"I have quarters reserved for you in the sterncastle," he said, and turned to leave.
"One more thing, Captain," Azriim said, and Sertan turned back to face him. Azriim pulled an enchanted emerald from his pouch. He held it up for Sertan to see, then placed it on the deck and spoke a word of power. The emerald shattered, leaving in its wake a soft green glow that quickly spread to the entirety of the ship.
To prevent another unwanted appearance of the priest of Mask, Azriim projected to Dolgan and Riven.
In truth, he figured Erevis Cale to be dead or at least incapable of following them. Demon Binder was leagues and leagues away. And with this dimensional lock in place, the priest could not teleport through the shadows to Dolphin's Coffer, even if he could somehow find them.
The crew grumbled about the glow and shared hard looks. Before the captain could protest, Azriim said,
"I know it is awkward, Captain, but it is a necessary precaution."
"We are like a beacon out here," one of the crew shouted to the captain.
"Wizards be damned," growled another.
"What are we into, Cap'n?" asked another.
"Take this," Azriim said, loudly enough to be heard by the crew nearby. He produced another ruby, his last, from his belt pouch. "To compensate for the inconvenience. The magic will harm neither crew nor ship. In fact, it will protect us all."
The captain looked at Azriim, at the ruby, and took it.
"Be about your rest or your duties, jacks," the captain said to the crew. "We can trust these mates."
The captain's firm reassurance quieted the crew.
Captain Sertan ran a professional ship and his men obviously respected his word.
"I appreciate your trust, my friend," Azriim lied.
The captain nodded, took the compass from Azriim's hand.
"I'll get this to Nimil at the helm."
"I would like to set to immediately," Azriim said. "Time is of the essence."
The captain hesitated, nodded, and walked away. As he did, he called out to the crew, "On your feet, lads. Selune is bright and her tears are shining. Let's set to now. The sooner we get the lubbers to where they are going, the sooner we get to spend the coin they have paid. You'll all be in whores, grub, and drink for two tendays."
A round of tired cheers greeted the captain's words. The crew rose from deckbags and started to prepare the ship for sail. She'd be underway soon enough.
Azriim smiled at Dolgan and Riven. The wounds Cale had given were fully healed, though his shirt was ruined.
"An eventful evening, not so?" he said, still smiling. He looked down at his clothing and frowned. "I need a new shirt."
A score or more slavers swarmed the deck toward Cale and Jak. The seamen brandished steel in their fists and scowls on their faces. Across the ship, the door to the sterncastle suddenly splintered, forced open from inside. It triggered Jak's ward.
A blast of ice shards and cold exploded from the door jambs. The four ship's masters who had tried to exit screamed, grabbed at flesh torn apart by blades of ice and wood, and fell to the deck.
"I tried to stop you by jamming the lock, you dolts!" Jak shouted.
Many of the advancing crew heard the commotion from behind, saw the dead or dying masters, and slowed their charge.
Cale clutched his mask and incanted a prayer to the Shadowlord. The spell summoned a magical blade of force that answered to Cale's mental command. The blade materialized in the air beside him and at his mental urging, streaked at the big slaver who had ordered the charge. The man tried to parry with his overlarge cutlass, but the blade's darting attacks drove him back.
Two of the slavers tried to assist their comrade, while the rest continued to advance. Several hurled daggers or knives. Cale and Jak hunched, and most flew wide or short, but a few struck home. The shadows that surrounded Cale prevented the two daggers that hit him from doing any more than bruising his skin, but one knife slit a furrow in Jak's cheek, and another dagger stuck in his shoulder. He jerked it out with a grunt-it had penetrated only slightly-glared at the crew, and incanted a prayer to his god.
When the little man finished his spell, he pointed his holy symbol at the slavers. Three went wide-eyed, turned, and fled in terror as if chased by a prince of Hell; two others turned with a snarl and began punching their comrades; three more stopped where they stood, let their blades fall from their hands, and babbled nonsensically in their native tongues.
"It will not last long," Jak said.
"There's only two, jacks!" shouted one of the crew, to bolster his comrades.
The rest nodded, brandished their blades.
With a mental command, Cale formed the shadows around him into a confusing, constantly shifting jumble of illusory images. When he was done, there were not two but seven.
Still the crew advanced, wary but determined. Fifteen paces. Ten.
From nowhere, two slavers landed in a crouch beside Jak and Cale. Cale had only a moment to curse himself for forgetting the two men he had seen atop the forecastle. They must have avoided the blast from Azriim's ball of fire.
The approaching sailors cheered at the appearance of their comrades and rushed forward as one.
"Ware!" Jak shouted, and dodged back from the slash of the smaller of the two, a hard-eyed Thayan. The larger, his three gold earrings glinting in the moonlight, seemed confused by the shifting array of shadow duplicates that surrounded the actual Cale. He hacked wildly with his cutlass at the nearest and the touch of his blade dispelled the image. Cale answered with a slash across the man's chest and finished him with a stab through his throat. He whirled around to see Jak driving his shortsword into the gut of the little slaver, who fell to the deck, screaming and bleeding.
They turned to face the rest of the charging crew and watched with surprise as one of them fell face first to the deck, an arrow sprouting from his back. The slavers around the fallen man shouted, stopped their charge, looked around the deck. Cale, too, tried to pinpoint the source of the fire as another arrow took a second slaver in the throat. Another hit a third in the arm and sent him spinning to the deck, screaming with pain.
The shots were coming from the crow's nest.
I'll explain, Magadon's voice said in their heads.
Cale gave a shout, stepped through the shadows and into the midst of the crew, slashing with Weaveshear. The blade opened the throat of one surprised slaver, pierced the chest of a second. One of those whose mind was clouded by Jak's spell took an awkward cut at Cale, slipped on the deck, and fell at Cale's feet. Cale stabbed him through the chest. He died clutching Weaveshear's edges.
A cutlass slashed across Cale's back, a blow that would have felled him but for the protection granted by the shadows. Instead, the weapon merely opened a painful gash that his skin soon closed. Cale spun around with a reverse slash from Weaveshear but the slaver parried the blow, snarled, and bounded back. Cale followed up, at the same time mentally commanding his summoned blade to attack the slaver. It streaked in from the side and opened a gash in the man's shoulder. While he screamed, Cale decapitated him with a crosscut from Weaveshear.
From the forecastle, Jak shouted the words to a spell and a white beam of energy streaked into a slaver near Cale. The energy seared the man's skin and drove him to the deck, where he lay prone and unmoving.
"This ship is ours!" Magadon shouted down from the crow's nest. "Flee on the ship's boat or you all die!"
An arrow thumped into the deck, vibrating, near a slaver's feet. Another arrow went through the chest of a second slaver.
With an effort of will, Cale caused a cloud of impenetrable shadows to surround him. Cale could see through the blackness perfectly, but he knew the slavers would be able to see nothing. He took up Magadon's call.