Player's Ruse

by Hilari Bell

  I owed Michael that. I took a deep breath, struggling for calm. The cold helped, but my throat still felt like an iron shackle was clamped around it—my voice would give me away. Well, let it. At this point, it was useless to pretend I hadn’t cared. But Michael was dead now—I had to look out for myself. Jack would believe that. It was what he’d do.

  I would use that blindness. Use it to destroy him.

  The first fury of the storm dwindled from a torrent to a hard, steady fall, but one that men could speak through. And more to the point, see through.

  The man with the spyglass called, “Ship!” and Dawkins turned abruptly.

  “Can you make out her name?”

  “Not at this distance. She’s coming from the west, though.”

  “Then she’s probably the Night Heron. We’ll try for her.” Dawkins stepped forward and took the glass. “You, up the ladder, but wait till you see a man on the other high point before you light it. Markham . . .” He turned to Jack, a thoughtful gleam in his eyes. “Why don’t you light the other signal. I don’t trust a man whose hands are too clean.”

  Jack glanced at me. “No problem, as long as you promise not to . . . make our debate academic, shall we say, in my absence. My employer can make use of this man, and he hates it when people waste things he can use.”

  Dawkins’s lips compressed. “Very well, I won’t kill him till you get back. But hurry.”

  “Jack, don’t,” I murmured as he passed me.

  He stopped, looking down. “Don’t what?”

  “Don’t light the other signal. If they see only one, they won’t know where the harbor is. They won’t come in.”

  Jack shook his head. “You’ve changed, Fisk. Must be that loser you’ve been traveling with. Maybe . . .” He shrugged and went to the horses, riding out at a gallop a few seconds later. He was going to do it. My shoulders sagged. But I had to try. Michael would have haunted me forever if I hadn’t.

  On the other hand, if Jack wrote me off as a loser, I’d be in no position to do anyone any good. And I really wanted to see these bastards hang.

  No, what I really wanted was Michael, alive. But I’d settle for what I could get.

  It didn’t take Jack long to reach the other signal. I couldn’t see him, but the guard who’d scuttled up the ladder with a torch called down that he was there and bent to kindle the logs. Even in the rain, the pitch-soaked logs weren’t hard to light. Soon the fire crackled and leapt—high enough for me to see the flames.

  The minutes crawled past. Through the leaden numbness that filled my heart, a precarious hope began to sprout. Maybe the sailors wouldn’t spot the fires till they were too far past to turn in. Maybe the captain would be too alert, too wary.

  Then Dawkins turned away from the sea, folding the glass with a snap. “They’re coming.” He ignored the others’ hungry cheer and went on crisply. “We’d better get into position. Rogers, take everyone down. I want the boats ready to launch the moment she hits the rocks—take no chances on this one breaking up.”

  The men were already moving down the cliff path, which started at one side of the clearing. No wonder Dawkins had feared Michael might hit it. If only he had. Grief flooded in, but I’d learned the futility of wishing the dead back to life before I met Jack.

  One of my guards followed his comrades, and the man who was gripping my hair called, “What about me?”

  Dawkins, who’d just put on his spectacles, regarded me thoughtfully. “You come over here and keep an eye on the ship.” He passed his man the spyglass and drew his sword. “I’ll watch this one. If he tries to run”—he shrugged—“that ends the debate.”

  Suddenly my head was free. I started to rise, instinctively, but desisted at a gesture of Dawkins’s sword. We both knew that if I ran for it, he could catch me and cut me down, probably before I made it out of the clearing. Unless he was really distracted—by a ship, say, striking the rocks. I settled back, letting my shoulders sag, faking defeat.

  I had to wait, bide my time. But my heart ached, and it was for more than Michael’s loss. I didn’t want that ship to strike the rocks. My all-too-excellent imagination painted the picture clearly. The biting crunch as the hull struck, the lurch of the ship, sending the crew tumbling, injured, disoriented. Easy prey for the wreckers slipping alongside in their slim, dark boats.

  My stomach knotted. I was bound, under guard, and Michael was dead. If there was anything I could do to save them, I didn’t see it. The only thing I could do for the people on that ship was survive to avenge them. And revenge was already foremost in my plans.

  The ship continued to sail in, slowed by the rough seas. My clammy clothes stuck to my skin and I shivered. I lowered my eyes, hoping to lull Dawkins into ignoring me, but two muddy boots appeared in my field of vision and I looked up to meet Dawkins’s gaze. His spectacles were speckled with raindrops, despite the wide brim of his hat.

  “So, Master Fisk, Markham says you’ll come over to us. Not turn us in. Not try to avenge your friend. Is that true? Are you such a spineless bastard you’d trade your friend’s life for your own and a bit of gold?”

  He was bored, curse him. I hate being “entertainment” for a multiple murderer.

  “Why not?” I asked. “You’ve killed dozens of people, some of them your own townsfolk, for a bit of gold.”

  “And here I thought you liked him.” He reached out with the tip of his sword, tracing a line from one eye down my cheek, where a tear would fall. If he cut the skin, I was too numb with cold to feel it, but it was hard not to flinch.

  “He’s dead,” I said. “All the revenge in the world won’t change that. And it puts no food on my plate. Let’s just say I’d listen to an offer.”

  “An—”

  “Coming in, steady as she goes,” the guard called. But he’d lowered the spyglass to watch the little drama Dawkins was playing out, with only occasional glances seaward.

  “An offer?” Dawkins’s sword whispered up the side of my throat, claiming my undivided attention. The sharp edge came to rest under one ear, then bit, just a little.

  I wasn’t as cold as I’d thought. The trickle of blood down my neck felt like fire.

  “If I have ears, of course.” It was hard to keep my voice steady. “It’s difficult to listen to an offer without ears.”

  “You’re interested in my money?”

  “Why not?” I asked again. “You must have a lot of it, by this time.”

  “Ah, but it takes a lot of money,” said Dawkins, “to start your own bank.”

  I choked. “You want to be a banker? That’s what this is about? There are easier . . . Oh. Planning on competing with Burke, are you?”

  “Planning on killing Burke.”

  The sword scraped across my throat, not cutting this time.

  “Then planning on surpassing him, and all the stupid bastards who’ve been pitying me. They pitied my father, too. By the time I’m finished, this town will be bankrupt, and I . . .”

  The sword waltzed slowly downward, a direction I really hated to see it go, past my madly thumping heart, past my quivering belly. My genitals were retracting when it withdrew.

  “. . . I will be a rich banker in Tallowsport. What do you think of that, Master Fisk?”

  “Sounds fine to me.” My voice shook now, despite my best efforts. “But it also sounds like you’ll be needing the services of a good fence for some time. Do you want to anger your friend Markham’s employer over a trivial matter like—”

  Michael’s head appeared over the edge of the cliff. He had a bruise on one cheekbone, and his lips were pressed tight with determination.

  Michael.

  Reality seemed to shiver around me, then shift back into its proper place. The guard was looking at me, his back to the cliff. Dawkins began to laugh. “Oh, well done. The sudden stop, the wide, fixed stare. The oldest trick in the book. Do you really expect me to turn around and give you a chance to run for it?”

  “I rather hope you won�
�t,” I said truthfully, watching Michael stride softly toward the guard, lifting the rock clenched in his fist. My heart was singing.

  The thud of stone striking flesh, the clatter of the guard’s fall, sent Dawkins spinning. I seized the moment to wobble to my feet and stagger away, lest it occur to Dawkins to take me out of the equation before he went for Michael.

  Michael reached down, steel shrieking as he drew the fallen guard’s sword. “Get that fire out, Fisk. The ship’s coming in.”

  “How? There’s a guard up there.”

  But looking up, I saw the guard stepping onto the ladder, coming to add his sword to the fray. However Michael had survived, two-on-one odds are too much for anyone. I tried to ignore the clash of swords behind me as I ran for the ladder and wiggled into the small space behind it.

  I hooked one foot outside the first rung, so as not to bring the thing crashing down on my head, and leaned all my weight against the rung that was level with my shoulders. The wood bit into my flesh and didn’t budge an inch.

  My leverage was rotten with a man’s full weight on the top steps—though he was getting lower far too rapidly. I twisted around, braced my other foot against the hillside, and tried again, and this time the ladder quivered and began to shift. If the descending guard had had any sense, he’d have climbed up again, and the ladder would have fallen back, squashing me in the process. But he tried to come down faster, and the ladder swung slowly out, away from the hill, and then crashed.

  Hopping wildly, I managed not to fall when the lowest rung caught my foot. The guard lay on his back, half under the ladder, one hand wavering toward his head.

  I ran and kicked his temple with my boot heel, hard enough to keep him from rising for a good long time—maybe forever, but I didn’t care.

  Dawkins and Michael were still fighting, the clash and rasp of their swords echoing through the pattering rain. I prayed it couldn’t be heard on the beach below. Dawkins was surprisingly good for a banker’s clerk—I supposed he’d learned from his men over the years. But Michael was holding his own, despite cold, bruises, and an unfamiliar sword.

  The ship was coming in to the rocks, with thirty wreckers waiting for it. If Michael could survive a three-hundred-foot fall, he could look after himself for a few more minutes. I had to put that fire out now.

  The fallen guard’s sword was beneath his body, but the hilt was clear. I knelt, then sat with my back to him, my numb fingers groping for the hilt. I could barely feel it, but finally I succeeded in wrapping my hands around something hard. I pulled, and my grip slipped off.

  A flurry of swords rang out behind me, and Dawkins swore breathlessly. I grinned and tried again. Same result.

  I turned on my knees and bent to look more closely—the leather strap that held the sword in its scabbard was twisted firmly over the hilt. I couldn’t see the end of it, and with numb hands I could be fumbling for hours.

  And that ship would hit the rocks.

  I looked at the rough slope where the ladder had lain, more rock than grass and almost vertical. With my hands bound there was no way to put the ladder back. I started around the tall mound looking for another way up. The clatter of swords quickened my pace, but I didn’t dare look back. If I looked, I might not leave, the ship would sink, and Michael would never forgive me whether he lived or not.

  The mound’s west side was the most gradual, which wasn’t to say it was an easy climb for a man with both hands tied behind his back. A third of the way up my boot skidded on a clump of wet grass and almost pitched me over backward. I leaned in and slithered up the rest of the slope on my belly. It wasn’t as if I could get any wetter.

  I was panting by the time I crawled onto the shelf the wreckers had dug for their fire pit. The fire crackled, big enough to send welcome heat through my damp clothes. I staggered to my feet.

  Michael was still holding his own, but the battle looked more even than I liked. His doublet sagged away from a slash over his stomach, but if that cut had been deep, he’d be dead by now and I saw no blood. They circled like tomcats in an alley.

  I turned and looked out to sea, and my heart sank. I could see the ship, even through the curtains of falling rain. Its masts were bare as winter trees, with only the small front sails unfurled, but it still moved forward, seeking the lying safety of the wreckers’ trap.

  I had to get that fire out now. I dashed to the neat pile of blazing logs, suddenly glad for my soaked clothing. They were large—it took several tries, long enough for my eyebrows to feel scorched, to kick one of the lower logs from under the stack. Half a dozen of the logs on top rolled with it, still burning, making me skip and swear.

  Blessing the stout protection of my boots I started kicking logs down the hillside in whatever direction they were inclined to roll. One hurtled into the duel below and came within inches of knocking Michael off his feet.

  He jumped as the guttering monster lurched past, and Dawkins took advantage of his distraction to launch a sweeping stroke that would have eviscerated him if he hadn’t leapt aside.

  “Sorry,” I shouted.

  A string of breathless curses drifted back. I thought perhaps I’d better hurry, but I didn’t roll any more logs down that side of the mound even though I had to turn several in different directions.

  I gave the last log a final shove. At least my feet were warm. I turned toward the sea, blinking rain out of my eyes.

  The ship was turning. It had probably started shortly after the fire began to sink, for it was half around now—not quite headed away from the treacherous rocks but soon it would be.

  I was smiling, a wide, ridiculous grin. It faded as I turned my attention to the fight below. Dawkins was pushing Michael—only a quick parry and a desperate scramble kept him free of the tangling junipers. But now his back was to the cliff, and thrust by thrust, Dawkins forced him toward it. I’d better get down there.

  Down was faster than up, since I skidded down the slope on my butt, like a toddler on a staircase. I lost control about halfway down and hit the ground so fast, I almost fell flat on my face.

  Instead I turned the momentum into a staggering run, around the hill and behind Dawkins, who had Michael nearly backed over the cliff. One of Michael’s sleeves was stained with red. He was no longer holding his own. In fact, he was about to lose.

  I ran toward the fight. All I had to do was tackle Dawkins from behind—roll under his feet like a log—and Michael could step forward and skewer the bastard. A sound, simple plan.

  Until Dawkins spun like a dancer and lifted his sword, and I realized I was not only weaponless, but had my hands tied behind my back. What in the world was I thinking of?

  My feet scrabbled on the muddy ground as I struggled to reverse direction before that blade fell. I fell instead, rolling, slithering, drawing breath for my final scream—

  Then Michael leapt forward, his sword sweeping in from behind, and Dawkins screamed instead, dropping his blade, blood dripping through the fingers of his left hand as he clutched the wrist Michael had all but severed. Both the sword and the blood fell on me.

  Dawkins took a step to run, but I swung my legs and knocked his feet from under him. He fell to his knees, the tip of Michael’s sword coming to rest against his back.

  “Stay!” Michael was breathing so hard he barely got the word out. But the pressure of his sword tip, which pierced Dawkins’s coat, made the point—so to speak.

  Breathing almost as hard, I rolled to my knees and then stood, still bound, with an exhausted comrade, a prisoner, and thirty wreckers no doubt hurrying up the path to report that their prey had escaped.

  “Now what?”

  Michael, still gasping for breath, glanced at the cliff path and then at his prisoner. “Hanged . . . if I know.”

  “Well, he’s one problem we could solve.” I nodded to Dawkins since I couldn’t point. “If you’d only consider—”

  “No!”

  “He did it to you.” I would have gone on to make an eloquent ar
gument for dropping enemies over cliffs, if not for the sudden rumble I heard behind us. Not thunder, which I’d long since tuned out, but something like—

  Sheriff Todd and twenty deputies galloped over the rise and into the clearing, which grew very crowded, though they left a clear circle around Michael, Dawkins, and me. The horses’ wet coats steamed. I could warm my hands on one of them, if anyone ever untied me.

  Todd swung out of the saddle, practically on top of us. His expression was grimly appreciative, and not at all surprised. How had he found us? And what under two moons was Rudy Foster doing with them?

  Michael stepped back, his sword point dropping—less in the manner of surrendering his prisoner than as if he couldn’t hold it up much longer. He drew the sleeve of his free arm across his sweaty, rain-wet face and grinned.

  “I’m very glad to see you, Sheriff. It seems my plan worked—after a fashion.”

  Chapter 12

  Michael

  Fisk was still sputtering when they let him come to seek shelter under the dense juniper where I crouched. With my soaked doublet cast off, and someone’s nearly dry coat wrapped tight around me, I was nearly warm.

  The man the sheriff set to watch the path had seen half a dozen wreckers start up it shortly after I’d borrowed a dagger and cut Fisk free. The sheriff then asked Fisk to kneel in the clearing with his hands behind him, under the guard of a deputy in Dawkins’s coat and hat. The ambush worked, the wreckers rushing into the clearing without a thought for self-defense, until the deputies swarmed out of the trees and surrounded them.

  Three laid down their swords in surrender, but two fought, one to the death. The last broke free and ran for the cliff, hurtling himself into space as if he might take wing. I covered my ears not to hear him strike the earth, and if that was cowardice, then so be it.

  You might think all this would have distracted Fisk, but the first words from his mouth were “You think this plan succeeded? I hope I’m never around you when one fails, because your idea of success is evidently just short of suicide!”