A small schooner pulled away from the far side of the second pier and drifted out to sea. Down on the pier, a dockworker waved and shouted to the Bashair to take the open spot.
“Gently in!” Samara called.
His pilot cranked the wheel hard, and the crew prepared lines to cast. It took little time to settle the small Suman vessel, and then half the crew began strapping on cutlasses distributed by the first mate.
Normally the crew settled down once they reached a port, or prepared to go ashore in shifts. Something was different about Drist.
One sailor scrambled up the central mast to a watchman’s platform barely big enough to sit on with dangling legs. With a case of quarrels strapped to his shoulder, he began cranking back the cable on a large crossbow. As soon as the ramp was lowered, two armed sailors ran down to take posts at its bottom and watch everything around them.
Dänvârfij saw similar safeguards on all the other docked vessels. Perhaps Samara’s mention of an “unlawful place” had been more serious than she first thought. She leaned out over the rail.
The city loomed between high, dark hills cresting above the shore to both north and south. Buildings of mixed sizes and shapes, dingy and worn by coastal weather, were so closely mashed together that only a few inward roads showed between them. Typical for a port city, the air was tainted by the stench of fish, salt brine, livestock, and smoke.
If she stayed on this continent a hundred years, she would never grow accustomed to the smell. This place was the worst by far.
“Look at them.”
Dänvârfij resisted being startled, finding Rhysís suddenly beside her. Arrays of people hurried along docks or milled about the bay doors of large warehouses. Carts and bearers vied to get in and out. Every color and form of attire that Dänvârfij could imagine was scattered among them.
Caramel-skinned Sumans in earthy-colored garb led goats harnessed in lines. A small number of even darker-skinned people, with tightly curled black hair, were dressed in one-piece shifts of cloth, or in pantaloons and waist wraps of stronger colors beneath black patterns. These tried to navigate a cart of shimmering cloth bolts around clusters of armored men.
The number of Numans was almost overwhelming. Some dressed like vagabonds, while others wore finery beneath voluminous cloaks.
Dänvârfij heard clear footsteps coming across the deck.
“We will not stay long,” Captain Samara said as he approached. “I hope to resupply and finish a small cargo exchange by midmorning tomorrow. If you wish to stay here and wait for your family, you should disembark and find lodgings by then.” Glancing at the city, he shook his head. “But I do not recommend it. Perhaps you could catch your kin at the next port?”
Dänvârfij had no intention of disembarking, but she feigned a polite smile.
“No, we wait here, but can we spend tonight ... on the ship? Leave ... tomorrow before ... you sail?”
Samara nodded. “Of course. It is senseless for you to go out there at night.”
“My thanks,” she said.
The captain walked away, and Rhysís whispered, “When?”
Dänvârfij returned to watching the port. “Not until the crew is asleep, those on watch grow weary, and fewer people are ... out there. Can you kill the one up in the mast without him falling?”
“Yes.”
“Én’nish and I will handle the two at the ramp’s end. The rest should be simple.”
Én’nish had seethed over the pointless delay in taking this ship. Now she partly saw how they had a better opportunity. Halfway between the mid of night and dawn, the piers were almost empty. Well before that, most ships, including the Bashair, had pulled up their ramps. Besides the armed lookout up in the mast, only three humans, two on the aftcastle and one at the prow, were on deck.
Dänvârfij had asked the three on watch whether she and hers could stay up and observe incoming ships to spot the one bearing their “family.” The guards did not find this strange and assented without even bothering to ask their captain.
Perhaps Sumans valued kin and blood more than Numans did, and Én’nish committed this to memory for future use. The rest of the small crew was below, likely asleep, and the captain was in his own cabin.
Eywodan and Tavithê stood near the aftcastle door to below, and Én’nish, with a blade held reversed and hidden behind her forearm, waited beside the aftcastle stairway. Rhysís leaned against the starboard rail with his assembled short bow hidden beneath his traveler’s cloak. He looked up now and then to the sailor with the crossbow upon the mast’s platform above.
Én’nish watched Dänvârfij near the prow and waited—longed—for the signal to act. She slipped her other hand around her back and beneath her tied-up cloak to grip the handle of her bone knife. Tension was not appropriate, but it quivered in all of her muscles.
A soft chirp carried across the deck.
Eywodan and Tavithê slipped below for the sleeping crew. Rhysís nocked an arrow, raised his bow, and fired.
Én’nish heard a soft thud from above, but the man did not fall to the deck. She spun and rushed up the ladder steps onto the aftcastle. Neither sailor on watch would be alarmed.
She had purposely done this several times in the night—always hurrying to the ship’s rear as if she had heard the snap of sails in the wind or the call of a crew inbound from the open waters.
The two sailors stood close together at the aft with their backs turned. Only one glanced aside at the last instant.
Én’nish thrust her stiletto through the base of his throat before he offered a greeting, and she slashed the other’s throat with her hooked bone knife. The latter’s eyes turned vacant as he dropped.
It was over too quickly. She should have volunteered to go below instead of remaining up here. Not risking the noise of toppling the bodies overboard, she left them and hurried down to the deck.
Dänvârfij, with a bloodied stiletto in hand, came toward her. Then Rhysís joined them.
“Weight the bodies,” Dänvârfij instructed, “and lower them quietly over the far side, away from the dock.”
Rhysís nodded and turned toward the aftcastle. Én’nish followed. By the time they finished and returned, Eywodan and Tavithê had emerged from below. Even in the dark, Én’nish could see they were stained.
“Ten left alive for our need,” Eywodan said, “including the cook. They are locked up, and I convinced them of the wisdom of silence.”
“The captain?” Dänvârfij asked.
“Still asleep in his cabin. We made little sound.”
“He knows too much about us.” Gripping her stiletto, she started for the stairs. “He should be silenced. Then I will report to Fréthfâre.”
Én’nish watched her go. It was done, and they had finally taken the ship. But she raised her bone knife and studied the streaks of blood across the silver-white metal. It had all gone perfectly, quickly, and quietly ... with too little satisfaction for her.
And it was not the right blood on her blade.
Two evenings later, the Cloud Queen reached the harbor in Drist. Leesil stood beside Magiere and stared out at the mass of activity, with its assault of colors, noises, and smells.
“Ah, dead deities,” he murmured. “I thought Chathburh was crowded. Where’s the captain going to dock this hulk in there?”
Magiere shook her head. “I don’t know.”
Wildly busy, the port boasted only six overly long piers. All of the docked vessels except for one were smaller than the Cloud Queen. But Leesil’s question was soon answered.