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 ore 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’kethuntil 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 Boss’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 Faerun. 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 clothing 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 ores.” He shrugged. “I’m optimistic.”