Chap was already in midleap as Leesil scooped up his right winged blade.
Chap landed atop the desk and lunged. He hit the captain’s chest and slammed Bassett and the anmaglâhk back against the central porthole in the rear wall.
Leesil rushed in as Chap and the captain tumbled away, and the anmaglâhk had no choice but to turn on him. Leesil’s first swing missed, and he hadn’t even had time to strip the sheath off his blade. In the same instant, he saw two straightened fingers thrust toward the hollow of his throat, and he barely twisted his head away.
The strike hit the hollow between his collarbone and shoulder, and his left arm went numb. The pain came as the force made him topple against the desk. One thought filled his awareness in that instant.
The anmaglâhk didn’t use his bone knife.
Leesil knew his opponent wanted him alive; he had no such notion in kind.
The space between the desk and rear wall was tight, and he let himself fall back atop the desk. The pain in his shoulder told him that the muscle had been torn by that finger-strike. Wounds didn’t matter—all that did was who died.
Leesil saw the anmaglâhk’s empty hand lead the man’s next attack. The bone knife came as well, but wide and to the side. That was a mistake, for Leesil wasn’t alone in this. He kicked at the man’s hand, and his foot slid in along that forearm to the anmaglâhk’s elbow.
That stall was all Chap needed as the dog lunged up from behind the desk.
Chap’s jaws snapped closed on the wrist above the bone knife. As the anmaglâhk tried to wrench free, Leesil levered himself up off the desktop.
The sheathed point of his winged blade rammed the base of the anmaglâhk’s throat. Force made the sheath’s tip split. Blood squirted across the leather.
Leesil grabbed the man’s other wrist and threw his weight against his blade to grind the tip in. The anmaglâhk tried to gasp but only choked, and his eyes filled with shock. The wrist in Leesil’s grip began to go limp.
The tall anmaglâhk’s eyes never closed as he slid down the wall.
Chap released his grip, but Leesil did not until ...
—Enough— ... —It is—done—
Still the man’s eyes were open, staring out.
Leesil didn’t know what to feel as his other arm weakened. His sheathed blade merely slid from the bloody gash in the man’s throat and down his victim’s chest.
“Léshil!”
When he spun, Brot’an was inside the cabin door. Dirken followed with a few others behind him.
The shadow-gripper’s gaze dropped, likely looking to one of his own left dead against the back wall. Something flickered across Brot’an’s face. Was it pain or regret?
No, neither, not in him.
“Captain!”
The first mate pushed around Brot’an and rushed to crouch near Bassett, but Leesil found the captain glaring up at him. Pain didn’t hide the wounded man’s growing fury.
“They were after you?” Bassett accused, his voice sharpening. “Those killers were after you ... on my ship!”
“They saved us,” the first mate said, tilting his head at Brot’an as he pulled Leesil’s stiletto from the captain’s arm. “This one let the rest of the men out.”
It was all too much for Leesil. He didn’t want to recognize what was inside him: put there by his mother and his father, used by Brot’an to kill a warlord, and still lingering even though he tried to smother and forget it.
The need to protect his own had called up the assassin in him.
In that, old habits—old ways—made him wonder at Brot’an’s timely arrival.
“Set sail,” Leesil told the captain, but like Chap’s, his gaze remained on Brot’an. “There are more of them here in port ... and they’ll be coming.”
“You brought this down on us,” the captain whispered.
“Get the ship ready!” Leesil shouted back.
“How? A third of my crew is onshore and another third dead!”
“I’ll help,” said Dirken, halfway behind Brot’an. “I’ve got a few more with me who can do the same.”
Hatchinstall stood up. “I’ll go get the rest of the crew. Most will be drinking at the Three-Legged Horse or playing cards at Ancient Annie’s.”
“What about Wayfarer and Paolo?” Leesil asked, stepping around beside Chap.
“I will retrieve them,” Brot’an said quietly; these were the first words he’d spoken besides a name since he’d appeared in the cabin. “Do not let the captain sail until I return.”
To Leesil’s surprise, Brot’an stepped around him and went to crouch down and heft the body of the dead anmaglâhk. The anmaglâhk master walked out without looking at Leesil again.
Chap took a step to follow, but Leesil put a hand on the dog’s back.
“No, that’s enough ... for now.”
All he wanted was to go to Magiere.
Brot’ân’duivé strode down the boarding ramp with Eywodan’s body over his shoulder. For the first time since leaving his homeland, he was numb and yet felt pain as well.
Once on the pier, he had no wish to lead any remaining anmaglâhk back to the hotel. It might be the first place they would look, all the same. He needed to retrieve Leanâlhâm ... Wayfarer and the boy, and leave this pit of a city behind.
Brot’ân’duivé crouched on the pier and lowered Eywodan’s body into the water, and then he slipped over the side. With the body floating on its back, he pulled it as he swam beneath the second pier. He did not wish to be seen, but there was something fitting in taking Eywodan to water.
Eywodan knew—had known—how to sail. He liked the rivers, the lakes, and the sea. Once, when a coastal enclave had flooded during a storm surge, Eywodan had rushed to aid their people—as had Brot’ân’duivé that same night. When nearly everyone had been evacuated, swelling water had smashed debris against Eywodan’s knee. Brot’ân’duivé had carried him through the water in search of a healer.
It would not have mattered whether Brot’ân’duivé had reached Eywodan before Léshil this night. The outcome would have been the same, and still ...
Brot’ân’duivé halted to float in silence with only his eyes above the water as he fixed on the foot of the third pier.
Above on the waterfront’s edge Dänvârfij and Rhysís crouched beside a prone form that must be Én’nish. He could not hear what they whispered, but with their attention diverted, he swam to the base of the second pier and outside of the support beam closest to the shore.
There he heard them.
“It is not as bad as I feared,” Rhysís said, “Her organs were not cut, but Fréthfâre will need to stitch the wound.”
Dänvârfij rose with an audible sigh in the dark. “Thank the ancestors.”
“Go ... help Eywodan.... He is alone.”
At Én’nish’s weak whisper, Brot’ân’duivé could listen no more. They were broken, reduced to being thankful for injuries that were not lethal. He could take Rhysís or Dänvârfij right now if he wished. The two loyalists would not be able to fight well enough for both to survive.
He could finish this.
But Brot’ân’duivé looked into Eywodan’s dead eyes. He reached out with two fingers and closed them. He quietly rolled the corpse up onto the floating walkway below the shoreline.
After one final look at an old comrade who had become an enemy, he sank beneath the water and swam away. When he emerged farther on, climbing out below the waterfront’s southern end, he waited for water to finish dripping from him before he silently crept up the stairs.
Brot’ân’duivé peered over the waterfront’s edge. When Dänvârfij and Rhysís crouched to gather up Én’nish, he slipped into the streets and headed for Delilah’s.