Doles seemed skeptical, but he spit in his hand and reached down. Adamat took the offered handshake and choked down a scream when Doles gripped his freshly crushed hand and squeezed. Doles lifted him out of the hole, stronger than Adamat would have expected.
“What’s his name?” Doles asked.
“Josep.”
“Ah, I remember him. Stubborn lad.” Doles’s face soured. “He’s already in Norpoint.”
Norpoint was the only Kez harbor on the Adsea, far to the south. Adamat felt his heart skip a beat. If Josep was already in Norpoint…
Doles said, “It’ll take me about six days to go down and get him back. I’ll have to grease some palms. The Kez never like losing a powder mage they thought they had under wraps,” Doles mused out loud, speaking for all the world as if this was a business meeting, and he hadn’t just been about to have Adamat killed.
“Fifty thousand tomorrow,” Doles said. “Here, before sunup. Then two hundred and fifty when I get back from Norpoint.”
“And then?”
“We’ll meet at The Flaming Cuttlefish,” Doles said. “It’s a pub close by.”
“I know it.”
“Good.”
Adamat nursed his crushed hand and hoped that none of the fingers were broken. It would certainly be stiff in the morning.
“How can I trust you?” he asked.
Doles made an openhanded gesture. “You can’t. Want your boy back?”
“Yes.”
“Then this is your only chance.”
Adamat examined the man. A slaver. Nothing respectable or trustworthy about him. He had an honest face, though Adamat found that honest faces were almost always deceptive. “I’ll be back here in a few hours with the money.”
“I’ll see you then,” Doles said. He gestured to the door. They were dismissed.
The sailor SouSmith had thrown through the window suddenly stuck his head up through the trapdoor. His face was bloody from the glass, his clothes and hair soaked, silt on one shoulder. “I’ll kill you!” he screamed at SouSmith, hefting himself up through the trapdoor.
Doles tripped the man on his mad dash toward SouSmith, then set a boot on the sailor’s backside. He waved good-bye to Adamat, then said to his man, “Stay down, or I’ll let the big one tear you apart.”
Outside, SouSmith turned a sneer toward the pub.
“That could have gone better,” Adamat said. “Then again… it could have gone worse.”
SouSmith’s sneer slowly left his face. “Yeah. You need me to come back with ya?”
“Yes. Yes, I think that would be a good idea.”
“I’ll be ready for ’em next time,” SouSmith said, and for a moment he looked as if he considered going back in and killing the lot.
Adamat looked the big man over. He didn’t seem worse for the wear. His shirt had ripped. Not many people get the drop on SouSmith.
“I’m sure,” Adamat said. “Let’s go get the money.”
Taniel sat in a chair in the middle of the tent, his hands clasped in irons and his legs shackled. There wasn’t an ounce of powder anywhere within fifty feet of the command tent, and above all the cautions that the General Staff had taken with his arrest, that concerned him the most. They were being careful with him. Too damned careful.
He was flanked by a pair of provosts. Two more stood behind him, and another four were at the back of the command tent. Each man held a truncheon at the ready and was eyeing him like he was some kind of dangerous degenerate.
The tent was barren, austere. There were a dozen chairs in the back, most of them empty, and at the front a table with five places — one for each of the senior General Staff of the Adran army.
Taniel inspected the tent with a quick glance. Colonels Doravir and Bertthur were seated just behind him. Bertthur’s broken jaw was held in place by a linen tied around his head. To Taniel’s surprise, Brigadier Abrax, the senior commander of the Wings of Adom, sat near the tent flap. What interest could she have in these proceedings?
In the back corner, Colonel Etan sat in his wheeled chair, nodding encouragement. Taniel forced a confident smile he didn’t feel. No one else had come to support him.
Then again, perhaps they wouldn’t let anyone else in the tent.
This was, after all, a court-martial.
Cloth whispered as the front of the tent parted and the generals filed in. Everyone stood. The provosts grasped Taniel roughly beneath the arms and pulled him to his feet, the chains on his ankles nearly making him trip and fall.
Generals Ket and Hilanska were the only two Taniel recognized. He should know more of the senior staff than this, shouldn’t he? Or had Ket stacked the cards against him by selecting new generals to serve on the jury? Taniel tried to meet Hilanska’s eye, but the one-armed general kept his gaze on the floor, a scowl on his face. This didn’t bode well.
The generals sat, and Taniel was allowed back in his chair. General Ket took the middle seat, scratching furiously at the stub of her missing ear. Her eyes traveled about the tent for a moment and then came to rest on Taniel. She gave a slight shake of her head, like a prison warden denying parole.
