Sea of Death

CHAPTER TWENTY TWO

She's already started!" Diran said.

The priest stood at the stern of the Turnabout, peering through the lens of a hand-held telescope, long black hair trailing behind him in the wind. The sky was clear, and the moons provided sufficient light for him to make out Nathifa standing on Regalport's central dock. He recognized the statue of the priest Nerthatch that Ghaji and he had been forced to deal with on Demothi Island. Haaken Sprull, in the shape of a half-man, half-shark, stood behind the statue, clawed hands gripping its shoulders, blunt snout pointed skyward as he bellowed in pain. Behind Haaken stood Nathifa, holding the dragonwand and blasting the wereshark with a stream of mystic energy released from the Amahau. Makala stood close by, watching the procedure with a malicious grin, clearly amused by Haaken's pain.

A steady parade of weresharks climbed out of the bay one by one, pulled themselves onto the dock, and lumbered past the lich and her servants as they headed into Regalport proper.

Diran handed the spyglass to Ghaji so the half-orc could see for himself. The other companions gathered around, and though they didn't have telescopes of their own, the elemental galleon was only a quarter of a mile away from the docks and closing fast. They could see well enough to give them a good idea of what was happening.

Ghaji lowered the spyglass. "This is Vol's grand scheme? To send a bunch of ugly fish-faces into Regalport for a late dinner? It's an awful thing, but I don't see how that will help her conquer the Principalities."

"You forget that a lycanthrope's bite is infectious," Leontis said. "Though I have no doubt the weresharks will kill tonight and take great pleasure in doing so, my guess is their primary purpose is to infect as many of Regalport's citizens as they can with their curse."

"At Grimwall, Erdis Cai sought to create an army of undead soldiers for Vol," Tresslar said. "It seems that Vol has decided to create an army of sea-based lycanthropes instead."

"Any army of weresharks… under the Lich Queen's control," Diran said. The vision the Fury-demon had shown him was coming to pass, and its implications were staggering. "They could move throughout the Principalities without the need for vessels, traveling undetected beneath the waves."

"They could infiltrate any city or settlement in human form," Onu added, "attacking whenever they wished."

"They'd keep on attacking until they'd either killed or infected everyone," Yvka said. "And then the whole lot would move on to the next settlement."

"They'd board ships at sea too" Hinto put in. "Killing or transforming the crews."

"Their numbers would grow swiftly," Solus said. "So much so that the Principalities would fall before they could muster a sufficient defense."

Even if the barons and princes had advanced warning of the wereshark threat, what sort of defense could there be? Diran wondered. This was precisely the hellish scenario the Purified had envisioned that had caused them to embark on the Purge. The Purified had succeeded in preventing the scourge of lycanthropy from destroying all of Khorvaire. But what the servants of the Silver Flame hadn't considered-hadn't the resources to even attempt to consider-was dealing with those lycanthropes who lived in the world's rivers, lakes, seas, and oceans. Those beasts were too well hidden, too well protected in their watery lairs, to make hunting them practical. So, out of necessity more than anything else, the Purified had adopted a you-don't-bother-us and we-won't-bother-you attitude toward aquatic lycanthropes that had worked well enough for years.

Until tonight.

"We have to stop her," Diran said.

"Who?" Ghaji asked. "Nathifa or Vol?"

"Both," the priest said grimly. He turned to Onu. "Have your crew head for the dock where the lich is casting her spell."

"At once!" the changeling said. "I assume you'd like them to get a longboat ready as well?"

Diran shook his head. "You misunderstand. I don't want the Turnabout to get near the dock. I want to ram it."

Onu looked alarmed for a moment, but then a slow grin spread across his face. "Sounds like fun. Come, Hinto! I'll need your help to convince the crew we haven't lost our minds!" The changeling hurried off with the halfling in tow.

"I'm not so certain we haven't lost our minds," Tresslar said.

"I understand that you want to slay the lich," Ghaji said, "And why. But to damage the Turnabout like that…"

"I'm not acting out of a desire for vengeance, my friend," Diran said. "We must stop Nathifa. We can worry about dealing with the lich and her servants-not to mention the weresharks already in the city-once we've interrupted her spellcasting."

Yvka eyed the rapidly decreasing distance between the elemental galleon and Regalport's main dock. "The water may not be deep enough so close to the dock. What if we run aground?"

"The ship will be traveling swiftly under the power of the wind elementals," Diran said. "Hopefully their combined force will prove enough to push us past any reefs."

"Or reduce the Turnabout to kindling," Tresslar muttered.

Diran turned to Solus. "Can you use your telekinetic abilities to cushion the impact?"

The psiforged considered for a moment. "The forces generated by any collision will be formidable. I have been able to strengthen my crystals somewhat using the excess psionic energy generated by the ship's crew, but I am not up to my full strength. I shall do what I can, but I cannot guarantee the outcome."

Diran nodded. The construct's answer was only what he expected. "I know you shall do your best, my friend. That's all anyone can ask."

"And more than many offer," Ghaji added.

The Turnabout surged forward, the sudden increase in speed almost knocking the companions off their feet. A moment later Onu and Hinto returned.

"We convinced the pilots to continue running the elementals full out," the changeling said. "They'll deactivate them just before we hit the dock. We've ordered all hands to prepare for impact and, uh…" Onu paused, and then looked to Hinto, like an actor who'd forgotten his lines.

"Make ready for combat," the halfling provided.

Onu nodded. "Yes, yes. Just so. After all, we can't have our crew stand idly by while those beastly were-creatures run rampant through the streets of Regalport, can we?" Onu looked at Leontis, an expression of sudden embarrassment on his face. "Sorry, my friend. I meant no offense."

Leontis waved the changeling's apology away.

Diran looked toward shore. Regalport loomed large now, and the priest knew it would be only a matter of moments before the ship reached the central dock.

"I suggest we split into two teams," Ghaji said. "Yvka and I go into the city to warn the watch-assuming they aren't already aware of what's happening-or perhaps alert the Sea Dragons."

"I have a better idea," Yvka said. "House Thuranni has an enclave near the docks. If we can reach it, I can inform the Hierarchs about the attack. They will be able to reach Prince Ryger and the Sea Dragons faster than we could."

Ghaji nodded. "Sounds good. Diran?"

Diran couldn't argue with the logic of Yvka and Ghaji's plan, though he couldn't help worrying that they would be going on what was essentially a suicide mission. "The streets of Regalport will be deadly tonight, my friends. Go swiftly and go with caution."

Ghaji grinned. "Caution? Who do you think you're talking to?"

Diran couldn't help grinning back.

"Besides, who needs caution when Tresslar managed to repair my elemental axe?" The half-orc warrior drew his weapon and held it up to emphasize his point.

"No more talk," Leontis said. "Brace yourselves!"

The companions turned and saw the galleon was only seconds away from colliding with the dock.

"Do you know a prayer for situations like this?" Ghaji asked Diran.

"Hold tight, grit your teeth, and close your eyes!" the priest shouted. Diran took his own advice and then the world became a riot of splintering wood, splashing water, and grinding rock.

He opened his eyes, half expecting to find himself looking into the luminescent glory of the Silver Flame. Instead he saw Regalport's central dock-a good two dozen yards from where the Turnabout had run aground. Yvka had been right; the water was too shallow here for a craft as large as their galleon.

The Turnabout listed to the right, and the ship now had a huge gaping hole in her prow. The middle of the vessel's three masts had broken and fallen forward, her sails becoming entangled with those of the first mast. An almost deafening quiet filled the air, and Diran realized he could no longer hear the roaring of the rushing winds created by the ship's elementals. The pilots had deactivated them just before the Turnabout had crashed, just as Onu had said they would.

The companions were shaken but unharmed. Evidently Solus had succeeded in shielding them from the worst of the impact. Diran looked to the dock, hoping that the wave created by the galleon's approach had inundated Nathifa and the others, knocking them into the water and halting the sorceress's spellcasting. But though the lich, Haaken, and the statue of Nerthatch were sopping wet, they remained where they'd been, and the sorceress continued her chanting uninterrupted. Diran saw no sign of Makala.

"Good to see you again, lover!"

Diran looked up and saw a large black bat coming toward him, its eyes burning with crimson fire, its face half human. The creature's form blurred and shifted, and Makala was now falling toward Diran, clawed hands outstretched, fangs bared in a cruel, mocking grin. Diran had seen that grin before, not on Makala's face but on Aldarik Cathmore's. The priest knew the grin came not from the woman he had once loved above all else, but rather from the dark spirit she had unwittingly inherited when she'd attempted to drain the master assassin's blood within Mount Luster.

Diran didn't hesitate. He pulled out his silver arrowhead and brandished it at Makala. Silver light poured forth from the holy object, and Makala hissed in pain, throwing her hands over her face to shield her eyes. An instant before she would have collided with Diran, her body collapsed into mist, and the ethereal tendrils streaked upward and away from the Turnabout's deck.

The arrowhead's light dimmed and Diran lowered it to his side. He did not return the holy symbol to its pocket, though. He would soon have further use of it. Instead, he turned to Ghaji and Yvka.

"Get to the House Thuranni enclave as fast as you can!"

Ghaji nodded. "May fortune favor you, my friend." The half-orc wrapped his free hand around Yvka's waist and turned to Solus. "You heard the man. Can you give us a lift?"

Solus glanced toward shore. "I believe I can get both of you to the far end of the dock. I do not know how comfortable a landing you'll experience, however."

"Don't worry," Ghaji said. "I'm used to uncomfortable landings. Just do it."

Solus's psionic crystals glowed bright, and Ghaji and Yvka shot upward into the air as if they'd been launched from a catapult. Yvka whooped in delight as they soared over Nathifa, Haaken, and the procession of weresharks lumbering down the dock toward the city. Diran imagined the curses that were likely pouring past Ghaji's lips right now, and he couldn't help smiling. Diran wanted to watch to see if the two made it safely to the other end of the dock, but he knew they couldn't afford to waste even the few seconds it would take. He turned to Solus.

"Can you levitate the rest of us over to Nathifa and Haaken?"

But before the psiforged could reply, a gray-skinned, black-clawed hand dripping with seawater clasped the ship's railing. Another followed, and a wereshark pulled itself up. At first Diran thought it was Haaken, but this beast possessed a flat, horizontal head. Diran was looking at a hammerhead shark that seem half-formed into a man's face.

The remaining companions backed away as the monster heaved itself over the rail and onto the deck. But before either they or it could attack, two more weresharks climbed over the railing-one a lean creature with bluish hide and a narrow snout, the other a large creature easily twice the size of the others, with a gray back, white belly, and sickle-shaped fin. Diran understood at once what was happening. Nathifa was sending some of the weresharks she'd summoned to prevent the priest and his companions from stopping her.

Diran drew a silver dagger with his free hand and prepared to battle the lycanthropes, but he hesitated when he heard an animalistic snarl erupt from Leontis. He turned to look at his fellow priest and saw that, just as in the crypt on Trebaz Sinara, being in the presence of other were-creatures had triggered Leontis's own transformation. Fur burst out in great tufts to cover Leontis's skin, and his face elongated into a wolfish snout. But then something different happened. His head and face broadened, and a series of slits opened up on the side of his fur-covered neck. His mouth grew larger, his teeth even more pronounced, and the cloth on the back of his tunic ripped as a triangular fin jutted forth.

Diran couldn't believe what he was seeing, had never read about such a thing happening, hadn't believed it was even possible. But there was no denying the evidence of his eyes. During Leontis's battle with Haaken on Trebaz Sinara, the priest must have been bitten by the wereshark, and the infection contained in Haaken's body had been passed onto Leontis. The twin infections now raging within the priest had merged somehow, making him into a creature that was half werewolf, half wereshark.

Leontis let out a cry that was part howl, part roar, and raced toward the weresharks. The three lycanthropes didn't react at first, seeming almost as startled by Leontis's strange new form as Diran was. But then the weresharks roared and ran forward to meet the wolfshark's attack.

Diran, Tresslar, Hinto, and Onu moved well away from where the four lycanthropes fought. Diran then tossed his silver dagger to Hinto, drew another, and handed it to Onu. "Use these if Leontis can't keep the weresharks busy. If more of the creatures swarm onto the ship than you can handle, make sure you and the crew take shelter below. Hopefully, once Tresslar, Solus, and I attack Nathifa, the weresharks will lose interest in the Turnabout and you'll be safe."

Hinto frowned. "Do you have any more silver daggers, Diran?"

The priest held up his holy symbol and smiled. "I have this." He glanced toward the central dock and the statue of Nerthatch-or more accurately, at the hilt of the dagger protruding from the statue's stone chest. "And I know where there's another I can get hold of." Before the halfling could question him further, Diran turned to Solus. "Do you still have enough power to levitate the three of us onto the dock near Nathifa?"

"There is much ambient psionic energy to draw on in a city this large," the psiforged said. "Now that we are this close to Regalport, my crystals are growing strong once more."

"I'll take that as a yes," Diran said. "Let's go."

Diran stood on Solus's right, Tresslar on the psiforged's left. They each put a hand on one of the construct's shoulders, and Solus's psionic crystals glowed with power. The three companions rose into the air and soared toward the central dock.

Ghaji was considerably less enthused than Yvka to be flying through the air, though flying wasn't exactly the right word for the sensation they experienced. It felt more like they were in the grip of a giant invisible hand that was carrying them swiftly from the now lopsided deck of the Turnabout to the far end of the central dock.

As they descended to the wooden planks of the central dock, Ghaji did a quick estimate of the number of weresharks in their landing zone. Four. All of them big, overly muscled, and exceptionally ugly. But if Yvka and he could deal with them, or at least make it past them, they stood a good chance of reaching House Thuranni. He didn't know how long Nathifa had been summoning weresharks, but unless the streets were chock-full of the damned things, they could fight their way through. And if the streets were thick with the monsters, it wouldn't matter if they reached House Thuranni or not. Regalport-and likely the entire Principalities-would be lost.

Suddenly Ghaji and Yvka were falling. He removed his arm from Yvka's waist. Yvka would be far safer landing on her own that she would if held by him. He pulled his elemental axe from its belt sheath, willed it to burst into flame and fixed his gaze on the wereshark closest to where he was going to land, one with copper-colored hide. Ghaji wished he was going to hit Copper-Skin directly in order for his landing to do the maximum amount of damage, but he was going to come down two feet to the creature's left. Still well within striking distance of his axe, though, and that was all that mattered.

Ghaji bellowed a war cry at the last instant to get Copper-Skin to turn its face. The creature whirled and looked up, giving Ghaji a clear view of two curved sharkskin-covered mounds protruding from the wereshark's chest. Definitely a her, Ghaji thought, and swung his flame-wreathed axe blade at Copper-Skin's snout, directly between her nostrils. Blood sprayed, Copper-Skin shrieked, and the shock of impact jarred up Ghaji's arm, ran through his shoulder, and rattled his teeth. The half-orc held tight to his axe as he hit the dock, and as the blade was still embedded in Copper-Skin's snout, she was pulled down with him. The wereshark continued shrieking in pain and clawed at her snout, which was fast becoming a blazing inferno of its own.

Ghaji rose to a crouching position, ignoring the protests of various joints and muscles that weren't happy at how they'd just been treated. He was pleased at the effect of his axe on Copper-Skin. Lycanthropes couldn't be killed by fire, as Leontis proved in the forest of the shadowclaws on Trebaz Sinara, but they could still be injured by it, enough so that it took them a while to heal. He'd hoped that since weresharks were aquatic monsters, they'd suffer even more from being set aflame, and it appeared his hope had been born out. Ghaji smiled in grim satisfaction as he yanked the axe free from Copper-Skin's flaming face and stood, spinning around as he did so, ready to meet the next attack that was sure to be coming his way.

Another wereshark lunged at him, this one with hide colored bluish-black on the back and pinkish on the underbelly. Ghaji hit this beast with an upward swing that laid open his abdomen, causing wet loops of intestine to spill out onto the dock. Ghaji brought his axe down in a return strike and set fire to Pink-Belly's exposed innards. Pink-Belly staggered backward, his screams of agony added to those of Copper-Skin, and he threw himself off the dock and into the water. The flames generated from Ghaji's elemental axe were mystical in origin, and though water would extinguish them, it would take a few moments for it to do.

Ghaji turned to see how Yvka was faring. He hadn't seen her land, but she stood nearby in a fighting stance, and he knew she'd completed their descent without injury, just as he'd expected. She faced two weresharks-both possessing sharply pointed snouts and mouthfuls of long, sharp projecting teeth. Both of the creatures were hissing in pain and rubbing their eyes. Their heads were covered with fine yellowish powder, and though Ghaji didn't know precisely what substance Yvka had used to bedevil the monsters, he was grateful for the distraction. It was going to make his job much easier.

Ghaji dashed forward, swung his axe several times, and stinging eyes suddenly became the least of the weresharks' problems. Like Copper-Skin, these two fell to the dock, slashed, mutilated, and on fire. The flames from all three weresharks lying on the dock spread rapidly, merging to create a solid wall of fire. Good. Hopefully, the flame barrier would at least slow the procession of weresharks into the city. Ghaji ran forward and grabbed Yvka's hand.

"Come on!" he shouted, but the elf planted her feet and refused to budge.

"Wait! I want to try something." Yvka rolled back her left sleeve to expose her dragonmark. She closed her eyes and as she concentrated, the mark grew black and seemed to spread down her fingers and up along her arm. The darkness moved swiftly over her body, and within seconds she was completely enveloped in shadow.

She spread arms black as night. "Well? What do you think?"

Ghaji was impressed. Even with his night vision, he had a difficult time seeing her.

"I wasn't sure it was going to work, or else I might've asked Solus to transport me here alone," she said. "Then again, I couldn't have taken care of four weresharks by myself." He couldn't see her smile, but he heard it in the tone of her voice. "Cloaked in shadow like this, I'll be able to sneak past any weresharks without difficulty. I can make it to House Thuranni on my own, and you can go back to help the others."

"I'm not sure this is a good idea," Ghaji said. "You have no experience with this new shadow magic of yours. What if it fails and you can be seen again?"

"Then I'd better get moving, eh?" She came forward, moving with such silent elven grace that she really did seem to be nothing more than a shadow. But when she put her ebon arms around Ghaji's waist, they felt real enough. "I'll be all right. Trust me… please."

And that's what it came down to, didn't it? Did he trust her? Could he? He thought of Kirai. He'd gotten to know her well during their time together on the Talenta Plains. In many ways he had known so much more about her-her past, her likes and dislikes. Where Yvka was secretive and reluctant to share information about herself and her work, Kirai had been an open book. But he knew how Kirai had made him feel about himself, and it couldn't compare to the way Yvka made him feel.

Ghaji wanted to hug Yvka, but he was afraid of disrupting the shadow-spell that concealed her. Instead, he smiled and said, "Good luck to you, my love."

"And to you." She leaned forward, rose on her tip-toes and gave Ghaji a quick kiss on the lips. And then she pulled away, turned, and melded with the darkness.

Ghaji said a quick silent prayer for Yvka's safety-not that he'd ever admit it to anyone-before turning seaward once more, only to find himself facing the rising wall of flame that he'd created.

He sighed. Wielding an elemental weapon had its drawbacks sometimes.

He took a deep breath, held it, and ran toward the flames.