Iakhovas laughed, and the sound of it trapped in the sewer chilled Laaqueel's blood. Looking at her, he said, "Do not tarry long, little malenti. I do fear I shall leave you in unkind company."
He broke the medallion and spoke a word of command. Blue vapor coiled from the two halves of the medallion and wreathed him. A sharp crack of thunder filled the sewer and he disappeared. The broken medallion pieces hit the ground where he'd been standing.
Laaqueel felt the smooth edges of the medallion in her fingers and thought about the magic power inherent in it. Her stomach rolled in nervous fear. What she'd been through with Iakhovas had been terrifying enough, but to trust herself to the spell locked in the medallion was the most fearful consideration she'd ever been forced to make. It would have been better to face an enemy in combat.
Even the deep shadows trapped in the sewer weren't enough to blind her to the small hand gestures Manistas made. In response, the wererats slowly fanned out before her, blocking her way back into the sewer channel. Dozens of red glints from true rats covered the underground tunnel behind them.
"We know you don't like magic, priestess," the wererat leader stated. "He used you as he used us. Perhaps together we might be able to turn the tables on him." He took a step forward, the short sword dropping to his side.
"So you would offer me a partnership?" Laaqueel demanded.
Manistas nodded, his rat's eyes never leaving her face. "Yes. It's more than he offers you."
Laaqueel considered unleashing one of her spells on him, to show him the true error of his ways and his poor judgment, but she was already tired, needing the embrace of the sea around her to return her strength. The other wererats closed in, getting well within springing distance.
"Maybe I'd even offer you more," the wererat leader said. "You're a very beautiful woman, and I can afford to be generous."
Hollow booms sounded outside the barred sewer shaft, and the stench of lightning filled the air, prickling Laaqueel's skin. She didn't respond and tried to break the medallion, only her fingers wouldn't obey her will.
The wererat to her right sprang, a short blade glinting in his pawlike hand.
Afraid then, knowing the wererats would pull her down with their sheer numbers, Laaqueel hurled the crystal medallion at her feet. It shattered against the stone and the blue smoke curled up around her, bringing the strong salty scent of purple seaweed with it. She screamed her name and she was gone, ripped away by Iakhovas's magic.
"There!" a man in a guard's uniform yelled, pointing.
Pacys turned, watching as the sahuagin manta bobbed only inches below the surface. The silvery black eyes of the sahuagin hanging onto their underwater craft gazed up at the humans aboard the great galley the Waterdhavian Guard had appropriated as a staging platform for the battle.
"I see them, I see them!" a sailor yelled. He grabbed a lantern from a peg on the railing and quickly started up into the rigging. "I'll signal the warning!"
In response to the first man's yell, the senior civilar in charge of the group aboard the galley called his men into position. They lined the railing alongside the bard.
Glancing at their faces, knowing the past hour since the battle had begun hadn't been easy, Pacys saw the pride and the dedication on the faces of the men. He'd heard prayers as they worked, from men calling on their gods to protect not only their families and them, but for protection to be offered to friends and neighbors as well.
A steel fishing net stretched between the galley Pacys was on and the one a hundred feet away. Though the storm had finally started dying down, the waves hammered unmercifully against the ship's hull. The deck shuffled erratically beneath Pacys's feet.
The cable supporting the top part of the net remained slack, creating a big U-shape into the harbor. The man in the rigging waved his lantern. A lantern on the other ship waved back in response.
"They see us!" the captain yelled up at his mate. "They have the wind working for them. Tell them to circle around and come into us. We'll scoop these damned sea devils up before they can run!"
Pacys hung onto the railing, not believing the sahua-gin would run. They'd attacked the harbor with the intention of destroying all they could, but there appeared to be no real objective other than destruction. Thinking that way bothered the bard. No military exercise was conducted without some kind of end in mind, and the sahua-gin had to have known they couldn't completely destroy Waterdeep.
The sea creatures had quickly lost interest in the attack during the last several minutes. They'd deserted in earnest, hurried on their way by the Waterdhavian Guard and the wizards and sailors who'd joined their ranks. The huge corpses of dragon turtles, sea snakes, eyes of the deep, sharks, and even a giant jellyfish floated in the harbor and required negotiation by ships. A dead giant squid had even washed up onto Dock Street, taking the defensive line that had been set up there out of the battle until a sufficient number of sturdy draft animals could be used to haul it away.
The other galley's sails filled with wind and it sped up, cutting a half circle through the water as it surrounded the manta. The huge net slithered into place around the sahuagin craft.
"Pull 'em up, boys!" the captain bawled. "Kelthar!"
"Aye, sir!" the first mate called back.
"Prepare that oil and heave it when I tell you."
"Aye, sir."
Pacys watched the silvery shimmer of the steel net as it rose up under the sahuagin manta. The craft was one of the large ones, fully seventy-five feet wide and two hundred feet long. The net couldn't get around all of it, but it settled around two-thirds of it.
The net seized the manta and brought it the rest of the way to the surface. Sahuagin clung to it, looking like crayfish babies that clung to the mother's tail, so thick on it they were crowded in on each other. There were more than he expected.
"Tymora stay with us," one of the sailors cried out. "There must be four, five hundred sahuagin on that craft!"
The galleys each normally carried a crew of a hundred and fifty, but almost twice that number were on them now as the fighting men of Waterdeep took the battle to their enemy. The numbers between sahuagin and Waterdhavian forces were roughly equal, Pacys guessed, but the sea devils pound for pound were the fiercest fighters.
Knowing their craft was tied up in the net, the sahuagin started swarming up the net toward the crews. Tridents flashed in their hands, and several of them loosened the throwing nets they carried. They navigated the steel net easily, their wide feet allowing them to climb with no threat of slipping through.
One of them stopped, hands raised in a beseeching posture. Pacys studied the shells and skulls the sahuagin wore on chains around her body and knew from stories that she must be a priestess. The bard turned to the captain.
"She's preparing a spell," he warned.
"Nonsense," the old man yelled back gruffly. "Damned sea devils don't believe in-"
"She's a priestess," Pacys said. "That kind of magic they understand just fine."
"Galm," the captain called, looking troubled.
One of the guardsmen turned.
"Put a shaft through that one," the captain instructed. "Man here says she could be calling something nasty up our way."
The guard nodded and pulled his bow back. Before he could fire, light around the ship suddenly extinguished, and the night's full darkness descended again, no longer held back by the galley's lanterns. The captain cursed loudly and ordered his men to the railing.
Pacys stared hard into the gloom, unable to detect more than a slither of occasional movement. The vibration of the sahuagin warriors clambering along the steel net lashed through the galley. A slaughter was coming, the bard knew, and the defenders aboard the ship would be fighting among themselves before it ended.