Blays stuck out his hand. "Deal. And let's never tell them that we had this discussion."
Dante moved to the middle of the room. "The Sword of the South is gone, but we've still got a chance to find it. Does anyone here have anything that was once owned by one of the members who's been indentured? A personal effect of some kind?"
The men glanced between each other. After a moment of silence, a man rooted through his pockets and produced a folding razor. "This one was Frazer's. I won it playing Pig."
"Exactly the sort of thing I'm looking for." Dante accepted the razor with a smile. If he had any piece of a person's body, he could follow the nether within that portion to the nether inside the rest of them. He found no blood along the razor's edge, however, and when he sank into the few shadows clinging to the metal, he felt no resonance within them. He handed back the razor. "Anything else?"
A sailor handed over a comb that appeared to be made from the spine of a fish, with its ribs serving as the teeth. Hairs snarled the ribs, but when Dante touched the nether within the strands, the pressure that formed in his head pointed straight to the man who'd given him the comb. Someone gave him a coin stamped with the face of a foreign king—a good luck charm given to him months earlier—but this turned up nothing. Neither did the half dozen other trinkets the crew scrounged from their pockets.
That ran them out of objects. Dante sighed and let the nether slip away. "They're lost then."
"Well," Blays said. "Shall we move on? What's next? A little land-piracy?"
"Hold up." A sailor who was little more than a boy shuffled forward, cradling one of the bone flutes they carved at the islands. "This was Kerrick's."
Jona snorted. "So you're the one who stole his flute? He didn't shut up about that for three months!"
"Only used it once. Felt too guilty. But if I'd given it back, he'd have known I was a thief. Thought about pitching it overboard, but I couldn't bear the idea. He treasured the stupid thing like it was his own son."
"That's because it was given to him after he saved an island child from drowning!"
The boy blinked back tears. "If he hadn't made such a big deal about it, maybe I wouldn't have taken it."
"Let me see." Dante took the flute. There was nothing out of place on its outside, but a thin sheen of nether clung to its interior, perhaps where Kerrick's spit had dried. Faint pressure bloomed in Dante's skull. Slowly, he turned in a circle. As he came to face south, the force increased. He grinned. "You may be a thief, but Kerrick will have to thank you for it. Because you've saved him from years of servitude."
* * *
The eastern clouds glowed gray in the coming morning. A light mist sifted from the river. This wasn't thick enough to provide any meaningful cover, so rather than advancing in a single suspicious cluster of seventeen men, they moved down the esplanade in groups of two to four. The morning's first shifts were already on the move, but the longshoremen trudging toward the docks were too bleary-eyed to pay the small groups any mind.
They stopped two blocks from the Mallish royal vessel. It was a trim-looking caravel, its two masts sporting tall triangular sails. A nice bit of luck. Dante was no grizzled mariner, but she looked plenty fast. Assuming the crew knew how to rig it, he had no doubt they could overtake the Sword of the South.
Around him, the men looked eager to try. When Blays had voiced his plan to them, and Dante explained that he could track the missing ship, they'd agreed without a single complaint. This despite having been up all night and suffering the shock of losing the South in the first place. Now, they were on their way to the first of two hijackings. Dante would have expected some of the men to have quietly slipped away, yet not a single one had abandoned the others. Twill's loyalty and respect were paying off beyond the grave.
Dante had already reconnoitered the crown vessel with a dead rat and discovered the sailors sleeping belowdecks were chained to their bunks. They too were indentured or enslaved. This was strange (was Mallon really that hard up for workers?), and not so lucky for the sailors themselves, but it would make Dante's job a little easier.
"Don't get all heroic in there," Dante told Blays. "If things take a turn toward chaos, jump right back over the side."
"Abandon you to your fate. Got it." Blays finished stripping down to his smallclothes, his swords strapped to his back. "See you in a minute."
He strolled down the muddy banks and waded into the water. As Dante kept watch on the ship's deck, Blays swam alongside the dock, approaching the boat in perfect silence. As he neared the hull, he vanished.
Dante nodded to Naran, then walked alone down the dock. A gangplank ran up to the ship. Earlier, a pair of soldiers had stood around it, but it was presently vacant. He crossed the gangplank and descended to the deck. Seeing no one, he cleared his throat.
A man wearing a blue cap and a sword appeared from the crates stacked around the aft cabin. "Stop right there. Who are you?"
"My name is Holton," Dante said, "and I was sent here by Gladdic."
The anger fled the man's face. "Gladdic? What's this about?"
"Yesterday's execution. I need to speak individually with your troops."
"But none of us were there, sir."
"Then my interviews will be blessedly short. If Gladdic learns I didn't conduct them, however, then the only thing shorter than our chats will be my life."
Two more blue-capped troopers exited the cabin to stand behind the first man, who narrowed his eyes. "May I see your writ, then?"
Dante scoffed. "Why else would I be here at this unholy hour?"
"I'll need a writ, sir. Or I'll need you off this ship. Sir."
"There's no need for this. Get your people up here and I'll be out of your way in five minutes."
"I said move." The man reached for his sword.
Blays materialized behind him and drew the man's blade, whisking it to the side of his neck. "You, meanwhile, should embrace stillness."
"That goes for all of you." Dante gathered the shadows in his hands and made the dark swirls visible. One of the soldiers yelped. "We're commandeering this boat. You have a choice. Keep your traps shut, and we'll drop you off on our way out of the harbor. Or make a ruckus, and I'll drop you off in a hundred miles of open ocean."
They put their hands up. Dante kept eye on them as Blays tied their hands and gagged their mouths.
"I count five free men belowdecks," Blays said. "Only two of them are awake yet. Everyone else must be on shore."
Dante turned to the pier and waved both arms above his head. Naran jogged forward, his men a dim mass in the dawn. Once he arrived, they'd take the hostages downstairs and convince the remaining men to give up without a fight. Naturally, this bloodless scheme was Blays' idea. Killing them all would have been easier and less risky, but Dante had to admit there was a certain thrill to executing their plan so efficiently.
As Naran's men arrived and piled onto the boat, a frantic bell clanged from the mainmast. A silhouette stood high in the rigging. "Help! We're being boarded! For the love of King Charles, send aid!"
Dante swore like the sailor he wasn't and hurled a spear of shadows into the rigging. The alarums and shouting stopped cold. The silhouette leaned backwards, then plummeted to the deck, landing with a crunch.
"I thought you'd checked this thing out!" Blays said.
"I always forget boats have three dimensions." He found Naran's eye. "Get underway. We'll secure belowdecks."
Naran nodded. Boots thumped about below them. The lantern that had been illuminating the lower level went out; a door slammed. Keeping the nether close, Dante started down the ladder. Once he was a few rungs down, he jumped, casting light across the hold as he landed on the wooden floor.
Crates and bins lined the walls. Blays slid down the ladder and drew his swords. Dante moved forward into a bunkroom, hammocks slung from the walls. Faces stared from each one, eyes bright in the harsh glare of his nether-fed light. One man raised a hand and pointed behind them to a closed door
set into the rear wall.
Above, Naran's crew called back and forth, stomping around like parade ponies. A heavy chain—the anchor, most certainly—clunked against the hull as it was drawn in. Dante moved to the door, Blays by his side. He tried the handle, but the door was lodged firm, bolted.
"Go ahead and stay in there if you like," Dante said. "But in about ten minutes, we'll be on the high seas."
A wary voice sounded from the other side of the door. "How many of you are out there?"
"Just two. We don't mean to hurt you."
Wood scraped. The door burst open and a man charged forth, leading with his sword. Before Dante could put him down, Blays lunged, parrying the blade and impaling the man's chest. A second thrust put him down for good. Five other men in blue caps waited inside the doorway, swords in hand. One edged nearer.
"Stop it!" Blays shouted. "This is your last chance to not be killed. After that, I turn you over to Mr. Guy You Consider a Demon here."
Taking the cue, Dante spread his palm, enfolding his hand in darkness. The men backed deeper into the room. After a brief discussion, they handed over their swords. Dante marched them to the ladder. While the soldiers were still ascending, the ship swayed, pulling away from the dock.
With all of the sailors engaged in the business of shoving off, Dante and Blays saw to the new prisoners, binding their hands and stuffing them in one of the cabins. The ship cut downstream toward the middle of the river, the pier shrinking behind them.
"You got us out of there in record time, Mr. Naran," Dante said once the man was unengaged from his duties. "Or should I say Captain Naran?"
The man tugged on the hem of his jacket, straightening it. "I never wished for this responsibility. I liked what I did, and what Captain Twill did as our commander."
"Given that I'm hundreds of miles away from the city I govern, maybe I shouldn't be handing out advice about responsible leadership. But I think you're the right man for this. You have a sense of justice and your men respect you."
"Is that all it takes?"
"It also helps to smite your enemies," Dante said. "But that will have to wait until later."
Naran gazed at the gray waters rolling out before them. "Yet you have more than that. You have a second set of eyes. A voice that's not afraid to speak up when you've stepped outside the path."
"Oh, you're free to borrow him if you like. Especially if there's barnacles that need scraping."
"But you see, the role of adviser was once mine. And I'm discovering it's much easier to question orders than it is to give them."
"Well, now that you have your own command, I can let you into the Secret Leaders' Club. The only truth we've managed to confirm is this: none of us has the faintest idea what we're doing."
Naran gave him a look. "I can't tell if you're joking."
"Think about how much confusion your own life provides. Now multiply that confusion by the number of lives under your leadership—and consider that your morass of confusion is just one of thousands bumping through the fog of the world."
"This comparison may be less inspiring than you think."
"It's frightening to sail into such dark seas," Dante said. "But there's comfort in it, too. All you have to do is keep both eyes on the way ahead and a firm hand on the tiller."
Commotion arose along the shore, with blue-capped men running down the esplanade, but the caravel soon put the soldiers behind it. It threaded through the central arch of the Titansbridge and swooped past a number of barges beginning the day's journey upriver. As the sun cleared the trees and buildings, the horizon of the sea spread out before them.
They loaded the captive soldiers into one of the ship's two longboats. Blays untied their hands. The caravel slowed enough to lower the longboat. Once it was clear, they rehoisted the sails and left Bressel behind.
The pressure in Dante's head continued to point south. He didn't have a precise gauge of the distance between them and the Sword of the South, but guessing it would be several hours before they closed the gap, he retired to a cabin to grab what sleep he could.
Shouts summoned him from slumber. As shouts went, they sounded excited, but not entirely happy. Out on the deck, the sun stood at roughly 10:30. Men scrambled about, trimming the sails.
Blays strolled toward him, yawning as if he'd been asleep, too. "Guess that head of yours is good for something after all. Naran thinks we've spotted the ship."
Dante touched his forehead. The strain within it had increased significantly. He spotted Naran on the aftercastle and climbed up to meet him. White sails shined on the fringe of the horizon.
"That's the South," Dante said. "I have no doubt."
Naran smiled grimly. "Me neither. I'd know it anywhere. I know its limits, too. With this wind, we'll be on them in two hours."
"Do you think they'll fight?"
"We'll offer them the chance to surrender. Given the recent fanaticism in Mallon, I don't think they'll take it."
"What then?"
"We're faster. We'll come up beside them, lash ourselves together, and board them." Naran rested his hand on the grip of his saber. "I'll be glad to have you with us. A boarding action is like an entire war compressed into the space of a ship's deck."
Bit by bit, they gained on the South. Naran asked Dante to follow him belowdecks. There, several armed crewmen stood watch over the pressganged slaves they'd found aboard the vessel.
"As of our taking of this ship, you are free men," Naran announced. "You may leave the next time we make port. In the meantime, if you expect to eat, then I will expect you to work."
The indentured crewmen exchanged looks. A gray-bearded man said, "Pardon me, sir. But I couldn't help overhearing that we're headed into a battle. That wouldn't be the work you have in mind, would it?"
"This is our fight, not yours. However, we're about to find ourselves with two ships rather than one. This will necessitate expanding our crew. If you wish to join us, we'll welcome any man who will aid us in the fight."
"Who exactly are we fighting?"
Naran smiled grimly. "The Mallish."
This drew a number of hard looks. Of the fifteen indentured sailors, six volunteered on the spot. Naran instructed his men to arm and prepare them, then climbed back to the deck.
He glanced at Dante sidelong. "Was that all right?"
"Perfect."
"You're sure?" He lifted his chin. "I felt a little stiff."
"Yet six of them signed up to risk their lives in a battle they know nothing about. You must have done something right."
The gap between themselves and the fleeing ship narrowed. Yellow-brown hunks of kelp speckled the waves, as if a recent storm had churned up the sea bed. White birds rode the undulating swells. Around the deck, men strung bows and donned boiled leather armor. Others dragged up ropes and grappling hooks from the hold.
As they came up on the South's starboard side, Jona moved to the prow, signaling with a white flag and a red one. From the South's aftercastle, a white flag answered, indicating surrender.
"Stay ready!" Naran called. "And remember Captain Twill."
The Sword of the South let its sails droop, slowing. The caravel did the same. As they neared bow range, Dante cut his arm, holding the nether close.
White light streaked through the briny air and smashed into the caravel's mainmast.
"Ethermancers!" Dante shouted. "To arms!"
Splinters showered to the deck. A deep gash had been gouged into the middle of the mast. A second bolt of whiteness darted from the South. Dante met it with a stroke of shadows, sending the bolt careering off into the sky. Naran's archers dropped to one knee, steadying themselves against the roll of the ship, and fired onto the deck of the opposite vessel.
Arrows answered in return, clapping into the caravel's boards. One landed six inches from Dante's foot, prompting him to dash toward the base of the aftercastle. As he ran, he deflected another bolt of ether, then a third. A gray robe fluttered behind a hastily erecte
d wooden barricade. Dante lashed at it, dashing it apart in a storm of shards. The monk stumbled back.
As he did so, two glittering spears of light stabbed from the fore of the South. Both hammered into the wounded mast. Men cried out. The mast groaned like a feverish giant. With a deafening pop, it gave way, thundering into the railings on the caravel's starboard side.
The ship sighed against the waves, slowing. Blays rushed toward Dante, ducking as arrows whisked through the air.
Blays slid in beside him. "Have I ever mentioned how much I hate you guys?"
"I can't protect the sails and attack the sorcerers," Dante said. "It's one or the other."
"And if we try to board while their monks are out and about, our people will be reduced to a salty puree."
Dante paused to knock down an incoming whirr of light. The boat tilted, jarring him into the wall of the aftercastle; the mainmast was dragging in the water, listing the entire boat. Men hacked at the rigging tying it to the ship. The Sword of the South's sails went taut. It began to pull ahead.
"Can you slow them down?" Blays said.
"If I knock out their mast, we'll never make it to the islands before the sickness takes me."
"Then tear down their sails, fool. We can repair those."
"I'd better be able to do that much. If I can't, we'll never see them again."
"Get us close enough to toss a rope across." Blays stood. "I'll take care of their priests."
He jogged toward Naran, who was yelling and pointing, stirring his demoralized men back into the fray. Dante waited for the next bolt of ether to lance forward. He parried it and answered it with a flock of blade-like shadows. These swooped into the South's rigging. Sails dropped to the deck with a whoosh of canvas. With a lurch, the South slowed.
Volleys of light flashed toward the larger of the caravel's remaining masts. Dante drew shadows from all sides, dissipating the attacks in a blizzard of sparks. A vest-clad sailor skipped toward the port railing, twirling a many-fluked hook over his head. He let loose. It arced between the two boats and held fast within the railing of the South.
The Red Sea Page 19
