David Drake - Godess of the Ice Realm

"Go on," said Chalcus; still smiling, his right index finger playing with the eared pommel of his inward-curving sword.

"Lusius and his twin Ausius bribed Lascarg to send him here as Commander of the Strait," Rincip explained. "They were as much a pair as your two hands are. The first night Ausius fell into the sea and a seawolf ate him before we could get a line over to draw him up. Ever since then the seawolf's followed whenever Lusius puts out, in theDefender or the barges either one. And Lusius never goes aboard one of the fishing boats, because Our Brother is big enough to capsize them… and he thinks that's what he'd do."

"Did Lusius throw his brother to the beast?" Ilna said. "Stab him and throw the body in?"

Rincip shrugged. "It was night," he said. "They were in the far bow of theDefender. Lusius says his brother leaned over holding a stay to look at the seawolf and his hand slipped. Maybe that's what happened."

He scrunched up; if his hands had been free, he'd have been covering his eyes with them, Ilna was sure. He said, "I wish I'd never got into this. We're all afraid, we'd all like to quit. I think the Commander's as scared as the rest of us, but what can we do?"

"You can get very rich, I'm thinking," said Chalcus pleasantly. "From the shell alone, a tidy sum; and with what comes out of the bellies of the ships you loot-richer yet. I know better than most how quickly that gold flows away, but having it means a fine time while it lasts."

"You don't know," Rincip said, shaking his head miserably. "Sure, I've seen bodies before, but just pieces, always pieces… And I kept thinking, what if it gets loose? What if it comes after me?"

"What 'it'?" Ilna said. "What's the thing that does the killing?"

"I don't know," Rincip said, his voice rising. "I don't know, I don't want ever to know. But I'm afraid!"

Which surely was the truth, given that where he wasnow didn't frighten him as much as Gaur's monster did. If the thing was Gaur's at all…

"What do you think, dear one?" Chalcus asked her.

Ilna pursed her lips but it was a moment before she decided how to speak. At last she said, "He's telling the truth, surely, but I don't see that he's any further use to us. Except as a witness, I suppose, but you said we'd let him go."

Chalcus grinned and pulled his dagger from his sash. "So I did," he said. He reached out; Rincip flinched as far away as the cords twisted from his own silk tunic allowed, but Chalcus slipped the dagger behind him.

The bonds parted; Rincip sprawled on the deck, dragging tags of severed cord. Chalcus had cut him loose without seeing the knots or touching the prisoner's skin.

He sheathed his dagger and grinned at Ilna. She grinned back. His was a personality very different from hers, but he showed an equal attention to craftsmanship.

"Get in your skiff, Master Rincip," Chalcus said, gesturing toward the painter tied to a stern bitt. "Go over the side and I'll cast you off. There's oars in the boat, but you may as well wait for the Commander to come by."

"It wouldn't bother me to knock him in the head first," said Hutena, speaking for the first time as his hands gripped the tiller fiercely. He glared at the man who'd talked so casually about aiding in the slaughter of hundreds of sailors much like Hutena himself.

"Nor would it bother me, bosun," Chalcus said with a merry laugh, "but we'll not do that, not just now."

He gestured to the cowering Rincip with the finger that a moment before had been playing with his swordhilt. "Get over the side, my man," he said. "I won't make the offer a third time."

Scrambling and looking back toward Hutena, Rincip tripped over the low railing. He bellowed with shock and fear in the moment he splashed into the water. He must have caught the painter, though, for it jerked violently.

Chalcus cut the skiff loose with a single swift motion of his sword. He sheathed the weapon and said, to Hutena and perhaps to more than the few souls aboard theBird of the Tide, "If every man were hanged who deserved it, friend bosun, I greatly fear that you'd be serving a different captain now."

"You're not like Rincip, captain," Hutena growled. "He's not a man, he's a jackal without the balls to kill for himself. But I guess we can leave him for others if you say so."

Chalcus looked back over the stern, his lips in a hard, bright smile. Ilna followed his gaze; the skiff was almost lost in the slow swells in theBird 's wake.

"They'll be following in theDefender," Chalcus said musingly. "The barges 'll still be loaded with what they took from theQueen of Heaven. And they know theDefender can't catch us before we make the shoals where she can't follow…"

"I just want to get away," said Pointin, staring at the deck between his knees. "I don't care where. Just away!"

There was a cyan flicker in the night sky. If Ilna hadn't known what it really was, she might have guessed it was heat lightning.

"And so we shall, I do hope," said Chalcus. "But first we'll make a detour to a place Master Gaur wishes us to see."

"Captain?" called Kulit from the bow. The sailor's face was carefully composed to hide the fear inside. All the men held weapons, but they clearly shared Ilna's doubt as to how useful that would be.

"Aye, lads," said Chalcus. "It's now that we earn our pay, I'm thinking."

Azure wizardlight flared again, this time as a continuous solid bowl pulsing across the sky directly above theBird of the Tide. It pulsed, and Ilna felt herself falling though nothing around her changed.

For a moment she heard Pointin's terrified screams. Then the roar of wizardry overwhelmed every other sound.

The mechanical birds trilled tunes as golden as their own flashing wings. That was the only soothing thing going on in the audience room this morning.

Garric sat grim-faced at the head of the conference table. Lord Tadai, Lord Waldron, and Master Reise ('representing the Vicar') were arguing over the size, make-up, siting, and especially the funding of the garrison which would remain in Haft when the royal army accompanied Prince Garric to Sandrakkan, the next stage of his progress. The army commander was heated, the acting chancellor was suave, the former palace servant was self-effacing-and none of the three of them would move a hair's breadth from his initial mutually-exclusive position.

"There's no perfect decision!" Carus said. Garric was dizzy with silent frustration but the ancient king was in a livid rage. "You should just do it, doanything, and be done!"

Before Garric could make any response beyond the first twitch of a smile, Carus realized what he'd said and guffawed loudly. "Aye, lad," he said. "You should decide by throwing knucklebones and let the kingdom go smash. The way I did, because I wouldn't spend time on anything that didn't involve a sword."

Each of the principals had several aides carrying document cases. A staff captain and one of Tadai's section heads, both junior members of the Ornifal nobility, snarled at one another beside the silver birdcage; if they'd been allowed to carry swords in the presence of the prince, they'd have been using them. The pair of Blood Eagles on duty watched with superior smiles.

Liane sat demurely beside Garric with a waxed notepad in her hand and a rank of part-opened scrolls laid on the table before her. To look at her she was wholly focused on her documents, oblivious of the discussion going on. Garric was quite sure that if asked, Liane could repeat verbatim any portion of the argument and counter-arguments; which was more thanhe could do, and he'd been trying to follow it.

The door opened. A guard outside whispered to one inside, then a nondescript man entered. He walked around the room against the wall to Liane, then stooped and whispered to her lowered head. Garric smiled again. He didn't know the details-yet-but he knew that if the fellow'd been allowed in now, something more important than a council meeting was about to occur.