Saker couldn’t see what Kesleer was showing them. He pulled a face, frustrated.
More muttered words, then, “I agree, they’re certainly magnificent, yes, but what value can they have?”
What the rattling pox were they looking at? With a sudden movement the lascar pulled himself away from the crack and hauled himself up on to the bulging sacks to see better.
In horror, Saker leapt upwards to grab his ankle before he’d crawled out of reach. He yanked as silently as he could, trying to draw the young man backwards. What in all the world was he trying to do: get them both hanged?
The lascar kicked, but Saker was below him, well away from his flailing foot. Infuriated, the young man turned back and slashed with his dagger. Saker released his hold before the blade connected and the lascar wormed his way out of reach, heading across the sacks towards the merchants.
And the Pontifect thought he was reckless? He was a model of circumspect decorum compared to this idiot of a tar. At that moment, he could have cheerfully murdered the fellow. Instead, he slipped down to the floor. Stepping over the shattered cask of turmeric, he headed through the maze of cargo towards the back wall of the warehouse and his dangling rope.
Kesleer was saying, “… but Regal Vilmar is a jackdaw, hoarding pretty things. He’ll love the idea that King Edwayn will have to watch and fume while Ardronese court women clamour after goods like these, at our price. Huge profits for Lowmian merchants…”
Every nerve in Saker’s body told him that in a moment, the relative quiet of the warehouse would vanish. These men would react violently when they realised their secret meeting had been overheard. What if they were armed with pistols, those new-fangled wheel-lock ones that didn’t need a naked flame to ignite the powder? If he climbed up on the bale to seize the end of his climbing rope, he’d be visible to anyone who looked his way. Worth it, or not?
The Pontifect’s words echoed in his ears. You’re a spy, not a oneman army. In Va’s name, try subtlety, Saker Rampion!
Best to wait until the lascar was seen, then escape in the ensuing confusion. No sooner had he made that decision than a child’s voice echoed through the warehouse. “Papa! Papa! Someone’s been here. There’s a broken barrel and yellow footprints! Come see.”
He winced.
The fifth person. A child. At a guess, Uthen Kesleer’s ten-year-old son, Dannis.
He had no choice now. He hauled himself up the wall of bales, gripping with his knees and digging his fingertips into the burlap for purchase. Behind him, chairs scraped, enraged voices shouted. Kesleer called out the boy’s name, but it sounded as if he wasn’t sure where the lad was in the maze of aisles.
And then, a gasp behind him, just as he pulled himself on to the topmost bale. Lying flat, he looked back over the edge.
He’d never seen Dannis Kesleer, but this had to be him. He was dressed in black, a miniature merchant, with silver buckles on his shoes and belt, his broad white collar trimmed with lace.
They stared at each other. He hesitated, reluctant to use force to stop the boy yelling for his father. But Dannis was silent, staring. Not at Saker’s face, but at the medallion around his neck. It had fallen free through his torn shirt and now dangled over the edge of the bale. His cleric’s emblem, the oak leaf within a circle. His immediate thought was that the lad would not recognise it, for it was the symbol of an Ardronese witan, not a Lowmian one. Ardrone and Lowmeer might share the same Va-Faith, but there were differences in the way they practised it. The oak leaf was not used in Lowmeer.
Beyond Dannis, he caught a glimpse of the lascar fumbling among the papers on the table on the other side of the warehouse. Their gazes met as the man found and snatched up what appeared to be a wooden rod. The merchants had scattered and were nowhere to be seen.
Saker looked back at the boy to find that Dannis Kesleer knew the oak symbol after all. He was making the customary bow given to all clergy, with both hands clasped under his chin. Saker smiled down on him and raised a conspiratorial forefinger to his lips in a sign of silence. Briefly he thought of directing the lad’s attention to the lascar to make his own escape easier, but dismissed the thought. Instead, he made a gesture of benediction. Obediently, the lad laid his hand over his heart in acceptance. Then he turned and walked away.
Saker let out the breath he’d been holding, but his heart refused to stop thudding. He leapt for the rope and clawed his way up. The skin between his shoulder blades tingled as he imagined lead shot ploughing into his back. He scrambled on to the beam and hauled the rope up behind him, frantic.
How can they miss seeing me?
But the merchants were still shouting at one another, their voices coming from all over the warehouse as they looked for Kesleer’s son. No one looked up.
Kneeling on the beam, he untied the rope with fumbling fingers, his mouth dry. A movement low on the opposite wall near the desks caught his attention.
The lascar was on top of the ledger shelving. Even as he watched, the youth began to climb. Saker froze. Va’s teeth, how was he doing that? He knew sailors could climb rigging in the roughest of seas, but that wall was sheer, built of rough wood planks, and all the man had were his bare toes and fingers. And his dagger. He was carrying the stolen wooden rod too, which he’d shoved down the front of his shirt so that the top of it poked up over his shoulder. Even that didn’t seem to faze him.
That must be the bambu they were talking about.
Fortunately for the lascar, that corner was deeply shadowed and so he remained unseen. Incredibly, he paused to look at Saker, who was keeping an eye on him as he slid back the loose shingles where he’d entered the warehouse. Their gazes met, and the lascar removed the bambu and waved it, grinning hugely, as if to say, “Look what I found!”
Saker winced, convinced the overconfident tar would plummet to the floor, or be seen by the traders. Yet his luck appeared to hold. He scrambled up to the top of the wall where he pushed open the ventilation shutter. The gap would be just wide enough for him to squeeze through, but the morning light now slanted in to illuminate him.
Va favours the bold, Saker thought. Still, on the other side there was a sheer wall dropping straight on to a narrow walkway along the canal, and near certainty of being seen by the outside guards.
Saker pushed his rope through the hole he’d made and prepared to wriggle out. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw one of the merchants rush past the table. His action scattered papers and something else lying there, something wispy. Gold-coloured filaments fluttered in the air, as bright as sparks. Yelling, the man pointed a pistol at the lascar, and pulled the trigger. The noise was deafening.
Looking over his shoulder, Saker saw the unharmed sailor one last time through the opening of the shutter. He was outside the warehouse, hanging on to a beam of the overhang. He made some sort of hand gesture just before he swung up on to the top of the roof, as agile as a squirrel.
Saker thought it was a wave of farewell, but then he saw the flash of a dagger blade flying through the air.
Not at any of the men below, but at him.
Impossibly, it spiralled through the air, its point always facing his way. It whirred noisily as it came, and the merchants below swivelled to follow its passage. Saker hurtled himself upwards on to the roof.
Something tugged at his trousers and scraped his leg. Grabbing up the rope and the coat he’d left there, he set off at a run up to the ridge of the warehouse roof. He heard doors crash open below, followed by shouts in the streets. He didn’t stop.
He was already on the roof of the neighbouring warehouse when he heard the second pistol shot, followed almost immediately by the bang of an arquebus.
He didn’t look back, but he did look down.
The wavy dagger was firmly stuck through his trousers below the knee, and his leg was stinging.
By Stephen Aryan
Battlemage
Bloodmage
Chaosmage
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Contents
Cover
Title Page
Welcome
Dedication
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Chapter 42
Chapter 43
Chapter 44
Chapter 45
Chapter 46
Chapter 47
Chapter 48
Chapter 49
Chapter 50
Acknowledgements
Extras
Meet the Author
A Preview of A Crown for Cold Silver
A Preview of The Lascar’s Dagger
By Stephen Aryan
Orbit Newsletter
Copyright
Copyright
The characters and events in this book are fictitious. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is coincidental and not intended by the author.
Copyright © 2016 by Stephen Aryan
Excerpt from A Crown for Cold Silver copyright © 2015 by Alex Marshall
Excerpt from The Lascar’s Dagger copyright © 2014 by Glenda Larke
Cover illustration by Steve Stone
Cover copyright © 2016 by Hachette Book Group, Inc.
All rights reserved. In accordance with the U.S. Copyright Act of 1976, the scanning, uploading, and electronic sharing of any part of this book without the permission of the publisher constitute unlawful piracy and theft of the author’s intellectual property. If you would like to use material from the book (other than for review purposes), prior written permission must be obtained by contacting the publisher at [email protected]. Thank you for your support of the author’s rights.
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First ebook edition: April 2016
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ISBN 978-0-316-29830-8
E3
Bloodmage Page 47