I approved of her plan, although she sure as hell didn’t need my approval. I had grown accustomed to her presence and expected I’d miss her a little, but it surprised me when sadness closed my throat, as if I had thrown away something important and couldn’t get it back. I coughed and said, “I think you’re wise to go.”
Pil nodded. “Good. That’s good.”
“Do you know where you’ll go?”
Pil shrugged, turned, and walked five paces to the other side of the ship, steady on her new sea legs despite the swells. She lay down on the wet planks and went to sleep.
A perfect landfall is a ticklish thing to achieve. That afternoon, when land came into view with no sign of a port, it did not reflect poorly on Captain Coog’s seamanship. We sailed west along the coast of the Kingdom of Five Falls, appreciating the pale beaches that rose up to a clotted mass of dark-green tropical trees.
I said to nobody in particular, “I’ve never had the pleasure of visiting this kingdom, but everything I hear about it is bad.”
Whistler chuckled. “I lived here for a bit after I deserted the Empire. It was so charming I almost sailed back and begged them to hang me.”
“What’s so bad about it?” Bea asked. “It’s pretty. The weather’s nice. There are beaches. Do they have a lot of plagues or bad water?”
Whistler grinned at the coastline. “It’s the name.”
“Don’t try to be clever,” Bea said.
“I’m not joking. Used to be the Kingdom of Beringslack, but a new king slaughtered all the Beringslacks, so the kingdom needed a new name. He thought naming it after waterfalls would be cute.”
Halla nodded. “He had to change the name to something.”
“Sure,” Whistler said. “But he had only three waterfalls, and he didn’t think Three Falls sounded poetic. So, he invaded the next kingdom over, took their waterfall, and made all their people slaves.”
“What an awful piece of scum,” Bea said. “Why is it Five Falls, then?”
“He didn’t like the sound of Four Falls, either, so he had his slaves dig a channel to make the fifth waterfall. They say it killed half of them. The whole awful mess took twenty years.”
Pil hissed and turned away.
Whistler went on: “The next winter, the king’s son assassinated him. That’s justice you don’t see too often.”
Bea said, “My merciful gods, that’s horrible. ”
Whistler waved his hand. “No, that’s not even the horrible part. The people of Five Falls are boastful about all this history. They tell stories about it. Sing long-ass poems. They hold a festival in the spring and build little waterfalls of wine, and they make prisoners dig ditches all day. My wife hauled me to it.”
All of us stared at Whistler. Pil’s mouth fell open.
Whistler shrugged. “Why can’t I have a wife?”
We went back to watching the beach glide past. I glanced at Dab and Wentl now and then. I’d need to hunt more victims tomorrow, and I found it heartening that the people of Five Falls were such a nasty lot.
An hour before dusk, the port town of Paikett came into sight. It was far bigger than Fat Shallows, and tidier too, with a real dock. Coog guided us into the harbor and dropped anchor, then he shouted for a boat to come row his passengers ashore. That was partly for our convenience, but I figured he mainly wanted to get rid of us as soon as he could.
I beckoned to Dab and Wentl. “Boys, come guard me while we row to the dock. Then I’ll pay you off and release you from my service.”
They laughed, slapped each other’s backs, and thanked me three times.
Halla watched me and those boys with a mighty sour face. I hadn’t told any of my companions about my need to kill two people a day for Harik. They must all have suspected that some curious thing was happening, but nobody asked about it. However, it wouldn’t have shocked me if Halla had figured it out down to the details. I had never met anybody so adept at starting with a feather’s worth of knowledge and figuring out the whole damn bird.
After a short row from the ship, we climbed out of the boat onto the orderly dock. I tossed a coin to an oarsman and scanned the huge open area next to the dock.
Whistler leaned in and tapped my shoulder. “That fat one looks familiar,” he whispered, nodding at the oarsman I’d just paid.
I peered and recognized him as one of Leddie’s men.
He had already pushed off from the dock, and he grinned at me.
Halla was watching, and she gripped her spear with both hands. “Be ready.”
I drew my sword and turned back toward the town proper. Beyond the open area stood six or seven blue-painted wooden buildings roofed with brown clay tiles, each big enough to be a home or small shop. A long white building lay to our left, probably a warehouse. I did not see a single sailor, craftsman, or townsperson. That fact depressed me.
I raised my voice. “If you haven’t prepared yourselves, do it now.” I didn’t try to lift everybody’s morale for the coming fight. They had already proven they’d fight if they had to, and frankly, my own morale was dragging.
Two dozen of Leddie’s false soldiers came charging toward us from between buildings, shouting as they ran. I recognized the sergeant right away. I had few options. I couldn’t bring storms or lightning out of the bare blue sky. I would need minutes to call together any vicious insects or animals, and none lay right at hand, unless I wanted to command some fish to fling themselves onto the dock, flop over, trip the men, and bite them to death. I had seen less likely things happen, but I didn’t care to stake my chances on it now.
Our tactical position could only have been worse if we’d been trapped in a pit and tied to stakes. Leddie’s men
