Scott Lynch - Red Seas Under Red Skies

"Didn't give you a hand signal? I flashed you the "lying" sign, plain as that bloody burning ship! When I raised my palm to those idiots!" "You did not—"

"I did! As if I could forget! I can't believe this! How could you ever think… where did you think I'd found the time to broker a deal with anyone else? We've been on the same damn ship for two months!" "Jean, without the signal—"

"I did give it to you, you twit! I gave it when I did the whole cold, reluctant betrayer bit! "Actually, I know who sent them." Remember?" "Yeah—"

"And then the hand signal! The "Oh, look, Jean Tannen is lying about betraying his best friend in the whole fucking world to a couple of Verrari cut-throats" signal! Shall we practise that one more often? Do we really need to?" "I didn't see a signal, Jean. Honest to all the gods." "You missed it."

"Missed it? I— Yeah, look, fine. I missed it. It was dark, crossbows everywhere, I should" ve known. I should" ve known we didn't even need it. I'm sorry."

He sighed and looked over at the two bodies, feathered shafts sticking grotesquely out of their motionless heads.

"We really, really needed to interrogate one of those bastards, didn't we?" "Yes," said Jean. "It was… bloody good shooting, regardless." "Yes." "Jean?" "Mm?" "We should really be running like hell right now." "Oh. Yes. Let's."

"Ahoy the ship," cried Locke as the boat nudged up against the Poison Orchid's side. He released his grip on the oars with relief; Caldris would have been proud of the pace thed'r set scudding out of Tal Verrar, through a flotilla of priestly delegations and drunkards, past the flaming galleon and the blackened hulks of the previous sacrifices, through air still choked with grey haze.

"Gods," said Delmastro as she helped them up through the entry port, "what happened? Are you hurt?"

"Got my feelings dented," said Jean, "but all this blood has been borrowed for the occasion." Locke glanced down at his own finery, smeared with the life of at least two of their attackers. He and Jean looked like drunken amateur butchers. "Did you get what you needed?" asked Delmastro.

"What we needed? Yes. What we might have wanted? No. And from the goddamn mystery attackers that won't give us a moment's peace in the city? Far too much." "Who" s this, then?"

"We have no idea," said Locke. "How do the bastards know where we are, or who we are? It's been nearly two months! Where were we indiscreet?" "The Sinspire," said Jean, a bit sheepishly.

"How were they waiting for us at the docks, then? Pretty bloody efficient!" "Were you followed back to the ship?" asked Delmastro. "Not that we could tell," said Jean, "but I think we" d be fools to linger."

Delmastro nodded, produced her whistle and blew the familiar three sharp notes. "At the waist! Ship capstan bars! Stand by to weigh anchor! Boatswain's party, ready to hoist the boat!"

"You two look upset," she said to Locke and Jean as the ship became a whirlwind of activity around them.

"Why shouldn't we be?" Locke rubbed his stomach, still feeling a dull ache where the Sinspire bouncer had struck him. "We got away, sure, but someone pinned a hell of a lot of trouble on us in return."

"You know what I like to do when I'm in a foul mood?" said Ezri sweetly. "I like to sack ships." She raised her finger and pointed slowly across the deck, past the hustling crewfolk, out to sea, where another vessel could just be seen, lit by its stern lanterns against the southern darkness. "Oh, look — there's one right now!" They were knocking on Drakasha's cabin door just moments later.

"You wouldn't be standing on two legs if that blood was yours," she said as she invited them in. "Is it too much to hope that it belongs to Stragos?" "It is," said Locke. "Pity. Well, at least you came back. That's reassuring."

Paolo and Cosetta were tangled together on their little bed, snoring peacefully. Drakasha seemed to see no need to whisper in their presence. Locke grinned, remembering that he'd learned to sleep through some pretty awful distractions at their age, too. "Did you make any real progress?" asked Drakasha.

"We bought time," said Locke. "And we got out of the city. The issue was in doubt."

"Captain," said Delmastro, "we were sort of wondering if we could get started on the next part of this whole scheme a bit early. Like right now." "You want to do some boarding and socializing?"

"There's a likely suitor waiting to dance about two miles south by west. Away from the city, outside the reefs—"

"And the city's a bit absorbed in the Festa at the moment," added Locke.

"It" d just be a quick visit, like we've been discussing," said Ezri. "Rouse them up, make "em piss their breeches, loot the purse and the portable goods, throw things overboard, cut some chains and cripple the rigging—"

"I suppose we have to start somewhere," said Drakasha. "Del, send Utgar down to borrow some of my silks and cushions. I want a makeshift bed rigged for the children in the rope locker. If I'm going to wake them up to hide them, it's only fair." "Right," said Delmastro. "What's the wind?" "Out of the north-east."

"Put us around due south, bring it onto the larboard quarter. Reefed topsails, slow and steady. Tell Oscarl to hoist out the boats, behind our hull so our friend can't see them in the water."

"Aye, Captain." Delmastro shrugged out of her overcoat, left it on Drakasha's table and ran from the cabin. A few seconds later Locke could hear commotion on deck: Oscarl shouting about how thed'r only just been told to raise the boat, and Delmastro yelling something about soft-handed, slack-witted idlers.

"You two look ghastly," said Zamira. "I'll have to get a new sea-chest to separate the blood-drenched finery from the clean. Confine yourselves to wearing reds and browns next time."

"You know, Captain," said Locke, staring down at the blood-soaked sleeves of his jacket, "that sort of gives me an idea. A really, really amusing idea…"

Just past the second hour of the morning, with Tal Verrar finally shuddering into a drunken somnambulance and the Festa fires extin— guished, the Poison Orchid in her costume as the Chimera crept past the Happy Pilchard. She passed the battered, sleepy little ketch at a distance of about two hundred yards, flying a minimal number of navigation lanterns and offering no hail. That wasn't entirely unusual in waters where not one act of piracy had been reported for more than seven years.

In darkness, it was impossible to see that the Orchid's deck carried no boats.

Those boats slowly emerged from the ship's larboard shadow, and at a silent signal their rowers exploded into action. With the haste of their passage they turned the dark sea white. Three faint, frothy lines reached out from Orchid to Pilchard, and by the time the lone watchman on at the ketch's stern noticed anything, it was far too late.

"Ravelle," cried Jean, who was the first up the ketch's side. "Ravelle!" Still dressed in his blood-spattered finery, he'd wrapped a scrap of red linen around his head and borrowed an iron-shod quarterstaff from one of the Orchid's arms lockers. Orchids scrambled up behind him — Jabril and Malakasti, Streva and Rask. They carried clubs and saps, leaving their blades sheathed at their belts.

Three boats" worth of pirates boarded from three separate directions; the ketch's meagre crew was swept into the waist by shouting, club-waving lunatics, all hollering a name that was meaningless to them, until at last they were subdued and the chief of their tormentors came aboard to exalt in his victory. "The name's Ravelle!"

Locke paced the deck before the thirteen cringing crewfolk and their strange blue-robed passenger. Locke, like Jean, had kept his bloody clothing and topped it off with a red sash at his waist, a red bandanna over his hair and a scattering of Zamira's jewellery for effect. "Orrin Ravelle! And I" ve come back to pay my respects to Tal Verrar!"