The Crimson Campaign(The Powder Mage Trilogy)(67)

"I will." Adamat extricated himself from Faye's grip as gently as he could. Tears were streaming down her face as he left the room and headed down the stairs. SouSmith stood in the front hall, coat buttoned tight, smiling at the children playing in the living room.

The boxer nodded to Adamat. "Ready?"

"Yes." Adamat glanced up the stairs to his bedroom and took his cane from beside the door. "Fanish, check on your mother in a half hour or so."

"Yes, Papa."

"Good girl. SouSmith, let's go."





CHAPTER




28




"Everything OK?" SouSmith asked as they took a hackney cab away from Adamat's home. The evening air was warm and windy. Adamat decided there would be a storm tomorrow.

"Fine," Adamat said.

SouSmith didn't seem to believe him, cocking an eyebrow.

"Fine!" Adamat said, louder.

SouSmith nodded to himself and settled against the side of the hackney cab.

Adamat looked out the window and watched the people going about their nightly errands. There was a small boy on the corner, trying to sell the last of his newspapers, and an older couple out for a stroll before it turned dark. Adamat wondered if they had any inkling of what was going on in their city. The chaos. The war.

He wondered if they cared.

Night was falling when the hackney cab dropped Adamat and SouSmith off two blocks from the dockside pub called The Salty Maiden. Adamat could see the beaten sign, rocking in the wind from its post. What a stupid name. The Adsea wasn't salt water.

He checked the snub-nosed pistols in his pocket while SouSmith did the same. The boxer frowned during their preperations, not looking at Adamat.

"Sorry," Adamat said when he was ready to go.

"Eh?"

"I didn't mean to snap at you," Adamat said. "You're a good man. A good friend, for coming with me to do this. It could be very dangerous."

SouSmith grunted. "You still paying me, ain't you?"

"Yes."

The boxer nodded, as if it were a matter of course that he'd come with, but his frown dissolved.

They headed toward the pub, and Adamat listened to the click of his cane on the cobbles, then on the wood as they entered the boardwalk. This pub was out on the pier  –  a bad location. Only one exit, though no doubt smugglers had a boat hidden underneath for a quick getaway.

Not the ideal place to confront slavers.

Adamat pushed the door open and was met with silence.

A half-dozen sailors lounged around the dimly lit, one-room building. Not a mean-looking lot. Most of them were young men in their prime wearing white cotton shirts, open at the chest, and knee-length trousers. They all blinked at Adamat as if he were a three-eyed fish.

Acting inconspicuous was out of the question.

Adamat sidled up to the bar, while SouSmith leaned up against the door frame, taking in the sailors with his piggish eyes. Adamat slid a fifty-krana note across the bar. "I'm looking for Doles," he said.

The barkeep's expression didn't change. "I'm Doles. What'll you have?"

"Brudanian whiskey, if you have it," he said.

Doles, who was dressed like an ordinary sailor  –  and probably was  –  took the banknote and stuffed it in his pocket. He reached beneath the bar, not taking his eyes off Adamat, and brought up a decanter of dark liquid. He slammed it on the bar with enough force to make Adamat jump, then poured a shot into a small, dirty cup.

"Bad season for it," Doles said.

The script was just as Vetas had said. Adamat's mouth was dry, and he had to concentrate to keep his hand from shaking as he reached out and took the glass of whiskey in one hand. "Never a bad season for Brudanian whiskey," he replied.

Adamat had had a cudgel pulled on him enough times to know the signs. Dole's wrist twitched behind the bar. A moment later his hand came up, cocked back and swinging a piece of polished wood the length of a man's forearm.

Adamat drew his pistol with his left hand and raised his right to grab Doles's wrist, arresting the swing of the cudgel.

"I think we should settle down," Adamat said, his pistol aimed at the barkeep's nose.

Doles didn't even blink. "Yes. We should."

Adamat blanched. He felt the cold barrel of a pistol touch the back of his neck, and his hackles went up.

"Drop it," Doles said.

Adamat rolled his tongue around his parched gums. His heart hammered in his ears. "I die, you die," he said.

"I'll take the risk." Doles didn't seem concerned.

The pistol barrel pressed harder against the back of his neck. Adamat slowly lowered his own pistol and set it on the bar. Doles picked it up and unloaded it. "Kill them, dump the bodies out beyond the breakers."

Adamat felt rough hands grab him by the arms. He was pulled around to see SouSmith receiving similar treatment. Three of the sailors held him, knives drawn to his throat, while two others manhandled Adamat down to his knees.

"Don't do it here," Doles said with some annoyance, gesturing to the sailors. "I don't want blood on me floorboards. Do it downstairs."

"I'm here about a boy," Adamat said as he was shoved toward one corner of the room.

Doles didn't answer him.

"Someone you smuggled into Kez," Adamat said.

A rug was pulled back to reveal a trapdoor. SouSmith began to struggle violently, and one of the men holding Adamat joined the other three to wrestle SouSmith toward the corner.

"Vetas is dead!" Adamat said.

The sailor stopped pushing him toward the trapdoor. Adamat jerked away from his grip and faced Doles, who was holding up one hand.

"Dead? Really?"

"Yes," Adamat said. "We took him and his men, and Vetas is dead."

Doles sighed. "Damn it. We'll have to move again." He twitched his head, and Adamat was grabbed and pushed. Adamat tried to struggle, but the sailor was far stronger than he. His cane had been lost by the bar, and his hat knocked off. He snagged a handful of the sailor's hair and fought back.

Doles walked around the bar and watched the struggle impassively. "Either up here or down there," Doles said. "Don't make no difference to me. 'Cept I'll have to clean the blood up if you die here." He paused. "Well, we're moving anyway. Guess it doesn't matter."

"He's my son!" Adamat said. "Please, I just want him back. Don't you have children?"

"Nope," Doles said, leaning against the bar. He seemed amused by the struggle between SouSmith and his sailors.

"A father? You had a father! Please!"

"I did," Doles said. "Bastard and a drunk. Woulda killed him myself had he not fallen off a dock and drowned."

Adamat stepped back, and his foot touched air as he fell into the trapdoor. He snagged one arm on the ladder leading down beneath the pier, and the other on the floor. A sailor stomped on his hand, and Adamat let out a yell.
 
 

 

"I'll pay you!" Adamat said. "For my boy, I'll pay to get him back."

Doles chuckled. "You can't afford it."

"A hundred thousand krana. In cash!"

Doles's eyebrows climbed his forehead. "Well. Let up, boys." He stepped forward and kicked the sailor still grinding his heel into Adamat's fingers. "I said, let up!"

The sailor stepped away from Adamat, and the others ceased wrestling with SouSmith. The moment they'd loosened their hold, SouSmith grabbed one by the face and picked him off the floor, tossing him through the window. There was a strangled scream and a splash.

"Let up!" Doles bellowed.

SouSmith froze, a snarl on his face, the arm of a sailor grasped between two hands as if he was ready to snap a twig.

Doles glanced out the broken window, then frowned at SouSmith. "A strong bugger," he muttered. Louder, "Three hundred thousand," Doles said. "That's the price for your boy."

"Three hundred … ?"

"Take it or leave it," Doles said. "And by ‘leave it' I mean we'll kill you now."

Adamat felt his mouth work soundlessly. Even with the money Bo had given him, he didn't have three hundred thousand krana. He'd have to borrow from Ricard.

"I'll do it."

Doles seemed skeptical, but he spit in his hand and reached down. Adamat took the offered handshake and choked down a scream when Doles gripped his freshly crushed hand and squeezed. Doles lifted him out of the hole, stronger than Adamat would have expected.

"What's his name?" Doles asked.

"Josep."

"Ah, I remember him. Stubborn lad." Doles's face soured. "He's already in Norpoint."

Norpoint was the only Kez harbor on the Adsea, far to the south. Adamat felt his heart skip a beat. If Josep was already in Norpoint …

Doles said, "It'll take me about six days to go down and get him back. I'll have to grease some palms. The Kez never like losing a powder mage they thought they had under wraps," Doles mused out loud, speaking for all the world as if this was a business meeting, and he hadn't just been about to have Adamat killed.

"Fifty thousand tomorrow," Doles said. "Here, before sunup. Then two hundred and fifty when I get back from Norpoint."

"And then?"

"We'll meet at The Flaming Cuttlefish," Doles said. "It's a pub close by."

"I know it."

"Good."

Adamat nursed his crushed hand and hoped that none of the fingers were broken. It would certainly be stiff in the morning.