Halfway across a junction of five roads, he stopped and bent over, trying to catch his breath. ‘Do you see them?’ he gasped.
‘No.’ Hannah put a hand on his shoulder. ‘You should stop.’
‘We can’t, we have to catch up. Who knows what that horsecock will do with her?’
‘Erynn won’t let anything happen to her.’
‘Erynn?’ Hoyt looked up. ‘She’s the bloody nuisance who got us here in the first place. She’s a ninety-Twinmooner; you think the Seron are going to listen when she asks them to please keep their hands off the little girl? No, Hannah, Erynn is in this as deep as the rest of us.’
Hannah turned a full circle, looking and listening. ‘Which way?’
‘Down there, across the northern neck?’
‘No, we went there once already; it goes out to that little beach, and I bet this one does, too.’ Hannah pointed to her left, along a westbound alley.
‘That leaves these three.’
‘Eenie, meenie, meinie, mo.’ Hannah pointed east. ‘Let’s try this one.’
Hoyt wiped his eyes. ‘Remind me never to learn that language of yours.’
‘Come on.’ She helped him up. ‘The houses are too small along these others; I’m betting something as big as a warehouse is east of us, maybe even on the water.’
‘I’m going to kill that docker when we get back.’ Hoyt started running again. ‘His directions were ganselshit.’
‘Maybe Alen got lucky,’ Hannah said, trying not to give in to her fear that it was already too late, that Milla was right now on her way upriver, bound for child slavery in the bowels of Welstar Palace.
‘I hope so,’ Hoyt said, ‘because if Alen finds them, they’re all dead.’
The cobblestone road narrowed, and Hannah’s hopes fell: this was the wrong way. They’d have to double back all the way to the roundabout. There were too many ways to get lost in here.
‘Hoyt, this can’t be right,’ she said sadly. ‘We have to go back.’ The buildings had closed in on either side; it was too narrow now even for two carts to pass.
‘Wait,’ Hoyt panted, ‘look down there. Is it brighter, or am I dying?’
‘Okay, we’ll try it,’ she said. Hoyt wouldn’t make it all the way back to the intersection, not running, anyway.
The cobblestone street widened into a public marina with squat warehouses on either end. This was more an elaborate dry-dock and smokehouse than a storage facility, but they had guessed right. Wooden longboats and bulky trawlers were moored in the cove, their masts canted over like trees in a gale. Along the shore, dozens more were resting belly-up, waiting for shipwrights to patch them up in the spring so they’d be good for another season’s work.
‘There it is,’ Hannah said, ‘that one, over there, with the hole in it.’ By hole, she meant the seaward access door, where those needing repairs or winter dry-docking could sail in and, using a clever system of pulleys and belts, have their longboats lifted from the water, later to join the others lined up and frozen outside.
Here.’ Hoyt handed her a hunting knife he had stolen in the last Moon.
‘Terrific, another knife.’
‘Just take it,’ he said. ‘And don’t think about it, just slash anyone – anything – that gets too close.’
‘Fine,’ she murmured to herself, ‘super, “just slash”, lovely. Can’t wait.’ She followed him across the marina. ‘Hey, how are we going to do this?’
‘If it’s just Erynn and whatshisname—’
‘Karel.’
‘If it’s Erynn and Karel,’ Hoyt said, ‘we’re going to scare the dogpiss out of them, take Milla, and threaten to turn them in for abduction.’
‘And if there’re Seron?’
‘Then we’re going to die.’
‘Oh. Good.’ Hannah considered the hunting knife. Just slash. ‘Why don’t we go and find Alen?’
‘No time,’ Hoyt said, and stumbled again. Hannah propped him up, holding him around the waist. ‘If they take her out of here, we’ll never get back inside Welstar Palace, certainly not into that slave chamber,’ he pointed out grimly.
Inside the warehouse, Hannah nearly vomited at the unholy stench, a grim concoction of rotting fish guts, seagull guano and charred hickory. The facility obviously doubled as a smokehouse as well as a shipwright’s dry-dock before the onset of winter. Bracing herself, she ushered Hoyt down a short hallway and into the main chamber where a wooden dock, about twenty feet across, lined three sides of a vast open workspace. The fourth side, while still protected beneath the cathedral-style roof, was open to the sea, and a twelve-foot drop separated the dock from the water below. The sea was comparatively still inside the dry-dock station, and it had actually frozen in places. The pylons were coated in a thin sheet of ice which reflected the late-day sun and brightened the inside of the warehouse. Across the open rectangle of sea water they could see Erynn and Karel standing next to a brazier. A heap at their feet could only be Milla, wrapped in a blanket from the inn. With one side open perpetually to the sea, and the chilly northern waters lapping about underfoot all day, Hannah could not imagine a colder place than this to work. For a brief moment she envied the smokers; at least they could huddle around their aromatic fires.
‘Erynn!’ Hannah shouted, her voice bouncing about the cavernous room. ‘Erynn, what are you thinking? Do you know how much trouble you’re in? How worried your parents are?’
‘Leave us alone!’ Erynn shouted, shocked that they had been discovered.
Hannah ignored her and started around the pier. ‘Milla? Are you okay, sweetie?’
‘It’s cold in here,’ Milla replied, ‘but I’m all right.’
‘We’re coming to get you, Pepperweed,’ Hoyt said.
‘Stay there,’ Karel warned, drawing his sword, but still looking like a child playing soldier in his father’s clothes.
‘And Karel, you stupid shit,’ Hannah was too angry to stop, ‘what’s wrong with you? Are you so lovestruck, you ignorant little bastard, that you’ve lost your mind? What are you planning to do, hand her over to the army? Sell her to a seaman? I’ll tell you this, Karel, you’re in over your head. Officers don’t take clandestine meetings in abandoned smokehouses. So do you know who’s coming here? Do you have any idea what you’ve done?’
Still snarling and brandishing the blade, Karel puffed up his chest to respond, but Erynn cut him off. ‘It’s you, isn’t it? You and Hoyt and Alen? You’re not her parents, you’re terrorists. I know it was you; I heard Hoyt saying he was going to bury them. He said it that night in the front room. I told you, I don’t try to overhear things, but sometimes I do. And, anyway, I know it was you who attacked that wagon train. You killed those soldiers, and you burned all that wheat. There are people in Treven who needed that wheat, Hannah! My grandfather is there, and he needs that wheat. He’s sick; you knew that. How could you be a terrorist?’
Hannah continued to make her way around the rectangular dock. ‘Erynn, you have it all so wrong – that wasn’t wheat, and it wasn’t headed for Treven.’
‘Liar!’ Karel shouted. ‘Don’t listen to her, Erynn.’
‘You’re wrong, Karel,’ Hoyt said, staggering beside Hannah. ‘It wasn’t wheat, but enchanted tree bark on its way to Welstar Palace, where it will be used in a monstrous spell. There are unimaginable horrors going on at the palace, and if you’ve got any bit of brain left in that empty head of yours, you’ll try to avoid being stationed there, ever. Tell me you haven’t heard rumours.’
Karel looked down at Milla. ‘They’re liars, Erynn. They’ll say anything to get her back.’
‘So what exactly are you planning to do?’ Hannah asked, trying to sound concerned, friendly. ‘You’ve kidnapped a little girl. How can you imagine this will end well for you?’
‘They’re just going to keep her until you tell the truth,’ Erynn said. ‘You have to turn yourselves in and tell them where the others are hiding.’
‘"They’re going to keep her"?’
Hannah echoed. ‘Who’s they, Erynn?’ Hannah and Hoyt were nearly all the way across the interior pier, rounding the final corner.
Erynn started to cry.
‘Who are you waiting for? Who’s meeting you here?’ Hannah realised she and Hoyt been so desperate to rescue Milla that they had come through the building without checking their flank. She looked now, quickly, for other routes to the outside.
‘We thought you would go quietly if you knew they had Milla,’ Erynn tried to explain, ‘otherwise you might have been hurt.’
‘You’re nothing but a pawn in their evil game, Erynn, and you too, Karel.’ Hoyt sounded disgusted. ‘They know Milla at Welstar Palace. They’ve been searching for her for the past Moon – surely you’ve seen them in their black and gold leathers? They’re Malagon’s personal police force. You think you’re heroes; you’re not. You’ve done nothing but endanger an innocent child, and you’d better pray to the gods of the Northern Forest Alen doesn’t find you.’
Exactly on cue, three men emerged from the smokehouse. Their black and gold uniforms outshone even Karel’s polished army leathers. Hannah had seen soldiers like these before, with their distinctive ceremonial capes; she flashed back to those chilling moments astride the flying buttress, hearing Churn call for her and then watching him slip away. ‘Oh shit, Erynn, what did you do?’ she said softly, despairingly.
‘Are these the ones?’ the tallest of the soldiers, a sergeant, by the markings on his sleeve, demanded of Karel.
Don’t do it, you prick, Hannah thought, please don’t turn us in.
‘Yes, Sergeant; that’s them,’ the boy said, shaking. And there’s another. He’s here somewhere, here in the district, anyway. His name is Alen Jasper and he’s from Middle Fork.’
‘Disarm her, and take them into custody,’ the sergeant ordered. ‘If they resist, kill the sick one; keep the woman. She can explain herself to the captain.’
Hannah had forgotten the knife, which she was still holding loosely; Hoyt had his scalpel beneath his cloak but he was in no condition to wield it, especially against these two. When the soldiers started for her, Hannah smiled nervously and tossed the blade into the sea. She held her hands up in surrender.
‘Wise decision, girlie,’ one of the soldiers said. ‘You’re going to live through the day. How about that?’
Hoyt mimicked Hannah, lifting his cloak over his shoulders and raising his arms.
‘Some terrorists, huh?’ The soldier elbowed his squad mate.
‘Deadly dangerous, eh?’ He twisted Hannah’s arm behind her back, ignoring her cry of pain, and ushered her towards Erynn and the others.
‘You injured, son?’ the second guard, a lean fellow with a rapier, asked Hoyt.
‘Just my shoulder,’ Hoyt replied, ‘a stab wound, but I’ll come quietly.’
‘Then I’ll lay off the arm, how’s that?’
‘Seems fair,’ Hoyt said and fell in behind Hannah, the soldier following with his rapier drawn.
The sergeant crossed to Karel and Erynn. ‘Surprisingly good work, soldier.’
‘Thank you, sir.’
‘Sergeant,’ he corrected the boy.
‘Sergeant, sorry, Sergeant.’ Karel flushed.
‘What’s going to happen to Milla?’ Erynn was still crying.
‘She’s going to Welstar Palace where she’ll be enslaved by Prince Malagon,’ Hoyt said. ‘All thanks to you, Erynn.’
‘Shut him up,’ the sergeant ordered. The soldier guarding Hoyt stabbed him through his already injured shoulder.
‘Ah, gods!’ Hoyt screamed as he fell, hitting his head on the chilly planks as blood soaked his tunic.
‘Hannah?’ Milla said, trying to disappear inside her blankets. ‘What’s happening?’
‘Don’t worry, sweetie.’ Hannah kept her voice calm, despite the pain in her elbow. Another inch and she was sure her arm would simply pop off.
Erynn stepped between the sergeant and the little girl. ‘No,’ she said, ‘you can’t have her until you tell me the truth. You have these two; why do you need to take—?’
The sergeant backhanded Erynn hard enough to knock her reeling. She stumbled to one side and Karel tried to catch her.
‘Hey,’ the boy shouted, ‘keep your hands off her! We’ve done our duty!’ He drew his sword, a toy compared to the array of weapons the Welstar guards carried.
‘No!’ Hannah screamed, but the boy was already staggering backwards, the sergeant’s short blade hilt-deep in his chest.
The sergeant picked up Milla and rewrapped her protectively in the blanket. ‘Come, my dear,’ he said. ‘We have a long trip home.’
Karel stumbled then collapsed. Stupid bastard, Hannah thought bitterly, he never had a chance.
The soldier holding Hannah’s arm said, ‘You, too, girlie. Let’s go.’
‘Let me help him, please,’ she said, nodding towards Hoyt.
‘He’ll be all right,’ the soldier said, then just stared at Hannah, a look of shock and confusion on his face. He released her arm as he cried out and fell, clutching his ankles.
Hoyt rolled onto his back after he’d used his scalpel to slash the guard’s heel tendons. The man stood for a moment, then folded up, cursing, and tugging at his short-sword. The guard with the rapier tried to run Hoyt through, but the moment’s distraction as he’d watched Karel die had allowed Hoyt to slice into the man’s knee, straight through the ligaments.
Hoyt would have preferred to disable both legs, but he had lost the element of surprise and had no option now but to dive outside the rapier’s range before attempting a second attack. He didn’t know how he would deal with the sergeant; the man already had Milla in his arms and might kill her before Hoyt could get off the floor. He was dizzy, sweating with fever, and bleeding, but he had to stay lucid.
What would Churn do? he thought, but came up with nothing except: Beat the grettanshit out of everyone. That wasn’t much of an option for the weary would-be surgeon.
‘Stop!’ the sergeant screamed, drawing his sword. He was still holding Milla, but he knew he could best Hoyt one-handed. He didn’t give Hannah a passing glance as he hurried to assist his men.
‘No,’ a small voice interrupted imperiously, ‘don’t you hurt him.’
The sergeant felt pressure in his chest, but he ignored it. This fight would be over in two breaths. One of his men lay crippled, the other was bravely trying to attack while dragging a bloody leg.
‘I said no!’ The voice was angry this time, and the Malakasian felt an iron fist grip his heart. He gaped at the little girl in his arms. She had a tiny hand pressed flat against his chest and was pouting up at him, her bottom lip trembling in the cold.
He dropped his sword, ignoring his men as they fought on, determined to kill everyone in the warehouse, and stumbled around. He stared at the tiny girl, little more than a baby, frowning back at him and held her tightly – he had no other choice – as he staggered to his left and fell into the freezing waters of the North Sea.
‘Milla!’ Hannah shrieked. She turned to Hoyt, but he was already crawling to the pier’s edge. The rapier-wielder, still armed and deadly despite his knee injury, thrust as Hoyt passed; he missed, but only by an inch or two. Hannah saw an opportunity and took it, shoving into the guard with her shoulder. As she crashed into him, they seemed to hang in mid-air, then went over the side and through the thin sheet of ice.
‘Milla,’ Hannah choked, and kicked away from the injured Malakasian. The cold hit her like a train; she would only have a few minutes before hypothermia set in. ‘Milla! Sweetie, where are you?’ she called urgently.
‘I’m over here,’ the little girl said, ‘watch me, Hannah! Watch this.’ She was swimming furiously, kicking and paddling with her determined little chin thrust out of the water. ‘I’m doing the scramble!’ she howled with pleasure, completely ignoring the dead body floating beside her. ‘Watch me, Hannah, watch how well I’m doing.’
Certain her skin had already turned blue, Hanna
h turned to look at the second soldier. He’d managed to get to one of the slippery supporting pylons, but couldn’t get a grip on the ice. He was shouting up to his comrade, the one with the severed Achilles tendon, but apart from calling down words of encouragement, the third Malakasian was able to offer little help.
Hannah paddled over to Milla, and wasn’t surprised to find the water around the little girl was as warm as a summer bath. ‘You are a great swimmer,’ she said, and dropped a kiss on her head.
‘We have to tell my Mama, and Alen,’ Milla said excitedly, and then she remembered the sergeant. ‘I’m sorry, Hannah,’ she started to say, downcast, ‘but he wanted to get Hoyt, and I thought—’
‘Milla, it’s fine, sweetie,’ Hannah said, and kissed her again. ‘Don’t you think about it another moment, all right?’
‘All right!’ She looked around. ‘Do we have to go now?’
‘We should. How about we swim together to that wooden ladder outside the big doors?’
‘All right,’ Milla repeated as she started to paddle away. ‘Do you think there are sharks?’
‘No, sweetie, no sharks; it’s too cold.’
‘Good, because I’m afraid of sharks.’
‘I’m afraid of sharks too,’ Hannah told her, then shouted to the Malakasian guard who was screaming and tearing his fingernails on the pylon, ‘Hey, hey! You want to live? You’d better come with us.’
‘I can’t— I can’t do it… I need—’
‘Shut up!’ Hannah shouted, surprising herself. ‘Get over here, the water’s warmer.’
Hoyt was kneeling above her, watching through glazed eyes. ‘You sure you want to do that?’
‘We’ll be fine. How are you?’
‘Never better,’ Hoyt murmured. ‘I’m just going to lie down for a bit while you two climb out of there.’
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