“Ah, well. While your proposed solution offers a certain ruthless charm, allow me to recommend a less messy path.”
Her hand raised in threat of a gesture. He swallowed, certain that if he allowed her to complete that motion she really would sentence them both to being tossed to the sharks.
“Hear him out,” Coss said. Her arm froze mid-motion. She said nothing.
He cleared his throat. “It has occurred to me that the Larkspur is in need of weapons and selium. Both items sure to be aboard the watcher craft, though admittedly in lesser quantity now than when they set off upon their merry chase.”
“Do you suppose I have forgotten why the Larkspur is in need of those things?”
“I’m supposing the why doesn’t matter. The need is there. You have a solution to a problem.”
Tibs said, “I suggest you take the Lord Honding’s idea to heart.”
“Lord?” Pelkaia said, but Coss slapped her on the back in feign of comradely affection, and cupped his hands around his mouth.
Coss called to the watching crew, “Man stations! We’re going down to that hunk of island to rebalance our scales!”
A hesitant cheer went up from the crew, a bit worse for their exhausted and water-logged state of being, but Detan wasn’t one to quibble with their enthusiasm. He was busy trying to nudge Tibs away from his viper-glare showdown with Pelkaia, and desperately clamping down an urge to point out Coss had gone ahead and issued an order against his captain’s wishes.
“Coss,” Pelkaia said, finally relinquishing Tibs from her stare. “My quarters.”
She strode off, Coss trailing her heels, and Detan let out a ragged, nervous laugh.
“Some ally we’ve got in our corner. I’d have rather made friends with a weaver-spider.”
Tibs gave a slow, ponderous shake of his head, rain water and bits of ice slewing off the brim of his hat. “Knew what she was when we called for her.”
“Thought we did, anyway.” Detan sighed and shook out his hair with his fingers. “Too bad she didn’t come with a convenient warning label, like our friend Commodore Throatslitter.”
Tibs cocked a surly grin at him. “How does Captain Ruthless sound?”
“Bah. That’s too on the nose, old chum. I’d prefer something truly sinister. Like Colonel Cuddles.”
“Awful.”
“See? Perfection.”
Detan threw an arm around Tibs’s shoulder and began to steer them back toward the captain’s podium so that they could help with the ship’s landing. There was no telling how long Pelkaia would be busy dressing-down poor Coss.
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Pelkaia held her tongue until the door to her cabin closed. She let her hand rest on the cold metal knob for a while, feeling the chill of the world through her fingertips. The rain and the wind were loud enough to drown out any shouting, but she didn’t want to shout at Coss. The last thing she wanted to do was to piss the man off when he was already so clearly displeased with her. She took a breath, pushed her shoulders back, and turned to face him. She almost recoiled from the look in his eye.
“You gave an order I didn’t issue,” she said carefully. Not an accusation. Just raw facts.
He leaned back, putting distance between their bodies, and crossed his arms over his chest. The defiant lift to his chin would have been enough to piss her off on any normal day, but after Petrastad… She was too tired to be angry with him. And wanted, desperately, to know why he was angry with her. She was surprised to realize she wanted to fix that. To repair what she’d broken and beg amends.
“I gave the order you should have given. That’s my job as first mate, isn’t it? Interpreting the best course of action when you are otherwise unable to do so.”
“I was right there. I was perfectly capable of making the call.”
“The right call?”
She pursed her lips. “Yes.”
“And that’s where we disagree. Captain.”
She kept her face a mask of placid calm, wishing to the blessed stars that she had some more sel with her to hide her real features. Having her true skin exposed to the air when she was otherwise vulnerable made her scalp prickle with anticipation of disaster. If only she had another face to hide under, then she could pretend a little longer that Coss was arguing with that person – not her.
“You disagree, you take it up with me in private. That was our deal.”
“Doing so now, ain’t I?”
Her fists clenched. “You know clear as the skies are blue what I mean. You knew I wouldn’t have made that call. Knew it would have made me look weak to override you after you’d called it out.”
“Maybe you need to look weaker.”
“What in the fiery pits is that supposed to mean? I’ve a ship to command, a war to win. I’ve no room for weakness, especially not in front of my thrice-cursed crew.”
“Is that what you’re doing? Fighting a war?”
Her mouth gaped open. “Whose ship have you taken berth on, Coss? Where do you think you are? I’ve been fighting this war since I spilled Faud’s blood in Aransa, and I won’t stop until Thratia joins him in the dirt.”
“That’s just the problem, isn’t it?”
“Gods,” she muttered and pinched the bridge of her nose between two fingers. “For the love of a clear sky, explain what you’re getting at. I’m too sandblasted tired to wiggle my way through your nonsense.”
“Nonsense?” He snorted and shook his head. “Let me make the problem real clear for you, captain. You’re fighting a war. Where’s your army?”
“My crew–”
“Those aren’t your soldiers!” She clapped her mouth shut from pure shock at his outburst. “Your crew out there, those souls you order about like they should know the meaning of military discipline. They’re not soldiers. They never have been soldiers. They’re deviant sensitives, yes, and some of their abilities may lean toward a military persuasion, but they’re civilians, Pell. Skies above, they’re refugees. You’re shoving refugees in the path of the monster that’s oppressed them and demanding they scream your battle cry. Demanding they draw blood, when half of them haven’t slaughtered so much as a chicken before in their lives.”
“I seem to recall you saying they were ready for this,” she snapped. “I seem to recall you telling me to give them more rope, more freedom to get involved.”
“I said they were ready to save their own people, ready to learn to carry arms in defense. I never said they were ready for this…” He grasped the air as if he could squeeze the words he wanted out of it. “This wholesale slaughter.”
She sat hard on the bench before her vanity, and let her hands dangle between her knees. She stared at her hands, wondering when she’d gone from rearing dear Kel to spilling blood in his name. She clenched her fists.
“I never asked for this.”
“Neither did they. This is your crusade, and it could be theirs, too, but you’re pushing them too quickly. Expecting them to take up blades of battle right after setting down their damned cheese knives. That’s not a group of killers you have out there. And that’s a good thing. But you’re scaring the salt out of them with all this let-the-watchers die talk. Shit, Pell, some of them are people who just weeks before we picked them up would have happily gone to their local watch with any trouble in their lives. Petty thieving isn’t murder. The two don’t translate.”
“It’s Honding,” she protested. “He’s pushed things forward too quickly, didn’t give me time to get them acclimated to the fight–”