by Lynn Abbey
Hylas and I did our best to brace them, speaking with a matter-of-fact confidence, harshly, or jocularly as the moment demanded. Meanwhile, I wrestled with my own unspoken fear.
Finally Hylas came up to me and murmured, too softly for the men to hear, "We've explored everywhere, haven't we?"
"So it seems to me," I replied. "Perhaps the master really isn't here, but out in the ocean somewhere."
Hylas shook his head. "If so, Port Llast is doomed, so we must assume it is here. So why can't we find it? This is a cavern, not a manmade fortress. It shouldn't have hidden doors or secret passages."
"True." Then a notion struck me. "Curse us all for a troop of idiots!"
"What is it?" Hylas asked. The men clustered around us.
"Of course a sea cave' can have hidden passages," I said, "if the entrances are under the water."
"You're right," Hylas agreed, then turned to the men. "Well go through the tunnels again, searching for such a passage."
And so we did, peering and probing for something that might well have proved difficult to locate even hi good light. Though I was reasonably sure we were on the right track, I very much doubted we were going to discover the opening before time ran out.
It was Dandrios who called, "I found it!"
We all hastened to join him where he stood waist deep in water by the left wall. Ducking down, I groped about and took the measure of a hole four feet high and twice as long. Large enough to admit even a crab if it didn't mind cramped quarters.
"Good work," said Hylas to Dandrios. "Of course, we don't know that this is the right opening. We'll need to send a scout in."
I said, "111 do-"
A vast rustling sounded through the cavern. The rest of the crabmen were returning. The men cringed and gathered themselves to flee in the opposite direction.
"All right," Hylas said briskly. "Apparently we've no time for reconnaissance. Everyone through the opening. Quickly, before the crabs have a chance to spot us."
The men gaped at him. "But Captain," one of them quavered, "you said yourself, we don't know this is the right hole… or if there's even any air on the other side!"
"True enough," Hylas said. He wore a soaked, plainly tailored wool tunic and breeches like the rest of us, and the water had plastered his artfully barbered chestnut curls to his head. Somehow, at that moment he didn't need burnished armor or a magic sword to look like a cavalier. "We do know this is our last chance for victory. Our last chance to save the village. I'm not going to throw that chance away, and if you're the warriors I think you are, you won't either." He discarded his pick and lantern and disappeared beneath the water.
"You heard him," I said.
I dropped my own more cumbersome gear, followed my commander into the hole, and for the next while, wondered if any of the militiamen had been fool enough to come after me. In the lightless passage, I couldn't tell.
I swam on and on, periodically bumping my head or extremities against the rocky sides of the tunnel. My lungs soon burned with the need for another breath, and I had to fight a panicky urge to turn and swim in the opposite direction. Even had I been willing to turn tail, I'd already come too far to make it back alive.
After some time I could dimly make out Hylas, silhouetted against an oval of lesser darkness. He passed through the opening and swam upward. I did the same, and my head came up into air. Gasping, I peered about.
We'd emerged in a high-ceilinged chamber whose sloping sides formed a sort of natural amphitheater around the pool in the center. Part way up the rock perched an altar of crimson coral. Poised in front of it, green-black, scaly arms upraised, its delicate fins weirdly beautiful, a sahuagin was performing some sort of ritual. It seemed entranced with ecstasy or simple concentration.
Turning his head in my direction, Hylas pressed his finger to his lips, expressing his desire to take the creature by surprise. As silently as we could, we swam in its direction.
Alas, we'd forgotten that there might be other foes about, and if so, they were as likely to be lurking under the dark water as wandering about on the rocks. I suddenly sensed something rising at me and wrenched myself around to face it, but I was too slow. The crab-man grabbed me by the leg and pulled me under. Kicking, I struggled to break free before it snipped off my limb or drowned me.
It convulsed and released me. When I got my head above water, I saw that Dandrios had stabbed it. He and the others had followed me.
Hylas bobbed up beside me, blood streaming from a gash on his jaw. "Get the sahuagin!" he panted to anyone who could hear.
We swam for the shore. Another crab darted at us, and Dandrios turned to intercept it and keep it off our backs. In the end, only Hylas and I managed to drag ourselves up onto the slope. Everyone else was busy fighting the creatures in the water.
By now the sahuagin was well aware of our intrusion, and so were two more crabs that scuttled down the rocks to meet us. Still starved for air, blinking the stinging salt water from my eyes, I scrambled up and yanked my short sword from its scabbard. I evaded the crab's first attack, stepped in, and thrust, wounding it in the flank. The monster hopped backward and poised its claws to threaten me anew.
I could see Hylas from the corner of my eye. He too had made it to his feet and was battling the other crab.
The beasts fought well. Still, I fancied that Hylas and I would prove a match for them. The sea devil, who'd remained before the altar, began to weave its webbed hands in mystic passes and chant in its sibilant, grunting, inhuman tongue.
Plainly, it was indeed the sorcerer-thing we'd come to slay, and if we didn't do so immediately, it was likely to strike us down with a spell. Hylas and I attacked our opponents fiercely, striving to kill them so we could rush their master before it completed its incantation. They, conversely, played for time, adopting a defensive posture that posed less of a threat but made them damnably hard to get at.
I dropped my guard, inviting an attack, and my crab couldn't resist the opportunity. It grabbed for me, and I recklessly dived under its pincers and plunged my sword into its belly.
The creature fell, and I charged up the incline- until a gigantic invisible hammer struck me down.
I felt as if a huge hand were squeezing me. It was all I could do simply to expand my chest and breathe, and
I feared the pressure would crush me to pulp in time.
The magic was assailing Hylas as well. He was staggering and seemed about to crumple. In no hurry now, his opponent reached for him.
Grunting with pain and effort, Hylas threw his short sword at the sea devil. The blade spun like a wheel, and the point plunged deep into the monster's globular eye. As the brute fell backward onto the altar, the power that gripped me faded away.
By that time, the crabman's claws were about to snap shut on Hylas. I shouted, and, startled, the creature faltered. Hylas scrambled back from the beast and we killed it together.
After that, aching and exhausted though we were, we had to aid the men still fighting in the water. In the end, our side prevailed. In fact, once we hauled ourselves up onto the shore, we determined we'd been lucky. Only two more men had died. Others were cut up pretty badly, but I thought they could recover with proper care.
Not that they were likely to receive it. A minute later, scores of crabmen began to surface in the pool.
"No," Vallam moaned. "It isn't fair!"
Clumsy with the pain of his gory wounds, Dandrios floundered around toward Hylas and me. "We killed the sahuagin that enslaved them," he said. "They aren't supposed to want to hurt us anymore."
"We're still intruders in their nest," said Hylas, rising. "I fear all we can do is sell our lives as dearly as possible."
We formed a circle to guard one another's backs, but though the crabs climbed up onto the slope, they kept their distance.
A particularly large specimen ascended to the altar, picked up the dead sahuagin, and cast it aside, thus uncovering two red coral carvings I hadn't noticed before. One represent
ed a crabman, the other a jellyfish. Evidently these were instruments of subjugation that worked in concert with the disks.
The crabman broke them in its pincers. Its fellows clacked their claws together in what seemed a frenzy of celebration, then the big one gestured to us, inviting us to make our way back to the pool.
"You were right," Hylas said to me, wonder in his voice. "They are more than animals. They understand that we liberated them, and they're letting us go."
"Apparently," I said, scarcely daring to believe it. "Let's get out of here before they change their minds."
After our escape, we learned that the majority of the diversionary force had survived their mission. Port Llast still had a functional garrison, if only barely so. Hylas spent another three days in town, long enough to make sure the jellyfish was truly gone. On the morning of his departure, we conferred in his study, attending to a few final pieces of business.
"It's strange," he said when we'd finished. "Now that it's time to go, a part of me wishes to linger. But you no longer need me." He grinned. "If you ever did."
I grinned back. "No common man-at-arms would ever admit to needing an officer, but you did come in handy once or twice."
"Thank you," he said, becoming serious. "For everything." We shook hands, then went out to review the men. He had a jest or a word of praise for each of them, and they gave him three cheers as he rode away.
Afterward I wondered when the Lords' Alliance would appoint a permanent First Captain, and what sort of master he'd prove to be. Finally a messenger brought the answer. Hylas had praised me to his superiors, and in consequence, they'd promoted me.
FORGED IN FIRE
Clayton Emery
22 Kythorn, the Year of the Gauntlet
"Have at 'em, me hearties! Sweep 'em into the sea, me brave ones!"
Screaming, swinging cutlasses and scimitars, pirates boiled over the side. Bounding from the deck of their dromond onto the merchantmen's cog, bare feet slapping the deck, the pirates rushed the quarterdeck.
Clustered on the quarterdeck were a captain and first mate who shouted encouragement at a dozen sailors. Simple merchantmen, they looked reluctant to fight.
Clambering carefully over the foaming, gnashing space between the ships, came the corpulent pirate chief who urged on his cutthroats with a cyclone of words. Heart of a Lion no longer fought toe-to-toe with enemies, but kept to the rear to supervise. Someone had to watch the two ships lest they ran aground, after all.
"Take 'em, me fearsome children!" he hollered. "A swift attack brings a short battle!"
Howling, thirty pirates split into two packs like wolves and surged up the short companionways to the quarterdeck. With luck, terror would make the merchantmen drop their arms and surrender. Heart of a Lion noticed the merchant captain, a skinny black-bearded man, had been born with a scowl, and the first mate's face was tattooed like a desert nomad's. Too, the other companionway was guarded by a lean woman in bright pinks and yellows, and such people were always trouble.
Sure as taxes, he saw, the ship's officers offered the pirates straight-thrust steel.
A pirate swung his cutlass to bat the first mate's scimitar aside, but an arm like oak simply riposted. The pirate yelped and jumped, pinked in the thigh. Hampered by the narrow stairs, another pirate sliced his cutlass at the mate's ribs, but that blow too was deflected, and the mate drew blood from a forearm. Below, in the waist, Heart of a Lion hollered useless instructions. Why would his crew never listen at sword practice? The chief was glad to see a tall pirate finally reach past his fellows and ram hard with a boarding spear. The first mate dodged, but banged into his captain alongside. The spear split his throat. Gargling blood and spraying his enemies red, the first mate dropped.
Pirates hollered in triumph, and pushed across the red-slick deck after the rangy captain. He bore a worn scimitar and a small round shield with a nasty spike. He swiped viciously to fend two pirates back, then lunged at a third. A fast chop cut a pirate's wrist to the bone. As blood fountained and the pirate screamed, a shipmate behind rammed him with a shoulder. The wounded pirate blundered into the merchant captain, tangling him. A boarding pike hooked the captain's leg. Tripped up, the captain crashed on his back. Quick as cats, two female pirates jammed blades in his belly and throat. With their officers dead, already the sailors were throwing down their rusty scimitars while the pirates hooted.
"Excellent! Your captain is proud!" yelled Heart of a Lion.
He swiftly marked the progress of the two ships. The pirate's dromond, a long, lean, lateen-rigged, many-oared vessel named Shark's Fang, was bound to the merchant's cog by stout ropes tipped with chains and iron grapnels. Locked, the two ships pitched and yawed in the lee of a big island to the south. Tharsult of the Shining Sea had many rocky clefts deep-shadowed by dawn, an excellent spot for ambushing the sea lanes. Waves burst into spray against a shore covered in seaweed. With a full day of bright sun burgeoning, the pirate chief exulted. They could loot this vessel's cargo and be hidden again by sundown.
Heart of a Lion carried no weapon, only a hollow tube of brass that he waved while exhorting his crew. "Press on, sons and daughters of seven devils! Conquer like kings! Drive-eh? Curse me for a camel boy!"
In a heartbeat, the second pack of pirates had run into a tigress.
Blocking the starboard companionway was the lean woman in pinks and yellows-the colors of the Nallo-jal, the Navy of the Caleph of Calimshan. Her white cork helmet, wrapped with a purple turban and sporting a brass bill, identified her as a lieutenant of the Imperial Marines. She hefted a straight sword like some northerner, and fire flashed from her eyes as she hollered, "Glory to the Caleph!"
Down in the waist, Heart of a Lion groaned. He may need his brass tube, despite the danger of burning the ship to the waterline. Didn't anyone simply surrender anymore?
Charging the lieutenant came a huge pirate named Tasyn, famed for his brawling and swordplay. He leered as he feinted with his cutlass, relying on a trick to distract her. While the swordsman feinted, the lieutenant struck. Cruel as- a dragon's claw, her straight-bladed sword skimmed his knuckles and chunked into a knee carelessly put forward. Tasyn's leg crumpled. As the big pirate tilted to the wounded side, the lieutenant slammed the side of his neck. Blood pinwheeled into the sky and striped the lieutenant's blouse and vest.
Another pirate, a woman, attacked as the lieutenant dispatched her first victim. The pirate squatted so low her hams brushed the deck, then she stabbed upward to spear the marine's groin. Fast as thought, the lieutenant's blade spanked the pirate's cutlass so hard the tip bit the deck, then the straight blade bounced back up. The female pirate saw the sword tip fly for her face like an arrow, then the point pierced her eye and brain.
Ducking herself, using the dropped bodies as a barrier, the lieutenant flicked her sword tip at pirates who suddenly hung back. She taunted, "Come closer, jackals. Taste the iron tongue of the Imperial Marines!"
"Ilmater made me to suffer," sighed Heart of a Lion. His pirates' attack had stalled, and might even fail if the sailors rallied around that devilish lieutenant. "But Sharess finds favor for those who love life."
Raising the brass tube in his hand, Heart of a Lion sighted down its hollow length at the ducking, weaving lieutenant, then stroked his fingers down the tube, invoking, "As'tal rifa!"
Like a wyrm's belch, from the tube billowed flame that coalesced into a sphere and sizzled through the air. Big as a fistful of flaming pitch, the fireball bounced off the lieutenant's turbaned helmet. Purple silk scorched and ignited, as did hanks of short blonde hair below her cork helmet. Panicked, the lieutenant flipped off her burning helmet, and was in turn slammed alongside the head by a cutlass blade. She dropped, face down in blood.
Yet Heart of a Lion's attack had worked too well. The fireball ricocheted from the sturdy cork helmet and lodged amidst tarred ropes and deadeyes in the standing rigging. Tar sputtered and flared like kindling. Paint on woodwork blistered and peeled, smoked and
curled, and burst into flame. Within seconds the fire streaked up the rigging and set ablaze the mizzen sail.
"Fire aloft!" hollered a pirate.
Instantly seamen chopped at stays to bring the sail down. The merchant sailors joined in, a tacit surrender, because everyone afloat feared fire at sea. Slipping in blood, they loosed belaying pins to free the running rigging. Let go, pushed by the wind, the flapping, flaming sail flopped over the taffrail and hissed to extinction in the pitching waves. Pirates and sailors alike lowered buckets on ropes and sloshed the quarterdeck to douse stray sparks. Blood swirled with seawater and ran out the scuppers.
As the emergency passed, and sailors and pirates caught their breath, Heart of a Lion puffed his way up the short companionway. Graced with a glorious black beard combed and perfumed-and rubbed with soot to disguise gray hairs-the pirate chief wore a flowing red shirt that minimized his potbelly, blue trousers cut off at the knee, and a wide silk scarf of gold that matched a yellow turban.
Spreading his hands, he announced, "Gentlemen, ladies! Fellow Brethren of the Brine! The gods decreed we possess your worthy vessel, and so it came to pass. You should find no shame in surrender. Tell me, if you please, who among you is leader?"
With the captain and'first mate dead, the worried sailors turned to a grizzled man with a salt-and-pepper beard and scarred cheek. Like most sailors, he wore patched baggy trousers and a plain sturdy shirt, but laced across his chest was a red leather vest wildly embroidered with slant-eyed dragons and doe-eyed maidens. Heart of the Lion noticed most of the sailors wore similar exotic vests. Obviously, this ship returned from far over the eastern horizon.
"I'm Bollus, esteemed sir, humble boatswain of Eight Lightnings out of Calimport. Two-hundred sixty-four days out of Kozakura. You shan't kill us, will you, honorable rysal? We were ordered to defend the ship, and hope we didn't offend."
