“Mors Coldstream,” Gravel whispered to her under his breath. “Stone-cold killer, they say. Except they call him a duellist to his face. Mors works for the captain, but he’s Aristeia Quinn’s second.”
“Keep quiet, both of you,” Kaspar hissed. He raised his hand in a crisp salute as Mors approached. Gravel did the same.
“Someone doesn’t know how to salute an officer,” Mors Coldstream drawled, looking Violet up and down. The man was tall and whip-like thin, lank black hair framing a face tinged almost grey. His lips pulled back in a smile that was almost rictus, exposing sharp teeth. Too sharp, they looked to have been filed. On his cheeks were matching twin scars, almost perfectly in line with his mouth.
“This is the survivor we took aboard, sir,” Kaspar said stiffly. “She’s not enlisted.”
“That’s hardly an excuse,” Mors said. Violet didn’t look at him, her attention was focused on what Kaspar had just said.
Survivor.
Meaning the Tantamount.
You knew that.
You just didn’t want to think that.
But it wasn’t just that filling her belly with cold sinking dread. Mors Coldstream. She’d heard the name, though she couldn’t recall where. The man was a duellist, a killer, as Gravel had said. Dozens of deaths from those duels, duels that only ever had one outcome. The scars on his face, the Luscan smile, were said to be self-inflicted. The only scars he had, despite his chosen profession. And more than that.
Violet knew who his Captain was. Raines, but Kaspar had mentioned someone else. Violet knew that name too.
“Are you listening to me, girl?” Mors said loudly. Very slowly, refusing to let her arm tremble as it so desperately wanted, Violet raised a hand to her brow.
The languid, icy look never left Mors’ eyes. “Respect for the Guild carries only so far. See that you instruct her in proper etiquette aboard this ship, Ensign. The gunnery crews have already shown they need the practice.”
Mors laughed at his own words, as he walked past them down the corridor. Gravel was the only one to watch him go.
“You need to tell the captain,” he said angrily to Kaspar.
“Let it go,” Kaspar told him.
“If you don’t, then I will. You can’t let him threaten you like that.”
“I said let it go,” Kaspar said wearily. “The captain knows . . . he knows enough. You know who they put in charge.”
“Didn’t have much choice in that matter,” Gravel muttered.
“No, we don’t,” Kaspar said, veering off course. “Now let’s go make ourselves known to the first officer, Miss Aristeia Quinn. And Miss Violet, be good if you do salute her this time.”
“Do you call her Skipper?”
“What?” Kaspar looked at Violet in surprise.
“This woman,” she said, “Aristeia. Do you ever call her Skipper?”
“No,” Kaspar shook his head firmly. “Never.”
They call her the Gunner’s Daughter.
Do you remember why?
Chapter 4
THERE WAS MORE to Sharpe’s story. Clearly. Nel could have imagined much of it, if she had the imagination left. His escape. Meeting Violet, where she was. How he’d found her. How he’d found his way back to Nel and Quill. So many questions.
The answers weren’t going to be found at the bottom of her cup. Just as well. She didn’t want to know them.
Sharpe was with her. Quill had disappeared. Some mouthful about errands to run. Perhaps his shift on the docks had come up. Nel felt his absence. There was nothing but the cup in her hand to distract from the looks Sharpe was giving her.
If she’d had a mirror she knew her face would look like Sharpe’s. Looking at her like that. A look she wasn’t ready to deal with yet. Distractions were few and far between. And Sharpe wasn’t the only one watching her either.
Bouncers were keeping an eye on her. That was fine, they didn’t look so big now that she was sober and she didn’t feel like picking a fight with them no more. Korrigan lass from some night or the other was running another card game. Still had green hair so that hadn’t been just the drink. Stumpy was all in for the game, the club-footed Troll’s meagre pile of coins pushed into the centre. Korrigan lass waved to Nel, beckoning her over. She shook her head back, no time for games, nor the coin. She got a lewd wink in response, a knowing look at Sharpe. Nel winced. It was the kind of look Gabbi would have given her.
Gabbi. Captain. Violet. Sharpe.
Supposed to be dead, but you’re not. Thought you were dead. Put you out of my mind. Accepted it. Moved on.
She grimaced at the drink in hand. Ok, maybe not.
You’re alive. But everyone else ain’t. Yet you say Violet’s alive. Except we got no idea where in the hells damned black she is. So where does that leave us?
Staring at the bottom of our cups. That’s where. Same as before but worse.
Her other hand drifted up, without thinking. Nel frowned. Something was missing. She patted down her shirt. Wasn’t imagining it. The deed was gone. Searched the rest of her clothing, almost frantic now. Nothing. Finally in her boots, she found something, a rolled-up scroll, scrappy and torn, tucked into one of them. She hadn’t even noticed when she pulled them on. But what she pulled out was not the deed. No. Not even close. One of the jobs Quill had brought her.
Staring.
I just imagine that? Some drunken fancy? Hells, was it a dream? Something meeting Sharpe triggered? I thought he came after . . . but . . . Hells.
I don’t wanna think about it.
Captain left her to me though.
The Tantamount.
Violet . . .
“Why didn’t you tell them?”
“Tell them what?” Sharpe asked her.
“You said you didn’t know.” Nel leaned over the table. “But you knew. Vice, Cauldron, maybe more. You knew where we’d been, where we were going, where we laid our cargo. You could have given them something. And I can see how hard they tried to get you to talk.”
“This . . . fell on my face,” Sharpe grimaced, pointing. “And got kicked in it. Didn’t think of that other thing, honestly.”
“Hells to that. You ain’t stupid. That stupid. You held out. Why?”
“Am I that much of a mystery? I really gotta explain that to you?”
“I chose the ship,” Nel said loudly.
Sharpe just stared at her.
“Chose the ship over her,” Nel went on. She had to. “Made Quill choose too. Chose for him. Then we lost the ship anyway.”
“That wasn’t your fault,” Sharpe said. He had to say that. It was what you said.
“The hells it wasn’t. I made a choice.”
“And if you had to choose again?”
Nel swore, throwing the half-full cup across the room. It shattered and stained the wall.
“You’d do the same again,” Sharpe said.
“Yes.” Nel looked down at her hands, clenching her fists until her nails dug in. Almost drawing blood. “Damnit, Sharpe, what the hells are you doing here?”
“I wasn’t looking for you,” Sharpe said.
“Then why did you come here?”
“I needed a point of reference.” Sharpe managed a small smile. “They didn’t let me have a window, and Vice was the only place I could say for sure the Fata Morgana had been. I was hoping to track where they went next.”
“Track them?” Nel asked.
Sharpe nodded.
“Track the ship you were on,” Nel repeated. “Escaped from. Yet you didn’t catch where they were when you took your leave?”
“It didn’t go well, my leaving,” Sharpe looked down. “Not a chart plotter, Nel. Doubt I could have looked out at the stars and said where we were anyways.”
“Where did you end up? After, I mean.”
“Char. Coal mining strip of a town.”
“Never heard of it.”
“Neither had I. Didn’t stay long.”
“And now you’re her
e,” Nel said.
“Nel, I didn’t come here alone . . .”
Quill chose that precise moment to make his return. He barged his way through the other patrons unapologetically, ignoring any complaints directed his way. He requisitioned a stool, sitting at the head of their table, declining to seat himself alongside either of them. He took in the mostly full pitcher and fresh spills suspiciously. Nel dared him to berate her again. He didn’t.
“You have told her?” Quill said to Sharpe, except making it clear it was not a question.
Sharpe winced.
“You have not,” Quill frowned.
“Told me what?” Nel asked.
“Was getting there. Important things first. Like the girl.”
“Ah,” Quill conceded, to Nel’s surprise. “Yes. And now?”
“Yeah, now. Fact is,” he turned to Nel, “they sent someone after me.”
“Who sent who?” Nel said. Said he wasn’t alone, didn’t he? “Who is someone? Who’s they? And what do you mean after?”
“That was a pitiful explanation,” Quill growled.
Sharpe threw up his hands. “Spent the last months trying not to talk to anyone, Quill. Keeping shut is my new habit. You want to tell it? You tell it.”
“I will. He is being hunted. An assassin or bounty hunter. It matters little, actually; they will be from the Guild. They will be capable. They will be coming for him.” Quill slapped the table. “That is how you tell it.”
“The Guild?” Nel repeated.
“Aye.” Sharpe ran a hand through his hair, a new habit. Nervous one. Maybe the long hair was as foreign to him as it looked to Nel. It was at the awkward in-between length sailors despised. Too short to tie back easily but long enough to be a problem.
“And how do you rate a Guild agent, Sharpe?” she asked. “I didn’t buy you being part of that the first time. Ain’t buying it now.”
“Not me, so much as who wants me.”
“And who wants you? Heathen? Captain Raines? Anyone else even know you?”
“Aye, they do, I guess. That’d be bad enough, only it gets worse.”
“Gods damnit, Sharpe,” Nel growled in frustration.
Sharpe turned serious. “I know, I know. They picked up my crew almost as soon as we stepped onto the docks. I barely turned around before it happened.”
“Your crew?” Nel stared. “Since when do you have crew?”
Quill made a sound of disgust. “Have you two truly discussed nothing while I have been gone?”
“And where the hells have you been, Quill?” Nel asked.
“Looking for his crew.”
“What crew!”
“Powder,” Sharpe said. All eyes turned to him. “Swayne. Boxing. Java. Yarn. Chit. Horse.”
“Your crew,” Nel said. She looked longingly across the room, to where the servers were sweeping up the shattered remnants of her last drinking vessel.
“Those are fleet names.” The kind you have to be given. Trade in your old life for a new name and turn your back to the world.
“You forgot one,” Quill said.
“Didn’t forget, Quill,” Sharpe said. “Just holding it back for last.”
“What’s the name, Sharpe?” Nel squinted at him.
“Stoker.”
“Gods damn you, Sharpe, there anyone you don’t plan on dragging back in?”
“I didn’t have a whole lot of options,” Sharpe told her, defensive but sticking to his guns. “Not a line of people waiting to help out. You were gone, both of you, all of you. So I thought. Else I would have come looking. I left Violet there. Wasn’t supposed to happen like that. So I meant to go back, and not alone.”
Nel shook her head. “You already said you don’t know where she is. Hells, how’d you even know where to find them you’re with now? I didn’t know where Stoker took them, not even where to look.”
Sharpe exchanged a guilty look with Quill. It was quick, furtive. Obvious.
“You two,” Nel growled.
“We discussed some options,” Quill told her unapologetically. “At Rim, after we played ferryman. Sharpe, Stoker, and myself. The captains of the other . . . ships.”
“Few of the folk from Rim, too,” Sharpe added. “Those that were willing to leave.”
“That include our captain?” Nel asked pointedly.
“It did,” Quill told her.
“Don’t remember being asked to attend,” Nel said. “Or being told about it afterward.”
“Captain Horatio could have forgotten,” Sharpe said. It was a reasonable point.
“You were upset. Afterwards there was no point in informing you,” Quill said. “The fewer people who knew . . . the fewer people knew. And at the time you were . . . yelling.”
“I remember the yelling,” Sharpe mused. “Fondly, rather.”
“The fondness fades,” Quill told him.
“What happened to your crew, Sharpe?” Nel asked. “Seems we’re struggling to stay on topic here. And what’s this got to do with you being chased?”
“Thing about the crew,” Sharpe started to say.
“They’re all Draugr,” Nel said.
“How did you—”
“Wasn’t a big leap, Sharpe. Story. Out with it.”
“That’s the point, Nel,” Sharpe said. “Draugr. Second I was off the ship it looks like they were pressed. No one to speak for them and if they tried to speak for themselves . . .” He shrugged.
Nel leaned back. Damnit.
“Don’t think it was a coincidence either,” Sharpe said. “A few hours later they came after me. Tried to jump me in an alley.”
“Your ship is gone too,” Quill added.
“What do you mean gone?” Sharpe frowned.
“According to the harbour clerk it departed several bells ago. It did not lodge a destination—few ships do in Vice. But it was under new command.”
“You find out who?”
“I did not bother.”
“It even your ship?” Nel asked. “No, don’t bother, I don’t care.”
“Still a hard woman, Chanel,” Sharpe told her quietly.
“Again with the not caring.” Nel waved down a server, acquiring a new mug. It came with a warning from the establishment. Her last chance. Seemed about fair. She poured herself another drink.
Quill slapped his hand over her mug. “He is right,” the Kelpie told her before she could do anything about it. “You were always hard. You have never before been callous.”
“And?”
“And the girl is alive. Do you intend nothing?”
“No.”
“No,” Quill repeated. Eyes narrowing, breath hissing out. Clawed fingers tightened over the rim of her mug.
“Nothing to be done, Quill,” Nel said. “Got no ship and no crew. Crew’s dead. Captain’s dead. Got no idea where Violet is even if that weren’t the case. So it’s just us, the three of us. No plan, no options, no hope.”
“That is not nothing.”
“You’re right,” Nel agreed. “That’s less than nothing. And good for as much.”
The liquid under his hand started to bubble. Then steam. Then froth. It boiled over in a heady wash, geysering up between his fingers. Quill swept it off the table in a fit.
“Sharpe has a crew,” he started to say.
“Sharpe had a crew,” Nel said. “Locked up. Probably shipped to the far corners of the lanes by now. Sharpe had a ship. That’s gone too. And still got no idea where Violet is. Can I make this any clearer for you? Want me to write it down for you? Draw you a pretty picture? Or you rather I just smack you upside your scaly head again?”
Quill leaned back, pulling away from her. “The captain would be disappointed in you.”
“Well, he’s dead so he don’t get no say.”
“I disagree.”
Quill adjusted the strap of his satchel, the one thing he’d had with him when the Tantamount died. His maps, his charts, the only things he actually cared about. All inside. And
one more thing.
He placed the deed to the Tantamount on the table, rolling it out flat. Carefully. Almost gentle.
“Where did you get that?” Nel heard the tremble in her voice. Could feel the same quaver in her words.
“From you,” Quill said. “A better question might be, where did you get it?”
“Hells,” Nel leaned back. Not a dream then.
“From me,” Sharpe said. They both turned to him.
“I had that on me,” he explained. “When I escaped. Only . . . I lost it. When things went wrong.”
Quill frowned. “There are holes in this story. How did it come to be here then? You are sure you lost it?”
“Damned sure.” Sharpe was staring at it with near the same fascination Nel had felt. “You don’t forget something like that. Not when you know what it is.”
“I found it pinned to a damned board,” Nel growled. Eyes up, looking at Quill. “The same one you’ve been visiting.”
“Perhaps someone intended you to see it,” Quill suggested.
“Or you.”
“Maybe neither of you,” Sharpe said. “Last I saw that I was on the Morgana, still wearing prison shiny and squatting in a bucket.”
“And you came by it how?” Quill asked.
“Courtesy of your former captain,” Sharpe said to Nel. “There was . . . an accident aboard. Something went wrong. They had to call for help. She turned up. Gave me that. Gloated. Felt like gloating, real knife twist.”
“That doesn’t make any sense,” Nel said. She reached out, touching the deed. The captain’s own skin. Still sort of felt like him. Thin and leathery. All dried up but still tough. Upside down so the letters didn’t read right but she knew what they said.
“It makes sense,” Quill voiced his disdain. “A petty insult.”
“Not so petty, Quill,” Sharpe said quietly. “Nothing about it was petty or small-minded.”
“Seems cruel,” Nel said. “Don’t remember her as ever being cruel.”
“Our encounters with her would suggest otherwise,” Quill disagreed.
“Always had her reasons why she did what she did,” Nel shrugged. “Never did things just ’cause she could.”
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