Anton grinned. “I’m sure you’ve devoted some thought to the question of how to hurt him worse.”
The tattooed wizard nodded. “I have one or two ideas. They involve other spellcasters wearing him down as much as they do some cunning masterstroke on my part, so let’s hope the druids have been fighting fiercely. What about you?”
“When we fought before, I sliced him up a little, but I never cut his hand off his wrist, a leg out from under him, or the head off his shoulders. This time, I’m going to work on the assumption that dismemberment will stop pretty much anything, even an undead Chosen.”
“When I was a mage in training, I had to accompany a band of troll hunters into a swamp. The creature killed two of them after it had already lost an arm and a leg. Then it grew the arm back.”
Anton laughed. “Thank you. What a perfect thing to say to bolster my morale. Remind me, why are we doing this?”
Umara smiled. “I thought you knew.”
Peering through the rain, Anton studied the galleon. As far as he could tell, no one aboard the larger ship was alarmed at the Octopus’s approach. If Evendur’s men had even noticed, they must believe that Mourmyd Jacerryl and his cutthroats were coming to lend them a hand.
In time, Umara said, “They’re in range for a blast of fire if you want one.”
“Tempting,” Anton replied, “but it wouldn’t be like my incendiaries all detonating at once in the bowels of the Jest. It’s unlikely that one attack would sink her. So let’s creep at least a little …” Squinting, he leaned forward.
“What’s wrong?” Umara asked.
“I know you can’t see much of what’s happening aboard the galleon from here, but try.”
Gripping the rail, she leaned out over it like he had. “I see … scurrying.”
“That’s one word for it. We knew Evendur was chasing another ship. He caught her. Now his men-or most of them-are boarding her.”
“Then we can’t set the galleon on fire lest the blaze spread to the Turmishan ship as well.”
Anton nodded. “Exactly. What we are going to do is lead a boarding party of our own.”
The galleon held the captured Turmishan warship on its starboard side, so the Octopus steered for the port side. As Anton and his comrades made their approach, his nerves felt taut as the string of any cocked crossbow or ballista, and he studied the larger vessel for a sign that he was sailing into a trap.
But there was none. There was only the rattle of the rain and shouts, screams, and the clanking of blade on blade, the latter sounds muffled by the galleon’s bulk.
When the Octopus reached the proper position, Thayan marines lifted grappling hooks, but Umara raised a hand to tell them not to throw. She then murmured a spell, and the end of a coiled rope on deck reared like a serpent. It rose up and up until it was as high as the galleon’s railing, then looped around it and tied itself off, without the telltale thud a grapnel would have made.
“I’m first,” Anton said. He took hold of the coarse hemp line and climbed hand over hand.
When his head reached the level of the deck above, the clamor of the battle washed over him. As he’d expected, the enemy had left half a dozen men on the starboard side to shoot crossbows bolts and fling javelins into the melee below as targets presented themselves, and, more importantly, to keep any Turmishans from clambering aboard the galleon and causing trouble.
But, Anton thought, that effort had failed. Because he was a Turmishan, and he was about to make a lot of trouble.
He drew his saber and cutlass and skulked closer to the third man in line. Meanwhile, Umara clambered up the rope and over the rail. He winced when her foot bumped audibly against the gunwale, but none of the Umberlant warriors noticed.
A moment later, though, the first man in line, the one in the galleon’s forecastle, turned his head, perhaps to call something to his comrades. When he did, he must have glimpsed Anton or Umara at the periphery of his vision, because he jerked around to goggle at them.
The man bellowed, “ ’Ware-” then collapsed as Umara rattled off a spell of slumber.
Unfortunately, even an unfinished warning sufficed to make the other crewmen turn around. Anton rushed the nearest, beat the javelin in his hand out of line, and sliced him across the belly. The Umberlant warrior fell.
At the same moment, something, pure instinct, perhaps, told Anton to duck. He did, and a quarrel whizzed over his head. The next man forward had shot a crossbow at him.
Anton looked around, found a crate of javelins, grabbed one, and threw it. It caught the crossbowman in the chest, and he toppled backward.
Anton spun back around to see how Umara was faring. She gestured to indicate the men who’d made up the aft portion of the line. All three lay motionless, slain or rendered helpless by her wizardry. He flashed her a grin and pivoted to starboard to look out over the battle below.
As best he could tell, nobody had noticed the skirmish aboard the galleon, and small wonder. Locked in the jostling press of a shipboard melee, the combatants below were far too busy with their own killing and dying.
Evendur was easy to spot. Hulking and hideous, he was fighting on a less crowded patch of deck-less crowded, perhaps, because he’d experienced so little difficulty slaughtering most of those who dared to face him. A white-haired woman with a scimitar in one hand and a bronze sickle in the other fought him with a nimbleness that put many a youthful man-at-arms to shame, but even so, the relentless sweeps of his glowing axe were pushing back into shrouds, halyards, and sheets that threatened to entangle her like a net. The moment they did, the wavelord would chop her to pieces.
Anton couldn’t allow that, because the old woman was Shinthala. His final conversation with the Elder Circle had led him to assume none of them would sail with the Turmishan fleet. But plainly, one had, and she might well be its best hope for victory if she could escape the present onslaught and get back to casting spells.
An attack of some sort had littered the galleon’s deck with stones and lengths of snapped cordage that had previously secured and controlled the yards on the mizzenmast. Anton ran, leaped, and caught a dangling rope.
His weight rotated the yard to which it was attached, and even when the spar jerked to a halt, he kept swinging out over the deck of the Turmishan caravel like a pendulum on a string. When he judged the moment was right, he released his grip.
He thumped down hard, but that was all right. He hadn’t broken or sprained anything, and he’d come down more or less where he’d intended.
Evendur jerked around to face him. If possible, the dead man’s features were even mushier and seemingly incapable of human expression than during their previous encounter, but the way he faltered conveyed surprise even so.
Anton grinned and drew his saber and cutlass. “Well,” he said, “here we are again.”
Stedd didn’t mind that someone had carried him to the circle of stones in the center of the House of Silvanus. He’d been too hot, and the cold rain felt good on his upturned face.
But he did mind the chanting. It made it hard to doze. And the force that throbbed in the ground in time with the words was even more disturbing. It struck echoes in the core of him and reminded him that he too could channel power.
He flinched from thinking about such things because the last time had hurt him so badly. He shifted on the wet grass, trying to squirm his way into sleep, and then a radiant figure appeared, more vivid than any sight had ever been before, even though Stedd’s eyes were shut.
He opened them in surprise and the newcomer remained as before, a smiling, handsome, youthful-looking man, with blond hair, golden skin, and the trim, long-legged build of a runner clad in princely robes of crimson and blue. Strangely, none of the druids, not even Ashenford and Shadowmoon, seemed to notice the interloper standing the middle of their ritual.