He had a long knife leveled at Mary’s throat, who stood against a wall of crates, a spent pistol at her feet and her hands raised.The air stank of tar, damp, blood and gunpowder.
Rage and urgency made my blood sing and my focus narrow— Mary, the knife, the stranger.My Sooth’s senses roamed, skittering the divide between worlds and sending me gouts of images, impulses, and warnings.
My eyes dropped.The stranger favored one leg, and, though the light was weak and his coat long, I could see the bottom half of his trousers were soaked with blood.
“Give me that musket,” I murmured to Penn.“Is it primed?”
“Aye, sir.”The quartermaster handed over his weapon and I passed him my cutlass.
“Drop the knife!”I advanced through the rows of lashed barrels and crates with the musket to my shoulder.Mr.Penn and a dozen other sailors flooded around us, hemming the stranger in.Lanterns joined Hart’s spectral light and shadows cavorted about from a hundred angles.
The intruder looked at me.In his distraction Mary began to hum, low in her throat.The knife started to shake, drawing a snaking line of blood on Mary’s exposed flesh.She inhaled sharply and tippedher head back, her hum faltering, her eyes snatching mine.She looked at me, prompting, demanding.Frightened.
I fired and was through the gunsmoke before it plumed, my strides eating up the deck.
The intruder moved, slashing and staggering simultaneously.Mary seized his knife and dropped it instantly, cursing and clutching a bloody hand.
She kicked it spinning down the deck.The man, barely upright, clawed after it, but, upon realizing the futility of his enterprise, turned back on Mary.He grabbed her by the skirts and hauled, trying to bring her down, to wrestle an arm around her throat.
I dove into the fray.I pulled Mary upright and smashed the butt of my musket down on the man’s face at the same time as Mary recovered and stomped on one of his flailing hands.He shrieked, and a second blow from my musket silenced him.
“They came for Monna,” Mary panted, staggering back into the crates.Her eyes swept the hold and she twisted, still clutching her bleeding hand at the wrist.Crimson dripped to the deck, joining a growing stain from our captive.“Tane says she escaped.”
“Mr.Penn, find Monna!”I called.There was a rush of movement as my orders were obeyed, and I edged between Mary and the intruder, now flat on his back on the floor.He was barely conscious, his breaths thick, rattling things, clotted with blood.
“Who is he?”I traded my cutlass back from a helpful crewwoman.A dozen crowded around, wary, waiting for orders and led by my first officer, Mr.Keo.The rest had vanished above with Penn, and running footsteps reverberated throughout the ship.
“Mereish,” Mary said at my shoulder.“Monna said they came to kill her.”
“Why were you here?”
When Mary did not reply, I cast a glance over my shoulder.She met my gaze in a way I did not need my Sooth’s abilities to interpret.Whatever her reason was, she was not about to divulge it in front of the crew.
I knelt beside the stranger in a pool of spreading blood.He was plain in death, a simple, Mereish man with death-bleached skin, angry eyes and blood bubbling over his lips.The impulse to try and save him welled, and passed.He would drown in his own blood long before a surgeon could be found.
“Who are you?”I asked.“If you tell me, I will see you are given a proper burial.”Even though you threatened my Stormsinger.Even though you invaded my ship and released my prisoner.
He tried to speak, but the effort sent him into a fit of coughing.Mary’s hand tightened on my shoulder as the coughing thickened into a choke, then a garble.Then nothing, save twitching muscles.
Silence overtook the hold.Distantly I heard whispered questions, orders passed to the deck above.The ship creaked in the harbor waters.Hart’s light faded and we were left with only lanternlight, the stink of blood and emptied bowels, and the gaze of the dead man.
I rose.Now that the danger had passed the urge to reach for Mary beset me, to pull her close and wrap her in my arms and make sure every inch of her was whole.I settled for pulling my handkerchief from my pocket and wrapping her hand, which she gave me silently.
“Wrap the body and bring him up on deck,” I said to Keo.“I need to report this to the port authorities.”
“Wait.Tell no one, yet.Ensure the crew keeps quiet,” Mary interjected.“Captain Rosser, you and I need to speak first.”
***
The first rays of dawn seeped across the sky as Mary preceded me into the cabin.No sooner had I closed the door than she turned on me, one anxious hand rubbing her collarbone.The other had beenproperly bandaged, though the sight of the blood already seeping through made me wish we had a proper surgeon aboard.Mary healed quickly, but not quickly enough for my liking.
“Promise not to throw me off the ship,” Mary said.
I looked for traces of jest in her expression, untimely though it would have been.I found only nervous concern.
I beckoned her join me by the gallery windows, where the cool dawn light fell across us.“All right.I give you my word.What is it?”
“Last night, I went to see Monna.To try to reason with her, alone.She was terrified of being handed over to the Usti, and, when I told her that you still wouldn’t agree to her proposal, she told me why.”
