Her hand shot out of the water and gripped his glove. Her throat bobbed and she let out a gurgling, choking sound. She was trying to speak. ‘Hhhhhh… guuuuuh.’
‘You don’t have to say anything.’
‘Maaaaahhh… Awwwwd.’ She tried to lift her face up out of the brine, but he stopped her again. ‘Maaasss.’
‘Maskelyne? They mentioned Maskelyne?’
She nodded.
‘You let me worry about him,’ he said. ‘Ianthe’s in no danger. They want her to find trove.’
She relaxed her grip on his glove. For a long moment she just looked up at him from under the water. Finally she nodded.
Granger pushed her head under and held her there until she stopped moving.
Back upstairs, Granger peeled off the heavy whaleskin gloves and laid them on the top stair banister. If Hana was going to wake from her toxic shock, she’d do so some time within the next few hours. He’d need to carry her body to the opposite cell then lower her through the hole in the floorboards into deeper brine. But he’d wait until she was aware of what was happening. He didn’t want her to wake up alone.
Creedy would have taken Ianthe straight to Maskelyne, which meant she must have arrived at his island keep by now. A direct assault on Maskelyne’s fortress would be impossible without the assistance of the Imperial Navy, and Granger wasn’t in a position to arrange that. Stealth might get him to the fortress walls, but he would be unlikely to find a way inside. He’d have to wait until Maskelyne took Ianthe out onto the open seas to dredge for trove and then attack Maskelyne’s ship directly. He’d need a deepwater vessel, a crew and weapons.
And Granger had none of them.
He heard a boat’s engine thrumming in the canal outside. Something about it disturbed him. In the six years he’d lived in Ethugra, he’d grown accustomed to such noises: the post boat, his neighbours’ vessels, the passenger taxis. He didn’t recognize the sound of this one.
Quickly he ran to the window and peered out.
She was an old iron straight-sided coastal barge of the sort that used to bring whale oil into the city from the depots and shell keeps out by the Ethugran Reef. A fat bow wave surged before her as she sped along Halcine Canal. Granger spat a curse when he saw the crew waiting aboard.
Hookmen.
Six of them stood on the barge’s deck, wrapped in bulky whalers’ oilskins. Half of them clutched harpoons, flensing poles or head-spades, but the rest carried knives. The helmsman wore a brine mask and goggles, but the rest were naked-faced, scarred and bearded – hard men from the former gutting stations along Dunvale Point. They were looking Granger’s way.
He grabbed his whaleskin gloves and pulled them on. Then he ran downstairs and waded along the corridor to Hana’s cell.
She was as he’d left her – lying unconscious in the shallow brine.
Granger scooped her into his arms. As he half-dragged, half-carried her out to the corridor, he could hear through the open cell window the barge cut her engines, followed by the sound of boots pounding across his wooden jetty.
In the opposite cell, he pulled her over to the hole in the floorboards. His chest was tight with agony again, and his breaths seemed to whistle in his throat. Now he could hear raised voices coming from upstairs.
‘I’m sorry, Hana.’ he whispered into her ear. And then he eased her body down through the hole.
Most of the air had already gone from her lungs, and so she slipped away into the brine and crumpled gently onto the floor of the flooded room below. A cloud of sediment rose around her, muddying the tea-coloured waters.
Granger dragged one of the broken pallets across the opening to hide it, and turned as the first of Maskelyne’s Hookmen came through the door.
From their appearance they might have been Drowned men themselves. Their leader stood half a foot shorter than Granger, but he was far stouter and more heavily muscled. Sharkskin covered most of his naked forearms like a skin of cracked cement. He had daubed the wounded flesh with some greasy white tincture. Five gutting knives with wooden handles and blades of varying curvature and length hung from loops on the front his padded oilskin. He grinned, displaying wide brown teeth, as the others filled the doorway behind him.
‘Hello, Tom,’ he said. ‘How are you doing, Tom?’
Granger scowled at him. ‘I know you?’
‘Don’t think so, but I know you.’
‘What do you want?’
‘I don’t like that tone of voice, Tom,’ the other man replied. ‘Why are you taking that tone of voice with me?’ He stepped forward, pushing out his chest as though challenging Granger to reach for one the knives hanging there. ‘I mean, you’re a fucking Drowned lover, aren’t you, Tom? You shouldn’t be speaking to me like that.’
Granger had seen his type in a hundred bars and back alleys. He had no patience with this fool.
‘Get out of my house,’ he said.
The Hookman grinned. ‘That’s not nice, Tom. We’re only doing a job here.’ He looked down at the pallet covering the hole. ‘I mean, you sound like someone who wants their face shoved in the fucking brine. Why would you want that, Tom?’
There were four others blocking the doorway behind, but they couldn’t all push through the door at once. Since he wasn’t getting out of here without a fight, Granger thought it best to have the fight on his own terms. No sense in waiting.
He slugged the Hookman in the face.
Granger’s blow was as hard as any he’d ever given. The Hookman grunted in surprise, but he didn’t go down. The bastard had a neck like a girder. Granger brought his other fist up in an uppercut, striking the other man under the chin. He heard the blow connect. It should have broken the Hookman’s jawbone.
But it didn’t.
The shorter man came at him in a rage, pummelling his stony fists under Granger’s ribs.
Granger didn’t want to allow him any space to let the others in, so he drew in his elbows and suffered the punches. They felt like hammer blows. He brought his elbow up into the other man’s armpit to halt one angle of attack, while trying to force him back towards the door.
But the Hookman was too strong for him. He shoved back, one fist continuing to pound Granger’s ribs, the other arm trying to reach over Granger’s elbow, scrabbling to grab his hair. With his free left hand Granger fish-hooked the man’s cheek, jerking that fat snarling face to one side. He grunted and heaved, but couldn’t find the strength to break the other man’s neck. The pair wrestled in the shallow brine, the Hookman’s teeth gnashing Granger’s fingers, dribbling spit down his wrist. Behind him, the others were pushing forward, trying to get past their leader.
Granger’s right hand was pinned against his opponent’s chest. He reached around until he felt the handle of one of the Hook-man’s knives. He grabbed the weapon and yanked at it, but it wouldn’t budge. Instead he forced the handle down, trying to turn the blade upwards into the other man’s guts.
Out of nowhere, something cracked against his skull.
The room reeled. He tasted blood.
He wrenched the knife handle down, heard a grunt.
Another blow struck his ear.
Specks of white light flashed at the edges of his vision.
A third blow sent him staggering back against the wall.
‘Fucker cut me.’
The lead Hookman stood ankle deep in brine, clutching a wound in his side. From the small amount of blood evident, Granger could tell that the knife hadn’t gone in very deep. Beside the wounded man, another, taller, fellow gripped a long pole with a curved iron tip. This, then, had to be the weapon that had struck Granger. The pole-wielder stepped aside to let a third, bearded, man into the cell.