thumped along behind: better with him than against him. Leaving the inn he winced as the bright morning glare stabbed his eyes.
The day’s fee-collecting had already begun. They entered the crowd, but unlike yesterday, when Antsy had had to push his way through the press, it parted before them as if everyone sensed that something was up. The faces he passed betrayed hostility, curiosity, resentment, and even smug smiles as if some knew what waited out at the Spawns — and it wasn’t pretty.
Malakai handled the transaction. Antsy experienced a moment of light-headed avarice when the man tipped a stream of cut rubies on to the tabletop. Whatever this man was after out at the Spawns, riches could not be it. He probably already possessed enough to purchase a title in Darujhistan. Free Cities Confederation troops escorted them to the launch.
‘So you made it safe and sound, I see,’ a voice greeted Antsy when he jumped up and swung his legs into the tall boat. Malakai, already within, turned to the voice, his eyes narrowing dangerously. There, ensconced at the stern, sat the young Darujhistani nobleman from the Island Inn who’d probably saved Antsy’s neck.
Antsy touched Malakai’s arm. ‘It’s okay. I met him here.’ Malakai just turned away to occupy the prow.
Antsy leaned over the side to help Orchid up. She tried to clasp his hand but he avoided that to show her the wrist grip. He hauled but barely raised her; the girl was surprisingly heavy.
‘Wait,’ said the young sword who had moved next to him. He jumped over the side and knelt before Orchid. ‘You may stand on me, m’lady.’
Orchid stared at his bent back as if it were some sort of cruel trick — that he would tumble her into the surf or move aside at the last instant. ‘Go ahead, lass,’ Antsy growled. ‘Give the damned fool your boot.’
She planted one muddy shoe on his back and, steadied by Antsy, swung the other over the side. Looking rather embarrassed, she sat down among their equipment. Antsy helped the nobleman back up. ‘Thanks,’ he told him. ‘And thanks again.’
‘Yes. Thank you,’ Orchid added, her flushed face turned aside.
‘It was nothing,’ and the young man bowed.
‘Anyone else!’ a guard bellowed from the beach. ‘Anyone else for today?’
‘So, what’s your name?’ Antsy asked.
The lad bowed again, brushed back his long brown hair. ‘Corien. Corien Lim. Honoured, sir.’
Antsy cocked a brow. ‘Honoured? What in the Abyss for?’ He touched his neck. ‘It’s me who’s grateful.’
The lad smiled. ‘Honoured to meet a veteran. I am a great admirer of your, ah, military organization.’
Antsy lost his ease and frowned, glancing about. ‘Yeah. Well. Keep that under your damned hat.’
The youth laughed. ‘It is quite obvious to everyone, sir, I assure you.’
Confederation guards began pushing the launch out. Antsy steadied himself. ‘Sir? I ain’t no Hood-damned officer.’
‘Your name, then. If you would?’
‘Red.’
Corien’s gaze rose to his hair. ‘Admirable alias.’ Grinning, he bowed to Orchid and returned to the stern.
Antsy sat amid the coiled rope and piled panniers. ‘Thanks for all your help,’ he muttered aside to Malakai. But the man continued to ignore everyone, his gaze on the horizon and the black dots of the distant Spawns.
Glancing back, Antsy watched the crowd diminishing on the beach. He caught eyes glaring daggers at him. It was Jallin sending doom and destruction upon his head by way of the evil eye. The youth drew a finger across his neck in a universal gesture. Antsy simply turned aside: he was on his way while the thief was stuck in Hurly. And that, he decided, must lie at the root of the youth’s fanatical hatred.
The crossing took most of the day. First, the twelve guards rowed them out to a waiting double-masted Confederation coaster. Here they were offered smoked meats and kegs of water at outrageous prices. They declined. The sails were raised and they headed south, crossways to the prevailing easterlies.
Antsy watched Corien strike up conversations with the sailors. Easy charm, that one had. Boundless confidence that seemed to flow into anyone he addressed. Had to watch out for that. Confidence got you killed. Better to be careful. Better to be … suspicious.
He settled into the deepest shade he could find on the coaster’s deck. He unwrapped his grinding stone, spat on it, and set to work on the edges of his long-knives. He knew they thought he was crazy, all his buddies in the army. They sure looked at him askance whenever he gave his opinion. But he was also just as sure he’d long ago come to the deepest truest secret about how to stay alive … and it was one most people either didn’t want to know, or couldn’t face up to.
The truth is that the goal of existence is to kill you.
Once you grasped that essential truth it was pretty much everything you needed to know in a nutshell right there. He’d learned that the hard way, growing up working Walk’s fishing fleet and then in the army. Of course, the world always won in the end. The only real question was just how long you could hold out against all the infinite weapons and tools and stratagems at its disposal. The only way he’d succeeded so far was in always expecting the worst.
‘Look at him,’ Orchid snorted from where she leaned against the ship’s railing. ‘The peacock fool. Can’t he see they’re just stringing him along — laughing at him?’
Antsy turned an eye on Corien, still joking with the sailors. ‘Maybe. Where’s our employer?’
She peered round the deck. ‘Don’t know. He sort of disappeared the moment we got on board.’
‘Good.’
She pulled her wind-tossed long hair from her face, peered down at him, puzzled. ‘Why?’
He let out a long breath, brushed a thumb across the long-knife’s edge.
‘Whatever do you mean?’
He shrugged. ‘No one’s come back, right? So who’s to say they don’t just dump us over the side?’
‘But — that would be murder!’
He winced. ‘Keep your voice down, lass. And yeah — it would. But these boys are pirates and wreckers for generations. Nothing new for them.’
‘No. I don’t believe it.’
The Spawns grew to the south. They became a collection of jagged black-rock islands. The only signs of life were wheeling cawing seabirds and faint tendrils of smoke rising here and there amid the peaks. They didn’t look all that big, only the main island, which at sea level looked as wide as a mountain. From there it climbed steep and saw-edged into a series of knife-like crags. He wondered why it hadn’t sunk lower. Could it have landed on shoals? Surely the Rivan Sea wasn’t so shallow this far out. It also struck him that the entire mammoth structure listed to one side. Antsy canted his head as he followed the angle down to where the waves crashed in a distant white surf at the waterline.
At last a reef-like collection of black rocks reared ahead, sharp-edged and spotted with bird-droppings. The sea hissed and the muted roar of surf reached Antsy. At a yell from the mainmast the anchor was dropped. Men ran for the sails, taking them in. Their bare feet thumped over the deck timbers. Some readied the ship’s boat, a flat- bottomed punt.
Malakai appeared at Antsy’s side. ‘We’ll disembark now.’
‘Aye.’
The punt was lowered into the rough waters and four sailors climbed down to handle it. Their equipment was lowered by rope. Antsy climbed down first then called for Orchid. She was lowered in a sling that he helped guide from below. Next came Malakai. Last, Corien swung down on one of the punt’s ropes. The sailors pushed off using long polished poles. Everyone crouched as low as possible as the tiny punt yawed alarmingly.
Poling from rock to rock the sailors made good time. Soon the ship was lost to sight behind a maze of stone shards that varied from man-height to ship-size. The farther they penetrated into the eerie reef the smoother the water became until it was as if they were crossing a land-locked lagoon.
‘Look there,’ Orchid cried, pointing.
