I narrowed my eyes. “I’ve been robbed.”
“My ma says the pain reinforces the lesson.” He did a brief, humiliating little victory dance, and then disappeared under the pier once more when I took a step towards him.
If he was any example, the kids in Loathewater were all right, at least.
I walked my newly and expensively-educated self ten minutes west. I found the new pier, which had half a dozen boats bobbing in its vicinity, and shortly after that I spied a greybeard on the bank taking a leisurely approach to the art of catching fish. When I woke him and asked if he had a boat, he allowed as he did. I made my proposition, and he was willing to put away his pole to take me down to the bay for the same amount I’d paid the kid, and more than willing to wait wherever I said for as long as I liked, for the same amount again. His vessel reeked of fish, but otherwise was better kept than most.
He wasn’t from Lucernis, but I couldn’t place the accent. When I said so, he told me he wasn’t surprised.
“Grew up in the mountains of Pinghul. It wouldn’t be an accent heard much ‘round these parts. Or any other parts, really.”
“How’d you end up here?”
“It were because of a bear.”
“Well that sounds like a story.”
“It is, mistress, but a long one and not so pleasant.”
“It’s a long trip to the docks.”
He was quiet for a moment as he rowed, and I thought he wouldn’t tell his story. But then he spoke.
“There’s bears, gray bears in Pinghul, twice the height of a man when they stand and damn near as smart. Sometimes one’ll get a taste for man flesh. Some say they get possessed, and maybe they do. There’s old things up in the mountains, sure enough, things weren’t built by men, and places no man will set foot in. Places that seem to hate the living. So who knows.
“Deep in winter, when game is scarce and people are huddled up – maybe you don’t see your neighbor for days or weeks at a time. The one that stalked my village, it waited for a time like that. We seen it prowlin’ around when the first snows started fallin’ but it never got close enough to worry about. Not ‘til the deep snow set in, and it should have been hibernatin’. We thought it would be, anyway.
“Killed old Wicker first. He lived alone – didn’t realize he was dead until Nel and his wife were discovered. Or what was left of ‘em. Then we made the rounds and found Wicker. After that, the hetman had us all move to the village hall. Forty souls packed in, along with all the livestock. Mostly goats and chickens. Three of the best hunters went out to take care of the gray devil.
“They didn’t come back.
“The hall was long and low and only had one entrance, a set of double doors at one end. The other end was half-dug into the mountain. It was as secure a place as anyone could hope for, but I think all of us had the belief that the bear would come for us, despite that. The able-bodied men slept closest to the door. I was twelve, and big for my age. I slept among ‘em. Then behind us was the livestock, and at the back the women and children and old folks. We all slept with naked steel to hand. Much good it did.
“When it finally came, it came at night, through the smoke-hole in the sod roof. Tore it wide faster than you would believe and dropped down right among the goats. And then the slaughter started. It’s all just a jumble now. Hells, it was all just a jumble then. Screamin’ and roarin’ and bleatin’. I just remember the hetman’s wife grabbing me by the shoulder and tellin’ me to help her get the damned doors open. So I did.
“Thirty-seven souls got winnowed down to twenty that night. Maybe more could have made it out, but I don’t blame the hetman’s wife for telling me to shut the doors once we were out. I don’t blame myself for doing it, neither.
“Anyhap, we dragged two barrels of oil – all the village had – and half our store of firewood up the roof of the hall and dropped it all down the hole the monster’d made. The hetman’s wife dropped the torch after it. I was glad of the roar of the fire. It drowned out the bear’s roar. And the other screams, and the crying, and the curses.
“We made it to spring. Barely. Practically skeletons by then, all of us. When the pass cleared, I tottered my way down to the city and made my mark on the navy man’s roll, and never looked back. But to answer your question, mistress, there ain’t no bears on boats or in Lucernis, and that’s just the way I like it.”
“That’s, uh, that’s quite a story,” I said after a little silence had passed.
“Well, it looks like you have your own, mistress.”
I did look like I’d been through a meat grinder. It was an invitation, but I let it pass. “Me? I’m just clumsy.”
He just nodded and rowed.
I spent the rest of the trip down the Ose listening to the greybeard humming something tuneless but not irritating as he rowed, breathing through my mouth, planning my next move, and thinking about bears. Occasionally I’d throw in a hope that I could avoid getting pounded on for a while. My thigh was one big ache.
THE THING ABOUT LUCERNIS’S docks was they were full of exactly the kinds of folks who made coin doing the kinds of things most would disapprove of.
From smugglers to crews whose specialty was lightening loads, to the kinds of folk who watched comings and goings and sold what they saw to interested parties, to working girls and boys in dockside taverns that watered the wine and ale, to the patrons who made a living in them cheating at cards and dice, the docks were just eaten up with all sorts of shenanigans. Normally I’d’ve felt right at home, but considering my situation, all I felt was exposed and tired.
“You’re all right waiting?” I asked the greybeard as he tied up at Chalmers Quay, on the Ose side of the dockyards.
“Aye. Nobody’s waiting up on me.”
“Could be a while.”
“Could be you’ll have to wake me up, then, when you return.”
“Fair. Watch out for bears while I’m gone.”
That got a half-hearted grin, which was probably more than it deserved. “I live among these southroners so’s I don’t have to,” he replied.
I wouldn’t be boarding any ship. Even if I did, it would never make it out of the bay with me on it. Visini wasn’t going to let me just sail away, and I didn’t want to in any case. Well, I did. What sane person wants to be hunted across a city by competent, violent bastards, driven on by a godling? But I wanted to destroy this fucking Blade more than I wanted to piss off. A lot more. So I had to make it look good.
I didn’t know which of my pursuers would be the ones next to show their faces. It was almost even money between Mister Hope’s employers, the gentlemen and the watch – but considering it was the docks, I gave Lucernis’s underworld the edge. Which was something of a pity. They’d be wise to a lot of dodges I might try, and they’d know the territory even better than the watch.
Outside the Old Sailor’s Home was a big-ass slate that listed the tides, and every ship in port. Most of them had their next destination listed as well, and the day they were due to sail. Once they weighed anchor, they were wiped from the slate. The salty old farts kept it as a public service. It gave them something useful to do, and in turn the community pitched enough coppers their way to keep them in food and grog.
It would have been a terrible idea back in the day when pirates sailed openly in the bay, but Morno had made a very public, very messy end to them the first year of his governorship.
Commerce is a deadly foe.
Anyway, I checked out the slate. Seven ships were slated to sail that day, and high tide was in about three hours. Any ship that didn’t want to be towed out of the bay by galleys before then, which would be all of them, would sail as the tide went out. I slogged my way to each in turn in the fading light, to book passage.
Two weren’t taking passengers. Those I paid to say they were taking me, should anyone ask. An hour and a deflated purse later, I’d laid as many false trails as I could. I stopped for one quick snort at the Hanged Man, just to make su
re I’d been seen, and then I fucked off into the warehouse district just behind the docks, painfully climbing walls and running across rooves to shake whatever tails I had grown over the past hour or two.
Visini would know where I was no matter what I did, of course. But I had to make it look good. I had to make it look believable. I had to struggle and squirm.
As if I didn’t know what her game was.
Fifteen minutes later I was back at the little quay in the estuary, where the graybeard had dropped me off. His boat was still there, just as I’d paid for it to be. He wasn’t in it, though. I just assumed he’d gone for a piss, or the makings of one.
That quaint notion died as I walked up to the boat and saw him sprawled in the bottom of it, an arrow in his neck, his blood sloshing back and forth as wave and wake set the boat to bobbing.
EIGHTEEN
WHEN YOU SEE SOMETHING terrible, something truly horrific, your first instinct is to freeze. By and large that’s not such a bad instinct, I think. Danger has suddenly presented itself, and until you know where and what that danger is, it makes sense to not go flailing off in a direction that might have you meet it head-on.
The problem is, a good assassin absolutely knows and understands that instinct. One who kills at a distance will count on it. That’s not a problem most people will ever have to contend with, of course.
Sadly, I am not most people.
I flung myself to the right. The arrow holed my flapping coat and buried itself in the boat’s gunwale. That it was an arrow and not a crossbow quarrel was bad news – whoever it was wouldn’t need to take time crank. A hasty estimation of the angle of the arrow’s flight told me they were somewhere behind and above me. All this a part of my mind let me know, while another part just kept screaming ‘fuck!’
The screamy part of my brain wasn’t wrong, it just wasn’t helpful. Arno had trained me out of paying too much attention to it long ago, Isin love him. Any thief who couldn’t stay calm in a crisis was destined to become a gallows ornament. There was no cover to be had at Chalmers Quay, none I could run to in the time it would take to nock another arrow, at least. It was a wide, open, flagged space to facilitate loading and unloading. A perfect spot for this sort of ambush, really. In short, I was fucked.
So instead of running screaming in a random direction, I flung myself headfirst into the Ose. Again. While swearing by all the dead gods that I would learn to swim, on the completely reasonable condition that I survived.
The bowman got off one more shot before I went in, which buried itself in the sole of my boot, deep enough to spoil my brand-new sock and poke flesh. Then I was down in the Ooze once more, black and cold and foul.
It was very hard to ignore the screaming part of my brain after that.
I forced myself to think something approaching rationally. I couldn’t swim, so trying to swim away from my would-be killer would likely be doing his job for him, and to hells with that. No swimming, then. Floating I could do, just. The quay afforded me cover. If he wanted to finish the job, he’d have to come get me. That gave me a little time. Unless there was more than one of them.
Swimming away was not an option. Clinging to the quay would not be a long-term position. All right, then I needed to cling to something that would allow me to fuck off. And low and behold, there was my dead fisherman’s boat close at hand. I just needed to cut the line that secured it to the quay. And not get feathered in the process. That was a very important caveat.
That much I worked out while going down. Then a moment of panic set in when I realized I no longer knew where the quay was in relation to my own sorry self. I flailed my limbs in all directions, and encountered no resistance, nothing solid. The screaming in my head became even more shrill. This, I realized, was exactly how people drowned.
I forced myself to stillness. Even I knew that people tended to float – I’d seen enough bobbing bodies in my time. There was a reason you got bricks stuffed in your pockets and chain wrapped around your legs if your luck was out and bad men sent you to the bottom of the Ose. They weren’t parting gifts. Once I’d stopped shitting myself, it was instantly clear which way was up. I went that way. Not gracefully, but I went.
My head broke water. The quay was to my right, about five feet away, and the boat and the rope that secured it not much farther.
Another arrow sped out of the dark, scoring a line of fire and blood down my cheek. Joke was on him, though, because that side of my face was already scarred as hells.
Down into the water I went once more, hating pretty much everything. I thrashed my way through the Ooze towards the scant cover the quay would give me, and this time my flailing hands met stone before my lungs finished up their air. With about two feet’s grace between the river’s surface and the end of my cover, I took a moment to breathe and sort out my situation.
The archer hadn’t left their position to come after me once I’d gone in, which maybe meant they weren’t alone. Probably waiting for support to show up. Who knew how long that would take? Not me. The faster I left the scene, the better.
The boat was tied off at the stem, and the stem faced towards my would-be killer. Of course. I was tucked in the corner where the bricked bank met the stone quay, safe for the moment. But to cut the line, I needed to move into his line of sight. That seemed like a bad idea. I’d have to saw through the line, and that would take time. Time enough for whoever it was to end me, several times over. But it was the nature of floating boats to move without much resistance; with a little luck I thought I could swing the stern around to give me cover, while I cut it free.
I worked it out in my head. I would have to get towards the stern of the boat, to the side that was against the quay, without being shot. I f I did that, I could get it to swing around enough to give me cover while I cut it loose. That meant going under again, flailing my way where I needed to be, and not drowning.
Damn, but all of this would’ve been easier if I could swim.
I took a few deep breaths, submerged, and thrashed my way to where I thought I needed to be. I managed to slam my head on the hull, and from there found the quay. I surfaced, a little closer to the front of the boat than I’d intended, and another arrow cracked against the quay far too close to my head, its shaft splintering on impact.
I pulled the stem towards me to give me a little more cover, then pushed the boat’s ass towards land. As soon as I did, I heard a piercing whistle. I assumed it was the bowman calling his reinforcements, and flung myself towards the line, swallowing a big mouthful of the Ose in the process. I needed to get away, quick.
I grabbed the line with one hand and a knife with the other and began sawing. Not being able to brace myself was a bitch. The arrows raining down, hitting quay and hull, were worse. But the slap-slap of leather soles against flagstone, rapidly getting closer, was worst of all.
By the time I parted the rope, there were three arrows in prow, four in the water and I don’t know how many more on the quay. I pushed off with all the strength I could muster, then hung on to the side of the boat and kicked. No idea if it helped, but slowly – too slowly – the two of us started to drift away from the quay.
Just as I was thinking I’d made it, I heart a grunt from the quay, followed a second later by the impact of someone leaping into the boat. I caught only the barest glimpse of some bald bastard holding a short sword. He hit, and the boat rocked wildly, nearly capsizing. I had a death grip on the gunwale, though, and my knife was still in my free hand. I came up over the side just as he was getting to his knees, atop the murdered fisherman.
I put my knife in his eye, to the hilt. Half a heartbeat later, I got an arrow in the meat of my shoulder. I let go the knife and dropped back down in the water. The killer in the boat let out an animal grunt and fell back against the prow. He twitched a little, and then he didn’t move any more at all.
The current took hold of the boat. This close to the bay, with high tide coming in, that meant I went upstream. With nothing to guide
it, the boat spun slowly in the dark.
I had an arrow in me. It hurt like hells. I didn’t know how bad it was, and I was in no position to check out the damage. So just hung there, in pain, waiting to drift away sufficiently from the shithead who had shot me.
When I judged I was out of all but the luckiest of arrow shots, I set about trying to get myself into the boat without tipping it over. It was a difficult, painful process, but in the end, I got my way. I wasn’t going to fuck about with the arrow in my upper arm, not yet at least. It’s almost always better to leave an arrow in than try and dig it out yourself. But I had to get the arrow out of my boot, or get rid of the boot. And I wasn’t getting rid of the boot.
It is incredibly difficult, in case you were wondering, to dig an arrow out of a boot one-armed, using only a dagger, while lying on corpses in a drifting boat. But eventually I managed it, and re-shod myself with a sigh.
Then a bullseye lantern suddenly flashed into my eyes. I squinted. Wasn’t much more I could do.
“Harbor watch,” came a voice from behind the lantern. “Raise your hands.”
I did. One went easily, the other painfully.
“I count two deaders,” came another voice, accompanied by the sound of a crossbow being engaged.
I knew better than to say anything, so I didn’t.
“Face down on the deck, now,” said the first voice. “Hands where I can see ‘em.”
I did as I was told. The arrow in my shoulder didn’t make it a joyful action.
They did some manoeuvring. Someone came aboard, I got my arms put behind my back, which hurt like hells, and then the manacles got not-gently applied.
I sensed Havelock Prison in my near future.
NINETEEN
TE CHARGE WAS ‘PARTY to an affray’, which in plain language meant ‘we don’t know what the hells happened, but you were in close proximity to corpses when we found you’. They took me first to the wharfside lockup, which was just cages in an old warehouse for drunks and brawlers. They stuck me in an empty one and took off the manacles. They asked me no questions whatsoever.
The Thief Who Went to War Page 11
