sing. On the river, the little boat with the sail drew closer. Berren scrunched up his face, trying to work out why the man had sounded familiar. ‘What’s odd?’ he asked after a bit. Tasahre was staring out at the water.
‘Those men. Their swords. They were real.’ She stood up. The players had reached the soldiers with the leather skirts. They were dancing around them, teasing them. The men played their pipes while the women offered up skins of wine and then snatched them away again. Abruptly Tasahre stood up. ‘He’s here! Your master! He’s here!’
Berren looked up and down the docks, searching. ‘What?’
The old harbour watchtower. The day he and Master Sy had climbed it to look at the ships and they’d seen the Headsman’s flag.
‘There.’ She pointed out to the water, to the little boat with the sail.
It had turned. It was heading straight in for the docks.
33
Tasahre was up and running. A shout came from somewhere up on the ship. The soldiers by the steps turned, confused, and then several of the players, the men who’d been singing and dancing and making music just a moment ago, drew swords and attacked. The soldiers fell, caught by surprise, the swordsmen too close for the soldiers to use their long axe-spears. Three of the players, the ones with swords, ran up the steps; the rest bolted for the far end of the docks and vanished into the alleys there. Out on the river, Berren couldn’t see the little boat with the sail any more. It had vanished behind the bulk of Radek’s ship.
He leapt up and raced after Tasahre. More shouts rang out from the ship. He saw her ahead of him, bounding up the narrow rope-and-wood steps and disappearing onto the deck. She made him feel slow even though he knew he wasn’t, molasses to her lightning. He didn’t even have a sword. Just his stupid waster. They certainly weren’t going to stop the thief-taker, that much was already clear.
He pushed himself faster, jumping over the dead soldiers sprawled at the bottom of the steps. If they’d had swords then he might have stopped to take one, but he hadn’t the first idea what to do with their stupid pole-arms so he let them be and raced up the steps. The deck of the ship had become a swirling melee. There might have been a dozen men fighting on each side, more of Radek’s soldiers pouring up from inside the ship only to be met by men climbing over the side from ropes thrown from the little ship with the sail. There were already bodies, a few of them, some lying still, others crawling, hauling themselves to some semblance of shelter and leaving thick dark streaks of blood on the deck behind them. There was an air of desperation. As Berren watched, one man fell, another reeled away with half his arm missing, screaming. Berren’s eyes sought Tasahre.
Master Sy! Even in the chaos, Berren knew the thief-taker from the way he moved. He cut down one of Radek’s men and moved straight at another, howling curses all around him. ‘Tethis! For Tethis!’
The rest of the men fighting with him could have been anyone. City snuffers, maybe, although they fought with a grim determination and hardly any of them had swords; they had clubs and boat-hooks and knives. At the top of the steps, on the edge of the deck, Berren stood, frozen, wondering what to do.
‘Stop!’ The shout came from above him. He looked up. Tasahre was standing up in the rigging, ten feet above him. ‘Stop! Now!’
For a moment, the fighting paused, but the one person who didn’t falter was the thief-taker. The soldier in front of him hesitated. Master Sy opened his throat and went straight on to the next, hacking the man’s arm off at the elbow. ‘Tethis!’ he screamed.
The soldiers in their leather skirts faltered. The thief-taker pushed forward. There were sailors, too; some of them had picked up clubs and hooks of their own, but now they were backing away, keeping behind the soldiers. Some were already shimming down the ropes that tied the ship to the dockside.
‘No!’ Tasahre jumped onto the deck, her swords in her hands. She walked through the fight like a ghost. No one, soldier or sailor, dared to go close. ‘Thief-taker!’ she cried. ‘Thief-taker! Stop! Stop now! I cannot let you do this.’
Back on the docks, another gang of men came spilling out of Hammersmiths’ Passage, screaming and waving their sticks. They ran towards the ship, howling. Master Sy rained blow after blow at the last soldier in his way. The man kept his halberd down, forcing the thief-taker to keep his distance for a moment, but then the thief-taker was inside the soldier’s guard. Blood sprayed across the deck and the soldier went down, clutching his throat.
And then Tasahre and the thief-taker faced one another.
‘Thief-taker!’ With deliberate care, she sheathed both her swords. She stood completely still, lit up by the afternoon sun, yellow robes streaked with blood from the men dying around her. In that moment she seemed to glow.
Behind Berren, at the entrance to Hammersmiths’, a new commotion broke out as yet more men came down from Toolmakers’ Square, soldiers this time, the Emperor’s men. Berren thought he saw more sword-monks too.
‘Master!’ Berren shouted. ‘Master! Stop!’
For a moment, the thief-taker paused. He stared at Tasahre and then at Berren. The fighting on the deck faltered, and then Berren saw Tasahre stiffen. Her head snapped towards the doors beneath the spar-deck. A man was coming out. He was old, not a greybeard yet, but his face was weathered and his hair was thinning. His clothes were rich and the hilt of his thin sword was jewelled. To Berren, his face seemed pained. Around his throat, a black scarf of shadow fluttered in the breeze, and he walked as though the shadow was a knife held at his throat. Master Sy bared his teeth and almost leapt straight at him, but Tasahre was looking straight through this man that Berren knew must be Radek of Kalda — for behind Radek, something else had stepped out of the gloom. It wasn’t even a man, but a creature, a creature made of the shadows themselves. Berren’s throat tightened. A silence stilled the deck. The fighting stopped, although the commotion on the docks behind Berren went on.
‘Radek!’ hissed the thief-taker.
‘Warlock!’ Tasahre had her swords in her hands again. The shadow-thing pointed a wispy tendril at her.
‘It is my day, monk,’ hissed the wind. ‘Abyss-Day. Fall on your swords and die!’
No one moved. For a moment, Tasahre stood frozen. Then she raised one sword towards the sun. ‘Look above you, demon! Your power is not greater than mine, not today, not under this sun.’ She took a step towards him and flared with light. ‘End!’
That was as far as she got before the thief-taker let out a roar.
‘No! You’ll not stop us, not now, not even you!’ The thief-taker lunged at her. Tasahre darted sideways, caught the next swing with her own blade, and then the two of them were a blur of swords. Around them, Radek’s soldiers surged forwards. On the docks behind Berren,
The command rang inside his head.
‘Syannis!’ Berren thought he heard the justicar’s voice from somewhere in the midst of the chaos behind him. At the steps to the ship.
He had no choice. The sword-monk was going to kill his master. He had to stop her! A little part of him screamed and screamed, but there was a piece missing from inside him, and so the rest of him didn’t hear. The rest of him knew, with a cold certainty, what he had to do, no matter how much it pained him.
There were men running up the steps, the heavy boots of the Emperor’s soldiers. But Berren was already halfway across the deck.
