by Ree Soesbee
Nodding in agreement, Fassur folded the paper and tucked it into his belt pouch. Squinting, he lifted a hand and pointed across the sea with one long claw. “There. Red lantern.”
Slowly, carefully, the schooner pulled up alongside the Nomad II. The waves knocked the Gabrian’s Comet against the much larger ship, tossing it back and forth in a softly bumping rhythm. Cobiah had deliberately kept his craft dark, and the Nomad II dimmed her lanterns along the port side, ensuring that the Gabrian’s Comet would be further hidden from view of the Krytan ships floating some distance away on her other side. Cobiah tightened his sword belt nervously, watching a sailor on the Nomad II throw a long rope toward them. Aysom caught it, wrapping the end around one of the cleats near the edge of their deck. Once they were tied off, the larger ship slid a board down to them: a makeshift gangplank so they could come aboard.
Fassur took Cobiah’s wrist in a gesture of brotherhood. “Take Bronn and Grymm with you. Be careful. Aysom and I will keep our weapons out and the Comet ready to push off. The minute you’re done, don’t waste any time with kissy-poo or lovey-dovey stuff. We need to be back through that blockade and into the city’s harbor well before dawn.”
“ ‘Lovey-dovey’?” Cobiah stared at his old friend skeptically. “Fassur, women really are a foreign species to you. You realize Isaye’s more likely to kill me than kiss me, right?”
“Speak for yourself,” the charr grunted. “I married that Blood Legion minx, if you remember. I know fore-play when I see it.”
“Don’t worry.” Cobiah had to stifle his laugh. “This won’t take long.” He gestured to the brothers and headed up the slippery gangplank.
Assembled on the deck were four human sailors wearing linen shirts and breeches, a kerchief in green and gold tied about one man’s neck. As the three visitors made it up the plank and onto the Nomad II, the sailors on the deck kept their hands near their cutlasses, taking no chances. “The cap’n’s stateroom is this way.” One of them crooked his arm for them to follow and walked toward the oak doors on the quarterdeck at the rear of the ship.
Although most ships kept hands active, even at night, the clipper’s deck felt all but abandoned. No one was straightening the ropes on the capstan, nor washing the boards, nor standing guard at the bow or the gunnery. The silence unnerved Cobiah, and their footsteps across the broad ship’s promenade felt overloud and strange. Bronn frowned as well, exchanging a glance with his brother, and the two closed ranks to stay with Cobiah and the sailors of the Nomad II. Bronn subtly loosed his greatsword in its back sheath. Grymm cracked his knuckles, exchanging pleasant smiles with the Krytan sailor walking beside him. Just before the sailors opened the doors to the captain’s cabin, Cobiah realized something else: none of the men escorting them across the ship had tattoos—not an anchor, or a mermaid, or a pair of crossed swords between the lot of them. They walked stiff legged rather than rolling with the motion of the waves against the ship, and all four fell into the same rhythm, arms swinging in time, footsteps thumping regularly on the deck boards.
These were not sailors.
Cobiah paled. Before he could speak, the large doors on the quarterdeck swung open from the other side. Beyond them, he could see the Nomad II’s stateroom. The area was more than a cabin, built to serve as a meeting-room for the officers while the ship was at sea. The area within was lit by hanging lanterns bolted to the beams of the ceiling, their tinted panes casting colored light across the well-scrubbed floors and shining brass ornaments.
Yet there was no central table for meetings or meals, no sign of a captain’s desk or personal effects other than a few wall hangings that Cobiah recognized as Isaye’s. The furniture had been removed completely save for a tall, ornamented mahogany chair with opulently covered pillows that rested in the center of the chamber. Even though they had never met before, Cobiah instantly recognized the man seated there.
Prince Edair.
He was young, only a few years past twenty, with a deeply privileged smile and an athlete’s graceful form. Soft hands gripped the hilt of a bejeweled sword clipped to his gleaming patent-leather belt. The man’s skin was olive toned, his hair the rich auburn common to Krytan nobility. Handsome, but the way he lolled on the chair spoke of conceited superiority in every self-satisfied posture. From his shining black boots to his immaculate green-and-gold uniform, the man appeared every inch a Krytan soldier—but not a speck of the clothing looked worn or broken in. Edair straightened his sleeves, keeping his eyes gleefully fixed on Cobiah and the others in the doorway.
Isaye and Tenzin Moran stood to either side of the throne, her hazel eyes unreadable and his gun holster empty. Marines wearing the uniform of the Seraph lined both walls of the chamber, weapons already in their hands. The escorts drew their swords and fenced their three captives in the doorway. Hatches on the deck behind them sprang open with a clatter, and Cobiah could hear thumping, pounding footsteps barging up from the hold.
“Can’t go backward,” Cobiah conceded. “Might as well charge.”
In a flash, he drew his sword. He heard the ringing sound of Bronn’s two-hander coming free of its scabbard as Grymm bellowed a challenge. “Villains!” the younger twin shouted, his voice carrying like a foghorn. “Fight us one on one, if you dare!” He swatted away a sword pointed in his face and charged into the line of guardsmen to their right, plowing one Seraph with a haymaker as he drove his knee into a second soldier’s gut. It didn’t take Grymm long to turn that side of the room into a six-on-one brawl.
Bronn turned to the left, swinging his greatsword in broad strokes over his head to drive their opponents backward. Cobiah took advantage of their escorts’ surprise to punch one in the jaw with his cutlass hilt. Before the other Krytans could react, Cobiah grabbed one by the shoulder and hurled him into the third, knocking both of them to the floor.
With the norn twins handling the company of marines, no one stood between Cobiah and the Krytan prince. “I might not make it out of this room,” Cobiah said threateningly, storming toward Edair, “but you sure as hell won’t.”
“Cobiah, please!” Isaye begged, stepping in front of the throne. “I can’t let you hurt him.” The gesture was baffling, and Cobiah froze midstride, struck by the tears in her eyes and the desperate tone in her voice.
“Damn it, Isaye!” Cobiah grabbed her shoulder roughly, pushing her aside. “This is no time for national loyalty! The man’s trying to kill me. He’s trying to destroy our city.”
“I know,” she whispered, tears running down her cheeks.
That wasn’t the response he’d expected. He thought she’d fight him or argue—call him names or defend the Krytan prince’s actions. Instead, Isaye stood mutely in his path, willing to take any abuse he’d offer. It wasn’t like her at all.
His hand softened on her shoulder, cupping it gently instead of gripping with force. “Isaye . . .” Cobiah wavered, taking in her distress. “What has he done to you?”
Just then Krytan soldiers rushed into the room, flooding past Cobiah and hurtling protectively into position around the prince. One of them knocked Isaye aside, leveling his blade at Cobiah’s heart. The blow was so violent that she tumbled to the ground, striking her head against the floor of the cabin. Isaye fell limp, dark hair tumbling across her shoulders to cover her face.
More troops pushed through the doorway, overwhelming the twins with sheer numbers. Three guardsmen forced Bronn’s sword out of his hands, backing him against a wall with the barrel of a pistol shoved under the norn’s bearded jaw. Grymm struggled to cross the room to reach him, dragging two men on each of his legs and another hanging behind him from his broad shoulders. He swung wildly, trying to knock his captors off him, but more and more piled on. A few moments later, there were so many sailors on the norn that Cobiah couldn’t see him anymore—and then the entire pile collapsed to the deck, kicking and wriggling in defiance.
“Your Highness!” a guard reported from the Nomad II’s deck. “The schooner’s cast off
. They’re getting away!”
“Burn it to the waterline. Use the flaming oil,” the prince said lazily, barely bothering to raise his voice. “Do I have to tell you people everything?”
Other soldiers relayed the command, and soon Cobiah heard the twangs of shortbow fire and thuds of oil packets fired from handheld slings. The Krytans stripped Cobiah’s weapon from his hand. Keeping their swords pointed at his chest and throat, they forced him against the wall beside Bronn. Cobiah didn’t take his eyes off Isaye. Tenzin pushed his way through the soldiers to kneel at her side. The young marine pressed a torn piece of cloth to a wound on Isaye’s head, where blood was beginning to mat the silken strands. “Did you have to hurt her?” he said to the soldier sharply.
The man stiffened. “Just following orders, sir.”
Even at a distance, Cobiah could hear Isaye mutter something smarmy as her eyes fluttered open. Despite the bleak circumstances, her voice was full of life and fire—and Cobiah eased back against the wall with a sigh of relief.
“Slap the traitors in irons, including the Nomad’s officers.” Prince Edair gave a lackadaisical wave of his hand. “Take them aboard the Balthazar’s Trident. We’ll handle the interrogations there.”
The Balthazar’s Trident was a heavy, broad hulk of a ship, wallowing in the ocean like a pig in mud. She was the very picture of great wealth, with gleaming brass railings, lily-white sails, and carved ornamentation on every door, hatch, and railing. The ship’s name was plated in gold, blazoned in two-foot-high lettering beneath the balcony of her stern galley. The figurehead on her prow was of the human god of war after whom the ship was named. Twice as large as any other figurehead in the fleet, the statue portrayed him from the waist up as if in battle, raising a brass trident challengingly toward the sky. The ship had four great masts, so large that the trees themselves must have been over a hundred years old, positioned in a straight line from fore to rear along her deck and rigged with a thick span of interconnecting lines that made up her superstructure. A massive golden crown had been embroidered on her forward jib sail, and a series of fifty-foot-long gold-and-green pennants spun from the high points of her mastheads. She even dwarfed the Indomitable.
The Krytan soldiers loaded Cobiah and the others into a rowboat the size of a fishing vessel and sailed them from the Nomad II under heavy guard. They pulled up against the galleon’s starboard wale under the watchful eye of more than twenty riflemen with guns pointed and ready to fire. Instead of a gangplank or a rope ladder, the Balthazar’s Trident had two elementalists dressed in gold and green standing at an opening in the gunwale railing. One of them raised his voice as the rowboat took hold of tossed lines from the Balthazar’s Trident, chanting a spell upon a box of slat boards. The wind wrapped itself around each plank, rolling them out of the box to balance solidly upon the air. One by one, they moved past each other over the side of the ship, creating the firm shape of a curling staircase.
Prince Edair, seemingly unimpressed, bounded up it eagerly, calling greetings to his men aboard the ship. “Today,” he proclaimed, puffing up as all eyes turned toward him, “is a day that will go down in history! Today, Kryta brings to justice the thieves who have defied her. With the blessings of our patron, Balthazar, we have captured the leader of these traitorous pirates. Behold, Cobiah Marriner!” Prince Edair balanced on the edge of the ship’s dock, pointing down at the rowboat while those around him cheered loudly, taunting Cobiah and waving their hats in the air. “Next,” Edair said, raising his voice as the ribaldry faded, “we shall make right the indignity done to our fair nation.
“Today, Cobiah Marriner! Tomorrow, Lion’s Arch!”
Whatever the prince’s other failings may be, Cobiah griped silently, the boy’s father clearly taught him how to galvanize his followers.
The sailors on the massive galleon repeated the chant, firing their guns in the air and whooping in celebration. Edair grasped the railing and leaned over the side of the ship. “Take the traitors to the royal stateroom.” His anticipatory grin turned Cobiah’s stomach. “Tell Mercer to ready his bag of tricks. We need more information about the city defenses before we give orders to attack.”
“I’ll handle the transfer, Your Highness.” A woman in red, her body molded by a formfitting, coat-like leather bodice over a tight pair of pants, moved through the crowd to the prince’s side. The scarf tied about her waist swayed as she gave a bow, brilliant blue eyes peering out beneath a curl of shoulder-length scarlet hair. One paler lock flashed at her brow, glinting like the brightly colored warning of a poisonous fish. “All will be as you command.” The prince smiled and nodded, and the two exchanged quiet words that Cobiah could not overhear.
“Snow Leopard, clever and wise spirit, shield my eyes,” Bronn said. He sat in the rowboat beside Cobiah, staring up at the woman in frank appreciation. “Kill me if you must, boys, but don’t leave me alone with a seductress like that! Hedda’d never let me out of her sight again.”
The woman inclined her head once more, and the prince smiled. Prince Edair turned away and strode among his swaggering crew, delighting in their admiration, as the red-garbed woman gave a signal to the soldiers on the rowboat. Obeying with alacrity, the Krytans grabbed all five prisoners—Cobiah, Isaye, Tenzin, and the two norn—and began to force them up the magical stairway onto the galleon.
While the Krytans were figuring out the various difficulties of getting recalcitrant norn up a tightly wound spiral, Cobiah took stock of his surroundings. The Balthazar’s Trident was the largest ship he’d ever set foot on by far. She was heavily crewed and carried nearly as many combat-trained marines as she did crew. He saw at least two elementalists, though he suspected there were more aboard, and several of those following Edair across the deck wore armor much like Osh Moran had once worn: magic-wielding guardians, Cobiah suspected, as his old friend had been.
Cobiah could figure out everyone aboard except the woman giving them orders. At first glance, she looked like a plaything, someone the prince might have brought along for personal entertainment during the long nights of the blockade. Listening to her iron-in-satin voice, watching the way the marines leapt to follow her orders without question, Cobiah knew that this woman was no one’s toy. An adviser, perhaps? A cousin of the royal line? She seemed distinctly out of place, yet the prince had all but deferred to her suggestions. Cobiah stared at her, trying to reach a conclusion as to her purpose and abilities.
A sharp elbow thumped into Cobiah’s rib cage, forcing the breath from his body in a pained exhalation and drawing his attention sharply away from the woman in red. When he looked, Isaye was glaring at him. “If you have to hit me . . . hit the other . . . side,” Cobiah wheezed, his still-healing dagger wound throbbing with new pain. He’d been lucky not to tear it open again during the battle on the Nomad II. Then again, he hadn’t made it close enough to Edair to start a fight.
Isaye grabbed his shirt in her manacled hands, surreptitiously pulling it up and noting the bandages underneath. “You’re wounded?” Isaye blinked, shocked. “What on Melandru’s green earth were you doing out here if you’re hurt? Are you insane? You might have ripped it open again. An enemy could find out and use it against you. The wound could have gone septic—”
“My wife needed me.” Cobiah met her gaze evenly. “How could I not come?”
Unspoken implications hung in the silence between them. Breath catching in her throat, Isaye regarded him more gently. “Scamp.” Nevertheless, a smile teased the corners of her lips, and she looked away before it caught hold.
Once all five prisoners were on the deck of the galleon, the soldiers herded them through a double-doored hatch in the deck and down a short flight of stairs toward one of the lower holds. Judging by the size of the Balthazar’s Trident, there were at least three levels within the ship’s body. At least one of them, Cobiah guessed, was solely for housing all the marines. At the end of a long wooden hallway stood a door guarded by two soldiers who were not wearing the standard go
ld-and-green uniform. Instead, their clothing was simple, a matching dark blue and silver, uniform in coloration but diverse in fabric and pattern. Their dress looked more functional than showy; tied tight with laces, the fabric was kept close to their bodies so it would not hamper movement, and both men carried swords with well-worn hilts. Guards, then, not footmen.
Cobiah hadn’t heard the woman in red walking behind them, and he jumped when her voice seemed to appear as if out of thin air. “His Highness will be interrogating the prisoners in the stateroom.” She stepped through the group of captives confidently, completely unconcerned that anyone might make an attempt to do her harm. The two guardsmen, one pale and one dark, stood straighter as she approached. Unlike the Seraph, they seemed perfectly comfortable with her presence, watching the woman in red with the ease of long familiarity. Still, she was clearly in charge.
To the pale-haired guard: “Kaj, go to the prince’s quarters. He’ll undoubtedly ask to see his prize, and I want you there for protection.” To the dark-haired one: “Glenn, see that the brig is prepared for five and be sure there’s food and water available. Regardless of their current situation, these people are our guests.”
“Yes, ma’am.” The door wardens snapped to attention, eyes bright with respect.
“Keep your eyes open. The Shining Blade will be expected to help me ensure good behavior while our new friends are aboard.” There was a subtle implication in her words, and both guards seemed to relax in their stances. The woman flicked her eyes over the prisoners, not caring if they overheard. “I will be protecting the prince personally.”
“Yes, Exemplar.” The two young men gave her courteous salutes and quickly began their tasks.
The Shining Blade? Cobiah struggled to identify the reference. At last, he remembered something Isaye had mentioned years ago: the Shining Blade were an elite branch of the military in Kryta. It was said they were complete fanatics, willing and even eager to die at the king’s command. If so, and if she was one of them, why was this woman treating the prince’s captives so well?