The Farthest Shore (Eden Series Book 3) (28 page)

In the time it took for Miri to appear, the noise grew louder. Ralcilos stared at the open door, listening to what sounded like water boiling in a cave deep beneath the earth. And the continuous rumble made him think of the empty belly of a great beast.

The stumbling footfalls at the other end of the passageway were a welcome distraction from those imaginings. Liggar shoved Miri down the last few steps. From the look on her face as he pulled her closer, she had been expecting that outcome for some time.

Ralcilos set the lantern on the floor, grabbed a fistful of her hair and yanked her in front of him. He put his knife to her throat and raised his voice.

“Captain,” he said. “If you want her to live any longer, come out here.”

No one spoke or moved inside the engine room, and he thought he had miscalculated—which would have left him with no cards to play other than a final and possibly suicidal rush into the room. Then a long shadow slanted across the threshold, and a man stepped unhurriedly out. Sword in hand, Captain Juell stood with his back to the wide-open door and said nothing, as if waiting for Ralcilos to make the next move.

Stalling
, Ralcilos thought. Just as that bitch had done earlier on the deck. He raked the tip of his knife across her cheek.

She gasped, and the answering flicker of shock in Captain Juell’s eyes was even more satisfying. Warmth dripped on Ralcilos’s hand as he put the knife back to her throat.

“Drop it,” he said, “and order them all out. Or I’ll take her head off.”

“Will you?” Captain Juell spoke as if asking what the weather was like outside. “And what’s to stop me from killing you then?”

Liggar pushed past Ralcilos but the Denalait smiled, a smile as cold as the air in the corridor was stiflingly hot, thick with humidity. “Come any closer and we’ll explode the boilers,” he said.

Glancing uncertainly at Ralcilos, Liggar stopped where he stood. Before Ralcilos could say anything, Captain Juell went on. “These are my terms. Let her go, and the lot of you can leave this ship alive. Do anything else and you’ll die, one way or another.”

Ralcilos was aware of heavy footfalls behind him, though he wasn’t afraid; Cuyven was watching his back. That was a thought—if he could stall long enough, the rest of his crew would join him. He was only too aware of how long it had been since he’d slept, but it didn’t matter how tired any of them were if they could overwhelm the Denalait through sheer force of numbers.

“Ralcilos,” Kaig said from behind him, “it’s here.”

No need to specify what
it
was. Ralcilos hesitated, wondering whether the kraken’s attack would convince the mainlanders to surrender, and Kaig went on, his voice low and urgent. “We can leave now. We can go back home.”

“Without the ship?” Ralcilos controlled an urge to use the knife on him instead.

“We couldn’t have taken it with us anyway,” Kaig said bluntly.

In other words, theirs had been a doomed mission from the start—one that had never been intended to end in their victory or even survival, only to do as much damage to their enemies as they could before dying. No, he wasn’t going to think that.

“You can go if you want,” Captain Juell said to Kaig, for all the world as if he gave the orders. Worse, Kaig turned to leave. Ralcilos opened his mouth to order Cuyven to kill him, then shut it again. Not only was his own crew turning on itself the last thing he needed now, but he had never been responsible for another Turean’s death.

This half-breed bitch, on the other hand…

“None of us can go back empty-handed,” he said. She was trembling, though she didn’t make a sound. “But at least we won’t die alone.”

“Oh, you won’t have to kill her.” Captain Juell raised his sword. “I’ll do that myself.”

Ralcilos didn’t believe he had heard correctly, but the Denalait took a quick stride forward. Shadows reeled against the walls as his foot struck the lantern, rocking it on its base. Miri jolted, a strangled sound escaping her. Ralcilos backed away, pulling her with him—blood, that was blood glistening on the sword’s point, the crazy slavemonger had actually cut her—but before he could retreat more than a few paces, he felt a bulkhead behind him.

“Liggar,” he said hoarsely. The sword gave Captain Juell much greater reach, and Ralcilos had a sudden vision of being impaled through Miri, pinned to the bulkhead like an insect. Axe in hand, Liggar started forward, but Captain Juell didn’t even seem to notice him.

“And if you don’t want to die alone,” he said to Ralcilos, “I will slaughter every Turean on this ship to keep you company.”

Liggar swung his axe in an arc, aiming for the Denalait’s head. Captain Juell ducked, keeping his sword low, and pivoted on his heel. The tip of his sword went through the frame of the lantern, and as he spun around, the sword came up carrying the lantern with it. He flung it through the air with the momentum of a whiplash. It smashed against Liggar as he threw up an arm, and the oil ignited.

In the moment Ralcilos was caught stunned and off-guard, Miri jerked her head back, away from the knife. She didn’t have much leverage in that position, but she didn’t need it. The back of her skull smashed into Ralcilos’s mouth and pain flared more brightly than the flames. He felt her pull away and slashed out blindly, but knew he had missed. The hoarse screams he heard were Liggar’s, not hers.

Ralcilos shook his head to clear his vision, tasting his own blood between his teeth. Liggar had thrown himself flat to put out the fire, Cuyven covering him, but already the smell of burned hair and flesh was strong in the passageway—the empty passageway. “Where did he go?” he snarled.

Cuyven pointed at the engine room, the doorway now filled with smoke and steam. Ralcilos grabbed the axe Liggar could no longer use. “Come with me,” he said, and went in.

When Miri broke free and fled down the passageway, Alyster paused only long enough to be sure none of the Tureans had caught her. Then he was back inside, where the engineers crouched behind the coal bins. They had armed themselves with whatever they could lay hands on—mostly tools and spare lengths of pipe—but he wasn’t under any illusions about what they could do against trained pirates. He faced the door.

Ralcilos Phane and another pirate pushed in simultaneously, moving apart almost as fast to get clear of the door and have the wall at their backs. Phane snapped two words—“Take him”—and made straight for the coal bins.

The other man came at Alyster, the blade of his axe gleaming dully in the lanternlight as it swung.

Alyster gave ground. The axe whirred in short arcs at him. He tried to parry with his sword, but the axe’s greater weight gave it far more momentum, knocking the blade aside with such force Alyster’s hands stung. And even one-handed, the pirate was stronger, oxlike.

The engine room shrank. Alyster was only too aware he was being backed into a corner, caught between the wall and the pipelines leading away from the boilers. There was no escape.

No, wait, that’s it
.

The sword flashed up before his face. The pirate slammed it aside contemptuously.

Or tried to. Alyster pulled the blade back at the last moment. The axe, with nothing to impede its swing, whistled past his face and buried itself in the wall with a crunch. For an instant the Turean was held defenseless and Alyster struck. The sword drove forward at the Turean’s belly.

The point tore through cloth and skidded off metal with a screech.
He’s wearing a breastplate
, was all Alyster had time to think before the man pivoted and lashed one foot out. A heel smashed into Alyster’s knee. He staggered sideways as his leg gave way and caught instinctively at the steam pipes to keep from sprawling. Even through insulation they were searing, and the point of a safety valve jabbed into his palm.

He’d managed to hold on to the sword with his other hand, but the pirate wrenched the axe free, feinted and swung it again. Alyster twisted aside, but not fast enough. The axe bit into his left arm, and he cried out, the sword falling from nerveless fingers. The pirate kicked the sword aside, drawing his axe back for the final strike.

Alyster dropped. With the boiler at his back, it was the only thing he could do, but as his knees folded, his good hand twisted the valve cover loose and it came away in his fingers. The axe split the air where his head had been, and a white jet of pressurized steam spurted from the valve.

The high-pitched whistle of escaping steam couldn’t drown the pirate’s shriek as the fuming geyser blasted full into his face.

Alyster flung the cover away and grabbed the axe handle as the weapon clanged on the floor. Blood trickled down his other arm, but compared to the blistering steam it barely felt hot. The axehead thunked against the floor as he used it to push himself upright, swaying. The pirate was in no condition to even see where he was going, but another figure stepped through the mist to face him. Ralcilos Phane no longer had an axe, but he had drawn a dagger instead, and his hand was red to the wrist. Alyster wondered whose blood that was.

He braced his feet apart and lifted the axe, though not to fight. Instead he slapped the edge to the side of the boiler with a hard clank and met Phane’s eyes.

“Go back to the Iron Ocean,” he said through his teeth. “You will not take this ship.”

The moment Ralcilos loosened his grip, Miri twisted aside. The knife blurred through the air but missed her by a finger’s length as she ducked. She flung herself as far from him as she could, landing on her hands and knees. Heat soaked into her shirt and dripped from her face, but she ignored that as she scrambled to rise.

Ralcilos was between her and the engine room, so she ran in the opposite direction. At least that would give him two separate targets, and although she felt ashamed of it, she couldn’t help hoping he would go after Alyster instead. She didn’t have so much as a knife on her. More like a knife in her, from the way her stomach hurt.

Except she couldn’t go up to the deck where the other Tureans were. She hurried towards the surgery instead—the open door threw a wedge of light into the corridor, and no one was in sight guarding it. Maybe whoever was stationed there had gone up to the deck.

She stumbled through the doorway, and a hand shot out from beside it. The tight grip yanked her hard into the surgery, off-balance, and she ended up on the floor again. When she rolled over, half-dazed, she saw a man standing to one side of the door.

She recognized Sheud, which cleared the daze immediately. Shaking her head a little so she would still appear stunned, she looked around as if she was confused. Another Turean straightened up from a crouch behind a bed.

Reveka sat behind her desk as if frozen in place, more motionless than a statue—no help there, Miri thought. She was only too aware that she’d just leaped from the frying pan to the fire, because the two men in the surgery certainly didn’t need her as a hostage. But before she could think what to do, Sheud yelled for Ralcilos without once taking his eyes off her. Naturally, there was no reply.

“He can’t hear you.” Her voice was a croak. “The engine’s too—”

“Shut up. You talk too much.” Sheud glanced at the other man as if in a signal.

The other Turean nodded and came out from behind the bed, cutlass in hand. Miri’s mouth went drier. She scrabbled back, noticing in the edge of her peripheral vision that she was leaving dark scuff marks across the scrubbed floor where blood had smeared her hands. Grains of sand, spilled from a half-full bucket, gritted into her palms.

“Don’t,” she tried to say, but she realized he wasn’t heading for her—at least, not yet. He went towards Vinsen’s bed instead.

Reveka’s chair clattered back. She was on her feet at once and coming out from behind her desk. Vinsen’s eyes were open, but he looked half-dead already.

Reveka managed to get between him and the pirate. Her left hand came up, palm outward. Miri thought the Tureans just might have hesitated at murdering an unarmed and unarmored woman clearly begging for their mercy, but at that moment Vinsen’s body lurched to one side as though he was trying to roll out of bed, away from the pirate. His face contorted with a painful effort that didn’t accomplish much except for drawing Sheud’s attention.

“Give her here, Graley, and finish him off,” he said.

Graley took one stride forward. Miri looked around desperately for a way out, and went still. Reveka’s back was to her, but something had glinted in the woman’s right hand as it hung by her side—something short enough to be hidden by her palm. She had probably grabbed whatever it was in the second’s distraction when Miri had burst into the room, but what could she do against men who both wore breastplates—

Graley grabbed Reveka’s arm and shoved her well out of his way, towards the door. She stumbled, and Sheud caught her outstretched left hand to yank her closer, hard against him. Miri heard an agonized gasp of expelled breath as Reveka was slammed with crushing force against his chest.

Except the sound came from Sheud, not her.

Something must have alerted Graley, because he turned. Sheud’s hand fell away from Reveka, the whites of his eyes showing clearly. There was a soft snap as something broke, and Reveka spun away. A polished wooden object fell from her hand.

Miri had spent enough time in the surgery to recognize it—the hilt of one of the smaller scalpels. Her gaze flew to Sheud as he took a lurching step forward. The rest of the scalpel was buried just below the edge of his breastplate, and a dark stain already saturated his clothes. He caught at the edge of the door for support, but that movement seemed to worsen the injury. Rapid spurts of blood struck the floor, far too much for even sand to soak up.

Graley spun around and backed Reveka against the wall. Both her hands were empty now, her eyes wide in a face drawn with pain. The cutlass came up and her lips parted.

“Look behind you,” she said.

Miri thought maybe she had lost enough blood herself to start hearing things. She was so stunned she didn’t move, and only realized a moment later that Reveka had wanted her to act while Graley’s attention had been on her.