by Kirby Crow
Liall moved down the quay in a daze, hearing the crashing and shouts of the bravos on the parallel street as they pursued their quarry. His path to the ship was open and he took it, straight down the quay and up the wooden gangway, which the mariners pulled up after him at once. Qixa’s face was urgent and angry. He barked orders at the crew and they cast off from the dock. The ship began to pull away from land, slow as sap in winter.
Liall went straight to the stern, dropped his packs to the deck. He leaned over the bulwark to scan the docks, searching the crowd anxiously for a flash of red. Scarlet suddenly emerged from the small crowd, who had gathered in a knot on the wharf, running fast, the tails of his long coat flying behind him. One bravo blocked his way. He ducked the swinging club and shoved out with his arm, unbalancing the thug, who fell flat on his rump.
As Liall watched, Scarlet leapt over a pile of wooden crates and kept running. It looked like he was headed straight for the water. Was he going to swim? Liall turned his head to shout for ropes in case they were needed, and then Scarlet suddenly swerved and dodged to the right.
Oh, he would not...
He would. Scarlet took the rotted steps of the derelict loading platform two at a time, his feet barely touching the wood, and raced across the sagging planks that jutted high over the waterline, straight toward the slow-moving brigantine. Putting on a last burst of speed when he hit the top of the platform, he kept running until there was open space under one foot and wood under another, and pushed off. He leapt over the open water between the dock and the ship and crashed onto the deck, landing on his hands and knees and rolling to absorb some of the shock. The impact knocked the breath out of him and he lay there panting until Liall got over the shock and helped him to stand.
None of the crew had moved to their aid.
The bravos were gesturing angrily and screaming at the brigantine to come back, waving their clubs. Captain Qixa called back to them in Sinha, knowing they would not understand, but shrugging his shoulders and spreading his hands in a helpless gesture that said plainly; what could I do?
Scarlet was clutching his heaving sides and gasping, tired but proud of himself. “I’ve never seen anything like that,” Liall said truthfully, very awed at his skill.
Scarlet grinned. “Did you like it?”
“Yes, it was very brave.” Liall sighed wearily, and some of the shining triumph sloughed off Scarlet. “But you cannot come with me.”
“And you can’t send me back to the port. They’ll hang me.”
“What?” Liall grabbed Scarlet’s arm, his heart accelerating again. “Why would they do that? Certainly not for breaking a bravo’s nose.”
“I killed Cadan. I didn’t want to but there it is, and the army knows it was me.”
Liall’s shoulders sagged. Fool! he raged inwardly. Oh lad, what have you done?
From the corner of his eye, Liall saw the Rshani crew begin to draw closer to them. Captain Qixa squared up to him, his quartermaster and the young man who had served as a lookout behind him.
Slowly, Liall sensed the blanket of hostility folding around them, and he wondered at its cause, thinking for a moment that he had made a bad mistake in boarding the Ostre Sul. Then he saw their pale, hard eyes fixed on Scarlet and knew what was wrong.
“This was not part of our bargain,” Qixa snarled in Sinha, jabbing a finger at Scarlet, who naturally did not understand a word of it.
Qixa was right. Liall had never asked permission to bring Scarlet on board, because he had never intended to. Yet, even if he had, it was doubtful he would have sought Qixa’s consent. He could be that proud and used to getting his way. “Perhaps not,” he allowed. “It is now.”
“No! We do not carry lenilyn on this ship!”
Qixa used the old Sinha word for foreigner: lenilyn, which in some nuances could mean non-person, or even animal. Liall glanced pointedly around him at the shabby condition of the deck, the tarred ropes that were rat-gnawed, the smell of bilge and the gull droppings on the planks.
“But you do evidently carry rats and lice.”
“Better than lenilyn,” the lookout reckoned. He wore his long hair vainly flowing around his shoulders, and he eyed Scarlet meanly before spitting into the scuppers. In another moment there would be violence. Liall forcibly kept his hand away from his knives and locked eyes with Qixa.
“This Byzan is not to be touched.”
“Perhaps if he were not Hilurin, we could have made some arrangement,” Qixa said in a conciliatory tone. “You understand, ap kyning? I regret, but it must be this way.”
Qixa snapped his fingers and the crew hemmed them in closer, sixteen Rshani on the near deck and another fifty elsewhere on the ship, at least. Liall had no hope of fighting them all off.
He pushed Scarlet behind him with one arm and backed up to the bulwark. Scarlet had gone quiet and watchful as a mouse, seeing only that they were in trouble and not knowing why, but wise enough to keep his mouth shut. In another moment, Qixa would order the crew to throw Scarlet overboard and—hell!—Liall was not even sure he could swim. Even if he could, there were the bravos on the docks, still within sight of the departing ship, who would be waiting for him.
The young mariner started forward and Liall gave him a cold stare. “You will not,” he said, his voice low and lethal. “You dare not.” His heartbeat had slowed and he was as calm as if sleeping soundly under a friendly sky. The weights of his Morturii knives were warm and reassuringly heavy where they touched his thighs. They would not lay hands on Scarlet.
It confused the mariner, one man against many who showed no fear and was confident he would be obeyed. Liall continued to look at Qixa as thunder rolled out of the sky and the ship tacked northeast into a gray horizon. A light, misty rain began drifting down.
“It belongs to me. My property,” Liall said in Sinha, hoping that the rude claim of ownership would reach him where subtler arguments could not. “I give you the word of a Camira Druz that it will cause no trouble.”
Qixa did not like it, but he backed down. Perhaps he simply did not want to be the man responsible for killing him. Gods knew there were enough waiting in line to do that once they made landfall in Rshan.
Qixa barked new orders and the crew dispersed with much grumbling. Liall relaxed and spat over the side to clear the sour taste from his mouth, his long hands trembling.
“What was that all about?” Scarlet inquired coolly.
Liall shrugged. “Nothing,” he lied. “They’re unaccustomed to transporting foreigners on board, an old taboo. I gave my word to keep you in line.”
“Me?” Scarlet eyed the fair-haired Rshani crew, their large size and the belligerent glares they cast at him. “Who’s going to keep them in line?”
Who indeed? “Just stay clear of them and mind what you say. There are certain to be some who speak Bizye.”
Scarlet brushed some grime from the shoulder of his coat where he had rolled on the deck. “If you say so, but I don’t know how much good that will do.” He brightened suddenly. “So, how long does it take to get to this land of yours?”
“Scarlet, Scarlet,” he admonished, shaking his head. “Where I go, you cannot follow.”
“But I am,” Scarlet replied. He saw Liall’s apprehensive expression and smiled slyly. “Unless you want me to drown or hang, and I see you don’t.” He poked Liall in the chest with a finger. “You care what happens to me.”
“Yes, I do,” Liall admitted freely. “I care so much that I will not allow you to go needlessly into death.”
Scarlet looked up at him through black lashes, almost glowing with triumph from his near escape, and supremely confident. “I can see this is going to be a long journey. Now, how far is it?”
Liall’s emotions were at war, tugging him between strong desire and good sense, yet he found the will to frown at Scarlet in rebuke. “You will be put ashore to the north above Morturii, where you should be safe from the Byzan army. You know enough of the language and customs to g
et by.” He wondered who he was trying to convince.
Scarlet shrugged lightly and drew back with a smile, clearly not intending to be left behind anywhere. “You didn’t answer me.”
“Rshan na Ostre is a four month journey by sea.”
Scarlet’s teasing manner abruptly vanished. He thumped Liall hard on the arm. “That’s not even a real place!”
Liall was so surprised that he laughed outright. “What do you mean, not real?”
Scarlet was indignant. “It’s a fairy tale. Scaja used to tell me about it when I was no bigger than that barrel there. The Land of Demons, where the Shining Ones live,” he scoffed. “Rshan! Do you take me for a fool?”
Liall was holding his aching arm and chuckling, and Scarlet looked a little guilty, knowing the bravos had kicked him there.
“I assure you, it is no fairy tale. And it is not called the Land of Demons, but the Land of Darkness, or Night. The words are the same in Sinha, you see. And the commoners in Byzantur just call it Norl Udur, the North Kingdom.”
“The North Kingdom is not Rshan,” Scarlet said patiently, enunciating clearly as if speaking to a very slow and dull-witted child. “It couldn’t be.”
“And just why not? Because you do not believe in Rshan, it cannot exist? That’s very arrogant, little Byzan. Even for you.
Scarlet scowled blackly, his pretty eyes narrowed to slits of ebony. “Next you’ll be telling me you’re a Shining One.” He waved his hand dismissively, highly annoyed. “Forget it, you great ox. If you don’t want to tell me the truth, just shut up.”
Liall laughed harder as the thin rain gathered strength and became a downpour. In a flash of rare joy, he threw his arms around Scarlet and planted a hard, passionate kiss on his mouth, grateful beyond measure to be alive, to sense the promise of a future waiting for him, to feel hope again. After a long, shocked moment, Scarlet moaned and responded. The last resistance in his muscles vanished, and his body—strong, young, and warm—melted against Liall.
The wind tugged at Liall’s cloak with eager fingers as the sweet pull of Scarlet’s mouth threatened to drive him past all caution. He forced himself to break the kiss.
“I will always tell you the truth,” he whispered into Scarlet’s hair, looking out over the choppy waves to the far horizon beyond. He blinked hard, his vision blurring, and told himself it was only the brisk wind blowing in from the north, but there was no hiding from the truth: after sixty years, the long-awaited journey to reclaim his true self was finally beginning.
The North, his heart sang. I’m going home. Finally, to home.
Continued in Scarlet and the White Wolf, Book 2: Mariner’s Luck.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Kirby Crow is an American writer born and raised in the Deep South. She is a winner of the EPIC Award, the Rainbow Award, and is the author of the bestselling Scarlet and the White Wolf series of fantasy novels. Kirby and her husband and their son share an old, lopsided house in the Blue Ridge with a cat. Always a cat.
More Titles by Kirby Crow
Prisoner of the Raven
Scarlet and the White Wolf, Book 1: The Pedlar and the Bandit King
Scarlet and the White Wolf, Book 2: Mariner’s Luck
Scarlet and the White Wolf, Book 3: The Land of Night
Scarlet and the White Wolf, Book 4: The King of Forever
Angels of the Deep
Circuit Theory
Hammer and Bone
Poison Apples
Coming Soon
Malachite: Book 1 of the Paladin Cycle
Scarlet and the White Wolf 5: The Temple Road
For upcoming news of Kirby Crow’s novels, visit her website at KirbyCrow.com
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