Several minutes later, they slipped out through one of the glass doors leading to the garden, finally free of the dark confines of Attat's dungeon and his palace's twisting corridors.
"Let's head for that tall tree near the wall. We can climb it and jump over," Maq said urgently. She knew it wasn't much of a plan, but it was all she could think of, and she didn't want to wait around to come up with something better. The minotaur nodded.
Circling behind a half-moon of terraced rock garden, Maq had just turned to urge the minotaur to hurry when the look on his face caused her to turn back. Directly in front of her stood Attat and a cloaked Ilyatha, flanked by a troop of guards.
Maquesta's heart sank, and she fought back tears.
"I have to admit, I am impressed," Attat said, his voice betraying more menace than approval. "At the human, Koraf, not at you," he snarled at the minotaur carrying Melas.
"How did you track us so that you ended up in front of us?" Maq demanded.
"I had no need to track you, not with the help of Ilyatha here."
Maquesta could not see the shadowperson's face, but she glared in his direction. Ilyatha bowed his head. Maq couldn't decide whether the gesture was in acknowledgment or in shame.
"I may have spoken too hastily before," Attat continued, striding forward until he stood only a few feet away from Maquesta. "I think I will indeed allow you to captain the Perechon. I could do much worse, like with Koraf there."
"What about my father?" Maq's tone was brusque, almost demanding. She'd been pushed to her limits, and she no longer feared what the minotaur lord would do to her. "I want him to come with me. He can mend on the voyage and be of great help to me."
"No, no, no. I don't think he's quite up to a rigorous ocean voyage, do you?" Attat asked with mock solicitude. "I have other plans for him. He's my insurance-that you will come back. And your motivation-to successfully accomplish the mission."
"I want him to come with me," Maq said flatly. "I don't want him back in that dungeon of yours. I don't think he'd last another day there. And with my father dead, you have no insurance, and I have no motivation."
Attat smiled at her, his bull-like lips curling upward. He crossed his chest with his muscular arms, and his bracelets sparkled in the sunlight. "I'll concede you something, Maquesta. He won't be returned to the dungeon. While you are getting the Perechon ready for your voyage, I'll give him a room in the main part of the palace, have Tailonna tend to his wound. She will make certain he has something nourishing to eat. He'll be better by the time you leave. The only one going back to the dungeon is Koraf here."
Maquesta heard Koraf growl softly, and she decided to press Attat into a second concession.
"No. He comes with me." Maq stood with her arms crossed, mimicking Attat. "You've killed three sailors from my crew, four if you count Averon. I'm shorthanded, and I've already seen that Bas-Ohn Koraf is an able worker. I'm sure I can teach him what he needs to know about sailing before we leave. You can do whatever you want with him once we return with your precious morkoth."
The minotaur lord threw back his head and chuckled, then leveled his gaze at Maquesta, his eyes seeming to smoulder. "Oh, you don't have to teach Koraf a thing about sailing. Shipbuilding is his trade."
Attat stroked his chin and looked at Ilyatha. The shadowperson faced him, and Maq suspected some kind of conversation was occurring between the two. She smiled weakly; apparently Attat was considering her demand to allow Koraf to go free.
At last the minotaur whirled to face her and took a step forward until he was now only inches away. She could smell the strong, musky odor of him, but she refused to move. Glaring down at her, he raised a lip in a sneer, then relaxed his expression.
"Go ahead, leave," Attat said abruptly. "Just you and the two others from the Perechon," he added, pointing at Vartan and Hvel. "I expect you back here in two days, ready to depart. I'll give you my decision then. In the meantime, Koraf stays here."
Maq looked into the eyes of the minotaur Bas-Ohn Koraf, but couldn't read what she saw there. He did nod slightly, as if giving her permission to leave.
After making sure Melas was settled comfortably, Maquesta grabbed Hvel and Vartan by their hands and hurried out the hammered silver doors, through the gate, and into the muddy streets of Lacynos.
Chapter 6
"Lendle! Fritzen-you're well! But what are you two doing here? You both should be on the Perechon." Maquesta wanted to scold them and hug them at the same time. But she was too relieved to be free to do either.
She encountered the pair just as she, Hvel, and Vartan emerged from Attat's walled compound. Maq ran her left hand through her hair and came away with fingers full of dirt and spiderwebs. Her right hand held a leather bag Attat had grudgingly given her. Maq looked down at herself for the first time in more than two weeks, thinking about how she must appear. Her clothes were ragged and filthy. She was sure she smelled terrible. The bruise across her cheekbone from where a guard had hit her shone a sickly yellow through her dark skin. However, Vartan and Hvel looked little better.
Lendle eyed her up and down, his gnomish eyes lingering on her smudged face. "We've been keeping watch on the compound. I was trying to figure out a way to get inside. I had plans drawn up for a catapult large enough to send Fritzen over the walls. But I didn't have enough coins to buy the materials and equipment to assemble it." The gnome reached up and grabbed her hand and started pulling her away from the palace. "Of course, I still hadn't quite worked out how Fritzen would return, there being no catapult on the other side."
As they walked, Fritzen offered a crooked smile to Maq, Hvel, and Vartan. The stitches in his face had been removed, and only a slight red welt showed any indication that his face had been slashed. "The city's guards refused to help. They said what goes on inside Attat's walls is his concern, and no one else's. I had just suggested a direct approach: gather the crew and storm his front gate. I might have talked Lendle into it, too, but you happened to come out." He gave her a concerned look. "You've been gone sixteen days. We really thought we were going to have to go in to rescue the lot of you. And you do look like you're in need of rescuing."
Lendle stopped and whirled around, dropping Maq's hand and staring up at her. "W-Wait!" he stammered. "Waitwaitwaitamoment." He cast a quick glance back at the palace. "Where's Melas? Where's Averon? Whatabouttheothers?" Lendle began pouring out questions in his best gnomish fashion. "WherearetheyMaquestaKarThon?"
Maquesta continued to stride away from Attat's home. "Slow down, Lendle. There aren't good answers for those questions. Let's wait to talk about it when we're back on the Perechon."
As the blocks passed on their trek to the wharf, Maquesta's pace slowed. Exhaustion finally swept over her in an overpowering wave, and she had to sit on a bench outside a tavern. She paused there only a moment to catch her breath, however, then she stood and forced herself to put one foot in front of the other to make it back to the docks. Vartan and Hvel walked just as slowly, asking from time to time to stop and rest. Lendle and Fritzen worried over the battered trio, but Maquesta was not in the mood for mothering.
Maquesta, Vartan, and Hvel did not protest when Fritzen said he would oar the longboat back to the Perechon by himself. His powerful arms brought them steadily closer to the ship, while the trio huddled together and tried not to doze off.
Once on board, Maquesta sat on a water barrel on the deck and motioned Lendle close. She handed the gnome the leather sack she had been carrying. Curiosity getting the best of him, he immediately grabbed it and stuck his face inside the opening. Inside were flour, beans, dried meat, spices, and other foodstuffs that made Lendle yip for joy. A smaller sack at the bottom contained three dozen steel pieces. "For provisions," she told the gnome. "I'm appointing you purser. You're family. I can trust you."