An hour later, dripping on the deck, panting and fatigued, arms and legs rubbery and chafed red, Spratling turned and helped the others over the railing. He whispered reminders of the need for silence and stealth. Once they were all aboard, they stripped off the fishhook wrist and ankle bands and flung them toward the sea below. They rubbed their hands over portions of their body to wipe clean the moisture. A warm breeze caressed the ship from prow to stern and helped to blow their naked skin dry. The archers among them strung their bows with dry strings they had carried in the waterproof wrappings. This took a few minutes, but with all his motions Spratling indicated that they were not to rush. Each thing in its time, each step carried out in the appropriate tempo.
He did not motion to them when it was time to move. He just stepped forward, his feet spry and careful on the slick deck. The others followed. They did not get far before they had to halt again, bunched together in the shadows cast by a cabin. Guards sat in baskets on the masts, three sets with two in each. They could get no nearer without being spotted. Spratling turned and faced the others. They were solemn, their eyes fixed on his face for direction. He smiled, shrugged, managed to indicate with his eyes that it was quite an accomplishment to get this far. They were on a league battleship, unbeknownst to anyone, naked and strolling free in the night air. The fact that he could convey this without words was one of his gifts. Grins spread from one face to another. With that, Spratling knew they were ready.
They walked forward with their arrows nocked and bows drawn. One of the guards saw them straightaway, but before he could shout, a triangle of metal and a shaft of wood behind it punched through his eye socket and into his skull. His head snapped with the force of it, something Spratling would remember afterward. He was only the first. In the space of a few seconds a barrage of arrows flew from all around him. All of them save one hit their targets in the chest or head. One stopped a man’s mouth in mid-exclamation. The single missile that missed sailed away into the starlight, no sound or sign of where it might have landed.
The party divided. Several rushed to dispatch the forward lookouts and anybody else on deck. Spratling and the rest rounded the main cabin structures and punched through into the pilot’s room. The pilot and his crew were huddled around a chart. They looked up casually at first, as if they were not surprised at the sight of naked, dagger-wielding intruders. The mood swiftly changed. The butchery the raiders went to was fast and efficient; they were not without experience at this, after all. A man named Clytus seized the pilot and threw him facedown to the deck with a force that split two of the man’s teeth and sent them skittering across the smooth boards.
Within a few moments all the crew was dead or breathing their last. Spratling had not wet his blade yet, but his target was not in this chamber. Toward the back of the room was a closed door, the frame around it embossed in gold, the design on it the emblematic dolphin of the league. He aimed his heel at the latch and kicked it open. Inside he found the person he sought.
The leagueman was tall and spindly, his arms those of a starving man. He had just climbed out of his low bed and was fumbling to get his bearing. His ribs, seen for a moment before he pulled his gown into place, heaved against a thin membrane of flesh. Spratling did not lay hands on this one either, but the man and woman who dashed past him did.
Back in the main cabin, the leagueman’s arms were pinned at either side, the flat of two knives against his skin, one at either side of his head just beneath his small ears. The elongated cone of his skull, covered with sparse hair, seemed a far greater nudity than that of the raiders’. Despite this, he showed scorn for the intrusion and the slaughter. There was no inkling of fear on his haughty features. Indeed, he seemed incapable of seeing the scene around him as anything but an annoyance.
Spratling placed himself before the leagueman’s defiant eyes. He had to be quick without seeming to hurry. “What is your name?”
“You don’t know?” the man asked. “I know yours. Unless I am wrong you’re the one they call Spratling. I would never have imagined your name would be so appropriate. You are but a little fish. You would do better to hide your little worm from view. You know that, don’t you?”
“What is your name?” Spratling repeated.
The leagueman pursed his lips, as if considering the nature of the question. Eventually he said, “I am Sire Fen, vice admiral of Ishtat naval operations.” He grinned. “I am what you call a big fish.”
Throughout this exchange Spratling watched Clytus and Wren out of the corner of his eye. As he spoke with the leagueman they interrogated the bound and tooth-broken pilot, who had been spared. Clytus smacked him several times with the back of his hand, threatened him in whispers meant not to disturb Spratling. He could not tell if they were making progress or not.
One of the guards outside peered in and signaled that they were all together again but that time was short.
“You cannot expect to take this ship,” Sire Fen said. “In truth, you have but minutes to live, young brigand. That’s the problem with your type. You don’t think before you leap.” He paused for a moment, head tilted to the side, and then asked with true curiosity, “What did you hope to achieve here? You brought, what, ten thieves to take a warship?”
“We are not trying to take the ship,” Spratling said, though his attention was only partially on the leagueman now. He thrust his chin toward the door, enough instruction that two of his men closed on it, bows drawn. They both let arrows sing out the portal.
“No?” Sire Fen asked. “What did you have in mind, then?”
Spratling glanced at Clytus, who had paused in such a way as to draw his attention. He stood over what looked like an open crate, though from his gaze and the way he spoke with a nod, Spratling knew he had found what they thought they would. Wren yanked the twine between her breasts. She caught the pill as it fell from her back with one hand and tilted the glass shade of an oil lamp free with the other.
“There are more ways to strike at an enemy than the obvious ones,” Spratling said.
“Oh,” the leagueman said, nodding with new understanding. “You seek a prisoner. A hostage? You’ll ask for a bounty for me. Is that it? A bold idea, I grant you, but-”
Setting his eyes back on Sire Fen, Spratling interrupted him. “You want to destroy us, don’t you?”
The leagueman scrunched his face about his nose as if he smelled something foul. “Each and every one of you.”
“Why? Are we so great a threat to you?”
“You are not a threat at all. You’re like rats in a city. Shitting everywhere. Stealing. Spreading disease. Yes, the league plans to eliminate every last one of you.”
Spratling shook his head, something like disappointment heavy on his features. “That’s why you don’t understand my goal tonight. You want to kill many. Tonight, I only care about killing one.”
The leagueman’s face registered bewilderment in a slow progression all its own. First, at the words. Then, looking down, he almost seemed to flush with embarrassment. Spratling had sunk his knife to the hilt in his chest. He pulled it out, flipped the grip in his fist, and slashed Fen’s neck so deeply that his breath issued out of the crescent, bubbly with blood. The two raiders holding him stepped back, and the leagueman fell into a formless crumple on the floor.