The Blinding Knife

Chapter 112

The water was cool and the light of the moon and stars did nothing to penetrate its depths. Under the surface, Kip could see nothing. He relaxed his eyes and looked for heat.

There!

Kip swam. He wasn’t an accomplished swimmer, but though his target was facedown and unmoving, Gavin wasn’t sinking yet.

That changed before Kip reached his father’s body. Gavin slipped beneath the waves and Kip took one deep breath and managed to snag his tunic before he got too deep. Kip pulled him to the surface, nearly skewering himself on the sword still protruding from his father’s back. He flailed in the water, but the truth was, he was barely a good enough swimmer to float by himself, even with all his blubber. Swimming for two was damn near impossible.

He wasn’t even able to cry out for help. The flagship gave no immediate signs of turning either. Kip was a good hundred and fifty paces away before the bell started ringing.

Andross Guile didn’t want to find him. He’d delayed the Blackguards as long as he could. The bastard.

Kip finally found a position floating on his back where his buoyancy and one flailing arm mostly kept him afloat and able to breathe. Almost every swell would crest over his head, but if he breathed at the right time, he wouldn’t inhale water.

He shouted, “Help! Man overboard!” But he had no hope that the flagship was going to hear him. It was only now lighting up and beginning to turn. A ship of that size wasn’t going to get back to Kip for ten or fifteen minutes, if it ever found him at all. If any Blackguards had jumped into the water after him, Kip couldn’t see them. More to the point, they wouldn’t be able to see him unless he was lucky enough to get a sub-red.

Kip tried to fight the panic clamping down on his chest. It made it hard to breathe. He took a wave at the wrong time and hacked and coughed to clear his lung, almost losing his father’s body. Dear Orholam. Dear Orholam, no.

Gavin Guile was dead. Dead. Dear Orholam, no. Father, why? Why’d you do it?

When he regained some calm, he realized he’d soaked up some light during the fight. He hadn’t even been aware of it. He supposed that like his testing, the fear and anger had dilated his eyes. He’d soaked up luxin without even being conscious of it.

He had a little red and a little yellow. There were other ships out here, he knew it. He just had to let them know he was here. Someone would save him.

After taking a deep breath, he shot sparkling yellow out of his finger. Even that small action pushed him under the waves and left him gasping.

He wondered if there were sharks. He wondered if sharks could smell luxin. He knew they could smell blood, and his father’s blood would be drawing them.

He didn’t panic, though. He didn’t have anything left in him to panic with. After a minute, he held up his hand and drafted red luxin around his finger. With a few tries, he was able to light it with the yellow.

But he couldn’t hold it up and hold his father and swim. He tried to light it again after bobbing in the waves a bit, but too much had washed away.

He heard the ship before he saw it. It came up behind him and blocked out the light behind. A net was thrown over him, and within a minute, he and his father were pulled up, rolled onto the deck.

“What have we? What have we?” A man started cackling. “Ceres!” he shouted. “Ceres, you fickle wench! You beautiful bitch, Gunner loves you! Thank you! Apology accepted! Boys, gather ’round. See what Captain Gunner’s luck has brought us.”

Kip was lying on his back, exhausted. All he had strength to do was breathe.

Gunner? Kip’s thoughts were slow. Gunner was the man on the pirate ship Gavin and Kip and Liv and Ironfist had sunk outside of Garriston, wasn’t he? Gavin had said he hadn’t killed the man because he was an artist. Was this the same man?

Captain Gunner, a night-black Ilytian bare-chested under a waistcoat-a different waistcoat than last time-rolled Gavin over as far as the protruding blade allowed. It was the same Gunner. Oh hell. “Bugger me,” Gunner said, looking at the blade. He tore it out of Gavin’s body and held it aloft.

Kip’s blade was not what it had been. His knife was now a longsword. No, more. The wide blade was three and a half feet long, and whiter than ivory, single-edged with twin black whorls crisscrossing up the blade. Bracketed by those black, twisting, living whorls, every one of those seven jewels now burned with inner light, each one its own color from sub-red to superviolet. The spine of the blade was a thin musket, except for the last hand’s breadth, which was pure blade.

Gunner swung the blade back and forth. “Light,” he said. “Lighter than should be possible.” But when he saw the musket, how the single cutout in the blade was positioned to give space for fingers to steady the barrel, he positively chortled.

The sound of vomiting made Kip and Gunner both turn from their inspection of the blade. Murmurs shot through the crew as Gavin puked water onto the deck.

He rolled over, gasping and coughing.

“Alive? Take him below,” Gunner ordered. “Feed him, tend to his wounds, and bind him. Don’t let him escape. He’s a fighter.” The men lifted Gavin and carried him belowdecks. Captain Gunner shouted again, “Ceres! Ceres! I’m no miser! You share with me, I share with you. I could use this man.” He was talking about Kip, Kip realized. “He’s a drafter. You saw! You know how bad I been wanting a drafter! Good drafter’s hard to find on the sea, Ceres. But you done me right.”

Oh shit.

“I do this, we call it straight between us? Fair? You gave me two. I’ll give you one back!” Gunner said. “Boys?”

Hands descended. Kip tried to fight, but he only got a bloody nose for his trouble. He was so weak there was no resisting. With a heave, the men tossed him back into the sea.

He surfaced in the darkness, hearing only the sweep of oars and the distant sound of Gunner giving orders and laughing.

Kip swam, barely having the energy to keep floating on his back, out of light, unable to draft, certain that someone would come.

No one did.