The Red Wolf Conspiracy Read Online Free PDF Page B

would know of the “infestation.” Ay, Rin! The Chathrand ! They'll search her anew!
    A thump among the fish crates beside her: Taliktrum had thrown the grapple already. Without her signal! There were two possible reasons for such a breach of protocol, neither of them good. Dri pulled her arms free of the gauntlets, dived for the hook and dragged the rope to the portside rail. In a matter of seconds the rope was tied fast: she gave two tugs, and felt it snap tight as Taliktrum bound it to the pier.
    Down they slid, black beads on a string. When Taliktrum arrived seventh, his aunt could barely contain her fury.
    “You might have struck me with that hook,” she said. “And as Talag's son you should be last down the rope.”
    Taliktrum glared at her. “I am last,” he said.
    “What?” Dri counted quickly. “Where is Nytikyn?”
    Taliktrum said nothing, but dropped his eyes.
    “Oh no! No!”
    “A boy did it,” said Ensyl. “Some fisherman's brat.”
    “Nytikyn,” said Diadrelu. Her eyes never stopped moving, hunting threats among the crates and timbers stacked around them—but her voice was hollow, lost.
    “He saved us,” said Taliktrum. “The boy was a fiend, trying to cut the rope and drown us. Who knows, Aunt? Maybe he's the same lad we heard blubbering for his ship. The one you found so charming.”
    Diadrelu blinked at him, then shook herself. “We run,” she said.
    They had no trouble on the barge, nor with the leap from her rails to the shrimper moored alongside. But once aboard the shrimper disaster nearly struck again: her crew was scrubbing the forecastle, and when the boat rocked, a wash of bilgewater struck them like a river in flood. But they locked arms, as ixchel will, and those at the end held fast to a deck cleat, and the torrent passed. Moments later they ran to the dark side of the pilothouse and scaled it to the roof.
    One challenge more. A bowline from the Chathrand passed just above them, one of dozens of ropes tying the ship like a colossal bull to nearly every fixed object on the wharf. This line ran from the fishing pier—the very point they had been making for—looped low over the shrimper, and then rose sharply for a hundred feet or more to the Chathrand' s topdeck.
    Leaping up to the bowline proved simple enough, but the climb was terrible. If you have ever scrambled up a wet and slippery tree, you might have some idea of their first minutes. Now imagine that the tree is not six or seven times your height but two hundred times, and branchless, and filthy with tar and algae and sharp bits of shell. Then consider that this tree lacks bark, lacks footholds of any kind, and heaves and twists with the slow rocking of the ship.
    Up and up, hand over hand. When they were sixty feet from the deck the sun appeared on the horizon, peeking under rainclouds, and Dri knew they were exposed to the sight of any giant who glanced their way. Inch after scrabbling inch, hands bleeding from the scratchy rope. All the while she waited for the shout: Crawlies! Crawlies on the line!
    The last nightmare was the rat funnel: a broad iron cone threaded onto this and every other mooring line to keep the pests from doing exactly what they were attempting. The mouth of the funnel opened downward and spread, bell-like, farther than any of them could reach. Dri and Taliktrum had practiced for this moment on a real bell, in a temple in Etherhorde, but this was infinitely worse. The cone weighed more than all of them together.
    Two of the East Arqualis climbed inside, set their shoulders to the funnel wall and pushed against the heavy rope with their feet. Gasping and sweating, they tilted the funnel to one side. Dri and Taliktrum gripped the rope with their legs as if riding a horse, and leaned the upper halves of their bodies over the lip of the funnel. “Go!” she snapped, and her people climbed over them, using their backs and shoulders like steps. Then: “Out, you!” to the pair inside the funnel, and