There were sailors lining the deck above, looking down on them. Close enough to make out faces. Heathen was there, because of course she was. She’d been waiting for them. Her crew were already preparing a gangway. Not just a boarding plank, an actual bridge lowered on ropes to cross between the two ships. There was no permission asked, no threats or ultimatums. There was no need.
And everybody knew it.
“YOU UNDERSTOOD MY message,” Heathen said, hands clasped in front of her. The three of them sat in the captain’s cabin, facing her. Nel and Sharpe at Heathen’s request. Quill because he’d insisted. Heathen was alone. Her crew waited outside, under orders to do nothing unless provoked.
Nel trusted Stoker to keep his lot under control. It was only Jack that gave her concern. For now he’d barricaded himself in the galley. A last stand holdout. Everyone was content with the stalemate.
“What took you so long?”
Sharpe’s fingers drummed on the table. It was the only response. His nervous habit.
“What do you want?” Nel asked when she saw Quill about to launch into some tirade.
Heathen blinked at her. Slow, liquid blinks, one set of eyelids then two. “What do you want?” her former captain repeated at Nel.
“I’m here for my crew,” Nel said. “The ones you haven’t killed yet.”
Narrowing eyes. A hit.
“How many of mine are dead because of you?” Heathen asked.
“Didn’t take you long to acquire another ship,” Sharpe pointed out.
“Nor did it take you long to return to your usual position,” Heathen retorted. “Tell me, do you come at your master’s beckon or is it some basic drive instilled in you? A seasonal migration perhaps? You know what he is? Both of you?” This last was to Nel and Quill.
“We know,” Nel said. “He told us. Don’t care.”
“Good,” Heathen dismissed the issue. “Then we need say no more on that. But you realise why your escape failed.”
Sharpe looked confused. “What do you mean?”
“You were betrayed.”
His face hardened. “I wouldn’t call the golem a betrayal. Violet lost control of it. That thing . . .”
“She never had control,” Heathen said, watching him critically. “And the golem did what it was told, what it wanted to. The only surprise is that you managed to survive, let alone escape. Not everyone was so fortunate.”
“Violet is why we’re here,” Sharpe said.
“I gathered that. I was not talking of your erstwhile cabin girl.”
“You talk too much,” Quill told her.
Heathen’s eyes snapped to him. “And you are a fool. If you had listened to me back on Vice instead of—”
Quill rose up, leaning over the table. “When I saw you with that same creature? I regret only that—”
“Enough,” Nel told them. She didn’t raise her voice, but did reach out to pull Quill back. Then to Heathen, “You obviously want to talk. So talk. Say your piece.”
“Very well,” Heathen cast one more wary look at Quill before beginning. “You made a mistake, Chanel. Not finishing off the Guildswoman. That’s where this all started.”
“Quill hit her with an anchor,” Nel said. “Dropped her and the golem both into the black.”
“And there lies the problem,” Heathen said. “The golem. We . . . recovered it. After.”
“Figured as much. Surprised it still works,” Nel scowled.
“It works because its master survived. Scarlett, her name, I believe.”
“No,” Nel said flatly. “She’s dead.”
“I said survived. I didn’t say alive.”
“Hells,” Nel muttered. She looked around the cabin. All the drink was gone. She’d made sure of that.
“I don’t understand,” Quill said.
“Golem worked ’cause Scarlett made it work, Quill,” Sharpe explained. “When you sent her for a long walk some of her survived inside Onyx.”
“Some,” Heathen confirmed. “A fragmented, tormented, insane part.”
“And you took her aboard,” Quill sneered. “More the fool.”
Heathen sighed. “Yes. More the fool. She made her intentions known. We arranged a meeting, a transfer. With her Guild associates. At Port Border.”
Quill made a strangled sound. His eyes almost bulging out of his head.
“What?” Nel demanded, twisting in her seat. “Quill, what? What do you know?”
“The girl,” Quill gritted. “Border. She thought she saw . . . it. The golem. I dismissed her claims. Paranoia.”
“Idiot,” Heathen told him.
“Enough of that to go around,” Nel glared at them both. “What happened? Everyone start filling in the gaps here before I start making gaps in people’s faces.”
“The rest merely follows,” Heathen said. “The girl encountered the golem at Port Border. What was left of Scarlett, inside, attempted to take control of her. Possess her. In the same way it did the golem. An opportunity presented itself. Perhaps she was fixated on the girl, perhaps it was just a suitable . . . replacement. It was not a very successful attempt.”
“I don’t believe you,” Nel said. “Something like that had happened to Vi, we’d have known. I’d have known.”
Heathen studied her closely. “Would you?”
“Yes.”
“Nel,” Sharpe interrupted.
“What?”
“How’d they keep finding you?”
“Dumb luck, at Border,” she said. “The dumbest of bad luck.”
“And after?”
“How?” she demanded of Heathen.
“Signs were left,” Heathen told her. “A trail. Breadcrumbs, if you like.”
“Violet,” Sharpe said.
“An unsuccessful attempt. But a connection was made. It did not do what was left of the Guildswoman any favours. She was unable to communicate after Port Border. A creature of simple rage, for the most part.”
“Yet you kept pursuing us,” Nel said.
“Do you wish to hear the rest?” Heathen asked her. “Once you hear it all you can throw your accusations around as you like. But I will not be reprimanded before.”
“And after?”
“We will have words.”
“Talk,” Nel said. “Tell me about the Fata Morgana. How the hells did we end up getting chased by a Guildsman and the Gunner’s Daughter?”
“Quinn is a lapdog,” Heathen dismissed the woman with a growl. “A fearsome reputation propped up on a vindictive streak the wrong people saw fit to encourage. The woman is not even trusted to be master of her own ship. Arlin Raines is master, commander, and architect of the Morgana.”
“Sharpe mentioned him,” Nel said. “An inventor for the Alliance brass.”
“A Guildsman,” Heathen told her. “Very senior. Not someone to be trifled with. Not someone . . . you say no to.”
“That includes you?”
Heathen nodded. “You would find his hand fitting the glove behind many things, Chanel. He is someone I would happily never hear word of again. Someone I thought I was quit of.”
“He was your contact to hand over the golem,” Nel said.
“Nel,” Sharpe said quietly, “he made that golem.”
“Wasn’t the only thing was it,” Nel looked down.
Sharpe looked at her unhappily. “I wanted . . . I tried to tell you.”
“Tell us what?” Quill glared at him.
“Never mind, Quill,” Nel told him. “I said it didn’t matter then and it don’t matter now.”
“And you said he did tell you,” Heathen rasped.
“Said it didn’t matter.”
“That is something Raines would say. Very little matters to him. Golems, Draugr, ships that do not require crew or navigators,” Heathen said. “These are the themes of his work. He has little love or attachment for people. Unless they intrigue him. What happened to your girl intrigued him greatly. He would see if the intrigue can be taken any further
.”
“She has a name,” Quill growled at her.
“I have yet to hear you speak it.”
“She’s his own kind, Vi is,” Nel said. “A Kitsune.”
“That wouldn’t matter. It doesn’t matter. Be grateful, for your girl’s sake, that they are in fact nothing alike.”
“I want Vi back, doesn’t matter what’s happened to her. Maybe more because. But what do you want, Captain?” Nel asked her again. “You sent a message. Why?”
Heathen gave a slight smile. “I’m not your captain anymore, Chanel. I want Raines dead. For that I need you.”
“Far as you knew we were dead.”
“The killing blow came from the Morgana. We pursued you, yes, but for effect only. I saw your escape, a fact I chose to keep from Raines and Aristeia.”
“Maybe. But I don’t remember you ever needed help killing anyone,” Nel reminded her.
“Raines is the reason behind much of that.”
“What do you mean?”
“Misery. The orders for what happened, they came from him.”
Vintage, Nel thought. Not Misery.
“That is . . . convenient,” Quill spoke up.
“And what would you know of it?”
“I know the responsibility for what happened there that day lies with one person,” Quill said.
“Cut away that which is sick so the whole might live,” Heathen quoted at him. “Misery was sick, we could not risk that spreading to the rest of the High. Or is that not a tenet of your ways? The old ways?”
Quill hissed at her, baring teeth. He slammed something to the table between them. “Cut away?” he repeated. “You cut this from my captain’s body!”
Heathen stared down at the deed, unflinching. “I believe that was what he intended.”
“Hells of a long shot, Captain,” Nel told her. “There was no way you could have known that would make it to me. Or that I’d figure out your message. It could have been months before anyone even took notice. And when you gave it to Sharpe he was still locked up.”
“He was,” Heathen agreed. “But he had escaped before. I trusted he would likely find his way back to you. If not, it was a worthwhile gambit.”
“With little chance of paying off,” Quill snorted. “All could have been long gone from here before we discovered your cipher.”
“The cipher was to lead you here.”
“To the cold sun. Why?”
“Because of what you were to see. The fact that you find us all still here is fortuitous, not intentional.”
“And if we hadn’t?” Nel asked.
“There were other options on the table,” Heathen told her.
“Why him?” Nel asked. “Why Castor?”
“And why not Violet?” Sharpe added.
“I feared the girl a lost cause. Or at least too far gone to be an acceptable risk. As I said, options. Thus the deed and its hidden map. If you had arrived later there would have been . . . signs.”
“You always did like your schemes, Captain,” Nel sighed.
“I was trying to make contact with you. I will not apologise for the means.”
“You were saying Raines had something to do with the fog,” Nel said. “With what happened there, at Vintage. You expect me to believe someone can cause that to happen?”
“Not the fog,” Heathen said. “What happened there was a plague. Nothing more or less. The actions taken to contain it, those were driven by him, by Arlin Raines.”
“There were no Guildsmen on the blockade at Vintage,” Nel allowed. “I would have heard of a seven-tailed Kitsune. Didn’t hear nothing.”
Heathen shrugged. “I have no evidence. But when you served under me, have you known me to be cruel?”
“Yes.”
“Needlessly so?”
Nel hesitated. “No.”
“I left the Alliance not long after you did,” Heathen told her. “As your companion says,” this to Quill, “there was only one face of what happened there.”
“Explain Marching to me,” Nel said. “Thatch. Rim. History repeats and to me it looked like nothing had changed.”
“No.”
“No what?”
“No, I will not explain, Chanel. I have said what I intended to say. You are the one who has to make a choice.”
Nel glared over the table at her former captain. There was something there. She could almost see it if not for the . . .
“Vintage,” she said. “I remember afterwards. What you said.”
Heathen gave her nothing back.
“Not the first and won’t be the last, you said.”
“This is irrelevant,” Heathen told her.
“This is the last, isn’t it,” Nel guessed. “You left because you wanted out. And they pulled you back in. This is you trying to get out again.”
“Craven,” Quill muttered. But he looked away when Heathen faced him.
“We all have to live with ourselves,” she said.
“Yeah,” Nel said. “We do. Those of us still alive.”
Heathen shrugged her shoulders at that. “There is one more thing,” she looked at Sharpe, “you are familiar with Aristeia Quinn’s sense of discipline?”
“Was on the blunt end of a few beatings,” Sharpe said carefully.
“Woman likes to make examples,” Nel said. “Her crew are loyal, because they know what happens to those that aren’t.”
“What do you mean?” Sharpe asked.
“An example was made after your escape,” Heathen told him. “The young man who helped you. They set him adrift. Then fired on him.”
Sharpe went very pale. Very quiet. Mouth open but no words. Trembling.
“And Violet?” Nel asked, because she had to. Her heart had lurched at the implications, though her mind was already reeling torrential thoughts in with icy cold logic. She’s fine, has to be fine. Or there’s no reason to go through with this. Except revenge. Maybe Heathen’s counting on that. Or maybe she’s about to lie to my face. Hells damnit, stop thinking, stop thinking, woman!
“Alive,” Heathen said. “If not well. As I said, she intrigues Raines. The experiment continues. Now the question is, what will you do about it?”
“Nothing’s changed,” Nel said. She looked around at all of them. “Violet is crew. I’m getting her back.”
“And Raines? Aristeia?” Heathen asked her.
“If they get in my way, I’ll handle it,” Nel said. “But I won’t do your wet work for you.”
“The Fata Morgana is a remarkable ship, as you have gathered,” Heathen said. “It is a match, perhaps more, for either of ours. Perhaps both.”
“Thin mist, enough to negate your powers,” Quill accused her. “You are afraid of a fight that is fair.”
“Of one I could lose, yes. Inside the influence of a cold sun or the ship itself, thaumatics are mostly useless. Outside, restored to working order, then yes, I doubt the capabilities of this ship are comparable to the Fata Morgana’s. Only a fool without any options enters a conflict they cannot be confident of winning. But with you, perhaps that is possible.”
Heathen looked at Nel once more. “You want your girl back. I want Raines and that ship removed from the board. And we have little time before they are gone, before everything here is gone.”
Nel said it, for the last time. “What do you want from me?”
ABOARD THE DANCERS Poignard Jack worked with Nel and Sharpe to make the tender ready. It turned out there was but one glass sphere aboard the small ship. Which only reinforced what a one-way trip this was going to be.
“How much of that did you believe?” Sharpe asked Nel as they fitted the crane onto the bubble.
“Some,” Nel shrugged. “Enough.”
“She was lying.”
“Everybody lies.”
“But you still agreed,” Sharpe pushed.
“You’ve been lying to me since I met you,” Nel reminded him, brushing hair out of her eyes. It had gotten long again. Dry and brittl
e from hard living too. Need to tie it back, be embarrassing to be brought down because I can’t see nothing. “Still here because of you, aren’t I?”
“Thought you were here because of Violet. Besides, it’s different when I do it.”
“How so?”
“I’m prettier for one. And I tell it better.”
Nel actually chuckled. Sharpe didn’t, man was still glum after what he’d learnt. Banter must be habit.
“Not your fault,” she told him. “Wasn’t your idea to get rescued. Girl did that all on her own and whoever signed up to help did so of their own free will.”
Sharpe regarded her sceptically. “I hope you hear yourself talking, sometimes.”
“Never listen to myself. That’s everyone else’s job.”
“Ball’s ready,” Jack called out to them. “You going now?”
“Trying to get rid of us, Jack?” Sharpe asked him.
“Yeah. You talk too much. The both of you.”
“Just gonna be you and Quill here after we’re gone,” Sharpe reminded.
“Naw, got those grey fellas now. Good silent types. Don’t drink much though. Working on that.”
Sharpe shuddered. Nel gave him a quizzical look.
“Horrible thought,” he admitted. “Think Stoker might leak if he drank anything.”
“You didn’t need to share that with me.”
“You asked.”
“I did not.”
“You looked like you wanted to ask.”
“Not the same.”
“Doin’ it again,” Jack complained. “Talking.”
“Shut up, Jack,” Nel told him. “Lend me a tie, before we go.”
Jack reached up and undid one of his long braids, handing over the strip of tanned hide that had bound it. “Am I getting this back?”
“If we make it back.”
“So I ain’t getting it back.”
Nel scowled at him as she bound her hair in a sailor’s ponytail.
“There’s tar on that,” Sharpe told her. “You’re getting it all greasy.”
“It’s meant to be, you hogfish,” Nel rolled her eyes, securing her hair. She wiped her hands off on her breeches. “Quill, come to say goodbye?”
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