Free Blood Storm by Rhiannon Hart Page B

might have something to do with all the rum, but I kept that to myself. ‘How many of you can shoot?’
    Orrik shook his head. ‘Not a one. But we’re all deadly with a cutlass. Sailors fight hand to hand,where we can see the whites of our enemies’ eyes.’ He made it sound as if this was the only honourable way to fight. No wonder they were dying like flies. If it came to an attack there would just be Rodden and me to defend the ship – if he got over his seasickness.
    ‘What’s wrong with your man? He got no sea legs?’ Orrik asked.
    ‘He’s not my man, he’s my friend.’ Even that was a stretch right now.
    Orrik perked up. ‘Oh, really? That so?’ He flashed a smile at me. ‘Get him some root ginger tea from the galley. Sometimes helps.’
    ‘I will, thank you.’ I put my porridge down half-eaten and chewed a thumbnail. I was thirsty. What with all the sulking I had done the previous day I had forgotten to drink. ‘Orrik, say I wanted to wash up and do some . . .’ I waved my hands vaguely. ‘. . . women’s things. Where could I find some privacy?’
    ‘The hold,’ he said. ‘Just cargo down there. And Smokey. Anyone stops you, you tell ’em Orrik said it was okay.’
    I thanked him, and then chewed my nail some more. That solved one problem, but not the other. I had been counting on Rodden to do the unpleasant business of slaughtering the rabbits, but clearlythat wasn’t going to happen. If he tried to move he would probably start retching again. I’d killed plenty of rabbits with a bow and arrow but never with a knife. I didn’t have the faintest idea how to do it, but with a sharp blade in my hands it wasn’t as if the bunny was going to come out the victor. Still, the idea was exceedingly distasteful. Orrik was right. There certainly was a difference in killing up close and killing from afar, and I knew which I preferred: the cowardly, far-off way.
    But I couldn’t sit there all day. I was thirsty and the rabbits weren’t going to exsanguinate themselves. I bid Orrik goodbye and went to see the cook. He was eating his breakfast, his lean body propped up against a narrow counter when I tapped on the wall outside the galley and asked for some root ginger steeped in hot water. I couldn’t resist asking as he picked through a cupboard, ‘You’re from Amentia, aren’t you?’
    He looked at me with green eyes, the kind I had seen looking back at me many times before. My mother’s eyes. The eyes of the people of Prestoral. They held the echo of home. ‘Yes,’ he said, surprised.
    ‘Which part?’
    ‘Zantha,’ he said. ‘It’s –’
    ‘On the south-eastern border, at the foot of Mount Campion,’ I interrupted.
    He looked even more surprised and examined mycolouring. ‘Where are you from?’
    ‘Prestoral.’
    ‘You’re never,’ he said. ‘I heard we were taking on passengers from Pergamia.’ He still studied my face. ‘But you don’t have the Pergamian look about you either. You look Amentine, but that hair . . . We have a princess whose hair is that colour and her eyes are blue like –’ He cut himself off, staring.
    I smiled. ‘Is that the ginger?’ I asked, looking at the root in his hand.
    Sneaking looks at me, he chopped a little and put it in a mug with hot water. ‘You need any more, you just come and ask,’ he insisted. ‘My name’s Lisson.’
    I took the cup he offered. ‘Thank you, Lisson.’
    He gave an awkward little bow, his cheeks flushing pink. I went back to Rodden, smiling to myself.
    ‘Here,’ I said, handing him the tea. Rodden still lay on the decking. ‘The first mate said I could get some privacy in the hold.’ I put a rabbit and a flask in a saddlebag, hoping no one was watching me. The rabbit squirmed suspiciously inside the canvas.
    Rodden answered with a groan, which could have meant anything from ‘Oh that’s nice’ to ‘Kill me, please’.
    To lend authenticity to the story of rabbits being cat and eagle food, I called Griffin