Red Seas Under Red Skies by Scott Lynch Page B

old port town. The galleon’s yellowed canvas topsails were close-reefed as she prepared to lay to about half a mile offshore. A little harbormaster’s skiff scudded out to meet the galleon, green and white lanterns bobbing in its bow to the rhythm of the eight heaving oarsmen.
    â€œWhat vessel?” The harbormaster stood up beside her bow lanterns and shouted through a speaking trumpet from thirty yards away.
    â€œ
Golden Gain;
Tal Verrar,” came the return shout from the galleon’s waist.
    â€œDo you wish to put in?”
    â€œNo! Passengers only, coming off by boat.”
    The lower stern cabin of the
Golden Gain
smelled strongly of sweat and illness. Jean Tannen was newly returned from the upper deck, and had lost some of his tolerance for the odor, which lent further edge to his bad mood. He flung a patched blue tunic at Locke and folded his arms.
    â€œFor fuck’s sake,” he said, “we’re here. We’re getting off this bloody ship and back onto good solid stone. Put the bloody tunic on; they’re lowering a boat.”
    Locke shook the tunic out with his right hand and frowned. He was sitting on the edge of a bunk, dressed only in his breeches, and was thinner and dirtier than Jean had ever seen him. His ribs stood out beneath his pale skin like the hull timbers of an unfinished ship. His hair was dark with grease, long and unkempt on every side, and a fine thistle of beard fringed his face.
    His upper left arm was crisscrossed with the glistening red lines of barely sealed wounds; there was a scabbed puncture on his left forearm, and beneath that a dirty cloth brace was wound around his wrist. His left hand was a mess of fading bruises. A discolored bandage partially covered an ugly-looking injury on his left shoulder, a scant few inches above his heart. Their three weeks at sea had done much to reduce the swelling of Locke’s cheeks, lips, and broken nose, but he still looked as though he’d tried to kiss a kicking mule. Repeatedly.
    â€œCan I get a hand, then?”
    â€œNo, you can do it for yourself. You should’ve been exercising this past week, getting ready. I can’t always be here to hover about like your fairy fucking nursemaid.”
    â€œWell, let me shove a gods-damn rapier through your shoulder and wiggle it for you, and then let’s see how keen you are to exercise.”
    â€œI
took
my cuts, you sobbing piss-wallow, and I did exercise ’em.” Jean lifted his own tunic; above the substantially reduced curve of his once-prodigious belly was the fresh, livid scar of a long slash across his ribs. “I don’t care how much it hurts; you have to move around, or they heal tight like a caulk-seal and then you’re really in the shit.”
    â€œSo you keep telling me.” Locke threw the shirt down on the deck beside his bare feet. “But unless that tunic animates itself, or you do the honors, it seems I go to the boat like this.”
    â€œSun’s going down. Summer or not, it’s going to be cool out there. But if you want to be an idiot, I guess you do go like that.”
    â€œYou’re a son of a bitch, Jean.”
    â€œIf you were healthy, I’d rebreak your nose for that, you self-pitying little—”
    â€œGentlemen?” A crew-woman’s muffled voice came through the door, followed by a loud knock. “Captain’s compliments, and the boat is ready.”
    â€œThank you,” yelled Jean. He ran a hand through his hair and sighed. “Why did I bother saving your life, again? I could’ve brought the Gray King’s corpse. Would’ve been better fucking company.”
    â€œPlease,” said Locke forcefully, gesturing with his good arm. “We can meet in the middle. I’ll pull with my good arm and you handle the bad side. Get me off this ship and I’ll get to exercising.”
    â€œCan’t come soon enough,” said Jean, and after