‘Captain.’
‘Yes, ma’am?’ He was crying and didn’t care. He wiped his nose with his sleeve. No matter. He hadn’t changed his uniform since they had ventured into the foothills.
‘I want you to seize those three frigates and get them prepared for a journey north.’ She pointed towards the ships still tethered to the wharf. They bobbed gently in the small swells that skidded along the shore in the aftermath of the mammoth tide.
‘No, ma’am.’ Blackford swallowed, coughed and said, ‘Kill me now, ma’am.’
Tavon laughed: a hearty, belly-laugh that chilled Blackford’s blood. ‘Oh, but that is funny, Captain.’ She withdrew her hands from the pool, waved them over the surface and waited while the depthless cauldron congealed and then froze into solid granite. Still laughing, she picked a small bit of stone from its centre and slipped it into her uniform pocket. ‘No, really, Blackford. I want you to get those ships ready. Pay the captains, kill them; I don’t care, but I want them ready to sail by high tide, three days from now.’ Major Tavon chuckled then mimicked him, ‘Kill me now, ma’am.’
‘Yes, please.’ His hands were shaking and he laced his fingers together in hopes of appearing brave.
‘You’re a coward, Blackford, a whimpering baby. You don’t want to die any more than I want to kill you. I need you. When I’m through needing you, if you’ve done what I ask, you’ll enjoy a long life. At that time, whether you’re a coward or a hero, I don’t give a shit. I’ll be going home. So, stop dicking around making jokes and get those boats ready to go.’
Blackford took a breath and tried, unsuccessfully, to compose himself. ‘To where, ma’am?’
‘Ah, finally a cogent response. Good. To Pellia. I want as many soldiers as we can muster, including your former colleagues from Wellham Ridge, on board, well fed and ready to hit the road in three days. Got it?’
‘Hit the road, ma’am?’
‘Right, skedaddle, bug out, take off, hit the highway, jet back to Kansas with Toto. Know what I mean?’
‘Yes, ma’am. To Pellia.’
‘Excellent, Blackford. Now, get us south to one of those open piers. I want you to scare us up some beer and maybe a burger.’
Blackford backed away. ‘Yes, ma’am. Whatever you like, ma’am.’ He kept eye contact with her, not because he wanted her to see that he had summoned every bit of his courage to stand there with Captain Hershaw’s body spilling blood all over the deck, but rather because he did not want to be caught looking at her pocket. The stone. Don’t look down, or she’ll know. But you’ve got to get that stone.
Orindale Harbour was a ruin. The waterfront had sustained massive damage, and apart from the three frigates Blackford had been ordered to commandeer and the few naval ships that had almost miraculously escaped the devastation, there was not another seaworthy vessel in sight.
Jacrys’ skin tightened into gooseflesh. Something’s wrong. He didn’t have much magic, just a few spells he learned from the failed carnival conjurer-turned-fennaroot addict, a lodger beneath the brothel where he had worked as a boy, but he knew enough to sense that something significant was occurring. Rolling over the Ravenian Sea like summer thunder, the distant spells penetrated the weary spy’s bones. Someone powerful was painting with a broad brush.
‘Malagon,’ he whispered. ‘So you’re not dead after all.’ He rested against the bulkhead. ‘Unless,’ he mused, ‘it’s someone else.’
As he did every time he woke, Jacrys tried to draw a full breath. It was the benchmark against which he charted his recovery. General Oaklen’s healer, an elderly man named- named some rutting thing the injured spy couldn’t recall; Jacrys had been so thoroughly smothered by the mind-numbing power of his querlis poultice that he couldn’t remember much more than sleeping, ordering Captain Thadrake to confiscate Carpello’s yacht, and enlisting the services of… Mirron. That was it: Mirron Something, one of General Oaklen’s healers. Otherwise, the only recent memories were recollections of how well he had managed to breathe the previous day, and of Brexan Carderie, the partisan spy haunting his dreams.
He breathed in now, his lungs filling with smoke from the wood Mirron had left burning in the brazier. Jacrys coughed; pain stabbed through his chest like a rapier.
‘Pissing demons,’ he choked, ‘pissing motherwhoring demons.’ He could barely speak; his voice was a whisper, barely audible above the sounds of Carpello Jax’s private yacht, a sleek, twin-masted ketch the bloated Orindale merchant almost never used. Carpello had struggled with sea travel.
‘Mirron,’ Jacrys wheezed. He sucked in a stabilising lungful then cried, ‘Mirron!’
The healer ducked in from the companionway and saw Jacrys fighting to sit upright. ‘No, no, no, sir,’ he pleaded, ‘you must lie back down. Look at you; you’re all sweating and flushed. What were you trying to do, sing?’
Mirron Something was an army officer, but he was more a fixture in the division than a legitimate rung in the military hierarchy. He was over four hundred and twenty Twinmoons old, and he couldn’t remember the last order he had given that anyone had actually followed. He was alarmingly tall and thin, with a head of unkempt lank white hair; he looked rather like a wall torch that had grown tired of standing about in a boring sconce.
‘Breathe, you worthless lump of grettanshit, I was trying to breathe,’ Jacrys growled. Worn out with the effort of summoning the healer, he let his head fall back into the pillows and ignored Mirron rambling on about torn scar tissue, internal bleeding and allowing his lung to heal fully before shouting. Jacrys concentrated on his respiration. In, hollow tree… easy… out, loose gravel… easy. And again. Slowly, he regained control. ‘I wish to go up on deck.’
‘No sir, you mustn’t,’ Mirron said, agitated. ‘You need more rest, another Moon at the very least. Every time you tear that scar tissue, you end up all the way back at the beginning of this journey – shouting, standing up, walking around, all these things put you at risk. You may already be bleeding again in your lung-’
‘I don’t care,’ Jacrys snarled through gritted teeth. Sweat dripped from his face onto the coverlet that stank of smoke, spilled broth and pungent bodily fluids – even his berth revolted him.
‘Here,’ Mirron said as he reached into a leather pouch, ‘let me give you another application of querlis.’
‘No, not that. It’s like getting hit in the head with a club. Trust me on that, I know.’ He pushed Mirron’s hands away. ‘I want to go on deck. I want to breathe something other than the gods-rutting smoke you’ve got billowing in here. I want to stand up and I want real food.’
‘As your healer, I must tell you tha-’
‘You’re my subordinate, and I am giving you an order,’ Jacrys whispered. ‘If you can’t follow it, get Captain Thadrake in here, and I will have you in irons for the remainder of our journey.’ It was an empty threat and Jacrys knew it; Carpello might have left a cupboard-full of silk tunics in the main cabin, but there were no manacles on his yacht.
‘Very well.’ Mirron poked his head into the companionway and shouted for the captain, who arrived a moment later. ‘He’d like to stand up, go on deck and eat solid food,’ the healer said. ‘It may kill him.’
Looking at Jacrys, Captain Thadrake said, ‘You could die. Do you understand that, sir?’
‘Of course I understand,’ Jacrys whispered, ‘and I can assure you I’m not planning on dancing. I just want fresh air.’
‘All right,’ Thadrake said, ‘we’ll see you on deck.’
Mirron said, ‘I reiterate: he could die.’ And then to Jacrys, ‘Sir, you could die.’
Jacrys nodded.
The captain said, ‘Listen, Mirron, if he dies, we’ll toss his body over the side and make for Southport, or better yet, Estrad Village. I’ll buy the jemma-steaks and you buy the beer.’
Jacrys coughed back a rare bout of genuine laughter. Clutching his chest, he wheezed, ‘That’s the spirit, Captain.’