After only a few hours’ ride, Jeb insisted on stopping midway through Carys Wood to rest and water the horses. It was an irritation to Shadrak, who just wanted to get this over with. More than that, the delay made him imagine all manner of writhing and skittering in his guts that tightened his lungs and made it hard to breathe. He soon took care of that, though, with a hastily rolled weedstick.
Nils spent the time studying Magwitch’s book and practicing the few cantrips his insect brain had been able to memorize from his Academy training. It was a pathetic showing: sparks that failed to set bone-dry tinder ablaze; squeezing a single drop of water from an already moist stone; and his trusty erasing spell, with which he managed to accidentally wipe out a whole paragraph of Otto Blightey’s margin notes. The only plus side was that meant they didn’t have to listen to any more of Nils’s stuttering attempts at translating from the Verusian.
Ilesa used the time to scout ahead in her eagle form. Bekra Cy, she said, had reached Portis and entered the Crawfish, a dubious sounding establishment that Jeb seemed all too familiar with. The knowledge that Bekra had reached her destination, and that the ring was one step closer to the Lich Lord, had Shadrak cursing the others as amateurs. If they disagreed with him, they kept it to themselves as they saddled up and got underway again.
The stench of fish grew stronger the nearer they came to Portis, and a pall of silence settled over the group. Jeb, Nils, and Ilesa had faced Bekra Cy before and been lucky to survive. Maybe they needed some quiet time to process that, to review what had gone wrong, to plan for what they could do differently.
Shadrak, though, had very little to work with. All he knew was what they had told him, and the glimpses he’d observed through Magwitch’s viewing crystal. But he’d killed unstoppable foes before. He’d made a reputation from it. All he needed to do, he reminded himself, was stay loose and trust in his instincts, which had been honed from obsessive adherence to daily training, not to mention his years of hard-earned experience.
Once or twice he reached for another weedstick then stopped himself. While smoking might put him more in touch with his homunculus nature, it would slow his reflexes, and he had a feeling he was going to need them.
At Jeb’s suggestion, they avoided the main road into Portis that led over a bridge and onto the Hight Street. Everyone came and went that way, he said. Sight of a Maresman would cause unrest; usually when one of the husk hunters was in town, blood followed. But a Maresman accompanied by an albino midget was likely to plunge the populace into wholesale panic. Not only that, but Ilesa had grown up in Portis. There were those who still remembered why she’d left and had been relieved to see the back of her.
Ilesa, Shadrak, and Nils dismounted, but Jeb’s bound and bleeding leg meant he was better off remaining in the saddle. He controlled his horse with one hand and led the spare by the reins with the other.
“I say we send Fargin in as bait,” Shadrak said as they took a detour along the coastline of the Chalice Sea.
“Oi!” Nils said from behind, still reading as he walked. Say one thing for the lad: he was as diligent as he was stupid. The only wonder was that he hadn’t tripped over his own feet.
“No one’s being used as bait,” Ilesa said, striding on ahead.
Jeb leaned out of the saddle toward Shadrak and whispered, “She’s protective of the lad. Lost her brother here a while back.” He checked to see Ilesa was still walking then tugged on the reins and brought his horse and the one he was leading to a halt. “Blamed me for it at first, and boy was she angry.”
“What happened to change her mind?” Shadrak said.
“Persuaded her of the truth.”
“And that was?”
“Someone else did it. Mortis it was who shot the boy.” He raised a hand to his mask. “The Maresman who used to wear this.”
Jeb kicked his heels into his horse’s flanks, setting it and the spare into a slow plod.
Even so, Shadrak had to walk briskly to keep up. A succession of questions sprang to mind, but the one that really intrigued him concerned the Maresman’s relationship with Ilesa. He couldn’t help asking, “So, are you two…”
“A work in progress,” Jeb said. “Time was, folk cursed me as a rake, but things ain’t been quite the same since I started festering.” A trickle of dirty smoke spilled from his mouth-slit, as if to illustrate the point. Both horses shook their manes and whinnied. “Got Mortis to thank for that, too. They used to call him the Plague Demon. I killed him. The affliction passed to me.”
“And the moniker?”
Jeb shrugged but chose not to answer. He leaned down over his mount’s head, whispering soft words, then urged both horses into a canter that left Shadrak in their wake and swiftly closed the gap with Ilesa.
Something bumped into Shadrak from behind. He spun round, dagger in hand—
“Fargin! Look where you’re shogging going, will you?”
“I’ve got an idea,” Nils said excitedly, glancing up from the book.
“Good for you.”
“No, seriously, I have. My magic—”
Shadrak snorted out a laugh and kept walking.
Jeb and Ilesa waited for them on an escarpment overlooking the back-end of Portis. The overturned hulls of dozens of fishing boats littered the scrubland ahead, discarded, rotting, caked in barnacles and streaked white with guano. Seagulls perched atop the wrecks, squawking with irritating persistence. Torn and weathered nets were strewn across the ground, some wrapped about the carcasses of gulls that had snagged a wing or a leg. Brine was thick in the air, mingled with the sour odor of seaweed.
“That’s the back of the Sea Bed.” Jeb pointed out a tall building in the near distance, atop the ridge of the Hight Street. An assortment of tenements fell away from it both sides of the street. On the edge of a plaza between the fishing boat graveyard and the High Street was a squat stone building with barred windows. “Sheriff’s office,” Jeb said. “Last incumbent ended up dead in the basement. Don’t even know if they’ve replaced him.”
“And the Crawfish?” Shadrak asked.
Jeb pointed to the far end of the Hight Street, where the main road came into town. “It’s where most of Portis’s business is done, official and otherwise.”
“We have to assume Bekra has connections here,” Ilesa said. “People keeping an eye out for us.”
“She knew she was followed?” Nils asked, finally shutting Magwitch’s book and tucking it under his arm.
Ilesa shrugged.
“I’ll wait here,” Jeb said, drawing his gun and spinning it on his finger. “First sign of trouble, I’ll ride into town with this bad boy blazing.”
“Shame you went and lost that vambrace,” Shadrak said to Nils. “You could have snuck in and taken the ring from Bekra, just like you did from me.”
“Yeah, well I lost it at the theater, didn’t I?”
“So, what do we do, then?” Ilesa said. “Going head to head with Bekra didn’t work out last time.”
“You need to get close to her without her knowing,” Jeb said. “A disguise, maybe.”
“No,” Shadrak said. “Not just a disguise: a distraction. Catch her off guard.” He reached into his pocket, drew out the picture of Dame Consilia he’d taken from the theater and un-crumpled it.
“Who’s that, a whore that took pity on you?” Ilesa said.
“An actress,” Shadrak said. “And a famous one, too.” Infamous might have been a better word.
Jeb gave a nervous cough. “They know her here. It’ll certainly grab the locals’ attention. The dame’s a star for more reasons than one.”
“Something you’re not telling me?” Ilesa said.
“Not really. We met. That’s all there is to it.”
“Liar.”
Ilesa snatched the picture from Shadrak. As she looked at it, the air around her shimmered, and there in her place stood a perfect likeness of the dame herself, hair wound up in a platinum beehive, satin dress cinched tightly around her narrow waist, breasts plumped up like pillows above her laced corset.
“Bigger…” Jeb suggested, indicating her chest.
Ilesa feigned a swipe at him and then obliged. “Now what?” she said.
“Well, the arse…” Jeb started.
“Not my disguise. Now what do we do?”
“Nils,” Shadrak said, “will walk ahead of you announcing the return of a legend. Make a lot of noise. Shithole like this, the peasants likely don’t get much excitement. Everyone will want to see what’s going on.”
“Careful,” Ilesa said, her voice jarring with the dame’s appearance. “I grew up here.”
“I rest my case,” Shadrak said. “By the way, you need to work on the voice. Try pinching your nose and imagining a pole up your—”
Jeb guffawed, and Ilesa shot him an indignant glare. Then she was off across the wasteland, hitching up her skirts. Nils jogged to get ahead of her, and when they reached the High Street he began to yell in the manner of a town crier, announcing the return of the most illustrious star the world had ever known. That was Shadrak’s cue to set off at a run in the direction of the Crawfish.
Just shy of the High Street, he passed a whorehouse and received dirty looks from the tarts smoking on the verandah. Second time in one day he’d been disparaged by prostitutes. If he’d had more time, he’d have taught them a lesson they’d never forget. From there, he found himself a narrow alley that looked out across the street at an establishment with a swinging sign depicting a painted crustacean.
People were emerging from houses, taverns, and stores to investigate the noise coming from further up the street. Not only Nils now: there were dozens of cheering locals in overalls processing down the incline behind the lad, and they had hoisted Dame Consilia—Ilesa—onto their shoulders. Within moments the Hight Street was teeming.
Shadrak weaved in among the crowd and sidled up to the swing doors of the Crawfish. He kept to one side and peered through the slats.
There were two women talking within. From what he could make out, the place was empty other than that. He could see animal heads mounted on the walls—deer, wolves, hog. There were stuffed falcons leering down from the rafters, a couple of huge turkeys opposite where he was standing, also stuffed. Along with the animal heads, someone had hung fishing rods, saws, metal shin guards, a harpoon. There was even a sizable alligator high up by the ceiling.
Shadrak had to cross to the other side of the swing doors to see where the voices were coming from. Behind a rough-hewn bar, a crooked-toothed crone with hair dyed an unnatural shade of red spat into a rag and used to it clean a beer glass. On a stool in front of the bar, Bekra Cy, back to Shadrak, leaning across to the landlady with barely disguised impatience.
“Like I said when you first got here, love,” the landlady said, “I can’t help you if you won’t say who you’re meeting.” A furtive glance toward the closed door of an office at the back. “Thing is, Boss likes to know what business visitors have in town, so I have to ask.” Again that look toward the office.
“Is this normal?” Bekra Cy said, gesturing through a window toward the street, where the noise of the crowd was growing riotous.
“Dame Consilia, I heard them cry,” the landlady said. “Though what that trollop wants to come back here for is anyone’s guess. Maybe she’s come to steal away your man friend, because that’s what she’s known for. It is a man you’re meeting, isn’t it? Between you and me, love, it could be the tattoos frightening him off.”
Bekra touched a hand to her scalp, as if only just realizing it was inked with swirls and sigils.
“Just kidding with you, love,” the landlady said. She spat into the rag again and used it to polish a wine glass.
Bekra’s hand dropped to a pouch attached to her belt, gave it a reassuring tap. Shadrak’s fingers itched in anticipation. If a pickpocket like Nils could steal the ring from him, maybe he could do the same to Bekra. That way, it wouldn’t matter that no one had come up with a plan for fighting the bitch. Screw the others. He could just take off with the ring and head straight to Pellor.
There was movement across the room from the bar. The office door opened and a stocky man stood there with one hand on the jamb. He wore a breastplate of boiled leather above a threadbare cotton shirt. His stained and creased britches were tucked into the tops of scuffed-up boots, the sort you might find on a soldier—a regular soldier, not like the sandal-wearing clowns back in New Londdyr.
“Boss wants a word,” the man said around a wad of tobacco he was chewing.
“With me, Trav?” the landlady said, putting her gob-soaked rag down.
“Not you, you stupid cow. Her.” Trav jabbed a brown-stained finger at Bekra.
“I’m waiting for someone,” Bekra said, without bothering to look round.
Trav took a step out of the office doorway. “That so? Well, now Boss is waiting for you, and Boss don’t like waiting for nothing.”
“Better do as he says, love,” the landlady said.
This time, Bekra simply raised her middle finger at Trav.
His cheeks reddened at that—an angry red. The red of blood. “Right, you shogging little bitch!” With lumbering strides, he surged toward her.
Bekra rose from her seat and flung out an arm. Tongues of black flame shot from her fingertips and struck Trav in the face. He screamed as the skin sloughed away, revealing bone beneath. Without pause, Bekra stormed toward him, a cant spilling from her lips—
And Shadrak saw his opportunity.
He burst through the swing doors, flinging razor stars that he plucked from his baldric with effortless ease. The first embedded itself between Bekra’s shoulder blades. The second grazed the top of her head. The third struck her in the arse. No blood from any of them: just a puff of ash where the razor stars had broken the skin.
Bekra whirled in fury, even as Trav collapsed to his knees and keeled over, head no more than a bleached skull. Her eyes were swirling vortices of flame, lips a writhing blur as she changed her cant to something far more onerous.
Too late to back down now, Shadrak leapt at her, a punch dagger in each hand—
As Bekra threw her head back and howled, Shadrak knew he’d made a mistake.