He wouldn’t work an oar again. He would die first.
The net holding his hand shifted as the fat man stepped on it and heaved the harpoon into the waves. Gavin spun again, this time with the net releasing its grip on his hand. He couldn’t even feel that hand, couldn’t tell if his grip would hold. He scrambled, kicking in the waves, desperate to swim to steal the smallest moiety of assistance.
Two fingers of his other hand caught the net. Worn to scar and callus by his months on the oar, those blessed fingers held despite everything. And now he was being dragged straight backward, giving him a perfect view of the shark approaching. This would be no exploratory nuzzle, he could tell. It was going to strike.
Swinging slowly from left to right, Gavin got his fists full of net. He couldn’t spare the time to look up and see if he was putting a hand in the captured shark’s mouth above him; he couldn’t take his eyes off the shark in the water.
He pulled his knees up to his chest as the shark struck. Jaws flashed past his feet—missed. The shark spun in the waves and swam off in a broad circle. They didn’t like approaching the hull. Didn’t like that they could only strike from directly behind.
At least Gavin hoped that was how they were thinking, and that none were swimming deep under the waves to strike him from below.
The man on deck had almost retrieved his harpoon now, and Gavin saw his chance. The weight of the harpoon meant that it would dangle within reach of him at the stern. When it came, he would grab it and yank hard. The sailor, not expecting any such thing, would be hurled overboard. For the sharks.
It meant killing a stranger. A man about whom Gavin knew nothing. An innocent.
Fuck him. Gavin would live, and he would live free, and he would be armed.
The rope stretched within reach for one heartbeat, but Gavin couldn’t get his cramping hands to loosen in time to swing—and then the sailor pulled the harpoon off to the side so it wouldn’t tangle in the net. Damn!
Gavin turned his eyes back to the sharks, but none of them came at him. And indeed, they began hanging back farther and farther. The sailor with the harpoon swore.
“Freshwater,” he said, grumbling to himself.
And now that Gavin’s vision wasn’t battle tight, he saw that they had entered the very mouth of the river, not far from the western shore. The river itself was vast, wider than any river in the world. But the western shore was close—and as dirty with the sluggish current as he’d feared. If the boat he was riding on docked somewhere nearby, at least its hull would cut the sludge, and a quay would give Gavin plenty of places to hide. If, instead, they went farther up the river, he would jump off at the Great Bridge.
In a few minutes, though, he realized that he was being terrifically optimistic. He was hanging on the back of a boat, and though his arms didn’t have to bear the full weight of his body since he was half immersed, he did have to fight against the waves trying to pluck him from the boat, and his hands were losing feeling again.
He decided to try to climb up the net, but as soon as he coaxed one hand into releasing its death grip, the other hand betrayed him. He fell into the water.
The pain in his unclenching fingers was excruciating at first, but as he flopped his way to the surface, the pain almost felt good, a promise that his hands would function again. Someday.
With the river galley pulling away from him, Gavin got his bearings again. In the mouth of the river, with the sun rising, he was far more visible than he had been before. If he could get far enough up the river, he would fall under the city’s jurisdiction, and then at least he could hope to be turned over to a magistrate rather than directly enslaved. Depending on how law-fearing whatever captain picked him up was.
Best not to get captured at all.
By luck, he wasn’t too far from the Great Bridge. If he could make it to its shadow, he would be far less visible. Swim to a huge pylon, climb up the scaffolding, and make it to shore.
He set off immediately. He’d not made it this far in life by hesitating.
When he was two hundred paces away from the bridge, he saw two things at the same time, both of which took his breath away, for opposite reasons. A Ruthgari war galley was emerging from the shadow of the Great Bridge, and the standard flying from its low mast—deliberately just a couple of feet shy of the height of the Great Bridge—was the proud bull of the Malargos family. At the same time, Gavin saw a dolphin coursing through the river toward him. It popped out of the waves, and though Gavin couldn’t see the hue, he remembered the drawings, long-beaked and muscular. A river dolphin.
Please come here, you little miracle.
Gavin had heard of dolphins saving swimmers before. He’d heard of them letting men grab on to their backs and ride. The dolphin was his only hope to make it to the shadow of the bridge in time.
River dolphin. He couldn’t tell if it was pink or not, of course. It could have been piss yellow for all Gavin cared: it was salvation.
Gavin kept swimming as the dolphin slipped right up to him. But at the last moment, it turned and stabbed its beak into his ribs. His breath shot out and he inhaled water. Before he could even cough it out, the dolphin emerged again from nowhere and hit him again, cracking a rib.
He flailed, gasping for breath. Then it hit him again, this time smacking his head. Dazed, he sucked up a lungful of water. He lost consciousness.
Chapter 44
“I can’t do this,” Big Leo said. “This Lord Arias is a twig.”
“What’s hard about it?” Daelos asked. “Go out there and lower the boom on him. I’ve seen you do it before.”
“The boom?” Ferkudi asked.
“I didn’t mean I can’t. I meant I can’t,” Big Leo said.
“That doesn’t make any sense,” Ferkudi said.
“I meant in good consc—” Big Leo said.
“Nah, I mean the boom. Aren’t booms more dangerous when they’re swinging around than—”
“Maybe that’s the test, Leo,” Ben-hadad said, fiddling with his lenses. “Maybe we’re supposed to refuse an immoral order.”
“Or maybe we’re supposed to follow an order when we can’t see the bigger picture,” Ferkudi said.
The others looked at him. After the three-quarters of the time that Ferkudi was a clown, he’d come back and surprise them with some keen observation.
“What?” he asked. “What?”
Kip’s squad, dressed in street clothes, had scouted the broad corner at Verrosh and Harmonia. There was nothing particularly special about this corner that they could see. No one else was watching it. It wasn’t particularly prosperous. It wasn’t the busiest in the city. Perhaps, for a heretic, that meant fewer merchants’ guards and house guards who might throw an elbow or a stone. Perhaps he was just moon mad and he’d picked this corner randomly.
Daelos and Goss were still out watching approaches to the corner, and Teia was ambling through the intersection itself, seeing what she could see, but the rest of them were huddled in a circle behind a store, trying to figure out what to do. They usually found a rendezvous point farther away, but there hadn’t been any good spots.
“Hey! What are you boys doing? Get out of here, scram!” a hairy-armed store guard barked.
Cruxer gave a mild oath at himself. Kip knew the young man would see it as a personal failure that someone had noticed them clumped up. Cruxer gestured, and they all started walking away from the shop.
“Yeah, that’s right. Scurry away, ya little vermin,” the store guard said.
They gritted their teeth and didn’t reply. Knowing that you could win a fight wasn’t a good enough reason to jeopardize a mission.
Tempting as it was.
The goon sneered. He obviously thought they were up to no good, but as long as they weren’t threatening his employer’s store, what did he care? He didn’t follow.
“Feels like there’s got to be some trick,” Kip said.
“There is,” Teia said, rejoining them silently. “But no
t on us.”
“What is it?” Cruxer asked quietly.
“There’s a woman watching the preacher from across the street. She’s carrying bandages. And the preacher himself, he’s the real thing. He’s a Blood Robe. He’s got sealed scroll cases that he’s handing off to certain people as they pass. He’s a handler of spies.”
“Oh, I can do this. This Lord Arias is a twig,” Big Leo said. He loosened up a shoulder that would have made a draft horse jealous.
“Hold,” Cruxer said. “We don’t know that he’s alone. But I do feel better knowing there’s some plan, even if I don’t know what it is. Give me a second.”
And the insane thing with Cruxer was that it was only a second. He scowled, looked at his team, and then started giving orders.
In moments, the team scattered, each to his or her appointed task. It left only Kip with nothing to do. “Cruxer,” Kip said. “Captain, I mean.” When they were on assignment, even the inductees were supposed to observe the official order scrupulously. “You’ve done me nothing but good turns. We both know I wouldn’t be in the Blackguard without you, but you can’t keep me out of the action. Doing that will only make those who are already better than me get even farther ahead. I need to be in the thick of things.”
Cruxer’s brown eyes, barely edged with green and yellow around the iris, fell on Kip like a sledge. “I’m captain,” Cruxer said.
That was all there was to it. “Yes, sir,” Kip said.
“There’s a good vantage. But we’re gonna have to climb,” Cruxer said. He took off.
A climb difficult enough that Cruxer found it worth mentioning? “Wonderful,” Kip said. He jogged after the older boy.
They cut wide a few blocks, slowed as they crossed the main streets, and came eventually to a building on the opposite side of the intersection from the spy. They went around the back of the building, which had scaffolding up, as the dingy dome was being worked on. The ladder had been pulled away from the scaffolding—doubtless to keep young scoundrels from climbing it.
Cruxer rested his back against the wall, took a wide stance, and cupped his hands, waiting for Kip to use it to jump.
“I could draft a ladder,” Kip said.
“You’ll jump,” Cruxer said.
“I’ll jump.”
“Hand to shoulder, then pull yourself up.”
Easy for you to say. Kip rolled his shoulders, shook his head, and took a deep breath.
“Not got all day here, Breaker.” Cruxer leaned his one shoulder forward, to give Kip more space to step.
Kip charged with the grace of a drunken turtle-bear, stepped into Cruxer’s cupped hand, onto his shoulder with the other foot even as Cruxer heaved his foot upward, and jumped. His hands slapped easily onto the edge of the wood platform, and he still had upward momentum. He pulled himself up and flopped onto the platform.
He spun around on his stomach and offered a hand down. Cruxer, standing in place, jumped straight up, grabbed Kip’s hand, kicked off the wall, and landed—standing up, stepping carefully over Kip.
And that’s why he’s the captain.
The scaffolding extended around the front of the building, and there were piles of brick stacked on it, waiting to be put in place and whitewashed. Cruxer and Kip moved forward, keeping low. The intersection was forty paces or more wide here, and against the dingy dome and the bricks, the two of them should be virtually invisible. Close enough to watch, far enough away not to be seen, and close enough to help if it all went to hell.
“Breaker,” Cruxer said. “It’s time we acknowledge something.”
That doesn’t sound so good. “Mm?” Kip asked.
“You’re never going to be a Blackguard.” Cruxer didn’t say it as a threat. He said it as simple fact.
Kip’s heart leapt into his throat. “I’m getting better. I’ll catch up, I swear.”
“It’s not that.”
Then Kip understood. “Look, I know the squad has this thing about me being the Lightbringer,” Kip said. “But—”
“Doesn’t matter.” Cruxer poked his head up over the edge. Big Leo was still making his way up Verrosh. Even hunched to seem smaller than he was, the young hulk was hard to miss. “They’ll never let you take final vows.”
“They?”
“Let’s say you make full ’guard. And you get put on rotation to guard the Red, whom everyone knows you’re feuding with. Hard to imagine, isn’t it? Or maybe you’ve patched up your feud with him, and you get put on rotation to cover the White—whom everyone knows he’s feuding with. Hard to imagine, isn’t it? I’m sure your grandfather has plans for you. Becoming a Blackguard would give you all sorts of protections from him. There’s no way he’d let that happen. That’s if the White doesn’t have her own plans for you.”
“Maybe her plans involve me getting those protections by staying in.” But Kip was only denying it because he wanted it to be wrong.
“Blackguards face the truth, Breaker. It’ll be a miracle if she lives long enough for you to make it to final vows.”
Kip’s stomach sank. Everyone knew the White had a year left, two at the most. Cruxer was right. There was no way Kip would be ready to be a full Blackguard in that time. Ironfist had bent the rules to get him this far.
“And if your father comes back in time to work his own particular magic, I’m sure he’s got his own plans for you.”
He thought of his grandfather’s view of oaths. If Andross Guile had meant what he’d told Kip, he definitely wouldn’t want Kip to make an oath that might put Kip against him—which was precisely what taking the Blackguard oath might do. He threw his hands up. “So why even have me in the squad?”
Cruxer body-slammed him with a disappointed look. “Don’t go back to being that whinging fat boy Kip. You’re Breaker now.”
Ouch.
“You’re in the squad because you deserve it,” Cruxer said. “The question for you, knowing that your time with us is limited, is what are you going to accomplish here? Heads up. We’re go.”
Big Leo walked as inconspicuously as possible through the thin crowd until he was about ten paces from the preacher, who was holding forth, though no one seemed to be paying him any attention. From their vantage, Kip couldn’t decipher a word either said, but Leo had planned to allege that the heretics had been responsible for killing his sister.
Leo shouted something, and then jumped on the preacher before the man could flee.
Since his cover was as a simple laborer, Leo was careful not to fight like a trained fighter. He simply grabbed the preacher’s hair in one hand and punched him rapidly in the face. If you’ve never been hit in the face, it’s deeply shocking even if there isn’t much power in it. Kip knew that Leo could have killed the man in a blow. Instead, he was pulling each punch, hitting the man in succession: cheek, eye, nose, mouth, cheek, eye. Blood poured freely, and the man was going to look and feel like he’d been beaten within a thumb of his life—without actually endangering him much. Big Leo hauled the man up, holding his entire weight by his hair as the man collapsed, and slugged him twice in the ribs, hard enough to break them.
Leo dropped the man and turned, and this time spoke loudly enough that Kip could hear him: “Shame on all of you for tolerating this heresy in your midst! These people are monsters! Murderers! You let him walk free and spread his poison here? Shame!” Leo spat on the stones and turned to stomp off.
No one did anything. Not that the squad had expected them to, but it was nice to see something they’d planned work: by identifying the spy as a heretic, they’d hoped Leo could get out clean.
Unseen though, behind Leo, Lord Arias had risen on unsteady feet. He pulled out a knife. Leo’s back was to him. The spy lurched toward him.
It was too far away for a shout to do any good. Worse, a shout might distract Leo from the sound of the spy approaching him.
The spy drew the blade up to bury it in Leo’s back—and his arm dropped, limp. The sound of the blade tinging off the paving st
ones made Leo spin. He saw the knife and the staggering man at once, and his fist came up in a flash.
“Don’t kill him!” Cruxer whispered, as if he could will Leo to inaction.
Big Leo unclenched his fist and grabbed the spy at the collar and the waistband. He spun in a rapid circle with the man and hurled him out into the street. He stood for a long moment, flexing his fists. Kip could see that the battle juice was on him. Big Leo had gone for a quick fistfight, and had almost ended up dead. It was hard to think rationally. Leo took a step toward the downed spy.
Teia darted out from the crowd. “Brother!” she shouted. “Thank Orholam!” Kip couldn’t hear the rest of what she said, but she took Leo by the arm and pulled him away. He didn’t resist. Her appearance had snapped him out of his rage.
She pulled him down Verrosh Street.
“What the hell was that?” Kip asked.
“Good luck?” Cruxer suggested. But he grinned. Kip could tell he knew exactly what had made that knife drop.
“I’m serious.”
“That was paryl. You’re not the only one changing things around here. Teia’s got a few tricks, too. That one doesn’t usually work for her yet, though. Thus: good luck.”
Together, they watched. Teia was soon indistinguishable, but it took longer for Big Leo to blend with the crowds. Then Ferkudi and Ben-hadad came onto Verrosh, blocks down, almost out of sight, and began separately walking toward the square. They passed Big Leo with neither side acknowledging the other.
“You see anyone follow Leo?” Kip asked. He hadn’t.
“One possible. We’ll see in a moment.”
If the spy had an ally eager to exact a quick vengeance or even just to see where Leo had come from, it was vital that that friend fail.
Ferkudi stumbled into someone and they both went sprawling, Ferkudi taking by far the worse of it. He made a big show of it, crashing into a Parian headscarf seller’s booth and sending scarves flying.