Sea Devil's Eye Page 14

  Jherek shook his head.

  “A pretty girl like that,” the grizzled old sailor said, “I was your age, I’d be looking.”

  “She’s a lady,” Jherek warned quietly, “and shouldn’t be talked about in a cavalier manner.”

  “Oh, I’m offering no offense, mate.” Meelat shrugged. “My manners, maybe they need some brushing up, but a man at sea most of his life, he don’t have much chance of that. Does he?”

  Turning his attention back to the water, Jherek spotted a conflicting wave below and thought he detected movement.

  “That’s what I find confusing about you,” Meelat continued. “You say you’re a sailing man, but your manners put on like you been proper raised.”

  Studying the water around the bobbing remnant of Black Champion, Jherek tried to discern the movement again. Sahuagin prowled the Inner Sea now. Three passing merchanters two days ago had swapped supplies with Azla and offered up warnings concerning staying in one place or alone too long. Reports of attacks on harbors around the Sea of Fallen Stars—from Procampur to Cimbar—were becoming commonplace.

  “I was a suspicious man,” Meelat said, “I’d be wondering about you. Wondering what a man like you was doing running with pirates.”

  Jherek gazed at the man silently.

  Meelat dropped his eyes. “Not that there’s anything wrong with pirates. Been one myself a time or two, but you don’t seem the type cut out for it.”

  “Thank you.”

  A puzzled expression filled the man’s face, but it was quickly replaced by sudden and total fear.

  Ripping his knife from its sheath on his thigh, Jherek turned and braced himself, aware that startled shouts had broken out on the slave ship’s decks as well.

  Less than twenty feet away, a creature broke from the sea and gazed at them. The triangular snake’s face twisted slightly in the breeze, bringing one bright orange eye to bear on Jherek, then the other. Fins stuck out on either side of the head like overly large ears, echoed by the ridged fin that ran down its neck for a short distance. After a short space, the fin continued down the creature’s back. Needle-sharp fangs filled the huge mouth and a pink, forked tongue darted out to taste the smells in the air. The gold scales glittered in the sunlight, some of them catching a slightly greenish cast, muted slightly by the water where the rest of the serpent body coiled.

  Jherek thought it was beautiful. Four feet of the creature stayed above the waterline, but he judged it to be at least a dozen feet in length. The serpent’s body was broader than a dwarf’s shoulders at the neck, growing thicker toward the middle, then thinning out to a wide-finned tail.

  “Selûne guide us from harm,” Meelat whispered hoarsely. “That there’s dragon-kin. Some call ’em sea wyrms. Dangerous beasties, lad, so don’t do nothing to call attention to yourself.”

  The sea wyrm lowered its head toward the young sailor, then twisted from side to side again as if taking a closer look.

  Jherek felt the ship’s hulk bob against a wave and knew that one of the salvagers was moving along the beams behind him. He tightened his grip on the knife and slid his left foot forward.

  “You try it,” Meelat said, “and that thing will gobble you down where you stand. They’re quicker than damn near anything you’ve ever seen in the water, and most things out.”

  In the next instant, Jherek got a glimpse of the creature’s speed. Dipping its head into the ocean, the sea wyrm flipped its tail and pulled the ear fins in tight against its head. It cut through the water cleanly, gliding twenty feet in the blink of an eye.

  The sea wyrm raised its great head from the ocean, water dripping from the edges of its open mouth. It rose from the sea until it could stare into Jherek’s eyes with one of its own. The sea dappled it like diamonds.

  Hypnotized by the fear that filled him as well as awe, Jherek held the creature’s gaze. It was close enough to reach out and touch.

  “You have a chance,” Meelat stated. “Strike quick, if you can, and put that knife through that thing’s eye.”

  Shifting subtly, Jherek reversed the blade, putting the point down. He stared into the orange eye, wider across than a pie plate. At the distance, he knew he wouldn’t miss. Whether the blade was long enough to reach the serpent’s brain was another matter.

  The finned head moved closer, tentatively. Brine-flavored breath rushed over Jherek.

  “Strike now!” Meelat urged. “That thing’s going to have the head from your shoulders like a grape from the vine.”

  “No,” Jherek said.

  The forked tongue flicked out at the young sailor, missing him by inches. From the periphery of his vision, he saw the ship’s crew armed with bows.

  Afraid the pirates would fire at the creature, Jherek slowly sheathed the big knife.

  “What are you doing?” Meelat demanded.

  “I’m giving us the only chance we have. It’s curious—nothing more.” Standing steady, Jherek faced the sea wyrm.

  The forked tongue flicked again, whispering through the air beside his ear, making light popping noises. The young sailor flinched, then steadied himself again. The forked tongue brushed against his face the next time, feeling wet, tough, and leathery.

  The sea wyrm drew back out of reach. Its ear fins popped forward, and its large mouth yawned open. The orange eyes glinted. It hissed, yowling as if in anger.

  Arrows sped from the pirate archers. Most of them dropped into the water around the sea wyrm, but three of them bounced from the golden scales.

  “Stop!” Jherek commanded.

  The sea wyrm turned its attention from the young sailor to the slave ship and back again. Sunlight gleamed from its sharp teeth. It hissed at Jherek again, then dived beneath the water, swimming deep and disappearing almost immediately.

  “How did you know it wouldn’t attack?” Meelat asked.

  Jherek shrugged and said, “I didn’t.”

  “Sails! Sails off the stern!”

  Still shaking inside, Jherek turned and gazed back behind the slave ship at the cry from the lookout in the crow’s nest. There, against the curve of the ocean’s northern horizon, square cut white sails interrupted the line between smooth blue sky and green water. Judging the set of the sails, the young sailor knew the ship was headed for them.

  “Where are we?”

  On the other side of the gate they’d used to pass from Tarjana’s belly, Laaqueel spread her webbed hands and feet, stopping her descent toward the distant ocean floor. From the deep blue color of the sea around them, the malenti priestess judged they were in Serôs’s gloom strata, the level of the sea between one hundred fifty and three hundred feet.

  “Thuridru,” Iakhovas answered without looking at her. He held a gem in his hand that glowed suddenly.

  According to her studies of Serôs, Thuridru was a merfolk city along the Turmish coast. Located north of the Xedran Reefs where the ixitxachitl theocracy claimed the Six Holy Cities, Thuridru held a precarious position. Trapped near the ixitxachitl nation, Thuridru was also the sworn enemy of Voalidru, the capital city of the merfolk of Eadraal.

  “The city of rogue merfolk,” Laaqueel said.

  “What do you know of Thuridru?”

  “Little,” the malenti admitted.

  “Nearly four hundred years ago, there was a territorial skirmish between the mermen and the ixitxachitl nations over kelp beds west of Voalidru. Five war parties from the Clan Kamaar chose to ignore the Laws of Battle that have been in effect since the end of the Ninth War of Serôs and attack the ixitxachitl. As a result, Clan Kamaar was banished from Voalidru and driven out to make their homes in the abandoned caverns left by the defeated ixitxachitl.” Iakhovas gazed into the distance with a satisfied look.

  “What are we doing here?” Laaqueel asked, expecting to be assaulted for her impertinence.

  “Ah, little malenti, your impatience truly knows no bounds.”

  “I would be more effective as your senior high priestess,” she said, “if I knew m
ore of what you were doing.”

  Iakhovas turned his malevolent gaze on her. Even the incomplete golden sphere in his empty socket gleamed. “This war is mine, and it is progressing exactly as I would have it.”

  “A small group of reinforcements from Vahaxtyl joined Tarjana’s crew this morning,” Laaqueel hurried on, ignoring the threat in Iakhovas’s voice. “I overheard them arguing among themselves and their brothers in our fleet. They say that your efforts have grown stagnant, that you no longer hold Sekolah’s favor.”

  “You didn’t champion me, or the cause I represent?”

  “I wouldn’t know what to tell them.”

  “Instruct them to believe. That’s where your power lies. If you believe, they will believe.”

  Laaqueel let the silence between them build.

  “Do not cease believing,” Iakhovas warned. “That is the only worth you have to me. If you look to your heart, you know that it is the only worth you have to yourself.”

  “I know.” Laaqueel’s throat was tight when she spoke.

  Without her belief, she was only a hollow shell. The voice she’d heard in her head created tremendous confusion.

  “I’m aware of the surviving princes’ efforts to undermine my control,” Iakhovas said. “Just as I’m aware that the numbers of We Who Eat coming from the Alamber Sea are not as great as I expected after I shattered the Sharksbane Wall. I also know the Great Whale Bard has drawn a small army of his own to sing a barrier against the passage of more sahuagin.”

  “Only a few of them fight the magic of the songs,” Laaqueel said.

  “It will be dealt with, little malenti. In due time.” Iakhovas grinned. “For now I conserve my strength and mask my presence. The high mages and the Taleweaver have learned about me. Perhaps they’ve learned more than they should have—but we will see. Despite everything they have heard, I am more powerful than they can ever possibly imagine.”

  Laaqueel dropped her gaze from his. Everything he said made sense, and it shamed her that she couldn’t see it for herself. She loathed the insecurity that trilled within her, hated the way it took her straight back to the young malenti who knew only fear.

  “For now,” Iakhovas said, “we must gather our forces. Clan Kamaar will prove providential.”

  XIII

  16 Flamerule, the Year of the Gauntlet

  Jherek stood on the bobbing husk that remained of Black Champion and stared at the approaching ship.

  “That’s a Cormyrean Freesail from the cut of her,” Meelat commented.

  The privateers sanctioned by the kingdom of Cormyr were tall-masted brigantines crewed by hard men who took their prizes from the pirates they defeated. Most of the Freesails stayed around Suzail and Marsember, with a few others placed around smaller ports, but some of them took charters as trading vessels.

  “She’s seen us,” Meelat said. “We’re showing no colors and tied up as we are to this floundering ship, she’ll be coming to investigate.”

  Jherek called to the rest of the salvage crew. The men climbed off Black Champion’s corpse and into longboats with the last of their salvaged timber.

  At Swamp Rose’s side, Jherek and his crew shoved the planks into the waiting net, then held onto the net’s sides as it was hauled up. The boom arm swung over amidships, cascading water across the tilted deck. The young sailor dropped to the deck and trotted back to the stern castle to join Azla.

  The pirate captain stood with a spyglass in the ship’s bow. “She’s coming toward us. What was that thing in the water?”

  “Meelat said it was a sea wyrm.”

  “I thought you were a dead man.”

  Jherek looked at the approaching ship, noting the ballistae and the number of men apparent on the decks. “She’s rigged for war.”

  “King Azoun may see the release of the sahuagin from behind the Sharksbane Wall as a chance to further his own empire building. I wouldn’t put it past Azoun to give the Freesails orders to bring in any suspect ships so they can be pressed into service.” At the bottom of the stern castle stairs, Azla strode across the deck. “Tomas,” she said, “your axe.”

  The pirate tossed the single-bitted axe through the air and Azla caught it easily. Pirates emptied the net attached to the boom arm, stacking the salvaged lumber. The ship’s mages had magically straightened warped timbers and planks as they’d been recovered.

  “All hands on deck,” Azla roared.

  The command was relayed instantly in loud bellows by the first mate. Men scrambled to the deck.

  “Put some sail up on that mast,” she said. “I want to be making some kind of speed by the time those Cormyrean dogs get here, and one mast’ll have to do.”

  The pirates mustered out smartly, their ranks actually overfull from taking on men who were slaves only a few days ago.

  Azla looked out at where Black Champion rolled, nearly submerged beneath the waves. “Umberlee take me for a sentimental fool,” she whispered. A tear shone in her eye.

  Jherek felt the woman’s pain. Azla had lived aboard her ship for years. Since she was rarely on land, the young sailor realized that everything she’d cared about was on that ship.

  Abruptly, Azla raised the axe and brought it down again and again, severing the ropes that held the shipwreck to Swamp Rose. As the ropes separated, the slave ship righted itself and Black Champion drifted further beneath the waves.

  Glancing back at the deck, Jherek saw that several of the pirates held their hats in their hands. They’d shed blood aboard that vessel, dreamed quiet dreams, ridden out harsh storms, and learned to become one.

  “Don’t stand there like a bunch of heartbroken saps,” Azla bellowed. “Pay your respects to the lady and move on. We may be fighting for our lives in a few minutes.”

  She flipped the axe back to the man who’d loaned it to her.

  “Begging the cap’n’s pardon,” a pirate spoke up, “but we ain’t got a name for this ship. Unless you want to keep calling her Swamp Rose.”

  “Boatswain,” Azla barked, “fetch me a bottle of ale.”

  When the man hurried back, Azla took the bottle. By then the sails on the surviving mast had latched talons into the wind. The riggings creaked steadily in protest as the ship got underway. The half-elf pirate captain climbed to the top of the forecastle stairs and turned toward her crew.

  “The brine took Black Champion, but before she went, she helped us win this ship. I’ll give this lady a name, but it’s up to you to pay the steel and blood it will take to make brave men fear the sound of it, and cowards run from her shadow.”

  She smashed the bottle against the railing, spewing broken shards and foaming ale over the deck.

  “All right,” Azla said, “you lump-eared, misbegotten excuses for proper pirates, I give you Azure Dagger. Long may she sail!”

  Thunderous approval roared up from amidships. Standing there, Jherek felt proud. He turned his gaze to Azure Dagger’s stern and watched as the Cormyrean Freesail skimmed the water like a bird of prey.

  “This is taking far too long,” Pacys grumbled.

  He swam at Taranath Reefglamor’s side. The Senior High Mage inspected the caravan that assembled in Sylkiir the day after the Sharksbane Wall fell. Below them, in a small valley behind a sheltering ridge of rock and kelp, the sea elves finished packing supplies onto flat sleds. The sleds were being pulled by narwhals and sea turtles on the journey to Myth Nantar.

  The High Mage stopped and floated forty feet above the ocean floor. The incandescence from the sun lit the waters blue.

  “Taleweaver,” the Senior High Mage stated softly, though not with patience, “this journey will take as long as it will take. If we rush, we risk.”

  “Senior, I know. Truly I do.” Pacys searched for the words to explain the anxiety that filled him. “The music fills me and drives me on,” he said, “and I can’t help feeling that we’re progressing too slowly.”

  “And if we should fail after we’ve been given this chance?” Reefglam
or eyed the old bard directly. “Who would be left to take up arms in this pursuit?”

  “I don’t know,” Pacys admitted.

  Coronal Semphyr, who commanded Aluwand, and Coronal Cormal Ytham, who commanded Sylkiir, both stood against any involvement in Myth Nantar.

  Reefglamor clasped Pacys’s shoulder tightly in his grip and said, “To most of my people, Myth Nantar is a corpse, better off left entombed by the mythal that surrounds it.”

  “But the Taker is headed there,” the bard reminded him.

  “And if you’re wrong?” the sea elf asked. “If I and the other mages have left our cities, our people, undefended against the Taker?”

  “If you could but feel the power of the songs that fill my heart near to bursting, you would know that what we do is the right thing.”

  “My friend,” Reefglamor said, “I do believe you. That’s the only reason we are here now. But even as I believe in you, you must believe in me. We must not just begin this journey, we must finish it as well.”

  One of the lesser mages swam to a stop nearby and waited patiently. Reefglamor excused himself and swam over to the woman.

  “Trouble, friend Pacys?”

  The old bard glanced up and saw Khlinat floating in the water only a few feet away. For the first time he noticed how tired and haggard the dwarf looked, then realized the whole caravan probably felt the same way.

  With the regular military forces stripped from their ranks, men and women who served and believed in the high mages had volunteered for the journey. Many of them kissed their wives, husbands, and children good-bye on the day they left Sylkiir. No few of them, Pacys felt certain, would never look on their families again. For the first time, he realized the sacrifices they’d made.

  “No trouble,” Pacys said. “Only my own impatience at how slowly we travel.”

  “Aye, I been thinking on that meself,” the dwarf grumbled, “but there’s no way to increase our speed. Them people what’s out there making up this ragtag army, they’re doing all they can.”