By Blood Betrayed (The Kingsblood Chronicles) (50 page)

Gothrik’s galley, sporting the name of
Titan
, towed them in through the harbor gates, affording Lian his first real view of the city. People thronged on the wide ledges that represented the outer portion of each tier, traveling to their private destinations. They were clad in dozens of different styles and colors, with no one style dominating over any other. Here and there, Lian spotted squads of green-liveried soldiers, the city’s Green Men, but there was a surprisingly low count of the police force in evidence.

To starboard, he could clearly see the naval piers, where sixteen more Islander warships were docked. One ship looked heavily damaged and was being winched out of the water by a huge crane-and-cradle assembly that was anchored on the tier above the dock. Water poured from a gash in the side of the ship, and to Lian’s eyes it was a wonder that the vessel had made it to port.

“Pirate troubles,” remarked Alo as he coiled rope next to Lian.

“What caused that hole?” Lian asked.

Alo stood and gazed at the ship. “A galley’s ram, Mr. Alan, sir,” replied Doval’s former assistant in Elvish. “That she made it home tells that they either had a mage, or one damned good captain. The hole’s high enough that a good captain could trim her starboard and keep most of the water out.” From both Alo’s tone and the word tense he chose, he clearly thought the former possibility was the correct one.
Aesidhe
was an incredibly expressive language, for the rare human that mastered it.

“Look lively, Alo,” Lian ordered, admonishing the sailor for stopping his work just because he was talking.

“Aye, sir,” Alo replied, good-naturedly. The crew all seemed to understand that Lian’s job was to keep them working, and that their job was to slack off whenever possible.

Cedrick oversaw the ship’s maneuvering personally, and
Searcher
was quickly secured to the dock.

Chapter Thirty One

“May Golden Rula warm thy path and may the stars at night guard thy sleeping.”

-- Prayer of farewell common in rural Dunshor

The two captains arranged a rotating schedule for shore leave, assigning themselves to later shifts. Lian admired the manner with which the two leaders handled their crews, allowing them to work together with a minimum of resentment. If a sailor needed a hand and one of the warriors was unoccupied, he’d nearly always pitch in.

Snog was allowed leave on the first shift, but declined to go ashore without Lian, even in the company of the other goblins. The scout sold his place on the first shift, which he had observed several of the older sailors doing, and pocketed a quick copper in exchange for patience.

Cedrick left Lian in charge of the ship and went ashore with Arden and Reidar to seek out new crew members. The captain’s orders were simply to maintain the security of the ship and to try to keep the men out of trouble.

So it was that Lian was standing on the foredeck, in command of the mercenaries left to stand watch. The remaining sailors worked at cleaning the decks and performing minor repairs, but it was clear that their minds were on the taverns and brothels to be found ashore.

Snog climbed up to stand beside Lian, saying quietly, “Do we leave the ship here, milord?”

“I haven’t decided yet, my friend,” Lian replied. “For now, we’ll stay with them. I plan to at least wait and see what kind of luck they have hiring crew.”

Snog nodded, lost to his own thoughts for a short time. One of the sailors was occupied with a task close enough to overhear him, so he spoke in his broken Dunshor. “I been watchin’ the rats, sir. She’s been chewin’ ‘er way through ‘em, ‘n I’m hopin’ she goes ashore.”

“She used up that many rats?” Lian asked, surprised. There had been thousands of the things.

“Aye,” Snog replied, and the sailor who was eavesdropping blanched and withdrew, clearly not wanting to hear more on the subject. “I think ‘s got sommat to do with her prey bein’ men mos’ o’ the time. Rats ain’t much eatin’.”

“Well, we didn’t see her come aboard, and I doubt we’ll see her leave,” mused Lian.

“In that you are mistaken,” spoke a lilting voice from within the stairway to the main deck. Sileth stood there, in what was obviously a borrowed nightshirt. The closest sailors and guards spotted her, now that she wasn’t using her powers to cloak her presence, and the soldiers moved hands to their sword hilts.

Lian held up a hand to the soldiers, and they relaxed yet remained watchful. Most looked relieved that they didn’t have to draw steel against the Companion. “What can we do for you, Lady Sileth?” he asked, with as much poise as he could muster.

“The sun has dropped below the seawall, and I will now depart your vessel,” she said in her accented voice. “Please tell your captain that I appreciate his forbearance, and that I had a restful crossing. I will not intrude on his ship again, fates permitting.” She gestured at the docks, where a tall man stood, unnoticed by the busy dockworkers. “He whom I have come to see awaits me, and I wish you good fortune.”

In a silent voice which seemed to come from all around him, Sileth sent to Lian alone,
Beware thee the king of Greythorn, son of Evan Kolvanson. Trust him not, though he aided thee in the past. No one knew him as I did, and no one suffered a more intense betrayal by his childish lust for a woman than I did. What he owes thee in guilt-debt is negligible compared to what he owed me and to what he owed his land. Were I thee, I would avoid Greythorn altogether, but thou needst not fear
my
intentions.

Lian suppressed his shock at the vampire’s intrusion on his thoughts, forcing himself instead to smile and return her spoken pleasantry. To the crewmen witnessing the vampire’s leavetaking, he merely appeared scared, which to them was perfectly understandable.

Later, they would each claim that something different distracted their attention from the vampire. Some maintained that something on deck fell over, others that there was a splash on the quayside, while Lian thought that Snog had asked him a question. But when they returned their attention Sileth’s location, the vampire had suddenly disappeared. Over on the dock, there was no sign of the second vampire, either.

It was as if they had never been there at all.

The guards were much more wary after the vampire’s appearance and subsequent disappearance. As word spread throughout the ship of the vampire’s departure, those crew sleeping belowdecks suddenly found the well-lit decks to be a preferable place to be. Only the barbarian Nan failed to show up on deck, keeping to the quarters she shared with Yarek, which Lian had always found strange given the man’s chaste habits.

One of Cedrick’s requirements was that each shore leave party stay together and log their destination with “Alan” before leaving. The sailing crew had unanimously opted for one of the brothels on the Thieves’ Tier, a place called the Fair Winds, and the mercenaries had headed up to a higher class place on the Merchants’ Tier, called the Crimson Hood.

Neither captain had informed Lian where they were headed.

One of the sailors returned alone only two hours after sunset, running like the hounds of hell were pursuing him. Lian could see that it was Alo, now the bosun’s mate, and that he was lightly bleeding from a scalp wound.

Calling for Snog, Lian hurried down the gangplank to help the sailor aboard. Snog appeared, carrying a waterskin, but before Alo would allow his wound to be treated, he said, “Mr. Alan, sir, the men’re in a fight at the Winds! ‘Twon’t be long afore the Green Men come, sir!”

Damn
, thought Lian, who rose and ordered one of the soldiers to wake Nan and get her on deck. “Now!” he yelled when the man hesitated, not wanting to face Nan’s wrath.

“Snog, treat his wounds and then the two of you stand by the starboard ballista. Don’t load it, just be ready for trouble if it comes,” Lian said, turning to another soldier, Yelvan. “Yel, get below and break out clubs and other blunt weapons, enough for half a dozen men.”

“Aye, sir,” replied the warrior, who had been one of the two to stand with Lian against the lizards.

“You three!” he called to a trio of off-duty mercenaries, who were observing the proceedings with interest. They looked like they wished they had gone below, but they came over. Lian said, “Get your armor, and Yelvan and the other man’s. Just the leather should be enough, but move your asses!” They set off at a run.

The first soldier returned with Nan in tow, who looked bleary-eyed at Lian with a look of pure murder on her face. “You’d better have a good reason . . . ” she started, then, taking in Alo’s slash, stopped her tirade.

“Brawl up at the Fair Winds,” Lian said, ignoring her violent demeanor. “You’re taking five men and you’re going to drag our men out of it before the Green Men come. You don’t have time to argue, just get up there on the double!”

The others returned with their loads, and they helped each other into the boiled leather cuirasses. Nan, by this time, had doused her head with the water Snog was carrying. Rounding up the soldiers, she started down the gangplank.

Lian called after her, “Nan! Don’t kill anyone, especially the Greens!” He hoped that the barbarian wasn’t prone to the berserker rage her people were known for. Anticipating more trouble to come, he roused the rest of the soldiers and had them arm themselves with subduing weapons also. He impatiently waited for Nan’s party to return, moving to the foredeck to stand beside Snog and Alo.

He didn’t have to wait long. The sailors came into sight at a run, Nanavi at their heels, goading them onward with what looked to Lian like a broken club. “Get your asses on board!” she shouted, yelling up to Lian. “There’s Green Men pursuing, or they will be soon! Get the wounded below!”

Gem said,
I hear alarm bells ringing up around the tavern, and some kind of whistled signal
.

Lian looked an unspoken order at Alo, and the bosun’s mate scrambled down into the forecastle. The sailors, bruised and bloody but mostly unhurt, streamed in after him. Lian went down to stand by the plank while Nan, trailing the group, came puffing up to him.

“We pulled them out just as the Greens started to show up, Alan,” she said. “But as soon as the fight cools off, they’ll be coming down here to arrest the men. The story will be that we started it.” She showed her teeth and said, “I’m going after an axe.”

“No, you’re not. Go up and stand ready to load for Snog,” he replied, staring the barbarian woman down. She laughed and clapped him, too hard, on the shoulder, then shook her hand from the sting brought on by the scales of his armor.

It wasn’t long before the local constabulary made their appearance, a fat man in tow. The ten guardsmen were armored in chainmail under a cloth surcoat, colored green with the golden crown of the high king upon their chest. The majority of them were armed with shortswords and shields, but quite a few of them bore light crossbows. Their leader had a greatsword sheathed on his back, and his armor consisted of a plate breastplate over similar chainmail.

“Ahoy, the
Searcher
!” the latter man yelled, moving directly to the gangplank.

“Ahoy!” yelled back Lian. “To whom have I the honor of addressing?”

“Guard Lieutenant Constans, of the High King’s Watch,” he said, smiling a little at Lian’s polite manner. “And who might you be, sir?”

“I am Alan, Lieutenant Constans, the officer of the watch. How may we be of service to you?” he asked, coming down the plank to stand before the soldier. He moved onto the dock, and stood so that his height wasn’t an advantage over the warrior.

“This man is a barkeep at the Fair Winds, sir,” Constans said, indicating the huffing and puffing overweight man they’d brought with him. A bruise was developing on the side of his face, one Lian rather thought might have been delivered by a belaying pin of the type Nan had been carrying. Constans continued, “He maintains that men from your ship started a brawl at his establishment just a few minutes ago.”

“Men from my ship?” Alan asked, feigning surprise but not overdoing it. Elowyn’s words came to him,
Stick to the truth, as close as you can, and don’t exaggerate.
“As far as I know, my men are up at the Crimson Hood, Lieutenant. Since they had coin enough to go there, I doubt they’d have stopped at a place like the Winds.

“I’ll accompany you, of course, to see if any of my men are the guilty parties. If they are, I’m sure that Captain Arden will pay any fines associated with brawling in Seagate,” he said, signaling one of the mercenaries to come down the plank.

“You misunderstand me, sir,” Constans said, holding up a hand toward the man descending the gangplank. “The men from
Searcher
escaped, apparently aided by others from your ship. I’ve come to arrest them.”

“That is a problem, Lieutenant Constans,” he said respectfully. “I can assure you that no one aboard is a troublemaker, and that no one will go anywhere near the Fair Winds. However, I’m afraid I cannot allow you to board our ship without permission of Captain Cedrick or Captain Arden.”

“Where are they?” Constans said, sighing. It had appeared a simple matter when the complaint had been leveled, but he wasn’t inclined to accept the word of a greasy man like the proprietor over that of an officer, and obviously a gentleman.

“I’m afraid that they had private business, sir,” Lian said truthfully. “They didn’t tell me either where they were going or when to expect them back. I will be glad to tell them where to find you, Lieutenant, if you will be so kind as to leave your card?”

By this time, the fat barkeep had recovered enough of his breath to complain. “Lieutenant!” he whined. “It’s perfectly obvious that this man is harboring his men!”

“It is not obvious to me, Soril,” Constans said. “It comes down to your word against this officer’s, since the men in question apparently aren’t aboard. And I’m choosing to take his.” The guard officer’s dislike of the complainant was obvious, regarding him as if he were a piece of rotten fish on his plate.