Scott Lynch - Red Seas Under Red Skies

"I say discretion is a pastime for other people," said Locke. "Let's run our arses off."

They sprinted at a wild tear through the forgotten places of the Golden Steps, north to the edge of the vast Elderglass plateau, where they scrambled down flight after flight of nauseatingly wobbly wooden steps, glancing frantically above and below for pursuit or ambush. The world was a dizzy whirl around Locke by the middle of the staircase, painted in the surreal colours of fire and alien glass. Out on the harbour the fourth and final ship of the festival was bursting into incandescence, a sacrifice of wood and pitch and canvas before hundreds of small boats packed with priests and revellers.

Down to the feet of the stairs and across the wooden platforms of the inner docks they stumbled, past the occasional drunkard or beggar, waving their daggers and crossbows wildly. Before them was their pier, long and empty, home only to a long stack of crates. No beggars, no drunks. Their boat bobbed welcomingly on the waves, just a hundred feet away now, brightly lit by the glare of the inferno. Stack of crates, Locke thought, and by then it was too late.

Two men stepped from the shadows as Locke and Jean passed, from the most obvious ambush spot possible.

Locke and Jean whirled together; only the fact that they were carrying their stolen crossbows in their hands gave them any chance to bring them up in time. Four arms flew out; four men standing close enough to hold hands drew on their targets. Four fingers quivered, each separated from their triggers by no more than the width of a single droplet of sweat.

Locke Lamora stood on the pier in Tal Verrar with the hot wind of a burning ship at his back and the cold bite of a loaded crossbow's bolt at his neck. i4 He grinned, gasping for breath, and concentrated on holding his own crossbow level with the left eye of his opponent; they were close enough that they would catch most of one another's blood, should they both twitch their fingers at the same time.

"Be reasonable," said the man facing him. Beads of sweat left visible trails as they slid down his grime-covered cheeks and forehead. "Consider the disadvantages of your situation."

Locke snorted. "Unless your eyeballs are made of iron, the disadvantage is mutual. Wouldn't you say so, Jean?"

Jean and his foe were toe-to-toe with their crossbows similarly poised. Not one of them could miss at this range, not if all the gods above or below the heavens willed it otherwise.

"All four of us would appear… to be up to our balls in quicksand," said Jean between breaths.

On the water behind them, the old galleon groaned and creaked as the roaring flames consumed it from the inside out. Night was made day for hundreds of yards around; the hull was crisscrossed with the white-orange lines of seams coming apart. Smoke boiled out of those hellish cracks in little black eruptions, the last shuddering breaths of a vast wooden beast dying in agony. The four men stood on their pier, strangely alone in the midst of light and noise that were drawing the attention of the entire city. Nobody in the boats was paying any attention to them.

"Lower your piece, for the love of the gods," said Locke's opponent. "We've been instructed not to kill you, if we don't have to."

"And I'm sure you" d be honest if it were otherwise, of course," said Locke. His smile grew. "I make it a point never to trust men with weapons at my windpipe. Sorry." "Your hand will start to shake long before mine does."

"I'll rest the tip of my quarrel against your nose when I get tired. Who sent you after us? What are they paying you? We're not without funds; a happy arrangement could be reached." "Actually," said Jean, "I know who sent them."

"What? Really?" Locke flicked a glance at Jean before locking eyes with his adversary once again. "And an arrangement has been reached, but I wouldn't call it happy." "Ah… Jean, I'm afraid you" ve lost me."

"No." Jean raised one hand, palm out, to the man opposite him. He then slowly, carefully shifted his aim to his left — until his crossbow was pointing at Locke's head. The man he'd previously been threatening blinked in surprise. "You" ve lost me, Locke." "Jean," said Locke, the grin vanishing from his face, "this isn't funny." "I agree. Hand your piece over to me." "Jean—"

"Hand it over now. Smartly. You there, are you some kind of moron? Get that thing out of my face and point it at him."

Jean's former opponent licked his lips nervously, but didn't move. Jean ground his teeth together. "Look, you sponge-witted dock ape, I'm doing your job for you. Point your crossbow at my gods-damned partner so we can get off this pier!"

"Jean, I would describe this turn of events as less than helpful,1 said Locke, and he looked as though he might say more, except that Jean's opponent chose that moment to take Jean's advice.

It felt to Locke as if sweat was now cascading down his face, as though his own treacherous moisture was abandoning the premises before anything worse happened.

"There. Three on one."Jean spat on the pier. "You gave me no choice but to cut a deal with the employer of these gentlemen before we set out — gods damn it, you forced me. I'm sorry. I thought thed'r make contact before they drew down on us. Now give your weapon over." "Jean, what the hell do you think you're—"

"Don't. Don't say another fucking thing. Don't try to finesse me; I know you too well to let you have your say. Silence, Locke. Finger off the trigger and hand it over.""

Locke stared at the steel-tipped point of Jean's quarrel, his mouth open in disbelief. The world around him faded to that tiny, gleaming point, alive with the orange reflection of the inferno blazing in the anchorage behind him. Jean would have given him a hand signal if he were lying… where the hell was the hand signal? "I don't believe this," he whispered. "This is impossible."

"This is the last time I'm going to say this, Locke." Jean ground his teeth together and held his aim steady, directly between Locke's eyes. "Take your finger off the trigger and hand over your gods-damned weapon. Right now."

Jaffrim Rodanov waded in the shallows by the hull of an overturned fishing boat, listening to the waves break against its shattered planks as they washed over his ankles. The sand and water of Prodigal Bay were pristine this far from the city. No layers of night soil slimed the water, no rusting metal scraps or pottery shards littered the bottom. No corpses floated as grim rafts for squawking birds.

Twilight, on the seventh day of Aurim. Drakasha gone for a week now. A thousand miles away, Jaffrim thought, a mistake was being made.

Ydrena whistled. She was leaning against the hull of the abandoned fishing boat, neither too close nor too far from him, merely emphasizing by her presence that Rodanov was not alone, and that his attendance at this meeting was known to his crew. Jacquelaine Colvard had arrived.

She left her first mate beside Ydrena, shrugged out of her own boots and waded into the water without hiking up her breeches. Old and unbent Colvard, who'd been sacking ships in these waters when he'd been a boy with his nose buried in musty scrolls. Before he'd even seen a ship that wasn't inked onto a sheet of parchment. "Jaffrim," she said. "Thank you for humouring me."

"There's only one thing you could want to talk about at the moment," said Rodanov. "Yes. And it's on your mind too, isn't it?" "It was a mistake to give Drakasha our oaths." "Was it?"