Enigma (6 page)

As Rias spoke, Garchee eased closer to Tikaya. He met her eyes, pointed to the flute, and held out his hand. Was it possible he knew how to play it? And if he did, what might he be able to do if she gave it to him? She imagined him piping some tune that caused everyone on board, herself and Rias included, to fall unconscious and wait helpless as the Nurians boarded. Someone over there might recognize Rias and kill him before he ever woke again.

The crew’s eyes were locked upon Rias and the captain; nobody was paying attention to Tikaya and the boy.

“If you hand the youth and the flute over to the Nurians,” Rias said, “you can say you were duped and didn’t know anything about the theft.”

Tikaya frowned at his back. Hand over the youth? Even if he was a thief, she bristled at the idea of giving him to a crew of vengeful warriors. If those ships had been sent all the way across the ocean, a multiple-week journey, simply to retrieve the flute, the Nurians would not be happy with the one who had caused the trouble.

“Maybe we’ll tell the Nurians
you
stole it,” the captain said, nodding to himself and smiling as the idea took root.

Rias didn’t have a response for that. Tikaya wondered if the captain had any idea how much of a threat he’d truly made. If they identified him, the Nurians would do more than simply
kill
Fleet Admiral Starcrest. They would torture him for information and drag him back to their Great Chief in shackles for some horrific public execution.

Tikaya swallowed. She wasn’t going to let that happen. If nothing else, she could make a distraction, and Rias could leap overboard and swim for the coast. They couldn’t be
that
far from land.

Garchee touched Tikaya’s arm. “Please.”

She’d almost forgotten him. He could have ripped the flute out of her hand when she hadn’t been paying attention, but he hadn’t. Maybe he wanted to help.

Hoping she wasn’t making a mistake, Tikaya gave him the instrument.

“If you handed me over to the Nurians,” Rias told the captain, “you might be seen as accomplices and punished anyway. It’s likely they know who the true thief is. You could simply claim he’d stowed away.”

Flute to his lips, Garchee played a few notes so softly that Tikaya doubted anyone would notice them over the roar of the ocean. She didn’t recognize the song’s upbeat, cheery notes, but it didn’t
sound
like something that would knock out a ship full of sailors.

“Whatever.” The captain lowered his pistol and waved for his men to do the same. “We’re not handing the flute over to the Nurians. After all this trouble, and all that money I spent on repairs in Tangukmoo, I’m not doing anything except selling that thing to someone who can afford to pay well. We just have to stay out of reach a little longer. We’re only a few hours out of Port Malevek, and there’s no way Nurian ships are going to sail into that harbor, no matter how many guns they have. They won’t dare come into sight.”

The captain glowered at Tikaya, and she held her breath, expecting a backlash to the boy’s flute playing. “You three get off my deck,” was all he said. “I don’t want to see you again.”

Garchee lowered the flute.

“As you command, Captain.” Rias bowed his head, clasped his hands behind his back, and strolled down the steps with Tikaya and Garchee.

“Thank you for your assistance,” she told the boy, suspecting his tune had helped convince the captain to lower his pistol. Too bad it hadn’t improved his personality as well.

Garchee nodded once. His face held the sad recognition of one who had accepted his fate, however unpleasant. Tikaya hoped they could figure out a way to protect him from the Nurians.

Before they headed below, Rias stopped to gaze back at the ships. Tikaya didn’t like the way his face shared some of the youth’s resignation. They’d have to come up with something. She
definitely
wasn’t going to give him up to the Nurians. Maybe he could hide in the bilge room when the schooner was boarded. The captain liked to send him there anyway.

“Any chance we can make it to Port Malevek before those ships catch us?” Tikaya asked.

Without so much as glancing at the sails or checking the wind, Rias said, “No.”

“I assume there’s no way this small ship can fight them. Any chance of evading them? Maybe we’ll reach that river and—”

Rias was shaking his head.

Tikaya stepped away from the boy and lowered her voice. “What if you took command? Perhaps we could tell the captain who you are. That might change his willingness to listen to you.”

“There’s little I could do either.”

“Is there anything
I
could do?” Tikaya asked. It was meant to be a joke, but it didn’t sound very funny when it came out.

“Your people are theists, aren’t they? Perhaps you could pray for a storm or a dense fog.”

Tikaya eyed the clouds. They lacked the ominous darkness of thunderheads, nor did any hint of fog linger in the troughs of the waves. “I haven’t noticed a high success rate amongst those who pray for weather phenomena.”

“Unfortunate,” Rias said. “At least these Nurians shouldn’t have a reason to kill you, not like those assassins we encountered last time. With luck they won’t even know who you are, and they’ll leave you alone.”

“Oh, good. I can just stand back and watch as you’re beaten, chained, and thrown into their dank, windowless brig.”

“You could always come along.” Rias smiled and offered his arm. “Dank windowless brigs are always more amenable with company.”

She snorted and leaned against him, though his joke did little to lift her spirits. She scowled at the back of the captain’s head. How depressing to think that they might have survived assassins, deadly technology, and monster-filled tunnels, only to be defeated by human greed.

Part VII

Afternoon brought the first warning shot, a cannonball splashing into the water off the port bow. Towering granite cliffs rose to the east, the topography Rias had described, with no sign of a river—or any coves to hide in—within sight. Deep blue water promised plenty of depth for the Nurian warships to navigate through.

On the schooner, the captain paced back and forth, masticating his tobacco like an apothecary grinding a nettlesome root in a mortar. The mate was barking orders to his modest gun crew—the schooner claimed four cannons. Given the hundreds the other ships carried—which were clearly visible now that the Nurians had drawn closer—Tikaya thought the captain was addled for even contemplating a fight. If it was inevitable that the Nurians would overtake the
Fin
, better to let them board and take the stolen flute rather than risk irking them further.

So long as they didn’t find Rias.

The waiting and worrying was enough to make Tikaya crazy. Part of her wanted to run down to the bilge pump and plan a mutiny with him, if only on the chance that having him in charge would make a difference, but she was the one who’d told him—
implored
him—to hide out down there.

“We just have to hold them for a while,” the captain told the mate. “We’ll reach Port Malevek by dusk.”

By dusk
was three hours away. Those ships were in firing range now. Another cannon boomed, and the ball splashed into the water a few meters behind the schooner. The next one might very well crash into the ship.

“Need another idea,” Tikaya muttered. “Something better.” She still had the flute, but she doubted the Nurians would hear her over the sea and cannons even if she knew what tune to play. Garchee stood by the railing, watching the approaching ships with that same resignation on his face from earlier.

She jogged over to him. “Any chance you know a tune that would convince those captains to turn around and go home?”

He smiled sadly. “The flutes aren’t that powerful. Especially that one. It was made by a novice.”

One of the galleons was inching closer, trying to come alongside the schooner. A forward cannon fired, and Tikaya’s heart nearly stopped. The black ball arced straight toward them.

She grabbed Garchee and pulled him to the deck. The cannonball smashed into the hull of the ship not three feet below them. Wood shattered, hurling planks and splinters into the air. The deck trembled as the cannonball ripped through the ship’s innards. She didn’t know if it crashed all the way through to the other side or lodged somewhere in the middle.

Tikaya sat up, concern for Rias rearing in her mind. He was belowdecks. What if—

As if her thoughts had conjured him, Rias burst up the stairs and onto the deck, his eyes round with surprise. “They’re firing
at
the ship?”

“That surprises you?” Tikaya asked.

Rias’s gaze latched onto Garchee, who, still on his knees, was also blinking in surprise. “Yes.”

“I thought they’d surround us and board us,” Garchee said to himself in Nurian. “Maybe they don’t know...”

“They shouldn’t be trying to hit us unless they don’t know that more than an artifact is on board.” Rias extended a hand toward Garchee. “Come.”

He helped the boy to his feet, then pointed toward the closest mast. Not sure what he had in mind, Tikaya followed them.

“Up,” Rias pointed toward the yards.

Garchee nodded once and climbed. Rias headed up after him.

“What are you doing?” Tikaya asked. The firing of a cannon—one from their own ship—drowned out her words. “Rias, they’ll see you,” she called. “They’ll
recognize
you.”

“I know,” Rias said grimly. “But they need to see... their thief.” He looked up to where Garchee had reached the lower yard and crawled out onto it. The boy’s face was bleak but accepting.

“Rias, you can’t...” Tikaya didn’t know what to say. Did he truly mean to risk himself and to offer up the poor boy as sacrifice to save the mangy crew of this schooner? She couldn’t believe that of him. He
had
to be up to something else.

Before crawling out onto the yard himself, Rias looked down and met Tikaya’s gaze. Trust me, his eyes seemed to say.

“What are those idiots doing up there?” the captain bellowed.

He didn’t have time to follow up on the question. The two galleons were gliding closer, hemming in the smaller ship while the frigate closed from behind.

On the yard, Rias and Garchee stood. The boy inched out to the end and lifted an arm toward the frigate.

The galleons drew even with the schooner. The Nurians were close enough that Tikaya could hear their orders, shouts to disable the enemy ship in preparation for boarding. Then a panicked shout erupted from a man in the frigate’s crow’s nest. That ship was too far back for Tikaya to make out the words, but more shouts arose on the deck. She thought she heard a “cease fire” order.

“Grappling hooks,” someone bellowed from the nearest galleon.

A Nurian sailor lifted a megaphone and called in accented Turgonian, “Unnamed vessel, prepare to be boarded.”

Down on the deck, the captain seethed, fists clenched. The mate asked him something and pointed to the cannons. The captain spat, then shook his head.

“It’s over.”

Garchee was picking his way back toward the mast. Rias waited, perhaps ready in case the less-than-agile youth slipped again. Noble, but Tikaya wished to Akahe that he’d get down from there and hide somewhere before the Nurians boarded.

As the two were climbing back to the deck, another shout went up from a crow’s nest, this time on the closest ship. The words sent a swarm of dread into Tikaya’s gut.

“Tell the captain I think that’s Admiral Starcrest over there.”

Tikaya rubbed her face. “Oh, Rias,” she said as he hopped down beside her. “Why couldn’t you have stayed out of sight?”

“I never was good at hiding from trouble,” Rias said, reaching out a hand to steady Garchee when he jumped the last few feet to land beside them.

“Drop all weapons,” the Nurian with the megaphone commanded.

A squad of bowmen stood along the railing of each galleon, covering their comrades as they boarded.

Tikaya checked the waters in every direction, hoping a Turgonian fleet would appear on the horizon. “It’s really quite lackadaisical of your people to leave this stretch of their coast unguarded,” she told Rias. “These Nurians are close enough to Port Malevek to see what people are growing in their gardens.”

“Should I ever regain my warrior-caste status, I’ll be certain to write a strongly worded letter to the local base commander.”

A short, squat Nurian in a flowing, vibrant crimson and yellow uniform strode toward Rias and Garchee. Strands of gray wound through his black hair, which was swept into a thick topknot in the center of his head. Gold disks sewn into his collar proclaimed him a senior sergeant. The rest of his men fanned out, half of them covering their leader while the others aimed bows or swords at the crew, ensuring everyone had indeed dropped their weapons. Many of those bows were pointed at Rias.