"So, you were following Cord?" Despreaux asked. "I want to be clear about this."
"Yes," Roger said distinctly. "I was following Cord. It was not Prince Roger being a suicidal idiot. Or, rather, it was not Prince Roger on his own being a suicidal idiot."
"I was not being suicidal," Cord interjected. "As you yourself just pointed out, Captain Fain's group would have soon cleared the deck. All I needed to do was to hold off the pirates for a short time."
Roger grabbed his ponytail and yanked at it in frustration.
"Captain Pahner, do you want to handle this?"
"Shaman Cord," the captain said, very formally, "this was not a good decision on your part. It's not our job to endanger Roger unnecessarily."
"Captain Pahner," the shaman replied, just as formally, "I am Prince Roger's asi. He is not mine. It is not his duty to preserve my life, and he was in no danger of direct attack when I left his side. Moreover, the fact that I am asi does not absolve me from the responsibilities of every Warrior of the Way. Indeed, as one who is asi—whose own life was saved by one under no obligation to do so—I am bound by the Way to extend that same generosity to others. Symmetry demands it... which means that it was clearly my responsibility to prevent the slaughter of innocents. But it was not Prince Roger's responsibility to join me when I acted."
Pahner opened his mouth. Then he closed it again while he thought about it for a moment and, finally, shrugged.
"You know, Your Highness, he's got a point. Several of them, in fact." He thought about it a bit longer, and as he did, a faintly evil smile creased his face.
"What?" Roger asked angrily.
"Ah, well, Your Highness," the captain sounded suspiciously like a man who was trying not to chuckle, "I was just wondering how you feel with the shoe on the other foot for once."
Roger began a hot retort, then stopped abruptly. He glowered at the captain, then looked around as Despreaux began to laugh. Finally, he smiled.
"Ahhh, pock you all," he said with a chuckle of his own. "Yeah, okay. I get the point." He shook his head, then took a look around the deck. "So, now that that's out of the way, does anyone know what the situation is?"
"It appears to be mostly under control," Captain Fain said... just as two Mardukans—a Diaspran infantry private and one of the pirates—burst upward out of one of the hatches. They fell to the deck, rolling over and over, with the Lemmar using all four arms to push a knife at the private's neck while the private tried to push it back with his true-hands and flailed at the heavier pirate with both false-hands.
Roger and his companions watched the two of them roll across the deck, too surprised by their sudden eruption to do anything else. But Erkum Pol, as always following Fain like an oversized shadow, reacted with all of his wonted efficiency. He reached down with two enormously long arms, jerked the pirate up by his horns, head-butted him, and then let him go.
The pirate dropped like a rock, and the private waved a hand at Pol in thanks.
"As I was saying," Fain continued. "More or less under control. The Lemmar are fighting... very hard. None have surrendered, although a few—" he gestured behind him at Pol's victim "—have been rendered unconscious."
"I'm not sure that one's going to survive," Roger observed. "Maybe Erkum should have used a plank."
"Be that as it may," Fain said. "We have the ship."
"And these three surviving prisoners," Roger mused. He hooked one thumb into his gunbelt and drummed on the leather with his fingers while his free hand gestured at the female at Cord's feet. "Watch this one. She's a tough little thing."
Then he pulled out his clasp knife and stepped closer to her.
"So," he said, switching his toot to the local dialect. "What's your story?"
These new maybe-vern were very noisy, and the one with the pistols had a really incredible voice. It was so loud Pedi's ears were still ringing. More importantly at the moment however, and whatever language they were using, it was clear there was some disagreement, and she just hoped it wasn't over whether or not to throw everyone over the side, or burn the ships with them still on board. Finally, the one she'd tentatively pegged as the leader—although everyone seemed at first to be angry with him—turned to her.
"What you bard's tale?" he asked in a hash of Krath and High Krath.
Pedi knew enough Krath to figure out what he'd said, but the question didn't make very much sense. And she had to wonder what would happen if she told the truth. They knew Krath, so they were in contact with the Fire Priests. That meant that they would know what a Server of God was. But if she tried to tell them she and her fellow captives weren't Prepareds and they found out, it would only make things worse. Lie, or not lie? Some of them were dressed like Shin, though, and the old one had fought to save them from the Lemmar. Maybe they were allied to the Shin, and she'd just never heard of them?
Not lie.
"I am Pedi Karuse, daughter of the King of Mudh Hemh. I was captured by a raiding party to be a Slave of God. We were being sent to Strem, to be Servants there, but we were taken by the Lemmar in turn, and now by you. Who are you, anyway?"
One of the other Shin prisoners had recovered from the dragging and now looked over at her with wide eyes.
"What happened that the Vale of Mudh Hemh could be raided?" she asked Pedi in Shin.
"I guess the Shadem found a way through the Fire Lands," Pedi said, flicking her false-hands in the most expressive shrug her manacles allowed. "With the Battle Lands so picked over, they must have decided to strike deep. In our sloth and false security, we allowed them to come upon us unaware, but I was outside the walls and raised the cry. And was taken anyway, if not unawares," she snorted.
"What is the language you are using?" the leader asked. Or, she thought that was what he'd asked, anyway. It was difficult to be certain, given the mishmash of Krath and Shin he was speaking.
"It is called Shin," she told him, and decided to be diplomatic about his... accent. "How do you know it?"
"I know it from you," the leader said. Then he leaned over her, and a knife blade suddenly appeared on the... thing in his hand.
The one nearest him, another vern, caught her snap-kick in midair.
"Whoa, there," the vern said, with an even thicker accent. "He's just cutting the chain."
The leader had jerked back so quickly, despite being off center, that she probably would have missed anyway. She filed his—probably "his," although all of the vern wore coverings which made it hard to tell—extraordinary reflexes away for future consideration. But he seemed remarkably unbothered by her effort to separate his head from his shoulders and gestured at the chain with the knife.
"Do you want that cut off, or would you rather keep it on?"
"Sorry," Pedi said, holding out of her arms. "Off."
Now that she could see it clearly, the knife looked remarkably like a simple clasp knife, albeit made of unfamiliar materials. But whatever it might look like, its blade cut through the heavy chain—and her manacles—effortlessly. The vern seemed to exert no strength at all, but her bonds parted with a metallic twang, as easily as if they had been made of cloth, not steel.
"That's a nice knife," she said. "I don't suppose I could convince you to part with it?"
"No," the leader said. "Not that I don't appreciate your chutzpah." The last word was in an unknown language, but the context made it plain, and her false-hands shrugged again.