Red Seas Under Red Skies (52 page)

6

FROM THE
water, the illusion of that fire seemed complete to Locke's eyes. All the smoke barrels were going now; the ship trailed a black-and-gray cloud that all but enveloped its quarterdeck. The figure of Zamira appeared now and again, her spyglass briefly catching the sun before she vanished back into the darkness. A team of crewmen had rigged small pumps and canvas hoses amidships (at the rail, where they could best be seen), and they were directing streams of water at the cloud of smoke, though actually doing nothing but washing the deck.

Locke sat at the bow of the little boat, feeling vaguely ridiculous with his parasol in hand and a cloth-of-silver jacket draped over his shoulders like a cape. Jean and Jabril shared the forward rowing bench, Streva and Lieutenant Delmastro were behind them, and a very small crewman named Vitorre—little more than a boy—crouched in the stern to take over from them when they boarded the flute.

That ship, her curiously round and wallowing hull-curves now plainly visible, was angled somewhat away from them to the north. Locke estimated that it would cross paths with the
Poison Orchid
, or very nearly so, in about ten minutes.

“Let's start rowing for her,” said Delmastro. “They'll expect it by now.”

Their boat and the two larger ones had been keeping station about a hundred yards southeast of the
Orchid
. As the four rowers in the lead boat began to pull north, Locke saw the others catch their cue and follow.

They bobbed and slipped across the foot-high waves. The sun was up and its heat was building; it had been half past the seventh hour of the morning when they'd left the ship. The oars creaked rhythmically in their locks; now they were abreast with the
Orchid
, and the newcomer was about half a mile to their northeast. If the flute caught wind of the trap and tried to flee to the north, the ship would loose canvas to fly after it. If it tried to flee south, however, it would be up to the boats to slip into its path.

“Ravelle,” said Delmastro, “at your feet, the breaching shears. You see them?”

Locke looked down. Tucked away beneath his seat was an ugly-looking hinged device with a pair of wooden handles. These handles worked a metal jaw.

“I think so.”

“Bows aren't our biggest problem. The most trouble they can give us is if they rig razor nets against boarding; we'll slash ourselves to pieces trying to climb on deck. If those nets are rigged, you
must
use those shears to cut a slit for us to get in.”

“Or die trying,” he said. “I think I get it.”

“But the good news is, rigging razor nets is a pain in the ass. And they won't be up at all if they're expecting to send out boats and receive passengers. If we can just get close enough before we tip our hand, they won't have time to use them.”

“What's the signal to tip our hand?”

“You won't miss it. Trust me.”

7

ZAMIRA DRAKASHA
stood at the starboard quarterdeck rail, taking a break from the smoke. She studied the approaching flute through her glass; there was elaborate ornamentation on the stubby forepeak, and a some what whimsical gold-and-black paint scheme along her tall sides. That was agreeable; if she was well maintained she was likely to be carrying a respectable cargo and a bit of coin.

A pair of officers stood at the bow, studying her ship through their own glasses. She waved in what she hoped was an encouraging fashion, but received no response.

“Well, fine,” she muttered. “You'll be rendering your courtesies soon enough.”

The small dark shapes of crew rushed about on the flute, now just a quarter mile distant. Her sails were shuddering, her hull elongating in Zamira's view—were they running? No, just killing momentum, turning a point or two to starboard, aiming to get close but not
too
close. She could see a pump-and-hose team at work amidships, shooting a stream of water upward to wet the flute's lower sails. Very sensible, when coming anywhere near a fire at sea.

“Signal party,” she said, “stand ready.”

“Aye, Captain,” came a chorus of voices from within the smoke-shrouded portion of the quarterdeck.

Her own boats were cutting the waves between the two ships. There was Ravelle in the lead with his parasol, looking a bit like a thin silver mushroom with a soft white cap. And there was Valora, and there was Ezri…damn it. Ezri's request had given her little choice but to acquiesce or look foolish in front of the scrub watch. There'd be words for that little woman…if the gods blessed Zamira enough to send her lieutenant back alive.

She studied the flute's officers, who'd moved from the bow to the larboard rail. Wide fellows, it seemed, a bit overdressed for the heat. Her eyes were not what they'd been twenty-five years ago…. Were they prodding one another, looking more intently through their glasses?

“Captain?” asked a member of the signal party.

“Hold,” she said. “Hold…” Every second closed the gap between the
Orchid
and her victim. They'd slowed and turned, but leeway would bring them closer still…closer still. One of them pointed, then grabbed the other by the shoulder and pointed again. Their glasses flew up in unison.

“Ha!” Zamira cried. Not a chance they could slip away now. She felt new zeal lending strength to her every step and motion; she felt half her years seem to fall from her shoulders.
Gods
, the moment they realized just how fucked they were was always sweet. She slammed her spyglass shut, snatched her speaking trumpet from the deck, and hollered across the length of the ship.

“Archers ready at the tops! All hands on deck! All hands on deck and man the starboard rail! Stifle smoke barrels!”

The
Poison Orchid
shuddered; seven dozen hands were pounding up the ladders, surging out of the hatchways, armed and armored, screaming as they came. Archers stepped out from behind the masts, knelt on their fighting platforms, and nocked arrows to their gleaming bows.

Zamira didn't need her glass to see the shapes of officers and crew running about frantically on the flute's deck.

“Let's give 'em something that'll really make 'em piss their breeches,” she shouted, not bothering with the speaking trumpet.
“Hoist our crimson!”

The three yellow pennants streaming above the quarterdeck shuddered, then plummeted straight down into the gray haze. From out of the last of the black and boiling smoke rose a broad red banner, bright as the morning sun looming above a storm.

8

“WITH A
will,” shouted Lieutenant Delmastro, “with a will!” As the bloodred flag rose to its full prominence above the stern of the
Orchid
and the first of the horde of maniacally cheering crewfolk began to crowd her starboard rail, the three boats surged across the waves.

Locke shed his parasol and jacket, tossing them overboard before remembering that they were worth quite a bit of money. He breathed in excited gasps, glancing over his shoulder at the fast-approaching side of the flute, a sheer wooden surface that loomed like a floating castle. Dear gods, he was going into battle. What the fuck was the
matter
with him?

He bit the insides of his cheeks for concentration and held on to the gunwales with white knuckles.
Damn
it, this was no grand gesture. He couldn't afford this. He breathed deep to steady himself.

Locke Lamora was small, but the Thorn of Camorr was larger than any of this. The Thorn couldn't be touched by blade or spell or scorn. Locke thought of the Falconer, bleeding at his feet. He thought of the Gray King, dead beneath his knife. He thought of the fortunes that had run through his fingers, and he smiled.

Steadily, carefully, he drew his saber and began to wave it in the air. The three boats were nearly abreast now, slashing white triangles of wake on the sea, a minute from their target. Locke meant to hit it wearing the biggest lie of his life like a costume. He might be dead in a few moments, but until then, by the gods, he was the Thorn of Camorr. He was Captain Orrin
fucking
Ravelle.

“Orchids! Orchids!” He made a statue of himself at the bow of the boat, thrusting with his saber as though he meant to ram the flute and punch a hole in her side all by himself. “Pull for the prize! Pull for yourselves! Follow me, Orchids!
Richer and cleverer than everyone else!
”

The
Poison Orchid
slipped ahead of the last of her smoke, streaming gray lines from her quarterdeck, as though evading the grasp of some godlike ghostly hand. The teeming crewfolk at her rail cheered again, and then fell silent together. The ship's sails began to flutter. Drakasha was tacking, with haste, to bring the ship sharply around to starboard. If she pulled it off she would snug up, on the larboard tack, right alongside the flute at knife-fighting distance.

The sudden silence of the Orchids allowed Locke to hear noises from the flute for the first time—orders, panic, arguments, consternation. And then, over everything else, a tinny and desperate voice shouting through a speaking trumpet:

“Save us! For the love of the gods, please…please get over here and save us!”

“Shit. That's a little different than what we usually get,” said Delmastro.

Locke had no time to think; they were up to the flute's hull, bumping hard against the wall of wet planks on her lee side. The ship was slightly heeled over, creating the illusion that she was about to topple and crush them. Miraculously, there were shrouds and a boarding net within easy reach. Locke leapt for the net, sword arm raised.

“Orchids,” he cried as he climbed the rough, wet hemp in an exaltation of fear. “Orchids! Follow me!”

The moment of truth; his left hand found the deck at the top of the boarding net. Gritting his teeth, he swept upward with his saber, clumsily and viciously, in case anyone was waiting at the edge of the deck. Then he heaved himself up, rolled under the rail—he'd missed the entry port by a few yards—and stumbled to his feet, screaming like a madman.

The deck was all chaos, and none of it meant for him. There were no razor nets, no archers, no walls of polearms or swords waiting to receive the boarders. Crewmen and -women ran about in a panic. An abandoned fire hose lay on the deck at Locke's feet like a dead brown snake, gurgling seawater into a spreading puddle.

A crewman skidded through that puddle and slammed into him, flailing. Locke raised his saber, and the crewman cringed, throwing up his hands to show that they were empty.

“We tried to surrender,” the crewman gasped. “We tried! They wouldn't let us! Gods, help us!”

“Who?
Who
wouldn't let you surrender?”

The crewman pointed to the ship's raised quarterdeck, and Locke whirled to see what was there.

“Aw,
hell
,” he whispered.

There had to be at least twenty of them, all men, cast from the same mold. Tanned, stocky, muscular. Their beards were neatly trimmed, their shoulder-length hair bound in rattling strings of beads. Their heads were wrapped with bright green cloths, and Locke knew from past experience that what looked like thin, dark sleeves covering their arms was actually holy verse, tattooed so thickly in black and green ink that every trace of the skin beneath was lost.

Jeremite Redeemers. Religious maniacs who believed that they were the only possible salvation for the sins of their wicked island. They made themselves living sacrifices to the Jeremite gods, wandering the world in exile groups, living polite as monks until someone, anyone, threatened them.

Their sacred vow was to kill or be killed when offered violence; to die honorably for Jerem, or to ruthlessly exterminate anyone who raised a hand against them. All of them were looking very, very intently at Locke.

“The heathen offers a red cleansing!” A Redeemer at the head of the group pointed at Locke and hoisted his brass-studded witchwood club. “Wash our souls in heathen blood!
Slay for holy Jerem!
”

Weapons high, they rushed the quarterdeck stairs and surged down them, fixed on Locke, all the while demonstrating just how madmen
really
screamed. A crewman tried to stumble out of their way and was swatted down, his skull cracking like a melon beneath the club of the leader. The others trampled his body as they charged.

Locke couldn't help himself. The spectacle of that onrushing, battle-hardened, completely insane death was so far beyond anything in his experience, he coughed out a burst of startled laughter. He was scared to the marrow, and in that there was sudden, absolute freedom. He raised his one useless saber and flung himself into a countercharge, feeling light as dust on a breeze, hollering as he ran. “Come, then! Face Ravelle! The gods have sent your doom,
motherfuckers
!”

He should have died a few seconds later. It was Jean, as usual, who had other plans.

The Jeremite leader bore down on Locke, twice his weight worth of murderous fanatic, blood and sunlight gleaming on the studs of his raised club. Then there was a hatchet where his face had been, the handle protruding from the shattered hollow of an eye. Impact, not with the club but with the suddenly senseless corpse, slammed Locke to the deck and knocked the air from his lungs. Hot blood sprayed across his face and neck, and he struggled furiously to free himself from beneath the twitching body. The deck around him was suddenly full of shapes kicking, stomping, screaming, and falling.

The world dissolved into disconnected images and sensations. Locke barely had time to catalog them as they flashed by.

Axes and spears meant for him sinking into the body of the Jeremite leader. A desperate lunge with his saber, and the shock of impact as it sank into the unprotected hollow of a Redeemer's thigh. Jean hauling him to his feet. Jabril and Streva pulling other Orchids onto the deck. Lieutenant Delmastro, fighting beside Jean, turning a Redeemer's face to raw red paste with the glass-studded guard of one of her sabers. Shadows, movements, discordant shouts.