Tanya Huff - Kigh 3 - No Quarter

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Huff, Tanya - Four Quarters 03 - No Quarter (v1.0) (html).html

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No Quarter by Tanya Huff

Chapter One

Motes of dust spun in the sunlight slanting into the upper hold through an open

hatch. At the edge of the shadows, a slight, dark figure held a round shield,

turning it this way and that so its polished surface caught the light.

"And I thought Bannon was vain," Vree muttered.

*It's not vanity,* Gyhard protested.

As the quiet voice in her head spoke with unusual seriousness, the ex-assassin,

late of His Imperial Majesty's Sixth Army, snorted but continued tilting the

shield.

*There. Hold it there.*

Vree stared into the makeshift mirror, feeling as though she were seeing her

features for the first time. Her dark brown eyes looked too big for her face. Her

chin was ridiculously pointed. Six days at sea under an unrelenting late summer

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Huff, Tanya - Four Quarters 03 - No Quarter (v1.0) (html).html

sun had darkened the deep olive of her skin. She looked thin and much younger

than her almost twenty-two years.

*You are young.*

Her lips pressed into a thin line. *You told me you couldn't hear my thoughts.*

When Bannon had shared her body and it had been her brother's voice she heard,

their thoughts had merged and, with their thoughts, their identities. It had very

nearly destroyed them both. With Gyhard, however, it had been easy to draw the

line between them. Until now.

*I can feel strong emotions, Vree.* Gyhard's reassurance was almost gentle. *So

can you. There's no need to panic*

*You don't know…*

*I have a good idea.* He'd been there from the beginning. As Governor Aralt,

the leader of a rebellion whom Vree and Bannon had been sent to assassinate,

he'd stolen Bannon's body. When Vree had appeared, carrying her brother's life,

her brother's kigh, tucked in with her own, he'd blackmailed her into helping him

get close enough to a young Imperial prince for him to make yet another trade.

But a broken piece of his past had taken the prince and they'd ending up chasing

him across half the Empire. Together. He'd seen how close she'd come to losing

herself in sharing herself with her brother. *I'm not Bannon, Vree. His

weaknesses aren't mine.*

*Neither are his strengths.* Until Gyhard had driven them apart, Bannon had

been the center of her life. No. Her teeth ground together. Gyhard had not driven

them apart. For reasons she could not yet admit, she'd chosen to save his life by

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Huff, Tanya - Four Quarters 03 - No Quarter (v1.0) (html).html

making it a part of her own and now had to face the consequences of that

decision. Forcing the tension out of her shoulders, she stared down at her

reflection. *Are you done?*

*In a minute.*

*What do you think you're going to see?*

*Who I am.*

*Who I am...Did you hear that?* Brows drawn in, she set the shield aside and

started for the ladder leading up to the deck.

*Hear what?*

*Lookout's spotted a sail.* Callused fingers and toes barely touched the polished

wooden rungs and a heartbeat later, Vree crossed the deck to a knot of sailors

gathered at the rail. "What is it?" It was the one sentence she could say in

Shkoden and be certain she'd got it right.

"Pirates."

The word was close enough to Imperial that she understood the meaning before

Gyhard finished his translation. Shading her eyes with her hands, she peered

back along the side of the ship. Just moving into the current behind them was a

sleek, two-masted, narrow-hulled vessel.

"The Raven." It sounded like a curse. Two sailors spat over the side, giving

water to the sea for luck, and a third traced the sign of the Circle on her breast,

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Huff, Tanya - Four Quarters 03 - No Quarter (v1.0) (html).html

muttering, "Probably bin followin' us since the outer islands." When the lookout

confirmed the identification a moment later, the crew of the Gilded Fancy raced

to defensive positions.

Vree put herself in the path of a running sailor and he skidded to a stop. The

third night out, she'd barely managed to keep from killing their best knife fighter

when he'd challenged her right to the long dagger she wore. After her easy

victory, the crew treated her with the same wary respect she'd received from

those around her most of her life. While they might not know what she was—

had been—they'd been made very aware of what she could do. "Can we…" She

hated having to search for words but her Shkoden was up to little more than the

most basic of conversations. *Gyhard, how do you say, outrun her?*

When he told her and she repeated it, the sailor shook his head, scalp locks

whipping his ears. "No stinking way. They're in the same stinking current, ahead

of the same stinking wind, and they're built for speed which we sure as fish shit

aren't."

"What will…"

He didn't wait for her to finish. "Happen? They'll board us. Anyone who survives

the fight'll go over the side. Less, of course, they've got some stinking skill Edite

i'Oceania…"

*i'Oceania?*

*She's claiming the sea as her mother,* Gyhard explained. *It's probably not true.

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Huff, Tanya - Four Quarters 03 - No Quarter (v1.0) (html).html

*Probably?*

"… thinks she needs—healers, or sail makers, or stinking carpenters. You, don't

know what she'll do about you, but the hucksters, his stinking Lordship, and his

stinking Lordship's servant, she'll hold for ransom."

The hucksters were a pair of Imperial merchants and His Lordship was a

Shkoden noble, who was involved in some way with the ambassador at the

Imperial court. Vree knew nothing more about any of them, nor did she really

care. As the sailor ran off to join others performing complicated and inexplicable

maneuvers with a rope—the decks looked like an anthill stirred with a stick—

she took another look at the Raven.

Even in that short time, it had pulled closer—close enough to see that all

exposed timber had been painted a deep matte black.

*That's conceit,* Gyhard growled. *All that black paint must've cost her a

fortune. No wonder she turned pirate.*

Conceit. Vree frowned.

She felt Gyhard stir uneasily within the boundaries of her mind. *What are you

thinking?* he demanded. *Vree…*

*I'm thinking that there may be an alternative to going over the side with a

pirate's ax splitting my skull.*

*What alternative?*

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