Winter's Reach (The Revanche Cycle Book 1) (5 page)

Pennants rippled in a warm breeze down in Mirenze’s harbor, seagulls wheeling in a cloudless sky. Cargo ships lined the docks, and stevedores ran up and down the ramps, rolling barrels and toting sacks, hauling cargo in and out from the customs house. Felix walked along the docks with a heavy traveling pack slung over one shoulder, enjoying the sun.

At the end of dock fourteen waited the
Fairwind Muse
, a fat three-masted galleon. Its northern oak planks, sanded and stained, took on a cherry hue in the afternoon light. It flew two flags: the jagged yellow stripes of the Stockwater Company, and the green and black of the Enoli Islands.

Most of the sailors were Enoli themselves, with skin the color of burnt honey and accented voices that flowed like the ocean waves. As Felix approached the lowered gangplank, he could hear a strident voice booming out.

“Step lively, lads, and lash those barrels down! If they go rolling once we push off, your heads’ll roll with them! Kimo, flemish up that line before someone trips over it and cracks their skull. Swear to the Tallyman, you’d think this was your first voyage.”

Felix waited patiently at the foot of the gangplank, shifting his weight to rest his pack against his hip. The man at the top had shoulders wider than an ox and a freshly shorn head that gleamed in the sunlight. He gestured wildly as he shouted, flashing a tooth of hammered gold. Then he turned, catching sight of Felix, and broke into a broad grin.

“Hail, Captain!” Felix waved. “Permission to come aboard?”

“Granted and gladly!” the Enoli called down.

Felix hustled up the sloping plank, his well-worn boots catching onto the wooden ribs as he stayed mindful of wet spots. He could already feel the slow, gentle sway of the sea challenging his balance. He’d barely made it onboard before the big man swept him into a crushing hug, kissed both of his cheeks, and slapped his back.

“Brother Felix! It’s been, what, two years? Too long.”

“Captain Iona,” Felix said with a bow of his head, “I can’t tell you how much this means to me. Finding passage to the Reach on short notice is almost impossible. It’s almost like nobody wants to go there.”

“I’m glad they don’t! Who needs the competition? We bring Mirenzei goods up, we haul lumber down, and I fill my purse at every port of call. Giving you a berth is just a chance to repay an old debt. Hey, Anakoni! Come here, I want you to meet someone.”

A lanky Enoli sauntered over in a rolling gait. Fresh rope burns blistered his palms, and his left eye was a different shade of brown than the right. Felix realized it was glass, cheaply made and a little too big for its socket.

“Anakoni’s my first mate,” Iona said. “Anakoni, this is Felix Rossini. When no one else in this cursed city would give me the time of day, he opened his doors and his purse to me. Felix here is the reason I own the
Fairwind Muse
today, and the reason
you
have a job.”

Felix and Anakoni clasped hands, and the sailor gave him a gruff nod. He looked over at Iona and flashed a toothy smile.

“And you’re dragging him out to the Reach, Captain? Sour way to repay a man’s kindness.”

“No kindness involved,” Felix said. “Captain Iona had a solid business plan, and I had the capital. That little gamble paid off for both of us.”

Iona put his hands on his hips. “And here you are, gambling again. What’s so important about Winter’s Reach that you have to take the journey yourself?”

“Like you said, I’m gambling again. I’m looking to make a trade deal with Mayor Barrett. You know, if I pull this off, there’s going to be a lot of hauling involved. We might need to get you a second ship.”

“The first one I needed a loan for,” Iona said. “The second one I can buy out of my own pocket. I wish I could promise you a pleasure cruise, brother, but this is a working ship and there’s not much in the way of luxury. There’s a berth for you down in the officers’ cabin and just enough room to squeeze that pack underneath it. Space is cramped, but we’ll get you there.”

“A safe arrival is all I ask,” Felix said. “I’m not afraid to travel rough, and I’m happy to help out anywhere you need me. As long as it doesn’t involve climbing that rigging, anyway.”

“And I was going to make you our lookout,” Iona said with mock dismay. “Oh, just so you’re forewarned, you’re not my only passenger. I’m ferrying an old bounty hunter from Murgardt and the other, well, she’s an odd one, but she keeps to herself.”

Felix tilted his head. “She? I thought a woman on a ship is supposed to be bad luck.”

“For Mirenzei sailors, surely it would be. They’re afraid of their own shadows, and they spill out perfectly good rum for dead men who can’t even drink it. Me, I’m Enoli, and to me she’s just a paying fare. Silver can
never
be unlucky.”

“Those two hunters don’t have a single pair of sea legs between them,” Anakoni said glumly. “If they puke all over the deck, I’m not cleaning it up.”

Iona slapped Felix’s back and laughed. “Of course not, Anakoni. Didn’t you hear? Our friend Felix said he is willing to help out anywhere we need him! Ah, here’s one of our other guests now.”

Felix’s eyes went wide as Werner ambled up from belowdecks.

“Werner?” He waved. “Is that…? It
is
you!”

“Felix!” the old man called back, beaming.

Captain Iona watched them as Werner embraced Felix. “You two know each other?”

“Werner used to work for my family. Best guardsman we ever had.”

“Sure,” Werner said, ruffling Felix’s hair, “when you were about half as high as you are now.”

“And you had half the wrinkles. What’s this I hear, you’re a bounty hunter these days? I thought you were off soldiering for the Empire.”

“Turns out I’m actually good at something, imagine that. We’re headed up to the Reach for a little retrieval job.”

Felix followed Werner’s gaze. At the far end of the deck, oblivious to the sailors hauling crates and lugging rope around her, Mari sat cross-legged next to the railing. She held her pewter brooch in her cupped hands, her eyes lowered and lips moving wordlessly.

“That’s, ah, my apprentice, Mari,” Werner said. “We’ve been riding together for a couple of years now. C’mon, let’s get out of the way. I want to hear all about what you’ve been up to. Let’s find a place to talk that isn’t bouncing so much.”

“Werner, the deck is barely moving. We haven’t even left the dock yet.”

Werner cringed, looking green. “I know. Believe me. I know.”

*   *   *

They cast off while the sky turned to gold over the spires of Mirenze. The
Fairwind Muse
’s canvas sails billowed as its masts swung to catch the wind, and Felix looked out over the stern to watch his home slide away. Something pulled at his heart, a kind of wistful pain he couldn’t put a name to.

Two weeks, Renata
, he thought.
Two weeks and we’ll be free
.

An hour later, land was just a memory. The
Muse
cut across the open sea, fast and free. Felix forced himself to walk along the deck, breathing deep, getting accustomed to the sway of the boards under his feet and the slow lurch in his stomach. By sundown, when sailors lit hooded lanterns along the ship’s length and Captain Iona navigated by a canopy of shimmering stars, Felix had finally found his sea legs. He made his way belowdecks and looked for the galley.

Dinner, as expected, was a fist-sized chunk of hardtack and a matching slab of salted beef. The cook ladled out some grog into a dented tin cup for him; it was only tepid water with a splash of rum for antiseptic purposes. Just enough to taste the alcohol, not enough to enjoy it. Felix collected his bounty and headed back up on deck. He wanted the night air, to taste the salt and feel the breeze ruffling his hair.

The crew took their meals in shifts. Meandering around the deck, biting into the hunk of stringy, boiled beef, Felix eventually found Anakoni and a small knot of sailors by the railing.

“And how’s your worm castle, your lordship?” Anakoni said with a nod to Felix’s piece of hardtack. Felix bit into the stale biscuit and chewed a mouthful, washing it down with a swig from his cup.

“Thankfully vermin-free,” Felix said, “and I’ve had worse. Next time you’re in Mirenze, try the jellied eel at the Galloping Lamb. Better yet, don’t. Your guts will thank you.”

One of the sailors, a short, gangly man Anakoni had introduced as Kimo, sat on a barrel and swung his legs from side to side.

“The Lamb?” Kimo said. “You think that place is a shithole, just wait until you see what they call a tavern in Winter’s Reach. Maybe you can eat like a sailor, but we’ll see if you can drink like one.”

Felix raised his cup with a smile. “I’ll take that challenge. Soon as my business is done, I’ll drink to all your health and buy the first round to boot.”

Four cups clinked against his, echoed by grunts of approval. One of the other sailors, leaning on the rail, looked his way and asked, “First mate says you’ve got business with the mayor. That true?”

“That I do. I’ve got a deal in mind that could make a lot of people very happy.”

“Watch your ass anyway,” Kimo snorted. “Barrett’s crazy as a rat drenched in oil dancing around a candle and daring it to burn her. She’ll cut your throat just for kicks.”

“She’s got a witch, too,” Anakoni mumbled through a mouthful of salted beef.

Felix squinted at him. “I’m sorry. Did you say ‘witch’?”

“It’s true,” Kimo said. “I’ve seen him. Giant bastard, wears a mask of carved bone shaped like a bear’s head. One of the old Northmen. They say he can turn you inside out without even touching you.”

“I heard milk curdles when he walks past it,” one of the other sailors said.

Felix chuckled, but he could hear the twinge of nervousness in his own voice.
Nobody tells stories like a sailor
, he told himself.
You’ve got nothing to worry about
.

Craving a change of subject, he looked down the lantern-lit deck.

As far from everyone else as she could get on the busy ship, Mari stood by the railing with her fighting sticks in hand. She moved slowly, gracefully, sliding from stance to stance in what looked to Felix like more of a dance than a warrior’s drill. One of her arms made a slow-motion glide from high above her head to aim straight out before her, guiding the point of the baton with absolute precision.

“She’s a strange one,” Anakoni said. “Guess she’s some kind of bounty hunter. Doesn’t look like much of anything to me, but she had ready silver to pay, and none of the Mirenzei haulers would take a woman on board.”

“Last six hours,” Kimo said, “she’s either been doing…whatever you call that, or kneeling down and praying to a hunk of metal in her coin purse.”

Anakoni slapped Kimo’s shoulder. “If you’ve had six hours to watch her, I’m not keeping you busy enough. Don’t get any ideas you shouldn’t be having, neither. She’s the captain’s guest.”

“No worries there. She looks like a sewer rat and comes off about as friendly. If I stuck it to her, she’d probably bite it off.”

“Has anyone tried, maybe,
talking
to her?” Felix said.

Anakoni shook his head. “We’re paid to deliver her safe and sound. We’re not paid to be nice to her. She’s a girl playing at a man’s job. What she gets is what she gets.”

Felix thanked them for the company and went back belowdecks, headed for the crowded galley. A few minutes later he was topside again, strolling toward Mari with food in hand. He stood there, waiting for her to notice.

Mari slowly lowered her batons, pausing in mid-motion, and turned to face him. She didn’t speak.

“I noticed you hadn’t eaten,” Felix said, holding out the hardtack and beef. “I didn’t know if anyone told you they’d opened the galley.”

She blinked, frowning, like she couldn’t grasp that he was offering the food to her.

“I thought I’d save you the trip,” he said.

She took the hunk of salted meat, sniffed it, then tore off a bite.

“Thank you,” she mumbled, talking with her mouth full.

“You’re from Belle Terre,” Felix blurted out.

Mari frowned. “Why?”

“I mean, your name. Mari? That’s Terrai, isn’t it? And you’re pale, like…like they are.”

“Yes,” she said.

“I’m Felix. Felix Rossini. I’m from Mirenze, so we have something in common.”

“We do?”

Felix nodded, smoothing the front of his tunic, feeling like a babbling fool. “Well, the Empire. Neither of our people joined willingly.”

Mari took another bite and chewed thoughtfully.

“Your people,” she said flatly, “surrendered without spilling a drop of blood and were welcomed with open arms. My people fought to the end and were punished for it. They’re still being punished for it.”

Felix winced, barely restraining the urge to slap his forehead.

“They say you’re a bounty hunter,” he said quickly, trying to change the subject.

“That’s right.”

“Have you been to Winter’s Reach before? I guess it’s a pretty rough town.”

“Once,” Mari said.

“That lot’s got all kinds of tall tales,” he said, nodding over his shoulder with a jerk of his head. “They tried to tell me the mayor’s got a witch on her payroll.”

Something went dark in Mari’s eyes.

“I need to get back to my training now.”

Felix nodded, taking a step back. “Right. Sorry. Um, I’ll see you around.”

She didn’t respond, gripping her batons and returning to her stance exactly where she’d left off.

He was ten feet away when she called after him.

“Felix?”

He turned.

“Thank you,” she said, “for the food. It was…nice.”

Felix gave her an awkward wave, and walked away.

Cursing himself, he nearly bumped into one of the crew in the dark. Only a few of Iona’s men weren’t from the captain’s homeland in the islands, hired piecemeal here and there to replace stragglers and quitters. This must have been one of them, Felix figured, a blond Murgardt with pale blue eyes.

“Sorry,” Felix said quickly, “my fault. Still getting used to the roll of the ship, I guess.”

Simon Koertig smiled at him and showed his open palms.