The Ayoni ignored him, speaking only to Daz. “Fifty for your guests’ fare.”
“These are free men, not Jantari servants,” Daz said.
“And they will be free after their contracts.”
“Keep your horrid ships,” Samson said. He wished he had never set his eyes upon them. “We don’t need your help. We’re leaving.”
“But you do need these ships, little Sesharian,” Bresingi mused. “How else will you enact yourgreat revenge? How else will you make the great metal king bend?” He smiled. “All I require are fifty men.”
“Bresingi,” Daz implored. “Let us talk this through, eh? Surely your empress does not want tired, malnourished soldiers. They will be useless to you.”
“Remember your place, Mokshi,” Bresingi said, and there was something hidden in his voice, the soft whisperings of warning, because Daz fell back, his face shuttered with regret and helplessness.
Anger spiked down Samson’s throat.You fool.How could he have not seen it before? The black-market sensors. Bresingi’s slow, unpeeling examination. The Ayoni were traders, forcing free men into servitude behind their iron curtain of self-solitude. He should have never come. He should have never trusted the Yumi.
“Done.”
His heart plummeted as Chandi called to the Ayoni. “I will pay their debt.”
“Chandi,no,” he said.
“You need to stop those killdoms and make it to Tsuana,” she said to him. “Remember your promise.”
She looked at him, her face resolute, and if he had not known her better, he would have thought her brave. But he saw fear in the quiver below her cheek. “Chandi—”
“I will pay the debt too,” said another Black Scale, stepping forward.
“As will I.”
“As will I.”
Samson watched, helplessly, as his men followed their commander to their own ruin.
“Black Scales,” he called. “I demand—I order—take up your arms—”
With a wave of his stylus, Bresingi pulled Chandi’s plank in, and Samson’s commander stood face-to-face with the Ayoni. He examined her slowly, and Samson felt bile rise in his throat as Bresingi made a soft, satisfactory cluck.
“This one will do,” he said.
Immediately, the docks opened beneath Chandi, and she dropped.
“CHANDI!”
The force field cut her scream short. But Samson heard it, and he clawed forward, only to be repelled as the planks shifted. He howled in frustration.
“Careful, Sesharian, or else I’ll drift you and her out to sea,” Bresingi said.
It was only then Samson noticed that Elena had been separated too. She was on her hands and knees on tiny planks, shaking violently, and he thought, with a sudden malignant venom, of how she had not spoken up when Bresingi told them the price, how she had remained silent in this exchange, but then she looked up, and he saw her white-lipped fear.
I’m afraid of the sea.
“You fucking purple-brained brute—” he began.
Bresingi twirled his stylus, and a sudden force field ensconced Samson. He screamed, shouted, yelled—but he could not hear his own voice, and they could not hear him.
“Much better,” Bresingi said as he turned to a pale-faced Daz. “Pleasure doing business, General. Now get off my docks.”
CHAPTER 41
