Page 86 of The Ragpicker King
“People are shooting flaming arrows at us!” Kel shouted back. His boots were skidding on the wet stone. He twisted to the side, trying to right his center of gravity. Ji-An had an arrow in her hand and was struggling to notch it to her bow as she ran.
“Iknowthat!” Merren yelled. “It was a rhetorical question!”
“Shut up, the both of you!” called Ji-An, and let an arrow fly. Kel heard a thump and a cry of pain and felt a vicious satisfaction that surprised him. He wished he’d learned archery himself; sword-fighting was all very well, but not much use at a distance.
Stumbling, racing, with Ji-An firing off arrows, they made it to the bottom of the stairs, where the tide was licking hungrily at the lower steps. Jerrod was there, his boots half in the water. He had tossed away his knife, but there was still blood smeared on his hands, the sleeve of his jacket. He looked desperately at Merren, who turned away.
“Jerrod, what the hell were you thinking?” Kel demanded. “Who told you to murder Gremont? And where in the name of the Gods is theboat?”
“I’ve no idea,” Jerrod scrubbed at his face with his hand; it left a red smear. “They’re bloody gone—”
Kel pushed past him and leaped down into the knee-high water, looking around wildly. There was no sign of the skiff or the oarsmen. Above them, the Malgasi guards were getting closer; Kel could hear them, crashing down the steps like falling rocks. He could hear the quickswish-flickof their arrows. Several had pierced the twisted columns of driftwood along the path and were burning, beginning to sputter as the flame met damp wood.
“Over here!” called a familiar voice. Kel spun and saw a brightly painted pleasure craft—a narrow boat with high, flaring sides and a sharp stern—glide into view. Sails billowed in the low wind. At the bow of the boat, waving her arms wildly so that the pale-pink shawl around her shoulders fluttered like the wings of a distressed butterfly, was Antonetta Alleyne.
“Quick!” she shouted. “Kel! Kel Anjuman! Over here!”
Merren gaped. “What on earth?”
Jerrod and Ji-An were also staring at Kel, arrested mid-motion.
“She’s on our side,” Kel said, trying to sound confident and not at all as if he had no idea what on earth Antonetta was doing here, or why she seemed to have sailed one of her mother’s pleasure craft to Tyndaris with the express purpose of rescuing him and his friends. “I swear to you—”
A flaming arrow shot past him, burrowing into the shallow water, where it sparked and extinguished.
“Right,” said Jerrod. “Let’s go.”
“Hurry!” Antonetta waved even more frantically. Kel started to wade out into the water. It was already knee-high, slowing his movements, but he did his best to cut a zigzag pattern as he went, avoiding the fiery arrows that continued to fly from the islandbehind them. They hissed as they struck the surface of the sea, like matches doused in water.
That was when he heard it. The whine of an arrow, flying past his ear. Not close enough to hit him, but too close to Merren. There was no time for him to shout a warning; he caught a blur out of the corner of his eye, and Merren spun around and fell.
Ji-An screamed.
Kel started toward Merren, who was splashing in the shallow water. A dark stain was spreading across the rippled surface, and Kel had an odd flash of a long-ago memory: Conor pouring absynthe into wine, watching the green-black liquor spread slowly through the clarity of the liquid.
“Merren,” he breathed, and started toward him, but Jerrod was faster. He barreled past Kel, seized Merren without slowing, and hauled him to his feet. The arrow had not gone into Merren, but it had torn a gash in his arm. What looked like a frightening quantity of blood soaked his sleeve, and drenched Jerrod’s hands.
Arms wrapped around Merren, Jerrod dragged him to the ship, heaving him up over the side. Antonetta shrieked as Merren, still bleeding, tumbled into the boat and Jerrod flung himself after. Kel was a second behind, grasping hold of the hull’s edge and clambering in. Ji-An followed him, landing lightly in the prow. She spun around, bow in hand.
“Go, go, go!” she shouted; the men hastened to adjust the lines. The boat shot across the water, Ji-An firing arrows back at the island even as they pulled away.
Whether she hit anyone or not, Kel could not tell. Half blind with fury and panic, he whirled and caught hold of Antonetta by the shoulders.
She had been looking around her, eyes wide—staring from Jerrod, who was kneeling over a bleeding Merren, to Ji-An. Now she gasped in surprise as Kel, his heart hammering, caught at her shoulders. He knew he was holding her hard, probably frighteningly so,but his heart could not stop hammering in terror. “How did youknow?” His voice jerked as he spoke, as if he couldn’t catch his breath. “Andwhy—do you have any idea how dangerous what you just did was? Ana, you could have been killed—”
“Kel.” It was Jerrod. He had taken off his jacket and was pressing it against Merren’s bleeding arm. His fixed Kel with an icy look. “She saved our lives. Stop it.”
They had reached the tallships again. They cast their great shadows down over the Alleynes’ small boat as it sailed between them. Antonetta had not tried to pull away from Kel. She stood where she was, her face pale and set with what Kel assumed was shock.
“My mother,” she said, her voice eerily calm. “I was following my mother. I knew she had something planned tonight. I was afraid it was some mad thing. She gets—well, you know how she gets.” She looked up at Kel, her blue eyes wide. “I followed her to Tyndaris, and I saw she was with Artal. I didn’t know what to do then. If they had an assignation, then I didn’t want to know it. I thought I ought to just leave, and then I sawyou,running. And they were after you with arrows, and there was that bright light—fire—” She sucked in a breath. “I—they would have murdered you. I had to try to help.”
“But you could have been killed,” Kel said. He wanted to shake her again. He wanted to pull her close and hold her hard against him so that he could feel that her heart was still beating.
“Wecould have been killed if she hadn’t done it,” said Ji-An, standing rigid in the prow. She’d stopped firing off arrows, but she maintained her archer’s stance, poised and ready, her eyes scanning the horizon.
“My mother—” Antonetta began.
“I saw her flee,” Kel said. “But Gremont’s dead.”
