The Blood King (38 page)

“What you said about the Nargi, you were seri-ous back there?”

“Dead serious, pardon the expression.”

“What in the name of the Lady were you smug-gling?”

“Silks and brandy,” Vahanian said, pushing more debris away from the hull.

“Ask Tris. He met some of the priests back in Ghorbal. They’re a friendly bunch.”

“They wanted to flay him alive,” Tris confirmed. “We barely outran them.”

“Barely?” Vahanian shouted back. “Barely? We were way ahead of them. What do you know? You were buried in a pile of silk. They were way behind us.”

“They seemed a lot closer to the back of the wagon,” Tris said.

“Is that how you learned to speak Nargi?” Kiara asked. Carina, ashen, leaned back over the railing and was sick once more.

“Nope,” Vahanian replied. “I learned that the hard way. Got captured by some raiders. After a couple of years, you pick it up.”

Kiara frowned. “No one lives that long as a Nargi captive.” .

Vahanian leaned on his pole. “I took down three of them when I was captured.

When the bastards finally got me, their captain made me a deal. Fight in their betting games, or die right away.” He shrugged. “Didn’t look like I had much of a choice.”

“I’ve heard about those betting games,” Kiara shuddered. “Loser dies.”

“Uh huh,” Vahanian said, turning away to push loose more debris from the swiftly flowing water.

“And you survived, for how long?”

“Two years,” he said. “Long enough.”

“How did you get away?” Carina’s voice barely carried above the wind. Tris glanced over to see the healer, looking pale and nauseous, hanging onto the railing.

“The captain who owned me made a few ene-mies. He got called to the palace one day, and didn’t expect to come back. He let me escape, then blamed a rather nasty lieutenant who had it coming. I got away, the flunky got the blame, and the captain managed to do his double-crossing little second-in-command out of the hottest betting game champion in Nargi.” “Owned?” Carina asked quietly.

Vahanian’s dark eyes lost their bantering glint. “Yeah. Owned. I told you, I don’t like Nargi.”

“Hard to port!” Nyall shouted, and the ship lurched, knocking Kiara off her feet and making Carina and Vahanian cling to the railing for sup-port. Tris stumbled backward into Carroway, who grabbed at his cloak with one hand and held onto the corral rail with the other. Sakwi barely moved, his concentration unbroken, and it was then that Tris guessed the land mage’s purpose. The horses in the corral, while restless, displayed none of the panic Tris expected. He looked from the quiet hors-es to the mage and back again in awe.

“What was that?” Vahanian shouted above the wind.

“Rocks,” Nyall clipped. “Hard to see. Less talk and more work with the poles if you don’t want to swim.”

“Look!” Kiara shouted, pointing toward the churning waters. Vahanian followed her gesture, then cursed, jumping aside as a sodden mass washed onto the deck.

“What is it?” Tris called over the storm. “Looks like a piece of one of those

‘magic mon-sters’ Sakwi was talking about,” Vahanian said, poking at the fleshy pile with his pole. Kiara drew her sword and Carina stepped back. Even from the other side of the boat, Tris could tell that the tenta-cle belonged to no creature he had ever seen.

“If that’s a finger, I don’t want to see the rest of it,” Vahanian muttered, probing at the thing with his pole. Jae squawked from where he crouched on Kiara’s shoulder, partially shielded from the storm by her cloak.

Sakwi left the horses with a warding gesture and moved closer. When he stood next to the tentacle, he closed his eyes and stretched out his hand, palm down, just above it. Sakwi recoiled, his eyes open-ing wide. “Fascinating.” “What?”

Carina asked.

“I can’t explain entirely,” Sakwi replied, “but it doesn’t feel natural. It’s tainted with blood magic.”

“Great. Can you tell if it has teeth?” Vahanian snapped as he pushed the boat away from a rock.

“Such things are made to kill,” Sakwi said, push-ing the severed tentacle back into the swift waters. “Keep a sharp eve out. Whatever lost that might still be alive—or have friends.”

Tris and Vahanian kept their posts on either side of the boat for the rest of the night. At daybreak, Carroway and Kiara relieved them, and Tris and Vahanian lashed themselves to the side of the corral for what troubled sleep they could find. Carina, ashen and miserable, clung to the corral, trying to help Sakwi keep the animals quieted when she was not making dry heaves over the boat’s rail.

Jae found a perch on Kiara’s horse and settled, his wings folded and his head down.

The rain lasted all day, with a cloud cover that made noon as dark as twilight.

Even their heavy cloaks were no match for the constant rain. By mid-day, Tris found it impossible to stay warm, resigning himself to numbed hands and a constant shiver. By the looks of them, Kiara, Carroway, and Vahanian were equally miserable. Carina looked truly wretched, her face drawn from lack of sleep, unable even to watch the others eat. Although Carina bore it stoically, Tris had no doubt that she longed for dry land.

“You know, I haven’t seen a fish this whole trip,” Vahanian mused as they headed through a quiet stretch of water.

“Neither have I,” Tris agreed.

“Maybe it’s not a good fishing area,” Carina said.

“Or maybe something’s eating them all. I saw a few deer carcasses on the shore that didn’t look like they’d been eaten by any wolf I’ve ever seen. I don’t like it,”

Vahanian muttered. “The sooner we’re on dry land, the better.”

They docked at dusk against a rickety platform in a floating city. On both sides of the river, a fleet of houseboats bobbed and swayed. Some were hardly more than tents on rafts. Others looked to be true ships, moored and used as dwellings until their cap-tains decided to raise sail once more. Some were solid floating cabins, hard used and smelling of fish.

Tris had heard talk of these floating cities, tempo-rary boat-villages that came and went with the seasons and the fish—and sometimes, the interest of local authorities. At the core were a half-dozen larger boats. Those were permanently moored—traders’ ships that served as a provisioning stop for river travelers.

Swinging bridges linked these trading ships to dozens of other boats down the Margolan side of the river. Fishermen might leave their village for the season and tie up with such a floating city, bringing each day’s catch to a broader market. Provisioners of all types tied up for the duration—food sellers, tavern-keepers, hard-bitten men and women selling clothing and tools, fishing gear, and baubles.

Across the water Tris could hear music, and bet that more than one of the garishly decorated boats served as brothels. On the decks of the boats men drank and gambled. Dirty-faced children scam-pered sure-footedly from boat to boat, and worn-looking women rested babies on their hips and talked in clusters. Metal stove boxes set on slabs of slate provided for both cooking and warmth. A month from now, all but the provision-ers’ ships might be gone, moved to better fishing areas. The floating cities were as lawless as they were temporary, and were reputed to be a haven to many whose reputations made them less welcome in the caravans and towns.

Nyall waved for them to follow him ashore. Carina held Vahanian’s arm as they disembarked, looking miserable.

“This way,” the river pilot said. Nyall walked so quickly that they had to run to keep up. They worked their way down the maze of intersecting docks while dodging the ropes and jugs, fish bones and nets that littered the rickety structures.

The denizens of the floating city called out their greetings to the river captain in a thick patois that made it difficult for Tris to catch their comments. Vahanian appeared perfectly at home, countering

some of the comments with rejoinders in the same thick accent.

“I get the feeling Jonmarc’s been this way before,” Carroway commented.

“He said something about having traded on the river,” Tris said, ducking under a clothesline. The docks were a hazardous gathering place, jumbled with small cook stoves and drying nets. Ragged children ran between the nets and grizzled old women sat atop the pylons, smoking their pipes. Jae fluttered and squawked as Kiara bent low beneath the ropes that criss-crossed the narrow walkway. She jumped as a cat squealed and dove in front of her. Tris kept his hand near his sword, and he noted that Kiara and Vahanian did the same. Carina leaned heavily on her staff, looking as if she longed for nothing so much as dry clothes and a solid foot-ing. Unfortunately, the docks themselves floated on thick logs, so that the whole city undulated with the currents of the river.

“In here,” Nyall said. He stood aside for them to walk up the short gangplank of a large, dusky yel-low houseboat. Its smoky interior hung heavy with the smell of burned lard and onions. “A good tav-ern. They’ll have something to fix you up,” he said, nodding to Carina, “and Mama will take good care of you while I get us provisioned for the next leg of the trip.”

Mama was a gargantuan woman. She grinned at them toothlessly. “Welcome,”

she said in the thick river accent. “You’re friends of Nyall’s and Jonmarc’s. Sit.

I’ll get you something.”

Tris and the others exchanged uneasy glances and sat down. Vahanian stood near the bar, leaning with feigned casualness where he could watch the door.

Mama looked back at them from the small table where she was chopping vegetables and drop-ping them into a well-used pot.

“Miserable day, wasn’t it?” Mama asked, not expecting an answer, and went back to her work humming tunelessly. She squeezed her bulk through the doorway and bustled down the gangplank with a pronounced limp. She re-emerged after a few min-utes, dusting her hands against her stained apron. Mama frowned, looking at Carina, and dug in a bin beneath the table, rising with a handful of hard crackers.

“Here, dearie, eat these,” she said. “You look like you’ve lost your supper all the way down the river.” Mama’s tone was matter-of-fact. “Make you some tea, too.

There’s a window back there if it won’t stay down.”

Pale and cold, Carina accepted the gift gratefully and began to nibble on the cracker. Mama gathered their sodden cloaks and hustled them away, replac-ing them with threadbare but dry blankets or shawls. Tris watched through the porthole as Mama loaded the soaked garments over her arm and headed for a large wood stove that burned on a piece of metal in the center of the docks. A makeshift tarpaulin fluttered over it, giving some shelter. Mama carefully arranged the cloaks as best she could around the stove to dry them. She sur-veyed her work critically, and then with a nod, walked determinedly back to her charges, stopping to check the stew and pour tea into a chipped mug.

“Feeling better, dearie?” she asked Carina. “Owner of the place should be back soon. He’ll be

glad to see some customers for once, paying or not.” Mama headed back to her work, laughing heartily at her own joke.

From his spot near the doorway, Vahanian asked a question in the unpronounceable patois. Mama threw back her head in laughter, then shot back a rapid-fire answer which seemed to suffice.

“What’s going on?” Tris asked, hoping that he would soon stop shivering. The tavern boat was warmer than the raft, but its sole heat was a small metal firebox on a flat stone in the middle of the table. Its thin walls and shuttered portholes offered little true protection against the storm.

“Just getting an idea of how much traffic has been by here recently,” Vahanian replied. “It’s a good way to tell whether the Nargi are feeling obnoxious.”

Mama went behind the bar and took down a large flagon from which she began to pour liberal draughts, offering the first to Vahanian, who tossed it back effortlessly. Tris was chilled through enough to gratefully accept the libation, as did they all except Carina. Tris took a small mouthful, strug-gling to keep from spewing it out as his tongue and lips caught fire. Kiara and Carroway were having the same difficulty, which sent Mama into a seizure of laughter. She poured Vahanian another draught.

“My friends are from the city,” Vahanian said in the Common tongue, with a sidelong glance to let the others know he had intentionally let them understand his jibe. Mama laughed even harder, until her sizable form shook, and she clapped Sakwi on the back so hard the mage inadvertently swal-lowed his mouthful, resulting in another extensive coughing fit. Mama looked alarmed, but Sakwi managed to hold up his hand to stave off her min-istrations.

“No, really, I’m all right,” he gasped, clutching the back of a chair. “Just a little cough.”

Mama looked at him with the skepticism of her vast experience. “Harmmph,”

she said, narrowing her eyes. But she did not press the matter, and bus-ied herself fixing dinner. Tris found that, once he persuaded his throat to accept the potent liquor, it warmed him rapidly. He would not have cared for a second helping. Vahanian did not appear to be affected by the liquor, although Tris noted that the next time Vahanian spoke to Mama, his river accent more closely matched hers.

From outside, the sounds of a commotion reached them. Through the tavern boat’s slatted windows, Tris glimpsed a stout man bustling through the chaos on the docks.

“By the Whore!” a man shouted heavily climbing the gangplank, “do I have to do everything myself?”

The man strode into the room and ripped his cloak over his head, stopping dumbfounded in amazement. “Jonmarc?” Maynard Linton, owner of the ill-fated caravan that sheltered Tris and his friends on their flight from Shekerishet, looked at Tris and the others as if he were seeing ghosts.

“Maynard!” Carina cried, starting from her seat. Tris, Carroway, and Vahanian slapped the sturdy trader on the back and crowded around him.

“What happened?” Tris asked as Linton made his way to the bar and poured himself a draught of Mama’s liquor. “The slavers told us you were dead.”

Linton tossed back two shots of the strong whiskey before he thumped his chest and cleared his throat. “Nearly was,” he said in a raw voice. He shook his head to clear the last of the drink from his throat. “Miscalculated the dose and slept for three days.”