not brawn. No one here ever has time for talk, not even when it would have saved you. Kennit tried to show you. You can't hide from what is happening outside your little town. Sooner or later, the rest of the world catches up with you. Kennit tried to warn you. He told you to fortify the town, but you wouldn't listen. He brought slaves here and set them free amongst you, but you would not look at them and see yourselves! No, you'd rather hide here in the muck like some garbage-eating crab, and trust that the world will never take notice of you! It doesn't work that way. If you'd listen to him now, you'd find out how to be men again. I've seen the sketches in his room. This harbor could be fortified. Divvytown could declare itself. You could dredge this stinking slough you call a harbor and claim a place on the traders' charts. All you'd have to do is stand up and say, we are a people, not a band of outlaws and Jamaillia's outcasts. Choose a leader and stand up for yourselves. But no. All you want to do is splatter some more brains, work some more death and then go hide under another rock until the Satrap's raiders dig you out again!'
The boy had run out of breath. Kennit hoped the others could not see his trembling. He pitched his voice low, as if for Wintrow alone, but he knew his words would carry. 'Give it up, son. They wouldn't listen to me, they won't listen to you. This is all they know. Fighting and hiding. I've done what I could to try to teach them to be free men.' He shrugged one shoulder. 'They'll do what they'll do.' He lifted his eyes and looked over the crowd. Some of the tattooed faces he saw were vaguely familiar. Slaves he had brought here as free men, he realized, as one after another they dropped their eyes from his gaze. One slave, braver than the rest, suddenly stepped apart from the mob.
'I'm with Kennit,' he said simply, and crossed the small space to stand with Sorcor's sailors. Half a dozen others followed him wordlessly. The mob began to shift restlessly as its numbers dwindled. Some of those who had come down from the jungle's edge stood apart from them, plainly reluctant to take sides. Nothing seemed as clear as it had a few moments before.
A woman's voice was raised suddenly. 'Carum! Jerod! Shame upon you! You know what he says is true! You know it!' It was Alyssum. She was standing in the Marietta's boat. Sorcor must have put her there. She pointed accusingly at the young men as she named them. 'Vahor. Kolp. You teased Lily and me, saying Father had offered her hand to a madman and mine to his first mate. And what did my mother tell you? That they were men who saw how the future could be! Men who were trying to help us be more than a village on the edge of nothing. And now she is dead! Dead! Kennit didn't kill her. Our stupidity did! We would not listen to him. We needed a king to protect us, but we mocked his offer!'
Kennit's shirt stuck to his back with perspiration. By now, both the Marietta and the Vivacia would have put out more boats. If he could just keep them from attacking him for a few moments longer, he would soon have enough men at his back to sway the odds more in his favor. He would still probably die. The boy in front of him and the woman at his side would at most slow down one or two of them. Then he would die, once they pressed him and he had to step away from the rock that braced his peg. He would die.
Some of the folk in the back of the crowd were standing more loosely. They had stepped slightly apart from their fellows, and struck poses more listening than threatening. Boj was not one of them. He and the five or so men standing closest to him stood with their shoulders raised and elbows out, gripping their weapons hard. The resistance from the other survivors only seemed to inflame Boj's anger. The young man at his side was most likely his son. Boj's breath came faster and harder, while his mouth worked as if he could not find words sharp enough. 'You're wrong!' he roared suddenly. 'It's his fault! His fault! He brought them down on us!' His voice rose into a shriek, and then he leaped forward, cudgel swinging. The crowd behind him was suddenly in motion, surging forward like a wave.
Boj's cudgel swept the place where Wintrow's skull had been. The boy had ducked, but not deeply enough. Kennit saw the glancing blow snap his head to one side. He expected the boy to go down. He planted his crutch and lifted his knife to defend himself. A young tough had engaged Etta's blade. She'd be no help to him.
As Kennit raised his blade, Wintrow suddenly sprang up again between him and Boj. Like a sapling blown to one side but not snapped, the boy swept back to his stance. The shock showed plain on Boj's face, but the fool had already drawn his cudgel back for a blow intended to kill Kennit. His chest was wide open; no doubt the tavern keeper was accustomed to a bar between himself and his victim. Wintrow's knife slammed into the man, punching through his shirt and vest and into his hard belly. Wintrow screamed as he did it, a cry of both horror and hate. Boj roared, injured, but far from dead.
The fighting closed in from all sides. Kennit could hear Sorcor roaring curses to encourage his men as they sliced through the crowd toward him. He heard the shrieks of women, and knew that some folk fled the fight. Everything was happening at once, yet Kennit felt he stood in an island of stillness. Etta was down in the mud with her man, shrieking, stabbing and wrestling. Kennit was dimly aware of the other fighting going on about him. He heard yells from the water, probably the men in the boats shouting their frustration at not landing yet. Behind him, two men grappled in the mud. One kicked out and clipped the end of his crutch, sending him staggering a half step into the mud. Boj's cudgel came crashing down on Wintrow's shoulder as the boy pulled out his knife and punched it into the man again. Kennit heard a solid smack as the cudgel connected and Wintrow's yell of pain and then he staggered into them. He caught himself on Boj and used his own knife. His crutch was gone; his peg sank into the mud, throwing him to one side. Boj's dying flail with the cudgel just missed him. Kennit fell across Wintrow, and then Boj came down upon them both like a tree falling. The weight of the tavern keeper slapped Kennit down into the shining mud.
The sheer indignity of it energized Kennit more than any anger. With a roar, he threw the heavier man off him. A slice of his knife across Boj's throat made sure of him. He scrabbled up onto his good knee, and saw Etta back-down in the mud. She gripped two-handed the wrist of a powerful man who was trying to plunge a knife into her with one hand while throttling her with the other. Kennit shoved his knife into him just to the right of the man's lower spine. The man shrieked and spasmed in the shock of his pain. Etta used the moment to turn the knife from herself into the man's gut. With the same thrust, she rolled out from under him and came to her feet, crying, 'Kennit, Kennit!' She was filthy. She scrabbled through the mud toward him, then stood over him protectively with her knife. It was too humiliating. Kennit struggled to stand.
As swiftly as the melee had begun, it was abruptly over. His pirates were left standing. Anyone in the mob who had truly wanted to fight was down. The rest had withdrawn a safe distance. Somehow, Sorcor had contrived to cut through the thick of it, as usual. As Kennit lost his balance and sat back in the mud, Sorcor casually dispatched a wounded Divvytown man and stepped across the remaining space between them, extending a broad hand dripping both mud and blood. Before Kennit could object, Sorcor had seized him by his jacket front and set him back on his feet. Etta found his crutch and offered it to him. It, too, was thick with muck. He accepted the filthy thing and tried to look nonchalant as he tucked it under his arm.
At his feet, Wintrow had managed to get as far as his knees. In his right arm, he cradled his left, but he still gripped his knife as well. This Etta noticed and she gave a proud laugh. Heedless of his moan, she seized him by the back of his shirt and hauled him upright. To Kennit's surprise, she gave the boy a rough hug. 'You didn't do too badly, for your first time. Next time, duck deeper.'
'I think my arm is broken,' he gasped in reply.
'Let me see.' She seized his left arm and worked her hands up it. Wintrow gave an involuntary cry and tried to pull away from her, but she held him fast. 'It's not broken. If it were broken, you would have passed out when I did that. I think it might be cracked a bit, though. You'll get over it.'
'Help me get to firmer ground,' Kennit demanded, but it was Sorcor who took his arm and helped him along. Etta and Wintrow followed together. For an instant, that rankled. Then he reminded himself that it was his intention to throw Etta and Wintrow together. They passed the handful of men who had died, and one who sat with his head bowed over his slit belly. The other Divvytown folk had fallen back to a safe distance. One of his crewmen had been gashed on the leg, but for the most part, they were unharmed. The outcome did not surprise Kennit. They had had the advantage of full bellies and decent weapons, experienced fighters against town brawlers. Only the odds had been against him, and a few deaths had quickly changed that.
Once he was where he could stand on his own, Kennit wiped his hands firmly down the front of his hopelessly spoiled trousers. He glanced past the crewmen who encircled him protectively to the ruins of the town. Nowhere to take a bath, nowhere to have a quiet drink, nowhere to sell his booty. Nothing left of Divvytown. No point in staying. 'Let's get out of here,' he said to Sorcor. 'There's a man in Bull Creek with a link to Candletown. Last time we were there, he was bragging he could get us better prices for our swag. Maybe we'll try a bit with him.'
