Leybound Chapter Forty-Three | Mistress (Patreon)

“Fletcher, I want everyone in those boats and ready to go,” Riot said. 

Fetcher gave a smart salute, seeming to grow an inch taller as he straightened his crooked spine. "Yes, sir,” he said, directing Leybound into six mismatched boats that were the best they had managed to scrounge up from the poor fishermen who occupied the lowly shacks that clung grimly to the cliffs.

“They call you sir; did you notice that? You’re no officer, though; are you stone-eye? No, not at all; poor boots, poor sword, poor, poor, poor,” Odred said with a sad shake of his head. 

Riot tried to shut down his sense of smell. The small arcanist had changed the cassock for a grubby archaists robe that was full of stains and smelled worse than the wooden jetty that was seeped in decades of fish guts. 

“Just get in a bloody boat and make sure it’s not mine,” Riot snapped. 

The six boats were nearly full, the leybound grimly clutching to the sides. The sea was already boiling, and the wind whipped off the white caps of the waves. He hated the ocean; you couldn’t march on it, and you couldn’t fight on it. 

“Itchy, is it? I’ve seen some fair flay their their own skin off after a time,” Odred said, peering at the angry red skin on Riot's arm. “I can open up that gateway for you; you just say the word.” 

Riot cursed silently and stopped scratching his arm, rounding on the little man. “You do any such thing, and I’ll tie you to the back of the boat and haul you behind.”

But Odred just smiled his gapped-toothed grin and stepped closer, peering up at something above Riots head and giving a low whistle. “A big one, angry too. The arcane feel the loss more than the others; they know somethings missing eh? Always searching, never finding.”

“Crease!” Riot shouted. 

The skinny man jogged up, keeping his distance from Odred, his nose wrinkling. “Sir?”

Riot avoided looking at the little arcanist. “‘Sarge’ will do. Bring me a coil of rope to tie this bastard up.”

“Yessir,”

Beside him, Odred had fallen silent, the smile replaced by a look of fear. 

“Get in the boat, or get ready to swim,” Riot said.

But Odred didn’t respond to him at all; the little man's gaze was locked on the shadows of the overhanging cliffs. “Mistress,” Odred said, his voice tight and desperate. 

A patch of darkness shifted, and Natalia Quinn emerged, striding along the jetty. Odred gave a desperate yelp and threw himself to the floor, jabbering incoherently.

“I don’t think he’s been anywhere near water for decades; the shock might kill him,” Quinn said, giving Odred a withering glare. “Get up, Odred, you horrible little man.”

“Moran said you’d be back,” Riot said. 

“What exactly did he say?”

“He told me not to let you anywhere near the tower.”

“I just need you to take me to the city.” 

“Of course, mistress, of course, take this boat here. Get out, you fools! Get out, make room.” Odred hurried over to the first boat and shouted at the leybound, shooing them out and onto other boats. 

“I have a job to do; you know that because you were the one who told me to work with Moran. If you want to come, you’ll have to tell us what you are going to do,” Riot said. 

“I will not. But I promise you that if I succeed, then we both win; you’ll be a hero. They will be heroes.”

A hero's welcome, status, and respect for the leybound in the army. She knew just what he wanted, but that didn’t change the fact that he wanted it so badly. 

“Moran said you wanted to get to the tower.” Riot held up a hand to forestall her reply. “I don’t care what you want with it, but I’m first. I complete my mission, then you can burn the whole thing to the ground for all I care.” 

Quinn smiled. “Then we have a deal.”