Rising Tide

by Mel Odom

  Fatigued from the spellcasting, she gazed out through the open gates, aware of the Waterdhavian Watch galleys and rakers converging on the area. In the dark distance beyond the reach of the harbor lights, Iakhovas’s navy moved in. She saw the flat shapes of the sahuagin mantas break water near the naval harbor, followed by the sleek heads of giant creatures that broke the surface behind them. Even more creatures, Laaqueel knew, swam beneath the harbor’s waves.

  Conch horns echoed across the harbor, sounding a general alarm. A Waterdhavian raker plunged across the harbor, aiming itself at the sahuagin flagship. Slender and top-armored, the battle vessel carried fire-pot catapults and large deck-mounted crossbows. Less than a hundred yards away, the raker crew opened fire with one ballista.

  The six foot shaft sped through the air and ripped into the pentekonter’s side. Vibrations shuddered through the vessel as it penetrated just above the waterline. From the location of the damage, Laaqueel was sure some of the sahuagin rowers below had been injured or killed.

  Iakhovas threw out an arm and said something that arcane language of his that Laaqueel had never understood. His tattoos glowed and his arm changed, becoming a hard-ridged fin almost four feet in length. Her feminine intuition told Laaqueel this shape was closer in truth to the real nature of the sorcerer than any she’d seen him use.

  He slashed the jointed fin at the three Waterdhavian Guardsmen, slicing their heads from their bodies. The fin changed back to his arm as he turned to the malenti.

  “Do not forget yourself here, my little malenti,” he said, “I’ve a battle to win. Hie you below and inspire those rowers to work harder. We’re found out now and time works against me. I want to make the shoreline before this vessel is seized.”

  She ran to the hold and got the drum beater’s attention.

  “Yes, most favored one?” the warrior inquired.

  “As fast as you are able,” she ordered. She saw the damage the giant crossbow bolt had done, impaling the two sahuagin who’d shared an oar. Their bodies still twisted on the shaft as they continued dying.

  “Yes, most favored one.”

  She returned to the deck, following Iakhovas as he ran back to the stern. The wererats scattered before the sorcerer, snarling in their high-pitched voices. Iakhovas held onto the railing as the pilot brought Drifting Eel around.

  “We’re leaving the harbor,” Laaqueel said.

  “Good. You are not as blind as I sometimes feared.” Iakhovas seemed distracted, concentrating on the small bloodstone globe nestled in his palm.

  Wererat archers stood at the railing and exchanged fire with the crew aboard the Waterdhavian raker.

  “But leaving the harbor means leaving our forces here,” Laaqueel protested.

  Iakhovas gave her a harsh look. “Little malenti, you fear for your warriors when in truth Sekolah bred them and birthed them to die,” he told her. “They are not alone in this struggle; it’s my war and I’ve found them shield mates and comrades. I’ve done what I can do. There are matters that demand my attention. You’re welcome to remain here if you so choose.”

  She looked at him, knowing he was certain she wouldn’t stay. She would lose her chance to see what he was up to. “No,” she said.

  “So be it,” he replied, “but you will allow me the necessary time to work the spells I’ve set up. I’ll not suffer any interruptions. Even from you, my little malenti.”

  Iakhovas placed his other hand on top of the small bloodstone gem, then drew it slowly back. The gem enlarged like a bubble, the surface becoming even less stable.

  One of the wererat archers staggered back from the railing, transfixed by one of the giant crossbow bolts that had crashed through his thin chest. Bone shards glinted in the moonlight.

  Iakhovas tossed the bloodstone bubble into the air and it promptly disappeared. Laaqueel noticed the harbor breezes died suddenly. A moment more and a sudden wave erupted from under the harbor’s surface and drank down the Waterdhavian raker. There were no survivors.

  The spell was subtle in other respects, spreading out across the harbor without giving away where it had started. Laaqueel knew none of the magic-fearing sahuagin would attribute it to Iakhovas, only to Sekolah.

  Storm winds and crashing waves continued striking the Waterdhavian crafts as Drifting Eel pushed toward the Dock Ward shoreline. The battle in the harbor had reached the docks. Mariners bolted from taverns and from the Helmstar Warehouse, the Mermaid’s Arms festhall, and Arnagus the Shipwright’s building. Lights blossomed up and down Dock Street. The streets started to fill, and sahuagin were filling them as well.

  Some of the Fleetswake revelers had pitched tents along the docks and others had even gone so far as to place tents across their boat decks. Lanterns blazed at some of them, throwing shadows across the tents as the drunken sailors and merchants tried to rally against the invading sahuagin forces.

  Drifting Eel raced for an empty loading berth among the docks as lantern lights from ships at anchorage played over the deck. Iakhovas called down the hailing tube himself, ordering the sahuagin rowers to reverse direction. The sorcerer dropped the anchor himself with a wave of his hand that sent the man-sized weight spinning through the air, stopping the play of chain as soon as the anchor touched the harbor bottom. Drifting Eel halted too late, slamming into the dock pilings and knocking them loose from their moorings.

  Laaqueel fell but rolled to her feet while the wererat deckhands went sprawling. She brandished her sword as she pursued Iakhovas, who hadn’t lost his footing at all, standing as surely as an outcropping of coral.

  The sorcerer bolted over Drifting Eel’s side and dropped four feet to the splintered dock. He reached inside his cloak and drew out a rapier with an ornate handle fashioned from an impossibly large shark’s tooth.

  The malenti hesitated only a moment before following the sorcerer. She dropped to the dock, trailed immediately by two dozen wererats. Iakhovas was already in motion, leaving her no doubt that he was already moving on whatever hidden agenda he’d planned for the night.

  She turned and glanced back out into the harbor in time to see the first fiery catapult launches from Waterdeep Castle high overhead. The flaming loads arced across the black sky like comets, then crashed down amid the three sahuagin ships with uncanny accuracy. Two of the ships broke under the onslaught and started sinking as Waterdhavian rakers closed in.

  The storm created by Iakhovas’s spell continued growing, gathering force. Four foot waves rippled up on the harbor water, then cascaded over the side of Dock Street in spite of the ramparts. The sea wall around the harbor also served as a breakwater against storms that traveled inland from the Sea of Swords. Against a storm that started within the harbor itself, there was no protection.

  A raker bore down on the surviving sahuagin ship. Before it could reach its opponent, a dragon turtle rose up from the depths and capsized the raker. The creature was over fifty feet long from its snout to its tail. The shell alone was thirty feet around and was dark green in color with sections that came to sharp points. The huge clawed feet spread over two yards with the webbing between the toes. Horned ridges stood out on its wattled neck. Fierce orange eyes glowed in the dark, and its mouth was a curved, cruel sword slash. Its attention drawn to the Waterdhavian sailors, the monster turtle’s head darted out and it gulped down three in quick succession.

  Men shouted around Laaqueel, but none tried to attack her as they manned posts along the harbor. She assumed that the illusory glamour Iakhovas was using remained in place. Turning, she sprinted to catch up to him, making it easily since he wasn’t traveling fast.

  “What are we here for?” she demanded when she drew even.

  “Fear not, my little malenti, my reasons for being here coincide with your own,” he answered. “To properly fight a war, weapons require careful choosing. In my studies, I have unearthed the fact that one is here, one that I desire greatly.”

  “You staged this invasion, sacrificed my people, to get something
that belonged to you?” Laaqueel, even after the fifteen years she’d seen him in action, couldn’t believe it.

  He turned his dark eye on her, glaring. “Don’t ever presume to question my methods or my reasons, little malenti, otherwise you’ll never grow to be the sahuagin you want to be so badly. I no longer require your services these days as much as would benefit you. Do not be foolish enough to disregard that. It is a true fact.” He continued walking, turning onto an alley off Dock Street and heading east.

  She fell into step at his side and slightly behind him, following in silent protest. It wasn’t the first time he’d intimated that he could change her into a sahuagin. Judging from his power, she assumed it was possible.

  Possible, but only if he didn’t get them all killed while foraging through Waterdeep. She tightened her grip on her sword and trailed him into the waiting darkness of the alley.

  VII

  12 Mirtul, the Year of the Gauntlet

  Jherek’s heart hammered as he poised on the balls of his feet, the cutlass naked in his fist. The heavy humidity from the sea left a sheen of sweat across his body from his run. No one else had responded to the woman’s shrill screams for help, but it was possible no one else had heard her over the noise from the docks.

  Seven Cuts Court occupied a wide space in the street leading to Drake Gate and to the wooded coastal trails to Murann and Tordraken. Sandwiched between a building that had once housed a bakery but now stood vacant since a string of unsolved murders had begun there and a leather goods shop specializing in used overland travel gear, Jherek gazed out at the court. The only sound now was the gurgle of the fountain, fed by the artesian well, in the court’s center.

  Shadows draped the area. No lights burned there after the sun went down. Every mayor to hold office in Velen since the murders started tried to find a means of lighting the court and ending the curse there, but none had ever been successful. Torches and lanterns were lit, but mysteriously extinguished as soon as full dark had claimed the city.

  The curse began when a severed foot was found in the court. Most in Velen believed the foot was placed there as a warning to someone, but the stories varied as to who the warning was for. Some said it concerned a Shadow Thief who’d failed in his assignment. Some said it was a warning to Hieydl, the old baker whose son had moved the family business, over an affair of the heart. The foot, over the years, ended up belonging to hundreds of people in the stories that circulated.

  There was one truth about Seven Cuts Court in all of Velen: no one went there alone at night. Since the morning the foot had been discovered in the court, people who foolishly ventured into the court at night alone ended up dead—all of them from seven similar deadly slashes—and the victim’s right foot was always taken.

  Most believed it was the work of a vengeful ghost. For all its acceptance of its ghosts, Velen also housed a number of poltergeists that had to be banished from time to time. None of the clergy or professional ghost-chasers had been able to exorcise whatever haunted the court after dark.

  Jherek didn’t know what he believed, but he’d always stayed away from the place. Now he had no choice. He took a fresh grip on the cutlass and moved into the shadows of the court.

  The attack came without warning and faster than Jherek thought possible. Only his keen hearing saved him when he heard the rustle of leather armor to his left. Instinctively, he went down and to the right. At sea a sailor had to stay low. Losing contact with the deck or the rigging during a storm or an attack often meant death.

  He rolled on his shoulder and pushed up on his knees. The cutlass came on line in front of him, and he squared himself up behind it as Malorrie had always taught him.

  The leather-clad attacker bolted from the shadows, following up his immediate strike confidently, expecting to overpower his victim before he could get to his feet. A sword’s steel splintered the weak moonlight, sweeping toward Jherek’s head.

  The young sailor turned the sword blow with the hook, feeling the impact shiver down along his arm. His attacker’s strength pushed the hook across, making Jherek use the cutlass to block as well. Even then, the sword stopped scarce inches from his throat.

  The man roared a curse, his dark face hidden by a scarf wrapped around his face. His breath smelled like he’d spent the night in a tavern.

  As the man yanked his sword back, Jherek put his weight on one knee and lashed out with his other leg. He hooked his foot behind the man’s ankle, tripping him.

  Jherek got to his feet as the man fell backward. Even big as he was, the attacker shoved himself to his feet with surprising speed.

  “Tricky whelp, eh,” the big man said. “Won’t be enough.” He charged forward, swinging his blade with all his might.

  Jherek met the blow with his cutlass. Sparks leaped from the roughened metal and rained down over the young sailor’s clothing. Driven back by the impact, Jherek stumbled for his footing, his boot soles sliding across the cobblestones. He barely got the sword up in time to defend himself again.

  Though fear filled him, coiling through his guts like a rabid mouse, Jherek focused his mind and skills. He kept his arm hard and relaxed at the same time, parrying the big man’s raw attack with skill and strength, forced to give ground before it. Twice he got the cutlass in for blows to the body, but the edge wasn’t able to bite through the leather armor. Metal clanged, filling the court with unaccustomed noise. The young sailor couldn’t help wondering how many ghosts they were attracting as an audience, and he knew not all of them were benign.

  “Gonna die this night, whelp,” the big man promised. “Gonna spill me some cursed pirate’s blood in the bargain, maybe lay claim to that bounty on that tattoo you’re sporting so high and mighty on your arm.” The big sword came down again.

  Hearing the man’s words stung Jherek, touching off the unforgiving anger that lay inside him. Malorrie had always taught him that the anger he felt was his greatest weapon, and his greatest weakness. The difference lay in control, and in whether that anger was directed inward or outward.

  Jherek parried the sword blow with his cutlass, ducking down and to the side to turn it away from him and to the right. Before the big man could move, the young sailor whipped in with the hook and buried it behind the man’s knee. He yanked, setting it deep.

  The big man roared in pain, trying desperately to get away. He bent down to grab for the hook.

  Jherek straightened, unable to bring the cutlass’s blade into play. Instead, he slammed the hard metal of the basket hilt into his attacker’s face, breaking his nose and sending blood in all directions. Close as he was, he felt the warmth of the man’s blood splash across his own face.

  The big man squalled in renewed agony, and fear was in there now as well. He put out a big hand and gouged at Jherek’s eyes with hard-taloned fingers.

  The young sailor went backward automatically, protecting his vision. He let go of the hook, twisting as he did so. If the man didn’t have access to a healing potion or a cleric, he’d have a permanent limp. Breathing hard, Jherek moved backward two more steps, getting the distance he needed to finish the fight.

  The big man stood with effort, hobbled by his injured leg. He worked at rubbing the blood from his eyes with his free hand. He kept hold of the long sword, pushing it out in Jherek’s general direction.

  Jherek hesitated. It was one thing to take a man’s blood in the heat of battle, but another to take it when the man was so obviously helpless.

  “Vyane!” the big man called.

  Realizing the man wasn’t alone, Jherek whirled. He brought the cutlass up to a ready position as his eyes scanned the shadows around the court. He saw the woman standing in the darkness gathered at the opposite end of the court, below the hand-lettered sign that advertised Blackthorn’s Brew, the most popular festhall in all of Velen.

  She was slim-hipped and long-haired, as small as the man was large. Her face looked elven, but Jherek wasn’t sure. She wore dark clothing, a rider’s outfit, one use
d to rough handling. A light breeze lifted her hair from her shoulders in a fluttering halo, and wiggled the fletchings of the quarrel nestled in the groove of the crossbow she held.

  Jherek saw her hand clench, letting him know she’d fired. With Malorrie’s training, he knew there was a chance of avoiding the bolt as it leaped from the bow. A speeding quarrel couldn’t change course in mid-air unless it was magical in nature. All he had to do was move, but when he did, it was already too late.

  The woman’s beauty surprised him, making him wonder how anyone so pretty could cold-bloodedly feather someone she didn’t even know.

  The heavy bolt crashed into his chest, burying deep just below his left shoulder. His arm went numb at once even as his chest seemed to catch on fire. The impact knocked him backward and he stumbled as he tried to regain his balance. The numbness spread down his spine, stilling his legs. He fell.

  “Vyane!” the big man yelled again.

  “Silence, Croess,” the woman said with an accent that Jherek couldn’t place.

  “The little bastard nearly killed me. Look what he’s done to my leg.”

  Jherek lay on his back and tried to breathe. He couldn’t. It was like the crossbow bolt had nailed his chest closed. He lay still, staring up into the sky, at the stars he’d gotten so accustomed to while on watch in Butterfly’s crow’s nest. He couldn’t even blink or move his eyes as he watched the woman approach.

  “Your own fault,” she told the big man without sympathy. “You moved on him from out of the shadows. He should have been dead before he even knew you were there.”

  “You saw how quick he was,” Croess protested. “Fanged demons take me if I’m lying, but he’s hardly more than a boy and he fights like a damned whirlwind.”

  “You knew he would be something different. We were told that.” She stared down at Jherek with empty eyes and said, “A crossbow bolt did for him just fine.” She glanced across Jherek and added, to someone, “You said there was gold?”