Lera didn’t bother to draw her knife. The man’s weapon—a long wooden stick—gave him too much of a reach. She backed away fast. He came after her, pausing only to shout that it was all right, everything was under control, he had her. He drove her to a corner where there was nothing but a bunk.
She leaped on the bunk and sprang up with all her strength, arms raised. Her fingers caught the edge of a rafter and her legs swung out in a kick, with all the momentum of her body behind it. One heel smashed solidly into the side of the man’s face and knocked him back, reeling.
He hit a bulkhead and the stick fell from his hand. Lera let herself drop and rolled fast to avoid the man with the eyepatch, coming at her. Her body drove into his legs and he went down, but surged up to his feet. He’d pulled a long-bladed knife and had a large metal pan in his other hand as a makeshift shield as he came at her.
He was experienced at fighting—he feinted, slashing in short quick arcs. When she tried a stab, the blade slid off the metal pan with a screech and she barely managed to dodge his counterstrike. Nearby she heard a heavy thud and ripping sounds, but farther away were shouts and running feet as more of the crew was alerted. Unity. She couldn’t fight them all. Holding Eyepatch off was difficult enough.
“Captain!” Kovir’s voice was thick and nearly unrecognizable. “This way!”
Lera spun on her heel and darted towards him. She only realized Eyepatch had thrown the metal pan when it slammed into the back of her knee and sent her sprawling, a few feet away from Kovir’s bunk. He lay on the floor beside it, curled around the remains of his sharksuit and the rebreather. Lera rolled over just as Eyepatch lunged at her.
Kovir flung something at him.
Small white beads flew through the air, but her first impression was of something burning; there was a strange, strong odor she’d never smelled before. Eyepatch jerked an arm up, shielding his face, but the beads clung like snow to cloth and flesh. Thin trails of vapor rose up where they landed. Kovir threw another handful and gasped in pain, dropping the smoking rag that had wrapped his hand.
But he’d bought her enough time. She bolted to her feet, rebreather in hand, and swung it with all her strength. The cast-iron cylinder slammed into Eyepatch’s arm, driving him back. His head cracked on one of the slanting beams in the ceiling, and he slumped to the floor. Lera kicked him behind the ear for good measure and whirled around to face Kovir.
“What was that?” she said.
“The rebreather. Charlotte said—strong caustic inside—”
Lera shushed him, because he hardly seemed to have the strength to speak. Now that she had a chance to see him clearly, her blood went cold. His expression didn’t betray anything—Seawatch to the end—but he wore only bandages wrapping his left arm, and blood soaked through those. His feet were swollen and discolored to the point where he couldn’t walk. He was in worse shape than she had expected.
“What the hell happened to you?” she said.
“Got caught.” He struggled to sit up, and she helped him. “Then—Alth used a stick—made me talk.”
Lera’s temper exploded with more force than anything Dagre could have developed. She turned away from the bunk, stepped over Eyepatch’s body, and stopped when she saw the rest of the infirmary.
She’d expected the ship’s crew to be swarming in, but the place was empty. Lanternlight gleamed off scalpels scattered over the floor, and from her saber held by Meghan as the girl leaned against a bulkhead. Across from her, the other man sat on the floor with his hands to either side of him.
“Everything’s fine, Captain,” Meghan said calmly.
Lera was panting, her body filmed with sweat. “Where’s the crew? I heard them—”
“Yes, they came in here. But I explained how things currently stand, and they were most understanding of their role in ensuring Lord Richard’s well-being for the immediate future.”
Her cool control of the situation almost took away what little breath Lera had remaining. For the first time she understood why the Council of Dagre might have distrusted a pawn of a girl enough to want her under lock and key. Quite apart from how other people might use her, she was dangerous enough on her own under the I’m-so-timid-and-frail act.
Meghan cocked her head slightly. “By the way, I don’t think you’ve been introduced? Richard dear, this is Captain Lera Vanze of Denalay. Captain, this is Lord Richard Alth, baron of Ghosthawk Province.”
“I figured that out,” Lera said. That was another thing about Dagre she didn’t understand and didn’t want to understand, the insistence on courtesy at the strangest times—albeit a courtesy that could cause frostbite.
Richard Alth was finely dressed, which made her all the more furious when she thought of what he’d done to Kovir. One side of his face was reddened by her heel, but he didn’t look hurt otherwise, and he stared at her out of unblinking brown eyes. She saw the fallen stick, stamped on one end to send it spinning into the air, then caught it as she brought her knee up. There was a sharp crack, and Alth flinched when she flung the pieces at him.
“You’re going to carry him,” she said to him. “Meghan, you’ll go first and make sure everyone stays well clear of us.”
She yanked a sheet off a bunk and wrapped Kovir in it. If it bothered him to have been stripped, he didn’t show it, but Seawatch placed such emphasis on privacy that she couldn’t believe he was totally indifferent to it. Richard, at saber-point, crouched and slid his arms under Kovir’s shoulders and knees before he straightened up. Only then did Lera take the saber from Meghan, sheathing it before she stepped up close behind Richard. She clasped his shoulder with one hand and hooked her other arm around his neck so her knife was to his throat.
“Walk,” she whispered against his ear. “Slowly. And I hope your crew sees that if I’m startled, my hand might jerk.”
She felt the minute movement through the blade as he swallowed, but he obeyed her as they left the infirmary together. Meghan was ahead with two lanterns, but no one was in sight, the passage clear to the hatch after they stepped over the officer’s body outside.
Mutters and creaks and furtive movements were all around, though. Lera didn’t pray to the Unity or to anyone else, but she hoped with all her heart that no one would take it into their heads to drop from above once they were topside. She pressed as close to Richard as if he had been her lover, so anyone putting an arrow in her back would likely kill him too.
They finally reached the hatch and Meghan went up step by step. Once she called down that it was safe, Lera tapped Richard’s shoulder and he climbed up with the utmost care, probably guessing what she might do if he jostled or hurt Kovir any further. She followed, a shadow with a knife.
None of the crew were on the deck, as she had expected; no dark shapes crouched in the rigging. That made her nervous. Surely they’d had time to plan something while she’d been making her way to the deck. Her upraised arm ached from holding the knife in the precise position she needed, indenting the soft flesh of his throat without actually drawing blood—yet—because some people panicked at the sight of their own blood.
“Check the boat,” she said to Meghan.
Meghan leaned over the gunwale, arms stretched wide along the rail since there were no ropes in the way, and finally turned. “I can’t see any…”
Her voice trailed off as a man moved forward, out of the shadow cast by the foremast. Lera tensed, tightening her grip on Richard’s shoulder, but the man held his hands up to show they were empty. He was perhaps twenty years her senior, tall and silver-haired.
“Meghan?” she said.
“That’s Franklin Voyjole.” There was none of the mockery that had been in Meghan’s voice when she had performed introductions earlier, and she moved a little closer, watching Voyjole. He barely seemed to notice her; all his attention was on Lera.
“Let him go,” he said. “If you want
a hostage, you can have me. I’m not armed.”
Nice try. “Order him to lower that boat,” she said to Richard.
“Captain.” Kovir cut in. “If there are no nets…I want a more direct route.”
Lera didn’t particularly like the idea of being towed through the water by a tiger shark, but it might be safer—especially if the crew of Princeps weren’t expecting it. “Are there nets? We can tell, so don’t bother lying.”
“At the fore and aft.”
There was a long pause during which she heard nothing louder than Richard’s quick breathing, but eventually Kovir told her it was safe and he was ready. “All right,” she said to Richard, “drop him overboard.”
“What? Are you crazy? He’ll drown. And then you’ll use that as an excuse to kill me.”
“I don’t need an excuse. Stop wasting my time and throw him overboard. Meghan, you go too.”
“Yes, Captain,” Meghan said. Lera gave Richard’s shoulder a push, enough to propel him to the gunwale. She felt far too vulnerable with her back to Voyjole, although he would never get close enough before she heard him; he wore boots rather than the cloth-soled shoes she’d put on before she’d left Nemesis. But something about her surroundings seemed wrong and she couldn’t put her finger on what it was.
Meghan climbed over easily and dropped with a splash. For all the girl’s faults, she knew when to shut up and do as she was told, which was more than could be said for Richard. “What are you going to do?” he said. “Swim back to that ship?”
Lera moved the knife minutely, just enough to hurt. “Drop him over the side.”
Richard grunted, though whether from pain or effort, she couldn’t tell. He lifted Kovir above the rail and let go.
That’s done, then. Lera sneaked a glance over her shoulder, but Voyjole still stood nearly twenty feet away, watching them. She didn’t think she could knock Richard out and tip him over the side before Voyjole reached her, and towing an unconscious person safely back to Nemesis via a shark was chancy anyway, but killing him was always an option. Even if his men detonated the explosives in retaliation, she’d have demoralized them at the least.
In the second before she could do it, she knew what was wrong. All the ropes that had run to the gunwale to hold the sail—where had they gone?
She turned to see and there was a soft whsh as something heavy flew through the air. It grazed the side of her head. Lights exploded in her vision and she reeled against the gunwale. She felt Richard wrench free of her, and he was gone at once.
If anyone ran towards her, she wouldn’t hear it through the ringing in her head and she couldn’t see clearly. She knew where the gunwale was, though. An instant later she threw herself over the side.
The water swallowed her up, cold and rushing past her as she sank, but as she flailed her way back to the surface—still a little too panicked by that near-miss to swim properly—a hand closed around her arm. It dragged her below the waves at enough speed that she knew the shark was towing her, and she fought the urge to breathe. Thankfully Kovir made the shark surface before she could give in, and she gasped for air.
“How badly are you hurt, Captain?” he said. “You’re bleeding.”
They were far enough from Princeps that Lera saw nothing of either him or Meghan, though she could tell from the distance of his voice that the girl was holding her arm. “Must be my head.”
Touching it gingerly, she hoped the blood didn’t attract more sharks—and that Kovir could keep his under control long enough. She knew exactly what someone on Princeps had flung at her—the block of pulleys which controlled the ropes, and which had swung on those loosened ropes like a huge, heavy pendulum. If that had cracked her on the back of the head…
As it was, it took all her strength to keep her face above water as the shark swam on. She held on to Meghan’s hand, the only solid thing in the world, and tried not to think how dark and endlessly deep the water beneath her was.
But Kovir took them the rest of the distance to Nemesis safely and the crew began a cheer. Released, the shark swam a dozen yards away.
Abruptly it turned in a circle and lunged back at them. A wave of displaced water surged, pushing Lera against the unyielding solidity of the hull. In the lanternlight, she saw huge jaws gape open just above the water, and the cheers turned to a horrified silence.
Meghan screamed but Lera couldn’t make a sound, much less move. She might have been dead already, trapped in a body so paralyzed with fear it wouldn’t respond. Her blood, the shark had smelled her blood and it came straight at them.
“Stop it!” Kovir said.
The jaws clashed shut. The shark spun and Kovir flung an arm out, pushing Lera back or shielding her, she wasn’t sure. One flick of a tailfin flung spray over them and the shark was gone. There was a frozen stillness on the deck.
“I’m very sorry.” Kovir sounded drained, but he spoke with all his usual politeness. “She does that from time to time—she doesn’t really mean to bite.”
“What, she was playing?” Meghan said shakily.
“I suppose so. She missed me.”
Lera managed to breathe again. “I’m so glad she missed us as well.” She looked up. “Someone throw us a line!”
A cheer rose up from the watching men. Jason was too far behind them to see, but his heart leapt. The crew wasn’t likely to be so happy unless all three of them—Lera, Kovir and Meghan—had returned. Then the sound stopped abruptly and a scream rang out.
Jason pushed forward, although that hadn’t sounded like Lera. Whatever had caused it, Kovir rapped out an order to stop and a sigh of relief rose from the crowd. A look from Garser made the gathered men draw away, making room as Lera climbed aboard. Blood trailed slowly from a cut on the side of her forehead, diluting in the water that dripped from her.
“Someone needs to pull him up,” she said. “And carry him.”
“Dr. Strant has been keeping the infirmary ready,” Garser told her, then called for a stretcher. Two of the men hauled Kovir up and Jason caught sight of him. Even in the poor light, it was clear how swollen his feet were.
Meghan climbed up as the stretcher arrived, and Garser helped her over the gunwale. “Good work,” he said. “Clayton, take her back to the brig.”
Meghan’s eyes widened and she drew back—or tried to, since Garser’s grip shifted to her arm. “I helped her save him—”
“You have my word that your cooperation will be taken into account when we return home. For now, the brig.”
Jason had to tamp down a pang of pity as the girl was led away and Kovir was carried to the infirmary. Lera followed the stretcher, and Jason supposed it would be crowded enough in the infirmary without him shouldering his way in as well.
The crew had dispersed, heading for their stations or hammocks. He went to the galley, where the cook was boiling water. Once that was done, he got two mugs of steaming tea and carried them to Lera’s cabin.
He figured that had been enough time for her to return and put on dry clothes, and he was right. She opened the door to his knock, and actually looked pleased when he gave her the tea.
“Thank you.” Her forehead was bandaged with linen that looked very white beside her hair, but she didn’t seem hurt otherwise. “That’s just what I need.”
Jason smiled, nudged the door shut and leaned against it. “How’s Kovir?”
Lera sat on the iron-banded chest, but at the mention of Kovir, there was more metal in her eyes than on the chest. “He’s fevered and can’t use an arm. Which would be bad enough, but you saw what else that whoreson did to him? Dr. Strant says it might be weeks before he can walk normally.” She tightened her grip until Jason hoped the heavy ceramic of the mug would hold out, and stared into the rising steam. “I wish I’d killed him.”
He supposed she meant Richard. “Came close?”
Lera hel
d up her thumb and forefinger, with perhaps enough space between them to slip the blade of her saber. “One of his men offered himself as a hostage instead. Voyjole, Meghan says he’s called. Then he managed to stop me just long enough.”
Franklin Voyjole. Jason remembered him, a family retainer whose loyalty to the Alth estate was unquestioned. There was talk that when a neighboring landowner had secretly felled trees and poisoned sheep on some newly bought Alth meadows to make it look as though that ground was cursed, Voyjole had been sent after the landowner, who had barely survived. No, even twenty years after that incident, Jason didn’t think he was an easy man to defeat.
“On top of that,” Lera went on, “Kovir said he didn’t find a fuse. I knew there couldn’t have been one and I said so, but he obeyed orders anyway.”
Had Richard’s entire claim been a lie? Jason doubted that; it would have been too good to be true.
“What’s Captain Garser going to do?” he said.
“Attack. It’s not like we can stop Alth from detonating the explosives, wherever they are, so we might as well make him pay as dearly as possible for it. We’ll strike at dawn.”
There didn’t seem to be much else to say, so he finished his tea. Lera took a long deep swallow of hers and sighed, slumping as if she’d been held up by knots that had all come loose at once.
“Oh, that’s good.” She drank the rest of it. “Dr. Strant said he’d give Kovir a special treat, but I had to get out quickly when I heard what his idea of a treat was. Cookies with dead bugs in them.”
“Really?” That seemed strange even for maritime conditions under which food might be scarce. “Wait, did he say squashed-fly biscuits?”
Her brows went up. “Don’t tell me you’ve eaten those.”
Jason stifled a laugh. “They’re biscuits with raisins in them. They look a bit like squashed flies, I suppose.”
The Highest Tide Page 19