The animal’s master flicked his long grays-treaked hair back off his smiling face and spoke to Touraine in Shālan.
Touraine hadn’t spoken Shālan since she was small. It wasn’t allowed when they were children in Balladaire, and now it sounded as foreign as the camel’s groan. She shook her head.
“Camel. He spit,” the man warned, this time in Balladairan. The camel continued to size her up. It didn’t look like it was coming to any good conclusion.
Touraine grimaced in disgust, but beside her, Pruett snorted. The other woman said something short to the man in Shālan before turning Touraine toward the ships.
“What did you say?” Touraine asked, looking over her shoulder at the glaring camel and the older man.
“‘Please excuse my idiot friend.’”
Touraine rolled her eyes and hefted her pack higher onto her shoulders.
“Rose Company, Gold Squad, form up on me!” She tried in vain to gather her soldiers in some kind of order, but the noise swallowed her voice. She looked warily for Captain Rogan. If Touraine didn’t get the rest of her squad in line, that bastard would take it out on all of them. “Gold Squad, form up!”
Pruett nudged Touraine in the ribs. She pointed, and Touraine saw what kept her soldiers clumped in whispering groups, out of formation.
A young woman descended the gangway of another ship with the support of a cane. She wore black trousers, a black coat, and a short black cloak lined with cloth of gold. Her blond hair, pinned in a bun behind her head, sparked like a beacon in the night. Three stone-faced royal guards accompanied her in a protective triangle, their short gold cloaks blown taut behind them. Each of them had a sword on one hip and a pistol on the other.
Touraine looked from the princess to the chaos on the ground, and a growing sense of unease raised the short hairs on the back of her neck. Suddenly, the crowd felt more claustrophobic than industrious.
The man with the camel still stood nearby, watching with interest like the other dockworkers. His warm smile deepened the lines in his face, and he guided the animal’s nose to her, as if she wanted to pat it. The camel looked as unenthusiastic at the prospect as Touraine felt.
“No.” Touraine shook her head at him again. “Move, sir. Give us this space, if you please.”
He didn’t move. Probably didn’t understand proper Balladairan. She shooed him with her hands. Instead of reacting with annoyance or confusion, he glanced fearfully over her shoulder.
She followed his gaze. Nothing there but the press of the crowd, her own soldiers either watching the princess or drowsily taking in their new surroundings in the early-morning light. Then she saw it: a young Qazāli woman weaving through the crowd, gaze fixed on one blond point.
The camel man grabbed Touraine’s arm, and she jerked away.
Touraine was a good soldier, and a good soldier would do her duty. She didn’t let herself imagine what the consequences would be if she was wrong.
“Attack!” she bellowed, fit for a battlefield. “To the princess!”
The Qazāli man muttered something in Shālan, probably a curse, before he shouted, too. A warning to his fellow. To more of them, maybe. Something glinted in his hands.
Touraine spared only half a glance toward the princess. That was what the royal guard was for. Instead, she launched toward the camel man, dropping her pack instead of swinging it at him. Stupid, stupid. Instinct alone saved her life. She lifted her arms just in time to get a slice across her left forearm instead of her throat.
She drew her baton to counterattack, but instead of running in the scant moment he had, the old man hesitated, squinting at her.
“Wait,” he said. “You look familiar.” His Balladairan was suddenly more than adequate.
Touraine shook off his words, knocked the knife from his hand, and tripped him to the ground. He struggled against her with wiry strength until she pinned the baton against his throat. That kept him from saying anything else. She held him there, her teeth bared and his eyes wide while he strained for breath. Behind her, the camel man’s companions clashed with the other soldiers. A young woman’s highpitched cry. The princess or the assassin?
The old man rasped against the pressure of the baton. “Wait,” he started, but Touraine pressed harder until he lost the words.
Then the docks went silent. The rest of the attackers had been taken down, dead or apprehended. The man beneath her realized it, too, and all the fight sagged out of him.
When they relieved her, she stood to find herself surrounded. The three royal guards, alert, swords drawn; a handful of fancy-looking if spooked civilians; the general—her general. General Cantic. And, of course, the princess.