Darrick held the man there. There didn't seem to be enough air in the room. He heard the whistle blasts behind him, one of them closing in.
"Put the sword away," a woman's calm voice ordered him. "Put it away now."
Darrick turned, bringing his cutlass around, intending to back the woman off. But when he attempted to parry the staff she held, she reversed the weapon and thumped it into his chest.
A wild electrical surge rushed through Darrick, and he fell.
Morning sunlight streamed through the bars of the small window above the bunk chained to a stone wall. Darrick blinked his eyes open and stared at the sunlight. He hadn't been taken to the dungeon proper. He was grateful for that, though much surprised.
Feeling as though his head were going to explode, Darrick sat up. The bunk creaked beneath him and pulled at the two chains on the wall. He rested his feet on the floor and gazed out through the bars that made up the fourth wall of the small holding cell that was an eight-foot by eight-foot by eight-foot box. Sour straw filled the thin mattress that almost covered the bunk. The material covering the mattress showed stains where past guests had relieved themselves and thrown up on it.
Darrick's stomach whirled and revolted, threatening to empty. He lurched toward the slop bucket in the forward corner of the holding cell. Sickness coiled through him, venting itself in violent heaves, leaving him barely enough strength to hang on to the bars.
A man's barking laughter ignited in the shadows that filled the building.
Resting on his haunches, not certain if the sickness was completely purged, Darrick glared across the space between his cell and the one on the other side.
A shaggy-haired man dressed in warrior's leathers sat cross-legged on the bunk inside that cell. Brass armbands marked him for an out-of-town mercenary, as did the tribal tattoos on his face and arms.
"So how are you feeling this morning?" the man asked.
Darrick ignored him.
The man stood up from the bunk and crossed to the bars of his own cell. Gripping the bars, he said, "What is it about you, sailor, that's got everybody in here in such an uproar?"
Lowering his head back to the foul-smelling bucket, Darrick let go again.
"They brought you in here last night," the shaggy-haired warrior continued, "and you was fighting them all. A madman, some thought. And one of the Peacekeepers gave you another taste of the shock staff she carried."
A shock staff, Darrick thought, realizing why his head hurt so much and his muscles all felt tight. He felt as if he'd been keelhauled and heaved up against the barnacle-covered hull. Several of the Peacekeepers carried mystically charged gems mounted in staffs that provided debilitating jolts to incapacitate prisoners.
"One of the guards suggested they cave your head in and be done with it," the warrior said. "But another guard said you was some kind of hero. That you'd seen the demon everybody in Westmarch is so afraid of these days."
Darrick clung to the bars and took shallow breaths.
"Is that true?" the warrior asked. "Because all I saw last night was a drunk."
The ratchet of a heavy key turning in a latch filled the holding area, drawing curses from men and women held in other cells. A door creaked open.
Darrick leaned back against the wall to one side of the bars so he could peer out into the narrow aisle.
A jailer clad in a Peacekeeper's uniform with sergeant's stripes appeared first. Dressed in his long cloak, Captain Tollifer followed him.
Despite the sickness raging in his belly, Darrick rose to his feet as years of training took over. He saluted, hoping his stomach wouldn't choose that moment to purge again.
"Captain," Darrick croaked.
The jailer, a square-built man with lamb-chop whiskers and a balding head, turned to Darrick. "Ah, here he is, captain. I knew we were close."
Captain Tollifer eyed Darrick with steel in his gaze. "Mr. Lang, this is disappointing."
"Aye, sir," Darrick responded. "I feel badly about this, sir."
"As well you should," Captain Tollifer said. "And you'llfeel even worse for the next few days. I should not ever have to get an officer from my ship from a situation such as this."
"No, sir," Darrick agreed, though in truth he was surprised to learn that he really cared little at all.
"I don't know what's put you in such dire straits as you find yourself now," the captain went on, "though I know Mr. Hu-Ring's death plays a large part in your present predicament."
"Begging the captain's pardon," Darrick said, "but Mat's death has nothing to do with this." He would not bear that.
"Then perhaps, Mr. Lang," the captain continued in frosty tones, "you can present some other excuse for the sorry condition I currently find you in."
Darrick stood on trembling knees facing the ship's captain. "No, sir."
"Then let's allow me to stumble through this gross aberration in what I've come to expect from you on my own," Captain Tollifer said.
"Aye, sir." Unable to hold himself back anymore, Darrick turned and threw up into the bucket.
"And know this, Mr. Lang," the captain said. "I'll not suffer such behavior on a regular basis."
"No, sir," Darrick said, so weak now he couldn't get up from his knees.
"Very well, jailer," the captain said. "I'll have him out of there now."
Darrick threw up again.
"Maybe in a few more minutes," the jailer suggested. "I've got a pot of tea on up front if you'll join me. Give the young man another few minutes to himself; maybe he'll be more hospitable company."
Embarrassed but with anger eating away at his control, Darrick listened to the two men walking away. Mat would have at least joined him in the cell, laughing it up at his expense but not deserting him.
Darrick threw up again and saw the skeleton take Mat from the harbor cliff one more time. Only this time as theyfell, Darrick could see the demon standing over them, laughing as they headed for the dark river below.
"You can't take him yet," the healer protested. "I've got at least three more stitches needed to piece this wound over his eye together."
Darrick sat stoically on the small stool in the healer's surgery and stared with his good eye at Maldrin standing in the narrow, shadow-lined doorway. Other men passed by outside, all of them wounded, ill, or diseased. Somewhere down the hallway, a woman screamed in labor, swearing that she was birthing a demon.
The first mate didn't look happy. He met Darrick's gaze for just a moment, then looked away.
Darrick thought maybe Maldrin was just angry, but he believed there was some embarrassment there as well. This wasn't the first time of late that Maldrin had been forced to come searching for him.
Darrick glanced at the healer's surgery, seeing the shelves filled with bottles of potions and powders; jars of leaves, dried berries, and bark; and bags that contained rocks and stones with curative properties.
The healer was located off Dock Street and was an older man whom many sailors and longshoremen used for injuries. The strong odors of all the salves and medicants the thin man used on the people he gave care to filled the air.
Fixing another piece of thin catgut on the curved needle he held, the healer leaned in and pierced the flesh over Darrick's right eye. Darrick never moved, never even flinched or closed his eye.
"Are you sure you wouldn't like something for the pain?" the healer asked.
"I'm sure." Darrick stepped away from the pain, placing it in the same part of his mind that he'd built all those years ago to handle the hell his father had put him through. That special place in his mind could hold a whole lot more than the discomfort the healer handed out. Darrick looked up at Maldrin. "Does the captain know?"
Maldrin sighed. "That ye got into another fight an' tore up yet another tavern? Aye, he knows, skipper. Caron is over there now, seein' about the damages an' such ye'll owe. Seein' as how much damage ye been payin' for lately, I don't know how ye've had the wherewithal to drink."