She was no closer now, weeks later, to sorting it out. But there had been no further word sent after them, and she had no reason to believe there ever would be.
At this point, how would they find us? At sea, even six iron ships were moths in a forest. The only way to have found them before would’ve been to follow their trail from island to island, and even that would have required a great deal of guesswork. Back then they’d been careful.
But now a different layer of caution applied. They’d made no stops where watching eyes might find them. They’d stopped to replenish the water tanks the one time they’d gotten dangerously low. It had been a remote and midnight isle, with the steampumps pulling the water in through a series of leaking hoses they had no time to repair. They’d dropped nets and pulled fish to supplement their diets and fell back to rationing to see them through to their new destination.
Even so, fever had taken one ship. Quarantined, it limped behind them as the sickness burned its way through its families and crew. Another had dropped to one-third its speed, and the engineers were uncertain why.
Still, considering how much could go wrong, Rae Li Tam was pleased.
Now, a new day dawned and she gave herself to it, closing her eyes and letting the cold wind pull at her robes and her hair, feeling it move over her face.
She felt Baryk’s hands slide around her, and she leaned back into him, sighing. “We’ve made good time,” he said. “Have you thought more about what we’ll do when we get there?”
She leaned her head back into his chest and turned her head slightly so she could see his face. “I don’t know what we’ll do. I’m sure Father knew what he was about, but he didn’t share that strategy with me.” She looked back out over the water and the bloodred sun that rose over it. “I’m disinclined to keep the family at sea at this point until we understand better what is happening.”
“And you still believe your father was lured off to a trap?”
She nodded. “How could I not? Six ships lost in less than a week. And the note. If it was a forgery, it was better than anything I could’ve done.” And at one time, she’d been her father’s best forger.
There was a whistle from the pilot house and she looked up. She saw the pilot pointing south and followed his finger until her eyes settled on a speck just barely visible in the sun’s rising light.
She turned and Baryk turned with her, releasing her as he did. She went to the rail and leaned on it, squinting out into morning.
“It’s a ship,” Baryk said.
She could see it more clearly now. It rode high in the water, boxlike in its shape. She saw the gout of steam from its stack and felt her stomach tighten. “It’s one of ours,” she said, her brow furrowing. “How is that possible?”
Baryk straightened. “I’ll bring us to Third Alarm,” he said. “And I’ll get birds to the other vessels.”
She nodded. “I’ll be in the pilot house.”
She crossed the deck at a brisk walk and climbed the narrow steps into the cabin. The officer of the deck, a young redheaded woman, passed her the telescope before she asked for it, and she sighted in on the ship.
Not just a ship, she realized, but the flagship.
It flew distress flags in eight colors and moved on a course that would intercept them within the hour. And though she saw movement on the deck, it was impossible to pick out any of the individuals from this distance.
They knew where we would be. But how? The bird coops were locked, and she trusted those who guarded them. Yet somehow, they’d been found.
Light flashed from its bow and for a moment, blinded her. She looked away, then shifted the telescope so that it was slightly to the left of center. The flashes formed words.
Father has been taken by deceit and we have wounded aboard, the flashing mirror told her. We need immediate assistance.
She held her breath for a moment, then swept the ship again with the telescope. She glanced to the officer beside her. “Fetch the mirror,” she said. “Send this: Shut down your engines and drop anchor.”
She waited while the girl sent the message. But the light did not answer. Instead, the ship began to slow. Meanwhile, the bell for Third Alarm jangled in the quiet morning as men and women swept the deck and took up stations. She heard Baryk shouting over the noise as he and the master-at-arms distributed bows among them. A lone cannoneer loaded the ship’s single gun and spun it toward the slowing vessel. The Androfrancines had been stingy in their mechanical knowledge when it came to weaponry, carefully keeping back what they could and tightly controlling what they couldn’t. The flagship had three of the small weapons, but the others were limited to just one apiece. It had been enough, in those gray-robed minds, to give House Li Tam far more of an edge when combined with the iron hulls and steam engines.
“Decrease speed to half,” she said. “Birds to the fleet: Maintain Third Alarm.” She felt the scowl on her face as something hard settled in her stomach. She swept the deck of the flagship again, noting the saffron robes of her father’s House among its crew, and knew that soon she would have to make a decision; and though the numbers were on her side, she hesitated.
It was a trap, she realized. It simply had to be.
But what if it wasn’t?
She whistled for Baryk and he joined her. She passed the telescope to him. “I’ve ordered them to shut down their engines. They’ve complied. They’re claiming Father was taken by deceit, that they’ve wounded aboard.”
Her husband looked them over, then handed the spyglass back to her. “I don’t trust it,” he said.
She nodded slowly. “I concur. Strategy?”
She knew his greater strength as a warpriest lay with tactics and strategy by land, but Baryk was also a capable sailor and had had seven months to become familiar with exactly what her father’s ships could do. “Bring the Wind of Dawn and the Spirit of Amal in closer. Keep the rest of us around those two slower vessels, fore and aft, port and starboard.” He looked at her, his eyes showing concern. “Maintain half speed in a wide circle for now; we can send a longboat to investigate their claims.”
She nodded. It was sound thinking. She gave the orders and then lifted the spyglass again. The flagship had stopped and its anchor lines were out, but a sense of foreboding fluttered in her stomach. The ship, supposedly lost, now sat at anchor, and she found herself wondering about their message.
Father has been taken by deceit. Of all men, Vlad Li Tam was the least likely to be deceived in any way. The notion that he’d been caught in someone’s net normally would not cipher for her.
Except.
She swallowed the fear that suddenly tasted like iron in her mouth. They had left the Named Lands quickly. He’d pulled down his network, bundled all but his forty-second daughter into the iron ships, and fled in search of someone. They’d not spoken frankly of it, but she’d suspected for a time that somehow, their family had been compromised in their work to bring about intentional, carefully crafted change in the New World. Otherwise, why flee with the entire family? Certainly, her father could have sent his ships out in search of this invisible foe he suspected without bringing the entire House.
Beyond that, this message today clearly supported her belief that her father had been lured out of the Named Lands, he and his spider’s web of children and children’s children, for some dark purpose. They’d been out of touch with the Named Lands for months now, and in this moment, she found herself wondering if that wasn’t part of some larger strategy as well. Perhaps separating House Li Tam from the Named Lands served more than one purpose. It culled them out from potential allies, leaving them alone and far from home; it left the Named Lands without her father’s eyes and ears, and worse, without his strategic influence.
In the absence of light, P’Andro Whym had asserted in his twelfth gospel, walk slow and with measured step into that waiting darkness.
Yes, she thought. She would walk slow into this with her eyes and ears open.
Scowling once more at the flagship where it waited, Rae Li Tam handed the spyglass to her husband. She turned and looked north toward the Named Lands. “We’ve been silent for too long,” she said beneath her breath. Then, louder: “Have the birder meet me in my cabin.”
He nodded, and she left the pilot house. She had much to do. First, a note to her sister and her betrothed in the Ninefold Forest. Second, a coded message to whomever now captained her father’s flagship.
After which, she would have to make a decision.
She glanced once more to the vessel where it lay at anchor and wondered again where it had come from after so long away.
Rudolfo
The taste of the powders were still bitter in his mouth when Rudolfo joined Rafe Merrique at the helm of the Kinshark. Most of his life, he’d used the magicks to hide his men but not himself. It was unseemly for a noble to do otherwise. Yet in the last year he’d used the magicks more and more, though each time it went against the grain of his heritage. Worse, it went against his father’s teaching. Still, it had to be done. Two hours ago, birds had been sighted from the south, moving northeast beneath the new-risen sun-a larger, darker bird in fast pursuit.
And now, all hands had been called, and an out-of-breath sailor had fetched him topside at the captain’s order.
He’d hoped, at least, that the headaches and nausea, the uneasy twitch of over-ready muscles, would subside with more exposure to the white dust. So far, that was not the case.
He moved slowly, not as surefooted as Merrique and his men, and the rocking of the ship and the movement of the waves all around him wreaked its disaster on his stomach. The magicked ship was a wonder to be certain, but one that cost him every time he left the relative normalcy below the deck.
He clicked his tongue to the roof of his mouth and heard the answering clicks of the crew around him as he made his way to the bridge. Steady hands aided him as his feet found the narrow stairs. He felt something cold and metal pushed into his hands.
“It’s a telescope,” Rafe Merrique said. He felt the captain’s hands on his shoulder, turning him in a direction. “Look dead ahead.”