Red Tide Read online

  He pushed his chair back from the table and made to rise. Then stopped himself. The sensible thing to do would be to get up and walk out, but some instinct made him hold. Had Peg Foot intended all along to lead him into trouble? Or had Tia simply mistaken Ebon for easy prey, and thought to empty his pockets now rather than work for the privilege? He needed to know which it was. Because if the woman was able to get him into the Upper City, he couldn’t afford to give up on her so quickly. What guarantee did he have that there’d be someone else out there who could help? Or that he’d be able to track them down? And even if he could find them, who was to say they would be more trustworthy than Tia?

  The woman watched him with a hint of a smile, her gaze shifting back and forth between Ebon and the knife. There was no unease in her expression, but doubtless she thought her henchmen standing by would give her the edge in a confrontation. Ebon would have to disabuse her of that notion if he was to get her to take him seriously.

  Lowering the point of the knife, he cut a stinging line across his palm and watched the blood well up. A moment to let Tia take in what she was seeing, then he healed the wound and wiped the blood away to reveal a pale pink scar.

  “And what does this line on my hand tell you about me?” he said.

  Tia smiled in delight, and it made her look like the girl Ebon had first taken her for. “Nice trick,” she said. “Does it work as well with a crossbow bolt through your eye?”

  Ebon stabbed the knife into the table. “Are we done playing games?”

  “If you insist.” She motioned for the tongueless man to sit down.

  “I need to get into the Upper City,” he said again. “Can you help?”

  “I don’t like that word ‘help.’ You make it sound like you expect me to do it out of charity. But yes, I can get you into the Upper City. The question is, why do you want to go?”

  “I don’t see that that’s any of your business.”

  “It is if you want me to help you.”

  Ebon leaned back in his chair. Most likely Tia wanted a sense of his need so she could judge how much to charge for her services. But she might equally be trying to find out whether she stood to gain by turning him in. Either way, he was not inclined to share more of his purpose than he had to. “I’m looking for someone.”

  “A survivor of the Hunt?”

  Ebon raised an eyebrow, but it was a fair guess considering the timing of his arrival. “Yes.”

  “You’ve seen their ship in the harbor?”

  He nodded.

  “Then why not send them a message through one of the guards?”

  “Perhaps I don’t want them to know I’m coming.”

  Tia giggled. “An assassin, are you? I think not. Have you been to the Upper City before?”

  “No.”

  “Then how are you going to track down whoever it is you’re looking for?”

  “With the map you’re going to give me.”

  “A map, eh? That certainly narrows down your list of possible targets. No private houses on a map. There’s the Alcazar, of course, but you don’t need a map to find that. So … one of the courthouses? An embassy? Am I getting warm?”

  Not a muscle in Ebon’s face moved. “How soon can we go?”

  “That depends. How many of you are there?”

  “Two.”

  Tia’s gaze flickered to Vale. “Tonight, then.”

  Ebon pursed his lips. He’d been hoping she would have false papers that could get him into the Upper City straightaway. “No chance of anything sooner?”

  When the girl shook her head, it set her pigtails bouncing.

  “When tonight?”

  “I’ll have to get back to you on that. Whenever it is, though, you should have enough of the night left to finish whatever it is you’re planning to do.”

  “How will we get inside?”

  “I don’t see that that’s any of your business.”

  “It is if you want my money,” Ebon said. “If your help is just going to consist of a ladder to lean against the wall, I may need to look elsewhere.”

  Tia stroked her foot against his right leg again, and he lifted the leg and crossed it over his left. “I have a man on the inside,” she said. “One of the guards. He’ll look the other way when you climb his section of wall.”

  One man? “That leaves a lot of other sets of eyes to see me.”

  “Not if my man tells them to look the other way too.”

  Ebon frowned. It wasn’t the people in on the scam he was worried about. “And you’ve got others into the Upper City this way before?”

  “Yes. Well, a couple. The fact is, it only takes one person”—and she held up an illustrative finger as if she thought he might not be able to count that far—“to see something they shouldn’t for my man to lose his head. That’s not a risk you run every day … or without suitable compensation.”

  So they came to it at last. “How much?”

  Tia regarded him appraisingly, no doubt trying to gauge how much money she could wring from him. He braced himself.

  “Five thousand sovereigns.”

  Ebon gave a strangled choke. He might be able to raise that sum by selling the two rings he’d taken off before coming here, but he wasn’t about to let Tia know that. “Five thousand sovereigns?” he repeated. A small price to pay if it reunited him with Lamella and Rendale, yet he had to go through the motions of haggling. “Five thousand?”

  “Oh no, wait, you wanted a map as well. Five thousand and one.”

  “You are wasting my time. You said yourself, I am not from Gilgamar. No one travels with that kind of money. And it’s not as if I’ve got friends here whom I can borrow it from.”

  Tia gave an innocent smile. “I’m sure you’ll think of something. You could use that trick with the knife. There must be people who would pay good money to see that.”

  “One thousand,” Ebon countered. “And I’ll need directions to a moneylender fool enough to lend it to me.”

  “Four thousand.”

  “Two.”

  Tia’s grin was growing broader by the moment. “Will you need help getting out of the Upper City as well as getting in?”

  “No,” Ebon said. With luck he’d be able just to walk through the Harbor Gate when morning came. And if not, well, breaking out should be a good deal easier than breaking in.

  “Three thousand, then,” Tia said. “And that’s my best offer. Half payable in advance, half to be deposited with a countinghouse of your choice. Unless of course you’ve got something you can give me as surety for the second payment.”

  “Something like my good word, you mean?”

  The girl snorted. “The countinghouse it is. First payment due by the ninth bell tonight, shall we say?” She reached for the knife wedged in the table and wiggled it free.

  Ebon withdrew his hands. “You’re not expecting me to bring the money here, I trust.” Walking through the Lower City at night with his pockets full, how could that end badly?

  “Of course not,” Tia replied, with a look that said he was a fool if he thought he would ever find her here again. “Someone will track you down at the harbor to collect. You’ll get more details then about tonight’s arrangements.”

  “I’ll be ready,” he said.

  For more treachery as much as for anything else.

  CHAPTER 10

  THE LAST chime of the noon bell faded, and still there was no sign of Galantas’s prey. He looked at his companions crouched in the shanty behind. Qinta was examining one of his tattoos. Reska had his eyes closed. Carlo shifted his weight from foot to foot. But it was Vos about whom Galantas was most concerned. The man looked like he was going to be sick, and he wouldn’t meet Galantas’s gaze. It took a particular strength of character to stomach the bitter brew of kin slaughter. Maybe Galantas had misjudged Vos on that score. Catching the man’s eye, he held out his hand for Vos’s crossbow.

  Vos set his jaw and shook his head. Galantas suppressed a smile. As easy
as that. Some captains were quick to punish a crewman who showed reluctance to obey an order, but Galantas had always found it more effective to compel through example. Never ask a man to do something you wouldn’t do yourself. He didn’t want men serving under him who found this sort of task easy. He wanted men who could put aside their personal misgivings for the good of their clan. Men who trusted Galantas’s judgment over their own.

  Men with sense, in other words.

  Through a broken window to his left, he saw a woman balancing a basket on her head pass the entrance to the alley. Beyond her, a jumble of rooftops sloped down to the port. Rising above the thatch and cracked tiles was the steeple of one of the water towers marking the course of Bezzle’s underground aqueduct. Through the haze from the brine boileries, Galantas could make out the topmasts of the Augeran ship. Its flag remained at full mast, which he took as a sign that Eremo still clung to life. Perhaps that explained why the stone-skins hadn’t responded yet to the proposal Ostari would have put to them. Perhaps, while Eremo’s fate hung in the balance, there was uncertainty in the chain of command.

  And yet what option did the stone-skins have but to accept Galantas’s offer? There was no way they’d be getting their twenty thousand talents back, so if they wanted a return on their investment, they had to do business with either Dresk or Galantas. And a choice between Galantas and his father was surely no choice at all.

  He would have to play the next few bells carefully, though. For while he needed the Augerans’ help to dethrone Dresk, he also needed to keep their involvement discreet, lest the other tribes think him their puppet. Then there was the problem of what to do with his father. Most likely the stone-skins would want to make a public display of Dresk, yet any repeat of the scenes on the Lively was certain to incite Dresk’s followers to anger. The krels in particular would have to be managed, but Galantas had devised a strategy to keep them on side. A strategy that centered on Talet. The man was an administrator, and thus wholly expendable. With the right … persuasion, he might be convinced to back Galantas’s story that it was Dresk who had ordered the attack on Eremo. Once Dresk’s “treachery” was exposed, most of the krels would fall into line. A few, though, were too small-minded to ever be trusted in Galantas’s service.

  Hence his presence in this shanty now, waiting for Karsten Berg to appear. For years Galantas had been planning to move against Dresk’s supporters. That was why he knew about Karsten’s mistress, along with the route the man took when he called on her. Last month Galantas had intercepted a message from the mistress, inviting Karsten to stop by. He’d used that message this morning to lure his target into Bezzle’s backstreets. The alley he’d chosen for the ambush was ideal. On one side was a windowless wall covered in nettleclaw and home to nesting spider jays, whose warble should conceal the sounds of any scuffle. On the other side were abandoned shanties, one of which now sheltered Galantas and his men. Someone had been here since he’d last checked the place over, for the table and chairs had been smashed so comprehensively the culprit might have planned to use them as firewood. There was no sign of that intruder now, though.

  Meaning Karsten’s final moments, when he got here, would be unwitnessed by all save Galantas and his men.

  Galantas had always thought he would hesitate when the time came to act against Dresk, but instead he felt a thrill of anticipation. There was no going back now. His father would have learned of Ostari’s release. He’d be looking for Galantas, maybe readying a strike against him, yet it would be Galantas who struck at his father first. At last he had a chance to repay Dresk for the insults and the petty betrayals—to start undoing the damage to clan unity his father had caused in his time as warlord. Ultimately he would be sacrificed for the good of his kin, and was that not the supreme duty of a leader? Dresk would serve his people in death as he had singularly failed to serve them in life.

  Three figures entered the alley, and Galantas raised a hand to warn his companions. The warbling of the spider jays rose in pitch as the newcomers approached. Galantas shrank back against the wall. Karsten strode past the window in his familiar bloodred headscarf. Behind him came two bodyguards, laughing at some jest. The house in which Galantas hid was located at a bend in the alley. As the voices followed that bend around to the right, Galantas made a fist to signal his men to move. Qinta took the lead, opening the door and slipping into the bodyguards’ wake. Reska, Carlo, and Vos went after him, with Galantas bringing up the rear.

  He trailed them around the bend.

  It was over in moments. Blocking Karsten’s way was a cart loaded with barrels. There was nowhere to run when Galantas’s men attacked from behind, and more ambushers lay in wait behind the cart. Crossbows thrummed, a solitary scream sounded, and Karsten and his two bodyguards went down. Galantas nodded his approval. An unsavory task, but that was no excuse for sloppiness. His men had acquitted themselves well. Vos’s expression was bleak, yet he hadn’t held back from the attack. Today would either break him or put some steel in him; Galantas would find out which soon enough.

  He laid a hand on the man’s shoulder. He’d meant it as a reassuring gesture, but from the way Vos flinched, it might have been Shroud who’d crept up on him unawares.

  Maybe later.

  Galantas knelt at Karsten’s side. The krel had taken a bolt in the chest and one in the gut, but he was still alive. He was looking up at the sky. His breaths came quickly as if he was determined to squeeze in as much life as possible from his final heartbeats. But that had always been his way. It was why Galantas admired him so much, maybe even liked him.

  Galantas’s crew had picked clean the corpses of the two bodyguards and were now bundling them into barrels on the cart. Galantas drew a dagger and rested its point on Karsten’s neck. When the krel looked at him, there was hatred in his eyes.

  “Your family is safe,” Galantas said. “I’ll see to it they’re looked after.”

  “Go to hell,” Karsten rasped.

  Fair enough. Galantas would have said the same in the man’s place.

  He drew his dagger across the krel’s throat, feeling the serrations bite.

  * * *

  From the quarterdeck of Mazana’s flagship, the Raven, Senar scanned the sea all about. A stone’s throw behind, a Revenant vessel glided on a wave of water-magic, while to the north and south sailed two brigatinas as escort, ready to draw off any dragon the convoy encountered. Beyond the southern ship lay the island of Airey, once home to the Storm Lord Gensu Sensama and now seemingly home to nothing but starbeaks. Every village the Raven passed was deserted, the inhabitants having fled inland. A wise move too, since the dragons had proved themselves willing to venture ashore to supplement their fishy diet. Yesterday Senar had seen one attack the Deeps, cracking open the partly flooded buildings like nuts to get at the tasty morsels inside.

  From the number of claimed sightings around Olaire, a hundred dragons might have been prowling the Sabian waters. According to Mazana, though, the true number was only seventeen. Not sixteen. Not eighteen. Like she’d been in Dian on Dragon Day to count them as they passed under the gate. Rumor had it that some had laid waste to the Uscan Reach, then made their homes in the ruins of its settlements. But there were also rumors of a battle to the north between a dozen of the creatures and a denkrakil that had formerly had its tentacles wrapped around Olaire. In truth, Senar didn’t care where the dragons were as long as it wasn’t here.

  Olaire’s merchant guilds had petitioned Mazana to hunt down the beasts, but Senar knew she had no intention of doing so. For decades the Sabian League had bridled under the Storm Lord yoke, and in the farthest corners of the Sabian Sea, plans were no doubt afoot to ensure a new Storm Council didn’t rise from the ashes of the old. A single Storm Lord, however powerful, couldn’t hope to hold the empire in thrall. While the dragons were alive, though, the would-be conspirators would have something other than Mazana on which to focus their attention, thus giving her time to shore up her position. She hadn’t confi
ded her plans in Senar, but he’d heard tales that she’d started searching for new Storm Lords—albeit Storm Lords in name only. She hadn’t spent all this time gathering power, after all, just to give it away again.

  Jodren’s coral bird flew across his line of sight, returning from one of the brigatinas. Senar watched the creature settle on the shoulder of its master, standing on the aft deck beside Mazana. Jambar was there too, staying close to his mistress so Senar couldn’t corner him. Romany had yet to make an appearance on deck; the same for the Erin Elalese messenger, Kolloken.

  That gave Senar an idea.

  He looked around. None of the emira’s entourage was watching him, so he headed for the companionway.

  When he knocked at Kolloken’s door, the man took an age to answer. The messenger’s cabin was small, with a bunk against one wall and a desk bolted to the floor. Through an open window Senar heard the hiss of waves. A reflection of the sea shimmered on the white-painted ceiling. Kolloken sat at the desk, holding a piece of charcoal. In front of him was a roll of parchment held down at one end by a lantern. On the parchment Senar saw a charcoal drawing of a woman’s features, the eyes two swirls of gray, the mouth caught in a self-conscious smile. Kolloken had captured her mood perfectly: mischievous, fey, unassuming.

  “Impressive,” Senar said.

  “The days away from home are hard.” Kolloken’s gaze slid sideways. “But I’m sure you don’t need me to tell you that, eh?”

  Senar crossed to the window and closed it. In the sudden quiet he heard the creak of timbers, the sound of something rolling across the floor of the next cabin.

  Kolloken’s lips quirked. “Is this the part where I tell you everything I kept back from the red-haired bitch?”

  A frown spread across Senar’s face before he could catch it. “What news from home?”

  “You mean, what news about the Guardians?”

  “Yes, let’s start there.”