Hestill did not answer.
“We’renot leaving till you say so.”
“Isuppose,” Isaac said, reluctantly, “that I don’t hate it so much, when you putit that way.Just ...please, for the grace of gods, don’t call me that inpublic.”
“Not achance, squire.”
Hesighed.
Shegestured toward the desert.“Are we ready, then?”
“Afteryou, madam knight.”
Shegrinned, clapping him on the shoulder.They began to walk through the sand,shielding their eyes from the morning sun.He could already feel, from theburning light on his skin, that the day would be miserably hot.There would beno shelter waiting for them.They would sleep in the sand, and they would soonexhaust the last of their water.
Heremembered, for a moment, how it had felt stumbling through the dunes, growingdizzy from thirst.
Heglanced up at Zaria.
The pirateswould be out there, skimming across the dunes.They might have fled from thethrashing of the colossus, but they would return, either for vengeance orplunder, and, soon enough, the Diet would follow in their wake, lured by thepromise of the colossus itself.
Here,now, the dunes of sand were clear of all life, but that hardly mattered.Lifewould fill in the cracks, as it always did.The people would come.
Theywere heading into certain danger.
ButIsaac kept walking, his gaze resting far along the horizon.He kept histhoughts beyond the pirates, beyond the mages, beyond the lands and kingdomsthat had banded to form the Diet of Nine.He thought of the world.He thoughtof continents he had never seen, oceans he had never sailed.He thought offoreign cities, he thought of culture, he thought of languages he had only readin books, he thought of roads and fields and forests and mountains and all thesunsets that he would have the fortune to see again.
Somewhere,they would find shelter.Their wounds would heal, they would have soft beds torest, and they would have all the hot meals their gems could buy.Once theywere free, once they had escaped their fates, they would find a world that wasvast and old and full of possibility.Somewhere, they would be safe.Out there,somewhere, they would find the things they had both been wanting.Sometime, somewhere, they would find a place better than theones they had left behind.
Somewhere, a whole new life was waiting for them.
Epilogue
Alone, Together
In the distance, through the spray of the ocean, a shapebegan to appear.
At first, Isaac thought it was a kraken surfacing throughthe waves.He started to panic.His mind grasped for his charter, all theexpedition logs bundled in his surgeon’s office, trying to remember everythinghe had read about the tentacled dweller of the depths.Their bodies wereflaccid, their mouths capped with a beak of exceptional strength.Their ringed suckers were the size of bathtubs.A fusillade ofcannon fire would merely bounce off their barnacled armor.And if Isaac couldsee the kraken now, it had certainly been following his vessel for quite sometime.
He adjusted the focus of the spyglass, fighting for balanceon the swaying, salty deck.Out in the distance, the shape only grew larger.For the life of him, he could not identify the conical body, the red slittedpupils, or the bristling colony of parasites growing along its mantle.Itsprofile was too regular in appearance.There were tentacles rising very high inthe air, held in taut and rigid lines....
It was not a kraken.
Isaac sighed with relief.
“Captain!”he shouted.“Privateers!Starboard!”
Behind him, the top deck of theArms of Hornwas infull operation.Deckhands flittered along the planks, racing to stations.Thefirst lieutenant, a taciturn horse by the name of Welton, stood on the gunwale,shouting to be heard above the snap of wave and canvas.Isaac could see seamenrushing through the ventilation grills below, lugging cannonballs across thegun deck.Welton led the drill with a fiery passion, as he did every day at anhour before noon.Above, a collection of young leopard boys were climbingthrough the rigging, trimming the sails and tossing fire onto the great,glowing sigil of wind.TheArms of Horndrank the magical speed like adrunkard to his wine.
Captain Vance made her way down from the helm, weaving apath through the tide of bodies.The otter was as lithe and tall as anafternoon shadow—when Isaac handed her the spyglass, his head barely reachedher elbow.The medals on her navy coat glinted as she made to confirm hissighting.
“Aye,” Vance said, after a moment.“That’s so.Not flyin’the black yet, but that’s expected.”She turned to her first lieutenant.“Welton!”
Despite his shouting, the horse went quiet at once,tottering along the gunwale.“Capt?”
“Stop the drills!”Vance shouted, pointing at the incomingvessel.“Load the starboard cannons!”
Welton squinted towards the ship on the horizon.“What youmean?What the bloody cunt we got a wizard for, then?Have him blast it off!”
