The Blacktongue Thief

Days later, the ship is becalmed, and now that Kinch’s usefulness to the ship’s various tasks has come to an end, Malk confronts Kinch, insulting him for avoiding military service. Kinch endures the taunting, but when Malk insults his family, he is provoked into declaring that Malk will answer for his insult “with [his] blood” (181).

Malk demands to know whether Kinch has invoked a duel, but before Kinch can respond, Galva intervenes, declaring Kinch has proven that he is not a coward. Citing Malk’s disrespect for the goddess of death, whom she calls her mistress, Galva takes Kinch’s place and challenges Malk to a duel to the death. Bound by honor, Malk accepts. The duel will take place at dawn; Malk will use a spear, and Galva her bullnutter.

The night before the duel, an Ispanthian crewman, Menrigo, sings with Galva. Shortly after, she becomes violently ill, and Kinch recognizes that the crewman has surreptitiously poisoned her. Guided by signals from Sesta, who is ensconced within Bully Boy, Kinch has Norrigal induce vomiting in Galva and give her a moonweed potion. The cat indicates that the poison’s effects will last for 12 hours, incapacitating Galva for the purposes of the duel.

Malk arrives with other crewmen. Seeing that Galva is ill, he challenges Kinch to a duel to the death, which Kinch accepts, stipulating that both men will fight unarmed. As Kinch is restrained, Malk grabs Bully Boy and throws the cat overboard. A defeated Norrigal comforts the enraged Kinch with a kiss.

At dawn, Kinch and Malk begin their unarmed duel. Kinch uses a Gallardian grappling style, clinging to Malk’s back to exhaust him, and the crew soon grows bored with Kinch’s defensive tactics. As Malk taunts him, Kinch bites his opponent multiple times. He then spots Norrigal on deck, supporting a barely conscious Galva. Just as Malk breaks Kinch’s hold, the ship lurches violently, and a massive tentacle rises from the water, signaling the return of the kraken. The duel is abruptly abandoned in the face of this new crisis.

Intent upon revenge, the kraken rocks the Suepka Būryey, trying to capsize it. Korkala is killed while cutting the mast stays. Galva uses her staff to summon Deadlegs’s clockwork horse, which clears a path to an oar-boat. Kinch, Norrigal, Galva, Malk, Menrigo, Captain Boltch, and a harpooner named Gormalin escape just as the ship sinks.

The kraken targets Captain Boltch, enraged by his necklace, which is made from a juvenile kraken’s beak. The sea monster rips him apart. Norrigal then blinds the creature with magical powder, allowing the boat to flee. In the chaos, Kinch takes advantage of Malk’s temporary blindness and executes Menrigo for poisoning Galva. He then takes command and orders the survivors to row toward a nearby island.

The survivors land on the rocky island, and Gormalin immediately suggests that they drink their own urine to stave off death by dehydration. He then puts his own advice into practice but is soon chagrined when the group finds fresh rainwater. At Galva’s prompting, Malk apologizes to the death goddess, and he and Kinch agree to a truce. Kinch later finds the skeleton of a Gunnish warrior, taking its silver and using the armor as a cooking surface.

That night, Kinch, Norrigal, and Malk bond by singing an illegal Galtish rebel song together. Later, Kinch and Norrigal arrange a secret, amorous rendezvous, but their plan is foiled when she falls asleep before he can meet her.

Kinch discovers that Bully Boy has survived and has made it to the island. The assassin-adept, Sesta, reveals herself to Kinch, who realizes that she used her heat-generating tattoos to survive after Malk threw her and the cat overboard. Sesta reiterates Kinch’s primary mission: smuggling her into Oustrim.

While Kinch is engaged in these uncomfortable negotiations, Norrigal arrives for her tryst with him. Sesta becomes nearly invisible, hiding on the rock ceiling above. Kinch convinces Norrigal to meet him elsewhere, then confronts Sesta, warning her not to harm his companions. Sesta expresses her grudging respect for this stipulation but warns Kinch not to press his luck. Kinch and Norrigal spend an intimate night together, and the next morning, the group finds that their much-prized fish has been eaten. Although Sesta is the one responsible, Kinch is forced to plead guilty.

Two days later, a goblin ship approaches. In an attempt to hide all evidence of human presence on the island, the group conceals the corpses from the Suepka Būryey that have washed ashore. Ignoring the imminent danger, Norrigal risks exposing them all when she rushes to retrieve her potion case. She plunges into hiding at the last minute but lands awkwardly. A goblin landing party searches the island, but because all goblins dislike birds, the creatures soon grow repulsed by the islands aggressive seabirds and prepare to leave.

Just as the goblins are returning to their ship, Kinch sneezes, accidentally kicking Norrigal. The impact makes her drop her case, and the spilled chemicals create a plume of white smoke. The goblins spot the signal and turn their ship back toward the island.

From his current position in the goblin ship’s dungeon, along with the rest of his wounded and imprisoned companions, Kinch describes the battle that took place when the group launched an ambush on the returning goblins. He states that Norrigal summoned a wind to deflect the goblins’ crossbow bolts, while Galva released her war corvid, Dalgatha. A goblin wizard appeared, reversing the wind and dropping a boulder that crushed Dalgatha. Before the corvid died, Galva retrieved a feather from its wing, causing its body to ignite in a magical backlash that injured her.

Kinch wounded the wizard with an arrow, but the group was eventually overwhelmed and captured. Now that they are all imprisoned aboard the goblin ship and likely to die soon, a despairing Norrigal reveals that her and Galva’s true quest is to place a witch on the throne of Oustrim.

Norrigal recounts the history of Mireya, the supposedly unstable princess of Ispanthia. She explains that Mireya is a powerful witch with nature-based magic who was exiled by her uncle, Kalith, when he killed her father and usurped the throne of Ispanthia. Feigning psychological instability in the knowledge that her culture protects such people, Mireya escaped assassination and was instead married off. Her magical skills became known, and when her first husband was killed in the goblin wars, she was married off again to the king of Oustrim. There, she gained a reputation for fierceness when she drove the Takers Guild out. With the invasion of the giants, however, she was deposed. Norrigal reveals that Galva’s mission is to find Mireya and restore her to the Ispanthian throne.

An old goblin guard approaches their cage, grinds salt into a cut on Kinch’s arm, then delightedly tastes the blood-and-salt mixture.

The goblins prepare to butcher Gormalin. Kinch, Malk, and Norrigal sing loudly to drown out the sounds and to show their defiance to the goblins. Later, Kinch awakens to silence. He finds the cage unlocked and the goblin crew dead or dying from poison. On deck, he kills the mortally poisoned goblin wizard.

Kinch deduces that Sesta poisoned the salt used on Gormalin. Bully Boy is also present, and Norrigal confirms that the cat physically prevented her from touching the poisoned salt grinder. Kinch evades her pointed questions about the cat yet again. Malk then helps to sail the ship through a storm, but their fresh water runs out, and their situation becomes desperate. Suddenly, they spot a Middlesea fireship approaching.

The Middlesea fireship, the Fourth Woman, sees the goblin-style of their vessel and mistakes them for an enemy, attacking with flaming darts. Norrigal uses her staff to deflect the projectiles, but the staff is destroyed by Axaene firejelly. The fireship turns to fire a broadside, but Kinch shouts, identifying them as allies.

One final dart is launched toward him, but Kinch saves himself with an acrobatic leap, swinging from a spar to dodge it. His feat impresses the Middlesea crew, who offer the survivors water and rescue.

In the port city of Edth, the survivors are brought before the Harbormistress. She explains that their story of goblin aggression is politically dangerous because it would likely reignite a war between humans and goblins. To avoid this, she offers a deal: They are to claim that they found the ship adrift, and in exchange for their silence, they will receive a reward and safe passage.

Kinch, Norrigal, and Malk agree and sign oath-writs, but Galva initially refuses. She reveals her true identity as the first daughter of the Duke of Braga and produces her family’s golden seal. Citing her noble right, Galva demands a full 10 percent of the captured ship’s value to fund her mission.