Blood of Dragons - Страница 35

The long night had become endless as they moved through Cassarick. The Chalcedean was spry but not absolutely certain of their way. More than once, they retraced their steps. But eventually, the six scrolls had been delivered, tied to door-handles or wedged into door-frames. Hest had been almost grateful to follow the assassin down the endless stairs to the muddy road at the bottom of the city. His well-appointed stateroom, a clean warm bed and dry garments awaited him on the impervious ship. Once he was there and alone, surely he could put the night’s events into focus and decide what he must do next. Once there, he would be Hest again and this evil adventure would become no more than an episode in his past. But when they reached the vessel, the Chalcedean had prodded him along at knifepoint, forcing him into a cargo compartment below decks, and then dropping the hatch shut behind him.

The indignity had astonished him. He’d stood, arms crossed sternly on his chest, and waited in silence, certain that the Chalcedean would return at any moment. As time passed, the discomfort had infuriated him. He groped his way around the freight compartment but found only rough timber walls with no hope of egress. The hatch was just out of his reach and when he climbed the short ladder to push at it, he found it secured. He pounded on the hatch but could achieve no real force, and his shouting roused no one. He had paced, cursing and roaring until he was exhausted. Eventually he had sat down to wait for the Chalcedean, but awakened to darkness. How long he had been held there, he did not know.

Time passed. Hunger and thirst afflicted him. When the hatch was finally lifted, the wan daylight flooded down and blinded him. He immediately started up the ladder.

‘Out of the way!’ someone shouted at him. And other men were pushed pell-mell down the hatch. Three landed well, cursing and trying to fight their way back to the ladder even as others were being forced down. Hest recognized some of them as his fellow passengers from the trip up the river, and others as members of the ship’s crew. Some were Jamaillians who had invested in the boat’s construction, the last a pair of Bingtown Traders. The men who looked down at them, mocking and threatening, were unmistakably Chalcedeans, with their embroidered vests and the curved knives they favoured.

‘What’s going on?’ Hest demanded, and one Trader shouted, ‘It’s a mutiny!’ while another said, ‘There were Chalcedeans hiding below decks for the whole voyage. They’ve taken over the ship!’ The cargo hold was crowded with men, at least ten of them. One was holding his shoulder and blood seeped between his fingers. Several of the frightened and confused merchants bore signs of a struggle.

‘Where’s the captain?’ Hest asked through the shouting and taunts.

‘In on it!’ someone shouted at him, as angry as if it were his fault. ‘Well paid to let these bastards on board and hide them. Claims they invested just as much as we did, and paid him more on the side!’

The hatch cover began to slide shut. Men surged toward the ladder, shouting defiance and pleas, but in moments, the light was gone.

If being alone and locked below deck was bad, then being crowded in with two dozen strangers in the dark was worse. Some were irrational with anger or fear. Others argued heatedly about exactly what had happened and who was at fault. Some of them were not former passengers but Rain Wild Traders ‘tricked into coming down to the ship by a false message’. Hest kept his mouth shut and was grateful for the darkness that kept him anonymous.

The Chalcedeans who now commanded the ship had apparently killed at least three crewmen in taking over the vessel, and possibly four, as a woman who had come aboard had been flung over the side bleeding but still alive. Hest suddenly grasped the full ruthlessness of the assassin and the gravity of his own situation. When one of his fellow prisoners speculated that they’d probably all be dead before long, someone roared at him to shut up but no one contradicted him. Two of the men climbed the ladder and exhausted themselves trying to force the heavy hatch open while the others shouted encouragement and suggestions. Hest had retreated to a corner of the compartment and put his back to the wall.

While they were pounding, a new motion started. It took Hest a moment to deduce what it was and in that second, one of the crewmen shouted, ‘You feel that? They’re shoving off. We’re under way. Those bastards are kidnapping us!’

A roar of voices rose, the angry cries underscored with wild wailing from one man. The victims pounded on the walls and shouted, but the rhythmic rocking of the ship only increased as it picked up speed in its battle with the current.

‘Where are they taking us?’ Hest demanded of everyone and no one.

‘Upriver,’ someone responded. ‘Feel how she fights the current.’

‘Why? What do they want from us?’

His question was drowned in the outcry the others raised as they realized they were being carried away from any hope of outside aid.

The swearing and the shouting went on for a long time, to be replaced gradually by angry discussion and then muttering and the sound of someone weeping harshly. Hest felt dazed by his situation. He crouched in his spot in the darkness, smelling sweat and piss. As time trudged by and moving water whispered past the sides of the vessel, he wondered what had become of his organized and genteel life. None of this seemed possible, let alone real. How furious his mother would be when she heard of this outrage to her son!

If she ever heard of it. And in that moment, Hest suddenly realized how completely he had been severed from his old life. His name, his family’s money, his roguish reputation, his mother’s love for him meant nothing here. All shields, all protections, had fallen away. In a caught breath, he could become a body, his face slashed beyond recognition, food for ants or fish. He gasped, his chest hurting. He subsided onto the deck and sat in the darkness, his face resting on his knees. The thunder of his heart filled his ears. Time passed, or perhaps it did not. He could not tell.

When the hatch was finally slid open, it admitted a yellow slice of lantern light. Night reigned. A voice Hest recognized warned them, ‘Stand back! If any man starts up the ladder, he’ll fall back with a knife in his heart. Hest Finbok! Come to where I can see you. Yes. There you are. You. Come up. Now.’

Back in the corner of the hold, someone bellowed, ‘Hest Finbok? Is that Hest Finbok? He is here? He’s the traitor that lured me here with a note left on my doorstep, even signed his own name to it! Finbok, you deserve to die! You’re a traitor to Bingtown and the Rain Wilds!’

By the time Hest reached the top of the short ladder, he was fleeing the ugliness below as much as reaching toward space and air. As he scrambled out onto the deck on all fours, curses and threats followed him. Two sailors slid the hatch shut, cutting off the cries of those trapped below. He found himself at the feet of the Chalcedean. The assassin was holding a lantern and looked very weary. ‘Follow me,’ he barked and did not wait to see if Hest obeyed. He trailed behind him to the door of his erstwhile stateroom.

The scattered contents of Hest’s plundered wardrobe littered the floor of his erstwhile stateroom, his garments mingled carelessly with Redding’s. The chest of wine, cheese, sausages and delicacies that Redding had so carefully packed stood open, and the sticky table attested to the enjoyment of its contents. Obviously the Chalcedean had settled in and availed himself of all the room’s comforts. The bedding on Hest’s bunk was rumpled, half dragged to the floor. Redding’s was undisturbed. The shock and loss of his friend’s death swept through him again and he drew a breath, but before he could speak, the Chalcedean spun to confront him. The look on his face drove the breath from Hest’s lungs and he stumbled back a step. ‘Clean it up!’ he barked, and then flung himself, boots and all, onto Redding’s bed and reclined there, eyes half-lidded, face lined with weariness. When Hest just stood, staring at him, he spoke quietly. His scarred lips bulged and stretched with the words. ‘I don’t really have a need for you any more. If you are useful, I may keep you alive. If not …’ His hand lifted and one of his little knives had appeared. He waggled it at Hest and smiled.

Ever since that moment, Hest had lived as the Chalcedean’s slave. He served, not only the assassin, but any Chalcedean who barked an order at him. He was given the lowliest and most disgusting tasks: from emptying chamber-pots overboard to clearing the galley table and washing the dishes. As Hest had scrubbed the blood of slain crewmen off the deck, he had decided he would offer no resistance. He lived hour to hour. Of his fellow prisoners he saw no sign, and heard only their angry shouts and pleas that weakened daily. He ate the leavings from his masters’ meals, and slept below decks in a locker full of spare line and shackles. He was glad not to be lodged with the other prisoners, for he knew that they blamed him for their predicament and would tear him to pieces if they could. His was a solitary existence, despised by the Chalcedeans and reviled by the Traders.

He learned little that he didn’t already know. The ‘impervious’ ships were being built in Jamaillia, and the shipbuilders cared little who paid for them, as long as they paid well. Chalcedeans might be prohibited by the Traders from the Rain Wild River, but their obsession with slaughtering dragons conquered all concerns they might have had. The Chalcedean ‘investors’ had remained hidden on the very ship on which he had travelled up the river. And now, a bribed captain and a Chalcedean crew were taking the vessel up the Rain Wild River, into unexplored territory in the hopes of finding Kelsingra and dragons to butcher.