Free Path of Revenge by Russell Kirkpatrick Page A

hope of delaying the fisherman, but feared the sword too much to risk it.
    ‘Now take my tinderbox—you’ll find it under the bow seat, that’s at the other end of the boat to the stern—and light the fire I’ve set.’ He complied.
    ‘There is a bucket near the stern, the end of the boat facing the sea. In it you will find a sticky black substance. We will heat it, then I want you to spread it around the bottom of the boat. Don’t get any on yourself. Hurry!’
    Tar. What would a fisherman want with tar?
    ‘Do it now, then jump out of the boat quickly if you value your skin.’
    Oh.
    Still the Hegeoman hesitated. This threatened his secret, the deepest secret of all. Would the Neherians, waiting these past weeks out to sea, take this fire to be the signal they were expecting?
    He had no choice. The fool Fisher set flame to his boats himself. At least he could truthfully claim it had not been by his hand should the Neherians be angered by the false alarm.
    The two of them backed away from the Arathé. Within moments the flames caught, and black smoke began to pour from her. They were halfway along the beach when the flames became visible. As they walked the fisherman constantly turned to watch his boats dying, his face hard. As though he had executed an enemy. The Hegeoman imagined himself lying in that boat, trussed up, while the flames ate at his skin.
    They took the steepest of the paths out of Fossa, the one from Front Street up Escren Hill. Behind them they could hear faint shouts as people saw the fire; small figures poured out of Old Fossa Road as fishermen sought to prevent their own boats being claimed by the conflagration.
    At the top of the cliff Noetos paused to watch the death of the Arathé. This was an ending, he knew. The last time he would look across the hated harbour, the grey-green sea, the pale beach, the shadowed cliffs. Smoke billowed from his boat, drifting out past the reef as though escorting her soul out to sea.
    The transaction was complete. All that remained of Arathé now was a small sculpture tucked away in his belt.
    Noetos gave his captive a slap across his legs with the flat of his father’s blade, rescued from the wreck of his home, and they plunged into the deep grass of Escren Hill. Behind them Fossa disappeared from view. No paths up here; he would have to make a path of his own.
    A path of revenge.

CHAPTER 3
GARDEN OF ANGELS
    IT WAS SAID IN THE Great Houses, where some people knew, and echoed in the souks, where they definitely did not, that early morning was the best time to view the Garden of Angels. Certainly a visitor to the Emperor’s Talamaq Palace would not see the garden at its best in the afternoon, when the sea breeze stirred the desert dust from the streets and middens of the city and interfered with the play of light on the celebrated golden fountains of Talamaq. Needless to say, Jau Maranaya, scion of a lesser Amaqi Alliance, had not been given an early morning appointment.
    Nevertheless, to be given any appointment at the Emperor’s Palace was an honour, even one at midafternoon when the broiling air addled the wits and made even a grateful man impatient. Jau stood for a moment before the great Gate of the Father, composing himself, and once again ran through in his mind what this meeting would mean. He had it down like a mantra. Preferment, patronage, prestige, profit. Especially profit. His customers and competitors knew about his appointment with the Emperor, he’d made sure of that. They would come to his emporium to ask him questions, and would buy his goods without the customary haggling. He would move up the city’shierarchy of traders, and his fortune would surely grow. And if he was fortunate he might be invited to join one of the greater Alliances. He was young yet, and clever. Who knew how high he might aspire?
    Two Omeran guards stood before the massive wooden gate, arms folded, scowls on their broad, dark, inhuman faces. ‘Health to the