The Dagger's Path

by Glenda Larke

  When he found Sorrel on the foredeck looking over the bulwarks, he assumed she’d suffered the same ache of restlessness. The lanterns didn’t offer much light to the deck, so he couldn’t see her features, but he knew her anyway by the ambience of her witchery. When he came close, he heard the soft swish of silken skirts. Juster, he assumed, had given that dress to her. The thought, instead of amusing him, annoyed him; his reaction exasperated him in turn because he didn’t know what prompted it. What did it matter that Juster had given her clothes to wear? He should be glad!

  Earlier, he’d found it difficult to gaze at her face, when the curve of her shoulder and the low-cut gown enticed his gaze. He’d never seen her look so alluring, so lovely.

  And don’t you forget, she loathes you. Although she had been wearing the kerchief he’d given her.

  She turned her head when she heard his footfall. “Saker.”

  “Yes.”

  “Come, look at this. The wavelets breaking against the sides of the ship–they glow!”

  She sounded light-hearted, charmed by what she saw. Earlier that day she’d killed a man, brutally and bloodily, and he’d heard the horror in her voice when she’d finally recounted the story to him. Now he could only wonder how much of that she had really managed to put behind her, and how much she was feigning her pleasure at seeing something trivial, if pretty.

  Joining her at the bulwarks, he looked over the side of the ship. Rippling waves crinkled as they broke against the hull, sending out radiant ribbons of blue. It was as if a breeze puffed across the water, painting an effulgence on the surface as it passed: a lustre that expanded, then contracted, then vanished, only to return with the next breaking wavelet.

  “Luminescence,” he said. “The Lowmians say those are the lights of A’Va’s seagoblins.”

  She laughed softly. “And you? What do you say it is?”

  “An integral part of the Way of the Flow. Another of Va’s gifts to the world.” He thought she smiled at him then, but couldn’t be sure in the dark.

  “The perfect answer when one is a witan.”

  “Not a witan any more.”

  He watched her as she turned back to look at the sea and startled himself by his awareness of her proximity. Her skin, flushed with a rosy sheen by the port lantern, made him swallow convulsively. A single pearl of sweat edged down the hollow of her neck, gleaming blood-red, and he followed it with his gaze until it disappeared under the neckline of the gown into the valley between her breasts.

  He clasped his hands behind his back. “I-I need to apologise to you. What happened to you today? I feel responsible. I should have protected you. I should have treated what you said about Lustgrader going over to Sentinel with more seriousness. When I consider how you and Piper came so close to death… No, I don’t even want to think about the possibility! I wasn’t there when I should have been. I’m deeply, deeply sorry.”

  “It’s past. Forget it. He’s not the first man I’ve murdered. I did not regret the first, and I’ll not dwell on this one either.”

  “Then you are braver than me. I don’t think I’ll ever be able to forget it. I certainly won’t forget your courage. You saved Piper today as well as yourself and you did it alone. I don’t even have the words to tell you how much I admire your strength.”

  She turned towards him, her face now illuminated by the meagre light of the starboard lantern. “I learned once before what I am capable of, and that was just for the memory of a little girl. Today I found how much more I am capable of for a living child. You should be wary of me, Saker. Or glad because I’m a woman capable of getting to Vavala all by herself.” She drew in a deep breath. “Lord Juster is not going to take us where we want to go, is he?”

  “I’m afraid not.”

  “And you’re going to leave me in Javenka.”

  He felt himself redden and was glad she wouldn’t be able to see his shame. “I’m sorry.”

  “I must go below and make sure that Piper is still happy with the wet nurse. I worry she may not have sufficient milk for two babies.” She expelled a sigh. “It’s odd, there were so many times before when I would have liked to have handed her over to someone else just so that I had some time to myself. Now that I do, I worry all the time, and feel guilty. I even feel jealous! How silly is that?”

  She’d changed the subject, and he was disappointed, left feeling there’d been so much more to say–and the chance was passing them by.

  “I don’t think it’s silly at all.” He wanted to keep her there, just to talk, but nothing sensible came to his mind.

  She said good night and walked away, her tread firm on the deck. He stayed where he was, but his anxiety did not dissipate. He could still feel the bruises and cuts on his back from being scraped under Spice Winds; his shoulder muscles ached from all the swimming and his skin was red and sunburned, but he knew none of that was the cause of his restlessness. Guilt. It was guilt. Guilt because he failed Sorrel and Piper.

  And the birds, dear Va, what of the birds?

  Shame stalked him along with the memory of bloodied feathers. He was Shenat, and all life was sacred to him, never to be taken heedlessly, never to be squandered. So many of those beautiful seabirds had died that day because he had called on them. Did he have that right?

  Behind him, as if he was reading his mind, Ardhi spoke. Confound the man; he moved with the stealth of a cat and the Pashali words rolled off his tongue so much more easily than they did off his own. “So many birds died today. Their deaths haunt you, don’t they?”

  “I felt them die. Every terrified torment.” Their fear and pain had clawed furrows into his memory. Those scars were for ever, he knew that now. “They were wild and free and so–so right.”

  “You learned something today that will stand you in good stead in the future. Do not forget the lesson.”

  In spite of the evening’s warmth, he shivered. There was warning in Ardhi’s words. “Don’t be so damned sanctimonious! Tell me instead: what do we do now? We don’t have any of the four plumes. It’s unlikely that Lustgrader will send across our kit bags. If he does, he’ll search them first and he’d steal the plumes. The plume that’s in Captain Russmon’s hands on Sentinel is lost for ever anyway.”

  “For ever is a long time.”

  His heart lurched at his tone. “Ardhi, you’ve seen the watch set on those ships. There is no way you can board without being seen. Don’t try it.”

  “Captain Juster is not going to take us to the Summer Seas, is he?”

  “No. We will have to make our own way on a Pashali ship.”

  “And the cost of such a passage?”

  “Lord Juster will lend the money, for all of us. Sorrel comes with us as far as Javenka. After that, she will go overland with Piper.”

  “Ah.” He nodded, but more to himself than to Saker.

  “Have you met the other lascar on board?”

  “He is from Serinaga Island. He does not even speak my tongue. In fact, he is a little frightened of me. We Chenderawasi have a reputation.”

  “For the life of me, I can’t imagine why,” he said dryly. “I think I will turn in for the night. It has been a tiring day.”

  As he walked away, leaving the lascar on deck, Saker’s unease increased. He knew he needed to write a letter to Fritillary Reedling. It could be sent with a trader by sea and then overland to Vavala. But what the pox was he going to say? How could he possibly explain everything to her satisfaction? Something told him Ardhi was still sure that either Piper or Sorrel, or both, were destined to end up in the Chenderawasi Islands.

  Va-damn, what a tangle we have woven around ourselves.

  25

  Attack

  For want of something better to do, Ardhi turned back to watch the luminescence in the water. It reminded him of home, and night-time swims in the lagoon; poignant memories of Lastri emerging from water that left a momentary glow on her naked breasts and thighs…

  One of many things better forgotte
n. He had no future, and certainly none with the woman he once thought to wed.

  His train of thought was broken by the sound of voices coming to him across the water, too close to be from the shore. There was laughter and drunken cursing, a splash of an oar in the darkness. Sailors, he assumed, coming back to their ship from a night onshore. There were six or seven ships anchored in the Bay besides the Lowmian fleet and Golden Petrel, all Pashali merchantman. Odd, though, it sounded more like a very Lowmian swearword he’d heard. Still, nothing to say a Pashali ship couldn’t have Lowmian crew. But why no light?

  Over his head the lookout in the crow’s nest yelled out to the officer on watch, saying he thought the sounds were off the starboard bow. The officer shouted as he ran forward, calling out to the unseen boat to stand well clear. Both of the swabbies on watch scurried towards the prow as well, one of them grabbing a boathook on the way in case he had to fend off a boatload of drunken tars.

  Ardhi was about to go to their aid when instinct kicked in. There was something wrong. Even drunken sots didn’t set out to row or sail in the pitch dark without a light. Besides, every seaman knew the correct configuration of the mainmast, port and starboard lights of his own ship. There was no way anyone would mistake Golden Petrel for a Pashali merchantman. Nor did Pashali seamen swear using Lowmian curses.

  He went cold all over. He raced towards the stern and stuck his head down the aft companionway, bellowing for Lord Juster. Then he ran on to the taffrail, looking out into the darkness towards the outer islands. There was nothing to see. He couldn’t tell where the bay ended and the islands began; there was no difference between water and land and a cloud-dense sky.

  But his panic would not subside. This is a trap, a distraction; they want us to look forward not behind. He lifted his head looking upwards to the lookout on the mainmast. “Crow’s nest! Look astern, look astern!”

  “Aye, aye, sir!” Fortunately the lad hadn’t recognised his voice, and assumed the order came from someone who had the authority to give it. “Naught there, sir!”

  Pickle it, it was so splintering dark.

  And then he saw: alarmingly close, more of the eldritch light of the luminescence. It ran out on either side of a central point, two silent, beautiful bands of glowing light forming a V shape. It was coming nearer. Then he knew.

  “Captain!” he roared, turning from the railing towards the ship’s bell. “On deck! Now!”

  He yanked the rope attached to the bell, a moment later the man in the crow’s nest yelled, “Boat! Dead astern!” and then the ship was in an uproar. He dived back to the stern rail as the first man pounded up the companionway from below. He could see it now, the boat stirring up the luminous blue as it cleft the water with its prow, gliding in silence like a bat on the hunt. A dark sail, a dark-clad crew, a small vessel full of menace, all suddenly illuminated by the flickering candlelight of Golden Petrel’s stern lantern.

  Time seemed to slow. Everything he saw etched itself on to his mind’s eye; his comprehension lagging a sliver of time behind. Captain Juster was there, issuing orders. Beside him, Finch was loading a pistol and the master’s mate was lighting a taper. The gunner’s mate was swinging the small gun on the quarterdeck, trying to lower its muzzle to aim at something already too close. The captain leant over the bulwarks and barked an order for the boat to identify itself. When there was no immediate answer, he yelled, “Veer away, or we’ll put a ball through you!”

  “Spice Winds!” Ardhi cried, recognising the ship’s dinghy and the officer on the prow. Tolbun. Behind the Lowmian mate, a tar was lighting the wick attached to something round.

  Blister it, a shrapnel ball.

  “Shoot him!” Juster snapped at Finch.

  A splinter of a moment to do something, anything…

  Ardhi whirled, bent, grabbed the handle on the nearest fire bucket, wrenched it free of its stand and flung it, water and all, at the boat.

  Too late.

  Even as Finch’s lighted taper touched the powder in the flash pan of his pistol, even as the bucket left Ardhi’s hand, the first of two shrapnel balls smashed through the window of the captain’s cabin. The second followed the first through the hole in the glass.

  Ardhi’s effort to fling the bucket wrenched his arm and precipitated him halfway across the taffrail.

  The force of the explosion inside the cabin below him blew out the rest of the windows beneath the quarterdeck and lifted him upwards, spinning helplessly, all the air driven from his lungs.

  The last thing I ever see…

  A stupid thought in his head as he flew through the air above the ship, and the scene below unfolded in a series of glimpses, each vivid, intense, detailed. Captain Juster and first mate Finch were flung across the quarterdeck as the planks beneath their feet burst upwards, carried on an explosion of light. The gout of fire from Juster’s cabin showered the Lowmian dinghy with a burning rain of debris and shards of twinkling glass. The surface of the sea ruptured with blue-fire luminescence spreading outwards. The sound that shattered the peace of the night was so great he thought his head would burst.

  A burn flashed across his body, charring his clothes, singeing his eyebrows and frizzling his hair, only to be immediately drenched with seawater coming from storm-raja knows where. He crashed down, unable to breathe, blinded by the light, deafened by the sound, crushed by the weight of his fall.

  He wasn’t in the ocean.

  Utter silence.

  Complete darkness.

  The gradual return of his senses. Pain first, everywhere. Sounds returning, heard through a ringing in his ears. The wailing of men in agony, the shouting of enraged sailors. The crackle of flames, the sizzle of fire mixing with water. Smells: fresh blood, burned flesh, smouldering canvas, singed hair.

  Little by little his sight cleared. He was lying on his back on top of canvas, staring upwards at broken lines. And above that, the side of the ship loomed.

  Curse it, that’s Golden Petrel. And I’m not on board!

  He groaned and tried unsuccessfully to ease himself upright. His head ached and spun. He was looking at what remained of the mast of the dinghy, and he was lying on what was left of its sail. He guessed the Golden Petrel’s gunner had managed to fire a lucky shot through the mast, splintering most of it to smithereens.

  When he moved his head, red-hot pain shot down his neck and left arm. Pox. He’d taken a splinter into his shoulder. He yanked it out. With infinite care, almost passing out in pain, he edged himself into a sitting position and found himself staring at Banstel, the ship’s boy from Spice Winds, crouching low with his hands clamped over his head. It took him another moment to realise that he and Banstel were the only two people in the dinghy, or rather, the only two who were conscious. Another man was draped over the prow, half in and half out of the boat. He appeared to be still breathing. Tolbun was nowhere to be seen.

  Wincing in pain, Ardhi groped to see if he still had his kris and breathed easier when his hand closed over the hilt. He raised his gaze to look at Golden Petrel again. The dinghy was drifting away, and the distance between the two vessels was increasing. The fire at the stern of the ship was burning still, supplying enough light for him to see by, but it looked as if it was under control. Relief swept over him, although he doubted there was much of the captain’s cabin left.

  His next thought clawed away the relief. Sorrel. Sorrel: she hadn’t been still using the captain’s cabin, had she? He tried to think, but his memory was dancing this way and that, none of it at his bidding. In his desire to get back to Golden Petrel, he almost leapt into the sea, but stopped himself when his head reeled and his left arm wouldn’t cooperate.

  “Banstel,” he said, gritting his teeth with pain, “are you badly hurt?”

  “Not much.”

  “Row us over to the ship.”

  The lad shook his head. “They’ll kill me.”

  “I won’t let them.”

  Banstel looked disbelieving.

  “Re
fuse, and me, Ardhi, will kill you. Row!”

  Banstel’s eyes widened in astonishment at his tone. “Aye, aye, sir.” Scrambling forward, he fumbled to extract one of the oars from under the tangle of canvas, halyards and sheets.

  “What happened to other men? I saw Tolbun and another.” His head was aching, and he was having trouble sorting out the sequence of events.

  “Don’t rightly know. Them pirates shot at us. Mate Tolbun and Mynster Baak, they got blowed into the water. Reckon they couldn’t swim.” He jerked his head at the body in the bows. “An’ he got hit then, I reckon. He’s still breathing though.”

  “Lustgrader has an empty head. Even attack successful, Karradar men get very angry.”

  “Cap’n was right proper mad at you ’n’ Factor Reed Heron. Real furious with Heron.” Banstel stepped over Ardhi to rummage for the second oar under the torn canvas. “Guess he figured no one’d ever prove what really happened. We was supposed to do it all quiet-like, use one of them slow-burning fuses to blow up the stern off from under, rudder ’n’ all. Cap’n said it wouldn’t go sky high till we was safe back on ship. That was the plan. But then you seen us and Baak lit the fuse too soon. You was supposed to be looking at them others in the bumboat off the bow. They was port layabouts Mate Tolbun paid to make a noise. Cap’n reckoned they’d get the blame.”

  He fitted the oars into the rowlocks. “Please, Mynster Ardhi, I just does as I get told. Nivver wanted to hurt nobody.”

  “I know, Banstel. Mistress Sorrel said you helped her. Now row us to the ship.”

  Juster schooled himself to an outward appearance of calm. “Finch! Report.”

  “Fire’s out, cap’n. The lady is still structurally sound. No damage to the rudder; the explosion was all upwards and outwards. Could o’ been much worse. Lost the outer wall and windows to your cabin and most of the furnishings, alas. The decking above will need rebuilding. We’ve fished up that rat Tolbun’s corpse from the drink. He took a splinter through the heart.”

  “Good. Bring him on board. We’ll need to show it to the Council. We’ve got the Lowmian dinghy on board now, too. There’s another Lowmian seaman and their ship’s boy, both alive.”