Vaddi shook the rivulets of sweat from his eyes and paused, chest heaving. He saw then that the sea devils had drawn off—at least for the moment. Like a wave they had come and so had they poured back into the sea. However, the waters were still thick with them, their huge eyes still fixed on the Sea Harlot, but as they waited, Gonardal sent his spells at them, blasting them where they swam. Many sank underwater for cover.
Zemella came to Vaddi, about to speak, but they both swung round when they heard a hideous shriek near the stern of the craft. Arriving there with Nyam, they saw that Vortermars had snared one of the sahuagin in a noose and had roped the creature tightly by the neck, dragging it onto the deck. It was the sahuagin that had shrieked, cursing its captors in a vile torrent of abuse, using a distorted but recognizable form of the Common tongue.
Vaddi watched as Vortermars approached the sahuagin with great care, for those claws, at both arm and leg, still swung about in dangerous arcs, capable of eviscerating a man in one sweep. Other nooses snaked out from the pirates and soon the sahuagin was trussed up tightly like a fowl about to be cooked. Vortermars placed his cutlass edge against the throat of the creature. Its eyes blazed as if they would burst from the sheer power of its hatred.
“Do I give your head and entrails to the tritons, you filthy scum, eh? Eh? Or should I allow you a quick death and toss your corpse back over the side to your mates?”
The sahuagin spat something in its own bubbling tongue.
“Tell me what I want to know and you’ll go back to them with your throat cut, no more than that, eh?”
Vaddi watched as Fallarond stood close by, content to let Vortermars deal with the captive.
“Who sent you?” said Vortermars, never for an instant taking his blade from the sahuagin’s neck. “Who paid you to attack us, eh?”
“We are sahuagin!” snarled the creature, squirming as if it could free itself. “These seas are ours!”
“Who sent you?” Vortermars repeated, drawing blood with his blade.
“We are our own masters! Our community fights for itself! You’re in our seas, elf-loving pirate trash!”
Vortermars stood over his victim for a long moment, gazing at him. Then, to Vaddi’s surprise, the pirate leaned hard on his cutlass, killing the sahuagin in one swift move.
Before Vaddi or anyone else could speak, Vortermars turned to them. “No point him lying about it. The sea devils weren’t lent by whoever you’re hunting. We’re in their seas, that’s all.”
Fallarond nodded. “Their hatred of elves would be enough for them to attack.” He turned to the rail. “This may not be over yet.”
Vaddi and his companions all returned to the rail, each of them studying the still heaving waters. Vortermars had his dead captive flung out into the waves, where swift claws took it below. Countless scores of the sahuagin still followed the ship, but no second attack was yet forthcoming.
Vortermars leaned far out, cupping his hands around his mouth. “You’ve felt the blast of our spells!” he shouted. “Count your dead! Ten times more will die every time you try and climb aboard this ship! Go your way and let us pass?”
For answer, a steel lance came driving up from the sea, but Zemella had been watching and she deflected it with a ball of light. The lance dropped harmlessly into the water, melting as it fell. Vaddi sensed that this had the desired effect on the sahuagin, as if they understood that the Sea Harlot housed no ordinary foe. They did not press an attack, but as the craft ploughed on westward, the sea creatures were never far from her sides.
“The sea devil wasn’t lying, eh?” Vortermars grunted to Nyam and Vaddi. “If they were in this for someone else, they’d have been at us again, thick as fleas. But they’ll need watching, eh? Night and day.”
The enormous chamber was thick with shadows, gloomy and sepulchral. Far below the surface of Xen’drik, hidden away in the innermost heart of this fallen city, the dusty vault echoed to the rare sound of footsteps. A lone figure, draped in a cloak that merged it with the darkness, moved uneasily through this region, pausing at a huge door that had long since been bent back on its hinges. Beyond the cracked threshold in another even larger chamber, only the tombs waited. Them and one other. This creature rose up from its bed of dust and shuffled forward to meet the cloaked one. They were like two graveyard phantoms greeting each other across a haunted landscape, the air sterile and dead, the stone around them like the long rotted bones of a titanic corpse.
“Cellester,” came the soft voice of the gargoyle-like figure. “You have come back to us at last.”
The cleric stared at the homunculus in distaste. “Where is your master?”
“Zuharrin has much work to do. He has little time to spare. He has sent me to greet you.”
Cellester grimaced, barely masking his loathing of this creature. “I must see him.”
“Have you fulfilled your role? You seem to be alone.” The little figure’s eyes widened. “I do not see the Orien youth.”
“Zuharrin will have him soon enough.”
“Words will not be sufficient,” said the homunculus.
Cellester pulled from his robe an object wrapped in leather. “I have baited the hook, and the fish has taken the bait.”
The homunculus shuffled back, eyeing the leather-bound object with deep suspicion. “What is it you hold? I feel its hot power.”
“The Crimson Talisman,” said Cellester. “Shall I reveal it to you?”
“No!” cried the homunculus, shaking with fear. “Put it away!”
“Take me to Zuharrin. He will have no reason to doubt my success.”
“Where is the youth?”
Cellester slipped the leather back inside his cloak. “Coming. He cannot bear to be apart from the Talisman. He will come to claim it. He has no choice.”
19
Beyond the Shores of Night
As the sun sank into the western clouds, its last rays completely smothered, the Sea Harlot eased into the offshore currents close to the coast of Xen’drik. There was a deep uneasiness aboard, as crew and passengers looked across the turgid waters at the shadowed coastline. Above them the clouds piled in, pack-like, eager for the night, fuelled by the vapors and smokes of the massive land mass.
Vortermars pointed to the blackness ahead. “Coast here’s carved up by rivers and creeks. Biggest of them goes right into the heart of the continent, but it’s a risky way to enter Xen’drik.”
He looked out at the dark waters around them. Although the sahuagin had followed them for a long way across the Thunder Sea, they had not attacked again. They were no longer to be seen, but the company felt there was always a danger that they would return.
Beside him. Fallarond and the others studied the coast. “You told us earlier that you have contacts here,” said the Deathguard commander.
“Aye. Barbarians. They fear nothing. They’ve small settlements. I trade with them, but I’ll not sail the Sea Harlot into their port, eh? They’d swarm over her like rats! I know an islet or two offshore where we can lay up. You can go ashore in our light craft.”
Fallarond turned to Vaddi. “You have a strategy?”
Vaddi glanced at Zemella. “Once we’re ashore, we have to try and locate the horn. I’m not sure—”
Vortermars laughed. “I have a suggestion.”
Zemella scowled at him.
“What is it?” Fallarond asked the pirate.
“Like I said, there’s a lot of creeks. I’ll take you to one. Hide yourself in its upper reaches, eh? Disguise yourselves good and proper, I’ll have some of my crew visit the barbarians in Thargang— a little village a ways into the jungle. Maybe someone will have got word of this sorcerer, eh? Xen’drik’s a big place, but they’ve got long ears in Thargang. Need to have. Survival, eh? Or profits, comes to the same thing, eh? They’ve contacts with Storm reach in the north. You elves aren’t the only ones with spy networks. If there’s word, I’ll have it sent on.”