Trying for the big one next? Hamil asked. The crew won’t stand for it, Geran!
“Kraken Queen’s the one I really want,” Geran answered under his breath. He just couldn’t imagine how to convince the crew to ram another ship. “Avast rowing! Reverse your benches again!” he called to the crew. “We’re going ahead now.”
“Where, Aram?” Skamang demanded from his seat. “Where are we going?”
“I’m bringing us about,” Geran replied. “Now sit down and row!”
With grumbling and a few suspicious looks, the crewmen switched positions again. Geran fixed his eye on the Black Moon flagship, only a few hundred yards away and still moored at the pier. He could see pirates hurrying to man the ship and spotted a flurry of activity by her quarterdeck. There was a muffled thump from the pirate ship, followed three heartbeats later by a shrill whistling in the air.
“Darts!” Hamil cried. “Cover!” He threw himself against the gunwale, crouching under its cover. Geran ducked down behind the helm. An instant later, a dozen short iron javelins sleeted across the deck. Most clattered on empty space or stuck quivering in gunwales or masts, but a few fell among the crew packed on their rowing benches, wounding several men. Screams of pain and howls of dismay rang across the deck. One dart hissed over Geran’s shoulder and took a deep gouge out of the ship’s sternrail. Then a catapult on Kraken Queen’s foredeck snapped against its frame, and a ball of flaming pitch streaked across the smoke-filled sky to splash into the water a little short of Moonshark’s bow.
“Kraken Queen’s firing on us!” shouted one of the crewmen.
Geran grimaced. Moonshark had no shipboard artillery. Very few ships in the Moonsea-warship, pirate, or otherwise-did. Their only attack was to ram or grapple their foes. “Oars in the water! Give me some steerageway, or she’ll rake us again! Tao Zhe, full speed!”
Moonshark started to glide forward as Tao Zhe struck the beat and the crew found their stroke again. Now she was moving forward, her prow toward Kraken Queen. Another flight of darts hissed through the air, most of them overshooting this time. Then Murkelmor climbed back up to the deck. “We’ve sprung seams by the stem!” he called. “Some oakum ought to hold her for now, but she’ll need repair soon.”
“Understood,” Geran replied. “Get your carpenters to work on stuffing the leaks.”
Murkelmor called out several of his men from their places and sent them hurrying into the forecastle. He glowered at the iron darts littering the deck, the wounded men in the benches, then ducked as flaming pitch sailed over the midships deck to explode in the water on the far side of the ship. The dwarf swore and turned to yank Tao Zhe’s baton out of his hand. “Avast rowing!” he shouted. “All of you, stop! You’ll drive us right into Kraken Queen next!”
“Stand aside, Murkelmor!” Hamil shouted. “We’re sitting ducks for the catapults if we’re not moving!”
“That’s as may be, but none of us’ll row a single beat more until the captain makes his intentions clear!” Murkelmor retorted. “Get us alongside a pier, Aram, or by Moradin’s beard we’ll take the wheel and do it ourselves!”
“He doesn’t mean to bring us to shore,” Skamang said angrily. “He’s up to some black treachery! Can’t you all see it?”
Geran held his course, fuming. He wanted Kamoth’s ship … but he couldn’t take her by himself, and he couldn’t trick Moonshark’s crew into helping him to do it. His best chance to deal with Sergen and Kamoth lay ashore now, but he couldn’t bring another ship full of pirates into the city. Kraken Queen’s catapult threw again, and this time her volley of darts fell across the center of the ship. Even with the instant of warning the darts’ passage through the air provided, several more men fell to the iron javelins.
“Why did you strike Daring?” Murkelmor demanded. “What’s your game, Aram?”
Geran spun the wheel to starboard and turned Moonshark’s bow seaward. “Get them rowing, Murkelmor! We have to get out of the flagship’s range before we do anything else!”
The dwarf glared up at Geran, but he handed the baton back to Tao Zhe. “Battle speed,” he agreed. “Go ahead, get her underway again.”
The deckhands bent their backs to the oars, and Moonshark began to pick up speed. Kraken Queen’s next catapult throw brought another ball of burning pitch. This one struck Moonshark low on the hull, a few feet aft of her sternmost oar. A great gout of stinking smoke billowed up from the side, but the shot was too close to the waterline and was soon extinguished by the choppy waters of the harbor. By the time Kraken Queen was ready to fire again, Moonshark had drawn back out of range. The pirate flagship was still tied up alongside the old Veruna wharf and did not appear inclined to pursue while most of her crew was engaged in a pitched battle ashore.
Geran surreptitiously eased the helm over to approach the Arches from their harbor side. Hamil’s idea about running the ship aground was worth a try. There were places in the forest of stone columns where a small boat could slip through, but nothing Moonshark could manage. Unfortunately, Murkelmor no longer trusted Geran’s judgment at the helm. The dwarf moved to the side of the ship and leaned out for a good look forward. “Slow down or come about!” he shouted at the quarterdeck. “We’re running short o’ sea room here!”
Geran ignored him. After a moment, the dwarf swore to himself. “Did you no’ hear me the first time? Where are you steering us, Aram?”
Murkelmor and Skamang won’t let us run her aground, Hamil said. Perhaps it’s time to leave?
Geran stood his ground a moment longer, trying to think of some ploy that might mollify Moonshark’s crew. Murkelmor swore again and began to shake the crew around them, getting them to drop their oars and stand up from their benches. The looks the crewmen turned on the quarterdeck ranged from slack-jawed puzzlement to dark fury, but none boded well for his continued command of the ship. He and Hamil might be able to hold the quarterdeck ladders for a long time-at least, until the crew remembered the crossbows below in the ship’s armory-but what was the point? Moonshark might turn back to the docks and join the attack, but that would mean coming within range of Kamoth’s catapults again. He’d already bloodied the Black Moon. There simply wasn’t anything more he could do aboard Moonshark short of sinking her, and the crew wasn’t about to let him do that.
“Come on!” Skamang roared. He pointed at Geran and Hamil. “Kill those miserable dogs before they do any more harm! They’ve betrayed us all!” The Northman seized a boarding pike by his bench and led the way as the crew surged up out of the benches and swarmed toward the quarterdeck.
“I think you’re right,” Geran said to Hamil. He retreated to the ship’s wheel, spun her bow toward the Arches, and looped the keeper over the top spoke. Then, tossing his cutlass aside, he moved to the sternrail, swung his legs over, and leaped into the dark water astern of the ship. It was bitterly cold, and when he surfaced he gasped for air. Hamil followed a moment later, dropping into the water a few feet behind him. Moonshark swept away from them, carried by the momentum of her sprint even though her oars were no longer pulling in unison.
“Somehow I knew it was going to come to this,” Hamil spluttered. “You and I in the water, watching the ship sail away.”
“I think they’ll keep her off the rocks,” Geran said. “If we could have kept them at the oars just a little longer …”
“I’ll point out, for the record, that your command of Moonshark lasted less than a single day.”
“So noted,” Geran answered. The water was very cold, and he couldn’t stop his teeth from chattering. “Come on, we’d better get ashore. Skamang looked mad enough to come around and try to run us down.”
Treading water, Geran watched the ship recede. There was a flurry of activity as the crew swarmed the quarterdeck and regained the helm. Skamang glared over the rail at him, and several other corsairs joined him. Then cries of alarm distracted the pirates; someone had noticed that the ship was drifting into new danger. The crew rushed back down to the
ir benches, and the oars slowly began to dip into the water again. A moment later Tao Zhe leaped over the side, hitting the water with a large splash. The Shou surfaced and began to swim in the direction of Geran and Hamil.
“The ship’s back the way you came, Tao Zhe,” Hamil said.
“I know it,” the cook said. He glanced over his shoulder and laughed. “I like my prospects better in the water. Everyone on board knows I’m your friend.”
“Suit yourself,” Geran answered. “It’s a long swim, though.”
They struck out for the closest land, which was the point east of the Veruna docks. It was hardly near the center of the action, but it already looked to be a swim of several hundred yards, and Geran was not about to lengthen it by swimming all the way to the city’s wharves. It took them a quarter hour before they staggered up the pebble-strewn shoreline near the mouth of the Winterspear, shivering and exhausted. He turned and looked back over the harbor; Moonshark had turned her nose toward the wharves again, but she hugged the west side of the harbor, staying away from Kraken Queen and her catapults.
“Did we do enough, Hamil?” he asked his friend.
Hamil flopped to the ground and started to wring water from his braids. “We sank one ship for certain, and the other ship that was between her and the pier likely isn’t going anywhere soon either. We kept Moonshark out of the fight for most of the evening, and I’ll wager that Kamoth won’t have much use for Narsk’s ship after tonight. I don’t know what more we could have done.”
Tao Zhe looked at them both, his eyes wide. “I knew it! You are no pirates. Who are you?”
“No, we’re not,” Hamil said. “I’m Hamil Alderheart of Tantras. This is Geran Hulmaster of Hulburg, nephew to the harmach.”
“Don’t worry. You don’t have anything to fear from the harmach’s men,” Geran told Tao Zhe. “I’ll see to it that you get a pardon and an honest sailor’s berth, if you want it.”
“You rammed Daring on purpose! And you meant to ram Kraken Queen too!”
“It would’ve been hard to manage it all by mistake,” Hamil told him.
“I’d like to know how Sarth fared,” Geran said. He shivered in the cool night air. He’d lost his boots and his cloak in the swim. For that matter, he was unarmed as well. Still, he sighed and straightened up. “Come on. We might as well go see who’s in charge of the town’s defense and whether we can lend a hand.”
Hamil nodded wearily and climbed to his feet again. They set off along the shore toward Bay Street. This corner of Hulburg’s waterfront was still covered in the ruins of the older city that had preceded the town, and they stayed by the water in order to avoid the old rubble. Suddenly Hamil reached out and caught Geran’s sleeve, pointing seaward again. “Geran, look! There’s Seadrake!”
Standing into the harbor under oar and sail, Seadrake gracefully swept past the city’s Arches, making for the wharves in the center of town. Her white sails glowed a dull red in the reflected firelight. In the distance Geran heard the ship’s bells of the Black Moon vessels begin to ring in alarm. Ashore, the fighting began to slacken as bands of pirates broke off their battle against Hulburg’s defenders, beginning to retreat to their surviving ships. “By Tymora, but Kara’s got good timing!” Geran said with a grin. “That’ll be a hundred more swords on our side. With a little luck, we might catch all of them now!”
The two companions hurried to Bay Street, with Tao Zhe tagging along after them. After being briefly confused for pirates due to their dress, they fell in with a band of Spearmeet who were pressing westward from the Lower Bridge, sweeping the street clear. By the time they reached the foot of the wharf where Kraken Queen had been tied up, the pirate flagship was already rowing her way clear of Hulburg’s docks. Geran grimaced. He should have guessed that Kamoth would flee once a warship appeared to threaten his ability to escape. All they could do was stand on the wharf and watch the chase develop across the harbor.
“It looks like Murkelmor’s thought better of landing now,” Hamil observed.
Geran followed his gaze and glimpsed Moonshark reversing course to slip back out to sea, evading Seadrake. “I’m not surprised. He’s not the type to throw in with a losing cause.” He found he was a little relieved that the ship would get away for now. Skamang and his lot Geran had no use for, but Murkelmor and a few of the others were decent fellows after their own fashion. He hoped he wouldn’t have to cross swords with them.
Seadrake tried to close with Kraken Queen, but Kamoth proved an elusive foe. The pirate flagship was handier under oars than Seadrake, and Kamoth demonstrated it by backing one side and stroking ahead with the other, spinning the ship on a copper piece and then darting away before Seadrake could turn around. The two vessels exchanged a few volleys of catapult fire and plenty of arrows during their close pass, to no great effect. For a brief moment, Geran feared that Seadrake would miss all the pirate ships, but then she turned and bore down on the last one-Wyvern, he guessed-catching her before she got more than a bowshot from the wharf. The fighting was over quickly; Geran couldn’t see well from the dock, but he could hear the angry shouts and fierce battle cries of the Hulburgans aboard their warship as they threw themselves against the pirates who’d attacked their town.
As the fighting between Seadrake and Wyvern died down and the remaining two Black Moon vessels disappeared into the blackness of the Moonsea night, Geran caught sight of a tall man with skin of brick red and a prominent pair of horns sweeping back from his forehead. He stood at the waterside watching the pirate vessels attempt their escape. After a tenday of seeing Sarth every day in a human guise, it took Geran a moment to recognize his friend. “Sarth! You’re here!” he said.
The tiefling turned at Geran’s call and gave him an uneven smile. “You sent me, in case it slipped your mind.” He looked at Geran’s sodden clothes and bare feet. “Might I guess that you are no longer captain of Moonshark? And Hamil is no longer first mate?”
“The crew was sorely disappointed by Geran’s decisions during the attack,” Hamil said. “It became clear to us that our presence was no longer required. Regrettably, we parted ways with Moonshark in the middle of the harbor.”
“Did you get here before the Black Moon?” Geran asked.
Sarth nodded. “Yes, but not by very much. I became lost in those hills east of town and missed the coastal track. By the time I found the path I feared that I would be too late and pressed on with all the speed I could muster. When I arrived at Griffonwatch, no one recognized me until I resumed my normal appearance. That finally impressed upon the Shieldsworn the earnestness of my mission. They sent runners to muster the Spearmeet companies and summon the merchant company armsmen, but the town’s defenders were still massing when the Black Moon ships appeared. If I’d been delayed by even half an hour more, the attack would have been much worse.”
Geran reached out to grip Sarth by the shoulder. “Thank you, Sarth,” he said. “You saved scores of lives tonight, perhaps hundreds. I won’t forget it.”
The sorcerer inclined his head. “I only did what I could.”
Hamil looked around at the waterfront and sighed. “It looks like the Red Sail’s tradeyard was hit hard,” he said. “We’ll have plenty of cleaning up to do.”
Geran gazed out to sea after the fleeing Black Moon flagship. He had unfinished business with Kamoth and Sergen, and he meant to take it up again soon.
SEVENTEEN
8 Marpenoth, the Year of the Ageless One (1479 DR)
Sunrise was still an hour away as Geran made his way from the harbor districts toward the castle of Griffonwatch. More than a little fatigued by two sleepless nights and the bonechilling cold of his swim in the harbor, he’d left Hulburg’s defenders to round up the last of the Black Moon corsairs stranded ashore. The swordmage resigned himself to a long, cold walk through the chaotic streets, and started up the hilly, cobblestone-paved path of Plank Street. He meant to speak with the harmach before he allowed himself to fall into bed.
&nb
sp; He passed by Erstenwold’s and noted that the store seemed mostly undamaged, although several of the windows were broken and a black smudge along one wall showed where some pirate had tried to set it afire. Mirya was not there, which didn’t surprise him; her house was on the landward side of Hulburg. Given the late hour of the pirate raid, she wouldn’t have been anywhere near the harbor district. He climbed up the steps to the storefront and peered into the darkened windows to reassure himself that nothing was out of place inside.
“Hey, what’re you up to?” Several Hulburgans in the motley arms of the Spearmeet watched Geran warily from the street. The militiamen approached with their spears leveled, led by a strapping young man with a brown beard. “Get away from there!” he shouted at Geran.
Geran turned and raised his hand in a placating gesture. “It’s me-Geran Hulmaster. You can point your spear away from me, Brun Osting.”
Brun took a step forward and studied Geran with a suspicious look before recognition dawned in his face. He quickly pointed his spear skyward. “Begging your pardon, Lord Geran. I didn’t make you out in those clothes. You look just like one o’ those sea reavers we’ve been chasing after all night.”
“No fault of yours, Brun. I’ve spent the last tenday passing myself off as a pirate.” Geran came back out into the street. “I’m glad to see that you’re well. From what I could tell, the Spearmeet was in the thick of things.”
The young brewer smiled grimly. “Aye, we had our share of fighting. We made sure that plenty of reavers who left their ships never made it back to ’em. But now that we’ve handled the pirates, the thrice-damned Cinderfists are out looking for trouble. There’s all kinds of fighting over in the Tailings and down along the poorer parts of Easthead. We were just heading that way to lend a hand.” He glanced over Geran’s shoulder at the signboard for Erstenwold Provisioners, and suddenly he fell silent. His face fell, and he looked at the ground.
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