Peter and the Shadow Thieves Read Free

another spot of white in the rich, cobalt-blue sky. And that tantalizing taste lay ever so gently on his salty, parched tongue.
    Land.
    Nerezza started to bark out an order, then caught himself. But the crewmen around him had heard his intake of breath and—knowing the painful punishment that awaited any man who failed to instantly obey Nerezza’s orders—were watching him intently.
    The sight they saw would have shocked anyone unaccustomed to it. Nerezza’s cheeks and brow were deeply cratered and scarred from a disease he’d picked up in some godforsaken port. His eyes were smal , close-set, ratlike; his teeth, a disaster. But these weren’t the most distinctive features of his ravaged face.
    Nerezza had no nose.
    The one he’d been born with had been lost in a knife fight. In its place was a smooth-finished piece of African blackwood, shaped remarkably like the original, though without any nostrils. It was held to his face by a leather strap. When Nerezza wanted to smel something, he lifted the nosepiece to reveal a black hole in the center of his face. Through that hole he could pick up a scent as wel as a bloodhound—although when he sneezed, you didn’t want to be standing in front of him.
    Nerezza lifted his nosepiece and sucked sea air into the hole. No question. Land.
    Nerezza replaced the nosepiece and, ignoring the crewmen awaiting his orders, strode toward the mainmast. He grabbed the ratline and began to climb toward the first yardarm. The entire crew had stopped to watch this unusual sight; the only shipboard sounds were the whistle of lines and the random snap of dry canvas.
    Hand over hand, Nerezza climbed. He was careful with his feet: where most of his crew went barefoot, he wore a fine pair of black leather boots, polished with whale oil for waterproofing, but il -suited to climbing rope.
    Steady now, he thought, glancing at the deck far below and the curious faces of the crew. Normal y he’d have ordered them back to work, but he wanted them to see this.
    Wanted to make a point about who ran this ship, and what would not be tolerated.
    He switched to another rope, avoiding the bulge of a sail. He pul ed himself up onto the second of three yardarms and climbed the mast the rest of the way, passing the topgal ant and coming up through a hole in the bottom of the crow’s nest. He pushed the trapdoor out of his way and pul ed himself up. The lookout, a sal ow, thin-faced man, was slumped against the side of the crow’s nest, snoring.
    “Palmer!” bel owed Nerezza.
    “Aye, sir! Captain, sir! ” said the startled lookout as he clambered to his feet. He kept his face turned away from Nerezza, fearing the captain would smel the grog that had put him to sleep on his watch. “Captain,” he stammered, “sir, I—”
    Nerezza cut him off, his voice calm, cold. “South-southeast, Mister Palmer. See anything?” Palmer spun in the wrong direction, corrected himself, and final y raised his spyglass. “A pair of cumulus, sir! Captain Nerezza, sir.” He was sweating now.
    Slowly, deliberately, Nerezza pul ed his knife from his belt. He held it in his right hand, the blade sparkling in the sun. Palmer pretended to keep looking though the spyglass, but his free eye was locked on the knife.
    Nerezza’s voice remained calm. “Wind speed, Mister Palmer?”
    Palmer took a look at the long pieces of cloth tied to the rigging at the ends of several yardarms. “Fourteen, fifteen knots, Captain, sir.”
    “And those clouds, Mister Palmer…are they moving with the wind?”
    The end of Palmer’s spyglass shook. Nerezza reached out and steadied it for him. Nerezza said, “Wel ?”
    “No, sir. They ain’t.”
    “Ain’t moving, you say?” Nerezza asked. “And why would that be?”
    Palmer lowered the spyglass. Terror turned his face from deep tan to the color of dirty soap.
    “Can’t you smel it, lad?” Nerezza asked, lifting his nose-piece and sniffing loudly in the direction of the two clouds. “Or