Authors: Scott Lynch
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.
It was impossible to stay next to Jean; the press of Redeemers was too thick, the
number of incoming blows too great. Locke was knocked down again by a falling body,
and he rolled to his left, slashing blindly, frantically as he went. The deck and
the sky spun around him until suddenly he was rolling into thin air.
The grating was off the main cargo hatch.
Desperately he checked himself, scrambling back to his right before he toppled in.
A glimpse into the main-deck hold had revealed a trio of Redeemers there, too. He
stumbled to his feet and was immediately attacked by another Jeremite; parrying slash
after slash, he sidestepped left and tried to slip away from the edge of the cargo
hatch. No good; a second antagonist appeared, blood-drenched spear at the ready.
Locke knew he’d never be able to fight or dodge the pair of them with an open grate
behind his feet. He thought quickly. The flute’s crew had been in the process of shifting
a heavy barrel from the main-deck hold when the attack had come. That cask, four or
five feet in diameter, hung in a netting above the mouth of the cargo hatch.
Locke lashed out wildly at his two opponents, aiming only to force them back. Then
he spun on his heels and leapt for all he was worth. He struck the hanging cask with
a head-jarring thud and clung to the netting, his legs kicking like those of a man
treading water. The cask swung like a pendulum as he scrambled atop it.
From here, he briefly enjoyed a decent view of the action. More Orchids were pouring
into the fray from the ship’s larboard side, and Delmastro
and Jean were pushing the main body of Redeemers back up the quarterdeck stairs. Locke’s
side of the deck was a tangled swirl of opponents; green cloths and bare heads above
weapons of every sort.
Suddenly, the Jeremite with the spear was jabbing at him, and the blackened-steel
head of the weapon bit wood inches from his leg. Locke flailed back with his saber,
realizing that his suspended haven wasn’t as safe as he’d hoped. There were shouts
from below; the Redeemers in the hold had noticed him, and meant to do something about
him.
It was up to him to do something crazy first.
He leapt up, holding fast to one of the lines by which the cask was suspended from
a winding-tackle, and dodged another spear thrust. No good trying to cut all the lines
leading down from the tackle. That could take minutes. He tried to remember the patterns
of ropes and blocks Caldris had drilled into him. His eyes darted along the single
taut line that fell from the winding-tackle to a snatch-block at one corner of the
cargo hatch. Yes—that line led across the deck, disappearing beneath the throng of
combatants. It would run to the capstan, and if it was cut …
Gritting his teeth, he gave the taut line a good slash with the forte of his blade,
feeling the saber bite hemp. A thrown hatchet whizzed past his shoulder, missing by
the width of his little finger. He slashed the line again, and again, driving the
blade with all the force he could muster. At the fourth stroke, it unraveled with
a snap, and the weight of the cask broke it clean in two. Locke rode the barrel down
into the hold, his eyes squeezed firmly shut. Someone screamed, saving him the trouble
of doing so himself.
The cask struck with a resounding crash. Locke’s momentum smacked him down hard against
its upper surface. His chin struck wood and he was tossed sideways, landing in an
undignified heap on the deck. Warm, smelly liquid washed over him—beer. The cask was
gushing it.
Locke climbed back to his feet, groaning. One Redeemer hadn’t moved fast enough, and
was splayed out beneath the cask, clearly dead. The other two had been knocked sideways
by the impact, and were feeling around groggily for their weapons.
He stumbled over and slit their throats before they knew he was even back on his feet.
It wasn’t fighting, just thief’s work, and he did it mechanically. Then he blinked
and looked around for something to clean the blade on; an old and natural thief’s
habit that nearly got him killed.
A heavy dark shape splashed into the beer beside him. One of the Jeremites who’d been
troubling him above, the one with the spear, had leapt the six or seven feet down
into the hold. But the gushing beer was
treacherous; the Redeemer’s feet went out from under him as he landed, and he toppled
onto his back. Coldly resigned, Locke drove his saber into the man’s chest, then pried
the spear from his dying hands.
“Undone by drink,” he whispered.
The fight continued above. For the moment, he was alone in the hold with his shoddy
little victory.
Four dead, and he’d cheated every one, using luck and surprise and plain skullduggery
to do what would have been impossible in a stand-up fight. Knowing that they would
never have given or accepted quarter
should
have made it easier, but the wild abandon of a few minutes before had drained clean
away. Orrin Ravelle was a fraud after all; he was plain Locke Lamora once again.
He threw up behind a pile of canvas and netting, using the spear to hold himself up
until the heaving stopped.
“Gods
above
!”
Locke wiped his mouth as Jabril and a pair of Orchids slipped down through the cargo
hatch, holding to the rim of the deck rather than leaping. They didn’t seem to have
caught him puking.
“Four of ’em,” continued Jabril. His tunic had been partly torn away above a shallow
cut on his chest. “Fuck me, Ravelle. I thought
Valora
scared the piss out of me.”
Locke took a deep breath to steady himself. “Jerome. Is he all right?”
“Was a minute ago. Saw him and Lieutenant Delmastro fighting on the quarterdeck.”
Locke nodded, then gestured aft with his spear. “Stern cabin,” he said. “Follow me.
Let’s finish this.”
He led them down the length of the flute’s main deck at a run, shoving unarmed, cowering
crewfolk out of the way as he passed. The armored door to the stern cabin was shut,
and behind it Locke could hear the sound of frantic activity. He pounded on the door.
“We know you’re in there,” he yelled, and then turned to Jabril with a tired grin.
“This seems awfully familiar, doesn’t it?”
“You won’t get through that door,” came a muffled shout from within.
“Give it some shoulder,” said Jabril.
“Let me try being terribly clever first,” said Locke. Then, raising his voice: “First
point, this door may be armored, but your stern windows are glass. Second point, open
this fucking door by the count of ten or I’ll have every surviving crewman and woman
put to death on the quarterdeck. You can listen while you’re doing whatever it is
you’re doing in there.”
A pause; Locke opened his mouth to begin counting. Suddenly, with
the ratcheting clack of heavy clockwork, the door creaked open and a short, middle-aged
man in a long black jacket appeared.
“Please don’t,” he said. “I surrender. I would have done it sooner, but the Redeemers
wouldn’t have it. I locked myself in after they chased me down here. Kill me if you
like, but spare my crew.”
“Don’t be stupid,” said Locke. “We don’t kill anyone who doesn’t fight back. Though
I suppose it’s nice to know you’re not a complete asshole. Ship’s master, I presume?”
“Antoro Nera, at your service.”
Locke grabbed him by his lapels and began dragging him toward the companionway. “Let’s
go on deck, Master Nera. I think we’ve dealt with your Redeemers. What the hell were
they doing aboard, anyway? Passengers?”
“Security,” muttered Nera. Locke stopped in his tracks.
“Are you that fucking dim-witted, that you didn’t know they’d go berserk the first
time someone dangled a fight in front of their noses?”
“I didn’t want them! The owners insisted. Redeemers work for nothing but food and
passage. Owners thought … perhaps they’d scare off anyone looking for trouble.”
“A fine theory. Only works if you advertise their presence, though. We didn’t know
they were aboard until they were charging us in a fucking phalanx.”
Locke went up the companionway, dragging Nera behind him, followed by Jabril and the
others. They emerged into the bright light of morning on the quarterdeck. One of the
men was hauling down the flute’s colors, and he was knee-deep in bodies.
There were at least a dozen of them. Redeemers, mostly, with their green head-cloths
fluttering and their expressions strangely satisfied. But here and there were unfortunate
crewfolk, and at the head of the stairs a familiar face—Aspel, the front of his chest
a bloody ruin.
Locke glanced around frantically and sighed when he saw Jean, apparently untouched,
crouched near the starboard rail. Lieutenant Delmastro was at his feet, her hair unbound,
blood running down her right arm. As Locke watched, Jean tore a strip of cloth from
the bottom of his own tunic and began binding one of her wounds.