Free Enigma by Lindsay Buroker Page B

so long as you can convince any would-be pirate thieves to leave us and our gear alone.”
    “I’ll keep you safe.” This time when Rias looked over his shoulder, his humor was gone and his eyes were intense with the promise.
    Yes, Tikaya thought, but who was going to keep him safe?

Part II
     
    Turgonians tended to have black or brown hair and olive to bronze skin, so Tikaya was surprised to see a number of people who shared her pale skin and freckles in Tangukmoo. They had the height and brawny breadth of imperials, though, and she didn’t feel overly tall in the crowd, not as she did at home where her six-foot stature tended to draw stares. Of course, most of the people in the rough, northern town were men. Piles of snow framed the muddy streets, and more than one person navigated the outlying areas by dogsled. Not many sane women ventured to this backward corner of the empire, it seemed.
    Rias, his fur-lined hood pulled up to hide his face, strode toward the last of three piers. The schooner floated in its berth at the end. Letters stenciled on the side declared it the Feisty Fin . Further out in the bay, the large Nurian ship waited, its anchor deployed. Tikaya found its presence ominous even if it was a merchant vessel instead of a warship, featuring a colorfully painted hull and flamboyant pinions that added a cheerful element. Its few gun ports were closed and none of the sailors on the deck, or loading ivory and whale oil via dinghies, bore weapons. Wise, since two stone towers guarded the imperial town from the mouth of the harbor, their guns rotated toward the foreign ship.
    A glacier loomed behind the southernmost tower, discouraging treks south by foot, not that Tikaya had wanted to continue with bipedal travel anyway. If she wanted to reach home sometime that year, they needed to risk one of the ships.
    She eyed the two-masted schooner as they drew nearer. It didn’t look like it held a crew complement of more than a dozen, and she wondered if it would have room for passengers. She wondered, too, what services she might offer. Anyone could guess that Rias would be a hard worker, but she, despite her island upbringing, had little experience on ships. She’d always preferred the dusty libraries and research rooms of the Polytechnic to field work.
    Seamen engaged in repairs crawled all about the deck and through the rigging. Hammer blows emanated from somewhere inside, the noise reverberating through the harbor as it bounced from the surrounding mountains. Tikaya tried to guess the craft’s origins, but the crew was a diverse lot. A black-skinned man was repairing what looked suspiciously like a cannonball hole in the hull while a slender blond fellow sewed up holes in one of the topsails.
    Tikaya started when she noticed a Nurian boy with two long black braids and almond-shaped eyes carrying a paint can. He paused to gape at Rias. Only twelve or thirteen, he shouldn’t recognize “Fleet Admiral Starcrest” from the war, but the attention made Tikaya uneasy. Rias still had his hood up, she reminded herself. The boy might only be responding to the Turgonian military uniform Rias wore. Even if it lacked insignia, or anything that indicated rank, it did, combined with his stature, grant him an intimidating visage. Tikaya hoped a Nurian cabin boy didn’t mean a Nurian captain and mate commanded the ship. Such men would be old enough to recognize Rias.
    “Hello on the Fin ,” Rias called, apparently not sharing her concern, at least not insomuch as it’d make him turn around. “Is the captain about?”
    A conversation broke out on the deck, and a moment later a barrel-chested and bow-legged man strode down the gangplank with a rolling gait. A second man jogged after him. Both were balding and had the weathered faces of sea veterans. Fortunately both also had the bronze-olive skin of Turgonians, rather than the bronze-yellow of Nurians.
    “What d’you want?” The captain spat a wad of tobacco juice at