Liveship Traders - 03 - Ship of Destiny by Robin Hobb

Author:Robin Hobb
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Tags: Fantasy
ISBN: 0553575651
Published: 2010-06-23T04:00:00+00:00

Liveship Traders 3 - Ship of Destiny

CHAPTER NINETEEN - Strategies

THE FOG AND MISTS WERE RELENTLESS. EVEN ON DAYS WHEN IT DID NOT RAIN, everything dripped with the constant condensation. Garments hung in the galley to dry merely became steamy. The clothes in her duffel bag were as damp as the wool blanket she took from her bunk. Everything smelled green and sour. She half-expected to comb moss from her hair in the mornings. Well, at least they would all have a bit more room now. She’d cleared Lavoy’s things from the first mate’s cabin and was moving her gear in today. The promotion was traditional and hers by right. Brashen had moved Haff up to second. He seemed very pleased with his new rank; an even better sign was that the crew in general approved of his promotion.

“Do the rain and the fogs never cease in these wretched islands?” Amber demanded as she came into the tiny cabin. Moisture had beaded on her hair and eyelashes. Water dripped from the cuffs of her shirt.

“In summer,” Althea offered her. “But for now, this is the weather. Unless it rains hard enough to clear the air.”

“That would almost be preferable to this constant dripping. I climbed the mast to see what I could see. I’d have been as wise to stuff my head in my duffel bag. How do the pirates move about on days like these? There’s neither sun nor star to steer by.”

“Let’s hope they don’t. I’d hate to have one run us down in the fog. Try to think of it as concealing us from hostile eyes.”

“But it conceals them from us just as effectively. How will we know when Kennit returns to Divvytown if we can’t even see the island?”

They had been anchored for the last day and night in a small, sheltered inlet. Althea knew what others did not. They anchored here, not in wait for Kennit, but to try to salvage some sort of plan. Last night, sequestered together in Brashen’s cabin, they had considered options. Brashen had not been optimistic. “It’s all gone down to the bottom,” he said bleakly. He stared up at the ceiling above his bunk. “I should have foreseen that Lavoy would do something like that. He’s destroyed any hope of surprise that we ever had. Someone will send word to Kennit and at first sight of us, he’ll surely attack.

Damn Lavoy. When I first suspected him of talking mutiny, I should have keelhauled him.”

“That would have been good for morale,” Althea had murmured from the shelter of his arm. She lay in his bunk beside him. The length of his naked body was warm against hers and her head was pillowed on his shoulder. The mellow lantern light made shifting shadows on the wall, tempting her to simply clasp Brashen close and fall asleep beside him. Her fingers idly walked the long seam down his ribs that was the track of the pirate’s sword.

“Don’t,” he had muttered irritably, twitching away from her.

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