“They’re not pursuing,” the captain said. He drained his goblet, smacked his lips, then refilled it from the webbed jug. “They are keeping pace, sir, and that is entirely different, as you must surely grasp.”
“Well, I admit, I see the distinction less clearly than you do, Captain.”
“How unfortunate.”
“You might,” the treasurer rasped, “endeavor to enlighten us.”
“What did you say? Lightendeavorus? Extraordinary, man!” He settled back in his seat, a contented expression on his face.
“They want a stronger wind,” Kalam ventured.
“Quickening,” the captain said. “They want to dance around us, aye, the alepissing cowards. Toe to toe, that’s how I’d like it, but no, they’d rather duck and dodge.” He swung surprisingly steady eyes on Kalam. “That’s why we’ll take them unawares, come the dawn. Attack! Hard about! Marines prepare to board enemy vessel! I won’t truck complaints aboard Ragstopper. Not a one, dammit. The next bleat I hear and the bleater loses a finger. Bleats again, loses another one. And so on. Each one nailed to the deck. Tap tap!”
Kalam closed his eyes. They had sailed four days now without an escort, the tradewinds pushing them along at a steady six knots. The sailors had run up every sheet of canvas they possessed and the ship sang a chorus of ominous creaks and groans, but the two pirate galleys could still sail circles around Ragstopper.
And the madman wants to attack.
“Did you say attack?” the treasurer whispered, his eyes wide. “I forbid it!”
The captain blinked owlishly at the man. “Why, sir,” he said in a calm voice, “I looked into my tin mirror, did I not? It’s lost its polish, on my word so it has. Between yesterday and today. I plan to take advantage of that.”
Since the voyage began, Kalam had managed to stay in his cabin for the most part, electing to emerge on deck only at the quietest hour, late in the last watch before dawn. Eating with the crew in the galley had also reduced the number of encounters with either Salk Elan or the treasurer. This night, however, the captain had insisted on his joining them at dinner. The appearance of the pirates at midday had made the assassin curious about how the captain would deal with the threat, so he had agreed.
It was clear that Salk Elan and the treasurer had established a truce of sorts as things never went beyond the occasional sardonic swipe. The exaggerated airs of civil discourse made their efforts at self-control obvious.
But it was the captain who was the true mystery aboard the Ragstopper. Kalam had heard enough talk in the galley and between the First and Second Mates to gauge that the man was viewed with both respect and some kind of twisted affection. In the manner that you’d view a touchy dog. Pat once and the tail wags, pat twice and lose a hand. He shifted roles with random alacrity, dismissive of propriety. He revealed a sense of humor that yanked taut comprehension. Too long in his company—especially when wine was the drink of choice—and the assassin’s head ached with the effort of following the captain’s wending ways. What was worse, Kalam sensed a thread of cool purpose within the scattered weave, as if the captain spoke two languages at once, one robust and divergent, the other silken with secrets. I’d swear the bastard’s trying to tell me something. Something vital. He’d heard of a certain sorcery, from one of the less common warrens, that could lay a glamor upon a person’s mind, a kind of mental block that the victim—in absolute, tortured awareness—could circle round but never manage to penetrate. Ah, now I’m venturing into the absurd. Paranoia’s the assassin’s bedmate, and no rest comes in that clamoring serpent’s nest. Would that I could speak with Quick Ben now—
“—sleep with your eyes open, man?”
Kalam started, frowned at the captain.
“The master of this fine sailing ship was saying,” Salk Elan purred, “that it’s been a strange passing of days since we reached open water. It was an interrogative seeking your opinion, Kalam.”
“It’s been four days since we left Aren Bay,” the assassin growled.
“Has it now?” the captain asked. “Are you certain?”
“What do you mean?”
“Someone keeps knocking over the hisser, you see.”
“The what?” Oh, the hissing of sand—I’d swear he’s making up words as he goes along. “Are you suggesting you have but one hourglass on Ragstopper?”
“Official time is so kept by a single glass,” Elan said.
“While none of the others on board agree,” the captain added, filling his goblet yet again. “Four days…or fourteen?”
“Is this some kind of philosophic debate?” the treasurer demanded suspiciously.
“Hardly,” the captain managed to say during a belch. “We left harbor with the first night of a quarter moon.”
Kalam tried to think back to the previous night. He’d stood on the forecastle, beneath a brilliantly clear sky. Had the moon already set? No, it rode the horizon, directly beneath the tip of the constellation known as the Dagger. End of a three-quarter moon. But that’s impossible.
“Ten weevils a handful,” the captain went on. “As good as a hisser in gauging passage. You’d have ten in close on a fort-night, unless the flour was foul from the start, only the cook swears otherwise—”
“Just as he’d swear he’d cooked us dinner here tonight,” Salk Elan said with a smile, “though our bellies groan that what we’ve just eaten was anything but food. In any case, thank you for dispelling the confusion.”
“Well, sir, you’ve a point there, sharp enough to prick skin, though mine’s thicker than most and I ain’t anything if not stubborn.”
“For which I cannot help but admire you, Captain.”
What in Hood’s name are these two talking about, or, rather, not talking about?
“A man gets so he can’t even trust the beat of his own heart—mind you, I can’t count past fourteen in any case, so’s I could not help but lose track and tracking’s what we’re talking about here if I’m not mistaken.”
“Captain,” the treasurer said, “you cause me great distress with your words.”
Salk Elan commented, “You’re not alone in that.”
“Do I offend you, sir?” The captain’s face had reddened as he glared at the treasurer.
“Offend? No. Baffle. I dare say I am led to conclude that you have lost the grip on your own mind. Thus, to ensure the safety of this ship, I have no choice—”
“No choice?” the captain erupted, rising from his seat. “Words and grips like sand. What slips through your fingers can knock you over! I’ll show you safety, you sweaty stream of lard!”
Kalam leaned back clear of the table as the captain went to the cabin door and began struggling with his cloak. Salk Elan had not moved from his seat, watching with a tight smile.
A moment later the captain flung open the cabin door and barrelled into the passageway, bellowing a call for his First Mate. His boots thumped like fists hammering a wall as he made for the galley.
The cabin’s door creaked back and forth on its hinges.
The treasurer’s mouth opened and closed, then opened again. “What choice?” he whispered to no one in particular.
“Not yours to make,” Elan drawled.
The noble swung to him. “Not mine? And who else, if not the man entrusted with the Aren treasury—”
“Is that what it’s officially called, then? How about Pormqual’s ill-gotten loot? Those seals on the crates below have the High Fist’s sigil on them, not the Imperial scepter—”
And so you have been in the hold, Salk Elan? Interesting.
“To lay hands upon those crates is punishable by death,” the treasurer hissed.
Elan sneered his disgust. “You’re doing the dirty work of a thief, so what does that make you?”
The noble went white. In silence he rose and, using his hands to steady himself as the ship pitched, made his way across the small room, then out into the passageway.
Salk Elan glanced at Kalam. “So, my reluctant friend, wh
at do you make of this captain of ours?”
“Nothing I’d share with you,” Kalam rumbled.
“Your constant efforts to avoid me have been childish.”
“Well, it’s either that or I kill you outright.”
“How unpleasant of you, Kalam, after all the efforts I have made on your behalf.”
The assassin rose. “Rest assured I’ll repay the debt, Salk Elan.”
“You could do that with your company alone—intelligent conversation aboard this ship is proving hard to come by.”
“I’ll spare a thought in sympathy,” Kalam said, heading to the cabin door.
“You wrong me, Kalam. I am not your enemy. Indeed, we two are much alike.”
The assassin paused in the portalway. “If you’re seeking friendship between us, Salk Elan, you’ve just taken a long step back with that observation.” He stepped out into the passage and made his way forward.
He emerged onto the main deck and found himself in the midst of furious activity. Gear was being battened down, sailors checking the rigging and others taking in sail. It was past the tenth bell and the night sky was solid clouds, not a star showing.
The captain reeled down to Kalam’s side. “What did I tell you? Lost its polish!”
A squall was coming—the assassin could feel it in the wind that now swirled as if the air had nowhere to go.
“From the south,” the captain laughed, clapping Kalam on the shoulder. “We’ll turn on the hunters, aye, won’t we just! Storm-jibbed and marines crowding the forecastle, we’ll ram ’em down their throats! Hood take these smirking stalkers—we’ll see how long their grins last with a short sword jabbing ’em in the face, hey?” He leaned close, the wine sour on his breath. “Look to your daggers, man, it’ll be a night for close work, aye, won’t it just.” His face spasmed suddenly and he jerked away, began screaming at his crew.
The assassin stared after him. Perhaps I’m not being paranoid, after all. The man’s afflicted with something.
The deck heeled as they came hard about. The storm’s wind arrived at the same time, lifting Ragstopper to run before it on stiff, shortened sails. Lanterns shuttered and the crew settling into their tasks, they plunged on, northward.
A sea battle in a raging storm, and the captain expects the marines to board the enemy craft, to stand on a pitching, wave-whipped deck and take the fight to the pirates. This is beyond audacious.
Two large figures appeared from behind, flanking the assassin. Kalam grimaced. Both of the treasurer’s bodyguards had been incapacitated by seasickness since the first day, and neither looked in any condition to be able to do anything except puke his guts out on the assassin’s boots, yet they stood their ground, hands on weapons.
“Master wishes to speak with you,” one of them growled.
“Too bad,” Kalam growled back.
“Now.”
“Or what, you kill me with your breath? Master can speak with corpses, can he?”
“Master commands—”
“If he wants to talk, he can come here. Otherwise, like I said, too bad.”
The two tribesmen retreated.
Kalam moved forward, past the main mast, to where the two squads of marines crouched low before the forecastle. The assassin had weathered more than his share of squalls while serving in the Imperial campaigns, in galleys, transports and triremes, on three oceans and half a dozen seas. This storm was—thus far at least—comparatively tame. The marines were grim-faced, as would be expected before an engagement, but otherwise laconic as they readied their assault crossbows in the blunted glow of a shuttered lantern.
Kalam’s gaze searched among them until he found the lieutenant. “A word with you, sir—”
“Not now,” she snapped, donning her helmet and locking the cheek-guards in place. “Get below.”
“He means to ram—”
“I know what he means to do. And when the crunch comes, the last thing we need is some Hood-damned civilian to watch out for.”
“Do you take the captain’s orders…or the treasurer’s?”
She looked up at that, eyes narrowing. The other marines paused. “Get below,” she said.
Kalam sighed. “I’m an Imperial veteran, Lieutenant—”
“Which army?”
He hesitated, then said, “Second. Ninth Squad, Bridgeburners.”
As one, the marines sat back. All eyes were on him now.
The lieutenant scowled. “Now how likely is that?”
Another marine, a grizzled veteran, barked out, “Your sergeant? Let’s hear some names, stranger.”
“Whiskeyjack. Other sergeants? Not many left. Antsy. Tormin.”
“You’re Corporal Kalam, ain’t you?”
The assassin studied the man. “Who are you?”
“Nobody, sir, and been that way a long time.” He turned to his lieutenant and nodded.
“Can we count on you?” she asked Kalam.
“Not up front, but I’ll be close by.”
She looked around. “The treasurer’s got an Imperial Writ—we’re shackled to it, Corporal.”
“I don’t think the treasurer trusts you, should it come down to making a choice between him and the captain.”
She made a face, as if tasting something bad. “This attack’s madness, but it’s sharp madness.”
Kalam nodded, waited.
“I guess the treasurer’s got reason.”
“If it comes to it,” the assassin said, “leave the bodyguards to me.”
“Both of them?”
“Aye.”
The veteran spoke up. “If we make the sharks sick in the gut with the treasurer, we’ll hang for it.”
“Just be somewhere else when it happens—all of you.”
The lieutenant grinned. “I think we can manage that.”
“Now,” Kalam said, loud enough to be heard by every marine, “I’m just another one of those grease-faced civilians, right?”
“We never figured this outlawing stuff was for real,” a voice called out. “Not Dujek Onearm. No way.”
Hood, for all I know you may be right, soldier. But he hid his uncertainty with a half-salute before making his way back down the length of the deck.
Ragstopper reminded Kalam of a bear crashing through thickets as it barrelled along—lumbering, broad and solid in the spraying high seas—a spring bear, an hour out of the den, eyes red-rimmed with old sleep, miserable and gnawed with hunger deep in its belly. Somewhere ahead, two wolves slinking through the dark…they’re in for a surprise…
The captain was on the sterncastle, braced against the hand manning the tiller. His First Mate stood near him, one arm looped around the stern mast. Both were glaring ahead into the darkness, awaiting the first sighting of their quarry.
Kalam opened his mouth to speak, but a shout from the First Mate stopped him.
“A point to port, Captain! Beating three-quarters! Hood’s breath, we’re right on top of her!”
The pirate vessel, a low, single-masted raider barely visible in the gloom, was less than a hundred paces away, on a tack that would cut directly in front of Ragstopper. The positioning was breathtakingly perfect.
“All hands,” the captain bellowed through the howl of the storm, “prepare to ram!”
The First Mate bolted ahead, shouting orders to his crew. Kalam saw the marines crouch low to the deck, readying for the impact. Faint screams reached the assassin from the pirate vessel. The taut square sail, storm-jibbed, billowed suddenly, the ship’s prow pitching away as the pirate crew made a last, doomed effort to avoid the collision.
The gods were grinning down on the scene, but it was the rictus of a death’s head. A swell lifted Ragstopper high just before the contact, then dropped the trader down onto the raider’s low gunnels, just behind the peaked prow. Wood exploded, splintered and shuddered. Kalam was thrown forward, losing his grip on the starboard stern rail. He pitched from the sterncastle, struck the main deck with a tucked shoulder, rolling as
the momentum carried him forward.
Masts snapped somewhere above him, sails whipping like ghost wings in the rain-tracked air.
Ragstopper settled, grinding, popping, canting heavily. Sailors were screaming, shrieking on all sides, but Kalam could see little of what was happening from where he lay. Groaning, he worked his way upright.
The last of the marines were plunging over the forward port rail, down and out of sight—presumably onto the raider’s deck. Or what’s left of it. The clash of weapons rose muted beneath the wailing wind.
The assassin turned, but the captain was nowhere in sight. Nor was there anyone at the tiller. The wreckage of a snapped spar cluttered the sterncastle.
Kalam made his way aft.
The locked ships had no steerage. Waves were pummeling Ragstopper’s starboard hull, flinging sheets of foaming water across the main deck. A body lay in that wash, face down and leaking blood that stretched weblike in the rolling water.
Reaching the man, Kalam turned him over. It was the First Mate, his forehead sharply caved in. The blood was coming from nose and throat; the water had washed clean the killing blow, and the assassin stared at the damage for half a dozen heartbeats before rising and stepping over the corpse.
Not so seasick after all.
He climbed to the sterncastle and began searching through the wreckage. The man at the tiller had lost most of his head, only a few twisted ropes of flesh and skin holding what was left of it to the body. He examined the slash across the neck. Two-handed, a step behind and to the left. The spar crushed what was already dead.
He found the captain and one of the treasurer’s bodyguards beneath the sail. Splinters of wood jutted from the giant tribesman’s chest and throat. He still gripped his two-handed tulwar. The captain’s hands were shredded ribbons closed on the blade-end, blood pulsing from them to stain the swirling wash of seawater. A massive discoloring reached the span of the man’s brow, but his breathing was steady.
Kalam pried the captain’s fingers from the tulwar blade and dragged him free of the wreckage.
Ragstopper loosed its grip on the raider at the same time, dropping down into a trough, then pitching wildly as waves battered its hull. Figures appeared on the sterncastle, one taking the tiller, another crouching down beside the assassin.
The Complete Malazan Book of the Fallen Page 134