The short, burly legionnaire cleared his throat. "We lost three ships, either because the storm sank them or because it blew them so far away that we can't locate them."
Nevron shrugged. A smell of smoke and burning clung to him. Thessaloni had first met him aboard a ship under her command, and she recalled how the odor had alarmed her until she realized where it originated. "Three isn't so bad," the conjuror said.
"I agree," Thessaloni said, "but you haven't heard everything yet."
"The storm damaged a number of ships," said Aoth, "and the crews are making repairs. I'm no mariner, but I'll try to give you the details if you want them.
"The bad weather scattered the fleet as well. It will take some time for it to gather back together. But the really bad news is that the necromancers are chasing us. Somehow, they put their own fleet in the water. They've also got undead sea creatures swimming among their vessels, and skin kites and such flying above them."
"Damn Szass Tam!" Nevron snarled. "Can we make it to the Alaor before he catches up with us?"
"No," Thessaloni said. "The storm blew us east of the islands. The necromancers would intercept us en route."
"I thought we brought the priesthood of Umberlee along with us," Lallara said. "Someone remind me, what use are they, if they can't bend the wind and the tides to our advantage?"
"You Masters obviously comprehend mystical matters far better than I," Thessaloni said, "but as I understand it, Szass Tam's spellcasters are still wrestling with ours for control of the weather, and at the moment, the enemy is having more success than we are."
Lauzoril cocked his head. "Could Szass Tam catch us if we headed farther east and south?"
Thessaloni felt a stab of annoyance at the obvious tenor of his thought and did her best to mask her feelings. "Possibly not, Your Omnipotence. Not soon, anyway."
"But then what?" Lallara asked. "Do we beg for sanctuary in Mulhorand? Do you imagine they love us there, and will give us estates to rule? I think I can guarantee you a chillier reception. We have to reach the Alaor and the colony cities and confirm our mastery of them if we're to have any sort of lives at all."
Thessaloni had never liked Lallara. Why would anyone feel fondness for a woman who went out of her way to be waspish and obnoxious? But she liked her now.
Samas articulated the logical corollary to Lallara's observation. "If that's still our objective, then we need to fight. Can we win?"
"Yes," Thessaloni said.
Lauzoril gave her a skeptical frown. "You seem very sure of yourself."
"I am." It was an exaggeration, but she'd long ago learned that few things were more useless than a captain who dithered and hedged. "Masters, with all respect, over the years I've built you the best navy in eastern Faerыn. Perhaps you've forgotten, because, the Bitch Goddess knows, for the past decade the fleet has had little to do. You've been fighting a land war, and our only tasks have been to intercept smugglers trying to convey supplies and mercenaries to Szass Tam, and to discourage raiders hoping to take advantage of the weakness of a Thay divided against itself."
She smiled. "But by the Bitch's fork, it's a sea war now, and your sailors are eager to prove their mettle. We don't care what fearsome powers Szass Tam possesses, or how many orcs, zombies, and whatnots are riding on his black ships. They're landlubbers, and we're anything but. Give me leave to direct the battle as I see fit, and I promise you victory."
The zulkirs exchanged glances, and then Samas smiled. "That makes me feel a little better."
When she sensed that the sun was gone, Tammith arose from the hold to find the griffon riders trying to saddle their mounts. The beasts were skittish, fractious, and liable to screech and even snap. They were creatures of mountain and hill, and according to Brightwing's grumbling as translated by Aoth, they didn't like the crowding, the rolling deck, the expanses of water to every side, or any other aspect of the sea voyage.
But Brightwing possessed enhanced intelligence and a psychic link with her master, and Bareris had used his music to forge a comparable bond with Winddancer. No doubt for those reasons, the two officers had succeeded in preparing their steeds for battle in advance of the soldiers under their command. Now they stood in the bow gazing west, where the sky was still red with the last traces of sunset. Looking like the champion he'd been in life, Mirror hovered behind them.
Tammith judged that it would be easier to float over the mass of irritable griffons and their riders than to squirm her way through them, so she dissolved into mist. The transformation dulled her senses, but not so much as to rob her of her orientation, particularly with the forbidding pressure of the sea defining the perimeter of the deck as plainly as a set of walls. She flowed over the heads of beasts and legionnaires and congealed into flesh and bone at Bareris's side. He smiled and kissed her, and she resisted the impulse to extend her fangs, nibble his lips, and draw blood to suck.
"I thought I might wake to find you fighting," she said, "or even that the battle was already over."
Bareris grinned. "That's because you haven't fought at sea. It takes at least as long for fleets to maneuver for position as it does with armies on land."
"But it won't be long now," Mirror said. The sword in his scabbard disappeared, then reformed in his hand, the blade lengthening like an icicle. A round shield wavered into existence on his other arm.
Aoth nodded and hefted his spear. "It's time to get into the air."
"I wish I could fly with you," said Tammith to Bareris. "It bothers me that we won't be together."
"That would be my preference, too," he said. "But I'll be most useful riding Winddancer, and we all need to do our best if we're going to smash through Szass Tam's fleet. So-one last fight, and then it's on to the Wizard's Reach and safety."
She smiled. "Yes, on to Escalant. Just be careful."
"I will." He squeezed her hands, and then he and Aoth strode back to their steeds.
The survivors of the Griffon Legion leaped into the sky with a prodigious clatter and snapping of wings. Mirror floated upward to join them on their flight.
Night could blind an army or a fleet, sometimes with fatal consequences. Accordingly, the council's spellcasters sought to illuminate the black, heaving surface of the sea by casting enchantments of illumination onto floats, then tossing them overboard. But the results were only intermittently useful. As often as not, the glowing domes revealed only empty stretches of water, and when they showed more, the necromancers were apt to cast counterspells to extinguish them. Nevron donned a horned, red-lacquered devil mask invested with every charm of augmented vision known to the Order of Divination, and it gave him a far superior view of what was transpiring.
It wasn't an especially encouraging view, consisting as it did of dozens of black ships crewed by rotting corpses, gleaming wraiths soaring above the masts, and skeletal leviathans swimming before the bows, all rushing to annihilate the council and its servants. Despite himself, he felt a twinge of fear.
But a true zulkir-as opposed to useless pretenders like Kumed Hahpret and Zola Sethrakt-learned not merely to conceal such weakness but to expunge it as soon as it appeared. Nevron quashed the feeling by reminding himself that it was his destiny to reign as a prince in one of the higher worlds. This little skirmish was merely practice for the infinitely grander battles he would one day fight to win and keep his throne.
When he was certain he was his true self, all foxy cunning and steely resolve, he pivoted toward the other conjurors on the deck. "Now," he said. "Bring forth your servants."
His minions hastened to obey him-some by chanting incantations, some by twisting a ring or gripping an amulet-and demons, devils, and elemental spirits shimmered into view until the deck and the air overhead were thick with them, and the warship reeked of sulfur. An apelike barluga slipped free of its summoner's control long enough to grab a sailor and tear his head off.