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side!"
Yanth shouted, "They've killed Jaim - no truce!"
But the attackers had backed off, and Ry caught Yanth's wrist in his hand.
They stood sweating and panting in the small room, with Jaim and two attackers
dead on the floor in pools of their own blood, strangers staring at each other
with expressions of bewilderment on their faces.
Below, someone started screaming, and the attackers said, "Run! Out the back,
before the guards are called."
Yanth pulled his wrist free with a snarl and said, "I want them dead."
Ry was swinging his pack over his shoulder and wiping the blood from his blade
onto the mattress where he had so recently lain. "Run with them, or we'll be
charged with these deaths. We have no friends here and no one to speak for us;
we'll be hanged."
Yanth's face went hard and cold. "What of Jaim?"
Ry knelt and quickly felt for any sign of life in Jaim's body. The pulse was
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gone, the eyes - half-open
- stared sightless and unblinking, the flesh had bleached a bloodless, ghostly
white. He clenched a fist and fought back tears. "His body will stay with
these others. His spirit will forgive us, I hope."
Yanth swore, then grabbed his own pack and fled down the hall with Ry,
following the attackers.
Through blurry eyes, Ry saw faces peering at them through the cracks of
almost-closed doors.
They pounded down the stairs three steps at a time, leaped from the middle
step on the last course to thud into the hallways, found Kelje and the kitchen
wench crouched over the body of
Boscott Shrubber, which they appeared to have dragged out of the fireplace -
and then Ry and
Yanth were out the door and running through the mud that sucked at their bare
feet and pulled at their breeches.
Ry regretted the loss of his boots, but not as much as he would have the loss
of his freedom. He and Yanth overtook the slower Keshi Scarred first, then
caught up with and overtook the running humans. All of them reached the
Peregrine's trollop-painted longboat together, and jumped in, and cast it off.
Ry and Yanth took oars with the others and began pulling toward the ship with
all their strength.
As they rowed, one of the attackers picked up where Ry had left off. "You're
Ian Draclas's brother?"
"Half-brother."
"Then why in the hells-all have you consigned your soul to Rrru-eeth?"
"I serve Ian's interests."
"You serve that traitorous bitch," the speaker said. "With my own ears, I
heard you swear your loyalty to her. We all did."
"I swore my loyalty to the true captain of the Peregrine. The true captain is
my brother."
"Who is dead because of her."
"He isn't dead. I rescued him from the Ancients' city in Novtierra not long
after Rrru-eeth abandoned him there. He's in Calimekka now, and I intend to
get his ship back to him - with Rrru-eeth aboard it. He can decide what to do
with her once she's in his hands."
"He did swear loyalty to the true captain," one of the other men said. "Those
were his very words:
'I swear loyalty to the true captain.' I thought it was funny at the time,
because I knew she wasn't really the captain, but I thought he thought she
was."
One of the Keshi said, "And he knowed the ship was Peregrine, not that damned
Jerrpu name bitch-captain give it." The lizard-eyes blinked at Ry slowly, and
the lizard tongue flicked in and out, in and out, sampling the air. "He don't
taste like he lying."
Ry thought of Jaim, dead without cause, and he wanted blood in payment for his
death. But if he sought his payment from the blood of those who could become
his allies, when he needed allies more than anything else, he would be twice a
fool. The one who needed to pay for Jaim's death was Rrru-eeth. He wanted her
blood - for what she'd done to Kait, and now in repayment for Jaim.
He leaned into his oar. Bitterly, he said, "If you were loyal to Ian, why did
you let Rrru-eeth leave him and Kait and Hasmal and your own people behind?
Why didn't you fight with the others?"
"Rrru-eeth caught us by surprise," the man who'd done most of the speaking
said. "She sent those she knew were loyal to Ian into the city, supposedly to
gather the last few treasures before Ian and Kait and that wizard came back
with whatever they'd gone after. A few of her people went with them, and when
Ian's men were well away from the ship, Rrru-eeth's ran back, thinking to take
the longboats and simply abandon everyone who wouldn't support Rrru-eeth. But
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Ian's men weren't asleep on their feet. They ran back to the beach, fought for
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