The body mechanics were beginning to sink in, too. He was hitting faster, more precisely, and harder, lines of force tracing up from his planted feet, through his hips, his tight abdomen, to uncurl like a whipcrack as he drove his fist into the bag. It felt… glorious.
There was a slight tear in the leather seam high on the bag, and Kip fantasized about punching the bag so hard he tore it open. It didn’t happen, of course, but the fantasy kept him working.
He was just finishing up, unwrapping his hands, when the door cracked open. It was Teia.
“Thought I might find you here,” she said shyly. “You big dope, you’re going to be useless at practice. We’ll probably both have to run.” She grimaced. “Sorry, that came out all wrong.”
Kip grinned. “It’s good to see you, Teia.”
“You, too.” She hesitated. “I’m sorry I wasn’t there. Up on deck, I mean. You’re my partner, and I wasn’t there when you needed me. I’ve been feeling pretty awful about it. And then you came back, and it—it wasn’t really the reunion I’d been hoping for.”
“About that…”
“Kip, I, I need to keep some secrets. Even from you. Can you trust me?”
When Kip thought of Teia, he thought of the petite girl whom he’d mistaken for a boy, months ago. A young slave, uncertain, in over her head. But also a girl who could accurately rank each of the Blackguard hopefuls and estimate that she was the fourth best of them, but somehow didn’t realize quite how excellent that made her against everyone else, or how smart she was to estimate so accurately.
This Teia wasn’t that Teia. Kip realized that while he was growing and changing through all the fights and all the old messages he’d told himself that he was realizing were lies, he had somehow thought that everyone else would stay the same. And it was a fool’s thought.
Teia was little, but that didn’t make her a child. She was being more mature than Kip had probably ever been in his life.
“I heard you saved the raid on Ruic Head,” Kip said.
Teia shrugged.
“Watch Captain Tempus said Commander Ironfist wanted to give you a medal.”
“What?”
“It got overruled by someone higher up, apparently.”
“In something regarding the Blackguards? Who could overrule—oh, don’t tell me.”
“That’s right,” Kip said. “So as long as you’re not working for that old cancer, sure, Teia, I trust you. You’re still on our side, right?”
She laughed, but there was something uncertain in it.
“Teia, you’re not… you’re not working for my grandfather, are you?”
“Kip—Breaker, I can’t tell you anything. But I will never betray you. You’re my best friend.”
“I am?”
She looked away awkwardly. Kip could have hit himself. Not the right response.
“I mean, I just thought that being my slave—”
“What?!” Her face flashed to angry.
“Wait wait wait!” He took a breath. “I wanted to be your friend, Teia. I was always afraid that when I—when I won your papers that it meant we couldn’t be friends. And I didn’t know how much of that stuck around. Even afterward, you know. I didn’t know if I’d always remind you of that. You’re my best friend, too.”
She looked mollified but still upset. “I’m more than my slavery, Kip.”
“And I’m more than a Guile, but it’s still there, like it or not.”
She pursed her lips, then nodded. She reached up and put a hand to a necklace she had, and Kip wanted to ask about it, but he could tell it was personal. A present from an old master, perhaps? Her face brightened, though her mouth twisted with chagrin. “I didn’t mean to put you on the spot. You know, calling you my best friend, like saying—like saying…” She grimaced.
“I didn’t take it wrong,” Kip said, rescuing her.
“You didn’t say it back because I—never mind. Can we go hit something?” She was blushing.
He had the sudden desire to grab her hand, but he didn’t. Why did he feel so awkward and young all of the sudden?
Teia said, “And you have to keep this from the squad.”
“No one will hear we’re friends from me,” Kip said gravely.
“Breaker!”
He grinned, sketched a quick sign of the three and the four, promising. She grinned back.
She moved to speak again, to explain more about not explaining about coming back to the Chromeria bloody, to defend herself somehow, but she let it go, and he credited it to her as maturity. The immature Teia would have checked and double-checked. Or should he think, ‘the slave Teia would have checked and double-checked’? Maybe this is who she always was, only held back by her slavery?
Well, I did one thing right, in my whole life.
“I missed you, Kip.” She grinned, and threw a towel to him.
He caught it, and his smile felt like it was going to break his cheeks.
“You ready to head up?” she asked.
He mopped his face. Good thing about going to Blackguard practice, he supposed—it was fine to go there sweaty.
The door cracked open behind them, and Grinwoody stepped in. Kip’s smile dropped.
“Good afternoon, young master… Guile,” the old slave said. As always, he was dressed carefully, looked wrinkled as an old apple, and had a demeanor as pleasant as a night of diarrhea.
“Grinwoody, you’re looking well!” Kip said with false cheer, deliberately invoking the familiarity of using the slave’s name. How long had Grinwoody been there? Dear Orholam.
“Your grandfather requires you.”
“For Nine Kings?” Kip asked.
“I believe so.”
“I’ve got Blackguard training,” Kip said. “I don’t want to play him now.”
“Your desires are irrelevant. The promachos has summoned you. You will come with me. Immediately.” The old man seemed to enjoy making Kip furious.
The promachos? Dear Orholam, no. So that’s how he had the authority to shut down access to the libraries. Dammit!
“Or what?” Kip said. He just couldn’t help himself, could he?
The Parian slave turned to Teia. “Or your friend here will be expelled.”
“Excuse me?” Teia said.
“You’ve not been addressed, slave. Be silent,” the old slave told her. Asshole.
“I’m not a slave,” Teia snapped.
“My mistake,” Grinwoody said. It clearly hadn’t been a mistake.
Well, that answered one question. Teia wasn’t working for Andross. He wouldn’t threaten one of his own, would he? Or would he, so secure in his belief that Kip wouldn’t let harm come to her?
Was Andross so good that he was comfortable playing against his own cards, knowing someone else would save them?
Kip felt ill, and he felt afraid. He was trying to match wits against this? Andross Guile was godlike in his intellect, and in his ruthlessness. Kip had called Magister Kadah’s bluff, saying she could never expel someone who was nearly a Blackguard. But Andross could expel anyone he wanted. He was now the promachos. It was a calamity.
“I’m not ready,” Kip said.
“He doesn’t require your readiness, he requires your presence.”
Kip cursed under his breath. “I really hate you, Grinwoody,” he said.
Grinwoody gave a thin-lipped grin. “The heart breaks, sir.”
Chapter 35
A few of the galley slaves whooped at the discovery of the key. The others were more wary, more frightened, maybe more cynical. Orholam took the key and ran around the galley, unshackling slaves.
“Grab ten of us to free so we can cut the boarding nets,” Gavin said. “We need the rest of them still on the oars.”
“Free us all!” a slave near the front shouted.
“In time!” Gavin said.
“You’re lying to us! Freedom now or never!” the man shouted back.
Gavin couldn’t believe it. They were going to jeo
pardize the escape attempt. They had no time for this. “Some of us are going to risk death cutting the ship free. If we don’t get separation from that ship as fast as possible, they’ll just come right back across the nets, or they’ll load the cannons over there and kill us all. If you don’t like it, don’t row. Go ahead, kill us all.”
With that, Gavin dashed toward the stairs. They’d been ripped halfway off in a cannon blast. He grabbed a length of wood that had been torn away, and leapt up to the remaining stairs. Antonius Malargos followed him unquestioningly. The stairs led past the puzzled slaves on the next deck and to a cramped landing.
The hatch was concealed around two half-turns of the stairs, and closed. Gavin, Antonius, and half a dozen slaves stacked up at the door. It was locked.
Gavin threw his shoulder into the hatch. It was an awkward maneuver to attempt, given that it was almost directly above him.
“Orholam have mercy, what do we do now?” Antonius asked.
One of the slaves reached over Antonius’s shoulder and found a latch hidden in the darkness. He slid it open, grinning, nothing but his teeth showing in the darkness. Gavin had hoped that perhaps his monotone vision would help him see better in the dark. So far as he could tell, it didn’t. It was purely handicap. Unlike the wild stories he’d heard about blind men having preternaturally acute hearing or sense of smell, he had no counterbalancing ability.
It was, perhaps, just. When he’d been Prism, he’d had no handicaps. He’d moved from strength to strength. Now he had no strength at all.
“We need blades,” he said. “Anyone have a knife? A sword? Anyone know how the boarding nets are attached? Is it grapnels, or are they tied on this side?”
Gavin prided himself on his memory, but he’d been unconscious when he was brought aboard. “Doesn’t matter,” he said, thinking aloud. “We won’t be able to untie them if they’re under tension. We’ll need to cut them regardless.”
Someone handed up one knife. One.
Gavin handed it back. He had training, and a piece of wood. “Boarding nets first,” he said. “Our only advantage is our numbers. We gain nothing if they get reinforcements. Nets off, get some separation. Kill men to get their blades, and cut those nets. Ready?”
He didn’t wait for an answer. He threw the hatch open and jumped onto the deck.
The sudden, harsh light nearly blinded him, and being free of the confines of the ship let a flood of sound wash over him. A musket cracked fifteen paces away, but the pirate was shooting at a marksman in the rigging of the other galley. Gavin ran at him.
The pirate didn’t even see Gavin coming. He swiveled to start reloading, and that move turned his back to Gavin. Gavin’s makeshift club swept into the pirate’s head like an oar cutting the sea. The man went flying in a spray of blood, and Gavin was on him in a second, ripping a knife from his belt.
Then he was up again, running. Speed and surprise were the slaves’ only advantages. One pirate with a sword would be able to cut through half a dozen of the unarmed slaves and end their escape before it began.
There was one more pirate stationed at the nets at the stern of the ship, and this one saw Gavin coming. Through stupidity or shock, the man didn’t shout an alarm, but he did ready his saber.
Gavin barely slowed. He lifted the knife and whipped it forward as if he were throwing it. The man flinched, bringing the point of his saber in as his muscles tightened. Gavin brought the knife down to parry the saber and threw his torso to one side as he closed the distance. Knife and saber slid against each other, the cheap metal throwing sparks. Gavin’s club, wielded left-handed, only struck a glancing blow to the pirate’s forehead.
But it was enough to stun him. Gavin followed the first with a full backhand swing. Teeth sprayed, and the man dropped. Gavin knelt on the man’s back and jabbed his knife through the base of the pirate’s skull. He rose with the saber, and threw the knife handle-first to whoever had followed him. It was Antonius, and for a second he looked like he thought he was being attacked himself, a victim of friendly attack.
Antonius dodged out of the way of the knife, and it clattered to the deck. He bent over to pick it up, and a musket ball whistled right over his head, scoring the deck ten feet behind him.
The other galley was taller than the Bitter Cob, and that could be good or bad news, depending on how enraged and careless the pirates were. If they wanted to get across the gap fast, they could sheathe their swords and simply roll down the boarding nets and be across in seconds. No man in his right mind who felt threatened would do that, though, and climbing down a declined rope net wasn’t easy.
Of course, betting that pirates who followed Gunner were in their right minds might be a poor gamble.
Reaching the gunwale, Gavin found that the boarding nets weren’t simply held grapnel to wood, which would have allowed him to pull the grapnel off and let the net drop. Instead, the grapnels were looped around the railing and tied back to themselves, then anchored to the wood railing. Bad news. But that loop held the hemp rope tight against the gunwale. Gavin slashed the rope, and it yielded on the second stroke. He looked down the length of the ship. There were four more grapnels. Four widths of hemp between him and freedom.
Four galley slaves had tackled a pirate at midships and were pummeling him to death with fists and feet. Antonius was charging for the farthest rope—smart boy—leaving Gavin to face another sword-wielding pirate. Out of the corner of his eye, Gavin saw a pirate with a musket taking aim at him as he ran, so he did a running slide, dropping to one hip to skim along the deck and then popping up with the sword wielder between him and the musket man.
Even as Gavin engaged with the swordsman, he saw other pirates jumping onto the nets, coming back to the Bitter Cob. He was running out of time. His saber and the pirate’s thinner forward-curving ataghan clanged together, and Gavin was aware how long it had been since he’d practiced fencing. How long it had been since he needed it. But a pirate was really merely a sailor willing to kill. That wasn’t the same as a trained warrior. Gavin saw two wide opportunities for deadly thrusts go by—and he was too slow to take advantage, too cautious to press an advantage.
But a third came. Riposte and kill, the saber slipping into his opponent’s chest only deep enough to open his heart, and then pulling back. Gavin stepped back to avoid the possible counterstroke—just because a man was going to die within seconds didn’t mean he couldn’t kill you in the meantime.
He realized that by stepping back, he was clearing the shot for the musket man, and he slapped the swordsman’s blade aside once more and grabbed the man under the armpits even as he heard the musket fire. The man jerked, taking the ball in the shoulder right between Gavin’s fingers. At least, he hoped it was between his fingers. All he could tell for the moment was that his index finger of his right hand felt hot.
He dropped the still-twitching body, found his finger bleeding, but still there, and slashed the rope where it crossed the gunwale.
A pirate was coming down the boarding rope more nimbly than Gavin would have believed, walking upright, stepping from rope to rope with the agility of a dancer—and fast. But the rope parted on the first cut, and the boarding net sagged suddenly. The man jumped, hands stretching to reach the gunwale and—just making it. The shock of colliding with the hull didn’t shake the man loose, either.
Gavin slapped his blade down on the gunwale and eight fingers popped up in response.
A short scream and a satisfying splash signaled success.
“Row!” Gavin shouted as he crossed over the gap that had been blown in the deck by the cannon fire. But they were already on it, oars rattling out, first pushing off the ship, stretching the boarding net.
There were two grapnels left—and with a snap, the slaves aft freed one. It left only one at midships. Gavin ran for it.
Wood shrapnel exploded around him from musket balls. A pirate leapt off the boarding net, and Gavin slashed his groin open, not even slowing. He saw a pirate finish loadi
ng a swivel gun on the deck of the other ship and turn it toward him. He dove as it spewed death onto the lower ship.
Gavin rolled to his feet, groped to find the saber he’d lost in his dive.
“Guile! Guile!” a familiar voice shouted. Gunner.
Gavin looked up, already knowing what he would see. Gunner stood, not twenty paces away, that magnificent black-and-white musket leveled at Gavin’s face. From that distance, Gunner couldn’t miss.
The oars dipped into the waves, but the inertia of the loaded Bitter Cob meant it would be seconds before they moved with any speed.
The saber was in Gavin’s hand. If Gunner shot him in the head, he wouldn’t be able to complete the stroke. He would die for nothing. But if Gunner shot him in the chest—the safer shot—Gavin could trade his life for the slaves’ freedom.
What was the value of a few slaves compared to a Prism? What was the value of a thousand slaves compared to a Prism? What would the world gain if Gavin chose to make this sacrifice?
Nothing.
“You do what you have to,” Gavin said, to himself as much as to Gunner.
He slashed the rope, expecting a musket ball to tear through his body. It didn’t. He’d braced so much for the impact that he didn’t cut the rope on the first stroke. He slashed again, and it parted. The boarding net dropped into the water, scattering pirates.
Gavin looked at Gunner. The man still had his musket leveled, as if unsure himself why he hadn’t fired. Gunner looked to the horizon. Gavin followed his eyes.
The ship that had been pursuing Gunner for years was there. In the fight, the Bitter Cob had sheared off all the oars on one full side of the galley Gunner was now on.
Gunner wouldn’t be able to flee from the vengeful captain hunting him. And with his pirates decimated and probably out of ammunition, there was no way his crew could win the fight.
Not killing Gavin meant Gunner would die himself. What the hell? The man was bordering on insane, but all his insanity went toward serving himself, didn’t it?