Enigma by Lindsay Buroker Read Free Book Online Page A

dare come into sight.”
    The captain glowered at Tikaya, and she held her breath, expecting a backlash to the boy’s flute playing. “You three get off my deck,” was all he said. “I don’t want to see you again.”
    Garchee lowered the flute.
    “As you command, Captain.” Rias bowed his head, clasped his hands behind his back, and strolled down the steps with Tikaya and Garchee.
    “Thank you for your assistance,” she told the boy, suspecting his tune had helped convince the captain to lower his pistol. Too bad it hadn’t improved his personality as well.
    Garchee nodded once. His face held the sad recognition of one who had accepted his fate, however unpleasant. Tikaya hoped they could figure out a way to protect him from the Nurians.
    Before they headed below, Rias stopped to gaze back at the ships. Tikaya didn’t like the way his face shared some of the youth’s resignation. They’d have to come up with something. She definitely wasn’t going to give him up to the Nurians. Maybe he could hide in the bilge room when the schooner was boarded. The captain liked to send him there anyway.
    “Any chance we can make it to Port Malevek before those ships catch us?” Tikaya asked.
    Without so much as glancing at the sails or checking the wind, Rias said, “No.”
    “I assume there’s no way this small ship can fight them. Any chance of evading them? Maybe we’ll reach that river and—”
    Rias was shaking his head.
    Tikaya stepped away from the boy and lowered her voice. “What if you took command? Perhaps we could tell the captain who you are. That might change his willingness to listen to you.”
    “There’s little I could do either.”
    “Is there anything I could do?” Tikaya asked. It was meant to be a joke, but it didn’t sound very funny when it came out.
    “Your people are theists, aren’t they? Perhaps you could pray for a storm or a dense fog.”
    Tikaya eyed the clouds. They lacked the ominous darkness of thunderheads, nor did any hint of fog linger in the troughs of the waves. “I haven’t noticed a high success rate amongst those who pray for weather phenomena.”
    “Unfortunate,” Rias said. “At least these Nurians shouldn’t have a reason to kill you, not like those assassins we encountered last time. With luck they won’t even know who you are, and they’ll leave you alone.”
    “Oh, good. I can just stand back and watch as you’re beaten, chained, and thrown into their dank, windowless brig.”
    “You could always come along.” Rias smiled and offered his arm. “Dank windowless brigs are always more amenable with company.”
    She snorted and leaned against him, though his joke did little to lift her spirits. She scowled at the back of the captain’s head. How depressing to think that they might have survived assassins, deadly technology, and monster-filled tunnels, only to be defeated by human greed.

Part VII
     
    Afternoon brought the first warning shot, a cannonball splashing into the water off the port bow. Towering granite cliffs rose to the east, the topography Rias had described, with no sign of a river—or any coves to hide in—within sight. Deep blue water promised plenty of depth for the Nurian warships to navigate through.
    On the schooner, the captain paced back and forth, masticating his tobacco like an apothecary grinding a nettlesome root in a mortar. The mate was barking orders to his modest gun crew—the schooner claimed four cannons. Given the hundreds the other ships carried—which were clearly visible now that the Nurians had drawn closer—Tikaya thought the captain was addled for even contemplating a fight. If it was inevitable that the Nurians would overtake the Fin , better to let them board and take the stolen flute rather than risk irking them further.
    So long as they didn’t find Rias.
    The waiting and worrying was enough to make Tikaya crazy. Part of her wanted to run down to the bilge pump and plan a mutiny with him, if only on the