EPIC: Fourteen Books of Fantasy (226 page)

He started for the hatch.

“One more question, captain,” Tikaya said, wondering if he would answer it honestly or not.

“What?”

“Suppose I succeed in translating this language, in helping you with whatever your problem is. What happens to me then?”

Bocrest eyed her over his shoulder. “If you succeed, your family will not be harmed. You? As far as the emperor and thousands of dead Turgonians are concerned, your deeds during the war condemned you. I suggest you enjoy your last project.”

Tikaya leaned against the cold metal wall for support. She wished he had lied.

When Tikaya stepped out of the hatch, the sun made her blink. She stumbled and almost crashed into the guards escorting her outside for her exercise session. Nobody offered a steadying hand.

Wind gusted across the deck, tugging at her braid, and slapping her dress against her legs. When her vision recovered, the sun told her they traveled northeast. Endless sea stretched in all directions, so she could only guess at their position and goal. Though the briny breeze stole the stink of burning coal, the black plumes streaming from two smokestacks suggested the furnaces burned at maximum capacity. Full sails made use of the wind as well, and Tikaya wondered how fast they traveled under the combined power. Perhaps she imagined it, but the sun warming her cheeks felt less intense than back home. Where were the Turgonians taking her?

A pair of marines in gray togs jostled her as they jogged past.

“Stay out of the running lane,” one barked without glancing back.

Tikaya sighed and shuffled in the direction the guards indicated. She should have relished the excursion, the chance to stretch and walk, but the lack of company dulled her spirits. She hadn’t even been able to speak with Five again. The captain had granted her request for a desk and better illumination by moving her to one of the officers’ cabins in the wardroom, which put her on the other side of the ship from the man she wanted to conspire with. And the young private stationed outside her door showed no inclination of allowing her to wander.

 
The guards led her past masts, smokestacks, and two thirty-foot launches mounted in the center of the deck. She kept her gaze from lingering too long on the big boats. It would take more than two people to get one of those in the water anyway. She stepped past a cannon to glance over the railing. Ah, yes. Smaller cutters were mounted alongside the ship below the gun ports. She and Five could handle one of those. Unfortunately, she needed time with him to make plans.

“Stop gawking.” One the guards shoved her.

“I didn’t know there was a minimum walking speed up here,” Tikaya muttered.

“Exercise is for sweating, not sightseeing.”

“You’re a pithy people, aren’t you?”

That earned another shove.

Tikaya picked up her speed. A heavy gun on brass rails dominated the forecastle, but the area behind it lay open, and a few bare-chested men boxed in a makeshift arena. Racks contained practice weapons, dumbbells, and other exercise equipment. Captain Bocrest and a lieutenant stood on the far side where a temporary archery lane was set up with person-shaped paper targets attached to bales of hay. They practiced with repeating crossbows, though traditional bows also leaned in a rack.

“You going to do anything, woman?” a guard asked.

Feeling self-conscious beneath all the eyes that swiveled to watch her, Tikaya walked over to a pile of sand-filled balls with handles. After a few tries, she found a small one she could lift. She maneuvered through a few exercises, though no one had suggested baths were available, so she was not sure how much of a sweat she wanted to encourage.

“Awkward turtle, isn’t she?” one of the guards said.

“Fine by me,” the second said. “Makes her melons bounce.”

“Hah, and her ass. Bookly thing but I’d mount that in a heartbeat.”

Jaw clenched and cheeks flaming, Tikaya turned her back to them.

“Nothing else to mount around here,” the conversation continued, “unless you want to crawl into Lieutenant Amn or Corporal Agarik’s bunks.”

“I reckon they’d be the ones wanting to do the mounting then.”

She supposed that explained why she was not Agarik’s “type.” The marines went back to analyzing her, and, when others joined in, the commentary grew cruder and more explicit. Though the captain stood within earshot, he did nothing to stop the lewd harassment. She wondered if the men would have treated a Turgonian woman this way or if her status as hated-enemy-of-the-empire made it acceptable.

Tikaya gave up the exercises in favor of walking around the training area. She eyed the officers plunking quarrels into the targets, surprised they bothered practicing archery given the power of their rifles.

“How’s the
thinking
going, librarian?” Bocrest asked. “You figure anything out yet?”

“I’m working on it. I doubt you have any idea as to the magnitude of the task. People spend years working to translate a newly discovered language, and that’s when they’re surrounded by libraries full of reference materials.”

“Uh huh. Take a few more laps around the ring to inspire my men’s fantasies and then go back to work.”

“Double or nothing, sir?” The lieutenant hefted his crossbow.

“It’s your rum.” The captain turned his back on her and loaded a fistful of bolts into his own crossbow.

An idea tickled her mind. “You a betting man, Captain?” she asked before she could talk herself out of it.

Since he had already dismissed Tikaya, he had to turn back to frown at her. “What?”

“Care to make a wager?”

“Like what?”

“I’ll bet you there’s a weapon here I can best you with.”

The snorts and outright laughs around her were no surprise.

“Why would I make a wager with my prisoner?” the captain asked. “What could you have to lose that I would want?”

What indeed?

“Before you offer to warm my toes tonight, know I’m a married man.”

The fact that he had a wife—and was faithful to her—left her speechless for a moment.

Bocrest tapped his foot. Tikaya considered the bruises on his face. If she was right and Five had delivered those, maybe she could use that.

“I see Prisoner Five has given you some trouble,” she said. “You must need him for something, presumably related to what you need me for. If I lose, I’ll persuade him to help you with your mission.”

Bocrest laughed. “Why would he listen to the cryptomancer?”

Because Five did not yet know she
was
the cryptomancer. “Because we’ve established a rapport.” If one could call a single shared conversation a rapport.

The laughter ceased, and Bocrest studied her through narrowed eyes. Perhaps that had not been a wise claim to make.

“Fine. What if I lose?” The captain’s mouth twisted, showing how unlikely he thought that. “I’m not releasing you or promising anything that would involve breaking orders.”

“I want Five to share my exercise periods, an hour each day.” The captain was shaking his head before she made it halfway through the sentence, but she pressed on. “I also want you to give him a bath, haircut, shave, and fresh clothing to wear.” Tikaya smiled. “Actually, I’ll take a bath and fresh clothing too.”

“A bath!” the lieutenant roared. “This is a steamer! Water is for pouring into the boiler.”

“Surely you could manage a damp washcloth,” she said.

“No,” the captain said. “No to it all. That’s too much extra work for my men. He’s too dangerous to have out.”

“Why can’t these men watch him?” She pointed to the onlookers. “I can’t imagine the emperor pays them to stand around and gawk at me. Besides—” the captain’s face had grown red, so she patted the air soothingly, “—you don’t honestly believe you’ll lose our wager, do you?”

He snapped his mouth shut. “No.”

The captain stuck his palm out, edge toward her, and she banged her hand against it in the Turgonian gesture for a deal sealed.

“Choose your weapon,” he said.

She went straight to the bows. They were designed for tall, burly men, so it took some experimentation to find one she could string and draw. For once her long arms were useful, and her months laboring on the plantation gave her strength she had not possessed during her academic tenure.

“Think she’ll even be able to load that?” one man asked.

“Probably shoot her toe off.”

“There’s no way she’ll hit a target.”

“Better tell the boys in the rigging to watch out.”

“Don’t know why my languages instructor bothered teaching me the Turgonian word for encouragement,” Tikaya muttered. “Not like they ever use it.”

Bow strung, she joined Bocrest.

“Challenger shoots first,” he said.

“No practice?”

“No.”

“Best of three shots?”

“One shot. Deal’s been made. Shoot.”

The lieutenant handed her a single arrow.

“I see you’re a sporting people.” She should have negotiated the rules of the game instead of trying to finagle baths.

Tikaya nocked the arrow and turned sideways, bow held loosely in her left hand as the fingertips of her right curled about the string. Just like on the plantation back home, she told herself.

Except it wasn’t. Even on the calm day, the ship rose and fell with the swells, and activity on deck offered distractions. The misty breeze licked her cheeks, and she closed her eyes for a moment, considering the affect it would have on the arrow’s flight. She locked her eyes on the red dot in the center of the target and drew the bow, anchoring her fingers in her usual spot against her cheek. The men’s ongoing comments disappeared and focus came. She breathed in the tangy air, blew it out, and waited for the quiet moment when her body and the deck were still.

She released the arrow.

It cut through the air and thudded into the red dot. The surrounding men fell silent, mouths hanging open. Tikaya resisted the urge to smile or make any triumphant gesture.

“Your turn,” was all she said to the captain.

His expression was less stunned and more dyspeptic. Too late, Tikaya wished she had found a way to make the challenge private. If he did not make as fine a shot, he might lose face in front of his men. And take it out on her.

Bocrest lowered his bow. “A shot that good is worth the prize, for what little reward having that dour bear around will be.”

The men grunted in agreement. Good. She recognized the face-saving gesture, but in this case was relieved he had found a solution. After eliciting a promise that Five would join her the next day, she walked a few more laps.

The captain caught up as her guards were about to lead her belowdecks. He clenched her elbow and put his mouth near her ear. “I trust you and Five aren’t plotting to escape. If you attempt something that foolish, you
will
be caught, and I’ll let Sergeant Ottotark deliver your punishment. He enjoys that sort of work immensely.”

Chapter IV

C
LOUDS
BLANKETED
THE
SKY
THE
next day when Tikaya came out for her exercise session, but the darker weather didn’t dampen the curiosity humming through her. Her ally—even if he did not yet know she had dubbed him ally—would join her soon. What would he look like without all that hair and dirt? Would the guards give them enough space to talk privately?

She walked around the outside edge of the exercise area, struggling for patience. The captain was out again, this time trading sword blows with his navigator. Tikaya wondered who ran the ship when these Turgonians spent so much time exercising. Some prisoners of war were probably chained down in the boiler rooms, shoveling coal into the furnaces day and night.

The clamor of crashing steel halted, and Tikaya stopped walking to search for the reason.

If not for the guards surrounding him, she would not have recognized Five. Now clean-shaven with military-short hair, he wore the same boots and black uniform as the marines, though no rank or insignia marked the collars. Taller than the men accompanying him, he strode across the deck, hands clasped behind his back, head up, alert eyes taking in every aspect of the ship.

Tikaya’s stomach did an anxious flip. Her putative ally had turned into someone who looked every bit like one of the officers who had tried to take over her islands during the war. Even with no rank on that collar, he seemed more the captain than the sweaty bare-chested Bocrest, who was also staring. A chilling thought gripped her. What if Five
had
been a captain during the war? Someone who fired on her people? Took prisoners? Tortured them.

Five’s gaze stopped on the sails nearest the smokestack. A faint sooty black dulled the canvas, and he raised an eyebrow at Captain Bocrest.

For a moment, Bocrest’s cheeks flushed, and an excuse seemed on his lips, but he halted it with a scowl. He stalked across the deck, bare chest puffed out, muscles flexed. He barked at anyone foolish enough to cross his path and stopped in front of Five. Bocrest gestured sharply while spitting words out in a low voice.

Tikaya resumed walking, more briskly than earlier, so she could steer close enough to eavesdrop. Before she neared them, the captain thrust his arm out, pointing his index finger at her. She stopped, feeling self-conscious when both men, and everyone else in the area, turned to stare at her.