Truthwitch (The Witchlands, #1)(58)

It all stank of sweat and unwashed bodies, while the caustic stench of chicken crap wafted up from a livestock deck below. Safi was just grateful she couldn’t hear the chickens—or any other animals. There was already too much noise for her temper to endure.

Though most sailors seemed to be overhead, Safi counted twenty-seven men curled up against crates or nestled beside casks. There seemed to be no crew quarters, and Safi filed that away for later consideration.

Of the twenty-seven sailors Safi passed, nineteen bit their thumbs or hissed “’Matsi-lovin’ smut” at her. She pretended not to understand and even went so far as to offer an amiable nod. Yet in the dim light, she memorized their sun-seamed faces. Their vile voices.

When a lanky, black-skinned boy with shoulder-length braids hopped down the ladder belowdecks, Safi’s witchery purred that he was safe. So Safi snagged him by the shoulder as he stumbled by. “Would the crew ever turn on a Nomatsi?”

The boy blinked, all his braids shaking before he answered in a decidedly female voice, “Not if the Admiral isn’t behind it—and I don’t think he would be. He doesn’t mind the ’Matsis like the rest of us.”

“Us?”

“Not me!” The girl’s hands shot up. “I swear, I swear. I don’t have a problem with ’Matsis. I just meant the crew.”

True. Safi dug her knuckles in her eyes. Overhead, toes dragged, swords clanked, and voices barked. Whatever drill was running, Safi wished it would stop.

She launched back into her pacing. A double beat to the drum’s slow rhythm. A triple beat. Why couldn’t she come up with a plan? Iseult made it look so easy, yet every time Safi tried to organize her thoughts, they swirled apart like silt in a stream.

“You shouldn’t walk so much,” the girl said, still following Safi’s steps. “The crew will complain, and then the Admiral might lock you up.”

That gave Safi pause. Being locked up would severely limit her chances of defense or escape should it become necessary.

“I have a good spot topside,” the girl offered. She pointed to the ladder. “You can’t pace, but you can watch the drills.”

Safi’s nostrils twitched. She marched to the lowest rungs and glared into the bright sunlight overhead. Merik was up there. And Kullen too, who could incapacitate Safi at even the slightest disobedience.

But going topside would give Safi a better handle on the ship, the crew, and the layout. Maybe she could assemble a strategy if she learned more.

“No one will see us?” she asked the girl, thinking of Merik’s orders to stay below.

“I swear it.”

“Then show me.”

The girl bared another grin and scrabbled up the ladder. Safi scaled behind and soon found herself surrounded by sailors, their cutlasses high and feet moving in vine-like steps across the heaving deck. Though many men ogled Safi as she sneaked past, she heard no jeers, felt no aggression. The prejudiced men, it would seem, were mostly below.

Which meant she wouldn’t stay here long. She’d get the information she needed and return to Iseult’s side.

Safi followed the girl, counting fifteen steps from the ladder to the forecastle’s shade. The girl slunk behind four barrels that stank of dead fish and hunkered down. Safi crouched beside her, pleased to find that she was indeed hidden. The spot also gave her a clear view of the practicing sailors—of which, she realized with a sickening twist, there were many.

With all the crew displayed in rows instead of clambering in the rigging or scouring the decks, Safi estimated at least fifty men. Probably twice that, since she was gull crap when it came to math.

Safi craned her neck until she glimpsed Merik, Kullen, and three other men beside the tiller. They all wore wind-spectacles and their mouths moved in unison.

Behind them, Safi found the source of the endless thundering. A young man—with braids like the girl’s—pounded an enormous horizontal drum.

Safi wished she could break his mallet in half.

Though more than that, she wished she could get a breath of fresh air. “Gods below,” she swore, turning back to the girl. “What is that stench?”

“It’s chum. We save our offal.” The girl flicked a gleaming scale off the closest barrel, and now that Safi examined the planks around her, she found many scales. Leaking from the barrels, clinging to the sides. “It’s for the sea foxes,” the girl added. “We have to feed them when we pass by or they’ll attack.”

“The … sea foxes,” Safi repeated flatly. “As in the mythical serpents that feast on human flesh?”

“Hye.” The girl’s ready smile flashed again.

“But surely you don’t believe in them. They’re just stories to scare children—like mountain bats. Or the Twelve Paladins.”

“Which are also real,” the girl argued. As if to prove her point, she pried a worn pile of gold-backed taro cards from her pocket and flipped over the top card.

It was the Paladin of Foxes, and a furry teal serpent coiled around a sword. Its fox-like face stared at Safi.

“Nice trick,” Safi murmured, fingers itching for the deck. She’d seen many taro cards in her life, but she’d never seen ones with sea foxes instead of normal red foxes. It made her wonder what was painted on the other five suits.

“Not a trick,” the girl countered. “I’m just showing you what a sea fox looks like. They’re these huge serpents in water, see? But every few decades, they shed their skins and come to shore as beautiful women who seduce men—”