“What? Why?” The captain’s face darkened from red to purple, “This may be nothing more than a fine for you, sir, but I could have my ship seized.”
“I would not despair of that, Captain,” the seneschal said, nodding to Clomyn and Caius.
“I took your word, sir, as a high official of Argaut, and I am shocked that—The captain’s next few words were lost in the sound of the crossbows unleashing their bolts.
The brothers had fired three shots each before the mate had recovered enough to gasp; the captain was at the rail in time to see the last of the three sailors on the cutter fall back with a quarrel in his throat. He looked down in horror at the scull to see the agent and one of the rowers, the agent supine, the rower prone, bolts in the throat and neck as well.
On the floor of the scull one sailor remained, a quarrel lodged in his lower spine, his legs useless, as he flailed helplessly in the bilge. Caius laughed aloud and cuffed Clomyn on the ear.
“Blunderer! Cheese-fingers! Look at that!”
His brother shouldered him angrily, aimed, and fired again. The sailor lurched and then lay still. Caius shook his head and clucked in mock disapproval.
“Two quarrels for one man? What a waste! A sin, I tell you. A sin!”
“I could keep my scale of bolts used to men killed one-to-one if I bury my bow’s stock in your forehead, Caius,” his brother growled.
“Hoist the scull, aboard,” Fergus ordered the Basquelcis crew; the sailors stared at the bewildered captain and the horrified mate, then quickly jumped to the rail, drawing the long rowboat to the ropes.
“What is going on here?” the captain demanded, striding toward the seneschal. “Desist! What are you—
The seneschal grabbed the man’s throat and, with a wrenching swing, slammed him into the mast. Fury burned in his eyes as he squeezed, pressing his bent knuckle in between the bones of the man’s clavicle. The captain gasped and flailed helplessly, his eyes blinking in an attempt to remain conscious.
The seneschal pulled the captain back and battered his head against the mast again, and again, over and over, shaking the mast, pounding relentlessly until blood spattered the mains’l in stripes and flecks, bits of the man’s brain caking the timber.
Finally, with a vicious tug, he dragged the captain’s corpse to the outer rail, the side of the deck aligned with the open sea. He snatched the binnacle, the box containing the man’s beloved compass and navigational maps, lashed it quickly with a length of rope and tied it around the dead man’s neck, then tossed his body overboard. He stared as corpse hit the waves and sank. Then he turned back to the crew; he took a moment to straighten his triangular hat and brush the green-gray matter from his cloak.
“I do so hate being questioned,” he said casually.
Fergus stared in dismay over the side.
“Why, if I might ask, did you toss the binnacle too, Your Honor? How are we to navigate now?”
The seneschal inhaled. “I wanted the captain to have clear directions to the Underworld,” he said, his tone light. “And we don’t need those petty tools. Faron will guide us with the scales.”
The sailors looked to one another doubtfully. “Yes, sir,” Fergus said.
“And now,” the seneschal continued, striding up to the first mate and stopping before him, “now there is a question of you, sir. Do you wish to ascend to the captaincy?”
The man squared his shoulders and looked the seneschal directly in the eye.
“No,” he said, quietly and firmly. “I know that you will kill me in the end, whether I aid you or not. So I choose not to.”
The seneschal’s muscles rippled with anger. “I will not kill you in the end; you are wrong in that,” he said, his voice seething. He turned and walked away from the mate, then nodded to the twins.
The crossbows fired again within a breath of one another. The mate’s body only lurched once as it tumbled over the side.
“I will kill you in the beginning,” the seneschal said. He turned to the reeve. “Where is Quinn?”
“Here, sir,” came the sailor’s voice, shallow and thready. The seneschal motioned for him to come forward.
“It seems you have command now, Quinn. Prepare to weigh anchor, after securing the scull and once the cutter has moved on.”
The sailor’s blue eyes blinked rapidly in the unfiltered sunlight on the open water. “Moved on, sir?”
In reply the seneschal turned back to the cutter. He walked to the rail, studying the listing ship for a moment.
“Spill the sails,” he called to Quinn, who quickly repeated the order. The crew leapt to grab the sheets and discharge the wind, gathering the napping canvas as quickly as they could.
The seneschal closed his eyes and drew Tysterisk, reveling in the gust of air, the rush of power that came forth with it, the harnessed wind itself. He opened his eyes and looked to the sails of the cutter, which began to fill with wind.
The Basquela remained at anchor, riding the shallow waves, as the cutter began to bear away, into the wind, sailing briskly out of the harbor toward the sluice. From any distance it appeared as if the harbormaster’s ship, satisfied, had departed from the Basquela, moving on to patrol the outer port.
The seneschal looked about the immense harbor, where many ships were passing, some moving into dock, others already moored, some dealing with their own inspections by other vessels of the harbormaster. The cry of the gulls, the glare of the sun, the slap of the wind as the cutter sailed away; ordinary business in Port Fallen.
“Bear away, against the wind,” he ordered Quinn. “Take us out of the harbor, across the sluiceway and around the point.” Quinn scrambled to obey.
When the Basquela was no longer in sight of the wharf, the seneschal tapped Clomyn on the shoulder.
“Here’s your chance to make up for your miss earlier,” he said, the gleaming blue of his eyes mirroring the sky.
Clomyn came to the rail. “Where, sir?”
“The mains, I think.”
The crossbowman sighted his weapon, out of range for a normal archer by more than three times. “Ready, sir.”
The seneschal touched the tip of the quarrel, and spoke the word kryv; ignite.
The tip of the bolt gleamed red for a moment, then blazed forth in a spark of dark fire. It hissed menacingly as it snapped to life.
The seneschal nodded, and Clomyn fired. The wind lay eerily still for a moment as the bolt soared over the ocean currents and out of sight.
Then, at the very edge of their vision, a tiny finger of smoke rose from the mains’l.
“Well done,” the seneschal said to Clomyn. He raised the sword and reached down into himself, where the element of air, of wind, was bound to his dark soul.
The breezes that scudded along the sea between the Basquela and the cutter picked up, gaining strength, then bound together; a small waterspout appeared for a moment as they passed over the waves, gusting toward the empty ship. A heartbeat later, the crew of the Basquela saw the cutter’s sails go full.
Within another heartbeat the cutter’s mains’l exploded in flame. The fire leapt high up the mast, then raced from the forecastle to the stern, all in the twinkling of an eye. All on the deck of the Basquela, stood and watched, rapt, as the red-orange fireball resolved itself in black ash, burning caustically, the ship a bright, skeletal outline in the smoke.
“Bear a-hand, Quinn,” he said to the new captain, who was trembling slightly as the horns and bells began to sound in the distance. “Follow the coast. I want to drop anchor again in the morning. It is ungentlemanly to keep a lady waiting.”
15
In the morning of the eighth day, the drilling stopped suddenly.