Jim Butcher - Cursors's Fury

“Yes, Captain,” Ehren said with a bow of his head. “How may I serve you?”

“Take me to your master, and be quick.” He whistled sharply without using his fingers, and half a dozen men dropped what they were doing and came down the gangplank after him. Each of the men, Ehren noted, was large, armed, and looked unfriendly. In point of fact, every single man aboard was armed, even as they readied the ship to depart again. There were even a few pieces of armor in evidence-mostly abbreviated chain shirts and sections of boiled leather.

That was hardly the normal state of affairs, even on a pirate vessel. Weaponry presented nothing but a hindrance to a sailor in the rigging. Wearing even light armor on a ship was all but a death sentence should one fall into the sea. No sailor, pirate or otherwise, would don such gear without a compelling reason.

Ehren found Captain Demos staring at him with an unnerving amount of intensity and no expression on his face. His hand rested negligently on the hilt of his sword. “Question, scribe?”

Ehren looked up at Demos, sensing that he was in immediate danger. He bowed his head carefully, and said, “No, sir. It is no business of mine.”

Demos nodded, and lifted his hand from his sword to gesture for Ehren to precede them. “Remember it.”

‘Yes, Captain. This way, sir.”

Ehren led Demos and his men up to Ullus’s bungalow. The fence came out to meet them, wearing a rusted old gladius through his belt, his face set in a scowl made fearless by drink. “Good day, Captain.”

“Fence,” Demos said, his tone flat. “I am here for my money.”

“Ah,” Ullus said. He looked at Demos’s armed escort and narrowed his eyes. “Well as I said, sir, three weeks was hardly time enough in which to liquidate your articles.”

“And as I said. You will pay me in cash for anything not sold.”

“I wish I had enough to afford it,” Ullus said. “But I don’t have access to such a great amount of coin in this season. If you come back to me in the autumn, I should have more available.”

Demos was silent for a moment. Then he said, “I regret it when business deals do not work out-but I made my position clear, fence. And whatever kind of snake you may be, my word is good.” He turned his head to his men, and said, “Cut his throat.”

Ullus’s sword came to his hand readily enough, out before any of Demos’s armsmen drew. “That might not be as easy as you think,” he said. “And it will profit you nothing. My coin is hidden. Kill me, and you will not see a copper ram of it.”

Demos lifted a hand, and his men stopped in their tracks. He stared at Ullus for a second, then said, “Bloody crows, man. You really are that stupid. I thought it was an act.”

“Stupid?” Ullus said. “Not so stupid that I’d let you run roughshod over me on my own island.”

Ehren remained very still, over to one side, where he might duck behind the bungalow should weaponplay commence. He felt the wind change quite suddenly. The fitful, restless breeze that had danced idly around the island for all of that day vanished. Something like the breath of some single, enormous beast rushed across the island in a single, enormous moan. The wind rose so suddenly that the pennons on the banner poles on the harbor snapped, their tips cracking like whips as the wind, hot and damp, sent the banners streaming to the horizon.

Demos’s attention flicked to the wind banners, and his eyes narrowed.

Some instinct cried out to him, and Ehren turned to Demos. “Captain,” he said. “In the interests of saving time, I have an offer for you.”

“Shut up, slave,” growled Ullus.

Demos glanced aside at Ehren, his eyes flat.

“I know where his coin is hidden,” Ehren said. “Grant me passage to the mainland, and I’ll show you where it is.”

Ullus whirled on Ehren in a fury. “Who do you think you are, you greasy little tosspot? Hold your tongue.” He brandished the rusty sword. “Or I will.”

“Captain?” Ehren pressed. “Have we a bargain?”

Ullus let out a cry of pure rage and rushed at Ehren, sword rising.

Ehren’s small knife appeared from its hiding place in his tunic’s roomy sleeve. He waited until the last moment for Ullus’s strike, and then slipped aside from it by the width of a hair. His knife struck out, a single stroke that left a cut two inches long and almost as deep.

Ullus’s throat sprayed blood. The ragged fence collapsed to the ground like a groggy drunk abruptly sure that it was time for a nap.

Ehren stared down at the man for a moment, regret sharp in him. Ullus was a fool, a liar, a criminal, and Jie’d doubtless done more than his share of despicable deeds in his time-but even so, Ehren had not wanted to kill him. But if Ehren’s instincts were correct, he’d had little choice. It was imperative that he leave the island, and Demos was his only way out.

He turned to Demos and leaned down to wipe the blade of his little knife clean on the back of Ullus’s tunic. “It would seem that your own arrangement with Ullus has been resolved in accordance with your terms. Have we a new bargain, Captain?”

Demos stared at Ehren, with neither more nor less expression on his face than before. He looked briefly at Ullus’s body. “It would seem I have little choice if I am to collect my coin.”

“That’s true enough,” Ehren agreed. “Captain, please. I have a sense that we do not wish to stand around talking about this all day.”

Demos’s teeth showed in an expression that was not a smile. “Your technique is sound, Cursor. “

“I don’t know what you mean, sir.”

Demos grunted. “They never do. Passage is one thing. Involving myself in more politics is another.”

“And more expensive?” Ehren asked.

“Commensurate with the risk. Dead men spend no coin.”

Ehren nodded once, sharply. “And your own loyalties, sir?”

“Negotiable.”

“Ullus’s coin,” Ehren said. “And a like amount upon return to Alera.”

“Double the amount on return,” Demos said. “Cash, no vouchers or letters of marque. You’re buying passage, not command of my vessel. And I’ll have your word not to go out of my sight until paid in full.”

Ehren tilted his head. “My word? Would you trust it?”

“Break it,” Demos said, “and the Cursors will hunt you down for sullying their business reputation.”

“True enough,” Ehren said, “if I worked for them. Done.”

Demos jerked his head in a nod. “Done. What do I call you?”

“Scribe.”

“Take me to the coin, scribe.” He turned to one of his men. “We set sail at once. Get a slave detail and take any women or children you can see on the way back.”

The men nodded and started back to the harbor. Demos turned to find Ehren frowning at him. “We’d best move.”

Ehren jerked a nod at him and led him to the back of the bungalow, where Ullus thought he’d built a clever hiding place into the woodpile. Ehren recovered the entirety of Ullus’s cash fortune in a leather sack and tossed it to Demos.

The captain opened the sack and dumped some of its contents onto his palm. They were a mix of coins of all sorts, mainly copper rams and silver bulls, but with the occasional gold crown mixed in. Demos nodded and headed back for the ship. Ehren followed, walking on the man’s left, a stride away, where he would have time and room to dodge should the pirate draw his sword.

Demos seemed briefly amused. “If I wished to be rid of you, scribe, I wouldn’t need to kill you. I’d leave you here.”

“Call it a professional courtesy,” Ehren said. “You aren’t a smuggler or a pirate.”

“I am today,” Demos said.

Armed members of the Slives crew rushed past. Behind them, Ehren heard screams as the men began seizing women and children and shackling them.