Rime actually smiled as he pulled a makeshift blanket over the legs of the children. “You’ve earned your stud for this, I guess.”
“I didn’t do anything you wouldn’t.”
“You think any of us would have made friends with a troll or a dragon to come find you?”
“I’m hoping you would,” Spicy said.
“For you? Nah. For your sister on the other hand…”
“Shut up and sleep.”
Chapter Thirty-Seven
Spicy’s eyes popped opened once he heard the dragon stir.
Fath crawled up out of the hold and to the top of the aft deck. He occupied most of it as he reared up and sniffed the air.
“Blech.”
The dragon began coughing. The harsh sound woke everyone. The sun wasn’t up but the sky was brightening, and a light frost clung to the mast and edges of the boat. Dill began to sniffle but Rime helped her with her nose. Spicy reluctantly climbed out of the warmth of the blankets.
“Time for your lesson,” Fath said.
Spicy rubbed his hands and placed them under his arms. “There’s no paper or writing tools.”
“There’s a clipboard with papers on a peg inside the hold. Fetch it.”
Spicy did as he was instructed and found several scraps of rough paper fastened to a small board with a clothespin. Half of a charcoal stick was attached with a string. Everyone watched as Spicy found a place on the rear deck next to the dragon. Alma appeared immune to the cold, as she was again perched on the bow. As Fath began to scratch into the deck with his claw, Harold came closer.
Fath paid him no mind and nudged Spicy when he hesitated. Spicy re-created the character using the charcoal. Even before he finished, Fath drew a second word, and then a third.
Spicy drew the final mark on the first character. “Wait. Slow down. You’re going too fast.”
“You need to learn this.”
“I am learning this. But you have to show me each stroke on how to construct the words, or I’ll get it wrong.”
Fath coughed. Something inside him sounded like it was rattling.
“Are you okay?” Spicy asked.
“Write.”
Spicy hurried to keep up, but he noticed he was making mistakes. The charcoal only streaked when he rubbed it to correct a mismarked character.
Meanwhile, Harold was digging through the supplies. “Aha!” he said, and soon he was handing out raisins and walnuts. The children grabbed at the fruit and nuts.
“Not too many or you’ll be sick,” Rime said. “And I don’t want to have to clean your drawers.”
Harold came around to Spicy with the breakfast and scanned the work he was doing. His woolly brow scrunched as he took it in. Fath growled. Stumbling back, Harold retreated towards the bow.
Spicy put his charcoal down. “Why are they still alive?” Spicy said softly.
“The humans?” Fath asked, his voice anything but a whisper. “You mean why don’t I kill them?”
This got everyone’s attention.
Spicy licked his lips. “Yes.”
“Because I haven’t decided which of you I will need.”
“One of them took your eye.”
A rumble began deep in Fath’s throat. “You think I’ve forgotten? But I also remember that we wouldn’t have crossed the sea the first time but for your deception. Now write.”
Spicy’s hands were trembling. The list of nonsensical characters almost filled the first piece of paper on the clipboard. He looked at the newest mark Fath had made on the deck and drew something completely different.
“Wrong,” Fath said. “Do it again.”
“Explain to me what it means first.”
“Draw it. Memorize it. That’s all you need to do.”
Spicy pulled off the top page from the clipboard and started on a fresh sheet. He drew a round squiggle.
“Wrong again,” Fath said.
“This makes as much sense as what you’re writing. If you don’t at least give me some hint of what it stands for, I might as well make things up.”
“That isn’t our arrangement. We’ve discussed this.”
“What’s the point, if it doesn’t communicate anything to anyone but you?” Spicy asked. He hopped down from the deck and grabbed the book from the lawyer’s library. “At least tell me what this means. It’s obviously not a secret. The humans have it, so they know. What’s the title say?”
“It’s not for you to know.”
“And why not? This book was in the human library. It’s just writing. What’s the big deal in telling me what it’s about?”
Rime hissed at Spicy to stop.
The dragon leaned down over Spicy and snorted. “Because the secrets belong to me. Your sages knew their place. If you can’t, you’re worthless to me.”
Spicy had understood Sage Somni as a guardian of knowledge, and the other sages in the local villages were the same. But except for the glyphs and Somni’s annual excursions, none of it was secret. The books in Somni’s library were open to all who could read them.
“These secrets belong to us too,” Spicy said with a tremor in his voice. “We’ve died for them. My sage died. And how many of my village? My own mom? I have a right to this.”
“You have a right to nothing. This lesson is over.”
“The Diary of a Pickpocket,” Harold read aloud. He had come up behind Spicy and now he took the book from him. Before Spicy could do anything, the man kept reading. “Translation by Su Nan-Cheng. A work of fiction.”
“You can read it?” Spicy asked.
Harold flipped through the book. “Just the front matter. The copy page is in Northspeak, where it says what the title is. But the rest of it? No. But there’s plenty who can. Down in Pinnacle, lots of people read and write Cityspeak. All the noodle words make no sense to me, but if you’re looking for a translation, go there.”
Spicy took the book back and opened to the beginning. How had he missed the fine print just after the title page? “Cityspeak? That’s a secret language?”
Harold shook his head. “Hardly. Just different. Like your Northspeak would be to a place where no one else speaks it. Or Southspeak, like down in Altea. I speak a little of that. My name is actually Haroldo. Plenty of traders know Southspeak. Cityspeak, too. Reading it’s a trick, though. So truly, if you want to learn more, you need—”
Fath spun. His tail hammered Harold across the chest with a sickening crunch and knocked him over the side. Spicy scrambled away from where the man had been standing. Rime got the children down as the dragon turned to face him.
Alma had snatched up her bow and was aiming an arrow. Fath eyed her and growled. Blades was wielding a boat hook and pointing it at the dragon.
“What did you do?” Spicy shouted. “Why did you do that?”
“Silence,” Fath said. “Enough words. Enough nonsense. Set down your weapons and get this boat underway.”
“Wait, what about Harold?”
Alma relaxed the bow before looking over the side. “He’s gone.”
Spicy ran to the rail. Harold was floating face down and beginning to sink. A cloud of pink swirled around him.
“I decide who knows my secrets,” Fath said. “No one else.” He turned and crawled back inside the hold.
Alma let out a sigh and put her weapon aside before starting the work of letting down the sail.
No one else moved.
Spicy couldn’t stop looking at Harold. He hadn’t owed the man anything, but he’d died for no reason. All he had done was reveal that the secret Fath was guarding wasn’t as precious as the dragon believed.
Chapter Thirty-Eight
Being out on the water reawakened something inside Alma she had thought long dead.
Before her time among the soldiers for hire, she had spent a few years with a man who had saved her life when a group of men accidentally burned down the orphanage and workhouse where her mother had placed her after Alma’s father had been murdered.
Following the crew of robbers back to their boat and stowing away hadn’t been the smartest thing she could have done, upon reflection. But the delta town of Lamb had little more to offer her but blisters and a future in service to the church.
In hindsight, she realized she had been lucky. Some of the other orphans had survived as well, and they had probably gone on to live quiet, ignoble lives.
Alma had been discovered within an hour of the pirate sloop departing. Her life should have ended there.
The pirate leader had wanted to throw her overboard and let her swim back to Lamb. But her savior—who would become her lover, if never her friend—had vouched for her. Taken her on. This, she would learn, meant servitude, if not quite slavery. Her life would remain her own as long as she worked hard. If she didn’t…well, it was the water for her, or worse.
The pirates hadn’t been making an indiscriminate raid but had come to Lamb to steal a coffer of documents from a magister, an operation requiring secrecy and no witnesses. Speed was of the essence and the last thing the captain wanted was complications. But things got out of hand.
After the debacle of their raid and Alma’s discovery, the captain went as far as to suggest her hundred pounds would slow them down. But the sloop, the Sin Nombre, had little trouble with its extra cargo.
The crew had a challenge waiting for them at the moonlit beach meetup with their employer two nights later, however. The wrong coffer had been taken and the papers inside were worthless. The captain explained to the employer that the coffer was the one they had been told to grab and there hadn’t been any others even remotely fitting the description.
Knives and swords came out.
But Alma had surprised everyone, including herself, when she had come forward and, in front of eighteen well-armed men about to hack each other to pieces, demonstrated how the coffer had a secret compartment in its floor. Hidden inside was a folded bundle of documents.
No one died that night. The employer paid the pirates. The pirates left richer and happy and with a new crewmate who would draw a quarter share of all future profits.
So she learned sailing, how to handle a blade, dirty fighting, and that there was a life to be lived free from the shackles of mother and church. Pickings on the delta, however, were slim for a small crew not willing to brave the bay, and after two years on the Sin Nombre, she quit with enough coin in her pocket to last a month.
The Sin Nombre dropped off a client in Orchard City, some minor noble with a fat purse. She left the boat and followed him with the intent to rob him.
She hadn’t looked back at her prior life for many seasons.
But being out on the water again reminded her of fond memories. Running across the sea was as close as she could get to flying. If only a dragon, seven goblins, and her fellow mercenary Martin weren’t in the boat with her.
Several times during their voyage, she had to make an adjustment to the mainsail. It was impossible to avoid getting close to or even standing on top of the aft cabin where the dragon slept. But it snored unabated as she maneuvered around gear and goblins.
At least the little goblins had stopped crying.
With Harold dead, it would mean that much more work for her. Blades was a terrible oarsman. How hard was it to pull a piece of wood set in the water? She didn’t like the idea of using the older goblin boys, as their arms were short and they wouldn’t be much help. Plus none of them appeared to have sea legs and all of them looked perpetually queasy.
If the wind died and they didn’t want to wait, she’d have to help row alongside the goblins.
The sloop kept speed with the help of a northeast wind for most of two days, with a stop each night on the eastern shore, as Spicy instructed. Each time she navigated their boat to shelter, she kept her eyes open for signs of life either on land or on the water. She watched for trolls, but they were rare. It was other people that worried her, almost as much as the dragon.
Yet the dragon continued to sleep. Maybe it was brooding. Maybe it was sick. Ever since it murdered Harold, it hadn’t come out, which suited her fine.
The downside of avoiding towns and villages was not knowing exactly where they were. The shores of the Inland Sea changed with the seasons, as mud flowed, sand shifted, and water levels rose and fell. Much like the delta, rainfall and drought meant an ever-changing landscape where whole islands might appear while others vanished. The last summer had been dry and hot, and winter felt as if it would be early, but with little precipitation. The sea would be in its narrows.
A rough estimate placed them a day out of Orchard and two days from the delta proper.
How long before the dragon once again woke up?
She kept her vigil at the bow for as long as she could remain awake. A second arrow through the eye would at least blind the beast. Killing it would give her a dragon’s carcass and a boat with enough to sell to make her comfortable. She dared to dream of a life in Orchard City or Pinnacle where she wouldn’t have to sleep with an eye open, her cheeks and lips parched from sun and cold, her stomach empty.
It was within her reach if she stayed lucky. All she had to do was survive the next couple of days.
Blades used his fingers to sift through a jar of pickled vegetables, his dirty hand clouding the vinegar. He noisily ate a carrot. “Is tonight the night?” he whispered.
“Don’t whisper,” she said without thinking.
It was late evening. Blades continued to munch before putting the jar down without closing it. She could smell him, his unwashed body reeking of old sweat. She wasn’t in much better shape. But leaving the boat even for a dip in the nasty seawater would pose too great a risk.
Blades wiped his fingers on his blanket. “We’re close, aren’t we? Taking them where they want to go?”
“We’re going to do as the dragon says, or at least his goblin proxy. We don’t know for sure where they’re taking us.”
“There’s the shore,” he said, whispering again. He motioned, as if indicating they should make a run for it.
“Be my guest. I’m not leaving the boat.”
“You heard them talk. It’s going to kill us.”
Alma nodded. “There’s always that chance. Why’d you become a soldier, Martin?”
He looked at her helplessly and ran a hand through his red hair. “I thought I was good at it.”
“What’s here might be enough to set us up for life. Remember what Lord wanted? He lied to us, but only to get us to go along with him. But it never was anything in the dragon’s cave. It’s the dragon. What he knows. It’s all right here. We just have to figure out how to take it.”
“We can’t beat that thing.”
“If you haven’t noticed, it’s been sleeping for two days straight.”
“That’s the only reason I was able to relieve myself this afternoon. But eventually it’s going to wake up.”
“Eventually. But it also means it might trust us enough to have its guard down. It needs us still. So I’m not leaving.”
Blades looked like he was about to respond, but then he sat back and wrapped himself tight in his blanket. His breathing grew steady as he nodded off. But she remained awake for a while, staring at the aft deck, trying to piece together the possibilities of dragon, boat, and goblin and how to make a profit off all of them without losing her own life.
Chapter Thirty-Nine
“Is the dragon dead?” Rime asked. “Because he looks dead.”
Spicy shushed him. “He’s not dead.”
Spicy was relieved Rime had spoken softly. It didn’t look like Alma and Blades had heard. No doubt the humans would realize something was amiss, as he had no explanation why Fath would sleep for four days straight. Drawing attention to this would only cause trouble.
The goblin children were on top of the aft deck and playing a sing-song patty-cake game with a dizzying number of rules, and they paid Rime and Spicy no mind. Even little Domino
was joining in, and it was the first time Spicy had heard her laugh since rescuing them. But Pix’s excited giggles turned into a rough cough that took a minute to bring under control.
Spicy crouched at the hold’s threshold and reached in to place a hand on Fath. He had done this several times over the past day. The dragon remained warm to the touch. His breathing had quieted. But every few minutes a faint rattle came from Fath’s throat or belly.
“He’s still resting,” Spicy said, loud enough for everyone to hear. “In fact, he’s getting stronger. He just wants the trip to be over like the rest of us.”
Alma was surveying the water as the wind whipped at her hair. Blades continued to hunker down among a nest of blankets and tarps, barely rising long enough to stuff his face or relieve himself.
Neither human spoke much.
It was a gloomy late afternoon. Snow flurries swirled around them. The sun hadn’t shown itself all day. The gray water was foamy and the waves had grown, slapping at the sides of the boat as they sailed.
Spicy had expected them to put to shore, but Alma sailed on even as the sky darkened.
The sandbars that frequented the shallows were no longer visible. The landscape changed as well. Trees lined the shoreline. The map in Spicy’s mind wasn’t helping, as he had no idea of their exact bearing or their speed. Alma stepped past him and began to turn the boat towards land.
“How far to Orchard City?” Spicy asked.
“A day out if we cut southwest tomorrow,” Alma said. “We’ll start to see islands as we continue south. That’s where we’re going, right?”
“Yes. Keep going that way.”
She found a place to dock between several willow trees that grew partially submerged in the water. Their drooping branches made for good cover. Spicy helped her tie the boat off and copied the knots he had observed her use.
Pix was coughing again.
“You’ll want to keep him as quiet as possible tonight,” Alma said.
Spicy felt a rising irritation. “He wasn’t sick back home. None of us ever were, not like this.”
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