Authors: Scott Lynch
When he finally claimed his minuscule sleeping space, he knew his hands and forearms
would ache well into the next day.
It was worth it, and had been worth every minute of work, to preserve the existence
of that deck of cards.
ON THE twentieth, Drakasha gave up on the easterly course and put them west by north
with the wind on the starboard beam. The weather held; they cooked by day and sweated
by night, and the ship sailed beneath streams of flit-wraiths that hung over the water
like arches of ghostly green light.
On the twenty-first, as the promise of dawn was just graying the eastern sky, they
had their chance to prove themselves.
Locke was knocked out of a too-short sleep by an elbow to the ribs. He awoke to confusion;
the men of the scrub watch were shifting, stumbling, and muttering all around him.
“Sail ho,” said Jean.
“Heard it from the masthead just a minute ago,” said someone near the door. “Two points
off the starboard quarter. That’s well east and a little north of us, hull down.”
“That’s good,” said Jabril, yawning. “The dawn glimpse.”
“Dawn?” It still seemed dark, and Locke rubbed his sleep-blurred eyes. “Dawn already?
Since I no longer have to pretend to know what the hell I’m doing, what’s a dawn glimpse?”
“Sun’s coming up over the horizon, see?” Jabril seemed to relish the chance to lecture
Locke. “Over in the east. We’re still in shadow over here, to the west a’ them. Hard
to see us, but we got a good eye on them with that faint light behind their masts,
savvy?”
“Right,” said Locke. “Seems like a good thing.”
“We’re for her,” said Aspel. “We’ll move in and take her. This ship is loaded with
crew, and Drakasha’s a bloody-handed bitch.”
“It’s a fight for us,” said Streva. “We’ll go first.”
“Aye, and prove ourselves,” said Aspel. “Prove ourselves and be quits with this scrub
watch shit.”
“Don’t be tying silver ribbons on your cock just yet,” said Jabril. “We don’t know
her heading, or what speed she makes, or what her best point of sailing is. She might
be a ship of war. Might even be part of a squadron.”
“Be fucked, Jabbi,” said someone without real malice. “Don’t you want to be gone from
scrub watch?”
“Hey, time comes to board her, I’ll row the boat naked and attack the bastards with
my good fuckin’ looks. Just wait and see if she’s prey, is all I’m sayin’.”
There was noise and commotion on deck; orders were shouted. The men at the entrance
strained to hear and see everything.
“Delmastro’s sending people up the lines,” said one of them. “Looks like we’re going
to come north a few points. They’re doing it quick-like.”
“Nothing’s more suspicious than a sudden change of sail, if they see us,” said Jabril.
“She wants us to be nearer their course before we’re spotted, so it looks natural.”
Minutes passed; Locke blinked and settled back down against his familiar bulkhead.
If action wasn’t imminent, there was always time for a few
more minutes of sleep. From the groaning and shuffling around him, he wasn’t alone
in that opinion.
He awoke a few minutes later—the sky seen through the ventilation hatch was lighter
gray—to Lieutenant Delmastro’s voice coming from the undercastle entrance.
“… where you are for now. Keep quiet and out of sight. It’s about five minutes to
the switchover from Red to Blue, but we’re suspending regular watches for action.
We’ll be sending Red down in bits and pieces, and half of Blue will come up to replace
them. We want to look like a merchant brig, not a prowler with a heavy crew.”
Locke craned his neck to look out over the shadowy shapes around him. Just past Delmastro,
in the predawn murk, he could see crewfolk at the waist wrestling several large barrels
toward the ship’s larboard rail.
“Smoke barrels on deck,” called a woman.
“No open flames on deck,” shouted Ezri. “No smoking. Alchemical lights only. Pass
the word.”
Minutes passed, and the light of dawn grew steadily. Locke nonetheless found his eyelids
creeping back downward. He sighed relaxed, and—
“On deck there,” came a shout from the foremast head. “Send to the captain she’s got
three masts, and she’s northwest by west. Topsails.”
“Aye, three masts, northwest by west, topsails,” shouted Ezri. “How does she bear?”
“Broad on the starboard beam, aft a point maybe.”
“Keep sharp. Is she still hull down?”
“Aye.”
“The moment she lifts her skirts over that horizon, you peek and tell us what’s under
them.” Ezri returned to the undercastle and pounded loudly on the bulkhead beside
the entrance. “Scrub watch, rouse up. Stretch your legs and use the craplines, then
get back under here. Be quick. We’ll be fighting or running soon enough. Best to have
your innards in good order.”
It was less like moving with a crowd than being squeezed from a tube. Locke found
himself pushed onto deck, and he curled his back and stretched. Jean did likewise,
then stepped up beside Delmastro. Locke raised an eyebrow; the little lieutenant seemed
to tolerate Jean’s conversation to the same extent that she disdained his. So long
as one of them was getting information from her, he supposed.
“Do you really think we’ll be running?” asked Jean.
“I’d prefer not.” Delmastro squinted over the rail, but even from Locke’s perspective
the new ship couldn’t be seen on deck just yet.
“You know,” said Jean, “it’s to be expected that you won’t see anything from down
there. You should let me put you on my shoulders.”
“A
short joke
,” said Delmastro. “How remarkably original. I’ve never heard the like in all my days.
I’ll have you know I’m the tallest of all my sisters.”
“Sisters,” said Jean. “Interesting. A bit of your past for free?”
“Shit,” she said, scowling. “Leave me alone, Valora. It’s going to be a busy morning.”
Men were returning from the craplines. Now that the press had lessened, Locke climbed
the stairs and made his way forward to do his own business. He had sufficient unpleasant
experience by now to elbow his way to the weather side—damned unfortunate things could
happen to those on the lee craplines in any kind of wind—of the little wooden brace,
which crossed the bowsprit just a yard or two out from the forepeak. It had ratlines
hanging beneath it like a miniature yardarm, and against these Locke braced his feet
while he undid his breeches. Waves pounded white against the bow, and spray rose to
splash the backs of his legs.
“Gods,” he said, “to think that pissing could be such an adventure.”
“On deck, there,” came the cry from the foremast a moment later. “She’s a flute, she
is. Round and fat. Holding course and sail as before.”
“What colors?”
“None to be seen, Lieutenant.”
A flute. Locke recognized the term—a round-sterned merchantman with a homely curved
bow. Handy for cargo, but a brig like the
Orchid
could dance around it at will. No pirate or military expedition would make use of
such a vessel. As soon as they could draw her in, it seemed they’d have their fight.
“Ha,” he muttered, “and here I am, caught with my breeches down.”
THE SUN rose molten behind their target, framing the low black shape in a half-circle
of crimson. Locke was on his knees at the starboard rail of the forecastle, trying
to stay unobtrusive. He squinted and put a hand over his eyes to cut the glare. The
eastern sky was a bonfire aura of pink and red; the sea was like liquid ruby spreading
in a stain from the climbing sun.
A dirty black smear of smoke rose from the lee side of the
Poison Orchid
’s waist, a few yards wide, an ominous intrusion into the clean dawn air. Lieutenant
Delmastro was tending the smoke barrels herself. The
Orchid
was making way under topsails with her main and forecourses furled; conveniently,
it was both a logical plan of sail for this breeze and the first precaution they would
have taken if the ship were really on fire.
“Come on, you miserable twits,” said Jean, who was seated beside him. “Glance left,
for Perelandro’s sake.”
“Maybe they do see us,” said Locke. “Maybe they just don’t give a damn.”
“They haven’t changed a sail,” said Jean, “or we would’ve heard about it from the
lookouts. They must be the most incurious, myopic, dim-witted buggers that ever set
canvas to mast.”
“On deck there!” The foremast lookout sounded excited. “Send to the captain she’s
turning to larboard!”
“How far?” Delmastro stepped away from her smoke barrels. “Is she coming about to
head right for us?”
“No, she’s come about three points around.”
“They want to have a closer look,” said Jean, “but they’re not hopping into the hammock
with us just yet.”
There was a shout from the quarterdeck, and a moment later Delmastro blew her whistle
three times.
“Scrub watch! Scrub watch to the quarterdeck!”
They hurried aft, past crewfolk removing well-oiled bows from canvas covers and stringing
them. As Delmastro had promised, about half the usual watch was on deck; those involved
in preparing weapons were crouched down or hiding behind the masts and the chicken
coops. Drakasha was waiting for them at the quarterdeck rail, and she started speaking
the moment they arrived.
“They still have time and room enough to put about. It’s a flute, and I doubt they
could run from us forever in any weather, but they could make us work for the catch.
My guess is six or seven hours, but who wants to be bored for that long? We’ll pose
as a charter brig on fire and see if we can’t entice them to do the sociable thing.
“I offered a chance to prove yourselves, so you’re the teeth of the trap. You’ll fight
first. Good on you if you come back. If you don’t want to fight, get under the forecastle
and stay scrub watch until we’re quits with you.
“As for me, I woke up hungry this morning. I mean to have that fat little prize. Who
among you would fight for a place on my ship?”
Locke and Jean thrust their arms into the air, along with everyone nearby. Locke glanced
quickly around and saw that nobody seemed to be declining their chance.
“Good,” said Drakasha. “We’ve three boats, seating about thirty. You’ll have them.
Your task will be to look innocent at first; stay near the
Orchid
. At the signal, you’ll dash out and attack from the south.”
“Captain,” said Jabril, “what if we can’t take her ourselves?”
“If numbers or circumstances are against you, hold fast to whatever scrap of deck
you can. I’ll bring the
Orchid
alongside and grapple to her. Nothing that ship carries can stand against a hundred
fresh boarders.”
A fine comfort that’ll be, to those of us already dead or dying, Locke thought. The
reality of what they were about to do had only just come home to him, and he felt
an anxious fluttering in his stomach.
“Captain!” One of the lookouts was hailing from the maintop. “She’s sent up Talishani
colors!”
“She might be lying,” muttered Jabril. “Decent bluff. If you’re going to fly a false
flag, Talisham’s got a bit of a navy. And nobody’s at war with ’em right now.”
“Not
too
clever, though,” said Jean. “If she had escorts in sight, why not fly it at all times?
Only someone with cause to be worried hides their colors.”
“Aye. Them and pirates.” Jabril grinned.
Captain Drakasha shouted across the crowd. “Del! Have one of your smoke barrels sent
over to the starboard rail. Just forward of the quarterdeck stairs.”
“You want smoke from the weather rail, Captain?”
“A good smudge right across the quarterdeck,” said Drakasha. “If they want to chat
with signal flags, we need an excuse to keep mum.”
The lanky sailing master, holding the wheel a few feet behind Drakasha, cleared his
throat loudly. She smiled, then seemed to have an idea. Turning to a sailor on her
left, she said, “Get three signal pennants from the flag chest and let them fly from
the stern. Yellow over yellow over yellow.”
“All souls in peril,”
said Jean. “That’s a come-hither look, and no fooling.”
“I thought it was just a distress signal,” said Locke.
“Should’ve read the book more closely. Three yellow pennants says we’re so hard up
that we’ll legally grant them salvage rights to anything we don’t carry on our persons.
They save it, they own it.”
Delmastro and her crew had moved a smoke barrel into position at the starboard rail,
and lit it with a bit of twist-match. Gray tendrils of smoke began to snake up and
over the quarterdeck, chasing the darker black cloud rising from the lee side. At
the taffrail, a pair of sailors was sending up three fluttering yellow pennants.
“Extra lookouts aloft and at the rails to give Mumchance a hand,” called Drakasha.
“Archers up one at a time. Keep your weapons down in the tops; stay out of sight if
you can, and play meek until I give the signal.”
“Captain!” The mainmast lookouts were shouting down once more. “She’s turned to cut
our path, and she’s adding sail!”
“Funny how tender-hearted they get as soon as they see that signal,” said Drakasha.
“Utgar!”
A fairly young Vadran, the skin of his shaved head red-baked over a braided black
beard, appeared just beside Lieutenant Delmastro.
“Hide Paolo and Cosetta on the orlop deck,” said Zamira. “We’re about to cause an
argument.”
“Aye,” he said, and hurried up the quarterdeck stairs.
“As for you,” said Drakasha, returning her attention to the scrub watch, “hatchets
and sabers are set out at the foremast. Take your choice and wait to help send the
boats down.”
“Captain Drakasha!”
“What is it, Ravelle?”
Locke cleared his throat and offered a silent prayer to the Nameless Thirteenth that
he knew what he was doing. The time for a gesture was now; if he didn’t do something
to restore a bit of prestige to Ravelle, he’d end up as just another member of the
crew, shunned for his past failure. He needed to be respected if he expected to achieve
any part of his mission. That meant a grand act of foolishness.