Umara glowered. “I didn’t know when I was well rid of you.”
Mourmyd Jacerryl was full. He made himself eat the last piece of roast chicken anyway, because the village woman who’d cooked it for him was watching.
Slender and long-legged, comely in the swarthy way of her people, the village woman didn’t appear to be enjoying the spectacle, although she had the sense to try to hide her resentment. He wondered what bothered her more, that he’d ordered every one of Morningstar Hollows’s few remaining farm animals butchered to feed his crew, or that he was gorging while her belly was empty. Probably the latter, he decided, with the food disappearing down his gullet right in front of her and the aroma of it hanging in the air.
He swallowed the last bite of meat, belched, and tossed the leg bone on the floor. “Well, that was rank,” he said. “Filthy peasant food.”
It had actually been quite tasty, and the woman likely knew it and took pride in her cooking. Still, she really had no choice but to mumble, “I’m sorry.”
Mourmyd grinned. “Well, perhaps you can make it up to me. Take off your clothes.”
The villager’s dark eyes popped open wide, and then she shook her head. “No. Please, no.”
“Do it.”
“Please, no,” she repeated.
She actually sounded like it would take more than simple verbal intimidation to coerce her, so Mourmyd considered his options. Straightforward rape was the obvious one, but in the wake of his meal, he wasn’t feeling especially energetic. He turned to Gimur and said, “Help me convince her.”
The pudgy sorcerer reached for a little jade carving of a nude and headless woman, one of dozens of talismans pinned or tied to his long gingery braids. It was the one he used to subvert a female victim’s will.
The effects of such magic varied. Some women turned into docile sleepwalkers. Others grew timid, and the fear made them compliant. A few even became lustful.
Whatever the precise effect, the experience left the target feeling complicit in her own violation and filled with self-disgust. It was a subtle refinement to the basic torment, and Mourmyd liked to think he could be subtle when the spirit moved him.
Gimur spoke the first words of the spell. The fire in the hearth leaped higher, and a filthy smell filled the hovel. The village woman cried out and swayed, but Mourmyd knew she couldn’t bolt. The magic already had her in its grip.
Then the shack’s door banged open, and the Octopus’s boatswain, a hulking, olive-skinned half-orc named Borthog, burst in. Rain blew in along with him.
Something was clearly happening, and Mourmyd jumped up from the table. “Has the boy preacher come?”
“No.” Borthog shoved the villager out of his way. “But there’s fire to the north!”
“What?” North was where they’d moored the Octopus!
Mourmyd hurried out of the thatch-roofed cottage with Gimur and Borthog scurrying behind him. Other folk stood in the rain, looking northward where a column of smoke rose, stained yellow by the blaze that was its source. Unfortunately, Mourmyd couldn’t see the fire itself or what was fueling it. Too many trees were in the way. But it certainly looked like the flames could be either burning the Octopus or at least dangerously close to it.
The loss of the ship would have been catastrophic under any circumstances. If it left Mourmyd stranded in a realm that had long since put a hefty price on his head, and where he’d spent the last few days committing new outrages, he was unlikely to survive it.
Turning to Gimur, he asked, “What can you see?”
The chubby sorcerer hesitated. His powers notwithstanding, he was leery of giving answers that failed to satisfy his captain. “No more than you. I’m not a seer.”
“Then what in the Bitch’s name are you good for?” Mourmyd pivoted to Borthog. “Turn out the villagers to fight the fire. Tell them that if Octopus burns, they will, too.”
Like Gimur, Borthog hesitated. It gave Mourmyd the infuriating feeling that everything including his own crew was conspiring against him. He felt a momentary urge to draw his cutlass and start cutting.
Then Borthog said, “If you think it best. But it will take time to get the peasants moving. And if we don’t have time …”
Curse him, the boatswain was right. “Then get the crew moving!” Mourmyd snarled. “I want them standing in front of me with buckets in their hands before I finish counting to twenty!”
It didn’t happen quite that quickly, but once their officers started shouting orders, the pirates scurried to obey. Everyone understood the potential consequences of losing the caravel.
And while they all rushed through the woods, tripping over fallen branches, scratching and snagging themselves on brambles, and even bumping into tree trunks in the dark, Mourmyd prayed,
Please, he thought, great Queen of the Depths, let Octopus be all right! I came to this pesthole on your business because your high priest—curse him!—made me. Don’t let me suffer because of it!
As the pirates approached the anchorage, wavering yellow light shined through the trees ahead. Heat warmed Mourmyd’s face, and smoke stung his nostrils and set a man on his left to coughing. Near panic, the captain ran even faster, and his men did the same. Then they all faltered in confusion as they reached the strip of mud and weeds at the water’s edge.
The first thing Mourmyd noticed was that the ship was all right, and the realization brought a surge of relief. But the feeling only lasted an instant, because the vista before him was uncanny.
The pillar of smoke he’d observed from the village still billowed above the treetops. But there were no flames underneath it, just a sourceless radiance that gilded the surface of the water. The odd thought came to him that the missing fire was like a detail a lazy artist might omit from a mural when he realized the layout of the hall would keep anyone from looking closely at that end of the painting.
Except that in this case, it was a detail nobody would miss until it was too late, and illusion had already lured Mourmyd and his men into an ambush.
He bellowed, “Trap!” But at the same moment, figures popped up from behind the gunwales along the length of the Octopus to shoot crossbows at the befuddled men on land.
Other quarrels streaked out of the darkness on the pirates’ flanks. Someone screamed as he staggered with a bolt jutting from his face. Then, as soon as the barrage ceased, shadowy figures burst from cover to charge Mourmyd’s crew with pike, axe, and sword.
Honed in many a fight, Mourmyd’s instincts told him he and his crew had the ambushers outnumbered. But that changed almost instantly as his corsairs started to drop with their pails still in their hands and their blades still in their scabbards.
Mourmyd realized that even he was still gawking like a halfwit with a bucket in his grasp. He cast about, discovered Gimur in a similar stupefied condition, and lashed the pail into the sorcerer’s ribs. Gimur yelped and lurched around.
“Do something!” Mourmyd screamed.
Gimur gave a jerky nod and gripped a talisman in the shape of a curved iron glaur horn. He howled and ripped the plait to which the arcane ornament was clipped right out of his scalp.
The sorcerer’s scream became an ear-splitting blare like a call from a giant’s trumpet. The ground shuddered under Mourmyd’s feet but the shaking was even stronger where foes rushed in on the crew’s left flank. There, trees swayed and rustled, and the oncoming attackers reeled and fell.
That gave the men of the Octopus a last chance to prepare themselves for battle if the brainless scum would only take advantage of it. Mourmyd cast aside the bucket, drew his cutlass, and ran into the middle of them roaring, “Fight, drown you, fight!”
At least some of the reavers snapped out of their daze and reached for their own blades. Then a foe armed with a boarding pike rushed Mourmyd. Clad in the soaked, filthy uniform of a Thayan marine, the man knew how to handle his weapon, and for the next several breaths, Mourmyd had to devote his full attention to dueling him.
Fin
ally, the pirate captain slipped past the jabbing, rust-speckled point of the pike and slashed the Thayan across the belly. The marine dropped the pike and, reeling, clutched at the wound to keep his guts from sliding out. Mourmyd pivoted away from him and looked around.
What he saw was cause for desperation. His crew were fighting back, but, taken by surprise, were doing so with just the side arms they wore habitually, not the full range of lethal gear they customarily carried into battle. Some only had daggers to pit against pikes and axes. It was rapidly proving to be a fatal disadvantage.
It might not be as disastrous if they had more sorcery strengthening them and blasting their enemies. Alas, Gimur was busy looking after himself. Jabbering incantations, he stood facing a tall, slender woman in a red hooded cloak across a distance of several yards. Her lips were moving, too, and she flourished a wand in broad, lazy sweeps above her head.
Orbs of phosphorescence appeared around the two spellcasters, bobbed and drifted sluggishly for a few heartbeats, and then dissolved. Streaks of light shot back and forth. Sometimes, they bent away from their targets, or simply stopped short. At other moments, radiant disks like shields flared into existence to block them.
In the flashing, flickering play of all that glow, hints of figures and faces appeared, vanished, and reappeared. A phantom lion sprang at a ghostly serpent, and a hovering expressionless mask of a countenance divided down the middle, flowed apart, and became two such objects.
Mourmyd lacked the esoteric knowledge that would have enabled him to comprehend much of what he was seeing. Still, it was clear Gimur was losing the arcane duel. His adversary appeared calm and confident, whereas he’d already yanked out several braids from his bloody scalp. That was a trick he only used when he needed to cast a spell more quickly and forcefully than normal.
The one cause for hope was that the Red Wizard appeared intent on her chosen opponent. Mourmyd surveyed the battle as a whole and found a path through the various knots of combatants that would enable him to circle around behind her. He started forward.
Then a familiar voice said, “Now, now. Let the mages have their fun, and you and I will have ours.” Mourmyd pivoted to see Anton Marivaldi advancing on him with a bloody saber in his left hand and a cutlass in his right.
Mourmyd had to swallow away a sudden thickness in his throat. Generally speaking, he had faith in his own prowess and had vindicated that confidence in battle after battle. Yet he realized he didn’t want to cross swords with Anton. Not on a calamitous night like this, when Tymora had so manifestly turned her back on him.
But maybe he wouldn’t have to. Borthog, a boarding axe he must have taken from a fallen Thayan in his hands, crept up behind the Turmishan. Mourmyd need only keep Anton from discerning the half-orc’s approach and the other captain would cease to be a problem.
Retreating, Mourmyd snarled, “You’re a traitor! To your fellow pirates and our faith!”
Anton grinned. “Let’s not belabor the obvious.”
“I mean it!” Mourmyd said, still giving ground. “You’ve thrown everything away!” Meanwhile, Borthog slipped into striking distance.
But as the half-orc raised the boarding axe, Anton whirled. Either he’d known Borthog was there all along or had somehow sensed it just in time. Reflecting the rainbow luminescence of the mages’ duel, his saber sliced into his would-be assailant’s neck. Borthog collapsed with blood spurting from the gash and his tusked head flopping backward like it was on hinges.
But now Anton had his back to Mourmyd. Mourmyd charged.
Anton spun as he had before, sweeping the saber in a horizontal arc. Mourmyd parried and kept driving in. He thrust his cutlass at Anton’s torso.
With his own cutlass, Anton shoved the attack out of line then, in a continuation of the same action, slid the weapon up Mourmyd’s forearm, slicing it from wrist to elbow. Blood welled forth.
Mourmyd blundered on past his foe and wrenched himself around. He nearly dropped his cutlass in the process, then almost lost it again when switching it to his left hand.
Even the uninjured arm had trouble holding the blade steady, and that, combined with a sick, lightheaded feeling, told him his wound was bad. He was afraid to look to see how bad.
Even if it wasn’t as serious as it might be, he had little hope of outfighting Anton Marivaldi with his off hand. Signaling his willingness to drop his cutlass, he held it out to the side and wheezed, “I surrender.”
Anton hesitated. “Well, it is the way of Lathander to give even knaves like you and me a second chance. The boy would want me to show mercy.”
“Yes,” Mourmyd said.
“So I’m glad he isn’t watching.” Saber high and cutlass low, the Turmishan advanced.
By the time Anton brought Stedd from his hiding place to the anchorage, both the column of smoke and the yellow light Umara had created to counterfeit fire had disappeared. But the Thayans had kindled storm lanterns aboard the Octopus, and even in the rainy, overcast night, their glow sufficed to reveal not only the shape of the vessel but the bustle of activity onboard.
Anton paused on the shore to take in the sight. He felt himself smile.
Stedd peered up at him. “Having a ship again makes you happy,” he said.
Anton snorted. “It ought to make you happy, too.”
“It does.” Stedd glanced to where a squatting sailor was sewing bodies into shrouds of sailcloth. “But I wish there’d been another way to get it. You and the Thayans, you hardly talk about it when one of us dies.”
Anton shrugged. “Talking doesn’t bring people back to life.”
“I know, but …” Stedd shook his head.
“Warriors feel something when a comrade falls.” Or at least, some did. Anton realized that prior to meeting Stedd, he hadn’t experienced that emotion in quite a while. “But it’s a bad idea to wallow in it. That goes for you, too. Either Lathander’s cause is worth us risking our lives or it isn’t. If it is, say goodbye to the dead and sail on.”
“I guess.”
“Speaking of sailing on, it shouldn’t take long to ready the ship to head for the sea.”
Stedd frowned. “I have to go into Morningstar Hollows first.”
“Now, how did I know you were going to say that? Maybe Umara will want to tag along. She might as well. Now that the fighting’s over, a lubber’s of no use here.”
The wizard did choose to accompany them, and as they hiked through the woods together, Anton realized that this time, the aftermath of battle had left him feeling peaceful, not restless and morose. With a scowl, he pushed the realization aside lest even thinking of the absent bleakness bring it surging back.
In the settlement, a motley combination of new or refurbished huts and decaying, uninhabited wrecks, a woman’s corpse dangled from a sycamore maple, where she’d been hanging long enough for birds to make a meal of her features. Anton assumed Mourmyd had strung her up and left her as a warning to any villager who might be contemplating defiance.
There were also living townsfolk gathered on the common. Perhaps they’d heard the sounds of battle and were waiting to see who had won.
Umara waved two men—brothers, by the look of them, with the same shape to their broad noses and bony brows—forward. They peered warily back at her.
The Red Wizard gestured to the corpse. “I need you to catch her when I bring her down. Unless you don’t care if she just crashes to the ground.”
The brothers exchanged glances, then positioned themselves beneath the body’s feet. Umara whispered to herself and crooked and uncrooked the fingers of her left hand. The rope supporting the dead woman unknotted itself, and she dropped into her neighbors’ waiting hands.
“You can bury her in the morning,” Anton said. “Her killers won’t interfere for the excellent reason that they’re dead now, too.”
A couple villagers smiled. Others closed their eyes and sighed in a sort of private rapture of relief.
“Did the Assembly send you?” asked t
he taller of the brothers.
“No,” said Stedd, “Lathander did.”
Anton put his hand on Stedd’s shoulder. “The boy here is the prophet who’s been proclaiming the rebirth of the Morninglord. Perhaps you’ve heard something about that even here on the edge of the wilderness.”
“Can he truly work magic?” asked a woman clad in dark, ragged mourning. “Can he create food?”
“Is that what the village needs?” Stedd replied.
“It’s what everybody needs,” the bereaved woman said. “The crops have failed. All Turmish is starving.”
CHAPTER TEN
UURMISHAN GENTLEMEN WORE BRIMLESS DRUM-SHAPED HATS AND loose robes woven in bright patterns, and when Umara asked, one of the grateful folk of Morningstar Hollows had rooted around in a trunk, produced such a citified outfit, and presented it to Anton. The clothes felt strange after years away, but they ought to help him blend in, just as his beardless chin should keep him from looking too much like Anton Marivaldi the young naval officer, customs official, and despicable traitor.
It was his good fortune that in recent years, certain stylish fellows had taken to shaving, and the famous Turmishan square-cut beard wasn’t quite as ubiquitous as it used to be. Traditionalists might frown at Anton in disapproval, but the mere lack of such a feature wouldn’t make him seem peculiar and accordingly suspect.
Some gray pigment in his black hair and a hairline and eyebrows subtly reshaped with a razor completed his disguise. It didn’t seem like much of a transformation to him, but Umara and Stedd both insisted he looked different. With Sapra growing ever larger in front of the Octopus, he supposed he was on the verge of finding out.
The harbormaster here had resorted to the same sort of improvisations as his counterparts in Westgate and elsewhere to cope with the rising sea. Many of the piers had a rickety, temporary look, and buoys alerted traffic to hazards recently submerged beneath the waves. In the city behind the waterfront, a few gray towers raised conical roofs above the surrounding buildings.
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