“When she died,” Tamar explained, “she made my father promise not to let us be drafted into the Second Army. We left for Novyi Zem the next day. ”
Most rogue Grisha ended up in Novyi Zem. Aside from Ravka, it was the only place where they didn’t have to fear being experimented on by Shu doctors or burned by Fjerdan witchhunters. Even so, they had to be cautious about displaying their power. Grisha were valued slaves, and less scrupulous Kerch traders were known to round them up and sell them in secret auctions.
These were the very threats that had led so many Grisha to take refuge in Ravka and join the Second Army in the first place. But the rogues thought differently. For them, a life spent looking over their shoulders and moving from one place to the next to avoid discovery was preferable to a life in service to the Darkling and the Ravkan King. It was a choice I understood.
After a few monotonous days on the schooner, Mal and I asked Tamar if she would show us some Zemeni combat techniques. It helped ease the tedium of shipboard life and the awful anxiety of returning to West Ravka.
Sturmhond’s crew had confirmed the disturbing rumors we’d picked up in Novyi Zem. Crossings of the Fold had all but ceased, and refugees were fleeing its expanding shores. The First Army was close to revolt, and the Second Army was in tatters. I was most frightened by the news that the Apparat’s cult of the Sun Saint was growing. No one knew how he’d managed to escape the Grand Palace after the Darkling’s failed coup, but he had resurfaced somewhere in the network of monasteries spread across Ravka.
He was circulating the story that I’d died on the Fold and been resurrected as a Saint. Part of me wanted to laugh, but turning through the bloody pages of the Istorii Sankt’ya late at night, I couldn’t summon so much as a chuckle. I remembered the Apparat’s smell, that unpleasant combination of incense and mildew, and pulled my coat tighter around me. He had given me the red book. I had to wonder why.
Despite the bruises and bumps, my practices with Tamar helped to dull the edge of my constant worry. Girls were drafted right along with boys into the King’s Army when they came of age, so I’d seen plenty of girls fight and had trained alongside them. But I’d never seen anyone, male or female, fight the way Tamar did. She had a dancer’s grace and a seemingly unerring instinct for what her opponent would do next. Her weapons of choice were two double-bit axes that she wielded in tandem, the blades flashing like light off water, but she was nearly as dangerous with a saber, a pistol, or her bare hands. Only Tolya could match her, and when they sparred, all the crew stopped to watch.
The giant spoke little and spent most of his time working the lines or standing around looking intimidating. But occasionally, he stepped in to help with our lessons. He wasn’t much of a teacher. “Move faster” was about all we could get out of him. Tamar was a far better instructor, but my lessons got less challenging after Sturmhond caught us practicing on the foredeck.
“Tamar,” Sturmhond chided, “please don’t damage the cargo. ”
Immediately, Tamar snapped to attention and gave a crisp, “Da, kapitan. ”
I shot him a sour look. “I’m not a package you’re delivering, Sturmhond. ”
“More’s the pity,” he sa
id, sauntering past. “Packages don’t talk, and they stay where you put them. ”
But when Tamar started us on rapiers and sabers, even Sturmhond joined in. Mal improved daily, though Sturmhond still beat him easily every time. And yet, Mal didn’t seem to mind. He took his thumpings with a kind of good humor I never seemed able to muster. Losing made me irritable; Mal just laughed it all off.
“How did you and Tolya learn to use your powers?” I asked Tamar one afternoon as we watched Mal and Sturmhond sparring with dulled swords on deck. She’d found me a marlinspike, and when she wasn’t pummeling me, she was trying to teach me knots and splices.
“Keep your elbows in!” Sturmhond berated Mal. “Stop flapping them like some kind of chicken. ”
Mal let out a disturbingly convincing cluck.
Tamar raised a brow. “Your friend seems to be enjoying himself. ”
I shrugged. “Mal’s always been like that. You could drop him in a camp full of Fjerdan assassins, and he’d come out carried on their shoulders. He just blooms wherever he’s planted. ”
“And you?”
“I’m more of a weed,” I said drily.
Tamar grinned. In combat, she was cold and silent fire, but when she wasn’t fighting, her smiles came easily. “I like weeds,” she said, pushing herself off from the railing and gathering her scattered lengths of rope. “They’re survivors. ”
I caught myself returning her smile and quickly went back to working on the knot that I was trying to tie. The problem was that I liked being aboard Sturmhond’s ship. I liked Tolya and Tamar and the rest of the crew. I liked sitting at meals with them, and the sound of Privyet’s lilting tenor. I liked the afternoons when we took target practice, lining up empty wine bottles to shoot off the fantail, and making harmless wagers.
It was a bit like being at the Little Palace, but with none of the messy politics and constant jockeying for status. The crew had an easy, open way with each other. They were all young, and poor, and had spent most of their lives in hiding. On this ship, they’d found a home, and they welcomed Mal and me into it with little fuss.
I didn’t know what was waiting for us in West Ravka, and I felt fairly sure it was madness to be going back at all. But aboard the Volkvolny, with the wind blowing and the white canvas cutting crisp lines across a broad blue sky, I could forget the future and my fear.
And I had to admit, I liked Sturmhond, too. He was cocky and brash, and always used ten words when two would do, but I was impressed with the way he led his crew. He didn’t bother with any of the tricks I’d seen the Darkling employ, yet they followed him without hesitation. He had their respect, not their fear.
“What’s Sturmhond’s real name?” I asked Tamar. “His Ravkan name?”
“No idea. ”
“You’ve never asked?”
“Why would I?”
“But where in Ravka is he from?”
She squinted up at the sky. “Do you want to go another round with sabers?” she asked. “We should have time before my watch starts. ”
She always changed the subject when I brought up Sturmhond. “He didn’t just drop out of the sky onto a ship, Tamar. Don’t you care where he came from?”