Total pages in book: 222
Estimated words: 210715 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 1054(@200wpm)___ 843(@250wpm)___ 702(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 210715 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 1054(@200wpm)___ 843(@250wpm)___ 702(@300wpm)
Nothing would happen until Will put one of those barrels into his cart.
I pulled Everard’s den out of my sleeve pocket, rubbed it between my fingers for luck, and put it back. Please let it go well . . .
“It will be fine,” Shana murmured next to me. “My boys have done far worse. The stories I could tell.”
“I’m worried about the kids.”
“Clover and Kaiden can handle themselves. They know their parts. They’ve practiced.”
Reynald was a big believer in “practice makes better.” Kaiden had spent the last two days sprinting through our courtyard and chucking various objects into empty baskets and barrels, while Reynald and Gort took turns supervising. Those two would have made excellent high school football coaches. Gort especially.
I had spent the last two days stressing out and making a large batch of soap. Yesterday we had strapped a tray to Lute and sent him, some sample bars, and his winning smile toward the market. He came back in half an hour without the soap but a noma and a half richer. I didn’t dare to sell more until we registered our shop, but it was a good sign, and Clover stopped sweating bullets over our production costs.
The kids were down on the wharf, waiting. Reynald was down there somewhere, too, hiding in the alley to our right, ready to step in if things went badly. Gort was farther east, waiting in one of the plazas with Honey and a leased horse cart. If everything went well in the next few minutes, we’d be loading one of the marked barrels into it.
I needed things to go well. So much was riding on it. I needed a win in the worst way. If this went to plan, I would have Reynald’s confidence, and eighty people wouldn’t have to die.
A dockworker passed by the farthest barrel, right by the ship’s gangplank, and stumbled.
“That’s my boy,” Shana murmured.
The signal. Will had found a mark on his barrel.
I picked up the lantern resting by my feet. Shana grabbed a long pole, and we hung the lantern on its end. We waited. We had to time it just right.
Below Will disappeared into the warehouse.
Breathe. Breathe, breathe, breathe . . .
Will emerged from the warehouse with an empty cart and pushed it back to the ship, keeping his place in line.
“There he is,” Shana whispered.
We watched him as he reached the trade vessel. The two powerlifters deposited another marked barrel into his cart. Will made a careful U-turn and headed back to the warehouse.
Three . . .
Will reached the second fire barrel. Thirty yards to the warehouse.
Two . . .
We had to time it just right, so he would be between the barrels, in the dark.
One. Now!
I raised the lantern pole and bobbed it up and down.
A loud scream came from the right, a woman yelling at the top of her lungs. “Stop! Stop! Thief!”
A beggar boy in rags sprinted along the wharf toward the line of dockworkers, cradling a large clay jug to his chest. Clover chased him, screaming, a stick in her hand.
“Thief! Help!”
The dockworkers, overwhelmingly male and young, saw a pretty girl yelling for help and did exactly what Reynald expected them to do. They stopped and moved to the right, trying to block the thief from escaping. Will let go of his cart and stepped in front of it, almost as if he were protecting the cargo.
A lone dockworker pushing a cart covered by a tarp came out of the street to our left. Lute with his replacement barrel.
Kaiden saw a wall of bodies closing together in front of him, whirled toward Clover, saw her stick, spun back around, and hurled the jug he was carrying into the nearest fire barrel.
Flames exploded, sending chunks of burning logs all over the wharf.
The dockworkers shielded their eyes against the flash.
Kaiden darted past them into the alley to the right.
Lute pulled up next to Will’s cart, picked up the tarp, tossed it over Will’s barrel, grabbed Will’s cart, and smoothly wheeled it away back the way he came.
Clover shrieked in outrage and alarm. “That’s a noma’s worth of gorefish oil, you little shit!”
The burning logs sputtered on the wharf. There were few things more alarming than a fire at the harbor. The sailors on the Yolenta ship collectively lost their shit. Someone roared, “Don’t just stand there, you assholes! Put that fucking fire out!”
The crowd by the pier fractured. Half of the workers ran for the water barrels to put out the fire, three went to check on Clover, and a few who still had cargo in their carts wheeled them into the warehouse. Will was one of them.
One of the warehouse workers sprinted after Kaiden into the alley and stumbled back out, hands up. If I had run into Reynald on a dark street, I would have done exactly the same.