The Broken God by Gareth Hanrahan (desktop ebook reader .TXT) 📕

Ilbarin vanishes behind the bowsprit, reappears a moment later on the other side. They’re no longer heading for Ilbarin City, but instead making for the north end of the island.

Cari stuffs Ramegos’ grimoire into her pack and swings it on to her back. The weight of the loaded satchel makes her feel lopsided, and the waters are choppy here. She finds Captain Dosca nearby, standing at the rail, spyglass raised. Something’s coming.

“Hey,” she calls. He ignores her, so she puts her palm across the end of his telescope, blocking his view. That gets his attention.

“I paid for passage all the way to Ilbarin City. I paid you extra to go straight there.” In fact, it was the first time in her life she’d ever had the money to pay passage instead of working it, and she’s damned if she’s not getting her money’s worth.

Dosca sucks his stained teeth. “We must change course,” he says slowly. “Ilbarin City is no longer safe. There has been, ah, flooding.”

“You said you’d take me to Ilbarin City.”

“We cannot land there.”

“I’ve got friends in the port.” Using the present tense is a risky assumption on her part; she had friends there, long ago. Family, sort of. She spent five years aboard the Rose. Hawse or Adro will help her. She’ll even go to Dol Martaine in a pinch – she’s got money to pay her way, now. Captain Hawse came from Ilbarin, and always said he’d retire there. She’ll take any ship that’ll bring her to the forbidden land of Khebesh, but secretly she’s harboured the fanciful notion that it’ll be the Rose that carries her there. “I need to go to Ilbarin City.”

Dosca pauses for a long moment, then says, “We’re going to Ushket instead.”

“Ushket… Ushket’s halfway up the fucking mountain!” How bad was the flooding? Shit, how out of date is her information? Sailing from Guerdon to Ilbarin usually takes four or five weeks, but Cari did it all arseways, took the long way around. She had to – there was no way she dared get anywhere close to the gods of Ishmere, not after what she did to their war goddess. She’s been travelling for months, with little news of the south until she reached the Caliphates. And she was so eager to find passage onwards to Ilbarin that she didn’t take any precautions.

“We will put you ashore at Ushket. There is nothing else to be done.” He raises the spyglass again.

“What is it?” Cari asks. She can see some other vessel approaching, a smudge of dark smoke above it. Alchemy-powered, probably a gunboat from the size. Ilbarin military, maybe? She reaches for Dosca’s spyglass, but he folds it up and tucks it away before she can take it.

“An escort.” He glances down at Cari. “It would be best for you to stay hidden. I will tell them I have no passengers.”

“Are they Ilbariners?”

Dosca shakes his head. “No. They are Ghierdana.”

Ghierdana. Fucking dragon pirates.

Run. Hide. Cari sprints below deck, leaping down the narrow ladder, ignoring the curses of Eld as she shoves past him. His big, wind-pregnant belly nearly takes up the entire gangway. She races to the corner she’s been sleeping in and gathers her other few possessions. The hold stinks of rotten eggs, and the smell is bearable only if they leave the hatches half open most of the time. From down here, she can look up and see a bright blue sliver of sky, hear movement on the deck above.

Acrid smoke crosses the sliver of blue, and she catches the whiff of engine fumes. The gunboat’s alongside. She hears shouts, thumping against the hull as people climb on board. Cari discovers a hiding place under a bunk, pressing herself into the shadowy corner, a child hiding from monsters. Knife clutched in her hand, ready to strike. Her heart pounding so hard it feels like it’s going to break her ribs.

All her instincts are off. Back in Guerdon, she was fucking unstoppable. She was the Saint of Knives. With Spar’s miracles backing her up, she was invincible. Spar shielded her, took on any wounds that might hurt her. With his help she’d single-handedly stabbed the fuck out of the Ghierdana crime syndicate. Kicked them out of Guerdon without taking a scratch. Only a few months ago, she wouldn’t have had to hide. She’d have known where every Ghierdana bastard was, felt their footsteps on the stone floor. The walls would open for her, the New City reshaping itself according to her desires. She’d have shrugged off gunfire with marble-hard skin, defeated a dozen men with a saint’s cruel grace.

Made them beg her for mercy.

Pray to her for mercy.

Sometimes, she’d given it. Sometimes, she hadn’t.

Do you think they know who I am, she thinks to Spar, wildly. Hell, maybe they won’t. Maybe she’s overreacting. The Ghierdana are a big outfit, a syndicate of criminal families, each headed by a fucking no-shit fire-breathing dragon – there’s no guarantee that any of the ones here in Ilbarin know anything about what happened back home. Three times so far – twice in Varinth, and once on Paravos – she thought she’d spotted someone was following her, but she lost her pursuers each time. She doesn’t even know if they were Ghierdana or not – she’s made a lot of enemies.

Maybe she can bluff her way out. Stick the knife in a pocket and stroll up on deck all casual. Who, me? I’m just another deckhand.

But they might find the fucking book.

So she stays hidden and waits. Her shoulder muscles and her legs ache from being crammed into the tight space under the bunk. The metal edge of the book digs into the small of her back. Roaches crawl over her hands, her collarbone. She doesn’t move. She cowers like a frightened child.

Two men open the hatch and climb down into the hold. Both are wearing military garb, but it’s a mismatch of bits and pieces from different uniforms, all stripped of markings. They’re