The Broken Eye (39 page)

But it was enough to stun him. Gavin followed the first with a full backhand swing. Teeth sprayed, and the man dropped. Gavin knelt on the man’s back and jabbed his knife through the base of the pirate’s skull. He rose with the saber, and threw the knife handle-first to whoever had followed him. It was Antonius, and for a second he looked like he thought he was being attacked himself, a victim of friendly attack.

Antonius dodged out of the way of the knife, and it clattered to the deck. He bent over to pick it up, and a musket ball whistled right over his head, scoring the deck ten feet behind him.

The other galley was taller than the
Bitter Cob
, and that could be good or bad news, depending on how enraged and careless the pirates were. If they wanted to get across the gap fast, they could sheathe their swords and simply roll down the boarding nets and be across in seconds. No man in his right mind who felt threatened would do that, though, and climbing down a declined rope net wasn’t easy.

Of course, betting that pirates who followed Gunner were in their right minds might be a poor gamble.

Reaching the gunwale, Gavin found that the boarding nets weren’t simply held grapnel to wood, which would have allowed him to pull the grapnel off and let the net drop. Instead, the grapnels were looped around the railing and tied back to themselves, then anchored to the wood railing. Bad news. But that loop held the hemp rope tight against the gunwale. Gavin slashed the rope, and it yielded on the second stroke. He looked down the length of the ship. There were four more grapnels. Four widths of hemp between him and freedom.

Four galley slaves had tackled a pirate at midships and were pummeling him to death with fists and feet. Antonius was charging for the farthest rope—smart boy—leaving Gavin to face another sword-wielding pirate. Out of the corner of his eye, Gavin saw a pirate with a musket taking aim at him as he ran, so he did a running slide, dropping to one hip to skim along the deck and then popping up with the sword wielder between him and the musket man.

Even as Gavin engaged with the swordsman, he saw other pirates jumping onto the nets, coming back to the
Bitter Cob
. He was running out of time. His saber and the pirate’s thinner forward-curving ataghan clanged together, and Gavin was aware how long it had been since he’d practiced fencing. How long it had been since he needed it. But a pirate was really merely a sailor willing to kill. That wasn’t the same as a trained warrior. Gavin saw two wide opportunities for deadly thrusts go by—and he was too slow to take advantage, too cautious to press an advantage.

But a third came. Riposte and kill, the saber slipping into his opponent’s chest only deep enough to open his heart, and then pulling back. Gavin stepped back to avoid the possible counterstroke—just because a man was going to die within seconds didn’t mean he couldn’t kill you in the meantime.

He realized that by stepping back, he was clearing the shot for the musket man, and he slapped the swordsman’s blade aside once more and grabbed the man under the armpits even as he heard the musket fire. The man jerked, taking the ball in the shoulder right between Gavin’s fingers. At least, he
hoped
it was between his fingers. All he could tell for the moment was that his index finger of his right hand felt hot.

He dropped the still-twitching body, found his finger bleeding, but still there, and slashed the rope where it crossed the gunwale.

A pirate was coming down the boarding rope more nimbly than Gavin would have believed, walking upright, stepping from rope to rope with the agility of a dancer—and
fast
. But the rope parted on the first cut, and the boarding net sagged suddenly. The man jumped, hands stretching to reach the gunwale and—just making it. The shock of colliding with the hull didn’t shake the man loose, either.

Gavin slapped his blade down on the gunwale and eight fingers popped up in response.

A short scream and a satisfying splash signaled success.

“Row!” Gavin shouted as he crossed over the gap that had been blown in the deck by the cannon fire. But they were already on it, oars rattling out, first pushing off the ship, stretching the boarding net.

There were two grapnels left—and with a snap, the slaves aft freed one. It left only one at midships. Gavin ran for it.

Wood shrapnel exploded around him from musket balls. A pirate leapt off the boarding net, and Gavin slashed his groin open, not even slowing. He saw a pirate finish loading a swivel gun on the deck of the other ship and turn it toward him. He dove as it spewed death onto the lower ship.

Gavin rolled to his feet, groped to find the saber he’d lost in his dive.

“Guile! Guile!” a familiar voice shouted. Gunner.

Gavin looked up, already knowing what he would see. Gunner stood, not twenty paces away, that magnificent black-and-white musket leveled at Gavin’s face. From that distance, Gunner couldn’t miss.

The oars dipped into the waves, but the inertia of the loaded
Bitter Cob
meant it would be seconds before they moved with any speed.

The saber was in Gavin’s hand. If Gunner shot him in the head, he wouldn’t be able to complete the stroke. He would die for nothing. But if Gunner shot him in the chest—the safer shot—Gavin could trade his life for the slaves’ freedom.

What was the value of a few slaves compared to a Prism? What was the value of a thousand slaves compared to a Prism? What would the world gain if Gavin chose to make this sacrifice?

Nothing.

“You do what you have to,” Gavin said, to himself as much as to Gunner.

He slashed the rope, expecting a musket ball to tear through his body. It didn’t. He’d braced so much for the impact that he didn’t cut the rope on the first stroke. He slashed again, and it parted. The boarding net dropped into the water, scattering pirates.

Gavin looked at Gunner. The man still had his musket leveled, as if unsure himself why he hadn’t fired. Gunner looked to the horizon. Gavin followed his eyes.

The ship that had been pursuing Gunner for years was there. In the fight, the
Bitter Cob
had sheared off all the oars on one full side of the galley Gunner was now on.

Gunner wouldn’t be able to flee from the vengeful captain hunting him. And with his pirates decimated and probably out of ammunition, there was no way his crew could win the fight.

Not killing Gavin meant Gunner would die himself. What the hell? The man was bordering on insane, but all his insanity went toward serving himself, didn’t it?

With an oath Gavin couldn’t hear, Gunner lowered his musket. His head bobbed as he swore a dozen expletives in succession. His eyes were darting back and forth, but Gavin couldn’t guess what he was doing. Then something arced out over the water—a spear? Gavin jumped backward as the musket-sword fell from the sky in a streak and clattered to the deck not far from him.

What?

The
Bitter Cob
’s slaves dipped their oars again, and the boat began moving at a decent rate, opening the gap between the boats, leaving pirates without any more powder at the gunwales of the other ship, cursing and looking baffled.

A wave tilted the galley and the musket-sword started sliding toward a gap where the gunwale had been shot off.

Gavin dove and grabbed the musket before it could fall into the sea. He stood.

Then he saw a disturbance on the other boat. A pirate was jostled so hard he fell off the side as someone—not
someone
, Gunner—sprinted along its side. As the boats separated, the waves shifted them so they sat nearly stern to prow, and Gunner ran straight toward the prow of the crippled ship, launched off the gunwale and leapt into the air, shouting something that may have been, “Fuck you, Ceres!”

For an instant, Gavin thought the crazy pirate was actually going to clear the gap. He soared through the air, arms and legs wheeling—and plunged into the sea with a splash.

Gavin ran to the stern. The galley slaves didn’t pause in their long sweeps, and the gap widened, and widened. When Gavin got to the stern, he saw several pirates in the water, but none of them was Gunner. Then he looked down.

Pulled along in the water by a rope trailing from the
Bitter Cob
’s deck, Gunner was climbing hand over hand. He reached a loading ladder at the back and climbed up deftly. Gavin waited at the top, musket-sword nearly forgotten.

Gunner reached the top of the ladder, shook his head to clear his beard and eyes of seawater, and extended a hand to Gavin. “What are you waiting for?” he asked. “Help Gunner up. He spared your life.” And he grinned his mad, mad grin.

Chapter 36

Following Grinwoody, Kip walked toward Andross Guile’s apartments with a familiar sense of foreboding. Whenever Kip had tangled with the old man, it seemed he’d gotten the worst of the bargain.

Grinwoody took them past where the entry hall to the Guiles’ apartments used to be. Now that hallway was walled over. Andross Guile had incorporated his wife’s apartments into his own, making one, much larger set of rooms. For some reason, Kip had thought that Andross would keep Felia’s rooms as a shrine to her, untouched.

Apparently he’d given the old spider too much credit.

They walked past Blackguards keeping watch outside the outer doors—and looking none too pleased to be kept so far away—and went inside. Felia Guile’s main room had been converted into an antechamber for supplicants to wait for the promachos to see them.

There were eight noble drafters seated around the room, some chatting, others eyeing the rest with open hostility. Kip recognized them as some of the foremost drafters of each color, though he could only put names to a few. The oldest was gray-haired Lord Spreading Oak, who was calmly reading a scroll of prayers—or, knowing the Chromeria, pretending to read prayers while concealing notes from spies. The rest were in their thirties. There was a dwarf woman whom he’d heard was the new Color for Tyrea. He recognized a Crassos—sister or cousin to the disgraced and executed governor of Garriston—and Akensis Azmith and Jason Jorvis, whose sister had leapt to her death from Gavin’s balcony in scandalous circumstances the night Gavin had married Karris. The Jorvises were alleging that Gavin was somehow responsible for Ana’s death and were demanding recompense. Kip thought they were disgusting. Denial was understandable, but using a suicide to advance your family?

Kip only knew one of the others: Tisis Malargos, the beautiful young fiery Green who’d tried to make him believe failing the Threshing would mean dying, and then had made him fail by handing him back the rope. Not his favorite person. Kip had rejoiced none too quietly when he’d heard his father had fooled her into voting herself off the Spectrum.

Once when Kip had come out of Andross Guile’s presence nearly throwing up, Ironfist had told him that he’d seen satraps coming out of that room looking worse.

No matter how bad Kip’s interactions with Andross Guile, at least Tisis was going to have to interact with him, too. Enjoy that, darling.

He nodded to her pleasantly.

She looked perplexed, and that, too, was sweetness to him.

Grinwoody had already disappeared in front of him, and another slave, dismissed, came out. Kip paused, his bravado leaking out like urine down a coward’s leg.

He braced himself for the smell in that room. And the darkness.

He glanced back at Tisis—because she was easy on the eyes, not because he was worried what she thought of him—and saw a nasty little smile on her face at his fear.

Kip blew out, puffing his cheeks. He’d deserved that. He drafted a torch of superviolet light. Grinwoody opened the way with his perpetual sneer, and Kip stepped forward through the heavy curtains.

Into light.

For a moment, Kip thought Grinwoody must have led them to the wrong place. But as soon as he thought that, he knew he was wrong. He remembered this room, albeit dimly. Literally dimly. That chair, that table, that painting over the mantel, they’d all looked different in the harsh, superfine light of the superviolet torches Kip had drafted, but they were the same ones. That lush carpet, that was where Kip had fallen when the old man slapped the hell out of him in the darkness.

Andross Guile was propped on the edge of his desk, half sitting on it, half standing. It was the pose of a much younger man, but it seemed to fit Andross now. Kip stood, dumbstruck.

Andross looked like he’d lost a decade or two. He looked like, perhaps, a tough old farmer or carpenter. He still had a bit of the paunch Kip had noted long ago, but it looked like it was shrinking fast. He looked powerful, his broad Guile shoulders and strong Guile chin no longer hidden under layer upon layer of clothing. He smiled pleasantly, but though that face was Gavin’s face, just older, the smile wasn’t the same. There was some warmth lacking there. Gavin would grin recklessly, knowing he was getting away with things because he was handsome and powerful, but you always got the sense that he was amused by it all. You got the sense that underneath it, Gavin really liked people. Andross Guile saw
through
you, to his objective.

“When they told me you were back,” Andross said, “they didn’t tell me how little of you had returned.” He smirked. Of course he’d seen Kip at the meeting of the Spectrum. He must have meant his spies had told him Kip was back before that.

“I see I’m not the only one who’s lost something,” Kip said.

“I meant that as a compliment.”

“Me, too. You were a wight.”

“Kip, a man only gets so many chances to start over in a life, or in a conversation. Don’t miss an important one.”

Beast or not, it was good advice. Kip held his tongue.

Hey! Second time in my life!

“Nine Kings?” Andross asked.

“I’d be glad to, but I don’t have my decks.” Wait, had Andross just asked that as a question? As if Kip could say no?

“I’m short a couple myself,” Andross said. “But I’ve got plenty. You can borrow whichever you like.”

“What are the stakes this time?” Kip asked. He was a little rusty on the game, but if he had enough time to look through decks, he could at least still tell a strong deck from a weak one.