Jherek gazed down into Sabyna's eyes and felt shamed. That she should have to ask him was his own failing. He held his hand in hers, feeling her fingers knotted up in the material of his shirt.
Her eyes searched his. "Can you promise me your heart, Jherek?" she asked again.
"Lady-"
"The answer can be so simple," Sabyna said. "Despite everything else you have on your mind, despite the other troubles that have your attention, there can be only two answers. Anything else would be no answer at all, and that wouldn't be fair to me after all I've revealed to you."
In the end, he knew what his answer must be, and why. He was not the man he needed or wanted to be, and she deserved far more than he ever could be.
"No."
Her fingers unknotted from his shirt and she pulled her hand back. Jherek made himself let go her hand, thinking he would never again have the opportunity to touch her.
"You tell me no, yet you made the diviner a promise not knowing what she might ask."
"There was no choice in that, lady."
"There's always a choice, Jherek. That's what life is about."
"Lady, I've never had the choices of others."
"No," Sabyna said. "I think maybe you've never been one to fight time or tide, Jherek. You gave your promise to the diviner even though that promise might take your life."
"Lady, I swore my life to you."
"Your life isn't what I wanted," Sabyna said. "A chance at a life with you is all that I asked."
She turned to go, tripping over a line in the rigging even though she'd been so surefooted earlier.
"Lady-" Jherek took a step forward, meaning to catch her, meaning to tell her-something.
The bag of holding at her side suddenly erupted and the raggamoffyn exploded from it. The bits and pieces of cloth wove themselves into a serpentine shape that struck like a cobra. The blow hammered Jherek's chest hard enough to knock him off balance.
"Skeins!" Sabyna cried, grabbing the raggamoffyn as it prepared to strike again. "No!"
Reluctantly, the familiar backed away, relaxing and floating easily on the wind.
Steadying himself, Jherek stared at the pretty ship's mage. Before he could find anything to say, a voice bawled out a warning from below.
"Slavers! Slavers off the port bow!"
IX
10 Flamerule, the Year of the Gauntlet
Jherek turned to face Black Champion's port side. Below, the pirates ran across the deck, following orders Azla barked out on the run. The pirate captain grabbed the railing of the prow castle steps and hauled herself up.
"Malorrie!" Azla yelled. "Do you see the damned ship?"
"Aye," Jherek replied in full voice. "She's off to port about a thousand yards."
"Her heading?"
"For us, Captain."
There was no doubt about her heading. White-capped breakers smashed against her prow as she cut across the green sea. Her lanyards bloomed with full canvas, harnessing the wind as she rose and fell on the great hills of the Sea of Fallen Stars.
"Is she riding high?" Azla demanded. "Or wallowing like some fat-arsed duck?"
"She's riding low, Captain," Jherek bellowed back between his cupped hands, "but she's coming hard."
He turned to glance at Sabyna but found the ship's mage was already climbing rapidly down the rigging. The young sailor's heart hurt as he watched her go.
He grabbed the book Glawinn had loaned him and quickly shoved it into the leather pouch where he stowed his gear. He left the pouch tied to the rigging, hoping it would be there when he got back. Out of habit he took the bow and quiver of arrows he'd brought up with him.
Glancing back at the approaching ship, the young sailor noted that it had gained considerably, pulling to within eight hundred yards and still closing. Black Champion held a south-southwesterly course, headed for the coast of Turmish. The slaver ship drew on due east, running straight ahead of the breeze as it swooped upon them.
"Bring her about!" Azla thundered. "Take up a heading due east. She's got our scent, boys, but let's see if the bitch can run!"
Black Champion came about smartly, taking up the easterly course. Deck crews sprang into action, bringing around the sails and running up new canvas. The caravel jumped in response to the wind, diving forward through the rolling brine hills. She dived into a wave, miring down, sliding back and forth like a hound trying to run up a muddy incline, then-when she broke through-she surged forward, her prow coming out of the water.
Jherek abandoned his place. Azla already had a man up in the crow's nest acting as a spotter. He pulled the bow and quiver over his shoulder, then ran through the rigging toward the bowline that ran from the mainmast to the prow.
He crossed the rigging without a misstep, pulling his cutlass free of the sash around his waist. He paused long enough to hang his hook from one boot, making sure it was secure, then he unknotted the sash. Shaking out the sash's length, he steadied himself on the rigging, then used the tautness of the ropes to spring up high. With the way Black Champion fought her way through the sea, the move was risky, but he trusted himself.
Holding the cutlass in one hand, he flipped one end of the sash over the bowline, then caught it in his fingers while holding the other. Squeezing both ends of the sash tightly, he hung from the bowline for just an instant, then began the long slide down to the prow. The sash sang across the twisted hemp. He lifted his feet to clear the canvas belled out from the forward mast.
Sliding across the bowline, Jherek glanced at Black Champions, decks and watched the pirates taking their battle stations. They brought the prow and stern heavy ballistae around and fitted them with the ten-foot-long bolts. Two men began winding the winch that drew the great bowstring back.
The bowline was tied off at the end of the bowsprit sticking out from Black Champions prow. Judging the distance and the caravel's pitch, Jherek released one end of the sash. It unfurled from the bowline, and he fell to the prow castle, landing only a few feet from the forward ballista crew.
The young sailor rolled to his feet gracefully. He looped the sash back around his hips and slid the cutlass home, adding the hook from his boot a moment later. Taking the bow from his shoulder, he placed one end against his boot, took the greased string from his pocket, and strung it quickly. He unbound the strap that kept the arrows tight in the quiver and slid four shafts free. He nocked one to the string, then held the other three clasped in his left hand on the bow.
Azla stood at the prow railing, her scimitar naked in her fist. The wind tangled her dark hair. She took her chain mail shirt from a crewman and quickly pulled it on. The ringing chains on leather barely sounded over the crack of the canvas and the smashing waves.
"Who is she?" Jherek asked.
"I don't know the ship," Azla answered, "but I know the flag."
Jherek concentrated on the flag atop the approaching ship's mainmast. A feathered snake curled across a field of quartered black and red, mouth open and fangs exposed.
"They're of the Blood Tide," Azla said, "a loose network of slavers who work for the Night Masks in Westgate."
The slaver vessel was within four hundred yards, its advance slowing as Black Champion seized the wind. Jherek rode out the rise and fall of the ship, his free hand resting on the railing while the other held the nocked bow.
"Unfurl the spinnaker!" Azla shouted.
Crewmen rushed to the ship's prow. An instant later, the white sail billowed out, blotting the sky from forward view.
"Cap'n!" a mate squalled from the crow's nest. "Something just leaped off from that ship's rigging, and it ain't falling. Some kind of bird."
Jherek peered into the cloudy blue sky. The sun setting behind them turned the cloud banks blood-mist red, but he could make out half a dozen black shapes boiling out from the ship's lanyards.