Under Fallen Stars Read online

  They hit the water and went under. The dark water took only a moment to extinguish the flames that fought against the dousing brine. Jherek kept hold of the boy in case he couldn’t swim. Still holding onto his sword, the young sailor kicked them back toward the surface.

  Jherek whipped his head, slinging the water and hair out of his eyes. “Are you all right, boy?”

  “Yes. I think so.” His voice quivered.

  Glancing up at the docks, Jherek watched the foggy cloud breaking up. The damage to the docks was already extensive, and the fires weren’t being put out very quickly. The boy struggled in his grasp, pulling at his legs.

  “Are you burned?” Jherek asked.

  “I don’t think so.”

  “If I let you go, can you swim?”

  “Like a duck,” the lamp boy promised.

  Jherek let him go, watching for a moment as the boy kicked away and swam in a crude dog paddle that seemed serviceable enough.

  The boy turned around, his face going pale and even more frightened. “Behind you!”

  Jherek tried to turn, feeling the malignant darkness behind him as well as the water rippling against his back. Before he could do more than start the motion, he felt the scaly sahuagin arm snake around his neck and drag him under the water.

  Even as he went down, Jherek heard a familiar roar that triggered a wash of fear that filled him. The loud scream of anger and challenge was artificial, but it sounded enough like a bunyip that there could be no mistake. The hoarse roar told him one of the black-sailed ships carried his father, Bloody Falkane, one of the most feared and vicious of the cold-blooded pirates of the Nelanther Isles.

  Fear ran through the young sailor, not of the sahuagin who held him, but of the man who’d sired him. He bore his father’s mark on his arm, indelibly put there with magic and ink, and carried the cursed fate that resulted from his father’s sins.

  The bunyip scream sounded again as the thickly muscled arm tightened around Jherek’s neck and pulled him farther down.

  * * * * *

  Laaqueel tried in vain to shut out the keening roar of the bunyip. The malenti priestess stood in the stern of Bent Tankard, the cog the sahuagin had taken only two days ago under their new king’s orders.

  Wind whipped through the rigging and the sailcloth fluttered as the captain called out orders to his trimming crew while still others prepared to board the watch ships that had come to intercept them.

  A few of the sahuagin weren’t completely unversed in handling surface ships. They’d taken some and used them as decoys to attack other ships in the past.

  The bunyip roar blared again.

  Glancing across the distance separating them from the lead ship, Laaqueel made out Bloody Falkane’s tall frame striding across the deck. The pirate captain was a striking man, tall and slender but packed with wiry muscle. Even now his oiled black hair was neatly combed back. He wore a mustache and goatee. Moonlight glinted from the silver hoop earrings he wore in both ears, as well as the other bits of jewelry. He wore a silk shirt of darkest blue and black breeches tucked into rolled boots that matched his shirt.

  Laaqueel knew the bunyip roar came from a device Falkane had ordered made and carried on his own ship. The bunyip was a freshwater creature that was at first glance very sharklike in appearance, but the shaggy black hair that covered its body and the long, flowing mane set it apart.

  The malenti didn’t know why the pirate had chosen the bunyip as his standard, except for the keening roar that instilled fear into most people who heard it.

  She watched the fires scattered around the harbor spread only slightly. Baldur’s Gate was constructed mostly of stone and usually stayed damp because of the climate. This city wouldn’t burn as Waterdeep had, but it had less chance of standing.

  The cog slid into the harbor, following Bloody Falkane’s craft. Six other ships, all loaded with pirates from the Nelanther Isles, followed them. The deck didn’t pitch much, but the movement was still foreign to her after spending nearly all her life working with the sea’s currents instead of against them.

  Sudden lightning flashed from the harbor, racing in a horizontal line until it touched the mainmast of Falkane’s cog. Wood splintered with a thunderous crack and embers blew up in a flurry from the wood. Sheared, the mainmast started to topple toward the deck, then got caught up in the rigging and sailcloth.

  “Cut that damned mast free!” Falkane roared, rushing up to the stern castle himself.

  Sailors moved quickly to do his bidding, clambering into the rigging with long knives in their teeth. Leaping from the stern castle, the pirate captain caught hold of the rigging and climbed through it with the agility of a monkey.

  Despite all the truly monstrous things Laaqueel had heard about Bloody Falkane, she had to admit the man was good at his chosen profession. She watched him hack at the rigging holding the mainmast, calling out directions to his crew. In seconds, the tall mast started toppling over the side, its descent controlled by the rigging the pirates cut expertly so that it didn’t land on the deck.

  An arrow thudded solidly into the railing, missing Laaqueel’s hand by inches and drawing her attention back to her own affairs. She drew up the heavy sahuagin crossbow she held and sighted on the boatload of Baldur’s Gate defenders bearing down on the ship she was on.

  Carved out of whalebone and strung with braided gut, the weapon was cable of firing above or below the water. She gazed down the greenish-gray quarrel shaft that had been chipped from claw coral that grew in hard, straight lengths. Hard as the bronze the surface worlders used, it was also razor sharp even on the sides. The hollowed shark’s tooth serving as the arrowhead was filled with poison and was designed to break off inside a target. Even if the sharp quarrel didn’t hit a killing spot, the poison ensured the kill.

  With the approaching boat less than thirty feet out, Laaqueel fired the crossbow. The quarrel flashed forward and filled a man’s eyesocket. He screamed and went down, brushing at the blood gushing onto his face. When poison stilled his heart, his companions had to shove his dead weight from them.

  “To me!” Laaqueel cried to the sahuagin behind her.

  They bounded forward at once. Only a few of them had crossbows. The claw coral quarrels embedded in the boat and the men, snapped off in shields, breaking the staggered ranks the defenders of Baldur’s Gate had tried to form.

  Laaqueel had enough time to reload and get one more shot off, striking a man and piercing his leather armor. The impact of the quarrel twisted him sideways and threw him from the boat. Instantly, a dorsal fin cut the water, zooming toward the flailing swimmer. The malenti priestess didn’t know if the poison or the shark got the man first.

  The boats collided with a shattering thump that brought the smaller one up out of the water. Some of the men were already in motion. They stabbed spears upward, tangling the sahuagin tridents.

  Braced as she was and expecting the collision, Laaqueel nearly fell. She regained her footing with difficulty and tossed the crossbow aside. She also loosened the thigh quiver of quarrels and kicked it away. Taking her trident up, she turned to face the invaders.

  One of the other pirate ships raced past. The archers aboard unleashed a brief volley at the men in the watch boat. Then it went on by, closing on the harbor. Even at eight ships, the pirates weren’t strong enough to take apart the defenses of Baldur’s Gate, but they weren’t alone. Iakhovas’s magery had seen to that.

  Rubbery ropes of arms shot up from the water without warning, wrapped around the watch ship, and yanked it almost to a full stop. Men tumbled from the ship, pitched clear by the unexpected seizure. A mast-mounted lantern smashed against the ship’s deck and splashed a long blaze of fire that ate into the wood. Before the ship’s crew recovered, sahuagin surfaced and slit their throats with long claws. Most of the crew died without a chance to defend themselves.

  On the docks, sahuagin slithered up from the port and ripped into the citizens gripped in the thrall of fear. In
seconds they were walking over corpses, hunting out fresh kills. Their fierce cries of bloodlust and savage joy rang through the alleys of Baldur’s Gate and over the port. Men raced forward trying to protect loved ones or friends, and died as sahuagin tridents knifed through their stomachs or ripped through their lungs. Other sahuagin threw fishhook-embedded nets over small groups, then pulled them into the water and beneath the surface to drown them like rats.

  Even as Laaqueel faced the men trying to swarm up the cog, the malenti was aware of the dozen or more giant crayfish that surfaced near the west docks around the Seatower and wreaked havoc among the Flaming Fist ships that tried to put out into the harbor. It was the mercenaries of the Flaming Fist who ran Baldur’s Gate, and they were coming to the aid of the watch.

  Fully eight feet long and equipped with huge pincers nearly a yard in length, the crayfish plucked men from the docks and the ships. Their hard, mottled brown, chitinous carapaces stood against sword blade, arrow, and spear. Their huge antennae whipped the air in a frenzy. The great pincers cut into their victims, sometimes sawing them in half. Other creatures Iakhovas controlled through arcane means swam beneath the river, working with the sahuagin to take the harbor.

  Holding the trident in both hands, Laaqueel thrust the tines into a man’s face, forcing him back off the side of the cog. Blood spilled across the deck from the man she wounded as well as sahuagin and other surface dwellers. The planks grew slippery.

  A large man in chain mail armor and a thick helmet heaved himself over the railing. Scars decorated his arms and face. He carried a huge warhammer in one hand and a lighted lantern in the other. He scowled at the sahuagin, fixing his hateful gaze on Laaqueel.

  “By the precious left hand of Tyr Grimjaws, I don’t know how come you to be with all these deep devils, elf, but you’re gonna regret it.”

  The warrior swung the lantern over his head, then brought it crashing down on the deck. The oil ran in a pool, and the flame from the burning wick chased it, starting a blaze that stood a foot high. Startled by the flame, already aware of the way it was quickly drying her skin, Laaqueel backed away. The other sahuagin did too, leaving enough room for seven other warriors to clamber onto the deck.

  The big warrior took his hammer in both hands and said, “I’m Fyidler Tross, a sergeant of the Flaming Fist, and I’m gonna send you back into Umberlee’s cold embrace myself!”

  He came at her, the hammer raised high over his head.

  * * * * *

  Even as the water closed over his head and the darkness sucked him down, Jherek tried to get a grip on the sahuagin’s arm. The creature’s strength was incredible, but Malorrie’s training had included ways to make joints work against their owners, and made the young sailor aware of the weaknesses of a hold.

  The moonlight pooled silver against the harbor water overhead, allowing him to see the sahuagin’s hand as the sea devil flicked out its claws. Clicking and whistling sounded in Jherek’s ears, warring with the thumping of his own heart. Two other shapes slid through the water, closing in.

  The young sailor thrust his sword up, blocking the fierce sweep of claws at his face. The blade bit into the sea devil’s forearm. Jherek brought the edge down, ripping into the flesh. Blood burst into the water.

  The sahuagin whistled shrilly and clicked madly, giving voice to the agony that gripped it. Taking advantage of the moment, Jherek ran his empty hand down his side, then thrust up in the hollow inside the sea devil’s restraining arm. The hold broke, allowing Jherek to go free.

  The two approaching shapes glided into view, becoming trident-bearing sahuagin. They streaked for the dockside as they bore down on Jherek. One of them flipped in the water, making a full circle then coming down from above.

  Jherek met the blow with his sword, angling it in between the trident’s tines. He was aware of the second unwounded sahuagin streaking in for his stomach, intending to meet him if he avoided the attack of the first.

  Holding the sword firmly, Jherek locked the blade against the trident and let the first sahuagin drive him down. The second sahuagin angled by overhead, moving quickly in his headlong rush. The trident missed Jherek by scarce inches.

  At home in the water, twisting his body like a dolphin, the young sailor reached above and caught the passing sahuagin’s harness. His fingers knotted in the woven seaweed strands. He kicked out as the sea devil’s momentum carried him along, adding to his speed, disengaging his sword from the trident.

  Before the sahuagin he’d caught hold of could turn, Jherek pulled on the harness and swam around behind the sea devil. He couldn’t strike the sahuagin in the back, though. He couldn’t bring himself to be so callous and so unfair. He waited for an opportunity.

  His opponent clawed the water frantically, flipping over and stopping almost immediately. That turned out to be an even greater mistake. It allowed Jherek to plunge the sword into its stomach and rip upward. Still, as death claimed it, the sea devil managed to catch Jherek in the face with one foot.

  The ebony claws raked fire along Jherek’s face, narrowly missing his right eye. He recoiled, momentarily disoriented as blood swirled up and clouded his vision. The moon was nearly obscured by the dark water as it was, and the blood made it even harder to see.

  The blood didn’t blind the sahuagin, Jherek knew. They had the ability to sense movement. He kicked against the dead sea devil, pushing himself toward the surface. His lungs ached for air.

  Past the blood cloud, Jherek spotted the wounded sahuagin trying fitfully to stop the flow of blood from its stump. The sea devil’s shrieking whistles pealed through the water. The young sailor kicked out again, nearing the surface, glancing around to try to find the third sahuagin.

  Only moonlight kissing the crystalline facets of the sea devil’s chipped-coral trident saved Jherek’s life. He spotted his attacker closing in from the right, shoving the trident forward. Knowing that grabbing the weapon would only lacerate his hand, the young sailor twisted violently in the water, knowing in his heart it was too late and he was about to feel the trident buried in his stomach.

  The tines grazed his sodden leather armor, ripping through it and branding his stomach with cold pain. Jherek continued to move, wrapping himself around the sea devil in a wrestling hold with his legs twined around his opponent’s. He looped his free hand under the sahuagin’s arm and locked his palm behind the creature’s head even as the sea devil locked his clawed fist around Jherek’s sword wrist.

  Instinctively, wanting to take advantage of the power it held in the water, the sahuagin dived, going deeper quickly.

  Jherek’s lungs burned from lack of air and everything in him cried out to let go of the sahuagin and swim for the surface. As fast a swimmer as he was, though, he was fairly certain he’d never make the distance before the sea devil overtook him. He bent to the task at hand, putting more pressure against the sahuagin’s head. The neck bent slowly, like working iron, proof of the sahuagin’s great strength.

  The sahuagin’s whistles became strained. Jherek felt his vision fading, knowing he didn’t have much longer before the lack of air started draining his strength. He kept the pressure on, finally feeling the sahuagin’s neck muscles give.

  The sea devil’s neck broke with a crack that echoed dully in the water.

  Releasing the limp corpse, Jherek turned and swam for the surface. His vision closed in on itself, starting to blot out the patch of moonlight he aimed for. His hand broke through the water and he kicked himself after it.

  Light swept toward him as soon as his face cleared the water. He had a brief impression of men standing along the dock, then a gaff pole shoved toward his head. He jerked away, letting the cruel gaff hook slice into the water near him.

  “Umberlee take yer eyes, ye thickheaded mutton!” Khlinat roared.

  Treading water, Jherek saw the dwarf push his way through the crowd.

  A surly man with graying side whiskers shot the dwarf a nasty look and said, “I saw a sahuagin down there,
I tell you.”

  “Mayhap ye did,” the dwarf agreed vehemently, “but that there ain’t no slithering sea beastie.” He crouched, offering his hand to Jherek. “Come up here, swabbie, and let’s be after having ye out of the drink now.”

  Jherek caught the dwarf’s hand, then found himself almost lifted from the water by Khlinat’s strength alone. He scrambled, finding his footing on the dock with his water-filled boots.

  “You did see a sahuagin,” Jherek told the man. “There were three of them.”

  “Three, swabbie?” Khlinat said, peering into the water and fisting his axes. “And ye did say were.”

  The crowd along the dock drew back.

  Jherek nodded, locking his hands behind his head to get his breath back more quickly. He glanced out in the harbor and saw the scattered fires. The pirate ships had invaded the harbor now, fanning out in a practiced move that put their onboard archers within range of other ships as well as the docks. Fire arrows blurred through the air, striking ships and occasionally breaking through building windows to land inside. Twisting clouds of smoke above several of the buildings showed that fires had started inside.

  The surly man with the gaff hook shook his head and said, “That’s a pretty tale you weave, boy, but I’m not going to believe a stripling like you could kill three sahuagin—and in the water yet.”

  “Only two,” Jherek replied. “I cut the hand off another.”

  He took a fresh grip on his sword. Out in the harbor, a giant water spider clambered up from below and attacked a dock crew trying to cast off lines. Twelve feet across, the spider reared up on its four back legs and seized two victims with the front four. Before it had a chance to completely devour its screaming prey, ten more spiders bobbed to the surface and scurried over the docks.

  A squad of sahuagin warriors rose up from the water and grabbed hold of the pilings. They pulled themselves up while others treaded water and threw javelins into the crowd. Propelled by the powerful sea devils’ muscles, the slim, chipped-bone javelins often penetrated more than one victim. Still more sahuagin leaped up from the water long enough to throw their deadly nets. Over a dozen people were pulled into the water and sank without a trace. Two of the nearby water spiders dived after them.