“Thinkin’ of leavin’ us so soon?” he snarled, slicing the air with the vicious weapon.
Menneath almost toppled over but managed to draw his own thin sword. He darted under another swipe of the reaver’s weapon.
Vaddi gasped, instinctively drawing out his long dirk. He hardly noticed Cellester’s restraining arm as he made for the prow of the peddler’s craft. He watched in horror as Menneath ducked and dived in the rocking Marella, the huge pirate slashing this way and that at him. It would only be a matter of time before he cut the youth to ribbons.
“Over here!” bawled the reaver, and there was an answering cry along the quay.
“Quickly, make for the open sea,” Cellester barked at the peddler.
“No!” cried Vaddi. “Go forward! Go forward, damn you, or I’ll swim to him.”
Nonplussed, the peddler sent the prow of his craft toward the Marella, which now bumped up hard against the quayside. It was fortunate that she did, for at that moment the pirate had been about to hack into Menneath. Instead, the jarring of the boat against the quay sent him tumbling over her side. Menneath jabbed with his sword, drawing a shriek from the reaver, who slid into the dark water of the harbor.
Vaddi leaped from the peddler’s craft into the Marella and got Menneath to his feet. He ignored the cleric’s cry behind him, and both youths turned to face the oncoming reavers. They would never get the Marella free of the harbor and away before they were overcome, so they jumped onto the quay and sprinted hard along it. The reavers roared their delight at the chase. For a moment, Cellester and the peddler were forgotten in their craft, unable to do anything about the pursuit.
“Where to?” gasped Menneath as he and Vaddi raced along the quay.
Vaddi looked at the numerous alleyways that led off the harbor. “Try and lose them in there!”
He led them up a constricted passage and then turned left and down another alley that barely permitted one person to shoulder through it. A shape blocked the way ahead, and Vaddi realized it was another of the reavers, though smaller and armed with only a dirk.
Without pausing he thrust his own dirk into the man’s chest. To his horror it burst like a mattress, dust and brittle bone spilling out from it as the reaver fell to his knees, skeletal face screaming. Menneath struck the fleshless head from its shoulders, and the two youths were past and beyond to a wider street, but pursuit was close behind.
They reached a small square, the cramped houses leaning over them, blotting out most of the light. Vaddi cursed. They had trapped themselves. A dozen reavers closed in behind them and on two sides, all exits shut off. Vaddi gripped his long dirk and thought of his father and his half-brothers.
One of the reavers eased forward, an axe slung carelessly over his shoulder. “Come, come, young sirs. No need for bloodshed. All we want is to take you to our master for a little talk.”
They remained frozen for a moment only. The huge reaver, who was clearly flesh and blood, laughed and took another step forward and was about to say something else when a sword tore through his chest, slick in the half-light with his blood. He toppled forward with a strangled cry. Behind him, dragging his weapon free of the corpse, Cellester waved the youths to him. They obeyed, though they had to parry the cut and thrust of steel as the other reavers tried to close the trap.
Sparks flew as blade and axe clashed. Vaddi felt the sweep of a weapon as it tore through the fabric of his cloak, inches from his flesh. But he won through to the cleric’s side. Then he was running once more, down another narrow alley, close on the cleric’s heels. Ahead of them he could barely discern the quayside and the waiting form of the peddler, who held a long blade.
There was a cry behind him and Vaddi turned. Menneath had slowed, clutching at his neck. Vaddi pulled up short only to see his friend crumple to his knees. He had an arrow through his neck, its bloodied point protruding out of his throat.
Vaddi screamed but already he knew it was too late. The first of the reavers towered over his friend. As though watching a slow nightmare, Vaddi saw the axe come down. Something tore at his arm, almost jerking him from his feet as Cellester yanked him away toward the quay.
The reaver shouted as he made his killing blow, but as Menneath toppled, he sprawled in the alley, tangling up the reaver’s feet. The youth’s last act was to thrust up with his blade, deep into the groin of the man who had killed him. The blade tore into flesh and ground on bone. The reaver’s howl of triumph turned to a hideous shriek of agony. He crumpled over the dying Menneath, choking the alley as those behind hacked and thrust at them in an attempt to force their way past.
Vaddi saw everything through a red haze of fury, time ripping past him. The next few moments meant nothing to him as Cellester and Nyam Hordath got him into the peddler’s craft and set out from the quayside, the sail snapping in the swirling night wind like a live thing. The craft swept across the harbour, and when the pursuing reavers finally burst out on to the quayside, the boat was far out in the bay. Menneath’s life had won them that much.
Vaddi sank into the bottom of the craft, his body wracked with sobs, a combination of exhaustion from the flight and overwhelming horror at the death of his friend. That, coupled with the monstrous events at Marazanath, had driven him to a new depth of grief. Shattered, he gave in to it.
Cellester stood silently in the stern of the boat, watching Rookstack as it dwindled behind them. The peddler, too, was silent, though his face was clouded with pity.
An hour later, with dawn breaking, they appeared to have outdistanced any pursuit, though Cellester felt sure this would be no more than a temporary respite.
Nyam sniffed the wind, as if it could impart vital knowledge to him. “We’re heading for the port of Scaacrag on the mainland. You should be able to get an airship there. What about my payment?”
“All in good time.”
“How do you intend to pay me? No tricks, cleric. Not that I don’t trust a man of your position.”
“I serve House Orien. It is a wealthy house and pays its debts. I promised you more gold than you could carry in a sack. You shall have it.”
“In Scaacrag?”
“Just get us there.”
The peddler screwed up his wrinkled face but turned his attention once more to the rough seas ahead, weaving his craft through its countless islets and reefs.
For several days they sailed eastward. Sky and sea alike were calmer than they had been, though there seemed to linger a promise of storm in the air. No ship pursued them—or at least none that they could detect. Nyam had brought enough food for them—dried fish and rough bread, washed down with fresh water. There was little conversation. Vaddi brooded on the horrors he had been through, but he fought back the grief, using anger to stem it. Cellester likewise seemed drawn in on himself, coming out of his reverie only to study the horizons and the numerous rocks, islets and cliff-islands that pocked the seas in this remote region, Nyam hummed tunelessly, affecting the air of a simple man, as he had when he had first met the company in the inn, although Vaddi respected the quick wits that had saved them at Rookstack.
Vaddi reflected, too, on the cleric. What did he really know about him? Cellester was something of a renegade, a servant of the Church of the Silver Flame, but a man who had openly voiced his scepticism not only of the authority of gods over the destiny of men but also of the authority of his church. Yet Vaddi saw within the cleric a shadow, the hand of something outside of himself. Vaddi had only intuition to go on, but in these times intuition could not be ignored. Cellester had been a servant of House Orien since before Vaddi’s birth, in happier times, when his mother had been alive. The cleric had undoubtedly aided in the growth and esteem of the House and had been responsible for much of the training and refining of its soldiery. Anzar had told Vaddi that it had suited the taciturn cleric to live in the remote area of northeastern Khorvaire at Marazanath, as his rejection of the more devout aspects of the faith of the Silver Flame would have made him a marked man in Thrane, where the knights expected the clerics to demonstrate an active zeal. Since serving Anzar, Cellester had evidently had to become more circumspect.