Queen of the Depths Page 6

  “So it is that you fear to wager what little you have already gained. Even though no pirate wins glory except through daring and ferocity.

  “Umberlee wishes to wake these sleeping virtues in you. Because you have the potential to be the greatest of reavers and stain the waters red with the blood of your prey. I see it now. It is why she sent me to you.

  “But to achieve your destiny, you must pay heed when she speaks through me. It begins here. Do what other captains fear to do. Plunder the Thayans. Win the respect of Dragon Isle, so that one day, you may rule it. Vurgrom and his rivals aspire for supremacy, like Immurk in his day, but the prize will be yours if you find the strength to take it.”

  Captain Clayhill stared at Tu’ala’keth in manifest astonishment. Finally the human’s lips quirked upward. “It’s tricky to know how to respond when somebody insults you with one breath and praises you with the next.”

  “I did neither. I spoke the truth as the Queen of the Depths revealed it to me. Hear or ignore it as you please.”

  Captain Clayhill turned to Anton. “Tell me your idiot plan again,” she said, “from the beginning.”

  When she’d set sail, Shark’s Bliss had been a sleek, handsome, two-masted caravel. As Anton considered her now, he supposed she was still handsome, but it was harder to see. The primary impression was one of calamity. The ship wallowed low in the waves, as if she were sinking. The sails hung in tatters.

  The crippled state of the vessel made the pirates grumble. Just as tense, Captain Clayhill stood beside Anton on the aft castle gazing out over the heaving, gray-green expanse of the sea. Her fingers with their gleaming rings kneaded the rail. Even on the brink of battle, she still wore a frilly, impractical gown, like a lady attending a banquet or ball.

  “Where is she?” the captain asked.

  “She’ll be back soon,” said Anton, hoping it was so. Tu’ala’keth could take care of herself, and was inconspicuous when she swam primarily beneath the sea. Yet even so, it was chancy to go looking for a Red Wizard’s vessel. She couldn’t know what enchantments he had in place to detect sentient creatures, or spellcasting, in his vicinity.

  Finally Durth, the orc in the crow’s next, called, “I see her!” In another moment, Anton did, too, as she parted company with her seahorse and swam to the ship. He tossed the rope ladder over the side, and blue skin and black fin wet and gleaming, the shalarin climbed upward with a facility that demonstrated she’d finally mastered the knack of moving nimbly even out of the water.

  “Did you find them?” Captain Clayhill asked.

  “Yes,” said Tu’ala’keth. She adjusted the strap securing her tinted goggles to her head. “I spoke to the wind and current, and they shifted their courses. As a result, the Thayans will come close enough to sight us.”

  “Good.” The captain turned and shouted down the length of the ship: “It’s time! Go below if you’re supposed to. If you’re staying on deck, look tired, thirsty, and helpless. If you’re carrying a weapon bigger than a knife, get rid of it.”

  “Prejudice against orcs, that’s what this is,” Harl said. All the members of his warlike race had to hide in the cramped, half-flooded hold. Otherwise, the Bliss wouldn’t look as they needed her to look. He gave Anton a wink and headed for the companionway.

  Kassur and Chadrezzan had to go below as well, but did so with an ill grace. Tu’ala’keth dived back over the side to conceal herself beneath the waves.

  Then, once again, there was nothing to do but wait. Anton had spent much of his life on one ship or another, and knew how long it took for two vessels to rendezvous on the open sea. Still time crawled.

  At last, squinting, he glimpsed the Thayan caravel, a speck far to the northeast. He was sure the Thayans’ lookout had spotted Shark’s Bliss as well. But would they change course to meet her?

  He thought so. She flew the flag of Aglarond, Thay’s bitter enemy, and looked defenseless. Were Anton a Red Wizard, he’d certainly take the time to plunder the foundering ship, capture those on board to ransom or enslave, and salvage the vessel itself if possible. It was too juicy an opportunity to pass up.

  Yet he sweated until he could tell the Thayans had in fact turned southwest.

  He supposed he still had reason to be anxious. The Thayans could conceivably maintain a certain distance and batter Shark’s Bliss with magic, volleys of arrows, and bolts from their ballista. If they did, the pirate vessel, unable to maneuver or run, had no hope of surviving. His ruse had seen to that.

  But the Thayans wouldn’t take that tack, not if convinced they had nothing to fear. Such a barrage could only diminish the value of their prize.

  The Thayan caravel was larger than the Bliss. Her hull, sails, and streaming banners were all varying shades of crimson, and she maneuvered so smartly that enchantment was surely involved.

  “Prepare to be boarded!” someone shouted. Grappling hooks flew, and crunched into the pirate vessel’s timbers. The Thayans heaved on the lines, drawing the ships together. With Shark’s Bliss riding low in the water, the red caravel’s deck was a few feet higher, but even so, it would be possible to clamber from one to the other.

  The Thayans proceeded to do so. Clad in leather armor and armed with javelins, boarding pikes, and short swords, the shouting warriors herded their new prisoners into a single clump. Anton tried to look scared and submissive while studying the newcomers. He needed to identify the spellcasters.

  He could see only one magician, a short, tubby Red Wizard with a rosy-cheeked, incongruously jolly face. Like all members of his fraternity, the Thayan had shaved every hair from his head, eyebrows included. Vermilion tattooing showed on his neck and wrists. He was likely marked over much of his body, but the scarlet robe hid most of it.

  It was lucky the Thayans had only one warlock, and that he’d elected to come aboard Shark’s Bliss, where his foes could reach him more easily. Armed with a spiked ball and chain, clad in flame-yellow vestments, a priest of Kossuth the Firelord still stood in the forecastle of the crimson ship. He could be trouble.

  “Now then,” said the Red Wizard in a cheerful tenor voice, “who’s the skipper of this unfortunate vessel?”

  “I am,” Shandri Clayhill said.

  The Thayan’s eyes opened wide in surprise. “Are you indeed? How charming. May I ask, how did the ship come to grief?”

  “A squall. Look, I have coin and land back in Velprintalar. I can reward you for rescuing us.”

  The Red Wizard chuckled and fingered one of the gold-and-diamond necklaces dangling on her bosom. “You already have rewarded me, dear girl, and will again later, more intimately. If you’re enthusiastic, perhaps you can avoid—”

  Still bound together, the two ships fell.

  As planned, Tu’ala’keth had cast a spell to scoop the water from beneath their hulls. They dropped several feet, down a hole in the gray-green sea. Everyone slammed down hard when the vessels hit bottom, but at least the pirates had known what to expect, whereas the sudden plummet caught the Thayans entirely by surprise. Some surely suffered sprains and broken bones. All looked stupid with astonishment.

  The spell effect ended as abruptly as it began. Saltwater crashed across the deck, engulfing everything, and Anton was suddenly afraid they’d remain submerged, that they lacked the buoyancy to rise. But then they bobbed up into air and sunlight.

  Screaming crazily, pirates erupted from every hatch that led down into the hold. Despite their lack of weapons, the freebooters who’d remained on deck also sprang at the stunned and disoriented Thayans.

  Anton looked for the Red Wizard. Though the reavers currently had the advantage, a powerful mage might alter that with a single spell. But not if he was denied the time to cast it.

  There! The plump wizard had placed his back to the rail, and some of his bodyguards had positioned themselves in front of him. The man in red intoned a chant as sonorous as a dirge and swept his hands in slow passes. Cool, whispering gloom drifted across the deck, as if the sun had pas
sed behind a cloud.

  Anton knew he’d never fight his way through the bodyguards in time to stop the spell, but fortunately, that wasn’t his only option. Another Thayan—swept overboard or killed by a pirate, the spy neither knew nor cared—had dropped his javelin on the deck. Anton snatched it up and threw it.

  It was a difficult throw because the spear had to pass between two of the guards to reach its mark, but he managed it. The point drove deep into the Red Wizard’s chest. Looking bewildered, he stumbled backward to slam into the rail. It cracked in two, and he tumbled into the sea. Sunlight scoured the shadow from the air.

  Anton instantly pivoted to find the priest of Kossuth. Curse it! Nobody else had neutralized the divine, and he was conjuring, too, bellowing and swinging his chain weapon over his head. The spiked ball at the end had ignited and left an arc of flame behind it like a tame shooting star.

  Anton would never reach the brazier, as such folk were called, in time to stop him. He peered about for another missile, even a makeshift one, but nothing came to hand. He wondered just how horrific the fire magic was going to be.

  Then the brazier lurched forward, and blood gushed from his mouth. His knees buckled, and when he collapsed, he revealed Tu’ala’keth standing behind him. She yanked her stone trident from his back and raised it in salutation.

  Anton grinned and nodded back. Then they each turned to find another foe.

  The fight lasted only another minute before the Thayans started throwing down their arms. They were able warriors, but without leadership or magic of their own, they couldn’t stand up to the pirates’ fury or the flares of flame, lightning, and withering darkness with which Kassur and Chadrezzan assailed them.

  The freebooters cheered, and Anton smiled and shook his head. All things considered, the first phase had gone easier than expected.

  Tu’ala’keth declaimed the sacred words and with the aid of her helpers, shoved the surviving Thayans over the side, one at a time. Some of the naked prisoners merely wept or advanced to the sacrifice as if sleepwalking. Others begged for mercy, screamed curses, or struggled to break free of their captors’ grips.

  Their resistance didn’t bother her. It was appropriate that the sacrifice should fight to survive if it could. Umberlee even spared a few of them, as she’d spared Anton. What vexed Tu’ala’keth was the attitude of many of the pirates, who mocked and jeered at the doomed Thayans, behaving as if the ritual was an entertainment.

  “Silence!” she cried at last. The spectators gaped in surprise. “This is a holy occasion. Do you wish to anger Umberlee, who gave you victory? She is quick to anger, I assure you. You can easily turn her against you.”

  “Glory to the Bitch Queen,” said Harl. The orc was one of the pirates who’d volunteered to assist in the rite. Other freebooters repeated the phrase in a ragged chorus.

  The deference pleased Tu’ala’keth—until she thought to contrast it with the apostasy of her own people. Then it took an effort of will for her to maintain a worshipful frame of mind until the conclusion of the ceremony.

  After that, she turned her attention to the hold. Her magic could help the squeaking, gurgling hand pumps draw the water out. But before she could begin the prayer, a joyous whoop aboard the red caravel snagged her attention.

  “Look at this!” called Durth. He threw back the lid of a brass-bound leather chest and lifted out a fistful of pewter vials, displaying them for all to see. No doubt they contained magical elixirs. A second box yielded gleaming, finely crafted broadswords and rapiers, surely bearing enchantments bound in the steel.

  “The hold ith full of magic!” Sealmid cried.

  Everyone cheered, and when the clamor subsided, Kassur and Chadrezzan were standing with Durth, Sealmid, and the other folk who’d gone to explore the Thayan vessel. Tu’ala’keth blinked, for she hadn’t seen the Talassans make their approach. All at once, they were simply there, at the center of attention.

  “It is a rich prize,” said Kassur. Tu’ala’keth had yet to hear Chadrezzan utter a word. Either he truly was a mute or he’d sworn a vow of silence. “I say we take it back to Dragon Isle and enjoy it.”

  “As I recall,” said Anton, “we’ve only completed the first part of our plan. Stripped to the waist, a rope in hand, he stood at the base of the Bliss’s aft mast, where he’d been helping to replace the tattered sails with serviceable ones. “We have the talismans that were going to Saerloon, but not the gold the Thayans expect to send home. I say we steal everything.”

  “That’s foolish,” the man with the eye patch answered. “We were lucky once. Our prize had only one Red Wizard and a single priest aboard, and we caught them by surprise.”

  “As we expect,” Anton said, “to take their counterparts in Saerloon by surprise.”

  “That may not happen,” Kassur said. “Even if it does, I guarantee you, we’ll find several Red Wizards on hand, some far advanced in the mysteries of their craft. We’ll find defenses in place, and whatever the shalarin claims, I doubt her scrying discovered all of them. It isn’t worth the risk. Let’s pass the dice while Lady Luck’s still smiling.”

  Tu’ala’keth understood what was truly in the Talassan’s mind. He still coveted her position for himself, and Anton’s rank for Chadrezzan. He wanted the crew of Shark’s Bliss to sacrifice primarily to Talos, not Umberlee. But none of that would come to pass so long as she and the Turmian kept guiding their comrades to notable victories. Thus, the storm priest counseled turning back not because he expected the raid on Saerloon to fail, but because he feared it might succeed.

  “Are you scared?” Anton asked him.

  “If so,” said Tu’ala’keth, “how dare you wear the Destroyer’s vestments? Does he not command his followers to be fierce and bold?”

  Kassur hesitated. He evidently hadn’t expected anyone to accuse him of being lax in the observance of his own savage creed. Perceiving that he didn’t know how to respond, the pirates muttered to one another.

  “Talos doesn’t command us to seek our own destruction!” Kassur managed at last. “He tells us to destroy our enemies!”

  “Then let’s destroy them,” Anton said.

  Tu’ala’keth turned to the aft castle, where Captain Clayhill had positioned herself to watch the sacrifice and supervise the ongoing repairs. Some of her jewelry still glittered dazzling bright in the sunlight. Other pieces were dull with spatters of Thayan gore.

  “You began this voyage with courage and faith,” said Tu’ala’keth. “I urge you to continue in the same spirit.”

  “If you want to come home with as grand a haul as any pirate’s ever stolen,” Anton said, “and a tale people will tell not just for a tenday or two, but for the rest of our lives.”

  Harl laughed. “That sounds good to me, Captain. Especially the part about the loot.”

  Shandri Clayhill drew a deep breath then gave a nod. “So be it. We sail to Saerloon, and may the gods pity any Thayan bastard who wanders within reach of our blades.”

  The reavers cheered. Kassur and Chadrezzan glared at Anton and Tu’ala’keth with balked, bitter anger in their eyes.

  Even late at night, Saerloon was a bustling port, and the land adjacent to the water was accordingly too valuable for any of it to go waste. Still, as Anton surveyed the Thayan compound at the northern end of the harbor, it seemed to him that it stood a little apart from its neighbors, as if shunned. Maybe it was just his imagination.

  Or maybe it wasn’t. Everybody hated Thayans, and rightfully so. The whoresons wanted to conquer all of Faerûn. People being people, though, they tolerated the Red Wizards and their minions because they sold magic cheaply. They bought it even though the coin went back to Thay to finance the zulkirs’ schemes to undermine and ultimately subjugate their neighbors.

  But the coin these particular Thayans were sitting on would not be going back to Thay. If Anton had his way, it was bound for Dragon Isle.

  The scarlet caravel glided toward to the dock. Clad in the armor and clothi
ng of the former crew, most of the pirates were aboard. They’d left a few hands on Shark’s Bliss, the minimum required to see her safely home.

  Harl turned the helm a notch. “If we haven’t fooled them,” he said, “I guess we’ll find out when the thunderbolts start flying.”

  “We flashed the proper signal with the lantern,” Anton said. Of course, that was only if the Thayans hadn’t changed the code and if the information he’d picked up in a thieves’ den in Selgaunt had been accurate to begin with. “This is the caravel they’re expecting. The dark should keep them from seeing the ship is crawling with orcs.” He shrugged. “I’m optimistic.”

  Harl snorted. “ ‘Crawling with orcs.’ Nice talk.”

  A breeze wafted the stink of a great city in their direction, a smell compounded of garbage and smoke. The caravel glided closer to the dock, where a pair of bald, robed Red Wizards and their bodyguards waited to greet her, and workers scurried about lighting torches to facilitate the process of mooring and unloading her. The flickering yellow illumination revealed the hulking statue at the water’s edge. Twice as tall as a man, it was nearly as wide as it was high, with enormous clenched fists and a face that was all snarling mouth and a single glaring eye.

  Anton studied the Thayans. As best he could judge—the night hampered his vision, too—none of them looked alarmed or even particularly wary. It wasn’t until the pirates started tossing lines to the dockhands that one of the latter abruptly goggled in shock. Maybe he’d noticed the flat-nosed countenance of an orc or Tu’ala’keth’s narrow inhuman features and black dorsal fin.

  Given a chance, the dockhand surely would have cried a warning. But Tu’ala’keth, in the stern castle, and Kassur, in the forward one, each cast the same spell, and all the ambient sounds—the creak of ropes and timbers, the splash and hiss of the water, the conversation on the dock, and the muddled drone of the city beyond—cut off abruptly, supplanted by utter silence.

  Weapons in hand, the first pirates sprang from the caravel to the dock like a wave sweeping onto the shore. In so doing, they slammed some of the Thayans off the platform into the water, and perhaps those were the lucky ones. They might survive if they could swim away.