Brushing off her hands, she rolled the pirate over and extracted her weapon. "Lendle, are you all right,?" she asked. The gnome still stood, a little wobbly from the drop. He nodded yes and picked up his dagger. Blood no longer flowed from his head wound, but his face was drained of color.
"OfcourseIamallright," Lendle protested, taking one step forward and collapsing to the floor in a dead faint next to Fritzen's cot.
"Kof. Stay here with Lendle and Fritzen!" Maq ordered. She knew it wouldn't be the minotaur's choice of assignments, but she hoped he would realize there were few others she would trust with the job of defending her friends. Koraf frowned, but positioned himself outside the armory door, weapons drawn.
Back on deck, an exhausted Hvel and Vartan had succeeded in loosening all the grappling hooks. Maquesta watched them toss the hooks and line back toward Mandracore's ship. The Perechon now floated free of the Butcher, which at this point was all but consumed by roaring flames, a brilliant orange torch adrift on the sea. Belwar wheeled and soared above the Perechon, using his horn and his hooves to help pick off those pirates who were still fighting. Not that many were. Demoralized by the sight of their burning ship and the spreading word of Mandracore's fall, most of the Butcher's pirates who remained on board the Perechon stood together in stunned silence, their hands away from their swords and belaying pins. While they hadn't turned over their weapons, they made no attempt to use them. Their surrender was clear.
A number of pirates milled about in the water near their burning ship. Maq saw that someone had managed to lower the Butcher's three longboats into the sea. Several sailors had already pulled themselves into the boats.
The Butcher had suffered heavy losses. With Mandracore injured, possibly dying, Maq didn't feel compelled to eradicate the crew at the cost of more injuries to her sailors.
"As captain of the Perechon, I declare victory!" Maq shouted. "Put down your arms. Anyone from the Butcher who wishes may join their comrades in the water. Those who don't will be thrown in our brig-to be turned over to the proper authorities when we reach port. This is a shipping lane, and you can take your chances at being picked up. Otherwise you're welcome to the hospitality of the next port's jail."
"And maybe the possibility of a noose!" Vartan howled.
The Perechon sailors cheered.
At that, every pirate who could manage to stay afloat went over the deck railing into the sea. Two ogres picked up the limp form of Mandracore, who was breathing shallowly, and they jumped into the water with their captain.
"Why'd you let them take Mandracore?" Hvel asked Maquesta. "You should have let us finish him off."
"I refuse to sink to his level, and if I put him in our brig, he'd die and stink the place up," she answered coldly. "And I don't want Lendle taking time to mend someone I want to see dead. Let the elements claim him. It's a more fitting end for him, anyway."
"And if the ogres get hungry…" Hvel laughed. "It will be something other than the sea claiming his remains."
Vartan organized a crew to throw the dead sailors from the Butcher into the water. Most were ogres, and required two or three men to pick up one body. No one objected to the grisly task; it was evident they wanted the bodies gone as quickly as possible. Vartan, looking over the Perechon's crew, was pleased to tell his captain there were no fatalities-yet-though there were enough injuries to keep Lendle and Ilyatha busy for many days.
To everyone's amazement, once the Perechon's decks were clear of pirates, the flames engulfing the Butcher vanished. Not even a whiff of smoke lingered in the air. Maq couldn't believe her eyes. The Butcher was still disabled with a broken mast, but it appeared not even to be singed. Belwar, hovering above the Perechon's deck, erupted in deep, mellifluous laughter at the gaping faces below who looked up from the longboats.
"The fire was just an illusion created by Belwar," said Ilyatha, who had joined Maq.
"An illusion? How could that be?" she demanded. "I felt the heat. I smelled the smoke."
"A ki-rin's magic is very powerful," Ilyatha said simply.
Maq still stared at the Butcher. "But the mast, the broken mast is real?" she asked.
"Yes, the split mast is real, but the boulder that broke it was created by Belwar," Ilyatha advised her. "See, the boulder, too, has disappeared."
The hole in the Butcher's deck created by the large metal boulder was still visible, but the boulder itself was not. "When the ki-rin creates something as hard as metal, it does not last long," the shadow warrior explained.
Maq sighed, turning to survey her ship. "Well, I wish he could create something soft and edible that would last," she said. "Lendle's in no condition to cook, we have a long night ahead of us, and I'm starving."
"Oh, but he can," said Ilyatha delightedly and called out to the ki-rin, repeating Maquesta's request.
Thus did an evening that began in rather desperate straits end pleasantly for the Perechon's captain and crew, with a sumptuous supper of roast joint, bread pudding, and mushrooms for Ilyatha.
Maquesta, thinking about the meager provisions she had been so intent on bringing back from Sea Reach, looked at the banquet spread out before them and laughed aloud with joy. If only Father were here to see this, she thought.
If only.
Chapter 13
After snatching only a couple hours of sleep, Maquesta rose before dawn the next day to patrol her ship. She grimaced when she saw the six bodies covered by a tarp, the wounded sailors who had not pulled through during the night. They occupied a section of the main deck near the stern, and she planned to give a brief service for them shortly after full light. She sighed sadly. One of them was the young sailor who had gotten seasick during the race. She made a mental note to search his belongings and discover where his parents lived. They deserved a letter at least.
She bowed her head, thinking that each of the men had deserved better than to die at the hands of Mandracore's pirates. Then she cursed herself. These six men were dead because of her desire to help one man-her father. Had she traded their lives for his? And would Lendle and Fritzen trade their lives, too? What price was she willing to pay?
But to turn back now would mean the dead had sacrificed themselves for nothing, she thought. Maq mulled the possibilities over in her troubled mind as she walked toward the armory.
Aside from the personal loss Maquesta felt, losing the six sailors meant the Perechon would be dangerously undermanned for the rest of the voyage. Though not as undermanned as the Butcher, she thought with some satisfaction. Many others among the Perechon's crew had suffered injuries in the fight, but those were relatively minor wounds-cuts and bruises mostly. Those sailors were resting in their hammocks, and Ilyatha, who had briefly tended to them, said they would be up and about in time for their duties later today.
The shadowperson also had tended to Lendle. The gnome's wound must have been grievous, for Ilyatha had hovered over him for hours last night. Still, the mysterious telepath declined to tell Maq just how serious-had in fact outright refused to tell Maq, despite her repeated questions. At one point in the evening, he went so far as to order Maquesta out of the makeshift infirmary.