“But you’ll wait.”
“Aye. A month, as agreed. Not an hour more, eh?”
“My agents in Pylas Maradal will lead you to your reward,” said Nyam, “even if you have to leave without us.”
Thus it was agreed and the Sea Harlot sailed. Her decks were filled with Fallarond’s disguised Deathguard, fifty of his finest warriors, many of whom were also excellent sailors, used to the trim lines of the Aereni warships. At the bow of the craft they set a seer named Gonardal, whose understanding of the sea and control over its mysteries were revered. Using his powers, he shrouded the craft in mists that kept it from the prying eyes, both undersea and aerial, for they were heading into waters where sinister forces were known to gather. The Sea Harlot cleared the waters of Aerenal and picked up speed, as though borne away by a supernatural current.
“This is a dangerous game,” Zemella said as she watched Vortermars go below. She still found it hard to suppress her anger each time she set eyes on the pirate.
“He will be the first to die if there is treachery,” Vaddi said.
She saw the earnestness in his look and softened for a moment. Before she could say any more she heard Nyam approach. “What, exactly, have you paid the pirate?”
He wore a pained expression. “A small fortune,” he said. “Stashed away in Pylas Maradal over the years. No matter! What would I do with it?”
“What do you know about the cleric’s master?”
“I suspect we are dealing with someone who is attempting to bind Xen’drik’s dubious powers. If it’s an army he is forging, it would be volatile, needing enormous control, hence his desire for the horn.”
“When we reach the coast,” said Vaddi, “what will be our next move?”
“Wherever this sorcerer is,” said Nyam, “will be known to the people in Xen’drik. There are barbarians who roam there, renegade elves, other strange races. Word of this power will surely have reached them. We will find his seat of power.”
“We’re basing our mission on the hopes of possible rumour?” Zemella scowled.
“You have a better idea?”
Zemella said nothing.
“Will he use the talisman?” said Vaddi. “Even without me?”
“He may try.”
“If he does,” said Zemella, “it will be disastrous. He’ll unleash something over which he has no control.”
Fallarond came to them, his eyes fixed on the heaving swells of the ocean. “One of the lookouts reports something out there.”
They saw Vortermars standing at the starboard rail, face clouded with uneasiness, and went to him.
“Strange currents on all sides,” he said. “Weird way these waves rise and fall, eh? Don’t like it.”
“The Thunder Sea is aptly named,” said Fallarond. “There’ll be many such storms on this crossing.”
“What’s coming isn’t from the skies,” Vortermars growled. “It’s from below the waves. If it’s what I think, you’re going to need all your elf powers to fight it.”
Fallarond went swiftly to the prow, where Gonardal was studying the mists and the surging waters. The waves parted around the sharp prow in twin lines of boiling foam as the Sea Harlot raced westward.
“We have company,” said the seer, “and they grow restless at our intrusion in their waters.”
“Sea creatures?”
“Sahuagin. Many of them.”
Vaddi turned to Zemella, having heard the exchange at the prow. “What are sahuagin?”
“Sea devils—humanoid, but with fins and claws. Usually they remain in coastal waters, but they have no love of elves. If they have our scent, they may well attack.”
“Do you think Cellester’s master has sent them?”
“Doubtful. They are a threat to all shipping on the seas to Xen’drik.”
Nyam stood beside them, looking even more uncomfortable than usual. “I think what is relevant is the sheer weight of numbers. We seem to be surrounded.”
The entire crew, Aereni and freebooters alike, were at the rails now, arrows nocked to bows and swords drawn in preparation to repel a powerful assault. Out in the mists on all sides, just as Nyam had foreseen, dark shapes lifted from the tossing seas and light gleamed on the scales of reptilian heads. The sahuagin were indeed gathered in numbers, their mouths opening and closing slowly, revealing their razor teeth. Scores of large packs seemed to be circling the ship, rising and falling, supremely confident in their superiority.
The sahuagin wasted little time in studying the ship. As one, their host closed in, the sea thick with them. The crew, Aereni and pirates alike, loosed arrows into them, but for every arrow that took out one of the sea creatures, two others seemed to replace it. Dozens evaded the rain of arrows and swarmed up the sides of the Sea Harlot, wielding long, spiked weapons in their vicious claws. In no time at all, the defenders found themselves caught up in a ferocious battle for their lives.
Vaddi and Nyam fought side by side, their swords a blur as they cut at these demon-like spawn of the sea. The sahuagin, taller than Vaddi and the Aereni, had green and black striped skins, scaled and armored like lizards, with a sharp-ridged spine and a wide mouth filled with needle-like teeth. They ripped and tore with their talons, using their terrible clawed feet to devastating effect. Beside Vaddi, Zemella wove a spelt and cast it like a vivid net of light around them. The huge eyes of the sahuagin screwed up tightly against the light, blinded by it. Vaddi and Nyam were quick to take advantage of this, cutting ruthlessly into their dazzled foes, who swung about wildly but ineffectively.
Gonardal also flung bolts of white light about the crew, protecting them, the beams cutting into the sahuagin masses like molten flame. Such deadly destruction did not halt the invaders, however, and they continued to swarm upon the ship. In the seas below, their numbers were vast, as though they had sent an entire army to attack the ship.
Vaddi’s eyes were streaming as the spell held, but he watched as Vortermars and Fallarond fought shoulder to shoulder, common allies in the heat of this encounter. Vaddi gasped as the pirate’s cutlass slashed and hacked with extraordinary dexterity, here severing a sahuagin head, there an arm or leg, the pirate shouting out his cries of defiance as he fought. Vaddi could see that Fallarond was equally as formidable in his use of his glowing blade, though he fought in silence, his skull-face hiding his emotions.
The sahuagin themselves shrieked maniacally as they fought, and where they pulled down an Aereni or a pirate, snared in their nets, they ripped their victims to bloody shreds, mocking their remaining foes with their victories. Their hatred of the elves was a living thing, and their will to overrun the ship was absolute.
Vaddi was glad of the power of his elven blade, for its light gave him an edge. He fell the fury in him growing as he fought, and he took renewed strength from it, carving a bloody path to the ship’s rail, dispatching sahuagin to either side in a frenzy of slaughter. Zemella was never far from his side, using both the light and her own blade to murderous effect.
“Keep together!” she shouted to Vaddi. “If they surround you, I’ll not be able to protect your back!”
Vaddi did as bidden, for only the quick action of the Aereni bowmen spared him a wounding as three sahuagin loomed on him. He lost track of time in that crimson mayhem, whirling and spinning, carving a path along the rail in a frenzy until he felt Nyam’s touch.
“Hold, Vaddi! You’ve killed them!” said the peddler, indicating the three closest of the dead sahuagin at Vaddi’s feet. “No need to carve them into strips!”