Boundless

by R. A. Salvatore

Kimmuriel nodded, then pointed past the large man to a fine ship, the largest and most decorated vessel in sight. “Their commanders, I believe,” he said. “We should go—”

  “Fireball! Wizard!” came cries from behind.

  “Drow, where are you?” they heard Calico Grimm shouting.

  “Keep the course to that ship and perhaps we’ll find victory,” Kimmuriel told Wulfgar, and the drow turned and walked back amidships, where Grimm and Bonnie Charlee and others were scrambling, trying to find some cover. Following their looks, Wulfgar understood their fears, for on a ship closing from starboard stood a man in fanciful robes, waggling his fingers dramatically, wisps of flame wafting from them.

  Back amidships, the captain continued screaming at Kimmuriel, a loud reminder that the drow was brought along on the word of High Captain Kurth specifically that Kimmuriel could provide the needed magical defense of the ship. When Kimmuriel didn’t respond, the volatile Grimm began hurling insults against Kurth for foisting the drow upon him.

  Taking it all in, Wulfgar relaxed, seeing Kimmuriel’s posture. He had been thinking of going low over the side to the slack anchor line, down near the water and thick in the prow spray as protection from the incoming fireball, but now he decided against that course and simply stood his ground instead.

  Because he knew what Kimmuriel was capable of.

  Calico Grimm ranted and yelled, even shoved the drow, who fell over limply to the deck—which only made the captain grow more incensed, to the point where he drew out his saber.

  “Do not!” Wulfgar yelled, at the same time another crewman called out for everyone to take cover.

  Indeed, across the way, the wizard went into the last moments of his spellcasting, his hands aflame, creating another fiery bomb. He moved to throw it across the water to ignite Joen’s Heirloom, but then he suddenly froze in place and simply held the pose.

  He was still holding his fireball when it exploded, engulfing his own ship in biting flames.

  Wulfgar laughed.

  Kimmuriel stood back up and straightened his clothing.

  “Well now,” Calico Grimm said, as much of an apology as the man would ever give.

  “You should have some faith,” Kimmuriel told him, to which the captain snorted. “And you should repent your actions.”

  “What’re ye meanin’ by that?” asked Bonnie Charlee.

  Kimmuriel stared hard at Calico Grimm.

  “Well?” the first mate demanded.

  “Repent,” Kimmuriel ordered.

  Calico Grimm snorted, but then his face contorted weirdly, a look of utter surprise, a combination of shock and terror. The look of a man who was not alone in his own mind and body.

  Calico Grimm spun about and sprinted away, past his surprised companion, running face-first into Joen’s Heirloom’s mainmast. He dropped to the deck hard, blood flying from his nose, a pair of teeth falling out onto the boards.

  Bonnie Charlee gasped, then looked past the groaning captain to the laughing Wulfgar, who merely shrugged in response. Clearly agitated, outraged even, the woman put her hands to the hilts of the daggers on her belt, and she turned to follow Kimmuriel as he moved back toward Wulfgar.

  The big man shook his head. Bonnie Charlee wisely did not draw.

  It would have been the last thing she ever did, Wulfgar knew, unless one counted her gasping for her final breaths as she sank under the waves after, for some reason she could not understand, she had decided to jump into the middle of the ocean. Wulfgar found himself pleased that Bonnie Charlee hadn’t so foolishly tossed her life away.

  And he found himself hoping that Calico Grimm, when he recovered from his face-plant, would.

  By the time Kimmuriel arrived at the prow beside Wulfgar, it was clear that the lead enemy ship had noted their approach and was turning to meet the charge.

  “His sword is a demon blade,” Kimmuriel warned. “Do not be struck.”

  “Whose?”

  “Their commander. A Margaster, but much more than that.”

  Wulfgar nodded and brought his warhammer, Aegis-fang, into his hand, slapping the heavy weapon easily against his other palm.

  “Mage ahead!” came a cry.

  “Let them blow themselves up, then,” said Wulfgar.

  But Kimmuriel shook his head. “Such a possession as I performed before might overwhelm a stupid human, but not the spellcaster on the ship before us.”

  “You already know about him . . . her?” Wulfgar asked, changing the pronoun when he noted the woman at the prow of the ship, deep in concentration.

  But then she wasn’t, and she staggered back a step, blinking in confusion.

  “I have bought you moments, Captain Grimm,” Kimmuriel called back. “If you slow, the wizard will strike at you.”

  Grimm spat out blood, but yelled to his pilot, “Bring her alongside! Thump her hard and tangle the sails, and let’s be done with these dogs!”

  “Brace!” came the shout all along Joen’s Heirloom’s deck, and the crew knew to a man and woman exactly what was expected of them. This swift schooner had been built for ramming and tangling. She was reinforced in all the critical areas, and the crew had been selected for their skill in close combat, as the pilot had been chosen for his talent and his nerve. He showed both then, guiding Joen’s Heirloom in at full sail right alongside the enemy ship, close enough so that the tips of their longest spars crossed, tangling rigging. At that precise moment, the crew dropped the sails and the pilot cut hard to starboard, crunching the ships together, tearing rigging and sails and locking them in place, the momentum of both pulling them in a dancer’s turn and sending a swirl of watery swell outward.

  Both crews were quick to their respective rails, crossbows leveling and firing. A hulking ogre charged across the enemy’s deck, leaping over the rail, flying for Joen’s Heirloom.

  A spinning warhammer met the brute in midair, smashing it with tremendous force, enough to stop its breathing and its momentum. It flew in short, slamming against the side of Joen’s Heirloom, somehow managing to catch the rail with one outstretched hand.

  But Wulfgar was there above it.

  The ogre groaned and tried to pull itself up.

  “Tempus,” Wulfgar whispered, the command word to return that warhammer to his grasp.

  He let the ogre climb up just high enough, then drove the warhammer through its skull. The weapon tangled in the bone, so he let it drop into the sea with the dead behemoth.

  “Ha!” he heard across the way, and looked up just in time to see an enemy leveling his crossbow.

  Wulfgar stared him down, and moved with the speed of a viper when the quarrel flew his way. He wasn’t quite quick enough for a full dodge and took it in the side, a painful bite and somewhat serious wound, but Wulfgar was in his battle lust now, and the pain angered him more than it hindered him.

  “Ha!” the archer across the way said again.

  “Tempus,” Wulfgar replied, followed by a “Ha!” and throw of his own.

  The archer ducked, but Wulfgar had aimed low, expecting the dodge. The man got behind his ship’s rail, which hardly mattered against the brute force of Aegis-fang, which broke through, slammed him, and sent him sprawling.

  More than a dozen feet separated the hulls, and many planks were being set by both sides. But Wulfgar didn’t need that. A single running stride and leap sent him flying, calling to his god as he went to once again magically retrieve his warhammer.

  The poor wounded archer shrieked and clawed to get away.

  Wulfgar paid him no heed, for he hadn’t the luxury. As soon as he skidded down on the deck, a handful of enemies charged at him.

  He set Aegis-fang in a wild spin, halting the charge, driving them back. On one swing, he let the hammer fly, striking dead one woman, throwing her broken body across the deck. Even as he let go, the barbarian half turned the other way, then leaned back to avoid the stab of a long pike. He caught the weapon shaft cleanly and with a sudden and brutal jerk launched the wie
lder into the air and over the rail.

  Up went Wulfgar’s left arm, bent at the elbow to catch the downward cut of a battleaxe, the handle slamming his forearm—which didn’t budge. He slapped that arm down and around, rolling his shoulders to slug the man with a right cross and with such force as to send that one, too, tumbling away.

  He knew that the remaining rogues were rushing in at his exposed back, but a roar brought Aegis-fang back into his hand, and this time when he turned and swept the weapon powerfully about, he caught both in its sweep and sent them tumbling.

  By then, the planks were set and fighters charged back and forth, deck to deck, the melee growing wild all about him. Now the enemies couldn’t come at Wulfgar all together in coordinated fashion, so he waded along, easily destroying any who moved to intercept. For no shield short of Bruenor’s magnificent spiderweb buckler could hope to stop the pounding hammer, and no parry from a less-than-exceptional warrior could deflect the strong man’s aim. It didn’t take the fighters on the other ship long to realize that, and so the path became clear for Wulfgar.

  And not just for him, he noted, for his own crewmates were taking great pains to avoid a different warrior, one dressed in the magnificent armor of a Waterdeep nobleman and wielding a bastard sword with a curving black blade licked with fire. He knew in a moment who this was, and though it was unlikely that the man knew him by name, there was little doubt that this man, Brevindon Margaster, had seen the devastation Wulfgar had inflicted on his crew.

  The two stalked toward each other, each occasionally flicking out his weapon left or right to stop or even kill a lesser fighter. Slowly they closed, though, until they were but a few strides away, when both, as if some silent understanding had passed between them, leaped into the air and roared, coming together in a sudden whirlwind of fury.

  Kimmuriel had warned Wulfgar that this one was more than he seemed, and Wulfgar was glad he had heeded the message, for in those first moments of combat, the barbarian came to realize that this foe was far more akin to Drizzt or Entreri than to what he’d expect from a pampered Waterdhavian lord. The man’s sword worked in a blur, every movement sending it at Wulfgar in a different angle, sometimes a slash, sometimes a stab, sometimes a punch from the hilt.

  The big man soon found himself blocking more than attacking, the barrage coming at him relentlessly, and his opponent crying out as if in pain incessantly. Wulfgar realized the source soon enough, as blood flew from the man’s hand—from both hands when he gripped that awful spiked hilt with his second hand as well. The sword was wounding him, and in turn inciting his rage, a fury that he threw into every strike.

  Had Kimmuriel not warned him, Wulfgar expected that he would have been cut a dozen times already!

  Now he had the measure, and he fell into a rhythm of blocks, spinning his warhammer before him, sending it out with one hand, then both, deflecting a cut from the left, using it to keep the sword to his right by lifting it vertically before him and dodging left behind it, then clasping it wide-gripped horizontally up high to intercept a powerful downward chop.

  And there was his opening. With remarkable agility for a man so large, Wulfgar turned that block into a sudden punch, sending the hammer’s head out to connect heavily with the shoulder of his opponent.

  The man staggered back several steps, grimacing, his torn shoulder curled before him.

  Wulfgar waited until he started to straighten, then hurled Aegis-fang into his chest, throwing him away.

  “Tempus!” Wulfgar roared in victory, thinking the fight at an end, but even as the hammer reappeared in his waiting hand, Brevindon Margaster pulled himself up from the deck, glaring hatefully at Wulfgar, standing as if he was hardly injured.

  And there, before Wulfgar’s eyes, the man began to change. He began to shrink in on himself, going from the muscled body of a human to a lithe and more elf-like form. His face grew very red—at first Wulfgar thought it was the blood of rage. But no, his skin itself became a reddish-brown hue. He pulled off his now ill-fitting breastplate and tossed it aside, and finally, most tellingly, a pair of leathery wings sprouted from behind his shoulders, rising wide and ominously.

  His crew cheered. They had known.

  The crew of Joen’s Heirloom, the few on this ship at least, recoiled in horror.

  Wulfgar glanced to the side, thinking to retreat. He saw, though, that there was nowhere to run, for this demon’s minions were winning on Joen’s Heirloom and seemed as much in control of that ship now as this one.

  So Wulfgar took up Aegis-fang, thinking to at least kill this demon creature.

  I am with you, came a voice in his head. Fight without fear. Strike when it is time and fear not your opponent’s blade.

  Wulfgar wasn’t sure what that meant, but he had witnessed enough of the strange powers of Kimmuriel Oblodra to know that the drow had put something devious in motion.

  The barbarian leaped ahead, roaring to his god, closing on the demon with a series of short and powerful chops of his warhammer. He drove the creature back on its heels and might have bowled it right over and buried it then and there, but those wings thrashed at the air and kept the demon aloft, even lifted it from the deck at one point so that its block of Wulfgar’s strike sent it farther backward than the barbarian had intended, causing him to overbalance forward.

  He tried to retreat, but too late, and that awful flaming blade got in over Aegis-fang’s block and drove hard into his forearm . . .

  And did nothing, startling both Wulfgar and the demon.

  No, not nothing, Wulfgar realized, for he felt the energy of that strike thrumming within him, and so solved the riddle. For this was a trick Kimmuriel had used before, and very recently with Drizzt in Menzoberranzan, creating a telekinetic barrier that absorbed the power of every strike, magical or physical, holding it in stasis, ready for the magically armored person to release it back.

  Grinning fiercely, Wulfgar charged in ferociously, not even trying to defend, accepting the demon’s strikes in order to get in some of his own. He didn’t release the mounting energy, not yet, wanting to utterly destroy the being when he turned its own strikes back on it.

  That would come sooner than he had expected, he realized when a crossbow quarrel slammed him in the back—but did not penetrate. The demon’s crew was charging him, striking with clubs and gaffs, swords and spears. Wulfgar swatted them aside with Aegis-fang, trying to keep his focus on the demon, but it got around him with a flying leap, landing back amidships near the mainmast.

  Wulfgar turned and charged, desperately so, for he understood that he could not hold this energy within him much longer. Perhaps not at all, for he could feel his blood beginning to churn, and he understood instinctively that if he didn’t throw forth the kinetic power, it would implode within him, obliterating him wholly.

  So he charged at the demon, ignoring the others, and leaped headlong, launching a powerful swipe.

  But the demon dodged.

  Aegis-fang struck the mainmast and Wulfgar had no choice but to release the gathered energy.

  The explosion rocked both ships, the warhammer exploding through the thick oaken beam with ease, separating it so cleanly from the trunk that it fell straight down upon the deck, like a giant spear, blasting through, tearing lines on both ships, crashing down to the hull’s shell and more.

  No one on that deck, not even Wulfgar, was still standing against the shock of that blast, but the demon, up in the air, had escaped its effects.

  The mast leaned to the right, away from Joen’s Heirloom, creaking and groaning. Rigging lines snapped, a spar fell free, and the mast went over more, tilting the ship to port.

  Men and women slid down the sloping deck, some grabbing at the rail, but that, too, was soon swamped. Wulfgar caught the base of the mast and there held—until the demon swooped down and drove its sword across his back.

  He wasn’t protected by Kimmuriel’s telekinetic barrier any longer and felt his skin tearing, felt the fiery bite of the jagg
ed blade, felt the lethal demonic poison.

  He was sliding, but hardly knew it.

  Then he was in the water. Somewhere he sensed the profound chill, though consciously, he hardly registered it.

  Chapter 13

  In the Shadows

  Regis wasn’t sure if the intruder was a living being or some sort of trap, or maybe even a combination of both. It looked like a pile of feces held together with webbing, unrolling like a cut sod strip. With every circuit, the intruder also flapped out its sides, widening, filling the room.

  The halfling wasn’t sure where to go. He started up from his chair, moving left, then right, then realized to his horror that he had been too slow. Dahlia, too!

  Artemis Entreri hit him squarely in the chest, a powerful grab and throw that sent Regis tumbling to the back of the room, rolling head over heels to crash into the outer wall right under the window. At first he thought the assassin had turned on him, but then Dahlia, too, came flying, thrown sidelong by the man, who leaped upon the table as the monstrous thing rolled in, and sprang away, the only way he could go, straight up, as the beast or trap or web or whatever it was rolled under him. Entreri caught a beam and lifted himself up high, just getting above the enveloping sludge.

  Over the table went the abyssal thing, and the wood of the chairs and table began to smoke and dissolve immediately.

  “Out! Out!” Dahlia yelled at Regis, and she smashed out the window and shutters with her metallic staff.

  “Go!” Regis bravely told her, drawing out his rapier, though what that might do against this sludge thing, he had no idea. It didn’t matter anyway, for Dahlia was having none of his silliness. Faster than Regis could register, she grabbed him by the shoulder and shoved him out the window. For the second time in a matter of seconds, someone had thrown him, and even as the halfling caught the ledge at the last moment, avoiding a fifteen-foot drop, he was beginning to resent being tossed about so. He started to yell at the woman, but when he heard the screaming, he realized that Dahlia had done him a great favor.

  He quickly slid his rapier away and lived up to the nickname he had been given as a child, moving like a spider across the wall, and noting as he did that other shadowy figures were moving about both exits of the alleyway.