The Island Deception

by Dan Koboldt

  “What’s a sucker punch?” Quinn asked.

  “Soon as they’re close enough, he’ll come about,” Timmers said. “Try to win the leeward side when they grapple us.”

  Quinn threw his bow over his arm and grabbed the rail. “What’s the point of that?”

  “We fight off the first attack, maybe we can cut loose and run downwind.”

  “Does that really work?”

  Timmers shrugged.

  Damn.

  The captain swung the tiller around and the ship lurched in response. Suddenly they were bow-to-bow with their pursuers, and closing twice as fast.

  The marauders were close enough to pick out targets, and that also meant that Quinn got his first look at the tribesmen. They were dressed in heavy outer layers of animal skins and furs. What little skin they showed was pale, but heavily tattooed with blue-black ink. Their ears and noses were pierced with ornaments carved in dark wood. The drums were animal skin stretched over wooden cylinders. They pounded these at random with wooden sticks. The result was a cacophony, but it eventually resolved into a steady beat. And the tempo picked up slowly, like the music from Jaws. The dread turned Quinn’s stomach to ice. It made him want to run and hide. The crow’s nest offered little comfort. He felt exposed up here. Vulnerable.

  “Get ready,” Timmers said. “They’re about within bowshot.”

  They were already in bowshot for Quinn, but he didn’t say so. Timmers had a shortbow, which didn’t quite have the same range. Still, the second he started shooting, the marauders would take cover. He figured it was better to have two archers unleash, rather than one. “Tell me when you’re ready.”

  “Ready.”

  Quinn drew the arrow to his cheek and touched his nose to the string. The familiar movement offered a little comfort. He didn’t have a shot at the steersman, so he let emotion make the call and picked out the guy hitting the biggest drum.

  Thrum. Direct hit, center mass. His target—hard to say if it was a man or a woman, because they all had long hair—tumbled over and out of view. Timmers took down someone farther aft. Quinn expected them to scatter, but the gaps in the line were filled almost right away. Someone took up pounding the drum he’d just silenced. And the marauding ship was even closer now.

  Then as suddenly as they’d begun, the drums fell silent. Everyone on the deck of the marauding ship drew weapons. The captain had to throw the tiller aside, or else risk being rammed. The deck of the other ship loomed. Even in the crow’s nest, it seemed so. Quinn and Timmers were shooting about three times a minute, each. The marauders seemed to have no end.

  Then the grappling hooks sailed over. The mast shook as the two hulls ground against one another. Wood creaked and screeched. Then marauders were vaulting over the rail, boarding them, and the deck descended into chaos. Quinn had half emptied his quiver before he even knew it. Then it was two-thirds empty. Simeon’s men were in a locked, desperate struggle to repel the first wave. The Marundi fought with a crazed fervor, screaming like wild animals. They’re insane.

  And they were starting to take notice of the archers in the crow’s nest.

  A crossbow bolt slammed into the mast right next to Quinn’s head. Another one flew past his shoulder. “Shit! Take cover!”

  He threw himself down. Timmers stood to try another shot.

  “Timmers!”

  He heard the wet thud more than he felt it. A warm liquid sprayed across the back of his neck. It dripped down, hot and sticky across his cheeks. Timmers gurgled and collapsed. A bolt jutted from his neck.

  “Timmers! Oh, God.” He tried to ease the lad down, but his body shook with tremors. His neck was fountaining bright red arterial blood. Even his medkit, tucked down below in his pack, wouldn’t have made a difference. Son of a bitch!

  Timmers flailed his arms, his eyes bulging. He tried to scream, but it came out a gurgle. Quinn was paralyzed with the shock of it. The horror of it. I have to help. The thought came, but no action. Come on, Quinn, move!

  Finally, he broke out of the freeze. He caught Timmers’s arms and pulled him close. “Easy, easy,” he said. He looked the kid right in his eyes. Tried not to see the life gushing out of him. “It’s all right, Timmers. I’m here for you.” He held the boy against him until the tremors stopped. He eased back, saw that the light was gone from his eyes. He closed them with his fingertips, gently as he could. A thing that he prayed he’d never have to do again.

  He laid Timmers back against the side of the crow’s nest. Wiped some of the blood from his hands. The poor kid. At least it was quick. He looked peaceful, now that his eyes were closed. His face was slack, as if he’d simply fallen asleep. He was young. Too young to be lying here in a pool of his own blood.

  Quinn cursed. The ordeal should have frightened him. Should have had him cowering on the bottom of the crow’s nest, or trying to make a jump for the water. But a red-hot fury burned away all thoughts of self-preservation. His bow leaned against the side of the crow’s nest, mercifully intact. He pulled his quiver to him. Nocked an arrow. He leaned over to peer between the slats of the crow’s nest, and saw one of the archers on the other ship. The man had tattoos covering half his face. A wolfskin cloak hid the rest of him as he bent over to crank his crossbow.

  Quinn stood and drew. The archer must have seen the movement. He looked up and grabbed a bolt to throw into the crossbow. Quinn drew a bead on him. He floated the target, the same way he’d practiced a hundred times with Logan, a thousand times back home with his grandfather. Release, follow through. The arrow buried itself just above the clavicle. The man flopped over and shuddered once.

  Eye for an eye, you son of a bitch.

  He heard Simeon bellowing above the din. “Break loose! Break loose!” he shouted. The sailors leaped forward to cut the ropes on the grappling hook. They were trying to break free and make a run for it.

  But Quinn barely heard. He just nocked another arrow. There were only four left. Can’t think about that now. The sailors cut the last line, and the two ships heaved apart. The marauders’ vessel turned. Quinn suddenly had a view of the cockpit. And the man at the wheel of it.

  He tried to draw, but the resolve was draining out of him. There was blood on his hands—Timmers’s blood, and that of the Marundi—and now his arms were too shaky. He couldn’t summon the strength. The navigator saw the ships break apart. He screamed wordlessly, and spun the wheel. He was going to bring them right back together. That brought the strength surging back into Quinn’s arms.

  Hell, no.

  He took a breath, drew back. He knew he wouldn’t have the strength for another shot after this one. Had to make it count. He put the sight pin right on the man’s solar plexus and quick-fired. A gamble, but he knew he couldn’t hold it longer. The arrow went high, hit the man’s shoulder. Not a fatal shot, but it pinned him back against the ship. He lost the wheel, and it spun freely. The marauders’ ship careened away.

  Two more of their fur-clad sailors ran over to pull the navigator free. One of them took the wheel and started bringing the ship around.

  Three arrows left, and he didn’t have a clean shot. He needed a different strategy. All he had was the elemental projector on his wrist. He’d been trying not to use it on this trip. Once the thing was spent, it was spent. He needed it more at the Enclave, to persuade them that he really had what it took to train as a student.

  But I’m no good to them dead.

  He dropped the bow and pulled his sleeve down. His fingers were slick with blood, so it took a minute to find the right controls. Then he hit the switch, and a ball of flame appeared over his hand. Green flame, too, a wicked and unnatural color. He could sense the men on both ships pausing, staring at him. He slid the control over and made it larger. Now it was big as a watermelon, and the heat started to sear his forearm. He reared back and hurled it at the coming ship. Right at the mainmast where the patched sail was stretched in a big, wide target.

  Everything slowed down. The fireball hung in the a
ir. It expanded as it flew, so it didn’t seem to move at all. Then it struck the mast, and the flammable gel-polymer splattered like a water balloon. Flames engulfed the mainsail. The galleon began to fall back as the tribesmen scrambled to put them out.

  Good, let them try that. Tossing water on a burning accelerant only made it spread faster. In seconds, the whole top half of the galleon went up like a Christmas tree. It fell away behind the Purity, the momentum gone, the survivors jumping for the dubious safety of the water. Simeon’s men made a ragged cheer.

  Quinn collapsed against the side of the crow’s nest. It took him half an hour to work up the courage to climb down. Even then, it was slow and painful work. The deck of the ship was right out of a nightmare. Bodies were everywhere, and blood covered almost all the varnish. The sweet tang of it mingled with the stench of sweat and shit in the air.

  Simeon stood nearby, leaning heavily against the siderail. He had a handkerchief pressed to a wound in his forehead.

  He jerked his head back in surprise when he saw Quinn. “Thought you might be dead.”

  “No,” Quinn said. He looked up at the crow’s nest. “But Timmers—”

  “I saw.”

  Thank God. He’d no idea how he was going to finish that sentence. “I’m sorry, Captain. He was a good kid.”

  “You and he made the difference today. Held back their second wave.”

  “We were lucky.”

  “Aye. Marundi tribesmen.” He spat and shook his head. “Never thought I’d see the day. Where the hell’s the Valteroni admiral when you need him?”

  Where indeed?

  Chapter 16

  Survivors

  “People are the most valuable asset to have on our side.”

  —R. Holt, “Investment in Alissia”

  Logan hated waiting for bad news. He and Kiara had planned to check in on human assets around Valteron City today, but the transmission from Bradley put a hold on that.

  Knew we should have finished the ocean survey. They knew nothing about what lay beyond sight of shore. Didn’t have a fix on the pirates’ strongholds, or the Enclave island. But Kiara had never mentioned replacing the Victoria, and he sure as hell wasn’t going to bring it up.

  “What’s the latest from Mendez?” he asked.

  The newest member of Alpha team had been quietly tasked to track Bradley’s signal as long as possible. That meant hiring a ship to shadow the Purity long enough to get a vector on the Enclave’s island. Bradley’s intel from the first mission had revised the number of magicians there by an order of magnitude. The company executives wanted a complete revamp of the threat assessment.

  “He couldn’t get a ship to follow the Purity for any amount of money.” Kiara’s lips twisted downward. “Apparently people were worried about piracy.”

  “You don’t say.” Logan spread out his parchmap of the continent, as he had a dozen times since morning. Based on Bradley’s last known trajectory and the triangulation they got from his comm unit, the Enclave island lay roughly south-southeast of Crab’s Head. That was another little detail of the mission that the lieutenant had kept from their hired magician. They couldn’t get a true position fix until Bradley got the network antenna in place, but they had a vector.

  How far the Enclave was, they couldn’t begin to guess. Even Bradley had never gone there by boat. For all they knew, it might be a thousand leagues away.

  “When’s Mendez due to report again?” he asked.

  “Ten minutes ago.”

  “He’s late?”

  “A little.”

  Logan grunted. “I’m sure he has a good reason.”

  “Let’s hope so.”

  “Are you going to tell him and Chaudri about the little present Holt left for us?”

  “Not until they need to know. At the moment, they don’t.”

  I hate keeping secrets. It was part of the job, but that still made things no easier. “Still nothing from Bradley?”

  She gave him the disapproving frown that officers must all learn at training school. “Don’t you think I’d have told you?”

  “Sorry, Lieutenant.”

  “You’re worried about him.”

  Damn right I am. “He’s good at thinking on his feet, but there’s no talking your way out of a raid on the open water. He’ll have nowhere to go.”

  “Then he can surrender, and we’ll pick him up wherever he lands.”

  “If he lands.”

  “We can’t do anything more for him until it plays out. We’re better off putting our energy into something productive.”

  “Like what?” he asked.

  “Figuring out a way to get close to Holt without his knowledge.”

  He forced his mind to the new problem and mulled it over. As it stood, there were just too many unknowns. “We need eyes inside the city. Inside the palace, if we can get them.”

  “All of our sources in this area have gone quiet since the last Prime died.”

  “Holt’s sources, you mean,” Logan said.

  “That’s what worries me.”

  When they’d stopped reporting in, Logan assumed Holt had bought them off, or begun intercepting their reports. Maybe I jumped to that conclusion. “You know, with all the turmoil they might have just gone to ground. Maybe they’re waiting to hear from us.”

  “It’s a possibility.” She pulled up some files on her tablet and started flipping through them. She had a snapshot of the entire intelligence archive, which gave her the works: age, profession, wrist-cam photo, occupation. Over the past fifteen years, Holt had developed hundreds of sources across the mainland. Valteron alone had upward of sixty. I hope Briannah’s all right. His adoptive mother ran an inn practically a stone’s throw from the Valteroni palace. Far too close to Holt to risk checking on her.

  “There’s a cobbler who’s given us decent intel,” Kiara said.

  “Last known location?”

  “Tanner’s Square?”

  Should have guessed that. He grimaced. “That’s inner city.” Too close to Holt, and therefore too risky. “Got anything else?”

  “Wife of a peach farmer, northwest outskirts.”

  A ride out to the country. He smiled. “Now you’re talking.”

  Six months ago, the areas northwest of Valteron City were among the wealthiest in the entire nation. Orchards and vineyards dotted the rolling hills overlooking the bay. These weren’t peasant farms, either: they were family estates that employed thousands of seasonal laborers. The grapes and fruit took a short wagon ride to the docks, where Valteron’s trading fleet carried them to the far reaches of the world.

  That was the situation before the old Valteroni Prime died. Now, half of the green, rolling hills had burned in the unrest that gripped the city. The admiral might have had something to do with that: he’d not been happy when the wealthy merchant class put forth their own candidate for Valteroni Prime, rather than backing him.

  And while they screwed around, Holt slipped into the big chair.

  Logan steered his horse around the charred remains of a horse-drawn wagon. Scorched lumber and iron rings marked the remains of several barrels. Whatever they’d contained, it was long gone.

  “Know what I haven’t figured out?” he asked.

  “What?” Kiara hardly glanced up from the case file. She’d been riding with her knees for the last mile, an impressive bit of skill that she normally kept under wraps. But they had the road to themselves here. Most of the merchant elites had fled to their country, waiting to see what kind of ruler Holt might turn out to be. That was Chaudri’s explanation anyway. Logan suspected that anyone who’d opposed the admiralty had gone the way of that burned-out wagon.

  “How in the hell did Holt get the admiral to vouch for him?”

  “Richard can be very persuasive, when he wants to,” Kiara said.

  “I know, but still. Seems like that much power would be pretty tempting.”

  “They must have had a deal of some kind. The three of them
were thick as thieves, back in the day.”

  “Three of them?”

  “Holt, Blackwell, and the former Valteroni Prime. They crewed a ship together in year two.”

  “He never told me about that.” He did a mental review of the mission briefing. “Pretty sure it’s not in the company records, either.”

  “Captain Relling gave him much more liberty than I have. Half of the time he’d just be gone for two or three months, with no reports to show for it.”

  Logan kept his face still, and didn’t dare look at her. He could count on one hand the number of times Kiara had spoken her sister’s name since they’d lost the Victoria. Even before that, the women had always addressed each other by rank. Guess they weren’t the touchy-feely kind of sisters.

  “What kind of ship did they serve on?”

  “A trading sloop that ran the western coast. Tion, New Kestani, and Felara. The former Prime captained it, and took Holt on as a greenhorn.”

  “And the admiral?”

  “He was the first mate.”

  Finally, the pieces were falling into place. “Quite the little boys’ club they must have had.”

  “We never read much into it, because Holt had no subsequent contact with them.”

  “Or so he said,” Logan said.

  “Right. His ascension to Prime did seem too well-orchestrated to be an accident.”

  Logan kept half an eye on the countryside as they rode, and saw nothing to encourage him. Half of the houses were burned down or clearly ransacked, and there were few signs of life or activity. The wrought iron gates and walls of the wealthy merchants were no match for a starving populace.

  Deep wagon ruts marred the dirt road that led up to the peach orchards. They crisscrossed one another at odd angles, and raised edges showed where the driver had swerved to keep on the road. Whoever they were, they’d left in a hurry. God knows what they left behind.

  Logan gave the lieutenant a grim look. Didn’t say anything, because he knew she was thinking the exact same thing. If their source had been here when all the fighting started, it didn’t bode well.