Hawsers were thrown out and caught by men on the dock, which were then tied down. Tarrin moved to help the others bring up the first of the poles that would form their large tent as Dar went below to Dolanna, where they would create the Illusions that concealed the Vendari's true identity. They came up a few minutes later, Dolanna, Faalken, Binter and Sisska, with Keritanima and Miranda coming up behind. Miranda was disguised as well, looking like a human woman of the same dimensions as she had when she wasn't hidden by Illusion. Tarrin understood the strategy behind that. Fox Wikuni weren't uncommon, but Miranda, with her mink features and very striking appearance, was very rare. It was much easier for Keritanima to change her appearance without magic than it was for Miranda. Keritanima took one look around, and immediately frowned.
"What is it?" Miranda asked.
"That's an Eram clipper," she said, giving the Wikuni ship beside theirs a cursory glance. "One of my family's private commercial ships."
"Do you think they will recognize you?" Dolanna asked.
"I doubt it," she replied. "Most of them have never seen me. The Brat hated anything that even closely resembled work, so she didn't accompany her father to the docks very often."
"I do not like this, Princess," Binter said quietly. "This does not feel right."
Tarrin looked at the huge Illusion's face, looking like a monstrously tall man with bulging muscles, knowing that he was really looking at Binter's chest.
"Come, my friends, we must set up!" Renoit called from the stern. "We will showcase Shoran's Field this day!"
The gangplank was lowered, and the dancers filed down, carrying smaller bundles of rope. Tarrin was among a group of eight, carrying the poles that would help raise the tent. But when he got down on the dock, he stopped dead, making the man holding the back end lose the pole off his shoulder and start cursing. Tarrin felt it slip off his shoulder, but he barely registered its presence.
The men that had tied down the ship were nowhere to be seen.
Fear began to rise up in him. Where did they go so fast? They should have stayed on the dock. They would have had to run to get out of sight so quickly, and if they did run away, then they obviously knew something was about to happen. Tarrin felt that was the case. Something was about to happen, and it wasn't good. The fact that there was a Wikuni clipper tied up right beside them was a good indication of that. The man who had dropped the pole was cursing at him in Shacean, reaching down to pick it up again.
Tarrin heard something behind, something that made him turn to look. A massive Wikuni frigate had moved in behind the galleon, cutting off any attempt for it to escape.
It was a trap!
He wasn't the only one to notice. Sudden shouting erupted all around him, frightened screams from the performers, shouts of alarm from Faalken and Binter. To his left, Tarrin saw armored Wikuni pouring out of the clipper beside them, and more of them flooding out from the doorways of the warehouses in front of them. They were all armed with swords and those strange projectile weapons that Keritanima called muskets, firearms that shot small metal balls with the powerful force of gunpowder providing the power to make them deadly. They took a long time to reload, giving each Wikuni only one shot, but there were twice as many Wikuni as there were carnival performers. Enough to kill them twice over.
He didn't know if they were going to fight. He had to get back to Dolanna, get someone to tell him what they were going to do. He could see Keritanima ahead of him with the other dancers, screaming, pointing at him frantically, then motioning back towards the Wikuni clipper. He glanced over in time to see a line of Wikuni along the rail, holding muskets. Except for a handful, which were armed with crossbows. And they were all pointed at him and the other performers on the dock.
Keritanima! She was out in front, and she was unprotected! Binter and Sisska were already scrambling forward, weapons in hand, moving to interpose themselves between the Princess and the Wikuni Marines rushing at her from the front. But Tarrin was closer. Changing form in midstride, Tarrin vaulted over a few people, charging ahead, then skidding to a stop in front of her, claws out, challenging the advancing Wikuni to try to get to her through him.
They had made a good trap, Tarrin thought grimly. Letting them dock in the corner, where the wall and the sea cut off any escape routes, and hiding a hundred men on the ship beside theirs and in the warehouses in front to cut off the other two escape routes. They were surrounded, and the only way out was to fight against superior numbers. It would be ten to one, because Tarrin didn't expect any of the performers to put up resistance. This wasn't their fight, and he didn't blame for it.
"Kerri, get out of here!" Tarrin snapped, laying his ears back and giving the Wikuni in front of him a murderous look. "Get back to Binter! Go!" He half-turned towards her, motioning at her to run-
– -and then something struck him in the chest solidly. And then there was nothing but darkness.
Keritanima stared for a moment in dumb shock, then she gave out a strangled cry.
Tarrin was splayed out on the ground, with a crossbow quarrel sticking out of his chest, which twitched sickeningly with every beat of his heart. And he wasn't moving.
Kneeling, mindless of the pool of blood forming around his chest, staining her fur, Keritanima put her hands on his chest and realized that he wasn't breathing. He wasn't breathing! The quarrel shouldn't have hurt him! She'd seen him take worse injuries and not even flinch!
In a panic, Keritanima grabbed the quarrel and yanked it out violently, feeling his body jump, hearing him take in a ragged, shallow breath, staring at the bloody head in horror.
It was silver.
"No!" she said in strangled tone, putting both hands down to stop that flow of red from his chest. "No! Don't you die on me, Tarrin Kael! I won't let you!" she screamed hysterically, touching the Weave. Powerful healing energies welled up in her, and she sent them into him quickly, carefully. But the truth became clear to her after only the briefest assensing of him. The silver had wounded him horrifically, had struck as close to his heart as it could without piercing it, and his body wouldn't survive the stress that healing would place on it, even if she had the time and the power to try.
Tarrin was going to die.
She was only dimly aware of Binter and Sisska, of Azakar, surrounding her and Miranda with weapons drawn, holding off a large formation of Marines. Tears streaming from her eyes, she concentrated all her energy on Tarrin, trying to heal him despite the fact that his body couldn't withstand it, desperate to do anything to try and save her brother.
And found that the wound resisted any attempt to heal it. She remembered numbly the stitches in Tarrin's arm. Dolanna hadn't healed it, because she couldn't.
Silver was bane to Were-creatures, and the wounds it inflicted couldn't be healed by magic.
"No!" she wailed. "You bastards!" she shrieked in rage, jumping up and running at the officer in charge of the Wikuni Marines, hands flaming with fire, fully intent to kill the lot of them. But Azakar grabbed her around the middle and pulled her back, standing resolute as flaming hands burned him every time she grabbed at his wrist.
"Your father wants a word with you, Princess Keritanima," the officer said bluntly. "Surrender, or we kill everyone on the ship."
Keritanima glared at the raccoon Wikuni, her lips passing horrible promises and curses. "Why?" she finally managed to scream. "Why did you shoot him!?"