front of the jerkin quickly, earning a critical sound from Thorogood in front of him. “It’ll do for now. What do you want? Who sent you?” Thorogood motioned for them to hurry deeper into the maze between the crates. The sounds of the workers outside lowered slightly.
“Father—” Terak started to say, before correcting himself. “The Chief External sent me,” he said formally.
Thorogood gave another of his curt nods, pacing back and forth anxiously, constantly checking the way they had come.
“Okay. Tell the Chief that there is danger everywhere. We’re compromised, and he is really not going to want to hear this . . .” Thorogood hissed in an urgent voice.
“Hear what?” Terak said immediately. “Come with me. I’ve already told the guards that Adviser Semuel wanted to see you, so you have an excuse to leave the Lady and report to the Chief yourself.” The elf wondered whether Ella would have been proud of his quick thinking.
But his revelation apparently had entirely the opposite effect on Thorogood. The man’s face twisted, appalled. “You did what!? Couldn’t you find any other way of getting on board? How long has the Chief been training you?”
“Um . . .” Terak realized that there was a drawback to being camouflaged with the Acai Juice. This Brother—because that is what Terak had to assume that he was—didn’t recognize Terak as the only elf in the Enclave, and the one who had obtained the Loranthian Scroll.
No time to explain. “Well, I’ve been trained as an acolyte of the Enclave, and I’ve been a novitiate with the Enclave-External for six months now.”
“A novitiate?” Thorogood said, his lidded eyes sparking with rage. “Six months!? First Moon. The Chief must be getting desperate.”
Terak felt his lips pull back in a very elvish, cat-like hiss at this attack on Father Jacques, but he stopped himself. After all—how much do I really know about my mentor, if he sent this man to assassinate a ruler?
“I’m sure the Chief knows what he is doing,” Terak said grimly, although he wished that Jacques would tell him, as well.
Thorogood let out a snort of disgust. “Fine. There’s no time, not now, anyway. Last night the old Lord General was assassinated in his bed: a poisoned blade to the throat,” Thorogood whispered quickly. “And my contacts revealed to me that Adviser Semuel believes it to be Black Hand.” The man’s voice suddenly took on a much more urgent tone. “Tell the Chief that someone used Black Hand on the Lord General!”
“What’s the Black Hand?” Terak looked with worry at the man. Whatever it was, it didn’t sound very nice.
“You don’t know?” Thorogood looked aghast. “It’s a poison. A very rare poison. And only the Enclave are known to have the recipe. The Black Hand is so deadly that we made sure that no other library, alchemist, or herbalist on the face of Midhara held a copy, got it?”
“So only the Enclave could have used the Black Hand to kill the Lord General?” Terak frowned. Maybe Father Jacques had ordered an assassination . . . But Thorogood was shaking Terak’s concerns aside.
“No time for questions, novitiate. We had another man in the Palace, Courtier Menier. I think he knew who used the poison and why. That night he let me know that he had a message, and that he had to get in touch with me urgently . . .” Thorogood’s voice was low and serious. “But someone got to him first. Killed Menier and a Brecha guard with the Black Hand, before killing the Lord General, I think.”
“Courtier Menier, Black Hand,” Terak repeated to make sure he got the names right. He opened his mouth, about to ask for more—
To see that Thorogood was looking at him with a very strange, surprised look on his face.
Terak’s first thought was that the Acai Juice must have worn off, which meant he was probably going to be in big trouble. But then Thorogood made a strangled, coughing sort of sound, and slowly raised his hand to his neck.
“Thorogood!? What is it?” Terak asked.
Thorogood’s coughing quickly turned into a choking wheeze as his eyes rolled back, and he stumbled against the nearest of the crates.
“Tell the Chief . . .” Thorogood gasped the words. “Run!” The man coughed, and his hand fell away from his neck, revealing a small dart, no bigger than a quill that Terak might use for scroll work, embedded between his jaw and shoulder.
Someone had killed his contact! Terak froze before the thought blossomed, If they can do that, then they can easily kill me, too . . .
Terak threw himself to one side, just as there was a crash from above and the wall of crates started to wobble and tilt around him.
6
The Lady of the North
Terak ran in the only direction he could as crates half his size crashed down around him. Unfortunately, he didn’t run back the way that he had come, but instead raced deeper into the stacks.
Luckily, there wasn’t far that he could run on a boat before he found the edge. He skidded to a halt beside stacked crates and barrels, with the gently curving panels of wood rising in front of him.
Okay, all I need to do is follow the wall until I have a clear shot to the lift, the elf was thinking—
Then he remembered that the lift had closed, thumping into place as the deck floor.
First Moon! He swore internally. What was he going to do?
A shadow moved to his right. Terak instinctively stepped backward. There was a figure down there in the shadows, wearing the same sorts of clothes as every other crewmate of the Lady of the North.
If they were the assassin, Terak thought, then they were disguised as he now was. Exactly as any number of the many, many crew members.
“Hoi! Topple in Stack 4!” He could hear shouts coming from behind him, where the makeshift alleyway between the stacks had become a pile of haphazard debris. There was the sound of running feet heading in his direction.
I need to hide, Terak thought. He might be able to pull off being a crewmate of the Lady for a little while—so long as he was passing in the distance—but he was painfully aware that he knew nothing about the kind of work or the mannerisms of an air gallery crewmate. He would be found out soon . . .
He was at a T-junction, formed by the end of the passage against the interior of the hull. If he went right, that would take him toward the other crewmate—or assassin—that appeared to be hiding. Or lying in wait, Terak considered.
“Get that cleared! We need more people over here!” The shouts approached the other side of the collapsed stack.
He would have to turn left, making himself a target for any line-of-sight weapon, such as a dart from the hiding person to his right.
“This is the whole of the Book . . .” Terak remembered. Third Maxim of the Book of Corrections. That there is always one path ahead that is correct, and one that is not.
Terak turned his back to his possible attacker, and turned left—
And up.
Stack number 5 had been solid enough to withstand the collapse of its fellow, and it was up this collection of crates and wooden boxes, secured with lines of rope, that Terak climbed.
Compared to the Cliffs of Mourn, or the practice walls in the Chief Martial’s training halls—this ascent up the secure and tight ropes was easy. Each rope was coarse and thick, providing an easy grip. There was no wind, ice, or hail being flung in his face either—as well as no Chief Martial with a light roan switch, beating the backs of his legs.
Terak quickly spidered his way up several stories of the crates and rolled himself over the edge at the top. He found that the stacks created a sort of aisle, with natural defenses like crenulations from the odd barrel or sack that had been laid on top. He heard a grunt of surprise from below, and the sound of running feet. When Terak dared to
glance between one of the crates, he saw that another crew member was clambering up and over the collapse of Stack 4, and heading straight for him. Was that the man who I saw? Terak wondered. Was that who killed Thorogood?
The fierce, angry part of the elf wanted to stay and fight. To show this human just what a pre-warned and ready member of the Enclave-External could do.
And I still have my blade against my ribs. Terak could feel it’s reassuring weight.
But, as much as he wanted to enact bloody vengeance, his better judgement denied him. He was in the belly of the air galleon of the Lord General. If anyone thought for a moment that he was a member of the Enclave, and that there was blood and fighting on board the Lady, then a battle would break out before dawn.
Dammit! Despite his strong feelings, Terak turned and, staying low, ran across the crates of Stack 5.
It was chaos and confusion below him, as Terak reached the end of the stack where the central avenue and the loading bay lift were, secure and closed beneath him. Below were the running bodies of crew members heading to the scene of the accident, already forming lines to pass crates back from the mess.
I need a way out of here. Terak crouched on the edge for a moment. He was glad that the toppled crates meant that the attention of the air galleon crew members were not focused on him.
Hang on . . . A small part of the elf’s mind caught up with the rest of him.
If Stack 4 had fallen because someone had tried to kill him, then it couldn’t be the crewmate chasing him from the right, who had been too far away.
Terak heard a tiny sound, like the crack of a pebble being thrown. Something hit and shattered on the edge of the crate next to Terak, inches from his unprotected face.
Terak looked down. There on the crate “floor” lay the shattered half of a small, black dart.
“Ixcht!” Terak rolled to one side. There was a scramble and a thump at the far end of Stack 5. His attacker had reached the top, and Terak was sure that it was the man making a beeline for him on his left. The elf hissed at the small man at the other end of this stack, who lowered himself into a crouch and reached for his belt.
Thwack! Another splinter of wood hit the crates beside Terak’s hand, and the elf quickly snatched it away. But it hadn’t come from the crewmate ahead of him, who had drawn from his belt a curving shortsword.
Terak’s trained mind calculated what was going on in a heartbeat. He was surrounded on all fronts by those that would be hostile to him, and at least two were actively trying to kill him. One had a blow dart. The other was coming right for him, running along the top of Stack 5.
If I stay here and fight, I’m one dead elf.
There was only one path left to take.
Terak tensed his legs, took a breath as the sounds of his approaching killer got closer, then pushed out with legs and hands in one stride which took him to the lip of Stack 5.
Then he kicked off from the edge and jumped into the air above the main avenue of the air galleon’s hold.
Sweet Stars! The thought flashed through Terak’s mind as his legs made scissoring motions through nothing but empty air—
Maybe this hadn’t been the right path to take.
“Oof!” But then his hands were slapping against the metal of one of the many winch hooks that hung from the ceiling of the hold, waiting to be attached to ropes.
Terak’s hands slipped for a moment, but then held on the edge of the curving tip as his momentum pulled him forward.
A jolt ran through his arms as the hook started to pull itself out on the short chain that attached it to the winching mechanism above. The winch turned and the loading hook swung out across the avenue in a wide semi-circle.
Terak saw his moment, when his body was almost perpendicular, and the loading hook was almost at the apex of its turn.
The elf let go, tucking his arms and legs tight to himself as he tumbled in a fast-moving ball, hitting the top ledge of one of the stacks on the far side of the avenue, and scraping his arms, knees and back as he skidded across the wood.
Terak hissed in agitation and pain, digging his hands into the wood just as the lower half of his body slid over the edge of the twenty-foot high stacks. But his grip held, and he didn’t drop from the edge. Terak held on, panting and gasping, the shouts and whistles of alarm from the rest of the hold echoing below him
“What’s going on?”
“Who was that!”
“We’re under attack!”
Oh no, the elf thought, finding purchase with his soft shoes. He quickly started to spider-crawl his path down the ropes that secured the crates together. He had bought himself a few moments, and some relative cover from his two attackers, but not much else.
And I still need a way to get off this boat! Terak cursed his luck as he zigzagged through this safer side of the avenue, heading away from the chaos as he could hear booted feet pounding toward it.
Terak didn’t know where he was running to, but he knew he had to get out of there, and fast.
And I have to do it unseen, he whispered to himself. If anyone suspected that either he or Thorogood were members of the Enclave, then Lord General Falan would surely attack the Black Keep.
There was a crash of movement from ahead of him, and Terak pressed himself against the barrels of one wall. Two of the Lady’s crew members to run past him, abandoning whatever task they had been doing before.
Come on, come on, you can do this! The elf repeated to himself, over and over. This was what he had trained for, right? This was what he was good at. For six months or more, the entire Enclave had never suspected that he still existed.
The stacks on this side of the hold became quieter and quieter as more of the work teams abandoned their posts to help those behind. Terak paused, breathed shallowly, and darted from the shadow of one stack to another. He stopped suddenly. The stacks on this side of the room abruptly ended, and here he saw his way out.
Ahead of him was a cleared area of the hold, where a massive metal wheel was attached to chains that fed through metal holding rings as tall as Terak. The chains plunged through specially mounted metal wells in the floor.
That’s got to be one of the land anchor mechanisms! Terak thought. Those chains would shoot down through the bottom of the hull, through wherever they kept the massive anchors loaded, and all the way back down to the Tartaruk Mountains below.
Terak scanned the mechanism but couldn’t see anyone tending to it or watching. He ran across the floor to the metal well in the hold’s floor—
Just as someone leapt out from behind him and kicked him in the back.
7
Alarms
“Urk!” Terak stumbled forward from the heavy blow, his feet skittering over the large metal ring on the floor. He caught himself on the massive steel chain that dropped through it, each link half as big as he was.
For a dizzying moment, Terak held himself leaning against the chain, his legs splayed on either side of the floor ring. He looked down at the torch-lit ground far below.
That was close.
There was movement behind him, and Terak threw himself to one side—back onto the safe decking floor of the hold. Above, a clang and a grunt of pain against the chain.
Turning over on his back, Terak saw that his attacker was the same man who had been chasing him before. Small, burly—a human who was dressed in the same nondescript green service jerkin of the air galleon crew.
But he was no mere loader or handler, was he? Terak saw the way that the man jumped back athletically, flicking the wrist that held a curving blade.
That makes two of us with knives. Terak reached into his jerkin to pull his own Enclave blade at the same time as he scrambled to his feet.
“Call the guards!”
“Someone get the Deck Captain!”
The voices and shouts of the perturbed workers aboard the Lady of the North were loud and clear. Terak hoped that their commotion would hide the sounds of his fight.
“Hyagh!�
�� The man leapt forward, flashing his blade toward Terak’s face.
Always expect your opponent to know more than you, the thought flashed through Terak’s mind. Who had said that? Someone, a long time ago. Such an obvious move meant to the Enclave-trained fighter that it had to be a feint. It wasn’t the man’s real attack.
Terak leapt easily back from the swipe, but his opponent pressed his advantage, kicking out with a booted foot before swinging with his blade once again.
Another easy jump backward avoided all harm. Why was this so easy? The thought hit Terak for a moment. He had thought that he was fighting trained assassins. Someone good enough to blow-dart Thorogood in the middle of a crowded hold or to kill a Lord General in his bed.
Thump. And then Terak realized what the man’s plan of attack was, as soon as his back hit the curved wood of the hull behind his back. The land anchor mechanism had been in the far corner of this forward hold in the Lady. That meant it butted right up against the walls.
There was nowhere else for the elf to go. He was cornered.
His attacker grinned, weaving his blade in wide arcs in front of Terak—making sure that the elf didn’t dart from one side to another.
“Try me!” Anger twisted Terak’s mouth in a hiss of rage.
There was one thing that this man might not know about Terak—or the Enclave, the elf hoped. And that was that it was a regular training exercise for Father Gourdain the Chief Martial to place his acolytes and novitiates in foot locks. This meant that, while Father Gourdain or the senior Brother and Sister’s practice blows rained down, the hapless student could only move their upper body.
It forced agility and creative thinking. Terak had heard the Chief Martial say that on many occasions.
Terak always doubted that—but now he realized he was glad, as he caught the first of the attacker’s blows with his own blade, deflecting it easily, and then turned his wrist across his body to parry the next strike.
