The Complete Liveship Traders Trilogy: Ship of Magic, The Mad Ship, Ship of Destiny. Robin Hobb
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cautious tread, at least three men were behind him on the stairs. He smiled grimly. Better here, in tight quarters with them below him than out on the dark of the streets. With a bit of luck he’d take at least one by surprise.
He did not have to wait long. They were too eager. As the first one stepped around the corner, the tip of Kennit’s blade flicked across the man’s throat. That simple. Kennit gave him a good shove. He tumbled back into his fellows, gargling incoherently, and as they stumbled backwards down the stairs, Kennit followed, dashing out the lamp as he passed it and then flinging the hot glass and spilling oil down on them. They cursed in the dark now, with a dying man’s weight pressing them back down the stairs. Kennit made several random downward thrusts with his sword to encourage their retreat. He hoped the dying man would be low, collapsing against their legs. Stabbing him again would be a waste of effort, so he placed his thrusts higher and had the satisfaction of two cries of pain. Perhaps the stairway and closed door would muffle them. He was sure that further surprises awaited him upstairs. No sense in spoiling their anticipation. He heard these three hit the downstairs door and sprang forwards then, thrusting with both sword and dagger into any flesh he could find. Here he had the advantage, for anything that was not himself was the enemy, whereas they had as good a chance of striking an ally as him in the dark, close confines of the stairwell. One man at least was fumbling wildly for the doorknob, cursing when he could not find it. Eventually he did, but only in time to open it and allow himself and his dying companions to spill out onto the landing. At the base of the staircase, Bettel looked up in horror from her parlour.
‘Rats,’ Kennit informed her. Another tidy flick of his sword, to be sure the last man stayed down and died. ‘Vermin on your staircase. You really should not allow this, Bettel.’
‘They forced me! They forced me. I tried to keep you from going up there, you know I did!’ The woman’s wail followed him as he turned back to the staircase. He shut the door firmly on it, hoping it had not carried all the way to the chamber at the top of the house. Soft-footed as a cat he padded up the darkened stairs. He let his sword’s tip lead the way. When he reached the second door, he paused. If they were alarmed at all — no, if they were sly at all — they’d have a man waiting outside this door. He eased the latch open, took a fresh grip on both his weapons, and then shouldered his way through the door, coming in as low and silently as he could. No one was there.
The door to his usual chamber was shut. Voices came through it, pitched softly. Men’s voices. At least two, then. They sounded impatient. No doubt they’d seen him through the window as he approached Bettel’s house. Why hadn’t they ambushed him at the top of the stairs? Perhaps because they’d expected their fellows to overpower him and drag him into this chamber for them?
He considered, then pounded roughly on the door. ‘Got him!’ he cried hoarsely, and was rewarded by a fool who jerked the door open for him. Kennit put his knife low in the man’s belly and then dragged it up with all his strength. It did not do as much damage as he had hoped it would; worse, it tangled in the man’s loose shirt. Kennit was forced to abandon it in him. He gave the man a backwards shove and then sprang forwards to meet the next man’s blade. His blade engaged Kennit’s neatly, turned aside his thrust, then thrust in turn. A gentlemanly approach to fencing, Kennit realized, as he set the man’s blade tip out of alignment with his throat. A mistaken sense of gallantry and showmanship.
Kennit whipped a glance about the room. There was one more man sitting with studied composure in his chair before the fire. He held a glass of claret in one hand, but was prudent enough to have his hand on the drawn sword across his knees. Etta was flung naked across the bed. They had bloodied both the woman and the linens. ‘Ah. King Kennit has come calling on his lady,’ the seated man observed lazily. He gestured with his glass at the whore. ‘I don’t think she’ll be up to receiving you just now. Our day’s amusement has left her… indisposed.’
It was meant to distract him and it almost worked. It was distressing. No. It angered him. This clean and pleasant chamber, the comparative safety of Bettel’s house had been taken away. He’d never be able to relax in this room again. The bastards!
A part of him was aware of shouts in the street outside. More of them. He’d have to finish this one quickly, and then get the one in the chair. But even as he pressed his reach advantage, the mocking man rose and advanced on Kennit with his sword. That one, at least, was not stupid enough to think that fair-play had anything to do with killing. Kennit was not stupid enough to think he had much of a chance against two blades. He wished he hadn’t had to leave his knife in the other man.
A stupid time to die, he told himself, as he parried one blade with his sword and knocked the other aside with his arm. He was thankful for the thick fabric of his sleeve that absorbed most of the impact. Seeing how he must defend himself, his attacker instantly switched to slashing attacks rather than thrusts. Kennit began a constant harried retreat from both blades, with no time to do anything except defend and evade. The other two men laughed and shouted to one another as they fought, mocking words about kings and slaves and whores. He did not listen, he could not listen, one moment’s distraction would be his death. All his attention went to the two blades and the two men who powered them. Time to decide, he recognized grimly. Do I make them kill me now, quickly, or fight until I can no longer defend myself well, and they can play cats to my mouse?
He was as startled as they were when the quilted comforter was snapped open and flung over one of them. As he was fighting clear of it, the rest of the bedding quickly followed, fat down-stuffed pillows, billowing sheets that draped his enemies’ blades and tangled their feet. A sheet settled over one man, draping him like a walking corpse. Apt, Kennit smiled to himself. Kennit’s blade popped through the linen drapery and as he drew it back, a great scarlet blossom opened on it. Etta, cursing and shrieking, gathered up an immense double-armful of feather bed and flung it and herself upon the last attacker. Kennit quickly made sure of the man he had stabbed. By the time he turned, Etta had found the other man’s head beneath the blanket and was pounding it up and down on the floor. The bedding muffled his cries as he struggled to get clear of the shrouding stuff. Kennit casually stabbed him several times, and then, out of breath, put the sword where he judged the man’s heart to be. The thrashing lump under the blankets stilled. Etta kept on pounding his head against the floor.
‘I think you can stop that now,’ Kennit pointed out. She did, abruptly, but the sound continued.
They both turned to the pounding footsteps coming up the stairs. Etta, crouched naked over her kill, looked savage as a feral cat as she unconsciously bared her teeth to the sound. Kennit waded through the welter of bodies and bedding to secure the door. He tried to slam it but the first man’s body was in the way. He bent to drag the body free, and before he could close the door, it flew wide open so hard it bounced off the wall. Kennit caught it before it could rebound into Sorcor’s face. Sorcor was red-faced from running as were the men who burst into the room behind him. ‘An old man,’ he gasped. ‘Came to the ship. Said you might have trouble here.’
‘Now that was a bit of silver well spent,’ a small voice observed. Sorcor glanced at Etta, thinking she had spoken, then self-consciously turned his head from the naked, battered woman. She staggered upright. She glanced at the other men staring at her and then stooped awkwardly to drag up a corner of one blanket to cover herself. It revealed a man’s hand and arm flung lifelessly on the floor.
‘Trouble.’ Kennit observed dryly. ‘A bit.’ He sheathed his sword and gestured at the body in the door. ‘Pass me my knife, please.’
Sorcor crouched to pull it out of the man. ‘You were right,’ he observed needlessly. ‘There’s been talk against us in the town, and some are angered by what we do. Is this Rey? Of the Sea-Vixen?’
‘I don’t know,’ Kennit admitted. ‘He never introduced himself.’ He stooped and dragged some of the bedding off the other dead men.
‘It was Rey,’ Etta said in a low voice through bruised lips. ‘I knew him well enough.’ She took a breath. ‘All of these were Sea-Vixen men.’ She gestured at the man whose head she had pounded against the floor. ‘That was their captain. Skelt.’ In a lower voice she added, ‘They kept saying they’d