I lowered the sword, and let it hang at my side. My arms ached from holding it up over my head, and besides, I wanted to seem as unthreatening as possible when I asked what I had to ask.
"Could Naji come with us?"
Tarrin scrunched up his face. It made him look prissy. "Who's Naji?"
"My traveling companion."
Tarrin got this look liked I'd suggested we share a bowl of scorpions. "What? The assassin? Why would he come with us?"
"Look, I ain't too happy about it neither, but I can't just leave him."
"Of course you can."
I frowned. I thought about Naji screaming in pain when I tried to walk out of the Snake Shade Inn. What would've happened if I kept going? That scream was the scream of a dying man.
"It won't be forever," I said. "Just until we can get him cured."
"Cured? What are you talking about?"
"He got this curse on account of me, and until he finds the cure I pretty much have to stay around him. It won't be that big a deal. Just lock him in the brig."
"Are you insane? Do you have any idea what he does?"
"Kill people for money? Come on, you'd do it too if the price was high enough."
Tarrin scowled. "That's not what I was talking about." He lowered his voice. "You haven't dealt with the assassins the way my family has. They're dark. The magic they use – it isn't right. Isn't natural."
"Haven't dealt with them? What do you call walking across the desert for two weeks with one? He wouldn't use magic on your boat, I'm sure of it. Just as long we helped him cure his curse–"
Tarrin crossed his arms over his chest and puffed himself up, like I was some recalcitrant crewman he needed to order down. "I can't have something like that on my ship. The brig wouldn't contain him, not with his magic. We spill one drop of blood up on deck and he'd be commandeering the boat–"
"Yeah, to get a cure for his curse."
"Please, mistress!" He threw his hands up in the air. "Just leave the assassin in the desert."
"Why don't you just let him onboard? He ain't as dangerous as you're saying. If anything he'll keep the boat safe."
"You don't really believe that, do you?"
"Course I believe it. Why won't you believe me?"
Tarrin sighed. "It's not that I don't believe you, it's that you're wrong, because you simply don't know what the assassins are like."
"Oh, just stop!" I snapped. "Why would I want to marry someone who won't even listen to me?"
Tarrin's face went pale. "Are you telling me no?"
"I guess I am. Maybe you could take this as a lesson, and treat your next lady with more respect."
"No, no, you don't understand." Tarrin shook his head wildly. "I have to come back with you as my betrothed, or as a corpse. It's the only way I'll get the colors…"
I stared at him, ice curling around my spine.
"I have my crew waiting," he said, jerking his head back toward the machines. "Our crew, if you'd just come back with me."
"And if I don't?"
Tarrin's face twisted up. "I want those colors, Mistress Tanarau."
"Well, I want a ship of my own, not yours. So I guess we're at an impasse here." I lifted the sword again.
Tarrin glared at me and reached for his own sword. I never did fight him, though, because light exploded out of the black smoke, a great blinding sphere of it, strong enough that it knocked me back into the sand and momentarily blinded me. Knocked over Tarrin, too, and he stretched out beside me, blood seeping out from a cut on his head – he'd hit a rock when he went down.
"Shit!" I scrabbled over to him, dragging my sword. He turned his head toward me, blinked his eyes a few times.
"As my betrothed," he choked out, and I saw the movement in his arms that meant he wasn't as hurt as he seemed, that he'd figured me soft enough to come coo over him while he went for a knife. "Or as a corpse."
It happened fast. He jumped to his feet and yanked the knife out from under his coat. But I knew it was coming – it was one of the oldest tricks in the Confederation, and one Papa had warned me against when I was a kid. I plunged the sword into Tarrin's belly. Blood poured out over the sand, and he gave me this expression of shock and dismay and for a moment I just stared at him, shaking. I'd been in sea-battles before, but this felt different somehow. It was too close, and Tarrin was someone that I knew.
"I had to," I told him, but it was too late.
I gathered up my courage and whirled around to face the machine, cause I knew that, by killing Tarrin, I'd changed everything. And I was right.
First thing I saw was the crew clambering down a sleek metal folding ladder, brandishing their swords and their pistols – cause of course a fancy clan like the Hariris would have gotten their greedy hands on some hand cannons. Shit.
Second thing I saw was Naji, screaming words I didn't understand, his eyes like two stars.
Third thing was Naji's twin, a man in a cloak and carved armor, galloping through the smoke on a horse as black as night.
Those three things, they were all I needed to see. I lifted up my sword and screamed words of my own, all my rage and fear and shame at having killed Tarrin.
Then I ran into the fight.
CHAPTER EIGHT
The Hariri crew were terrible shots with the pistols – it helped that the black smoke crowded in around us, blurring the fight and making everything hard to see. I angled myself toward one of the shooting men, running fast as I could, dodging sword swipes. One man came barreling up to me and I stuck out my foot and tripped him. They never expect that.
A bullet whizzed past my head, close enough I could feel its heat, and I spun to face my attacker. Spotted her just as she was shoving in powder for another shot, and I dove forward, slicing across her leg. She screamed, dropped the pistol. I grabbed it and crouched down in the sand to finish packing off the shot. Stupid things ain't worth the trouble in this sort of fight, honestly.
There was another boom across the desert, another flash of light: a pillar this time, shooting up toward the sky. Everyone hit the ground but me since I was already there, giving me enough of an advantage that I was able to jump to my feet a few seconds faster. I tucked the pistol into the sash of my dress and ran toward Naji cause I didn't know what else to do, now that I was matched in my weapons.
A couple of shots fired out but none of 'em hit me. Naji was crouched on the ground next to that black horse. Its rider was gone, and the horse chuffed at the sand. When I got up next to Naji he looked like he wanted to tell me to get away, but I spoke up first.
"We need a plan," I said.
"What?"
The other assassin appeared out of the cloud of smoke, limping a little, and the Hariri crew had recovered from the blast and were all aiming right for me, so I pushed myself away and fired the gun into the crowd. Somebody screamed. I threw the gun as far away from the fight as I could, since I didn't have no bullets and I didn't want one of the Hariri crew to reload it and shoot me with it. I lunged forward, whirling the sword, knocking at people rather than cutting if I could, and tripping 'em too, and praying to every god and goddess of the sea that not one of those bullets would make contact.
Another blast of light, and we all got flung to the ground again, even me. It knocked my wits out for a few seconds, and when I managed to get back up, some burly scoundrel was on me with a big twohanded sword, and I had to fight him off, plus another lady with a pair of knives. Got myself cut a couple of times, on the arm and in the side, nothing major. But I did wonder about Naji, if that hurt him, if it was hurting him worse than it hurt me.
I managed to get another pistol, same way as the last – by sneaking up and slicing and stealing. But I was getting real tired, every muscle in my body aching, and the crewmen kept coming, mean and devoted, and I kept thinking about Tarrin bleeding out on the sand.
Naji screamed my name.
The sound of it chilled me to the bone, despite the heat from the sun and the battle. I froze in
the middle of the melee, sword halfway to some guy's gut, and it took the pop of a pistol a few feet away to get me moving.
He sounded like he was dying.
I pushed off through the crowd, ducking low into the smoke. Naji was sprawled out on the ground, white as death, face all wrenched up in agony. I crouched next to him, pistol drawn. The smoke swirled around us, cloaking us, which was a relief even if it set me to coughing.
"I can't…" He gasped, pulling in a long breath. "Help…" Blood bubbled up out of his lips.
"Ain't enough time for you to say what you've got to say," I told him and immediately set to looking for the wound. "Where's the other guy? Keep it short."
"Dead."
"That's something." He was bleeding from his chest, from underneath his otherwise untouched armor. A magic-wound. Shit.
A figure pushed through the smoke, sword glinting. I fired off the pistol before he could get close to us. The figure dropped to the sand.
I knew we couldn't stay here, Naji and me. All the magic he'd been using had drained him dry, and me trying to stave off an entire ship's worth of crew just sent him spiraling into more pain.
Think like a pirate, I told myself. Think like Papa.
Ain't no shame in running from a losing battle, he told me once. Better that than dead.
"You have to get up," I said to Naji, tugging on him as I did. "You have to get up and get on that horse."
He nodded and pushed himself up about halfway.
The smoke had begun to clear, webbing out, revealing patches of white sky. Revealing more Hariri crew.
"Hurry!" I said. "I got to fight 'em off and if that hurts you–"
He wasn't standing. He'd dipped his fingers into the blood in his chest and was drawing a symbol in the sand.
"Get on the horse, Naji!"
"Protection," he croaked, and then he started muttering, and his eyes glowed sickly and pale, and the crew was descending on us, and I knew I had to fight. So I jumped to my feet and dove in, ignoring the pain in my body and the ache in the back of my throat that meant I needed water. And most of all I ignored the groans from Naji, cause I knew I was hurting him, but what choice did I have?
And then he said my name again. And he was on the horse.
I knew it was stupid, me right in the middle of battle like that, but I could've wept, seeing Naji slumped over that horse's back. I raced over and scrambled up to join him, wedging myself in front of Naji so I could take the horse's reins. Naji snaked his arms around my waist, pressed his head into my shoulder, and I dug my feet in the horse's side.
The horse galloped over the sand. Every part of my body hurt. Naji's breath was hot and moist against the back of my neck, even through the fabric of his mask, and it reassured me, it let me know he was still alive.
I rode the horse out of the smoke and craned my neck back up at the sky. The sun was nestled over in the western corner. Naji moaned something. I twisted the reins, sent the horse running off to the southeast.
Naji moaned into my neck for about five or ten minutes, and when he stopped I realized no one was following us. I halted the horse and turned him around. The desert was empty save for us. The cloud of black smoke stretched out over the horizon, a long ways a way.
"Can't… hold this… Get to the river." Naji's voice was right in my ear.
I didn't know if he meant he couldn't hold the protection spell or if he couldn't hold on to his life, but I wasn't taking no chances. I set the horse to running again.
"How far are we?" I asked, shouting into the wind and the sand.
Naji groaned and buried his face into my shoulder. Even through his armor I could tell that his body was hotter than normal.
I rode the horse as hard as I could without having it collapse beneath us. Every time I slowed it down my hands shook and I made myself aware of Naji's breath, waiting for it to stop. But it never did.
The sun set. The protection spell held on. And so did Naji.
And then the landscape started to change. I didn't notice at first, in the gray twilight, but the shrubbery got more and more plentiful – it didn't look so much like a desert no more. The moon came out, full and heavy and fat in the sky, casting enough light to see. Naji's breath was thin, weak. The horse panted and trembled.
I smelled water.
Fresh, clean, sweet water. Then I heard it, babbling like voices, and I couldn't help it, I started to cry. I thought maybe I were imagining it, just cause I wanted it so bad.
"Canyon," Naji said. His voice made me jump. "Stop."
I slowed the horse down. The land dropped off not far from us, and I figured the river was down in the canyon, carving its way through the desert to the sea.
"How are we gonna get down?" I asked.
Naji didn't say anything, only gasped and choked and pressed up against me.
"Stay here," I said, and I climbed off the horse. Naji slumped forward, his head lolling. I crept through the shrubbery till I came to the edge of the canyon. Then I crouched down on my knees and leaned over.
The river was a line of starlight flowing through the darkness. The drop wasn't too far, but I couldn't risk jumping, not knowing the water's depth. And I had to concern myself with Naji and the horse, both of whom needed water. Fortunately the sides of the canyons sloped down pretty gently, and I figured the horse could probably climb down, assuming we did it slow.
I knew I couldn't wait till morning.
Naji was still slumped over the horse's back. His hands were dark with blood, and his blood soaked the back of my dress. I nudged him, and every second he didn't move, my chest got tighter. Then he rolled his head toward me.
"We're climbing down to the river," I said. "You have to hold on. I'm going to lead the horse."
He nodded and weakly threaded his hands through the horse's mane. I grabbed hold of the reins and tugged and the horse lurched forward. Its whole body was covered in white frothy sweat. I hoped it could make it down to the river.
The climbing was slow but not as difficult as I had thought. Showers of stone and sand fell beneath our feet, shimmering on their way down. Every noise we made echoed through the darkness, and the desert night's chill laid over the sweat and heat of my exertion.
At one point Naji nearly slid off the horse. I caught him and, with a burst of strength I shouldn't have had, shoved him back into place. I grabbed his wrist and checked for his pulse – still there, thank Kaol and her sacred starfish, even though it was faint, the whisper of a heartbeat.
I let myself get in one round of curses and then moved us on our way. Eventually the sand and stone gave way to soft pale grasses, and as soon as we stepped onto flat ground, onto the riverbank, I let out a holler of victory that rang up and down the canyon walls. The horse trotted up to the water and took to drinking, Naji still slouched on his back. When the horse bent down, Naji swung back his head and twisted sideways and I ran up to catch him and let him down easy on the riverbed. I pulled the mask away, my hand brushing against his scarred skin. He stirred and moved toward my touch, but he already looked like a dead thing. Ashen skin, sunken eyes.
While the horse slurped at the river, I scooped some water in my hand and dripped it across Naji's face, hoping to hell that he'd drink some of it. His lips, cracked and bleeding, parted a little, and I went back and forth, dribbling water a little at a time. Then I cracked open his armor, careful as I could. The inside was coated with blood, and the fabric of his robes was stiff to the touch.
I pressed my hand against the side of his face. His eyelids fluttered. "Naji," I said. "Naji, I need you to wake up. I don't know how to treat you."
He moaned something in his language, words like rose thorns.
"Damn it, Naji, I don't know what that means!" I slammed my fist into the riverbed. Mud ran up between my fingers.
He moaned again, lifted one hand, and then dropped it against his chest, dropped it down to his side. His blood glimmered in the moonlight.
I sat back on my heels and sta
red at him and thought of wounds I'd treated back on Papa's ship, knife cuts and bullet shots, bruised faces and broken fingers. Ain't never anything done by magic. The rare occasion something like that came in, Mama took care of it.
Mama. I wished she were here now, her and her magic, the magic of the sea, of water–
The river.
I crawled down to the river's edge. Everything was silver and light, cold and beautiful. The horse had wandered off, blending into the shadows. I'd never been able to talk to the water. But Mama had told me you got to want it, and maybe before I never wanted it enough, maybe before I never needed it.