The Reaver

by Richard Lee Byers

  The boy’s eyes, vividly blue even in the subdued light of the House of Silvanus, fluttered open. “Papa?” he croaked.

  Anton winced. “No, Stedd, it’s me.”

  “I wanted to say goodbye. But you wouldn’t have believed. You would have tried to stop me.”

  “Your father’s not here. I’m Anton. Try to remember.”

  “I wanted to say it! I promise!” Stedd squirmed under his blanket like he was trying to sit up but couldn’t manage it.

  “I believe you,” Anton sighed, “and everything’s all right. Why don’t you drink some water?”

  The earthenware cup was ready to hand. But in the moment it took him to pick it up and turn back around, Stedd had lapsed back into unconsciousness.

  Anton felt an urge to throw the cup at one of the granite slabs bordering the space that served as Stedd’s sickroom. He settled for growling an obscenity.

  “At least he woke up,” Umara said.

  Anton gave her a sour look. “Is that what you’d call it? Why doesn’t he have a druid sitting with him all the time?”

  “I’m sure they check on him often.”

  “Even if they do, why aren’t they healing him?”

  Umara took a breath. “You heard what Shadowmoon said. This isn’t an ordinary sickness amenable to the usual cures. And in any case, it does no good to grouse at me.”

  Nor was it fair. “Sorry.”

  “It’s all right.” She cocked her head, listening to the drumming on the roof. “The rain’s slacking off. Let’s get some air.”

  As they negotiated the turns of the sanctuary, a structure that, with familiarity, had come to feel less labyrinthine, he said, “I’m not truly angry with the druids or the boy, either.”

  “I hope, not with yourself,” she replied.

  “No!” he snapped. “With Lathander. Surely, he could help Stedd. But now that the boy’s served his purpose, his god’s tossed him away like a broken tool not worth the mending.”

  “In Thay, we expect spiritual powers to favor the strong, not help the weak.”

  Anton snorted. “Whereas I used to think they don’t truly care about anybody. Then Stedd nattered on and on about hope and goodness until, perhaps, he blathered the common sense right out of my head. Well, now I have it back.”

  They stepped out under the gray sky. Anton took stock of how hard it was currently raining, and then, on impulse, squashed his drum-shaped Turmishan hat flat and tucked it in his sword belt. His hair was going to get wet, but he got tired of having it covered all the time.

  Then a white horse and a rider in green and brown scrambled onto the plateau. The steed was lathered and rolling its eyes, and Anton wasn’t surprised. He wouldn’t have cared to take a horse up the steep last leg of Hierophant’s Trail, certainly not at any kind of speed.

  But the ranger in the saddle showed no consideration for his mount’s weariness or frazzled nerves. He dug in his heels and urged it onward to cover at a gallop the remaining distance to the edge of the pool.

  “The Elder Circle!” he half shouted, half gasped in a way that showed he was nearly as exhausted as the horse. “I have to speak to the elders at once!”

  No doubt impressed by his urgency, druids came scurrying to assist him. A couple took charge of the horse and started to relieve it of its saddle. Others conducted the ranger across one of the chains of steppingstones.

  Umara looked at Anton. “Whatever it is, I don’t care,” he said. Then they followed the ranger and his escorts back into the temple.

  Once apprised of the woodsman’s arrival, the Elder Circle opted to receive him in a relatively spacious area where, on other occasions, Anton had watched older druids instructing novices five and six at a time. It was less imposing than the circular space at the center of the temple, but it was also drier, and the cryptic symbols daubed on upright surfaces gave it its own air of mystery and magic. Sometimes, they seemed to change when a person wasn’t looking, although afterward, Anton could never identify what was different.

  A bench carved into one of the stone slabs afforded Shadowmoon, Ashenford, and Shinthala a place to sit. Everyone else—the ranger, those who’d brought him in, and curious souls like Anton and Umara who simply wanted to find out what was going on—stood.

  The woodsman was a barrel-chested fellow whose bushy beard had grown out enough to lose any trace of a straightedge cut at the bottom. He bowed deeply but so quickly that the gesture of respect nevertheless felt perfunctory. “Elders,” he rasped.

  Shadowmoon waved a dainty, copper-skinned hand, and the skinny adolescent girl who’d tried and failed to smite Anton with a spell emerged from behind a screen carrying a stool. A boy perhaps three years older than Stedd followed with a wooden cup.

  “Something is clearly distressing you,” said the elf. “Sit, drink, and tell us what it is.”

  But the ranger didn’t wait for the seat or the cup to deliver his tidings. “We’re going to be attacked.”

  Shadowmoon’s green eyes widened. “Please, explain.”

  The messenger dropped onto the stool. “This comes from another ranger, Vonda Pisacar. You know her?”

  “Of course,” Shinthala said. “As well as we know you, Mareo Calabra.”

  “Then you know she likes to patrol the wild lands along the coast. She was doing that west of Sapra, seeing what the sea had swallowed and what was still above water, when she spotted what she thought was likely a pirate ship anchored offshore.”

  Probably one of Evendur’s, Anton thought, still hunting Stedd.

  “Vonda wanted to find out what the ship was up to,” Mareo continued, “and she’s friendly with the merfolk. She knows a tune to whistle to call them if any are nearby. Well, one was, and she asked him to swim out and eavesdrop on what people were saying aboard the ship. He got there just in time. The pirates were making ready to sail.”

  “Where to?” Ashenford asked.

  “To meet up with other ships. Pretty much all the ones from Pirate Isle but extra, too—warships from places like Westgate sent because the church of Umberlee demanded it. The undead wavelord people talk about is supposed to lead them all to Turmish to destroy Sapra and everything else they can get at.”

  “This is retaliation,” said a druidess with a sparrow perched on her shoulder and feathers adorning her three long braids, “for running off the waveservants when they tried to set themselves above us.”

  “There’s more to it than that,” Shinthala said, “but the whys can wait until later.” She looked to Mareo, who was finally taking a drink from the cup. “I trust this same news has gone to Sapra and the Assembly of Stars.”

  Mareo swiped the back of his hand across his lips. A stray drop of red wine dribbled into his whiskers even so. “To Sapra, yes, and it’s been sent to Alaghôn as well. I just don’t know if it’s arrived yet. A messenger can’t get there by land anymore.” He grimaced. “And warriors on the mainland can’t just march here and reinforce us.”

  People muttered to one another in dismay, and to his own surprise, Anton stepped forward. “You don’t need the army anyway,” he said. “You should meet the enemy at sea and sink them before they ever come within catapult range of Sapra.”

  Mareo nodded. “I suppose that’s the strategy to try.”

  “Why do you sound so pessimistic? The Turmishan fleet is as capable as any on the Inner Sea.”

  “So I’ve always heard tell,” Mareo answered. “But the navy says some of the ships are far away on various errands. Even if they somehow hear about the trouble, they likely won’t make it back in time. And as for the rest …” He shifted his gaze back to the three elders. “Please understand, I don’t mean any irreverence. I’m thankful there’s food now. Everybody is.”

  “But …?” Shinthala prompted.

  “Well,” Mareo said, “it wasn’t exactly a gentle miracle, was it? Not the first part. Silvanus and, I hear, Lathander made the rain fall harder than ever before, and the sea bashed ships in Sapra Harb
or around as it rose. Some are damaged too badly for the shipwrights to repair them in time to meet the pirates.”

  “But what you don’t understand,” Anton said, “is that the storm also strengthened the Emerald Enclave. If Turmish doesn’t have enough ships that are fit to fight, magic can take up the slack.”

  Shadowmoon sighed. “Not necessarily.”

  Anton rounded on her. “Lady, you told us that when your holy island was reborn, it renewed your strength.” By all the Hells, clinging to the treant’s finger, he himself had watched it happen, even if he lacked the knowledge to make sense of very much of it.

  “It did,” Ashenford said. “But then we spent the land’s strength and our own. We didn’t weaken ourselves to the extent that your poor young friend did, but the results were somewhat similar. We need time to recover.”

  “You may not be at your best,” Anton replied, “but it will still be three Chosen against one.”

  “Fighting on the sea,” the half-elf said, “which is his place of power, not ours.”

  “Even if the pirates come ashore,” Shinthala said, “a port like Sapra is at best neutral ground. The same is true of the farmland that keeps it fed. But I may know how to beat the raiders.”

  Ashenford turned in her direction. “How?”

  “They surely want to kill us. And Stedd Whitehorn. They may enter the forests to get to us.” The wrinkled, white-haired druidess smiled an ugly smile. “Then we’ll have them.”

  “No,” Anton said. “That’s the wrong play.”

  Shinthala’s smile twisted into a scowl. “Why?”

  “Various reasons, but the main one is what your scout Vonda found out. Evendur Highcastle’s changed his strategy. He’s not hunting other Chosen anymore, and that means he won’t take the bait you’re dangling. Once he breaks the fleet, destroys Sapra, and burns the crops here on the island, he’ll sail along the coast wreaking the same kind of havoc with impunity. There won’t be anyone who can stop him.”

  Shadowmoon folded her hands and stared down at them as if the answer to every vexing question could be found there. At length, she said, “Captain, I swear to you on the scepter of Queen Amlaruil that the druids of Turmish will aid in the defense of their homeland.”

  Anton’s mouth tightened. “But you won’t give all you could, will you? You’ll hold something back. Even though that could make the difference between winning and losing.”

  “Please believe,” the fragile-looking elf replied, “that we of the Emerald Enclave care about the folk of the towns and farms. We’ve always looked after them to the extent our path allows. But our true purpose, decreed by the Treefather himself, is to protect and nurture the wild lands. Thanks to you, Lady Sir Umara, and especially Stedd, we have the chance to do that more effectively than we have in a century. It’s a chance we mustn’t squander.”

  “What about Stedd’s purpose?” Anton asked. “His god ordered him to keep the Umberlant church from becoming the supreme power around the Inner Sea.”

  “Silvanus doesn’t want that, either,” Ashenford said. “But he also judges there’s little danger of the goddess of the sea extending her influence into the forests.”

  “He might be surprised,” the reaver said. “He should visit a shipyard and take a look at just how much timber the carpenters use. But never mind. I can see I’m not going to sway you, so I’ll thank you for your hospitality and take my leave. If I head out now, I can be in Sapra tomorrow. I’ll help repair a damaged warship and sail with her when she puts to sea.”

  “Did you forget you’re our prisoner?” Shinthala asked.

  Anton blinked. Caught up in the passions of the moment, he actually had.

  “I think,” Shadowmoon said, “that in light of his recent service to the land, and the matters of great urgency that will soon preoccupy the Assembly of Stars, we need not consider him such any longer.”

  “I agree,” Ashenford said. “By the First Tree, if the assembly ever even finds out he was here in the first place, I’ll answer for it.”

  Shadowmoon looked back at Anton. “There,” she said, “you’re free to do as you please. But as one who’s come to think well of you, I recommend you not go to the fleet. A disguise allowed you to walk through Sapra without being recognized. It won’t keep mariners who knew you in your former life from doing so if you seek to work right alongside them, and then, no matter how honorable your present intentions, the navy will kill you for the man you were.”

  Anton laughed even though he felt like something was grinding on the inside. “If that’s the way of it, then fine. I’ve already wasted too much time fighting for causes I don’t have a stake in.”

  On Umara’s previous visit, Sapra had seemed sluggish with hunger. Now, the port felt frantic, echoing with the sawing, chopping, and hammering of the shipwrights and smells of the smoke and pitch that likewise figured in their labors. Men of the watch were swinging mallets, too, erecting barricades at certain key points in pessimistic but realistic anticipation of the Umberlant raiders coming ashore.

  Some townsfolk nailed shutters closed in an effort to make their particular homes secure, or drilled ineptly with spears in possibly unsanctioned militia companies. Others pulled carts, pushed barrows, or carried bundles or squalling babies as they headed out of town.

  Umara wondered where the latter thought they were going. If it was the half circle of farmland around Sapra, that wouldn’t be far enough. If it was the forests beyond, she doubted many of them knew how to forage or avoid natural hazards. How would they have learned when, from what she understood, the Emerald Enclave had always discouraged intruders? Sometimes, it had done so violently.

  She imagined the bewildered horror of the fleeing townsfolk if the same servants of Silvanus who’d worked magic to feed them yesterday ended up slaughtering them tomorrow because they frightened a bear cub or trampled a sacred wildflower. Many a Red Wizard would have found the potential irony humorous, but she didn’t. Perhaps she’d been away from Thay too long.

  “I keep thinking,” Anton muttered, “that we should have brought Stedd with us.”

  Umara glanced at him. “You said the pirates won’t venture into the forests to try to take him, and the druids said they’ll kill them if they do.”

  “I remember.” He detoured around one of the deeper puddles in the street. “Just as I realize neither of us knows how to nurse a sick child. I suppose that after months of first hunting the boy and then helping him, it just feels odd to walk away and leave him behind.”

  “For me, too.”

  “But to the deepest of the Hells with how it feels. We got the stubborn whelp to Turmish. Now, I’m going to concentrate on what I want.”

  “Which is what?” she asked.

  He hesitated. “A new ship, I suppose. Somehow. Put me ashore in Akanûl, and I’ll figure it out.”

  For a moment, she felt disappointed but didn’t know why. What had she expected him to say?

  They walked on. Four men came striding in the opposite direction, and then, evidently taking note of her red cloak and robes, stepped aside into a puddle to let her and Anton pass on the higher, drier part of the cobbled street. Less intimidated or simply intent on his errand to the exclusion of all else, a boy pushing an empty barrow ran past a few breaths later, and the wheel and his pounding feet threw up water to splash her.

  Though the two boys didn’t look especially alike, the incident made her think again of Stedd. She told herself she wasn’t abandoning him. He himself had said that he—or his god—wanted her to return to Thay.

  Then she and Anton rounded a corner, and the pirate hesitated. Fearing someone had recognized him for the fugitive he was, she cast about to locate the threat. But no one was gaping at them, reaching for a weapon, or making a hasty retreat, and after a heartbeat, Anton simply tramped on. Now, though, he scowled and quickened his stride.

  “What’s wrong?” she asked.

  “Nothing,” he replied.

  Only somewha
t reassured, she kept on studying their surroundings until she finally realized something. While none of the nearby shops and houses looked clean and new—months of unrelenting rain had torn tiles and shingles loose and flaked paint off walls—nothing looked unmistakably old, either. Which made this street different than the last one, or many another in Sapra.

  “This is a part of town the demons destroyed,” she said. “Where everything had to be rebuilt.”

  “Yes,” Anton said.

  “And it bothers you to picture it burning again.”

  “No, because I don’t let things bother me if I can’t do anything about them. And Shadowmoon, curse her, was right. The navy wouldn’t let me help defend Sapra even if I were stupid enough to volunteer. And our one ship, without an assigned role in the battle plan …” He stopped in his tracks, and his brown eyes widened.

  “What?” Umara asked.

  It only took him a few breaths to explain. The idea seemed cunning and madcap in equal measure. Just the sort of trick she’d expect him to devise.

  She smiled. “Let’s do it.”

  He blinked at her immediate acquiescence. “You’re serious?”

  “Why not? We’ve seen that Evendur Highcastle can be hurt, and at least inconvenienced by having a ship sunk out from underneath him. If luck favors us, we could tip the scales.” She smiled. “Then I can go home and say, ‘No, I didn’t capture a Chosen for sacrifice. But I did stop the waveservants from becoming the dominant power on the Sea of Fallen Stars and threatening Thayan interests. That’s worth something, isn’t it?’ ”

  “Will the crew be game?”

  “They have been for everything up until now, and I’m still a Red Wizard. They’ll do as I command.”

  Energized, Anton and Umara hurried onward. But as they neared the ramshackle collection of piers that was Sapra Harbor, and she spotted a battered fishing boat sunk to the gunwales in the shallows, it occurred to her that for all she knew, the Octopus might be in much the same condition. If so, she and the reaver would have no way of putting their plan into effect. In fact, if the Turmishan fleet lost the battle at sea, they’d be stuck on Ilighôn when Evendur’s armada descended on the island.