Redemption (Book 6) (12 page)

In a movement that was so fast it seemed instantaneous, Kendril grabbed a nearby chair and swept it into the path of Renaald’s thrusting sword.

The tip of the sword jammed through the wooden seat of the chair and held fast. Renaald yelled. He wrenched his arm back, trying to pull the sword free.

Kendril threw the chair aside and punched Renaald hard in the stomach.

The blonde Ghostwalker crashed back against the wall. He slid to the floor, gasping for breath.

Kendril turned, a pistol already in his hand.

Olan stopped, his eyes wide. He had drawn his sword and had started forward, but now found himself staring down the barrel of the loaded pistol.

Tomas took his hand off his dagger.

Renaald struggled to get back to his feet, coughing and holding his stomach. His rapier was still jammed into the woodwork of the chair.

Without taking his eyes off Olan, Kendril kicked Renaald hard in the face.

The man slammed into a nearby table and rolled off onto the floor. He didn’t move.

Kendril gave a sad shake of his head. “And you really thought I’d work under
him
?”

“You’re a dead man, Kendril,” Olan snarled.

“You have no idea how many times I’ve heard that before,” said Kendril.

Olan’s face was a mask of rage. He lifted the sword in his hand, but didn’t move forward.

“Please,” said Kendril with a cold smile, “give me a reason to shoot you dead. I’d like nothing better.”

Yvonne stood slowly. “Olan—”

“We’ll hunt you down,” Olan spat. “The whole Order will be coming after you. We won’t stop until you’re dead, traitor.”

Kendril scrunched his face in mock thought. “Hmm. And here I thought you had a Despair you were actually fighting. But hey, if you really think that it’s worth all the time and resources to send a kill team after me, by all means go for it.” He glanced down at Renaald’s prostrate form. “Hopefully next time you’ll send someone a bit more skilled.”

The door to the mess hall flew open.

A half-dozen armed militiamen stormed in, headed up by a russet-haired man with a drawn cavalry saber.

“General,” he said, eyeing the Ghostwalkers suspiciously. “We heard a commotion in here. Are you all right, sir?”

Kendril slowly eased his pistol away from Olan’s head, and tucked it back into his holster. “Just fine, Sergeant Hann. These people were just leaving.” He raised his eyebrows at Olan and Yvonne. “Weren’t you?”

Olan gave a strangled curse and lowered his blade. He shoved it back into its scabbard as if he were jamming it into Kendril’s face.

“Consider carefully, my lord,” said Yvonne. “Once you make this choice, it cannot be undone.”

Kendril was quiet for a long moment. He looked back at Hann and the ragtag militiamen behind him, then back at Yvonne. “Redemption is my home,” he said quietly. “I won’t let it burn. Not while I have the strength to defend it.”

Yvonne gave a slow, sad nod. “So be it.”

Kendril turned to Sergeant Hann. “See that these people are escorted back to Redemption.” He gave the seething Olan one last contemptuous glance, then turned and walked towards the door.

“You’re damning yourself, Kendril!” Olan called after him. “You’re giving up any chance of redemption for your soul.”

Kendril paused. For a moment it seemed as though he would turn around.

Then he pushed through the door.

Chapter 7

Kara tripped down the stairs, nearly slamming her head against the low-hanging beams of the ship’s hold. She reached in the dark interior of the ship’s hold, cursing under her breath.

Her bag was jammed in between two crates. She grabbed it with both hands, pulling it out onto the floorboards of the lower deck.

From above came the shouts of the captain and crew. Kara could even occasionally make out Maklavir’s voice, his tone raised to a ragged pitch.

The whole ship was pitching and turning, lurching up and down on the waves. Each sudden movement caused Kara’s stomach to flutter a little.

She tore open the bag and fumbled inside it.

“What in Zanthora is going on?” Joseph staggered down the open aisle of the hold. He was bent almost double, his face a sickly pallor. He stopped and gave a groan as the ship swung around again, holding his stomach with one hand.

“Pirates,” Kara said breathlessly. Her hand closed on the firm wood of the Baderan longbow. She pulled it out of the pack, then reached back in for the quiver of arrows.

Joseph’s eyes widened. “Pirates?” He reached instinctively for the hilt of his sword, then realized that it wasn’t buckled on his belt. “I need to—”

Kara grabbed her hair, short as it was, and tied it back out of her face in one swift action. “Don’t be a fool, Joseph. You can barely stand.”

A cannon blast thundered out, followed almost immediately by a large splash of water.

The ship lurched again.

“A warning shot,” Joseph said. He tried to stand, but collapsed into a heap on the deck. “Ugh, my
stomach
.”

Kara rapidly strung her bow. She glanced up at the stairs as a shout echoed from above.

“My rapier,” Joseph murmured. “I need to get it.” His face was an unhealthy color of green. He looked over at Kara’s bow, as if seeing it for the first time. “Kara, no, don’t—”

Kara ignored him. She drew the string tight on the bow, and tested the pull.

A gunshot cracked off from up above.

Joseph tried to move forward, but he could barely crawl. “Don’t,” he said with a shake of his head, “for Eru’s sake, Kara,
don’t
—”

She snatched up the bow and arrows, then turned for the stairs.

Then pirate ship was closer, looming disturbingly large off the starboard side. If Kara had entertained any illusions about them outrunning the pirate vessel, she had lost them now.

They were going to be boarded. Sooner rather than later.

The captain of the merchant ship was bellowing commands. It didn’t look like anyone was heeding them anymore. A blind panic had seized the crew. One actually leapt off the side into the tossing ocean.

Kara looked around. Her worst fears were confirmed. These sailors were no warriors. Only one or two had anything like a weapon, perhaps a dagger or belaying pin.

She glanced back at the approaching pirate ship.

The deck of the vessel was crowded with leering, gaudily dressed men. Swords glinted and flashed. An occasional puff and bang of smoke indicated a pistol fired into the air. There had to be at least a couple dozen privateers, all crowding the deck and side in anticipation of boarding.

This was going to be a massacre.

Maklavir came tripping down the stairs from the quarterdeck with a curse. He saw Kara and came running over to her. “This is a mess and no mistake. Where’s Joseph?”

Kara shouldered her quiver, then fitted an arrow to her string. “Down below. He’s still sick.” She took a breath, then tightened her hold on the bow. The expectation of the coming pain in her chest was enough to start her sweating.

Maklavir looked down at her bow. “Kara,” he said. He grabbed at her arm. “Kara, for Eru’s sake! Don’t be a fool!”

Kara shoved away his arm. “Don’t touch me!” she shouted without thinking.

Maklavir retreated a step, surprised. He recovered his wits in a moment. “You can’t even draw that bow, Kara. You’re not healed yet—”

“Get a sword,” Kara said without looking at the man. “They’ll be on us in two minutes.” She turned to face him. “Maklavir,
hurry
!”

The diplomat opened his mouth to say something back, then spun and dashed off.

Kara half-lifted the bow and glanced out at the pirate ship again.

The vessel was swinging alongside the merchant ship. It was so close that Kara could make out the leering faces of the pirates on board. They looked like an unsavory, violent bunch. Weapons of all kinds bristled in their hands. Another pistol cracked off in the air, and was followed by a roar from the pirates.

“Eru help us!” the merchant captain squealed.

Kara waited, standing with a calmness she didn’t feel. She took slow, even breaths.

The pain
. It would come again, just like always. The sharp, stabbing fire in her chest when she tried to draw back the bow. It had diminished slightly over the last few weeks, but not enough.

There was no other choice. Joseph was essentially incapacitated. Maklavir, despite his swordplay lessons with Joseph, was still as inept in combat as ever.

So it was up to Kara.

The pirate ship slammed into the merchant ship with a resounding
clunk
and screech of wood on wood.

The merchant ship shifted violently sideways.

Kara almost tripped, but managed to somehow keep her balance. She looked up into the faces of more than twenty brigands.

A flurry of objects sailed from the deck of the pirate ship over the merchant ship’s railing.

Grappling hooks, attached to ropes. They caught fast and gouged into the wood of the merchant ship.

Two long boarding planks were thrown down between the two ships, balanced on the railings.

Maklavir came scurrying back, a rapier in his hand. He stopped cold beside Kara at the sight of the bloodthirsty pirates.

Kara kept her fingers hooked around the feathered end of her arrow, keeping the bow barely drawn and lowered. She kept taking long, deep breaths, relaxing her shoulders and her arms. Relaxing her whole body.

A patter of gunshots crackled from the pirate ship, followed by black smoke that was quickly blown away in the stiff ocean breeze.

Musket balls chipped and pinged into the wooden mast and deck of the merchant ship.

“Here they come,” Maklavir said uneasily. He shifted his position and raised the sword uncertainly in his hands.

A blistering series of bellows and war whoops came from the pirate ship. A buccaneer, a sword clenched in each hand, leapt up onto one of the boarding planks with a scream. His eyes were wild like a beast’s. His drooping mustache and ragged beard seemed like those of a madman.

Maklavir instinctively flinched back.

Kara took another breath. She lifted the bow and pulled back the string. Pain tore into her chest like a white-hot spear. She ignored it, fought through it. She
had
to.

The pirate kept screaming. He was halfway across. On the other boarding plank a second pirate leapt up. He held a pistol in one hand and a cutlass in the other.

 Kara released the arrow and her breath in one smooth motion.

The arrow hissed through the air. It struck the wild-eyed pirate squarely in the throat, hitting so hard that it stuck out the back of his neck.

He gave a strange warbling sound as he clutched for the arrow shaft. A second later, he tumbled off the boarding plank into the tossing sea below.

The second pirate saw the shot. He gave a shout and raised his pistol.

Kara’s bow was already reloaded. She took another breath and pulled the string.

The pirate’s pistol blasted off into the air.

The lead ball buzzed past Kara’s head, somewhere to her right. No way of telling how close.

Kara’s eyes were watering from the pain in her chest. It was hard to see through the welling tears. She breathed in and brought the notched end of the arrow up to her cheek.

The pirate tore across the boarding plank, yelling like a banshee. He raised his cutlass.

Kara breathed out and released the string. The
twang
of the bowstring and the report of the arrow filled the air.

The pirate actually twirled, his forward momentum rudely interrupted by the force of the shot. Kara’s arrow protruded from the middle of his chest. He tumbled backwards.

Kara didn’t stop to see anything else. She was already turning, notching another arrow to her string and trying her best to shove down the blinding pain in her chest.

There were several pirates coming now, shoving each other to get onto the flimsy boarding planks. A couple more pistol shots cracked out.

Kara didn’t bother ducking. Even at this relatively short distance, a shot fired from the deck of a bobbing vessel from a smoothbore weapon had little chance of making contact with the intended target.

Someone shouted from behind Kara. She ignored the voice, and focused on the oncoming pirates.

A bullet zinged by her ear.

That had been a little close for comfort.

“Kara—” Maklavir started to say.

She bent, lifted, exhaled and shot in one fluid motion.

A pirate pitched forward with a gurgling cry. He slammed hard into the deck of the merchant ship, the arrow shaft fixed in his gut.

Someone screamed a curse.

Kara turned, fitting another arrow to her string.

One of the pirates hit the deck of the merchant ship. His face was a mask of scars and unshaven stubble.

Kara shot him in the chest.

The pirate shrieked and collapsed backwards, clutching at the arrow shaft.

The pain.
It was so bad, so jagged and raw that Kara wanted nothing else than for it to stop. It was hard to breathe, hard even to lift her arms.

No. She
couldn’t
. Not now. She had to keep firing. She had to keep—

“
Kara
!”

Maklavir’s voice in her ear caused Kara to suddenly come back into focus. She snapped her head to the side, another arrow already fitted to her string.

Something struck her head hard, causing explosions of purple and white before her eyes.

And then, finally, the pain stopped.

There was a pile of dispatches on the large desk that filled Kendril’s office.

He snorted and walked to the small window.

Outside the yard of the Stockade stretched to the fort’s palisade wall. A company of recruits, volunteers from the mainland, were being drilled in halberd and polearm practice. From a quick glance Kendril could see that most of them were not handling their weapons well, much less staying in formation.

He shook his head with a sigh. Most of the recruits that they were getting from Rothland were young, eager men with no military training or background. Their hearts were in the right place, but it would take more than heart to defend the Wall when the Jombards hit it again.