The Winner's Curse(64)

And perhaps Kestrel could seize an opportunity to tip the odds in her favor.

“I want names,” Arin told the harbormaster, “of all sailors ashore at the moment, and their ships.”

The harbormaster gave them, voice trembling. Kestrel saw Arin rub his cheek, considering the man, surely thinking, as she thought, that any plan of Arin’s to take or burn the ships would require as many people as possible. No one should be left on shore to guard the harbormaster, who was now useless.

Killing him was the obvious and quickest next step.

Arin hit the man’s head with the side of his fist. It was a precise strike, aimed at the temple. The man slumped over his desk. His breath stirred the pages of his ledger.

“We have two choices,” Arin told his people. “We’ve done well up to this point. We’ve taken the city. Its leadership has been removed or is under our power. Now we need time, as much as possible before the empire learns what’s happened. We have people guarding the mountain pass. The only other way to bring news to the empire is by sea. We take the ships, or we burn them. We must decide now.

“Either way, our approach is the same. Storm clouds are blowing in from the south. When they cover the moon, we’ll row small launches in the darkness, hugging the bay’s curve until we can come around the boats and approach their sterns. Each prow is pointed toward the city and its light. We’ll be on the dark side of the open sea while the sailors gather at the bow, watching the city’s fire. If we hope to seize all the ships, we split into two teams. One will start with the biggest and deadliest: Captain Wensan’s. The other waits at the nearest largest ship. We take Wensan’s ship, then turn its cannons on the second one, which will be overrun by the second group. With those two ships, we can force the surrender of the next nearest and largest and continue to shrink the possibility for the merchants to fight back. The fishermen have no cannons, so they’ll be ours after the sea battle. We’ll sink any ship that tries to flee the bay. Then we will not only buy the time we need, we will also have the ships as our weapons against the empire, as well as any goods they have on board.”

Apparently Arin wasn’t half as clever as Kestrel had thought, to discuss such a plan in front of her. Or he thought she could do no harm with the information. Maybe he didn’t care what she heard. Still, it was a decent plan … except for one thing.

“How will we seize Wensan’s ship?” a Herrani asked.

“We’ll climb its hull ladder.”

Kestrel laughed. “You’ll be picked off one at a time by Wensan’s crew as soon as they realize what’s happening.”

The room went still. Spines stiffened. Arin, who had been facing the Herrani, turned to stare at Kestrel. The look he gave her prickled the air between them like static.

“Then we’ll pretend we’re their Valorian sailors who have been on shore,” he said, “and ask for our launches to be winched up to the deck from the water.”

“Pretend to be Valorian? That will be believable.”

“It will be dark. They won’t see our faces, and we have the names of sailors on shore.”

“And your accent?”

Arin didn’t answer.

“I suppose you hope that the wind will blow your accent away,” Kestrel said. “But maybe the sailors will still ask you for the code of the call. Maybe your little plan will be dead in the water, just like all of you.”

There was silence.

“The code of the call,” she repeated. “The password that any sane crew uses and shares with no one but themselves, in order to prevent people from attacking them as you so very foolishly hope to do.”

“Kestrel, what are you doing?”

“Giving you some advice.”

He made an impatient noise. “You want me to burn the ships.”

“Do I? Is that what I want?”

“We’ll be weaker against the empire without them.”

She shrugged. “Even with them, you won’t stand a chance.”

Arin must have felt the mood in the room shift as Kestrel’s words exposed what everyone should have known: that the Herrani revolution was a hopeless endeavor, one that would be crushed once imperial forces marched, as planned, through the mountain pass to replace the regiments sent east. They would lay siege to the city and send messengers for more troops. This time, when the Herrani lost, they would not be enslaved. They would be put to death.

“Start loading the launches with those barrels of pitch,” Arin told the Herrani. “We’ll use them to burn the ships.”

“That won’t be necessary,” Kestrel said. “Not when I know Wensan’s code of the call.”