would certainly provoke the warrior into hitting the nosy sailor. She relented, deciding that a fight would mean another run-in between Mal and the first mate. No one needed that. 'He just got it wrong, Mal. Hear any news in the galley?'
The blond soldier shoved a whole biscuit in his mouth, chewed twice, then swallowed. 'Yeah, actually I did. One of the cooks heard that the captain of Azoun's carrack, the, uh-' He scratched his head in confusion.
'Welleran,' John said between bites of fruit. He glanced at Mal and realized that the thickness of his facial bones accentuated the bewildered look that often clung to the warrior.
'Yeah,' Mal said, 'the Welleran. Anyway, the captain supposedly took some of the gold that was meant to be sacrificed to Umberlee before the fleet left Suzail. They say that he was the cause of that storm.'
'They going to give him a trial?' Kiri asked, leaning back against the railing.
Mal wiped his mouth on the sleeve of his coarse woolen shirt. 'Nah. He's dead. Got washed overboard during the storm.'
'The gods take their due,' Razor John noted. Kiri nodded, and Mal just scratched his chest through his damp clothing.
A voice from the rigging broke the silence that followed the fletcher's comment. 'Ship off the starboard!'
The companions squinted until they saw a small speck near the horizon. In minutes, the Sarnath's bow had been realigned toward the dot. John, Kiri, and Mal sat near the bowsprit for a time, watching the other ship grow larger and larger. The first mate, a cross, foul-mouthed woman, came by soon and sent them to their morning tasks.
Mal muttered defamations against Sembians, dalesmen, and anyone else he could think of as he made his way to the ship's hold. John didn't envy the soldier his duty, which was to feed, clean, and exercise the horses stored in the deepest part of the ship. The animals were kept in slings much of the time to prevent injury. That captivity made them high-strung and skittish, though. Many was the day that Mal came back from his duty with a bloody bite mark or large purple bruise from one of his charges.
Kiri cheerfully went to her station in the rigging. The daughter of Borlander the Trollslayer had keen eyes, so she was often assigned lookout duty. Despite the fact that her job was more dangerous than Mal's, she relished the time it gave her away from the crowded deck. She'd even invited John up into the masts on occasion, but the fletcher found the heights too unsettling to stay there long.
Razor John spent his days working on arrows and fletching. Azoun's generals had made it clear to all the ship's captains that weaponsmiths, including fletchers and bowyers, were to be given the time to work on tools for the crusaders. Without the freedom to stroll, selling his wares, John found the work a little tedious. Still, if he closed his eyes and tried to ignore the slight swaying of the deck, he could picture himself back in the marketplace. The noisy bustle of sailors and soldiers, the salty tang in the air, and the cry of seabirds lofting over the ship certainly made it easy to imagine the Sarnath as an extension of Suzail's market.
The fletcher was letting his mind wander over his days in the marketplace when he heard Kiri's voice from high on a mast. 'Ship close to the starboard.'
'Signal her,' came another voice from the deck. John listened for a reply, but if there was one, it was lost in the murmur of the people nearby.
Quickly John stacked the shaft he was working on to the pile he'd finished in the hour since the ship had first been sighted. He stood, stretched, and glanced at the ruined carrack that foundered a few hundred yards from the Sarnath.
The derelict ship's rigging hung loose, and its sails were shredded and limp. Gulls stood unmolested on the rail, a clear indication that something was wrong onboard the tri-masted carrack. For ten minutes, the Sarnath tried to raise a response from the ship, which someone eventually identified by its serpentine masthead as the Turmish vessel, Ouroboros. No one on the transport replied to the shouts or signals from the Sembian cog.
'The Ouroboros is part of the crusaders' fleet,' a sailor told John. The fletcher frowned and wondered if he knew anyone who'd shipped out on the now-abandoned vessel.
A sharp rap on the shoulder brought John out of his contemplation. 'Ho, fletcher,' the first mate snapped. 'Come with me. I've got some real work for you.' She spun around and pushed her way across the crowded deck.
Razor John sighed, then followed. The first mate had decided shortly after the start of the trip to make his and Kiri's life miserable; the fight Mal had started with her the first night out from Suzail was certainly the reason. Still, the fletcher knew it was futile to argue.
'Help lower that,' the first mate told John. She pointed to a small boat that hung at the rail. Without a word, he went to work with three others, lowering the craft and its two passengers into the water.
One of the men in the boat was a Sembian sailor. The other was a young, gold-haired cleric. His robes and the holy symbol around his neck indicated his worship of Lathander, the God of Dawn and Renewal. 'I'll signal you if I need help,' the priest shouted as the sailor took up the oars and started to row toward the Ouroboros.
The first mate placed a rough hand on the shoulder of the captain, who now stood nearby, and said, 'We should be ready to attack if need be.' She pointed to the wallowing carrack and added, 'This might be some kind of pirate trap.'
The captain, a slothful, careless man with a few days growth of beard darkening his cheeks, simply nodded. He scanned the seemingly abandoned ship with watery gray eyes, then turned his attention to flicking the smaller spots of dirt from his soiled white and gold uniform. This was a scene that Razor John had seen repeated in various forms throughout the voyage. It was clear, to the fletcher at least, that the first mate actually ran the Sarnath.
'All right, fletcher. Get your bow and get right back here.' The first mate cupped her hands over her small, cruel mouth. 'All archers to the starboard rail. Bring your weapons.'
The cry was relayed around the cog, and John listened to men and women grumble as they gathered up their weapons from the spots where they slept. The fletcher took his longbow from his bed near the bowsprit and returned to the first mate's side.
Much of the ship's attention was focused on the little boat as the sailor and the cleric made their way across to the Turmish ship, then boarded her. Only the gold-haired priest climbed up to the carrack's deck. The few mottled seabirds that had gathered along the rails scattered into the air when he got close. Squawking and screeching angrily, the birds circled over the two ships. A few of the men attempted to shoot the scavengers out of the sky, but the first mate swiftly ordered the men who'd fired at the birds be put to hard labor for the afternoon. John simply frowned at the waste of good arrows for impromptu target practice.
After a few moments the priest appeared at the Ouroboros's rail and waved to the Sarnath. 'No one left alive,' someone muttered behind John. The fletcher was thinking the very same thing.
The Sembian sailor rowed the small boat back to the Sarnath faster than he had rowed away from her. The priest seemed to be bowed in prayer the entire way back.
'Well?' the captain asked when the ship's boat got near. 'What did you find?'
The priest tried to stand, but the boat rocked so much that he nearly tumbled into the sea. His companion grabbed him by the hem of his scarlet robe and yanked him back to a sitting position. From their erratic, almost frantic actions, it seemed clear that both men had been frightened by what had been discovered on the abandoned carrack.
'Plague,' the priest replied at last. He took his holy symbol-a wooden disk painted a rosy pink-and rubbed it between his hands. 'They're all dead.'
A rumble of concern and fear ran along the rail, as those who heard the priest's report discussed it with their neighbors. The first mate cursed and spat into the water. 'Well, Captain,' she said at last, 'there's not much doubt about what we should do now.'
Again the captain nodded. 'Not much doubt at all.'
The two men in the boat couldn't hear the discussions held at normal levels onboard the ship, but they must have sensed something was wrong. They both grabbed for the oars and attempted to push the small boat closer to the black-hulled Sembian cog.
The first mate turned to Razor John. 'Kill both the sailor and the priest, fletcher.'
John gasped. 'No!' he said, outrage in his voice.
The first mate raised her callused hand as if she were going to strike the fletcher, then she stopped. 'Those men have been exposed to plague,' she hissed. 'Kill them before they get aboard, or we'll end up just like the
