Stephen Deas: The Thief-Taker's Blade

The boat lurched as half the thief-takers lost their stroke at once. Dead?

“Dead?” Taker Kakrim growled the word.

“Yes, why dead?” Kol sounded annoyed. “I didn't say anything about anyone being dead, witch-breaker. I said they weren't well.”

Orimel cocked his head, calmly pulling on his oar. “Am I mistaken, Kol?”

The Justicar paused. The boat paused with him. “No,” he said eventually, after another long pull on his pipe. “You're not. How did you know?”

“How did they die, Kol?”

This time Kol shrugged. “Buggered if I know. All I know is they jumped into their boats and made for the shore and before they could reach the waterfront, they were all dead.”

“Plague,” hissed Taker Fennis again.

“Bloody quick for a plague.”

“They were running from something.” The witch-breaker took a deep breath. “I smelled it on the dockside as you waved your purse of empty promises in the air. Death was with us then. I smelled the corpses lying in the sun-god's temple. I smell the trail of them back out across the sea.” he stood up and pointed out into the waves, between the anchored ships. “They died there. There. There. This ship carries more than charts and plunder and dead pirates.”

Kol stretched his shoulders. He turned for a moment and looked up at the stars. At the bright full moon high overhead. “And that, witch-breaker, is why you're here. You find whatever it is and get rid of it while the rest of us do what the Overlord will actually thank us for. Now are you lot going to row or what? Because if all you want to see is how pretty the sunrise is tomorrow, I suggest we all watch it from the shore.”

There wasn't much to say after that. The thief-takers pulled on their oars, Kol steered them this way and that, a little left, a little right. Or port and starboard maybe, but Syannis, even if he'd grown up by it, had never been one for the sea. His eyes tracked the huge black shadows of the hulls as they passed by, of masts that reached up high enough to rake the sky, or so it seemed from down in the waves. Kol steered them carefully, keeping as clear of the other ships as he could, waving a lantern and calling out to the men on watch as they passed. Pirates had been the plague of Deephaven not all that long ago, coming around Wrecking Point in their boats. The city had put an end to that a few years back, in the mess and chaos at the end of the empire's civil war, when mercenaries and swords had been cheap and plentiful and everyone else was too busy with their own problems to mind what one city did to the villages around it. That had been about the same time as Syannis and Kasmin had gone from living in a palace to slipping off to sea in a lonely rowing boat. Kasmin had made his way here later, just in time to see the Khrozus the Usurper get murdered in turn. By the time Syannis washed up in Deephaven, all of that was history. No more pirates. There was even talk of abandoning the watch-tower only a year after they'd built it.

But sailors had long memories. Deephaven might be safe now, but the ship captains still set their watches though the night, still greased their anchor chains and were still prone to taking the odd shot at any small boat that happened to stray too close. The thief-takers kept away as best they could until Kol guided them in close towards the Taki ship. It wasn't hard to spot. Swathes of sail and rope draped over the side, dragging in the water, gleaming in the light of the moon overhead. There were shapes, too, caught up in the ropes. Bodies, floating in the water. Syannis counted three of them. Strange to have drowned so close to a ship with a rope almost in your hand.

“Right. In case any of you hadn't spotted, this is it. If I've been keeping time right, we've got about two hours to get on board, take whatever we can and get off again if we want to be back on dry land before sunrise. Which, my motley friends, we do. So get us close and tie us up to one of those ropes and get us aboard and don't fanny about.”

“I am not liking this, Justicar,” grumbled Orimel. “I sense a malevolence on this ship.”

Kol snorted. “And there I was thinking that her crew were just in such a rush to make happy hour at the Khrozus' Head. See that?” He pointed up at the full moon. “That's the moon. You,” he pointed at Orimel, “are a moon-priest. When that up there is all big and round and shiny, you lot practically hiccup lightning bolts, or so you'd have the rest us believe. So go find whatever thing it is you sense and sneeze at it or something.” With that he stood up, setting the whole boat rocking from side to side, and seized a rope hanging down loose from the masts above. A moment later, the longboat was bumping against the hard dull hull of the Taiytakei trader. A minute or two more and the silhouettes of six thief-takers and a priest stood out for a moment against the dim horizon, shinning up a rope before they vanished into the darkness of the deck.

1 stMage Day, Month of Lightning

Three more men lost. The shores here are not as uninhabited as they seemed. Wild men with painted faces and strange magics fell upon our shore party, and we are fortunate that our losses were not greater. They cannot pursue us at sea. Tomorrow we will set our course for home. Weather fine, winds freshening from the south.

1 stCouncil Day, Month of Lightning

Yet another calamity befalls us, and this time I cannot ignore the baying of the crew. Our provisions are spoiled and our water fouled. Sanct demands again that we sail to Deephaven and with the fires of the savages burning clear for all to see on the shore, I find our choices are few. I know nothing of this place, yet Sanct, it seems, has a knowledge he previously chose to hide. What coin do they take, these Arians, I ask him? He promises he has the means to pay for whatever we will require. Good. I will take it from him. The crew howl anew to hurl him into the sea, blaming him for yet more misfortune, yet I see the hand of sabotage in this, clear as day. I will find whoever has done this and they will feed the sharks.

Even the winds argue for Deephaven. They would blow us straight there if I let them.

The deck of the Taiytakei ship was covered with the wreckage of fallen ropes and sails. Across the middle of the ship, straddling the main deck from corner to corner, lay a a boom, fallen from one of the masts. A tangle of ropes and sail lay around it. Another tangle of ropes and sail covered the bow of the ship and a third dangled over the side, the ropes the thief-takers had used to climb aboard.

“Messy,” sniffed Fennis.

“No real sailor does this to a ship,” muttered Kakrim.

“Yes, yes. It's not likely there's going to be anything much up on deck here is it, so no need to start rummaging around.” Kol hurried them over the rail, almost dragging them up.

“There is a presence,” growled Orimel. “Close by.” He moved to the middle of the deck. Out here in the night-dark, a halo of silver light flickered around his face and fingers.

The Justicar snorted, unimpressed. “Yes, well most likely it's not hiding under a sail. Come on. Charts, my fellows. We'll start with those. I assume we'll find them in the cabin at the back here. After that you can all join our witch-breaker on a jolly expedition to the bilges if that's what you want.” With that, the Justicar picked his way across the fallen rigging and moved towards the raised deck at the back of the ship. “I don't suppose any of you thought to bring a light.”

“You sure you want light out here, Kol?” asked Syannis. “People will see.”

The Justicar paused in the gloom. He wagged a finger. “Now that's the sort of thinking I like. A sliver of something dim, master witch-breaker? Think you could manage that? A touch of the moon for us to take down below?”