Kingslayer (26 page)

After all of that talk in the tavern, though, he couldn’t back out without raising some questions. And he didn’t dare pass up this opportunity. He’d never get another like it.

So he sat like a good little general in the back of the boat and waited patiently as they rowed over the water. The unfamiliar scent of salt and sea water filled his nose to the point that the back of his throat itched a little. This late in the evening, the air glided over the water and brushed against his skin with a slight coolness to it that promised much colder air later. He just hoped the water hadn’t lost much heat yet considering he’d be in it shortly.

Darius studied the wall as they rowed closer to it. He couldn’t see much of it over the water, but it seemed to be constructed of wood. Very thick, flat planks of wood that were tightly fitted together. He saw a few places that glinted in the waning sunlight, so there were metal joints here and there, but from this distance he couldn’t make out what they were.

But he could see the opening between the walls well enough. The two walls were curved out, coming out from the land in a natural arch so that it extended from the natural cavity in the land. The opening between these artificial walls was so wide that four shipping vessels abreast could pass through easily with plenty of room in between them. “If we tried to add some kind of gate to those walls, would the walls be able to withhold the weight?”

Gabr didn’t stop his steady rowing as he answered, “No. The walls were meant to hold the weight of the sea, it were. It canna do more than that without breaking.”

Darius let out a sigh and rubbed at his chin. “This is why I insisted on coming here myself,” he noted to Tolk, who sat next to him. “Just looking at the charts, the idea seemed feasible. It’s not until I’m here, with a pair of experts across from me, that I see it’s not.”

Tolk nodded in understanding, a troubled expression on his face. “So what can we do instead?”

“I don’t know. Not yet.” He shifted his hands to rub at his eyes, feeling weary. It seemed like he’d done nothing but problem solve ever since he’d stepped foot in this country. “I ran in to a similar problem on the eastern front. I had an army on my doorstep without the proper time to build barricades to stop them. I used oil then but I don’t know what I could use on moving water.”

“Oil?” Babar asked curiously.

“Oil burns for long periods of time,” Darius explained absently, his mind already chewing away at the problem. “I had the men pour large barrels of oils in random spots along the border. When they were lit on fire, it prevented the Brindisi army from charging at us in formation. It broke them up so that we could fight them individually. It worked very well.”

Babar and Gabr shared a look that spoke volumes. Babar cleared his throat and offered, “Oil floats.”

Darius paused and lowered his hands to look at the man. “Oil floats. How well does it float?”

“Always floats,” Gabr assured him. “Saying goes: oil on troubled water. ‘S how we tell how the water moves, by watchin’ the oil.”

“So it clumps together?” Darius asked, trying to pin down the specifics. “It doesn’t break up and disperse with the water?”

“Clumps,” Babar nodded in agreement. “Don’t know if it burns, though.”

Gabr looked toward the sky, arms still rhythmically rowing as he thought. “Bet it would.”

Darius made a promise to himself that he would experiment with that later. Maybe tomorrow morning. “It’s a good thought, though. If it doesn’t do what I need it to, I’ll have to think of something else.” Maybe chains? That begged the question, though: attached to what?

“Here’s close enough,” Gabr announced, bringing in the oar. Reaching behind him, he grabbed up a rope and reached out for a large metal ring hooked into the top of the wall. Babar maneuvered the boat around until its side rested against the wall, and Gabr tied them tight.

Darius figured this was his cue and pulled off both of his boots before shrugging out of his jacket. Tolk really didn’t like the idea of his master diving into the sea with some man he barely knew, but since he couldn’t swim, he couldn’t follow along. Darius didn’t think it’d do much good even if he could follow along. He’d prefer it if Tolk stayed and made sure the boat remained there. He had
no
desire to swim back toward shore.

Down to his pants, he stopped and looked to Gabr for direction. The old man had a funny smile on his face as if he found the sight of a lead general in his skivvies to be hilarious but knew he couldn’t laugh. The old man had only needed to kick off his sandals and shrug out of his shirt before he was ready to dive in and had paused to wait on Darius.

“Let’s go,” Darius encouraged.

“Water will sting your eyes,” Gabr warned cheerfully.

“It’s saltwater,” Darius said dryly. “I didn’t expect anything else. After you.”

Gabr took in a breath and fell over backwards into the calm water. Darius imitated him and fell in. The water had looked a sort of blue green from the surface and seemed inviting. His opinion radically changed as soon as he broke the surface. It was, in fact, rather chilly and a brownish color (that did indeed sting his eyes fiercely), and tasted terrible.
Every poet that has written some romantic thing about the sea has clearly never been in it.

He came up spitting out sea water and slicked his hair away from his face.

Tolk hovered along the edge, brows in a flat line, looking poised to leap into the water whether he could swim or not. “Sir?”

“It tastes terrible!” Darius said, still trying to spit the taste of salt and grime out of his mouth.

Gabr and Babar both laughed outright.

“Get used to it, you will,” Gabr assured him.

Darius eyed him dubiously. Who would
want
to get used this sort of foul taste? Although they were probably paid rather well to do the job they did. In their shoes, he might feel that getting used to the taste would be worth the money.

Gabr motioned for him to follow and they swam around the side of the boat and to the back. “Deep breath,” he advised before he ducked under the surface.

Taking as deep a breath as his lungs could hold, he dove after the older man. In this murky water, it was hard to see for any sort of distance, but he didn’t need to go far. Gabr caught his wrist when he swam close enough and pulled him along easily to the wall. There, he guided Darius’s hand so that he could feel.

Between the poor lighting from the setting sun, the dimness of the water, and his limited tactile senses, he couldn’t be completely sure he understood the construction in front of him. But he had a clearer picture of it than he had when looking at it from up top. Satisfied, he pulled at Gabr’s hand and tried to communicate to the man through body language that they could go up again.

They kicked their way up to the surface. Darius had kept his mouth tightly closed this time, so he didn’t have that horrible taste lingering, but he still had to take a breath before he could talk. “The feel of it was, the walls are somehow joined together?”

Gabr nodded and lifted his hands above the water to illustrate. “One side built a little larger with a lip extended, the other side a little smaller and wedged in between.”

“And the large metal clasps that join them just in case,” Darius finished thoughtfully. “The wood struck me as being airtight, though, so shouldn’t it be floating?”

“Would, if it were hollow,” Gabr responded with a shrug that made the water roll a little. “How they got it here in the first place, by building it and floating it out. But now it’s all rock and gravel and cement in between to keep it strong and weighted.”

Darius listened to this carefully and frowned as he took the information in. “So you’re saying that even if I had someone undo all of the clasps on the sides, then you couldn’t pull up any of these sections.”

Gabr nodded in confirmation. “Too heavy. Even if they were hollow, it’d be a right challenge. The weight of the sea presses in from both sides. A man could throw his back out trying to pull it free again.”

He felt like bashing his head against a hard surface, only he wasn’t next to anything handy. “I now understand what you mean, Master Gabr. This truly won’t work. I thought if I could remove certain sections of the wall at will, I could lower the water level quickly. But this…,” he turned slowly in the water to look at the wall as it stretched out, “this would be a mammoth task and certainly not something done within a day. I’ll have to find another way to pump the water out quickly.”

“Aye,” Gabr agreed. “And pump it back in quickly, too. Ya don’t want the enemy stranded too long in this place after all.”

“No,” Darius agreed with a wry smile. “We want them to retreat when the time comes. You make a good point. I’ll need to consult with several engineers and architects to see if we can’t come up with a solution. When we do come up with an idea, can I talk with you again and see how feasible it is?”

Obviously pleased with the respect Darius was showing him, Gabr nodded. “Ya can. I’ll listen and chime in with me bit of wisdom, for what it’s worth.”

“Thank you, I appreciate it.” Darius turned for the boat and swam for it. “Let’s get back to shore, shall we? If we’re too late, and Sego has to go hunting for me, he’ll never let me hear the end of it.”

They did not, in fact, make it back to the docks before Sego went searching for them. He’d apparently figured out their location fairly quickly, as he stood just on the edge of the longest wooden dock, face impassive, both hands braced on his cane. Bohme and Payam stood in his shadow, taking in the sight, and struggling not to laugh.

When Sego saw Darius, dripping wet, sans shirt and boots, his eyes rolled expressively towards the heavens in an obvious bid for patience.

“Hello Sego,” Darius greeted him cheerfully, as if nothing were unusual. “I found out a great deal about the harbor walls. Did you have any success?”

“Hello, my wayward Raj,” Sego greeted deadpan. “Aside from locating a good inn, I’m afraid I have nothing favorable to report. I see that you’ve made some new friends.”

“This is Gabr and Babar from the maintenance crew,” Darius introduced with a wave. To the two men he continued, “The frowning one is my steward, Sego, the dark haired giant is Bohme and the boy is Payam.”

Babar looked askance for the introductions, as if he didn’t understand why Darius would do such a thing, but Gabr fell in stride and nodded to the three men. “Pleasure, masters.”

Proving that he had, in fact, spent too much time around Darius, Sego looked Gabr in the eye and said apologetically, “I’m afraid our raj is a bit rash and impulsive. Thank you for indulging him.”

Gabr nodded sagely. “He’s that. But the sight of seeing a lead general swimming around in his breeches was well worth the time.”

Darius, not insulted by this by-play, laughed outright. “Did I give you a good story to tell, Gabr?”

“Oh, it be that,” Gabr assured him with a wink.

He probably would tell the story to anyone willing to bend an ear to him. In fact, if Darius wasn’t already famous in this country, he would be by the end of today. “Well, I won’t begrudge you the fun.” The rowboat had come close enough to tie off at this point so he cautiously stood and extended a hand. Bohme caught his arm in a firm clasp and heaved him onto the dock.

Darius shifted his shirt and coat to one hand and rummaged in a pocket until he found his purse. Then he dug out two gold coins. “I’m sure I made you miss dinner with this little jaunt,” he told the two as they also climbed onto the dock. Extending a hand, he put a coin into each man’s hand. “So, get a good meal somewhere on me.”

Babar couldn’t quite hide his shock at having a whole gold coin in his hand. “Th-thanks, sir.”

“Don’t think anything of it,” Darius assured him sincerely. “You were very helpful, more than that idiot councilman.”

Gabr gave him a measuring look before tucking the coin away in a shirt pocket. “General, you need help again, you look me up, yah?”

“I will,” Darius promised. He extended a hand and clasped the man’s arm, Gabr returning the grip just as solidly. “I will probably come to you again in a few weeks.”

“We’ll be here.” Gabr grinned at him, squeezed once, and then let go. “Good evening, sirs.”

“Good evening.” Darius turned to his own party and gave a circular wave of the hand. “Let’s go to that inn. After I get dry again, I want to visit the merchant stalls before they close for the evening.”

~~~

The inn (bless Sego) sat on the same street as the two Arapeen merchant’s stalls. Darius got cleaned up and into dry clothes in record time before snagging Bohme and going straight back out. He didn’t plan to take more than a few minutes, partially because if he dawdled too long it would raise suspicions and partially because Bohme hadn’t eaten dinner yet. He’d already discovered that a hungry Bohme was a cantankerous creature to be avoided at all costs.

This late in the day, the streets buzzed with last-minute shoppers. Market streets more or less looked the same no matter what country a man found himself in. Merchant stalls were crowded in next to each other with not even a hand’s width of space in between. The stores all had the same rounded architecture as Khoor’s did, and if not for the strong smell of the sea wafting in on the cooling breeze, Darius would have believed himself to still be in the capital city. Between the crowded conditions of the streets and the multitude of people shopping, he had to bob, twist, and weave just to get through.