by Ed Greenwood
"Keep to your course," its owner told the steersman calmly.
Kurthe stared along the sword and met the dark, dangerous eyes of Belmer, looking back at him expres-sionlessly.
"You!" the Konigheimer shouted as his eyes kindled into two red flames. "All of this started when we took your cursed writs-and became, it seems, Master Soft-and-Sweet, your slaves!"
He smashed his blade free of Belmer's in a skirl of protesting steel and waved it menacingly, eyes narrowing. That, little worm, is going to stop right now. I'm going to see the color of your innards, Belmer- here, on this deck, now!"
Belmer shrugged and spread his hands. With another snarl, Kurthe stepped forward and swung with vicious force.
The small man ducked and swayed smoothly, and the Konigheimer's blade whistled through empty air. Belmer reached out with almost delicate grace and slid his own blade along Kurthe's side, slicing through the Sharker's stained old shirt and drawing a ribbon of dark blood along exposed ribs. Then he stepped away as if he had all the leisure in the world, in time to deflect Kurthe's frantic backhand swing down into the deck boards with a ringing clang.
The other Sharkers watched, stepping slowly closer, and the crew of the Morning Bird — all save their moaning, hand-wringing captain-clambered up to perches low in the rigging to see better. Sobbing with rage and pain, Kurthe swung his borrowed blade in another great two-handed swing, to chop the fat little man in half at gut level.
The steel bit deep, ripping into Belmer. No blood sprayed, and they heard no wet thunk of metal biting flesh. Kurthe's blade tore easily through soft leather, and cloth beneath it, and burst into view again, trailing a few tumbling glass vials-and they all saw that Belmer's fat belly was a false thing: a front of padding and straps.
Belmer had taken the slash to stay close, bending over backward away from it, falling-no, he touched the deck with one spread hand, and in the same fluid motion used it as a spring to lunge back up, in behind Kurthe's swing. His own blade sliced open the Sharker leader's shoulder and shirt together, and-as Belmer glided swiftly sideways-peeled the shirt away to lay bare the Konigheimer's whip-scarred back.
As the watchers gaped at that catlike attack, Belmer shot them a quick look and moved sideways again with the same gliding grace, unbuckling his false belly to let it fall. As the wounded leader of the Sharkers snarled around to meet him, the small man, suddenly thin and sleek, stood facing them all. Now, as Belmer fought, no one could take him from the rear.
Bellowing in frustration and rising pain, Kurthe advanced with his head lowered, like a bull seeking to drive an opponent into a corner, chopping and hacking in short swings that wove a deadly, oncoming wall of steel. Belmer took a pace back, braced himself, and then met those swings with his own blade. His strength surprised them all. When the blades met and shivered, and the sparks flew, it was Kurthe's steel that was turned aside, and the former slave who grunted with effort.
Calmly, icily silent, Belmer parried his furious foe, causing the Konigheimer's blade to glance wildly hither and thither. Each time it clanged too wide, the tip of the smaller man's blade darted in like the questing tongue of a serpent, slicing Kurthe's wrist here, and his forearm there. Soon the panting pirate was streaming blood from a dozen small cuts, and his sword hand was slick with dark blood.
Kurthe's fury mounted. He began to jump from side to side, seeking to startle his adversary, or use the momentum of his landings to jar the smaller man's grip on that deadly, darting blade. Belmer calmly slashed away Kurthe's shirt on his other flank, giving him a wound to match the first cut he'd taken on his ribs. The furious pirate balled up his own bloodsoaked shirt and swung it like a club, beating down Belmer's blade so that he could launch a low, deadly thrust right through the smaller man's belt.
The man who'd hired them all flashed a smile at him and nodded his head in what might have been admiration, as he sprang sideways like an acrobat at a fair.
Kurthe's seeking sword point found only empty air. Overbalanced, he couldn't manage the grip he needed to stop Belmer from tearing his own blade free. The small man twisted past the snarling pirate, spinning to rap him on the shoulder with the pommel of a dagger that hadn't been in his hand a moment before.
Jolloth and Brindra murmured in fearful unison at that as they watched-but when Kurthe and Belmer spun to a halt to face each other once more, the dagger was gone again, and the smaller man's knife hand was empty.
"Still hungry to know the color of my innards?" Belmer asked as quietly as if he'd been asking his foe's name.
Kurthe, panting for breath, only growled deep in his throat and leapt forward, swinging his blade again. The bloody rags of his shirt swirled from the wrist of his free hand; Belmer cut through them with a slash that sent a scrap of cloth flying out into the waves beyond the rail, parried Kurthe's cutting blade, and then dipped to slice into the Sharker's leg just below bis knee.
Kurthe howled, hopped sideways in pain, and staggered back. Belmer did not pursue him, but stood waiting until his angry foe came at him again. A low, snakelike wriggle took the outlander out of the way of a mighty hack that would have cut clear through his shoulder, had it landed. Belmer calmly planted one hand on the deck, spun around on it, and thrust his sword alongside Kurthe's other leg, laying it open in a spot that matched the wound above his other boot.
Kurthe roared in fresh pain, and more than one of the watching Sharkers swallowed. It was clear enough that Belmer was toying with their leader, showing everyone that he could slay the Konigheimer whenever he desired. Death could not be far off for Kurthe Lornar, for all his long struggle from the slavery in the upland orchards of his land to freedom on a heaving pirate deck.
"Give it up, Kurthe,'' Sharessa cried, as the two men circled each other once more. "He can-"
Kurthe shook his head violently, and waved her away with the hand that trailed the bloody scraps of his shirt. She fell silent as Belmer said, "Obedience, man of Konigheim, is sometimes the most prudent thing.'' Their blades met again, and Belmer sent Kurthe staggering back with a swift kick to the belly. "Can you see that?"
This latest humiliation seemed to drive Kurthe to the heights of rage. He chopped and hacked at the smaller man in a wild frenzy of blood, sweat, and singing steel. Belmer ducked and weaved and met him blow for blow, until the winded Sharker fell back, gasping for air. Blood was trickling into his eyes from where the smaller man's deadly blade had cut away a lock of his hair. He stared around dazedly to see if he could find the place where it had fallen.
As he stood, panting and glaring, Belmer's voice came again, still with that same maddening, unruffled calm. "Had enough?"
With a shriek of pure fury, Kurthe bent and snatched a knife from one boot, hurling it at Belmer's face. The smaller man struck it aside with his blade- but Kurthe, still crouched, had followed it straightaway with a dagger drawn from his other boot.
End over end, like a silver spark in the morning light, it spun toward Belmer's unprotected face. Calmly the small man reached over his own raised sword to pluck the oncoming dagger out of the air.
It quivered for a moment in his unharmed fingertips, drawing gasps from Ingrar and Sharessa, and a choked-out oath from Rings. And then, swift and sure, Belmer gave it back to its owner.
Kurthe's neck grew a sudden steel protruberance. The big Konigheimer choked, turned to his comrades with an imploring look in his eyes, clutched vainly at his throat, and then toppled to the decks with a crash. He rolled back and forth, twisting his body in agony, gave a last, desperate gurgle around the deeply-planted dagger, and fell still.
Belmer stepped around the spreading pool of blood and strode toward the remaining Sharkers, the sword in his hand glistening with Kurthe's blood.
"Are you still with me?" he asked them calmly. "Or am I going to have to-" he glanced back at the dead man "-cancel a few more contracts?"
Five of the Sharkers looked uneasily at each other, and then back at Belmer, their hands on the hilts of their weapons.
The sixth, Sharessa, collected their gazes almost fiercely with her own dark eyes, turned deliberately to face the man who'd hired them, and said firmly,
"We're with you."
As Rings and Ingrar nodded slowly, she added crisply, "Landfall in Doegan, and a lady to find, was it not?"
A sudden smile broke across Belmer's face, and he bowed to her as one might to a court noble. "Lady, it was," he said.
Epilogue
Back in the rigging again.
The man who was no longer fat hong in his favorite spot in the shrouds and smiled at that thought as he watched the moonlight turn Sharessa's bared shoulders to pearly marble below him.
Her dark hair was a swirl of wet black flame in the waters of the deck-tub he'd pumped full earlier, as she bathed unconcernedly, ignoring him. Belmer kept as still as a stone, his eyes moving from her to the endless dark waves and back again. As alert as he always was… and always must be.
The magic his patron had given him for this task was almost all gone now. He'd had to use the prayer-token of Umberlee from Doegan that had cost him so much in Tharkar, and the box of mists. Kurthe's desperate blade had smashed two of his precious vials, but he still had the long waxed climbing-cord bound about his waist, and the boot-heel daggers under his feet. Yet, as usual, his wits would have to be his first and best weapon in the days ahead, as he hunted down this Eidola, who must die. Who would die.
The six surviving pirates led by the lonely woman below were his second weapon in that hunt. He hoped the task wouldn't take all their lives-he hated waste-but after all, as the ballad said, all true pirates found their deaths through fire, sea, or sword.
As he'd had to slay the Konigheimer. Belmer sighed, stirred like a silent shadow, and slipped away aloft, climbing along the rigging like a surefooted cat.
In the tub below, Sharessa watched the mysterious man move away: Kurthe's killer, and the man who was all too likely to lead them all to their deaths-and shrugged away a stray tear. The gods can take us all, at any time. Why not go down fighting?
As the catlike form moved away from above her, one by one, from behind him the stars came out again.
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