Rogue, Prisoner, Princess

Thanos saw his hand go to one of his swords.

“I’m serious,” Thanos said. “I can’t help you win the battle for the island if I’m here.”

He could see Akila’s disbelief, and the certainty that it had to be a trap. Thanos went on quickly, knowing that his best hope of surviving the next few minutes lay in convincing this man that he wanted to help the rebellion.

“You said yourself that one of the big problems is that the Empire has its fleet supporting the assault,” Thanos said. “I know that they left supplies on the ships because they were so eager to get on with the attack. So we take the ships.”

Akila stood up. “Have you heard this, lads? The prince here has a plan to take the Empire’s ships from them.”

Thanos saw the rebels start to gather round.

“What good would it do?” Akila asked. “We take their ships, but what then?”

Thanos did his best to explain. “At the very least, it will provide an escape route for some of the people of the city, and for more of your soldiers. It will take away supplies from the Empire’s soldiers too, so that they can’t keep going for long. And then there are the ballistae.”

“What are they?” one of the rebels called out. He didn’t look much like a long-term soldier. Very few of those in the room did, to Thanos’s eyes.

“Bolt throwers,” Thanos explained. “Weapons designed to damage other ships, but if they were turned against soldiers near the shore…”

Akila, at least, looked as though he was considering the possibilities. “That could be something,” he admitted. “And we can set light to any ships we can’t use. At the very least, Draco would pull his men back to try to get his ships back. But how do we get these ships in the first place, Prince Thanos? I know that where you come from, if a prince asks for something, he gets it, but I doubt that will apply to Draco’s fleet.”

Thanos forced himself to smile with a level of confidence he didn’t feel. “That’s almost exactly what we’re going to do.”

Again, Thanos had the impression of Akila working it out faster than any of his men could. The rebel leader smiled.

“You’re mad,” Akila said. Thanos couldn’t tell if it was intended as an insult or not.

“There are enough dead on the beaches,” Thanos explained, for the benefit of the others. “We take their armor and head to the ships. With me there, it will look like a company of soldiers returning from the battle for supplies.”

“What do you think?” Akila asked.

In the firelight that flickered inside the cave, Thanos couldn’t make out the men who spoke. Instead, their questions seemed to emerge from the darkness, so that he couldn’t tell who agreed with him, who doubted him, and who wanted him dead. Still, it was no worse than the politics back home. Better, in a lot of ways, since at least no one was smiling to his face while plotting to kill him.

“What about guards on the ships?” one of the rebels asked.

“There won’t be many,” Thanos said. “And they’ll know who I am.”

“What about all the people who will die in the city while we do this?” another called out.

“They’re dying now,” Thanos insisted. “At least this way, you have a way to fight back. Get this right, and we’ll have a way to save hundreds, if not thousands, of them.”

Silence fell, and the last question came out of it like an arrow.

“How can we trust him, Akila? He’s not just one of them, he’s a noble. A prince.”

Thanos whirled away from the direction the voice had come from, offering up his back for anyone to see. “They stabbed me in the back. They left me to die. I have as much reason to hate them as any man here.”

In that moment, he wasn’t just thinking about the Typhoon. He was thinking about everything his family had done to the people of Delos, and about everything they’d done to Ceres. If they hadn’t forced him to go to Fountain Square, he would never have been there when her brother died.

“We could sit here,” Thanos said, “or we could act. Yes, it will be dangerous. If they see through our disguise, we’re probably dead. I’m willing to risk it. Are you?” When no one answered, Thanos raised his voice. “Are you?”

That got a cheer in response. Akila stepped close to him, clapping a hand on Thanos’s shoulder.

“All right, Prince, it looks like we’re doing things your way. Pull this off, and you’ll have a friend for life.” His hand tightened until Thanos could feel pain shooting through his back. “Betray us, though, get my men killed, and I swear I’ll hunt you down.”

CHAPTER EIGHT

There were parts of Delos where Berin didn’t normally go. They were parts that stank to him of sweat and desperation, as people did whatever they needed to in order to get by. He waved away offers from the shadows, giving the denizens there hard looks to keep them back.

If they’d known about the gold he carried, Berin knew he would have found himself with his throat cut, the purse beneath his tunic divided up and spent in the local taverns and gambling houses before the day was done. It was those places he sought out now, because where else was he going to find soldiers when they were off duty? As a bladesmith, Berin knew fighting men, and he knew the places they would go.

He had gold because he’d visited a merchant, taking with him two daggers he’d forged as examples for those who might have employed him. They’d been beautiful things, worthy of any noble’s belt, worked with gold filigree and etched with hunting scenes on the blades. They were the last things of value he had left in the world. He’d stood in line with a dozen other people in front of the merchant’s desk, and hadn’t gotten half of what he knew they were worth.

To Berin, that didn’t matter. All that mattered was finding his children, and that took gold. Gold he could use to buy ale for the right people, gold he could press into the right palms.

He made his way through Delos’s taverns, and it was a slow process. He couldn’t just come out and ask the questions he wanted to ask. He had to be careful. It helped that he had a few friends in the city, and a few more in the Empire’s army. His blades had saved more than a few men’s lives, over the years.

He found the man he was looking for half drunk in the middle of the afternoon, sitting in a tavern and stinking so much that he had clear space all around him. Berin guessed that it was only the uniform of the Empire’s army that kept them from throwing him face first into the street. Well, that and the fact that Jacare was fat enough that it would have taken half the inn’s patrons to lift him.

Berin saw the fat man’s eyes lift up as he approached. “Berin? My old friend! Come and have a drink with me! Although you’ll have to pay. I’m currently a little…”

“Fat? Drunk?” Berin guessed. He knew the other man wouldn’t mind. The soldier seemed to make an effort to be the Imperial army’s worst example. He even seemed to take a perverse kind of pride in it.

“…financially embarrassed,” Jacare finished.

“I might be able to help with that,” Berin said. He ordered drinks, but didn’t touch his. He needed to keep a clear head if he was going to find Ceres and Sartes. Instead, he waited while Jacare downed his with a noise that sounded to Berin like a donkey at a water trough.

“So, what brings a man like you to my humble presence?” Jacare asked after a while.

“I’m looking for news,” Berin said. “The kind of news a man in your position might have heard.”

“Ah, well, news. News is a thirsty business. And possibly an expensive one.”

“I’m looking for my son and daughter,” Berin explained. With someone else, it might have gained him some sympathy, but he knew that with a man like this, it wouldn’t have much effect.

“Your son? Nesos, right?”

Berin leaned across the table, his hand closing over Jacare’s wrist as the man went to take another drink. He didn’t have much of the old strength left that he’d built wielding forge hammers, but there was still enough to make the other man wince. Good, Berin thought.

“Sartes,” Berin said. “My eldest son is dead. Sartes has been taken by the army. I know you hear things. I want to know where he is, and I want to know where my daughter, Ceres, is.”

Jacare sat back, and Berin let him do it. He wasn’t sure he could have held the other man in place much longer anyway.

“That’s the kind of thing I might have heard,” the soldier admitted, “but that kind of thing is difficult. I have expenses.”

Berin brought out the small pouch of gold. He poured it out onto the table, just far enough from the other man that Jacare couldn’t snatch it easily.

“Will this cover your ‘expenses’?” Berin asked, with a look at the other man’s drinking goblet. He saw the other man counting the gold, probably gauging whether there was any more to be had.