“Perhaps.” She pulled the rust-colored wand from her belt and swept it back and forth as she chanted rhyming couplets. Anton had the feverish feeling that he could almost see what the tip of the rod was sketching on the air. His vision seemed to splinter around each stroke.
Still, he didn’t know what she was conjuring until the long crimson creature with its piscine tail and body and horned, half-human face surfaced midway between the Octopus and the galley. Even then, he didn’t know exactly what it was, an accurate representation of some huge demon fish that swam the seas of the netherworld or simply a product of Umara’s imagination.
Whatever it was supposed to be, the phantom swam at the galley as fast as the Turmishan ship’s oarsmen pulled it through the waves. The creature’s fangs gnashed as though it couldn’t wait to start chewing through the hull.
Men on the galley cried out in alarm. An officer shouted commands. Anton grinned. But then another voice-a druid’s, mostly likely-shouted, “Ignore the beast! It isn’t real!” And with that, the huge fish with the demon face started to flicker, present one instant, absent the next.
Umara whispered words that made Anton feel as though he were choking. Her fingers clenched on the wand, and blood trickled down her wrist as if she were gripping a blade.
The flickering stopped. The demon fish veered left an instant before it would have collided with the galley’s ram and sped on down the vessel’s starboard side. The gnashing fangs, its momentum, or a combination of the two, snapped off one oar after another.
The creature hadn’t quite finished when the druid bellowed words that made it vanish and stay vanished. But by then, the galley was crippled. Anton judged that even a puny breeze would enable the Octopus to leave her behind before the Turmishans collected their wits and ran out replacement oars.
He turned to Umara and asked, “But it was an illusion?”
Breathing hard, she smiled. “Some illusions are more illusory than others.”
“Evidently. Nice work.” As the Octopus left the galley in its wake, he resumed his peering. And then he spotted a ship, small in the distance but still impressive to knowledgeable eyes, to the northeast.
She was impressive because she was a galleon. The large ships with their long beaks and lateen-rigged mizzenmasts were rare on the Sea of Fallen Stars, and no captain from Pirate Isle commanded one. Some coastal lord-an Impilturian, judging from the lines of the vessel-especially eager to curry favor with the church of Umberlee must have sent her when the waveservants put out the call for reinforcements.
Anton pointed. “That’s Evendur.”
“How can you tell?” Umara replied.
“You met the arrogant son of a hag. Can you imagine him commanding anything other than the biggest, grandest ship in his fleet?”
The wizard smiled. “When you put it that way, no.”
“Neither can I.” Anton raised his voice. “We’re going after the galleon off the port bow!”
A sailor frowned. “With the wind the way it is, it could take all day to catch her if we can do it at all.”
“I’m a pirate,” Anton replied. “Catching other ships is my trade. You Thayans just do what I tell you.” He ran toward the stern to take the helm.
Evendur Highcastle grinned as he watched a Turmishan caravel whose masts and sails were masses of fire. Some artilleryman shooting burning shot or bowmen loosing flaming arrows had managed to set them ablaze despite the rain, and now the ship was doomed.
Or so he assumed. But then he felt magic stirring on the caravel as some druid completed a spell, and all that flame rose higher into the air, clear of the rigging, and flowed into the form of a gigantic yellow hawk. The elemental spirit looked around, and then, with a beat of its wings, hurtled not at the pirate ship that had set the caravel on fire-that vessel had evidently moved on to seek another fight-but at Evendur’s own galleon the Fury. Crewmen cried out in alarm.
Evendur spoke to the sea and told it to manifest a spirit of its own. Gray-green water heaved and became a colossal squid, which then snatched for the hawk with whipping tentacles.
Steam burst into being as water and fire came together. The burning spirit ripped with its beak and claws. But still, the squid dragged it out of the sky and then beneath the waves. Clinging to life, the hawk continued glowing for a breath or two, and then the light went out.
That left the spellcaster who’d dared to send the fire elemental against Evendur’s own vessel. The undead pirate focused his will on the portion of the sea under the caravel and raised it up like a hill. The Turmishan ship slid down the swell and capsized.
And just for an instant, Evendur felt lightheaded. He gripped the rail to steady himself, and the pressure made liquescence slough away from the firmer flesh underneath.
That instant of shakiness was a reminder that he’d been using his magic freely, and even the might of a Chosen had limits. Now that it was too late, he realized he could probably have killed the druid on the caravel with more finesse. As opposed to squandering the power necessary to destroy an entire crippled ship that, except for the spellcaster onboard, was unlikely to play any further role in the battle.
But Evendur had been annoyed. Because, while he had no doubt he’d win the conflict in the end, nothing was happening as he expected.
For starters, he hadn’t anticipated fighting this fight at all. The Turmishans weren’t supposed to know he was coming. Still, it hadn’t dismayed him to watch them sailing and rowing out of the east, because his fleet was bigger.
Unfortunately, that wasn’t proving to be an insurmountable advantage because some of the ships under his command had proved reluctant to engage the enemy. Pirates liked to think of themselves as fearless masters of the sea, but in fact, they commonly survived by attacking vulnerable targets and avoiding dangerous foes like the Turmishan navy, and maybe some were still operating according to the same principle. And perhaps the sailors from Westgate, Lyrabar, and the other coastal ports resented being ordered to fight on the side of the same corsairs they’d always considered murdering scum. Maybe, unlike the nobles who’d sent them, some had heard the Lathanderian message and doubted Umberlee’s supremacy.
The situation wasn’t as bad as it could be. As far as Evendur could tell, none of his ships had fled or surrendered. Even the reluctant ones fought when a Turmishan vessel forced the issue. But a number seemed to be hanging back in the hope that Umberlant magic would carry the day.
Evendur despised them for their lack of zeal. But he had to admit theirs was a reasonable expectation. The waveservants, after all, were fighting at sea and in their goddess’s holy cause. What else should they need to make them invincible?
But even that wasn’t playing out in the straightforward manner it should. The druids’ control of natural forces allowed them to resist the magic of the sea, and the Emerald Enclave was a notoriously warlike religious order, constantly taking up arms against loggers, settlers, and other despoilers of their sacred forests. Whereas some of Umberlee’s clergy were battle-seasoned, but others were not.
Evendur’s own mystical strength would still have tipped the scales, except that the Turmishans had brought a Chosen of their own. He could feel the presence of his counterpart like the idea of a mighty oak, rooted and massive, looming somewhere ahead.
He needed to kill Silvanus’s Chosen, and then, surely, the Turmishan defense would crumble. Striving for a more precise awareness of the elder druid’s location, he concentrated, and some burgeoning faculty inside him pointed like the needle of a compass.