Free Path of Revenge by Russell Kirkpatrick

only to distract him from the real issue.
    The fisherman forced him to dress, then take up a sack bulging with provisions and walk across the cool tiles of his atrium at the point of a sword. Once the door closed behind them and they stood in the gentle early morning breeze, the Hegeoman allowed himself a little hope. Surely if he was to be killed, it would not be here, out in the open.
    ‘Quickly, now!’ the fisherman growled in his ear, and the two of them hurried down The Circle, past Fisher House—his captor did not spare it a glance—all the way down to Beach Lane and the sea.
    ‘A captive for a captive,’ said a voice behind him conversationally as they came to the beach. ‘A death for a death. You betrayed my family. Tell me why I shouldn’t kill you.’
    The Hegeoman turned. ‘Because I don’t want to die,’ he said.
    The laughter that followed this statement echoed around the cliffs. Surely someone will hear? Surely someone will save me! But he knew how unlikely this was. He himself had ordered his villagers out of their homes last night, making them stay out in the dark to search for the man beside him. They would not be rising early this morning.
    ‘Ah, my friend, you are as sorry a man as I have met,’ the fisherman said. They reached the place of the boats, not a place the Hegeoman visited often. An escape by boat? Hope soared, then died. We’d never get past the Neherian fleet.
    ‘This is what I wish to do to you in answer to what you did to me. I wish to truss you up, put you into my boat, set fire to it and then launch you into the harbour. It would do me good to listen to your screams.’
    The Hegeoman’s hope strengthened further. No one talked of what they intended to do before they did it. He’d heard that somewhere. ‘But you won’t,’ he said, ‘because you would never burn your precious boat. You are here to collect the goods you need, and then you will use me to help you escape the village.’
    More laughter. ‘Half-right, Hegeoman. True, I won’t kill you today, as long as you are very careful to obey me. And I am going to use you, and not just to escape the village. We are going a lot further than that, you and I.’
    ‘By boat? I can’t sail.’
    ‘Oh, I know. What use is the leader of a fishing village who knows nothing of the sea? But we are not going by boat.’ They arrived at the Fisher’s boats as he spoke. The Hegeoman knew of them: the first, a small dory not unlike that used by the other fishermen of Fossa, paint peeling, showing signs of neglect. The second, the largest fishing craft ever to put out from Fossa, bought from the Neherians by surreptitious means—in which he himself had taken a part—and skilfully guided out of the harbour into the rich but forbidden coastal waters. One strip of colour under the gunwale, altered at irregular intervals to aid in disguise. Already a legend.
    And the name of the vessel? Yes, he knew the name. After the events of yesterday, a dangerous name. Hewould have to be careful here, very careful, despite the fisherman’s promise to stay his hand. Death and destruction lurked behind the big man’s dark eyes.
    ‘This is the Arathé, ’ Noetos said, his voice tight with emotion. ‘Purchased along with the right to live in Fisher House, using the gold-price earned by the sale of my daughter. Arathé is now dead. Fisher House is destroyed. It only remains for me to complete the transaction.’
    He made the Hegeoman clamber over the side and into the Arathé. ‘Under the seat you will find three rucksacks. Pull out all three, then take one, roll it up tightly and put it in one of the others. When you’ve done that, toss them to me.’
    The village leader hurried to do what he’d been bidden, while the fisherman gathered driftwood and made a pile beside the boat. Dawn had spread itself over the silver sky, and soon the sun would flood the village with its harsh light. The Hegeoman thought of slowing his swift movements in the