“But …?” Shinthala prompted.
“Well,” Mareo said, “it wasn’t exactly a gentle miracle, was it? Not the first part. Silvanus and, I hear, Lathander made the rain fall harder than ever before, and the sea bashed ships in Sapra Harbor around as it rose. Some are damaged too badly for the shipwrights to repair them in time to meet the pirates.”
“But what you don’t understand,” Anton said, “is that the storm also strengthened the Emerald Enclave. If Turmish doesn’t have enough ships that are fit to fight, magic can take up the slack.”
Shadowmoon sighed. “Not necessarily.”
Anton rounded on her. “Lady, you told us that when your holy island was reborn, it renewed your strength.” By all the Hells, clinging to the treant’s finger, he himself had watched it happen, even if he lacked the knowledge to make sense of very much of it.
“It did,” Ashenford said. “But then we spent the land’s strength and our own. We didn’t weaken ourselves to the extent that your poor young friend did, but the results were somewhat similar. We need time to recover.”
“You may not be at your best,” Anton replied, “but it will still be three Chosen against one.”
“Fighting on the sea,” the half-elf said, “which is his place of power, not ours.”
“Even if the pirates come ashore,” Shinthala said, “a port like Sapra is at best neutral ground. The same is true of the farmland that keeps it fed. But I may know how to beat the raiders.”
Ashenford turned in her direction. “How?”
“They surely want to kill us. And Stedd Whitehorn. They may enter the forests to get to us.” The wrinkled, white-haired druidess smiled an ugly smile. “Then we’ll have them.”
“No,” Anton said. “That’s the wrong play.”
Shinthala’s smile twisted into a scowl. “Why?”
“Various reasons, but the main one is what your scout Vonda found out. Evendur Highcastle’s changed his strategy. He’s not hunting other Chosen anymore, and that means he won’t take the bait you’re dangling. Once he breaks the fleet, destroys Sapra, and burns the crops here on the island, he’ll sail along the coast wreaking the same kind of havoc with impunity. There won’t be anyone who can stop him.”
Shadowmoon folded her hands and stared down at them as if the answer to every vexing question could be found there. At length, she said, “Captain, I swear to you on the scepter of Queen Amlaruil that the druids of Turmish will aid in the defense of their homeland.”
Anton’s mouth tightened. “But you won’t give all you could, will you? You’ll hold something back. Even though that could make the difference between winning and losing.”
“Please believe,” the fragile-looking elf replied, “that we of the Emerald Enclave care about the folk of the towns and farms. We’ve always looked after them to the extent our path allows. But our true purpose, decreed by the Treefather himself, is to protect and nurture the wild lands. Thanks to you, Lady Sir Umara, and especially Stedd, we have the chance to do that more effectively than we have in a century. It’s a chance we mustn’t squander.”
“What about Stedd’s purpose?” Anton asked. “His god ordered him to keep the Umberlant church from becoming the supreme power around the Inner Sea.”
“Silvanus doesn’t want that, either,” Ashenford said. “But he also judges there’s little danger of the goddess of the sea extending her influence into the forests.”
“He might be surprised,” the reaver said. “He should visit a shipyard and take a look at just how much timber the carpenters use. But never mind. I can see I’m not going to sway you, so I’ll thank you for your hospitality and take my leave. If I head out now, I can be in Sapra tomorrow. I’ll help repair a damaged warship and sail with her when she puts to sea.”
“Did you forget you’re our prisoner?” Shinthala asked.
Anton blinked. Caught up in the passions of the moment, he actually had.
“I think,” Shadowmoon said, “that in light of his recent service to the land, and the matters of great urgency that will soon preoccupy the Assembly of Stars, we need not consider him such any longer.”
“I agree,” Ashenford said. “By the First Tree, if the assembly ever even finds out he was here in the first place, I’ll answer for it.”
Shadowmoon looked back at Anton. “There,” she said, “you’re free to do as you please. But as one who’s come to think well of you, I recommend you not go to the fleet. A disguise allowed you to walk through Sapra without being recognized. It won’t keep mariners who knew you in your former life from doing so if you seek to work right alongside them, and then, no matter how honorable your present intentions, the navy will kill you for the man you were.”
Anton laughed even though he felt like something was grinding on the inside. “If that’s the way of it, then fine. I’ve already wasted too much time fighting for causes I don’t have a stake in.”
On Umara’s previous visit, Sapra had seemed sluggish with hunger. Now, the port felt frantic, echoing with the sawing, chopping, and hammering of the shipwrights and smells of the smoke and pitch that likewise figured in their labors. Men of the watch were swinging mallets, too, erecting barricades at certain key points in pessimistic but realistic anticipation of the Umberlant raiders coming ashore.
Some townsfolk nailed shutters closed in an effort to make their particular homes secure, or drilled ineptly with spears in possibly unsanctioned militia companies. Others pulled carts, pushed barrows, or carried bundles or squalling babies as they headed out of town.
Umara wondered where the latter thought they were going. If it was the half circle of farmland around Sapra, that wouldn’t be far enough. If it was the forests beyond, she doubted many of them knew how to forage or avoid natural hazards. How would they have learned when, from what she understood, the Emerald Enclave had always discouraged intruders? Sometimes, it had done so violently.
She imagined the bewildered horror of the fleeing townsfolk if the same servants of Silvanus who’d worked magic to feed them yesterday ended up slaughtering them tomorrow because they frightened a bear cub or trampled a sacred wildflower. Many a Red Wizard would have found the potential irony humorous, but she didn’t. Perhaps she’d been away from Thay too long.
“I keep thinking,” Anton muttered, “that we should have brought Stedd with us.”
Umara glanced at him. “You said the pirates won’t venture into the forests to try to take him, and the druids said they’ll kill them if they do.”
“I remember.” He detoured around one of the deeper puddles in the street. “Just as I realize neither of us knows how to nurse a sick child. I suppose that after months of first hunting the boy and then helping him, it just feels odd to walk away and leave him behind.”
“For me, too.”
“But to the deepest of the Hells with how it feels. We got the stubborn whelp to Turmish. Now, I’m going to concentrate on what I want.”
“Which is what?” she asked.
He hesitated. “A new ship, I suppose. Somehow. Put me ashore in Akanul, and I’ll figure it out.”
For a moment, she felt disappointed but didn’t know why. What had she expected him to say?
They walked on. Four men came striding in the opposite direction, and then, evidently taking note of her red cloak and robes, stepped aside into a puddle to let her and Anton pass on the higher, drier part of the cobbled street. Less intimidated or simply intent on his errand to the exclusion of all else, a boy pushing an empty barrow ran past a few breaths later, and the wheel and his pounding feet threw up water to splash her.
Though the two boys didn’t look especially alike, the incident made her think again of Stedd. She told herself she wasn’t abandoning him. He himself had said that he-or his god-wanted her to return to Thay.