The birds stopped painting us within a few minutes. We must have emptied every gull within a mile.
The captain, backed by most of his fidgeting crew, edged forward from the waist of the ship until they had us well trapped in the bow. With his hand on his knife, Garett said, “That’s a peculiar way for birds to behave. Odd. Unlikely.”
I decided that acting timid was a good way to get thrown overboard with a slit throat. “Sure as hell was! In the islands of Ir, it’s a sign of remarkable good fortune.” I dabbed my finger in some of the bird shit and drew a nonsense symbol on the gunwale. “There, I shared some of that luck with you.”
Garett crossed his arms, tapping one finger against his shoulder. “Never heard of anything like that. Nothing like it at all. Not a single thing.”
I laughed. “It’s poorly understood on the mainland. You should regret that they didn’t crap all over you too.” Behind me, I heard Halla sigh.
Garett gave a slow nod. “I understand enough. You’re cursed. Demon-struck. I planned to rob you tonight and throw you over the side, but . . .” He glanced back over his shoulder. “I guess we should do it—”
The man stopped talking when I thrust my sword into his chest. I withdrew, and the sailors behind Garett yammered as he fell to his knees and then flopped onto the deck.
I craned my head to examine the clustered sailors. “Who is captain now?”
Several men stared at Skip, who snarled at me through his blond beard as he reached for his knife. Before he pulled it, I killed him too. “Who’s next in line?”
The two sailors closest to me glanced at each other and scooted backward. Three other men edged forward, shouting uncertain insults. When one of them holding a club ran at me, I killed him too. Halla rushed up and swept another man’s legs with her spear. He scrambled backward on his butt, begging not to be killed, and she let him go.
Weapons could be heard hitting the deck all the way back to the stern.
I bellowed in a fine, seagoing voice, “I don’t feel bound to kill every one of you. Let’s make terms.”
The remaining sailors were backing away past midships. Then five men moved forward through the group, all armed with swords that they seemed comfortable handling. I lay my sword over my shoulder and grinned at them. “So, you must be the bunch of murderers Garett hired to deal with us. You’re clever to wait until he got killed before you presented yourselves. Now you can take everything, if you live.”
None of them seemed jolly, but the one in the center looked as grim as a boot to the head. He was a big, clean-shaven man with black hair, and he balanced himself without a bobble as the ship rode the swells. “Here are the terms for you,” he said. “Give us the gold, and we won’t cut your throats. You can take the boat and go wherever the dick-dropping hell you want.” He and his friends all stood ready to attack or defend.
Before I could say something sarcastic, Halla made a standing, six-foot leap forward. At the same time, she thrust one-handed with her seven-foot spear. In that one movement, she drove the broad spearhead through the man’s throat and out the back of his neck. She withdrew while the corpse was still spurting blood, and the man’s four companions watched him collapse.
I pointed my sword at the closest one. “Let’s talk about that boat.”
Before sunset had dissolved into pure dark, the four surviving killers lay in the boat that Steffi’s Thumb had been towing, all bound hand and foot.
“Why keep them prisoner?” Halla muttered to me. “Kill them, or let them row away.”
Of course, I wanted them alive so that I could kill them tomorrow and the day after, and so keep my bargain with Harik. However, I feared that Halla might find fault with that reasoning. “I may wish to question them later.”
“About what?”
“About the state of piracy and thuggery here on the Bending Sea.”
Halla’s brow furrowed. “Why?”
“Hell, I may want to be a pirate someday! I wanted it when I was a boy, and it’s not too damn late to give up on it.” I strode back toward the bow before she could ask me about my childhood or what kind of pirate ship I wanted.
Twelve sailors remained out of Garett’s crew, which left us a bit short-handed. I assigned Dab and Wentl to help work the ship, although they lacked even a speck of seamanship between them. The crew could sail the ship with twelve if they stepped fast, even burdened by my bodyguards.
Steffi’s Thumb needed a captain. I understood why the surviving sailors might hesitate to volunteer. I insisted that they choose one of their number as captain, though, and a bald old man named Coog, as brown and weathered as one of the masts, agreed to give orders. He knew Garett’s intended destination, a busy little town called Paikett in one of the dumpier northern kingdoms.
I told the new captain to proceed with our journey. He was to tell me if he had any trouble. He himself was not to cause me any trouble. Then I took my stained, stinking person to the bow where we had made informal camp, and I slept while Whistler stood watch. From that point on, one of us would always stand watch. We didn’t trust Coog and the crew not to beat us to death in our sleep.
The next morning, we enjoyed sweet, clear weather and a breeze on our quarter. I took Pil aside, although it was impossible to locate a quiet spot on a sixty-foot ship
