Assassin's Bond (Chains of Honor, Book 3) Read online

  Yanko sensed that Tynlee had only sought to save the beleaguered Nurian ship, not board the pirate ship and drive daggers into their hearts, but she nodded. “I would like to know why they were attacking our people. Just because they looked like easy prey? Or for some political motivation?”

  “We’ll bring you some to question,” Dak said.

  “We?” Sicarius looked at Amaranthe. He was as expressionless as ever, but he seemed to still question whether this was the proper course of action.

  “We.” Dak pointed at Yanko.

  “I’m ready,” Yanko said. “No, wait.”

  He raced down to retrieve the warrior-mage robe. He hoped he’d taken the wind out of the pirates’ sails, but he doubted they would surrender easily, especially when they outnumbered Yanko and his comrades ten to one.

  8

  As the yacht sailed close to the downed airship, Yanko braced himself to use his magic. The deck attached to the front of the metal cabin bobbed atop the waves, and he spotted men in the open hatchway with rifles and bows in hand. Smoke flowing out from the interior obscured the view, but more people coughed from inside.

  Most of the visible men had dark hair, but Yanko glimpsed someone with a red-blond braid. He hoped that indicated that Tynlee had been right, that these were a mixed group of pirates rather than soldiers. Uncertainty twanged at his senses when he glimpsed a couple of black Turgonian military uniforms.

  Why do you interfere? a male voice snarled into his mind, speaking in Nurian. We had not targeted you.

  You targeted a Nurian ship, Yanko replied telepathically, assuming this was the captain and mage that Tynlee had warned him about. He wondered why the man had singled him out instead of speaking with Tynlee. Because he knew she’d tried to manipulate him? It hadn’t sounded like she had been successful.

  “Do you agree to cease hostilities?” Tynlee called across the water. “We wish to come to an agreement.”

  The smoke flowing out of the hatchway thickened, hiding the pirates from view. A barrage of gunfire came from the direction of that hatchway, suggesting the pirates weren’t interested in agreements.

  The ships were close enough now for those weapons to be dangerous, so the yacht crew ran for cover. Dak crouched behind a lifeboat and fired into the smoke. Yanko created a barrier that would protect him, Arayevo, and Lakeo. Unfortunately, he couldn’t shield the entire yacht, not with Dak returning fire. Yanko also spotted the first mate with a rifle. In the bow of the ship, Jhali crouched behind the binnacle, a pistol in hand. She hadn’t started firing yet and seemed to be biding her time.

  Yanko didn’t see Sicarius and Amaranthe. Were they hiding belowdecks? Maybe Turgonian secret agents didn’t like open battle.

  As Yanko concentrated on keeping his barrier up, he also attempted to manipulate the air on the enemy ship so he could clear the smoke. Then his allies would be able to see their targets.

  Dak fired, and a cry of pain came from within the smoke. Maybe he didn’t need to see to target people.

  “Can you knock them into the water?” Arayevo asked.

  “Not while I’m also protecting us.” Yanko considered her question. Could he risk lowering his barrier for long enough to focus on sending a gust of wind to knock the pirates off the deck? He sensed many more of them crouching inside the hatchway, readying weapons. He wouldn’t be able to knock them off the deck, but—

  A cannon fired, and the ball slammed into Yanko’s barrier, the reverberations resonating through his body. He’d forgotten those weapons were still in play. He gritted his teeth and channeled more air into his shield.

  “I see,” Arayevo said. “What if we just take cover?”

  “That sounds like a genius idea,” Lakeo said.

  As Yanko realized that would be simpler and less taxing than using his power, a hand gripped his arm and pulled him across the deck. Dak.

  “Get down,” Dak ordered, pulling him behind the life boat he’d been using for cover.

  He waved, and Arayevo and Lakeo rushed over to crouch behind it.

  “I was using my magic to protect us,” Yanko said, not wanting Dak to think he’d idiotically been standing out in the open without any cover.

  “Use the boat to protect yourself. Then use your magic to do something useful.” Dak demonstrated by leaning out and firing.

  “We were suggesting that to Yanko already,” Lakeo said, “but I guess Turgonian bodyguards can make their suggestions a reality more quickly.”

  Yanko wanted to protest their logic, but they were right. Though he didn’t feel as safe now as he had behind his magical shield—bullets kept smashing into the railing of the yacht and also into the wooden lifeboat—he could focus all his energy on the offensive. He started by sweeping a gust of wind across the airship to drive away that smoke.

  “Should I close to boarding distance?” the first mate called from the wheel. He crouched behind it for cover but also had a hand on it, guiding the craft.

  Yanko, sensing fourteen pirates out on the deck, was on the verge of using wind to knock them off the ship when Dak said, “Someone already boarded.”

  Yanko hesitated. “What?”

  Then he recognized the auras of a couple of the “pirates” on the deck. He peered over the top of the lifeboat, not completely trusting his magic.

  Sicarius, his short blond hair plastered to his head, had swum to the airship, and he stood on its deck with his back to the hull, engaging four pirates at once. He was a blur of movement, striking so quickly that the pirates were the ones that seemed at a disadvantage, their hasty attempts to block too slow to be useful.

  Somehow, Sicarius anticipated an enemy standing farther back and taking aim at him, and he shifted slightly, so that another pirate was in the way. It took Yanko a moment to realize the agent fought with nothing but a dagger and his fists and feet. It proved more than enough.

  A firearm banged, and Yanko glimpsed Amaranthe on the pirate vessel. Not as brazenly out in the open as Sicarius but hanging off the railing and using a support for cover as she picked off targets. She, too, had clearly swum over, her hair and clothes soaking wet.

  “Yes,” Dak barked to the first mate, a note of disgust in his voice. “Get us to within boarding distance.”

  “Envious that you’re not over there?” Yanko asked.

  Dak gave him a baleful look but didn’t deny it.

  The first mate looked toward Tynlee, who had also found a spot where she could stay out of the line of fire while she worked her magic.

  She nodded back to him. “Take Dak and Yanko to the pirate ship, and then maneuver to the Nurian craft if you can. There are many injured over there, and I don’t believe they have a healer. They will need my assistance.”

  “Just Dak and Yanko?” Lakeo protested.

  “Dak and Yanko,” Kei said. “Dak and Yanko.”

  Yanko would have been pleased that the parrot had finally learned his name, but Kei was looking at the smoke with agitation and didn’t seem to know what he was saying.

  Jhali must have caught the words, because she frowned in Tynlee’s direction.

  “I’m sure anyone can get off if they truly want to fight,” Yanko said, not sure whether to be proud that Tynlee thought he was the appropriate person—or at least one of the appropriate people—to deal with pirates, or mortified that he was being volunteered to rush into battle.

  Dak roared and sprang out from behind the lifeboat. He sprinted to the railing, jumped onto it, and launched himself into the air. Yanko wouldn’t have thought their ship close enough for such a maneuver, but he reached the airship’s railing and caught it, pulling himself over. Dak rushed into battle with the pirates fighting Sicarius.

  The men yelled in dismay. Even though there were still ten of them, with many more inside the cabin, they clearly didn’t like combating the assassin, and when Dak plowed into them from behind, the group seemed confused, acting as if the two Turgonians had them surrounded and pinned. A few fought back against thi
s new threat while others raced toward the hatchway, as if they would be safe inside.

  Yanko, aware of other pirates leaning out to shoot, threw a gust of wind. It knocked against the hatch, tearing a clasp from a hook, and it clanged shut. He searched for a locking mechanism but didn’t see anything.

  A rubber gasket ran around the edge of the hatch, though, and he remembered a piece of trivia from a Kyattese science book he’d read as a boy. Rubber expanded when chilled. He wished it were the other way around, because he had far more practice at creating heat, but he reached down with his senses into the near-freezing water below the sun’s influence and swept some of it upward. He streamed it against the edge of the hatch, willing it to chill the rubber but not knowing if it would be enough. To his surprise, the water turned to ice, glistening in the sun as it hardened against the hatch.

  I thought you aspired to be an earth mage, not a weather mage, Tynlee spoke into his mind. She was waving for the first mate to guide the yacht toward the Nurian craft.

  I’m not sure how I did that, Yanko replied before wondering if he should admit that. With earth magic, he understood how it worked, the science that all magic was based on. He’d never studied weather magic and wouldn’t have guessed one could simply turn the air cold.

  It must be nice to be so gifted, came the dry response.

  I’m still forming an opinion on that.

  She snorted into his mind but added, I see why Dak was willing to take you with him.

  Reminded that he was supposed to be boarding that ship and helping Dak, Yanko gave Kei a telepathic suggestion to stay behind, then summoned the wind to create a platform of condensed air under his feet. He encased himself in a protective bubble as he levitated off the yacht, his skills having improved in the weeks since he’d half-tumbled into a ravine after Dak.

  Kei squawked and flew away, more because he found it alarming that Yanko was flying than out of a desire to stay out of trouble. Whatever kept the bird from taking a stray bullet.

  Yanko needn’t have bothered with the shield. The pirates on the deck were too busy with Dak and Sicarius to notice him floating over, his red warrior-mage robe fluttering in the breeze he created to propel himself.

  He spotted Jhali and Lakeo in the water below, swimming across and reaching the side of the pirate ship. They found a spot on the strange square hull where they could climb up to the deck. Yanko was surprised either woman was in a hurry to join the fight. Did mage hunters attack pirates on principle? Lakeo, he imagined, might think she could find some stolen pirate booty that she could claim for her funds. Even if, so far, she hadn’t had any success keeping the booty she kept acquiring. But as far as Yanko knew, she still longed to finance an education at the Kyatt University or otherwise bribe someone to instruct her in the ways of magic.

  As Yanko drew close enough to come down on the deck, he sensed the pirate crew banging at the hatch and trying to figure out why it wouldn’t open. They would find a way out sooner or later. Fortunately, Dak and Sicarius, with Amaranthe picking off pirates when she could, had almost cleared the deck. The two men were deadly, leaving corpses in their wake. Amaranthe chose less critical targets, legs and shoulders, wounds that took the pirates out of the fight but didn’t kill them. Yanko wondered if Dak and Sicarius, consummate Turgonian warriors, would finish them off later, whether she wished it or not.

  With the last pirate down, Dak charged toward the hatch, his pistol jammed into his belt in favor of the cutlass that dripped blood. He reached it before Sicarius, almost as if he was saying he would lead the charge. Ice still rimmed the hatch, and the expanded rubber seal did not give way when Dak tugged on it.

  He looked straight back at Yanko, his eyebrows rising.

  “Are you sure we shouldn’t just leave them in there?” Yanko thought he could refresh the ice and keep the hatch sealed for the rest of the day if need be. Or at least until Tynlee spoke to the Nurians on the other ship and figured out what was going on.

  Dak pointed at a fallen pirate, a pale-skinned, red-haired man with a scraggly beard. He looked to be dead, and Yanko wasn’t sure what Dak wanted him to see. Then he realized the pirate wore the trousers and jacket of a Turgonian soldier, though he’d sawn off the sleeves of the jacket and the cuffs of the trousers. As Yanko had noticed earlier, several of the men wore partial or complete uniforms. But none of them had the shaven, trimmed appearance of Turgonian soldiers. It grew clearer that they’d taken this ship from soldiers, soldiers they may have killed to claim those garments.

  “Open it,” Dak growled, jabbing his cutlass at the hatch and leaving blood on the metal.

  Yanko had plenty of practice heating material through fire and creating friction. He half-melted the ice and half-batted it aside by funneling air. Dak’s eyebrows twitched again as a gust stirred his hair.

  “Wait a moment.” Yanko sensed pirates crouching inside, prepared to fire. He’d seen Dak rush into rooms before without checking for traps—or enemies. As intelligent as he was, he had a copious share of Turgonian battle lust.

  As he waved the hatch open, Yanko formed a barrier just inside of it. When the pirates fired, their bullets bounced back at them. Several slammed into the pirates themselves, and Yanko staggered in distress at the unforeseen consequence of his actions. Cries of pain assaulted his ears at the same time as he felt their pain through his senses.

  Yanko let Sicarius and Dak rush inside while he stumbled to the side and gripped the railing to support himself. Jhali rushed past, dripping water and giving him a glance that was hard to read. It might have been concern, or it might have been a sign that she thought he was weak for letting the others rush ahead. Ahead and over the bodies of three pirates who had died when their bullets ricocheted back into their chests.

  Yanko closed his eyes. He’d done enough for now. If he hadn’t blown up the balloon and brought the airship down to where they could board it, people wouldn’t be dying.

  But, he reminded himself firmly, taking a breath of salty air to try to still the nausea in his belly, these people had been attacking his countrymen. Killing his countrymen. And they’d likely killed a bunch of Turgonian soldiers to steal the airship. If so, they deserved to die, didn’t they? He just wasn’t sure he had the wisdom to make that judgment. Or be the executioner.

  “Are you all right?” Amaranthe asked in Nurian as she touched his shoulder.

  Yanko straightened and pushed himself from the railing. “Yes.”

  Unlike so many of the Turgonians, she didn’t try to mask her face, and she radiated sympathy. She probably thought he’d been hurt. He didn’t feel like explaining the truth to someone he barely knew.

  “Using magic is… draining.” In more ways than one, he added silently.

  “Ah.” She lowered her hand and gave him an encouraging smile. “The others can handle the pirates. Don’t drain yourself too much.”

  Yanko remembered that she hadn’t been shooting to kill. Maybe he’d finally found a Turgonian who didn’t list nobly slaying enemies in battle as a primary occupation—or an exciting and desirable hobby.

  Amaranthe opened her mouth, but instead of saying more, she turned toward the Nurian ship. Tynlee, her two bodyguards, and Arayevo were on the deck over there, with a gangplank and grappling hooks now attaching the two ships and allowing them to sail side by side. The yacht was much smaller than the other vessel. It looked like a merchant ship, what remained of one. It would need a lot of repairs.

  Arayevo waved at Yanko when he caught her gaze. She must have decided to help Tynlee instead of swimming over to join in the fight. Tynlee also turned to look back at them.

  “I’m not sure I’ll ever stop finding that odd,” Amaranthe said after a moment.

  “What’s that?” Yanko asked.

  “Someone using the Science to speak into my mind. Tynlee says one of us—Sicarius or I—may want to come over and hear what the Nurian captain has to say. I’m a little surprised she’s offering free information. Maybe she’ll exp
ect some Turgonian information in exchange. That seems to be how diplomacy works among the nations of the world.” She smiled faintly. “I guess I’m taking a swim.”

  “I can help you.”

  “With swimming? My crawl stroke isn’t that great, I admit. I grew up in Stumps. Most of the year, it’s too cold to contemplate immersing oneself in the lake.”

  “Uh, I meant with magic. If you find levitation less odd than telepathy.”

  “Hm, maybe not less odd, but I’ll accept the offer if you have energy left for it.” She plucked at the soggy hem of her tunic and headed for the railing.

  Yanko, who was only weary in the emotional sense, easily conjured enough air to lift her and carry her to the Nurian ship. She landed, waved back to him, and headed toward a cabin into which Tynlee had disappeared.

  Tynlee? Yanko asked, sensing her presence inside with several of the Nurian crew. She seemed to be talking to people but was also helping someone who’d been laid on a cot—someone injured. Did she have some ability to heal in addition to her mind magic? If that was what she was doing, he hated to disturb her.

  Yes? she replied.

  Should I help here or…? Yanko groped for a way to ask if the information Tynlee wanted Amaranthe to hear would be useful for him to hear. He didn’t want to come across as an annoying snoop, but he also didn’t want to be kept in the dark.

  Perhaps you and Dak should come over after you’re done there.

  Yanko and Dak? Did that mean this tied into the mission they both shared? Of finding Zirabo?

  I’ll get Dak, he said.

  Tynlee didn’t reply. Maybe she was busy healing that person.

  Yanko braced himself to walk into the carnage inside the cabin of the airship.

  Yanko stepped past the bodies of dead pirates, glad the smoke or poor lighting made it hard to see details inside the airship cabin. The interior smelled of melted metal and rubber and other acrid scents he couldn’t identify. His nostrils twitched, and his eyes stung.