by F. E. Hubert
talked too much and at inappropriate moments.
When he caught up, Rheena was already working on the lock. The door was plain but sturdy wood, reinforced with broad metal bands at the top, middle and bottom. She worked with two slender devices, poking and prodding into the keyhole.
Something clicked.
She rose to her feet when the door swung back. He could see the triumph on her face drop, turn into shock, and then horror.
It was the silent man. Kazir. In his hands he held the box.
“How..?” More words refused to come out of Mufroen’s mouth as the implications rolled through his mind. Was there another set of instructions? No, Alvin said it was the only one—
Alvin and Veel. They must have caught them after he went back into the city through the tunnels. Silent dread crept up and rested in his stomach like a lodestone.
Kazir grinned an unpleasant smile.
“I see you catch on quick,” He said to Mufroen, then turned to Rheena who was still frozen in her half-crouch. “But you. That is a surprise,” He tilted his head, only marginally, but it reminded Mufroen of a snake, ready to strike.
“Run!” He threw himself between Rheena and Kazir, pushing her up and out into the hall as he moved. His shout seemed to wake her up and he could hear the soft sound of her feet as she fled down the hall. The other man already managed to slip to his side, but Mufroen’s foot caught him in the flank and threw him to the floor.
“Not so fast, I want that box.”
“Your friends are dead already, or will be soon enough.” He rose, a light wheeze was the only sign Mufroen touched him.
He stepped back and drew his sword. The blade unfolded in all its magnificence. He could see its light reflected in the other man’s eyes. Kazir took an involuntary step back, then tried to dive past Mufroen before he could strike. The blade caught his robe, slicing it with a clean swishing sound and throwing off his balance enough for Mufroen to close in.
Realizing he couldn’t run for it, Kazir turned, baring a knife with one hand and clutching the box in the other. Seeing his chance, Mufroen aimed for his right side, unprotected because of the box.
Kazir managed to jump out of reach, deflecting the sword with a desperate thrust of the knife in his left hand. Using the advantage of coming in from above, Mufroen pushed down on the knife, slowly gaining ground and forcing the other man down. With a grunt and an amazing show of force, Kazir forced their blades out to the side, ducking to the other side.
Getting back to his feet, he stumbled, dropping the box.
It tumbled in a high arc.
A loud crack sounded as it landed on its side. The lid fell open. A single stone rolled out. The dagger was not in the box. Mufroen could almost hear the little scribe’s laugh.
“Noooohh!”
Before Mufroen could stop him, the other man jumped up on a windowsill and dropped out of sight. Only a step behind him, he was still too late to see where he went. He slammed the sword back in its hilt in annoyance. He could only hope that Alvin or Veel, whichever one they’d caught, would be dead before he could get back to force them to tell where the dagger was hidden. They’d stolen it, for sure, but a sense of justice filled him when he thought of the dagger, hidden out of reach from the path and its creepy members.
When he got back to the inn, he realized what had happened, even before he saw the scribbles of Rheena’s handwriting. He showed the scrap of leather, torn from the instructions by the looks of it, to the sword.
He didn’t need to be able to read to understand what it said. He’d seen the fear and recognition on her face when she saw Kazir. For some reason the silent man scared her enough that she’d fled, and there was no way Mufroen would be able to find her in a city this large.
His golden warrior was gone.
Isles of Krake
Krake
The ships on the water looked like they were dancing.
Dun sat in the hollow of the cliff, taking in the scene playing out below. He was by no means a sailor, but at the start of the attack it seemed clear that the three short, narrow boats would easily escape the cordon of larger ships. Something must be wrong, because even though they were clearly faster, they’d allowed the noose around them to draw tighter and tighter. As he watched, the last of the gaps in the circle closed, sealing the slender Krake ships in.
The corral of boats floated just inside the narrow point of the bay’s inlet. Narrow being a relative thing, the shortest line from the cliff to the rocky coast on the other side measured the length of at least twenty average ships.
Under the surface, the currents, rocks and gullies made the channel into a maze. A maze the Krake piloted for all the traffic going in and out as part of the agreement between them and the first city chiefs. A deal almost as old as the ancient city, that prevented anyone from knowing the seas around their islands and the entrance to the bay as well as they did.
Most of the city’s inhabitants had a forced love affair with the water on which the bulk of their city was built. It provided food, good trade routes and a modicum of protection from outsiders that might otherwise get particular ideas about who controlled the city. The other side of the scales were filled with the overwhelming smell of things that died in the water, the continual threat of flood and the impressive count of people that disappeared without leaving a trace.
The inhabitant of the Krake Islands had no such qualms. They lived on the chain of islands that clustered around the mouth of the bay and stretched out into the ocean as far as three days sailing, called Kraa-ké in the melodious tongue of its inhabitants. A cheerful and innocent sounding language, incongruous with the hard people that spoke it.
Their tan skins and black hair would set them apart from the pale people of the city, even if they were to venture onto the city’s shores. The precarious and ancient agreement regarding their position prevented that, but most believed that even if they were free to walk the streets, they would prefer to stay out on the roiling seas. Krake babies were reputed to be thrown into the water the day they come into the world. They learn how to swim, or drown.
Dun looked at the struggle below with increasing amazement. The ratty collection of city ships was in the overwhelming majority, but crewed with poor sailors. That made sense, since any crewman that planned to sail the seas in the future would be hesitant to pick a fight with a Krake, let alone three ships’ worth of them.
The three smaller Krake ships moved in quick, elegant swoops over the enclosed circle of water, a testament to the skill of those on board. For now they managed to keep the larger ships from launching any sloops, but from where Dun sat on the cliff, he could see the chain of ships around them tightening. Again, one of the ships peeled away to take a position farther out in a sloppy second ring while the remaining ships huddled closer, shrinking the circle of water between them.
He glanced at the islands on the horizon. No movement between here and there, meaning the cries of alarm that drew him hadn’t reached far enough across the waters to warn the ships in the Krake harbours. The ships in the bay would be overtaken before anyone on the isles realized they needed help. Another one of the attacking ships ducked out of its place in the ring, shrinking it down another size.
Dun’s spot up on the cliff had as much shelter as the rocks could give, but the cold edge of the wind cutting in from the sea made him shiver. When he arrived in the city moons ago, he’d adapted to the city’s finer fashions like a fish to water, but the fine silks and linens did little to keep him warm and he was glad he’d kept his old, sturdy cape. Pulling the brown, fur-lined fabric closer around him, he glanced back at the ridge that would lead him back to the shelter and warmth of the city. He didn’t need to see the struggle’s end to know it would be nasty, and there was nothing he could do to help.
Then he saw it.
Another ship, hidden between the sharp teeth of stone at the bottom of the cliff. A Krake ship, a smaller version of the three under attack out on the wat
er. He looked back to the shrinking circle of boats, then back to the lone ship, almost straight down from where he sat.
Three jumps took him to another hollow just above the water’s edge. The Krake girl in the one-seater was watching the ships out on the bay with concentration and didn’t hear him come up behind her until he was close enough to touch her.
A startled jump put her back near the tiller in one smooth move, but there was no way even the flexible little ship could move out between the crags fast enough to get away from him. And if Dun guessed right, she didn’t want to leave the shelter of the rocks. He froze in his crouch and held his hands up, to indicate that he meant her no harm. She relaxed a little, but kept her eyes on him and a hand on something stowed under the rear seat.
“Think we can lift that?” He pointed at her boat, indicating the rocks behind him with a sideways nod. “There’s a cave back here where it’ll be safe.”
The girl frowned, looking back over her shoulder. Her shoulders slumped at the sight of the struggling ships.
“It’s a she.” She said, moving up the side of the boat and onto the stone with skipping steps. Dun struck a mental cross through the stories about bowlegged and limping Krake. This girl was supple as a cat, even if she had a rolling sailor’s gait once she hit the ground.
The boat was light, Dun could have carried it alone. He kept to a crouch,
