by Mel Odom
Iakhovas stepped forward, drawing an imaginary bow as he spoke a lyrical incantation. When he released the make-believe string, a gossamer arrow that looked like glazed white pearl with a foul reddish undercast streaked across the street and pierced the second wizard's stomach.
The watch wizard shrieked in pain and fell to his knees. His hands gripped the shaft protruding from his belly, and smoke curled up from his flesh. Just as the other watch members started to beat the wererats back, dozens of black and gray furry bodies charged from nearby alleys. The rat horde responding to the calls of the wererats swarmed over the watch members, penetrating the weak spots in their armor, getting underfoot, and dropping from the eaves overhead.
Threatening yells grew louder from the surrounding citizens, and Laaqueel recognized that the danger their party was in was far from over. A man came at her. She beat his sword aside, then ripped the side of his face open and kicked him back into the street.
"Let us take our leave," Iakhovas said. "They will attempt to shut the harbor down soon, and I've no wish to be here when they do. We've little time left to effect our escape." He turned and fled into the shadows of the nearest alley.
Panic vibrated in Laaqueel as she realized if she lost sight of Iakhovas she wouldn't be able to find her way back to the harbor. She ran after him, followed by the wererats.
After a moment, the surface dwellers took up the pursuit, staying well back of the party of invaders. Still, Laaqueel knew their courage would grow as their numbers did.
XIII
12 Mirtul, the Year of the Gauntlet
"This is going to hurt."
Jherek looked up into Madame litaar's watery brown gaze and wanted to tell her that nothing could hurt more than finding his belongings packed when he returned home. He said nothing, though why he should respect her feelings at the moment was something he didn't understand. What was really confusing was the way Madame litaar seemed so concerned about him now, after she'd packed him out of her house.
"I know," he said instead. He had trouble speaking around the tightness in his chest, caused from the blood-filled lung and his own inner turmoil.
"You're going to be all right, though, Jherek," the old woman promised.
Once, Jherek had been told, Madame litaar had been the most beautiful woman in all of Velen. Vestiges of that beauty still showed in the square lines of her face, in the broad forehead revealed by the way she wore her gray hair pulled back in a long braid. Her half-elven heritage showed in her pointed ears and the lines of her face. She didn't wear any of her accustomed jewelry due to the lateness of the hour. The cerulean blue bodice and long leather skirt she had on looked fresh, as if she'd dressed only a short time ago. She was usually early to bed, but tonight she'd been up waiting.
The young sailor sat on the porch as she'd directed, his legs splayed straight ahead of him. She'd cut his shirt from him in order not to jostle the quarrel embedded in his chest any further. Dried blood smeared his chest and stomach and stained his breeches. Streaks of it turned the hardwood floor of the porch brown in places. He regretted that; he knew how Madame litaar treasured a clean porch for her guests.
"Aye, ma'am," he gasped.
The pain in his chest had died away to a dull throb, but the increased pressure in his wounded lung was frightening. Even when everything around him had been out of his control, he'd always been able to control himself, his body. Now, not even that existed.
"Before I can give you a healing potion to cure your wounds," Madame litaar said, "I've got to get that quarrel out of you."
"Aye, ma'am."
She touched the feathered shaft carefully. Despite her advanced years, her hands remained steady. "I can't pull that quarrel out."
Jherek tried to talk, but his voice seemed caught for a moment. "I know."
She held his face in her work-roughened hands. "I could give you a sleep draught, Jherek, but I wouldn't be able to rouse you before dawn." She hesitated. "There's a ship you must catch tonight."
Jherek stared into her eyes, not knowing what to say. Madame litaar wasn't just kicking him out of her house, she was banishing him from the city.
"She's called Breezerunner," Madame litaar said. "Do you know her?"
"Aye, ma'am. She runs north, along Sword Coast." Jherek broke into a coughing fit and fresh blood bubbled up from his injured lung.
"She leaves port in only a few hours," the woman said. "I've paid for passage for you under another name. They won't know you. Do you understand?"
"Aye, ma'am."
Questions filled Jherek's mind, pricking at the hurt her words caused him. Before he could utter any of them, Madame litaar shoved an open hand at the quarrel, stopping less than an inch short of actually touching it. The young sailor thought he saw blue sparks flare from her fingertips, but he couldn't be sure because in the next moment pain ripped through his chest. He tried to scream but couldn't.
The arrow jerked inside him as if it had been shot yet again. He felt it pierce his back and come out the other side, propelled by Madame litaar's magic. He jerked, trying to escape the agony, but Madame litaar wrapped her arms around his shoulders and held him to her until it passed. He made himself be still, not wanting to accidentally hurt her. Shudders quivered through his body like he was a tuning fork. Perspiration broke out along his brow and upper lip. Fresh blood spilled down his chest and back.
He tried to speak, but blood gurgled up from the wounded lung, a new torrent unleashed. He started drowning then as the other lung filled as well and couldn't find the heart to break free of Madame litaar's grip. He'd always feared he'd be alone when he died, and no one would care. At least here, in her arms, he could hold onto the illusion of family.
XIV
3 °Ches, the Year of the Gauntlet
"Oghma grant us mercy."
Pacys hung onto the wagon seat as Hroman prayed and steered the pulling team along Dock Street beside him. The intersection to Ship Street lay just ahead, but the bard knew there'd be no passing along it. The sahuagin had risen from the waters of the harbor and taken their battle into the Mermaid's Arms festhall and to the shipbuilding shed of Arnagus the Shipwright, filling the streets there. Men ran with torches, but the light from the fires spreading uncontrolled across the harbor lit the area up. The storm out on the water lashed high waves over the docks, well above the normal waterline.
Looking further out into the harbor, Pacys looked across the burning husks of ships in the docks. Sailors ran the decks with buckets of wet sand and water, but Pacys knew it would never be enough to save them all.
Mystical lightning lit up the savage sky, streaking down from on high to targets in the water below. The electrical display looked at home in the whirling storm.
"Oghma damn all sahuagin for their black hearts and insatiable, hellish appetites," Hroman cursed. He pulled his team up short, causing them to whinny in protest. They reared and bucked in their traces, eyes rolling white.
"It isn't only the sahuagin," Pacys said in disbelief. He watched the heads of huge creatures breaking the water of the harbor and identified only a few of them. Never had he seen so many of them gathered in one place. "There's something very wrong here. The sahuagin alone could never bring all these creatures together."
A flaming catapult load from Castle Waterdeep flared through the night sky and burst against a giant turtle's shell. The huge carapace shattered and the dying creature sank beneath the water. The giant turtle had pushed its way through the temporary structures that had been built over the waters of Smuggler's Dock to celebrate Fair Seas Festival, leaving only carnage in its wake.
Griffon riders patrolled the sky armed with bows and arrows. Only a few had thought to arm themselves with pitch-pots to fire their arrows. The Waterdhavian air corps proved merciless in their attack, swooping out over the harbor as well as the dock area to track down their quarry. When a flaming arrow embedded in a sahuagin, the sea devil dropped at once, torn by painful convulsions.
A
cog with its prow burned nearly to the waterline finally gave up its struggle to remain afloat. The ship went down with several hands aboard. None of them had a chance to make it back to shore. A savagery of sharks lay in wait below the water. The storm-tossed waters roiled even more when the marine predators attacked the men.
Hroman bellowed at his priests, urging them into the battle. He was as quick thinking as his father, Pacys noted, listening to how the younger man broke the priests off into groups, charging each with taking control of the other wagon loads of priests arriving from the Font of Knowledge. Some were told to aid in fighting, while others were commanded to set up communication lines and medical treatment centers.
A cold chill ran through the bard as he watched the priests. Pacys knew it would be too little too late. Corpses of the Waterdhavian Watch and Guard members littered Dock Street as far as the eye could see. Mixed in with them were sahuagin, aboleths, mermen, sea horses, men who were trapped in near-rat bodies or near-wolf bodies with flippers instead of hands, marine trolls, and even the twenty foot mottled green body of a giant bloodworm stretched halfway out of the harbor water. Pacys didn't know if the heaving waves had thrown the worm ashore or if it had followed its prey there.
He left Hroman's side as the priest led his people into battle. The bard took his own path through the world as he'd always done, even though doing that had taken him so far from the lands he'd known and the people he'd loved.
Waterdeep was a favorite place, filled with precious memories and merchants who'd had deep pockets for a bard who could sing or tell a tale properly. He grew more afraid that even should the city withstand the current aggression, it would never be the same again.
The yarting hung down over his back, and he carried the staff in his right hand. Pacys made for the pilings lining the docking berths. Fleetswake had drawn ships from all over Faerun. With the light given off by the burning ships, he spotted the different flags easily. From the way it looked in the harbor at the moment, they'd all come to lose their ships and cargo, maybe even their very lives.
Another wave crashed over the pilings, throwing water across the old bard's robes. Half a body came with it, thudding heavily onto the wet cobblestone street. The upper torso of a man rolled drunkenly on the street with the water splashed out away from it. The dead man lay facedown, his left arm ending in splintered bone where his hand and forearm had been.
Despite the roaring wind that followed the lashing waves in, Pacys heard another sound. Music echoed in his head, harsh, unforgiving notes that spoke of pain and confusion, of an evil darkness that wanted only to consume. It was the most hurtful and fearful thing he'd ever heard.
Drenched as he was, standing at the edge of the harbor where so many still fought for their lives, the old bard opened himself up to the music, memorizing it note by note. Even though he kept his eyes open, his vision blanked out before him and the slap of running feet against wet cobblestones around him muted to silence. Acrid wood smoke from the burning ships still singed his nose and burned his lungs. He ignored the irritation, marking the notes, choosing the pitch of the voice that would accompany it.
The words, Oghma help him, the words came so easily to his lips.
"O City of Splendors who stands so steep,
Taken by a black-hearted horde from the deep.
Sahuagin fangs, sahuagin jaws,
Shark-kin,
Wedded to darkest evil with power so old.
Black storm-tossed waters, yellow fire that gnaws,
Thought lost to the world of men,
Tempered to anger that burns so cold.
He comes, riding on a black wave,
Looking for a world to enslave."
Moonlight splintered through Pacys's vision, drawing him away from the intoxicating music. He wanted to scream in frustration, knowing he'd been so close to the song, then he spotted the marine scrag crawling over the pilings in front of him.
The trollkin snarled its rage as its dark eyes locked with the bard's. It heaved itself from the splash of the waves overtaking Dock Street and landed on its wide, webbed feet. Seaweed colored hair hung limply to the broad, sloping shoulders. Green scales made up the thick skin that covered it, and the smell it exuded almost made Pacys gag. It hurled itself at the bard in a rush, without warning. A handful of claws cut the air toward the old man's face.
XV
12 Mirtul, the Year of the Gauntlet
"Open your mouth and drink," Madame litaar commanded. "Drink if you would live."
Jherek opened his mouth automatically, obeying the woman. He wanted to tell her there was no way he could drink; he couldn't breathe. He wanted to tell her that he didn't want to live. She was kicking him out of her home. Why would she care?
He tasted the minty flavor of the special healing potion that she brewed in her home roll across his tongue. She'd used it before, to cure a fever that had nearly claimed his life after he'd moved in with her six years ago, and again to heal his broken leg. Some of the pain filling his head vanished as the potion worked its magic, spreading out through him in warm vibrations.
"Swallow," Madame litaar instructed.
Jherek held the potion in his mouth. Even as it cleared his thoughts and took the pain from his head, he knew it wouldn't remove the ache in his heart. It was better to be dead, he decided. Still, he was surprised how much of him wanted to live. It took every bit of control he could muster not to swallow the healing potion even with the rising blood gorging his throat.
"Jherek," Madame litaar said, sounding more concerned, "I'm no priest to work a heal spell with nothing but my hands. You have to swallow if I'm to save you." She stroked his throat, the way she'd done when he was twelve, lying abed so sick and scared.
He wanted to tell her there was no fear of death for him now. Leaving was the best thing, and it would be so easy. His vision dimmed.
She shook him. "Jherek."
Then the voice thundered in his head. Live, that you may serve! The time is near!
Stunned by the proclamation, Jherek swallowed the potion. He tried to speak, to ask more, but couldn't. The elixir ran down into his stomach, gathering speed like the falling wave of an incoming tide until it crashed inside him, then spread throughout his body like water coming down off a snowcap, filling in every crack and crevice. He felt like his body was on fire, burning to a cinder. His muscles writhed against each other, and the torn ones in his chest knitted, leaving only a curious itch.
He drew in a hoarse breath, filling his mended lungs. As he breathed, shamed by what he'd thought and what he'd wanted to do in spite of Madame litaar's efforts, he opened his eyes.
She stood in front of him, her face as angry as he'd ever seen. "What did you think you were doing?" she asked.
Jherek couldn't have answered if he'd wanted to. He couldn't even meet her eye. He looked out across the yard beyond the porch.
"Answer me, Jherek," she ordered, "and look at me when you do."
Reluctantly, he swiveled his gaze toward her. "I was thinking," he said in a halting voice choked with his pain, "that perhaps it would be easier if I died. I didn't think that it mattered, as long as I left this house."
"Is that what you think? That I'm chasing you from this house?" Madame litaar lifted her gaze to meet Malorrie's. "Didn't you talk to him?"
"Lady," the phantom said, "when I found the boy, he already had the quarrel in him and he was bleeding to death. There was no time to explain things."
Her face softened further. "So the first thing you saw when you reached this house," she said, "your house, were your things packed on that table?"
Jherek didn't answer. He didn't know what to say. The shock of the voice speaking to him twice over such a short time, losing his employment on Butterfly, finding his things packed, and being so close to death had left him empty-headed.
"Come inside," she said more gently. She took him by the arm, guiding him with the surprising strength she'd always had. "I've got a kettle of stew on. We
need to talk, and you need to catch Breezerunner before she sets sail. There's not much time and you must hurry."
XVI
3 °Ches, the Year of the Gauntlet
Pacys ducked beneath the marine scrag's open-taloned blow, scuttling out of the way with a quickness learned over decades fighting for his life. His muscles and bones were no longer those of a young man, but he knew how to use what he had, and it didn't take much to kill, not if a man knew where to strike.
His feet moved across the soaked cobblestones as surely as an acrobat's or a dancer's. He stood again as the scrag's talons whisked by his head. Folding his staff under his arm and taking a fresh grip on it, he lifted the iron-shod pole and swept the opposite end into the scrag's head with all his strength.
The iron cap at the end of the staff rang against the scrag's head. Mottled green skin split and ichor oozed out, streaking the creature's face.
The scrag grunted in pain, staggered only a little by the blow. It turned quickly, ripping the other hand across at Pacys's stomach.
The old bard reversed his staff and speared it down toward the cobblestones at his feet. He had it braced by the time the scrag's blow came and used it to block the talons away from his body. The end of the staff braced against the cobblestones skidded only a little from the impact, but the blow missed him. Then he was in motion again, stepping back and to the scrag's left. The creature snarled in frustration and anger. It reached for the bard, trying to get hold of him.
As his attacker stepped forward, Pacys lifted his staff between the scrag's legs, tangling them. The creature fell, yowling in surprise, and landed on the cobblestones three yards away. It recovered quickly, pushing itself to its feet. The blood that had splattered its face made it look even more menacing.
Breathing faster than he knew he would have been in his younger years, Pacys twisted the middle of the staff. Foot-long steel blades suddenly flared from the ends of the bard's weapon and locked into place.
