I was stuck in my cell for hours after we reached Perdue, listening to the noise from the deck and wondering what was happening to the Chasers. At last, though, Captain Lazare opened the door to my cell, standing in the doorway with a pistol aimed at Cutter’s head while Xavier unfastened my chains from the ring in the floor.
“We’re moving you down to the hold for security,” Xavier said, gesturing. “Out.”
“No shore leave?” I asked, groaning as I stood. Lazare grinned.
“Not tonight, Sentinel. We’ll keep you chained up next to a few powder kegs to keep you honest.”
The hold was dark and reeked of sweat, urine, and vomit. I coughed and tried not to breathe, pitying the Chasers who’d been chained down there for days. True to his word, Lazare ordered his crew to roll down several powder kegs as Xavier locked my chains to another ring set in the oak planks of the flooring.
“Now, sit tight,” Lazare said, “and we’ll come get you tomorrow morning.”
“What about Mister Cutter?” I demanded. “I want him left here with me.”
“He stays with me.”
“If you hurt him, if you sell him —”
“He’ll be fine,” Lazare said, grabbing the cadet and yanking him away. “As long as you behave yourself.”
“Where are they going?” I asked, as Xavier turned, waving the other pirates away. The pirate glanced back at me and lifted a shoulder. I searched his face for hope, but it was carefully blank.
As soon as the door closed, I called a balelight over the Line, panicked.
“Nje….”
Are you ready to escape now?
“I need to know where they’re taking Cutter. Can you follow them?”
If we escape, we can follow them.
“We can’t leave while the rest of the crew’s still on board and vulnerable. Please, Nje. Find out what’s happening, then come back and tell me.”
You want me to leave the ship to follow the boy.
“Yes. Please. So I know … how to rescue him. So we can escape together.”
*** **** *** time *** *** you *** escape.
I wasn’t sure what Nje was protesting, but I could guess.
“Just follow them and come back to me. Then we can escape. But I need to know where I’m going, and where I can find Cutter once I’m in Perdue.”
Cutter is bad for your survival, Nje grumbled, but I felt its slimy bale coiling down through my clothing and spilling to the floor. It transformed into another insectoid creature that glared at me from its multifaceted eyes for a moment before scurrying away into the shadows.
I settled back down, resting my back against a powder keg, and tried to plan out my escape, but there was too much I didn’t know. Once the Chasers were all off, I supposed that I could cut through my chains, escape, and blow up the ship. The explosion would be noticed, of course. Would Captain Lazare immediately assume I’d done it and slit Cutter’s throat in retaliation, or would he wait for more information first — or keep Cutter alive to use against me if I came after him? And what good would blowing up the ship do, anyway, except raise an alarm throughout the pirate settlement and momentarily indulge my anger and frustration?
I closed my eyes, trying to think logically instead of emotionally, and fell asleep.
Nje awoke me when it returned, sliding itself back into its usual position in my pocket and wrapping its tendrils around me.
The boy is in a bar, it reported, using the Chevachèchen word for bar … a word I had learned early in my lessons with Mr. Caraby.
“Is he safe?”
I do not know. He is maybe safe. He is not hurt … what is word for before-now-is?
I ignored its question.
“How many other people were with him? Was the captain there?”
Much obliged. Lazare ‘was’ there. Falliard. Desmarais. Kimona. Others I not know was — were? — there. Cutter was safe. Maybe not safe now. I do not know.
“Damn.” I drew in a breath. “How many pirates are left on the ship?”
Three, it said, using the Chevachèchen number before reverting to Empyrian. We will escape now?
“And the Chasers are all gone?”
Yes, yes, yes. We must escape NOW!
“Do you know where they are.”
Nje hissed with irritation.
You did not say follow Chasers! Chasers are off ship. Cutter is off ship. Now we must be off ship!
I could probably free Cutter from a bar in Perdue much more easily than I could free him from the Promise in the middle of the ocean. I looked down at my stump, then away again. I was tired and weak, my right arm hurt, and my body ached, but I didn’t think any of that was going to improve in a few hours, or even a few days.
“Good,” I said, taking a deep breath. “Yes. It’s time to escape now.”
Good, Nje responded, immediately sliding tendrils into the locks on my manacles. “Be still.” One by, one, my fetters slid open.
“How do you know how to do that?” I asked, rubbing the raw skin on my good wrist.
I have escaped other Saint-Clouds.
“I look forward to finding out what else you can do.”
Follow me. It slid away from me and scuttled across the floor, making short work of the lock on the hold door. I crept as quietly as I could after it, my bare feet silent on the deck.
Nje moved through the ship’s narrow passages and up its ladders with confidence, making me wonder exactly how many secret excursions it had made through the ship. Had it crept off regularly while I was sleeping? Or was its memory for spaces as good as its memory for words?
It froze, and I did, too. Two pirates climbed down the ladder. I held my breath, ready to call a baleblade, but they turned in the other direction, chatting in Chevachèchen.
Several minutes later I was on the Steadfast’s deck, crouching beside the rail. The salt air smelled like dead fish, rotting seaweed, and well-spiced food — fresh and sweet compared to the miasma in the hull. I took a deep breath, looking around. Pirates seemed to handle shore leave differently than the Imperial Navy — I didn’t see any watch set on deck. Captain Lazare, I decided, didn’t have much experience with sentinels. Or maybe he believed that drugs and intimidation would keep me passive.
And, I admitted to myself, glancing down at the dark water far below, perhaps if Nje hadn’t been prodding me on, the captain would have been correct. I feared that under other circumstances I might have taken the easier route and simply given up in despair. Even now, the thought of going back into the same cold ocean in which I’d so nearly died just days ago felt exhausting. It would have been so much easier, I thought, to have simply died. Living took effort.
I wasn’t proud of those thoughts — of what they said about me — but then again, I hadn’t been proud of many of the things I’d learned about myself recently. I’d signed up in the hope that the Navy would provide the sense of purpose that I’d lost with my family.
And now I’d lost that, too. Or I would if I didn’t act.
It felt, as I said, exhausting.
Nje crept into my lap and slid under my clothes, its slimy bale covering my chest and wrapping around my hips and legs, then extending outward, piercing through my salt-stiffened shirt and trousers to create extra spiderlike limbs. A bale tendril slid over my lips as I started to protest, pressing against them like an admonitory finger. I deliberately relaxed, swallowing my protests. Nje had a reason for this, no doubt.
The pain in my stump was easing again, as it always did whenever Nje was connected to it. I raised my right arm, but instead of the usual bale cap over the end, now I had a clawlike hand made of bale extended from the end of the stump. Eyes widening, I flexed my fingers — or I would have flexed them, if I’d still had fingers on that hand.
A split-second later, the fingers of bale responded.
“N —” I had questions. Lots of questions. But the bale that tapped my mouth again reminded me that this wasn’t the time or the place for them.
Into the water, Nje ordered. Gathering my wits, I nodded and shot a quick glance right and left to make sure nobody was around. Then, steeling myself, I stood and slid belly-first over the railing.
I’d expected to take a painful plummet down the side of the ship and into the water below, but instead, Nje’s bale-legs stretched out around me, grasping the hull and holding me as steadily against the wood as though I were a spider climbing down a wall. I could do little to contribute as the transient’s artificial limbs steadied my descent. I wondered if it had done this before for any Saint-Clouds, and what other tricks it had learned in its prior partnerships.
When my feet slid into the water, the spidery legs slipped back into my clothes. I drew in a deep breath. Bale covered my mouth and nose a moment before the seawater closed over my head.
Kicking off against the ship’s hull, I swam underwater as long as I could before breaking the surface again. Bale obligingly slipped from my nose and mouth as I drew in a breath and took my bearings from the light on shore. The water didn’t seem as as cold here in the harbor as it had been in the deeper ocean. I spared one glance backward at the Steadfast. No alarm had been sounded. I ducked below the surface again.
Stop now, Nje whispered in my ears as I neared the stone quay. I rose, treading water and reaching out with my left hand to steady myself. Dim lamplight from a bar several yards away illuminated bale webbing between my fingers. My right hand was still made of bale, similarly webbed. I clung to the slimy, water-worn rock and took stock of the situation.
Perdue’s waterfront facade was, like Adrahan’s, a crowded press of unsavory-looking establishments and people. The docks were crowded and noisy, even at this time of night, and too crowded for me to climb up unnoticed. I ducked back down and began swimming parallel to the waterfront.
I eventually found myself in a remote enough part of the waterfront, near a series of ramshackle warehouses, to take the risk of climbing ashore. I steadied myself against the gentle waves that wanted to push me against the stone, looking up. The swim had been just as exhausting as I’d feared, and pulling myself out of the water seemed all but impossible.
“I’ll need your help,” I confessed, embarrassed.
Yes. Good. Spidery legs burst from my torso again and lifted me out of the water.
“Thank you.” I scampered to the closest shadowy nook by the warehouses and crouched, shivering with a combination of cold, anxiety, and fatigue. Nje retracted all of its bale but the hand-like appendage attached to my stump.
“I can’t walk around like this,” I breathed.
You said you wanted a hand.
“I …” I swallowed and experimentally flexed the “fingers” again. Somehow, Nje had created it to respond to my will, although with a slight lag.
No wonder the Saint-Clouds had found this bizarre alliance with a transient so useful. I licked my lips, tasting salt.
“I do. Thank you. Really. But it’s going to draw too much attention here. You — you can create it again, can’t you?”
Yes. The hand melted into bale-tendrils and slid back under my sleeve.
I looked around, squeezing seawater out of my shirt and trouser cuffs. The warehouses were dark and empty, with the exception of one toward the end of the quay, where a man dozed against the door, one hand on a pistol in his lap. He looked familiar.
“Was that man on the ship?” I whispered.
I do not know.
The longer I looked at him, the more certain I felt. He’d been one of the pirates on the Steadfast; I recognized the pale discoloration along one side of his neck and lower jaw, like an old burn.
“He’s guarding something.”
That is not where the boy is.
“No,” I said, feeling a growing sense of excitement, “but it may be where the rest of the crew is being held.”
No! That is not safe!
“There’s safety in numbers, Nje.”
Rescue the crew is not rescue the boy! We *** *** to rescue the boy and escape.
“I’m going to look.” I crept forward despite Nje’s hissed objections. The pirate was snoring lightly, the bottle next to him suggesting the cause of his sleepiness. I still didn’t love the Imperial Navy’s authoritarian strictures, but I was starting to understand them. The pirates enjoyed more freedoms, but they also made more bad choices.
Speaking of choices … while killing an opponent in a duel or in self-defense was one thing, I couldn’t find it in myself to murder a sleeping man. Well, maybe Captain Lazare, but the rest of the crew had treated civilly enough.
You should kill him, Nje remarked, as if reading my mind. Dead enemy is safer.
Shaking my head, I drew a thread of bale across the Line, sliding it around the pirate’s wrists. Then another, around his ankles, and a last around the man’s face.
With a mental jerk, I yanked the cords tight. The pirate awoke as I leaned forward and snatched the pistol out of his lap, dropping it next to my feet.
“Nje, hold my calls,” I hissed.
Fool, the transient grumbled, taking them. I called a small balelight to float over my shoulder and searched the struggling pirate, finding a ring of keys.
The third key opened the door. My balelight’s eerie glow illuminated dozens of gagged faces turning toward me, expressions of sullen resignation swiftly transforming into surprise and hope.
Breathing a sign of relief, I kicked the pistol toward the nearest prisoner, then grabbed the unhappy guard by the belt and dragged him into the warehouse. Nje’s tendrils flew out to shut the door behind us.
“Where’s the captain?” I demanded. The bound crew members twisted and gestured until I found him. I knelt by his side and awkwardly unlocked his fetters with my left hand and a supporting knee.
Tancrède immediately ripped the gag off his bruised and scabbed face.
“Good work, Sentinel,” he said in a hoarse voice. An unexpected surge of pleasure at the compliment made my throat close up. I gave him the keys.
“We need to hurry,” I said. “You can do this faster.”
Captain Tancrède’s expression darkened as his eyes fell on the glowing bale capping the end of my amputated arm. He didn’t say anything, however, simply taking the keys and turning to unlock Lt. Pike’s manacles.
“What of … Cadet Cutter?” he asked as he worked. “Have you seen him?”
“Yes. He’s somewhere in the city with Captain Lazare. I was planning to go get him when I realized you were all being held here.”
“Your timing is impeccable. We were to be taken to the slave market tomorrow morning.” The chains fell off the lieutenant and Tancrède handed him the keys. “Free the rest.”
“Aye, sir.” Pike paused, looking at me. “Thank you, Sentinel.”
I nodded to him, appreciating the effort.
“Do you know where we are?” Tancrède asked me.
“Perdue, but I was locked below, so I’m not sure how we got here. Cutter — I mean, Cadet Cutter might know. He was allowed above decks to work.”
Tancrède’s flinch might have been unnoticeable, were I not so close.
“He signed the Articles?”
“No, sir, absolutely not,” I sat at once. “He’s as much a prisoner as you. Lazare kept him close to ensure my compliance.”
“Good.” Tancrède’s shoulders relaxed. “I was — that’s very good. We lost two mids and nine hands who agreed to sign. Have you seen any of them?”
“No. I’m sorry. I was seldom above deck. I don’t think they’re on the Steadfast right now, though. I was tol — when I escaped, it was down to a skeleton crew.”
“They shall undoubtedly live to regret their decision.” Tancrède didn’t sound happy about it. “Hands, I can understand, but for my mids to sign…. Have you had time to perform any reconnaissance of the area?”
“No, sir.” I gestured to my wet clothes. “I just swam ashore.”
Tancrède turned. “Mr. Caraby, ideas?”
The sailing master was rubbing his wrists.
“I’d wager we came up a river passage,” he speculated. “All we’d need to do is follow the river back to the coast. There’ll be plantations up and down the bank; shouldn’t be hard to get help from one of those.”
“They may be in league with the pirates,” I warned. “I understand that they buy laborers from the slave market.”
Tancrède nodded sharply, walked to the door and picking up the pistol I’d left there. Within a few more minutes the rest of the Chasers were free, stretching and searching the warehouse for anything that might be useful as a weapon.
Much-obliged here, Nje whispered. Puzzled, I turned and spotted Lt. Guerin, alive, if rather pale and weak. Rough, dirty bandages covered her midsection, where she’d been wounded by a bullet during the skirmish on deck.
“I’m sorry, Sentinel,” she said, her voice thready. “I’m afraid you will never qualify for the marines now.”
I started, and she cast her eyes down to my stump. My face burned with shame — and then I noticed her dry half-smile. Was she making a joke? How could she joke about something as grim as my mutilation?
But of course she could joke about it, I answered myself at once. She was a marine. No doubt she’d seen many such mutilations in her life.
I struggled with my offense and took a deep breath.
“Don’t you have left-handed marines?” I asked, unable to quite achieve the light tone I wanted.
“We do,” she replied, “but they must still salute with their right hands.”
I nodded, mutely. I knew I should make some sort of quip in return, but I wasn’t ready for such humor.
“Is your familiar with you?” she inquired, her sharp eyes watching me.
“Yes. I couldn’t have escaped without it.”
“Please convey my gratitude for its assistance in our rescue.” She winced as she turned. “My strengths do not lie in scullery or sex work.”
Much-obliged is welcome, Nje said with satisfaction.
“Her name is Lieutenant Guerin,” I softly corrected it, realizing at what the transient meant when it referred to ‘much-obliged.’ It occurred to me that Guerin was the only one of the Chasers who’d ever bothered to thank Nje, instead of me. No wonder Nje liked her. I wondered if I had suitably expressed my own gratitude to it in the past and committed myself to doing better going forward.
After checking to see that his crew was well and ensuring the pirate was secured with a gag and set of chains, Captain Tancrède called his remaining officers to him.
“As much as I would like to take Perdue and fulfill our orders from Admiralty,” he said calmly, “our first order of business must be to escape, and if we can, report its location to Admiral Raihan. When we were rowed to shore, I saw a number of boats tied along the docks. I propose we break up into groups and commandeer as many as we can. One officer to each boat, and we slip out while it’s still dark. If anybody sees you, kill them; I fear this is no time to show mercy.”
Not a fool, Nje whispered to me. I grimaced.
“Hug the shore but put as much distance as you can between yourselves and Perdue,” the captain continued. “Once our escape has been discovered, the pirates will give chase. Split up if necessary; we need at least one Chaser to get through to the Austral Fleet. Make for the mouth of the river and travel south three miles along the coast, or as close to that as the terrain permits. We will attempt to reconvene there.”
The officers nodded.
“Lieutenant, divide the crew,” he ordered. Pike nodded, and as he stepped way, Tancrède gestured me closer.
“Sentinel,” he said, lowering his voice, “I am disinclined to leave Perdue without James. Cadet Cutter. He is my brother’s son, and I have been supervising his naval career for several years.”
“Yes, sir,” I agreed, finding myself falling back into the formal rhythm of the Navy again. “My hope was to rescue him tonight. He is being held hostage for my good behavior and has had a knife held to his throat or a pistol pressed against his temple far too often for comfort over the last few days.”
“How difficult will it be to retrieve him?”
“I’m not sure yet,” I said, reluctantly. “Captain Lazare is ruthless enough to seriously injure him to make me stop, so I’ll need to find the right opportunity to attack.”
Tancrède frowned.
“You have proved a capable sentinel, Saint-Cloud, but you have already paid a high price defending us. I am reluctant to ask any more of you.”
Good, Nje muttered in my ear.
“I also don’t want to injure innocent bystanders, which might happen if I did something like start a fire as a distraction,” I added. “And I don’t know how many sentinels like Kimona are working with the pirates.”
“If we all attacked at once….?” Tancrède shook his head, looking frustrated. “No, too risky. I can’t lead my crew into battle without a clearer understanding of the nature of the field and the forces against it. Reporting this location to the Fleet must be my first priority. Do you think Lazare will kill James when he realizes we’re gone?”
“I don’t know,” I said, unhappily. “It wouldn’t make sense, but he had no logical reason to — to take my arm, either.”
Tancrède hesitated, visibly struggling with himself. Then he sighed.
“Then we must temporarily abandon Cadet Cutter and hope for the best,” he said, heavily. “He is an officer; he understands his duty.”
“No! I mean — Captain, sir, let me do it. Let me try to save him. Lazare underestimates me. One way or the other, I can keep Cutter safe.”
“We need you with us, Sentinel Saint-Cloud,” Tancrède said, his voice firm but his eyes slipping away from mine. “Your command over bale could be an invaluable defense against pursuit.”
“I could … what if I stayed with Lazare a little longer? I’ll serve as the Navy’s spy until I can free your nephew,” I pressed. “If a ship of the Fleet finds us, I can disable the Steadfast from within.”
What is ‘spy’? Nje asked, suspiciously. ‘Spy’ is not escape? You want to stay with Lazare a little longer — what is this plan?
“Captain,” I continued, “I’ll try to rescue your nephew while you lead the Chasers out of Perdue. I — I promise I will do all I can to bring him back to you.”
“I am compelled to choose my duty over my family,” Tancrède said, his voice tight.
“As I am not,” I said, softly. “I lost my family to violence, Captain, and I wouldn’t have you experience the same. I will accept the consequences, if the Navy objects to my decision.”
Tancrède turned and thrust out his right hand, caught himself, and switched to his left. I hesitantly clasped it.
“I am in your debt, Sentinel,” he said with painful sincerity.
“You are doing your duty, Captain. And I will do mine.”
Your duty is to escape, Nje hissed.
“I shall endeavor to ensure the Admiralty sees it that way, as well.” He squeezed my hand a moment before releasing it. “Will you leave first or follow us out?”
“I’ll leave first.”
“Good luck, Sentinel.”
“And you, Captain.”
You said safety in numbers? Nje sniped as I slipped out of the warehouse and began heading toward the better-lit parts of the quay. I sighed. What is ‘spy’? I do not think your plan ‘spy’ is to escape.
“To spy is to gather information, sometimes from within an enemy group. Look, Nje, we’ll try to rescue Cutter tonight. But if it looks impossible, it’s not worth the risk. Right?”
Right…. Nje had mastered a skeptical tone, I noticed.
“So instead, it might make more sense for me to continue to pretend to be the captain’s prisoner. Assuming they haven’t noticed that I’m gone, yet.”
No. That does not make more sense.
I sighed.
“Well, let’s not argue about it yet. Where did you see Cutter?”
Go left, it said, resorting to Chevachèchen for ‘left.’ We began walking, and I changed the subject to teaching and learning words of direction to forestall any more debate over my plans.