The Mercenaries

Chapter 6

The Sharkers exchanged startled glances as the strange glow came again, flickering violently.

Rings peered at the fast-approaching black ship, and so he was the last on board the Morning Bird to see it, as the very air around them began to glow, and swirl, and turn green.

One of the Tharkarans cried out in fear. The pirates heard the smack of an open hand crashing into flesh, followed by Kurthe's snarl of exasperation, and the thumps of the sailor's body slumping to the deck. In the silence that followed, the air slowly brightened, until the night around them was gone, and their world had become an unbroken dome of swirling, glowing mists.

"Make ready," Anvil said tensely. "A little mist isn't going to stop that foe from ramming us-and at the speed it was making, that'll come soon."

"Why doesn't Belmer have those dolts back there turn us again?" Belgin asked angrily. "We're practically holding our side out to be hit!" He clenched his fists in exasperation, and started to pace. "Why, if he was here right now, I'd tell him soon enough-"

A hatch cover under his boots suddenly rose, spilling the sharper abruptly into the rail, and Belmer's head came into view. He looked up at the mists and nodded, as if satisfied.

Belgin seemed to have changed his mind about telling their employer anything, so it was Rings who asked, "Hadn't we better change course or do something to keep them from ramming?"

"I've done what was necessary," Belmer replied, just a trifle sharply.

"How did you bring on the mists?" Sharessa asked. "You hadn't time to cast any spell!"

Belmer shrugged. "I had time to let loose a magic I paid someone else dearly for," he told her. "I'd hoped not to have to use it quite so soon, but…"

"We're somewhere slightly different from where we were before you called up the mists," Sharessa said slowly, "aren't we?"

Belmer nodded slowly.

"So," Rings asked breezily, "does any danger con front us in this-" he waved his arms at the roiling fog all around "-beside the usual mischance of running into things?"

"Well," Belmer said in dry tones, "there's always that." He pointed into the greenish mists at something large and dark.

Another ship was drifting out of the mists to loom up over the far rail, bowsprit outstretched.

All over the Morning Bird folk cried out. It was going to ram them, it was an ancient carrack glistening with sea slime, it was a "Ghost ship!" Jander Turbalt bellowed, and his crew sent up a wail. "Ghost ship!"

The Sharkers stared at the vessel as it ran almost gently up against the Morning Bird and lodged its bows in their midships rigging.

A smell wafted across the decks: a channel reek of rot and old creeping mold and dead things. The sails of the ghost ship were sagging ropes of black, glistening brine slime, and its decks were furry with seabed plants and convulsing, dying crabs, strangling on air where they'd been breathing water before. Among them strode the crew: slow, lurching sailors who wore only rotten rags. They waved the rusty stumps of cutlasses at the Sharkers in eerie silence and shambled toward the bows of their ship, seeking battle.

Sharessa stared at them and felt her stomach rise up into her throat. They seemed to see her, but they had no eyes. Their faces were glistening white sheets of flattish, eaten-away flesh, all features long gone.

The faceless pirates shuffled tirelessly toward the Morning Bird, and from its stern the Sharkers heard despairing shrieks and splashes as more of the Tharkarans, mastered by terror, sought the cold embrace of the waves.

"This is what comes of dabbling in magic," Kurthe growled, his face as white as fine linen Rings swallowed. "I'd as soon fight off skeletons as those. Master Belmer, can ye call off the mists and rid us of this?"

"No," Belmer said. He looked almost dejected as he added, "This was called to us by what I unleashed. There's no way to…"

He paused. As the faceless zombies shuffled forward, the Sharkers moved reluctantly to form a line to face them. The fat little man suddenly whirled around and snapped, "Fight and hold them-111 be as swift as I can!"

And with that he was gone again, his rotund body fairly flying across the damp decks. Sharessa felt somehow more hopeful as she stared after him.

A shout brought her attention back to the battle at hand. Kurthe had snatched up a sailpole and was battering the faceless things as they climbed awkwardly along the bowsprit of their vessel. One of them was smashed free, to claw at the air vainly for a moment before vanishing from view into the sea. Another crawled on, its arms broken to shapeless, dangling ropes of flesh by the Konigheimer's fear-frenzied blows.

The other Sharkers watched in horrified fascination until Anvil swallowed and started to trudge forward across the decks, his sword held out before him as if it was a shield to ward away the oncoming horrors. Rings followed, and after a slow moment Brindra trailed along in his wake.

Sharessa and Belgin traded looks, shrugged, and advanced in their turn, leaving only Ingrar, shivering and pale with fear.

Trembling and retching, the lad brought up the rear, more to stay with his comrades than because he'd found any scraps of bravery. When the first of the faceless things found its footing on the decks of the Morning Bird and hacked at Kurthe with dogged, dreamlike slowness, Ingrar moaned aloud.

The Konigheimer laid about himself with almost frenzied strength, roaring his defiance, goaded by fear and-even more-by the chance to finally lash out and hit something.

The end of the stout sailpole splintered under the force of his blows, but the half-pulped zombies staggered on, passing him in a slow, tireless flood.

Anvil muttered a prayer to Tempus and another to Tymora as the first faceless one reached him. Then he swung his sword with all his strength, in a blow that half separated that featureless head from its shoulders.

The undead thing staggered, slid free of his blade, and without pause or any evidence of pain swung around to drive the crumbling fragments of its blade into his ribs. Anvil twisted away to make the blade slice away from bis body-and it did not even manage that, falling away in flakes where a real blade would have sheared into the leather covering Anvil's flank.

The pirate did not wait to give it another chance. He grabbed his foe's sword arm behind the elbow and shoved, turning the thing completely away from him, into the path of the next zombie. The two dripping things bumped and struggled, and then crashed to the deck together as Kurthe smashed them both at neck level, and Anvil ducked in to hamstring them at knee level.

Even as the zombies fell and rolled, still dangerous, others shuffled forward to take their places. Sharessa and Brindra, white to the lips, were hacking and tumbling like women possessed; their usual tactics of fencing or causing pain were useless against these smothering, unfeeling foes. In a moment or two more they'd be overwhelmed and clubbed down.

Rings spat a curse as he ducked away from a vicious hacking blow, slipped, and had to leap for his life. The sight of his closest friend in danger seemed to goad Ingrar out of his fear-daze. With a scream of defiance the pale, sweating youth charged forward, hacking and slashing like a man trying to hew down a tree, driving the zombies back into a huddled mass.

With a wolfish grin, Kurthe swung his sailpole, and battered almost half of the undead into the sea. Packed together, they could do little more than squirm as the Sharkers rose against them in unison, cutting and disabling them, and trying to keep clear of the grabbing, thrusting faceless creatures who'd already been cut down to the deck and were now crawling about underfoot like white, glistening dew worms.

Then a ringing voice made them all turn their heads.

"Great Umberlee, hear me! Great Queen of the Sea, heed this fervent supplication! Too long have we forsaken your true way, in our times far from the sea! Yet we return, and can never forget you! You, who rule all the watery face of Faerfin, and keep more secrets than any other! You, who quell storms and raise them with but a thought! You, whose greatness we cannot hope to comprehend! Yet we cry unto you in our time of need, and make what humble offerings we can! Take, now, all the gold this ship carries, every last piece of it-and all the glistering gems, too! More than the weight of a man-yours, if you but take back your faithful guardians, to rest once more upon the bottom and await other intruders! Hear me, Great Umberlee! Accept now this offering, I pray!"

It was Belmer, splashing himself with seawater all the while he spoke, and waving a green stone hammer whose sculpted head was split into two curling waves. At his final words he brought the hammer down hard on a sea chest, shattering it, and hurled the pieces over the side of the ship. Then he hefted the chest- though it was almost as large as he was-without apparent effort, and hurled it into the sea.

Water fountained up in a mighty crash-more than such a weight should have disturbed-and the Sharkers traded looks. All the gold aboard? Had he emptied their pockets and carry-chests, too?

Well, not their pockets, they soon made sure, slapping at purses and coin belts as they backed away from the suddenly shuddering zombies. The sea had grown suddenly still, and a strange, deep singing was coming from beneath the ship, rising all around them.

Belmer's prayer, it seemed, had been heard. The little man was bent over the rail now, chanting the name of the goddess of the sea over and over, in a ceaseless drone that rose and fell like the passing waves.

Abruptly the zombies turned away from the living pirates and surged back toward their own ship, heedless of how many of them were crowded aside into the sea as they swarmed back up the bowsprit of the ghost ship.

A taut rope hummed and then broke, writhing across the decks of the Morning Bird. The forespar of the dripping ship of the deeps was moving again, backing out of the tangle it had created by ploughing into the rigging. The zombies moved more quickly now, withdrawing with little of the stiffness and awkwardness of their first waterlogged movements. Their eerie ship seemed to draw them with it, receding into the roiling mists.

It was sinking as it went, sliding back into the embrace of the waters that had held it for long years. As the Sharkers watched in awe and grim fear, wild bub-blings began around the vanishing hull, and the drab sponges and waterweeds on its decks submerged again.

"Sweeps!" Belmer snapped, breaking the somber, fascinated mood of the watching pirates. "Sharkers, man the sweeps! I need this ship held back from that wreck! ItH suck as it goes down and could scrape us open! Mover

Kurthe looked sullen, and set down his sailpole slowly, but his companions hastened. The danger was real, and a master was spitting orders.

With an almost human groan, the ghost ship slid entirely under the mist-cloaked water and was gone. Its descent drew the Morning Bird toward it, and the Sharkers put in some anxious, sweating moments of rowing with the giant sweeps to keep clear of the faceless white heads of the last, stolid zombies, and the broken-off mast spars between them.

At the rail Belmer straightened, but it seemed Umberlee was not done with them quite yet. A wave rose from the calm sea with easy grace and swept across the decks like a long tongue reaching in across a sand beach. It washed away every last rust-flaked hilt and zombie finger, leaving behind a single shell as large as a man's fist.

Belmer strode toward this sea prize, but Kurthe, seeing his interest, snatched it up and put it to his ear.

The endless roar and crash of distant waves upon rocks seemed to echo faintly through his head, and then gave birth to a breathy voice. "Trust not what you see," it said, and then fell silent. Kurthe lifted his head to see Belmer standing over him with hand outstretched for the shell. He gave his employer a black look.

"Give," Belmer said simply, his face expressionless.

After a long, silent moment, Kurthe slapped the shell into the little man's palm, rose, and stalked away without looking back.

Belmer swept the shell swiftly to his ear, listened for a long, motionless moment, and then drew the shell slowly down again as he stared at Kurthe's retreating back. "Rings," he asked gently, without turning his head, "would you be so good as to bring Kurthe down to the cabin you share, as soon as it's convenient?"

The dwarf gave their employer a frowning look, and then trundled off in the Konigheimer's wake with a muttered "Aye."

"Is this… going to be a meeting between you two that we should know more about?" Anvil asked casually, his tone not quite menacing.

Belmer turned his head and gave them all a mirthless smile. "No. It's a meeting between us all that I should have held earlier. Some things need to be said-and overheard by the right ears."

Ignoring the puzzled looks of the Sharkers, the fat little man indicated the nearest companionway leading below, and asked politely, "Shall we?"

"The mists are clearing," Brindra said suddenly. "Shouldn't we be worried about the black ship coming to call again?"

"Not if we move quickly," Belmer replied, and swept past her to bound down the worn stairs. Exchanging glances, the Sharkers followed. What was the little man up to this time?

Their cabin was as they had left it-clothes hung, draped, or wadded up here and there, the chest that had held their weapons standing open in the center of the floor, the lamps out. Belmer lit one with a striker and waved at Belgin to use it to light the others.

As the Sharkers shuffled to their bunks, their employer leaned against the central pillar, arms crossed and one boot planted atop the empty chest. Kurthe shouldered down the other stairs, froze for a moment when he saw the assembly, and then went to his bunk, ignoring Belmer. Rings gave them all a cheery wave and followed suit.

"What's this all about?" Sharessa asked, before Belmer could begin.

He gave her a little smile and replied, "I've heard talk about who I may be, and what the mission I've hired you for might turn out to be. Both of those things are my own business, but I'm prepared to swear to you now-by the names of whatever gods you hold dear, and if need be as an addendum to our contract-that I never met Blackfingers Ralingor."

He looked around at them all, and went on. "I knew the man only by reputation, never had dealings with him or suffered losses from his activities, and I have never had any part of his fabled treasure. I am not seeking his treasure now. Nor do I have anything of his, nor the man himself nor any shipmate of his save those of us openly gathered here, on this ship or in any place that I know of. Our trip does not concern the late Ralingor, and anyone searching this ship for his wealth is going to be disappointed. There is not a copper bit of it here."

Belmer looked around the room, meeting the eyes of each Sharker in turn. "I have no interest in hunting down spies among you, nor in listening to whispers as each of you tries to decide how many of the words I've just spoken were lies. So I propose that we all drink some wine-of your choice, from the cabin beside my own-with more of what I gave you earlier dissolved in it. This much extra of it will release you to sleep nor mally, not keep you wakeful as it has been doing-but it will make all of us loose-tongued and entirely truthful in what we do say. Ask me, after we drink, about all I have said, and what you hear shall be the truth; test it on yourselves first if you doubt me in this."

"Bah-you could be immune to this stuff," Kurthe growled.

Belmer turned his head to look at the moon-faced man from Edenvale. "Belgin? Tell him."

"If he is," the sharper told them all, "he's the only man living who's learned how… and I've heard quite a few folk in Thay have tried to become so, by consuming much of the powder for years. They've all failed."

Brindra was on her feet "Lead me to the bottles. Fve always wanted to choose some really good, expensive wine, and have a handsome man serve it to me."

"Why, thank you, old barrel," Rings said airily. "I'd be-"

"I was referring," she growled, giving him a wintry look, "to Master Belmer."

The little man was looking at the ceiling. He sighed theatrically, and murmured, "Hundreds of pirates in Tharkar, and I had to hire these

…"

Everyone except Kurthe and Sharessa chuckled at that. Belmer waved his hand at the cabin door. "It's not locked."

"So," Sharessa asked softly, as Brindra strode to the indicated door, "who among us do you suspect of being a spy? And for whom?"