“Menneath will go back to his people,” said Vaddi, turning to his friend with an emphatic look.
Cellester nodded. “It will help us. We need a diversion.”
Vaddi scowled. “I don’t want his life endangered.”
Menneath snorted. “I can handle myself. And if I must abandon you, let me at least do something useful. What do you want from me, cleric?”
“I am certain that the reavers at least will try to follow us. You must sail your craft back to your village. Draw them off. We’ll make our own departure under cover of darkness.”
Vaddi looked horrified. “No! It’s too dangerous!”
Menneath laughed. “The Marella will outstrip any reaver craft in the coastal reefs. I’ve played slip and hold with pirates along this coast before. None of them have netted me yet. Their craft are too cumbersome. All right for deep water, but in the shallows they’ll never catch me.”
Vaddi wanted to protest further, but Menneath had clearly allied himself to Cellester in this. The cleric opened the sack he had brought and took out various nondescript garments.
“Vaddi, you and I will need to change into these. Put what we are wearing now into the sack. Come. There is no time to lose. Menneath, you remain as you are.”
As Vaddi and Cellester changed their clothes, Menneath held open the sack for them, and in a few moments they had effected the change, Vaddi and Cellester now looked completely neutral, their robes shabby, slightly voluminous. They were able to conceal their weapons beneath them. In the darkness, they could be anyone, and they each had a deep cowl to obscure their features.
Cellester turned again to Menneath. “Sail swiftly and deviously back to your people. It’s unlikely that the rabble army will have attacked them. It will only be a matter of time before they tire of the Hold and disperse. Vaddi and I will take advantage of your deception and flee with Nyam Hordath.”
Menneath let out a deep sigh. “Sovereigns of the sea! I see the sense in this, Vaddi, but I fear for your safety.”
Vaddi put his arms around his friend and hugged him. “Menneath, this is a parting that will cut me deep. Now, of all times.”
“It seems that it must be. How else are you to escape?”
Cellester put a finger to his lips and at once they all fell silent. The night closed about them like a fist, but there was an unnatural silence about it.
“What is it?” hissed Vaddi.
“I fear a trap set down below us. More men had come to the inn, which is strange at so late an hour, even for Rookstack. They may not mean to kill us, but no doubt they want to drag us off and present us to whoever hired them. We could fight them, but Lhazaar Principality axemen, fuelled up on rough mead, are something I’d rather avoid.”
Cellester went to the narrow window and opened it with the flat of his hand. It protested, old wood tearing and a hinge ripping loose. Cold air rushed in with the night.
“Follow me,” said the cleric, and within seconds he had clambered cat-like onto the narrow ledge, squeezed through the opening, and swung upward into the darkness.
Both Vaddi and Menneath were used to scaling the rocky cliffs around Marazanath’s coastline, having tested each other’s courage in endless wild games since they were six years old. This climb was meat and drink to them. In no time they had swung out and up over the eaves, kneeling on the cracked tiles of the inn’s roof. Below them, in the room they had so swiftly quitted, they heard its door bang open. Gruff voices clotted the night air.
Cellester was above them, his dark shadow limned against the night sky like a huge, winged predator. The storm had at last abated and through a tear in the clouds a string of Eberron’s smaller moons gleamed like pearls. The cleric pointed back along the roof to where it joined the sheer face of one of the great stacks of the port. No one spoke, but they knew what was needed. Quickly they went to the cliff and peered down into the streets. Cellester led them on a dizzy race across a number of leaning, crumbling rooftops and then indicated that they would have to go down the cliff face to the street below. It yawned like an open grave.
Behind them they could hear shouts and others clambering up to the roof. Vaddi glanced back and saw the large figures of the Lhazaar reavers and bits of moonlight glinting off drawn blades. The reavers were perfectly at home scaling cliffs, their own homeland being reputedly as rocky and treacherous as any such lands in the north. It did not take the five men long to get on to the roof and give chase to the runaways.
Cellester and the two youths swung down the cliff that dropped into the street, fingers digging into the cold rock, finding nooks and crannies, toes getting a hold in the most minute crevices. Like spiders they climbed down into the street. The reavers, though adept at this, were less agile, and the runaways gained vital minutes in their flight.
Cellester led them unerringly through the narrow side-streets, and after a short run to a quayside that ran off the main harbor. Several small craft were jammed together, bobbing up and down on the restless waves. On one of them they could see a huddled form. Cellester urged the youths across the decks of three craft until they landed in the far one. The shape proved to be Nyam. Once they were aboard, they all flattened themselves, heads below the gunwale. Only Nyam remained upright, watching the quayside.
The reavers emerged from the alley, split up, and ran up and down the cobbled quay, axes gleaming in the sputtering glow of the street torches. One of the figures saw Nyam and hailed him.
“Three fugitives!” snarled the reaver, his voice ringing back off the houses. “Yer must have seen them. Which way?”
“Aye,” Nyam hollered back, cupping his mouth. The wind had dropped, but it was still strong. He pointed back toward the main body of the town. “A man and two youths heading into the port.”
“If yer lyin’, I’ll be back for yer head!” called the reaver and ran down the quay.
Watching the receding figures, Nyam slipped the mooring rope he had been holding out of sight and within moments his craft was away from the others, nosing out into the channel that led down to the harbor. Cellester and the youths kept flat to the deck.
When the cleric spoke, his words were almost lost in the wind. “Peddler, ease us into the harbour and alongside their craft. Menneath, when it’s safe, I’ll give you the word. Sail away from Rookstack with all haste. We’ll slide back into the shadows and leave later.”
Vaddi was burning to look out to see what was transpiring, but he thought better of it, his heart racing. Beside him, eyes closed in concentration, Menneath was a coiled spring, ready to be unleashed at a moment’s notice.
Nyam manoeuvred his craft, which was slightly larger then the Marella, into the harbor and along the main quayside. He could see the reavers entering and leaving some of the dives there, calling out angrily to each other, shaking their heads. For the time being they had not noticed the craft as she drifted along the main body of moored ships. But a snarl of fury signified that one of the reavers at least was intent on going back to interrogate the one he had challenged earlier. His frustration blinded him to the fact that the very same being was no more than thirty yards away in the harbor.
Nyam brought his craft to the place where the Marella was tied up. She had not been interfered with. Presumably the reavers or their masters had seen no use in it.
“Into your craft,” Cellester told Menneath. “Go right into the bay and make sure they see you.”
Menneath nodded. He gave Vaddi’s hand a last pumping, their eyes locking for a moment. “Until next time.” Menneath grinned and then, sleek as a sea otter, he was over the side of the craft and into the belly of the Marella. He untied her and was about to take her out of the harbor when there was an abrupt movement in her stern. A tarpaulin was flung aside as if by a freak wind and a solitary reaver, blade in hand, leaped forward.