Deadhouse Gates

Another marine, a grizzled veteran, barked out, 'Your sergeant? Let's hear some names, stranger.'

'Whiskeyjack. Other sergeants? Not many left. Antsy. Tormin.'

'You're Corporal Kalam, ain't you?'

The assassin studied the man. 'Who are you?'

'Nobody, sir, and been that way a long time.' He turned to his lieutenant and nodded.

'Can we count on you?' she asked Kalam.

'Not up front, but I'll be close by.'

She looked around. 'The treasurer's got an Imperial Writ — we're shackled to it, Corporal.'

'I don't think the treasurer trusts you, should it come down to making a choice between him and the captain.'

She made a face, as if tasting something bad. 'This attack's madness, but it's sharp madness.'

Kalam nodded, waited.

'I guess the treasurer's got reason.'

'If it comes to it,' the assassin said, 'leave the bodyguards to me.' 'Both of them?'

'Aye.'

The veteran spoke up. 'If we make the sharks sick in the gut with the treasurer, we'll hang for it.'

'Just be somewhere else when it happens — all of you.'

The lieutenant grinned. 'I think we can manage that.'

'Now,' Kalam said, loud enough to be heard by every marine, 'I'm just another one of those grease-faced civilians, right?'

'We never figured this outlawing stuff was for real,' a voice called out. 'Not Dujek Onearm. No way.'

Hood, for all I know you may be right, soldier. But he hid his uncertainty with a half-salute before making his way back down the length of the deck.

Ragstopper reminded Kalam of a bear crashing through thickets as it barrelled along — lumbering, broad and solid in the spraying high seas — a spring bear, an hour out of the den, eyes red-rimmed with old sleep, miserable and gnawed with hunger deep in its belly. Somewhere ahead, two wolves slinking through the dark. . they're in for a surprise. .

The captain was on the sterncastle, braced against the hand manning the tiller. His First Mate stood near him, one arm looped around the stern mast. Both were glaring ahead into the darkness, awaiting the first sighting of their quarry.

Kalam opened his mouth to speak, but a shout from the First Mate stopped him.

'A point to port, Captain! Beating three-quarters! Hood's breath, we're right on top of her!'

The pirate vessel, a low, single-masted raider barely visible in the gloom, was less than a hundred paces away, on a tack that would cut directly in front of Ragstopper. The positioning was breathtakingly perfect.

'All hands,' the captain bellowed through the howl of the storm, 'prepare to ram!'

The First Mate bolted ahead, shouting orders to his crew. Kalam saw the marines crouch low to the deck, readying for the impact. Faint screams reached the assassin from the pirate vessel. The taut square sail, storm- jibbed, billowed suddenly, the ship's prow pitching away as the pirate crew made a last, doomed effort to avoid the collision.

The gods were grinning down on the scene, but it was the rictus of a death's head. A swell lifted Ragstopper high just before the contact, then dropped the trader down onto the raider's low gunnels, just behind the peaked prow. Wood exploded, splintered and shuddered. Kalam was thrown forward, losing his grip on the starboard stern rail. He pitched from the sterncastle, struck the main deck with a tucked shoulder, rolling as the momentum carried him forward.

Masts snapped somewhere above him, sails whipping like ghost wings in the rain-tracked air.

Ragstopper settled, grinding, popping, canting heavily. Sailors were screaming, shrieking on all sides, but Kalam could see little of what was happening from where he lay. Groaning, he worked his way upright.

The last of the marines were plunging over the forward port rail, down and out of sight — presumably onto the raider's deck. Or what's left of it. The clash of weapons rose muted beneath the wailing wind.

The assassin turned, but the captain was nowhere in sight. Nor was there anyone at the tiller. The wreckage of a snapped spar cluttered the sterncastle.

Kalam made his way aft.

The locked ships had no steerage. Waves were pummelling Ragstopper's starboard hull, flinging sheets of foaming water across the main deck. A body lay in that wash, face down and leaking blood that stretched weblike in the rolling water.

Reaching the man, Kalam turned him over. It was the First Mate, his forehead sharply caved in. The blood was coming from nose and throat; the water had washed clean the killing blow, and the assassin stared at the damage for half a dozen heartbeats before rising and stepping over the corpse.

Not so seasick after all.

He climbed to the sterncastle and began searching through the wreckage. The man at the tiller had lost most of his head, only a few twisted ropes of flesh and skin holding what was left of it to the body. He examined the slash across the neck. Two-handed, a step behind and to the left. The spar crushed what was already dead.

He found the captain and one of the treasurer's bodyguards beneath the sail. Splinters of wood jutted from the giant tribesman's chest and throat. He still gripped his two-handed tulwar. The captain's hands were shredded ribbons closed on the blade-end, blood pulsing from them to stain the swirling wash of seawater. A massive discolouring reached the span of the man's brow, but his breathing was steady.

Kalam pried the captain's fingers from the tulwar blade and dragged him free of the wreckage.

Ragstopper loosed its grip on the raider at the same time, dropping down into a trough, then pitching wildly as waves battered its hull. Figures appeared on the sterncastle, one taking the tiller, another crouching down beside the assassin.

Glancing up, Kalam found himself looking into Salk Elan's dripping face.

'He lives?'

'Aye.'

'We're not out of trouble yet,' Elan said.

'To Hood with that! We've got to get this man below.'

'We've sprung leaks up front — most of the marines are at the pumps.'

They lifted the captain between them. 'And the raider?'

'The one we hit? In pieces.'

'In other words,' the assassin said as they manhandled the captain down the slippery steps, 'not what the treasurer planned.'

Salk Elan stopped, his eyes sharpening. 'Seems we've slunk on the same path, you and I.'

'Where is the bastard?'

'He's taken command … for now. Seems every officer's suffered an unlikely accident — anyway, we've got the other vessel closing on us, so, like I said, the fun's anything but over.'

'One thing at a time,' Kalam grunted.

They made their way down through the galley and into the passage. Water swirled ankle-deep, and the assassin could feel just how sluggish Ragstopper had become.

'You pulled rank on the marines, didn't you?' Elan asked as they reached the captain's door.

'I don't outrank the lieutenant.'

'Even so. Call it the power of notoriety, then — she's already had harsh words with the treasurer.'

'Why?'

'The bastard wants us to surrender, of course.'

They carried the captain to his cot. 'A transfer of cargo in this blow?'

'No, they'll wait it out.'

'Then we got time enough. Here, help me get him undressed.'

'His hands are bad.'