The Reaver

CHAPTER NINE

It reassured Umara to hear Stedd speak, especially because the child had tried to be funny. He likely hadn’t strained himself beyond endurance. Still, she asked, “Are you all right?”

“Just tired,” Stedd replied. “That was … hard.”

“Be ready,” Anton said. “The lion’s taking an interest in us again.”

Umara looked around. Cleansed of the deformities that had been gnarling him into grotesquerie, Anton stood with his bloody swords ready to threaten the gigantic cat turning back in the humans’ direction.

“It’s all right now,” said Stedd.

Umara’s intuition told her the child was correct. The danger was over. But she’d be a dismal excuse for a Red Wizard if she dropped her guard before she was certain. She rose and slid her rustwood wand from her sleeve.

Moving slowly, perhaps to make peaceful intentions evident, the lion padded toward them, and as it did, it shrank. When it halted several paces away, it still stood as high at the shoulder as the largest draught horse, but was no longer the colossus that they had battled with steel and magic.

Despite the absence of blue fire shrouding its mane and its smaller stature, the creature seemed equally impressive, although now in a majestic rather than menacing fashion. Umara almost felt like bowing to it, and when it spoke, she wasn’t surprised.

“I apologize,” the lion rumbled. “I wasn’t in control of my actions. Until the Chosen put it out, the pain of the Blue Fire maddened and diminished me. But I am sorry and shamed nonetheless, for the harm to humans and my own children, too. I can only seek to make amends. I’ve already commanded the other lions to stop fighting and run away. Now, I’m willing to use my powers to heal or fortify any in need of it, starting with you, Lathander’s cub.”

Anton raised his saber a hair, evidently to remind the lion he was standing armed and ready. “How kind. But I’d prefer you leave the boy alone.”

“It’s all right now,” Stedd repeated. He tried to stand, then seemingly decided the effort was too much for him and settled for sitting with his back against the flaking bark of the nearest blighted tree.

Umara touched Anton on the forearm to ask him to rein in his belligerence, at least temporarily. To the lion, she said, “Who are you?”

“Nobanion,” the beast replied, “or, if you prefer, Lord Firemane.”

He grunted. “Although that name feels like mockery now.”

Anton cocked his head. “The lion lord of the forest? That’s just an old story.”

“Your great-great-grandsires knew differently,” Nobanion said. “But then the world burned, and while I sought to protect a pride of my folk, a wave of blue fire swept over me. It left me as you first saw me, perpetually in anguish. Vicious and deranged.” He turned his golden gaze on Stedd. “Until you cleansed me, and all this corrupted earth as well.”

“It’s time for the Blue Fire to go away,” said Stedd, looking embarrassed by the creature’s gratitude. “Otherwise, I couldn’t have done it.”

“You may have been insane,” Umara said, lowering her wand to her side, “but it wasn’t just delirium that made you attack us.”

“No,” Nobanion said. “In my time, I fought often against the Black-Blooded Pard and so won his hatred. Then the Lady of Mysteries died, and in the tumult that followed, he and I both suffered misfortune, but I fell farther. My agony enabled him to take revenge on me by subverting my will and enslaving me.”

Anton smiled a crooked smile. “You’re talking about Malar. Splendid. I’ve been thinking that a single divine enemy scarcely seems like enough.”

“My hunch,” Umara said, “is that the Beastlord is acting in Umberlee’s stead now that we’re away from the sea. From what I understand, they’re both powers of savagery and destruction.”

“Well,” Nobanion growled, “he won’t do it anymore, not now that you’ve restored me to myself. Not as long as you walk in my place of power.”

“You’ll protect us?” Umara asked.

“Of course,” the lion answered

“Thank you,” said Stedd, “truly. But we need even more.”

“If it’s within my power,” Nobanion said, “you’ll have it.”

“We have to get to Turmish,” said the boy, “and we aren’t traveling fast enough.”

“That can be remedied. Now, may I share my strength with you? There are men suffering beside your fires for want of the healing you and I can give them.”

Umara looked to Anton. He shrugged and stepped out of Nobanion’s way, although she noticed he didn’t sheathe his swords. She came to stand beside him.

The lion lord lowered his head and licked Stedd with a tongue big enough to cover his whole head. Apparently, it tickled; the boy laughed and squirmed.

As she and Anton looked on, Umara murmured, “Surely, our new friend is at least semi-divine. If he can regain his former estate, that’s a little more reason to believe Lathander actually has returned.”

Anton smiled. “Belief is a wonderful thing. Or at least that’s what people tell me.”

Stedd had taken to riding on Nobanion’s back with as little fuss as he might once have ridden the farm donkey or plow horse. Anton watched him bend down, hug the lion spirit’s neck, and almost bury himself in the shaggy mane to avoid bumping his head on a branch.

It was remarkable how infrequently the boy had to do that. With Nobanion for a traveling companion, Gulthandor was a more welcoming place. Game trails wound through spaces where the trees grew farther apart, brambles didn’t clog every pathway, and the ground, though not dry, didn’t threaten to suck a man’s boots off with every labored step. No doubt the lion spirit knew the best ways to traverse his own domain, but Anton suspected there was more to it than that. It was like the forest changed to reflect its monarch’s desires.

If so, perhaps that explained the travelers’ speed, not that mortal senses revealed any trace of it. Content to let Nobanion guide them, the wayfarers seemed to be hiking in a more leisurely manner than hitherto. Yet the spirit assured them they were actually crossing the forest as fast as riders on horseback might cross a plain.

Anton enjoyed the ease and peace of the trek. It was comparable to chasing Kymas’s galley with Umara when, despite the various discomforts of life aboard Falrinn’s sailboat, he’d once or twice caught himself wishing the journey could take longer.

But that interlude had ended when it ended, with life’s usual lack of regard for anyone’s wishes, and this one would, too. He told himself he’d be better off when it did.

Walking beside him, the hair on her scalp grown out to fuzz, Umara gave him a quizzical frown, and he realized he’d been tramping along in silence for a while. He tried to think of something to say, something that would mask the actual trend of his reflections, and then Nobanion came to a halt and lowered himself onto his belly, as was his habit when Stedd needed to climb on or off.

“This is as far as I go,” the lion said.

“Already?” asked Stedd. Perhaps, his sense of urgency notwithstanding, he too had been enjoying the easy traveling.

“Yes,” Nobanion said. “After a century of neglect, I have to tend to the needs of the prides and the forest as a whole. And my part in your undertaking is done. You’ll see that, I believe, if you don’t allow the sadness of parting to cloud your vision.”

The boy sighed. “I guess I do.” He ruffled his fingers through the spirit’s mane as he might have petted a shaggy dog, then clambered down onto the ground.

The Thayan mariners regarded Nobanion with a touch of the same regret. That too was remarkable when Anton thought about it. They were hard men who in large measure justified their homeland’s grim reputation, and mere days before, the lion spirit had led the attack that killed several of their fellows. Yet in the time since, his air of nobility had won them over. Or perhaps Stedd’s steadfast eagerness to forgive and see goodness in everyone had inspired them to do the same.

Fools, the lot of them, Anton thought, and then Nobanion turned toward him and Umara.

“Stedd needs the help of everyone here,” the lion rumbled. “But you two have known him longest and best. You, he needs most of all.”

“Needs to do what?” Anton replied. “Do you know?”

Nobanion grunted. “No. But I have no doubt it truly is a charge laid on him by the Morninglord, and vitally important.”

“Well,” Anton said, “I’ve put up with the brat this far.” He gave Stedd a wink. “I suppose I can tolerate him for a few miles farther.”

“I already pledged to help him,” Umara said, a bit of Red Wizard hauteur showing through even though she addressed a demigod, or something not far short of one.

Nobanion’s golden eyes scrutinized them for another breath or two. Then he turned and padded back the way they’d come.

Anton blinked, or felt as if he might have, and in that instant, the huge lion disappeared. With his departure, even the trail back into the depths of Gulthandor looked suddenly indistinct and overgrown, like it was disappearing now that he didn’t need it anymore.

Fortunately, the trail to the east remained as clearly defined and passable as before. And when the travelers glimpsed the brown ramparts of the Orsraun Mountains to the south, and later came upon a circle of the warty-looking mushrooms called spit-thrice, it was evident, to Anton at least, that Nobanion had kept his promise to see the human travelers safety to the limits of his domain.

That night, the pirate lay waiting while the campfires burned down and his companions snored and shifted under whatever coverings they’d contrived to keep off the rain. A sentry was also awake, but he wasn’t looking in Anton’s direction. When the moment felt right, the Turmishan rose silently, buckled on his saber and cutlass, and picked up the rest of his gear.

As he tucked his crossbow, quiver, bundles, and wadded blanket under his arms, his gaze fell on Stedd. The boy lay mostly concealed under a blanket, but his golden hair stuck out and gleamed even in the waning firelight.

Something clenched in Anton’s neck and chest. He didn’t know precisely what he was feeling, but that was all right because he didn’t want to know. Scowling, he tried to will it away and feel nothing.

The sentry was looking away to the north, perhaps wistfully, considering that was where the sea was. Anton crept west, back up the section of trail the travelers had traversed before the light failed.

He soon reached a stand of beeches. Once he passed through, he’d be out of sight of the camp and vice versa. He felt a momentary urge to take a last look back and made himself quicken his stride instead.

When he reached the other side, he set down the articles he was carrying and started to roll his blanket. Then a voice asked, “Why?”

He dropped the blanket, pivoted away from the sound, and snatched for the hilts of his swords. He had them halfway drawn when he realized the disembodied voice was female and, in fact, familiar.

Umara wavered from invisible to visible, semitransparent and blurry for a moment, then locking into opacity and focus. The darkness hid the complex layered textures of her mage’s garb and turned the red cloth black, but it didn’t conceal her frown.

He took a breath. “I would have thought it beneath the dignity of a Red Wizard to play pranks.”

“If I gave you a fright,” Umara answered, “that’s the least you deserve.”

“Did you follow me out of camp?”

She shook her head. “I was waiting for you here. The moment you promised Nobanion you’d stay with Stedd, I knew you were lying.”

He frowned. “Truly? I consider myself a pretty fair liar. What gave me away?”

“I don’t know, exactly, and it doesn’t matter. I want to know what you think you’re doing.”

“Surely, that’s obvious.” He smiled. “And don’t ask how dare I lie to the great lion king’s face and flout his will. Since this madness started, I’ve acted against the interests of Lathander, Amaunator, Umberlee, and Malar and lived to tell the tale. I don’t feel all that inclined to cower in awe of a magical animal, no matter how impressive.”

“I can understand that.” Despite the rain, Umara pushed her cowl back. Anton had the feeling it was so he could see her fair-complexioned, fine-boned face more clearly. “Nobanion inspired considerable … respect in me, but he’s not the sort of entity that ever allied itself with my order or my country. He’s more like one of the animal spirits the witches of Rashemen send against us. So I don’t feel inclined to grovel before him, either.”

“Yet you mean to do what he told you to.”

“I’m doing what I decided back aboard the galley. And with Kymas dead by your hand and mine, I don’t have much choice but to see it through.”

Anton sighed. “That’s unfortunate. But I do see a choice.”

“To walk back into Gulthandor alone? Even if you make it out the other side, what lies beyond? Westgate? Teziir? A boat back to Pirate Isle? There’s only death awaiting you in any of those places.”

“My ill-wishers will have to catch me first.”

“But what’s the point?”

“The point is that I’ve had my little flirtation with high and sacred matters. Now it’s time to go back to being the man I truly am.”

Umara hesitated then said, “Since I listened to Stedd, I’m a stranger to myself, too. It’s not so much murdering my superior. With luck, that’s the kind of thing for which a Red Wizard can be forgiven, and Kymas … gave me reason to want to dispose of him. But I’m disobeying Szass Tam-Szass Tam! — and gambling that somehow, it will come out all right. That’s pure insanity, and it was comforting that I at least had another mad soul to keep me company as I went racing toward my doom.”

The tightness in Anton’s neck and chest was back. He covered the discomfort with a smirk. “You know just how to make prolonging our partnership sound appealing.”

Umara drew herself up straight. “I’m a Red Wizard. You’re an outlander and a pirate. Yet I just indicated I consider you a friend. Don’t expect me to plead.”

“I don’t. But truly, you can’t be shocked I’m leaving. I said early on that I would when the time was right. And later, when the matter came up again, I had the lion king of Gulthandor himself urging me to change my mind, with you, Stedd, and all the mariners looking on. Who wouldn’t have said yes, whatever was truly in his mind?”

She sneered. “Coward.”

“I prefer to see myself as tactful.”

“Why won’t you go back to Turmish?”

“People hate me there.”

“People hate you everywhere.”

“Once again, I’ll observe that you truly do know how to persuade a fellow.”

“Answer the question, curse you! After what we’ve gone through together, you owe me that.”

Anton sighed. “Just … if Stedd needs the good will of the folk of Sapra, I’m the last man who should be standing at his side. Can we leave it at that?”

“No!”

Anton drew breath to tell her she’d have to. For after all, he’d never talked about what had happened in Sapra with anyone.

Yet it was no secret, at least not in the more populous parts of Turmish, and maybe he did owe Umara something. Or perhaps her badgering had simply worn him down.

“All right,” he growled. “Turmish is a republic. It doesn’t have kings or princes like many another land. But it has wealthy merchants who pretty much run the place under the watchful eyes of the druids, and my father, Diero Marivaldi, was one such.” He smiled fleetingly. “So you see, snooty lady, in my fashion, I’m highborn, too.”

“I’m not ‘snooty.’ I simply see no reason to behave as if I’m less than what I am.”

“If you say so. Anyway, my ancestors and relatives weren’t only merchants. Some would say we weren’t even traders first and foremost. It was our tradition that every young Marivaldi serve in the Turmishan navy. Some fulfilled their obligations and moved on to command the family’s commercial ventures. Others, finding a life of duty satisfying, remained with the fleet until old age beached them.”

Umara nodded. “I’ll hazard you expected to be one of the latter.”

Anton blinked. “Considering all I’ve done to steal other people’s wealth in recent years, I’m surprised you’d say that. But you’re right. When I was small, tales of my heroic ancestors battling despicable pirates and sea serpents thrilled me, and any suggestion that I learn to pore over ledgers in a counting house or dicker over bushels of Aglarondan grain moved me to truancy and general rebellion.”

Umara grunted. “As long as I was home, I never felt the need to rebel. My parents were delighted when I proved to possess a talent for wizardry. And from the start, I loved magic too dearly to even imagine applying myself to any other vocation. Although when I started to learn what it truly means to be a Red Wizard, the things expected of us beyond simply mastering spells and reading arcane lore …” She shook her head as though to clear it. “Never mind. We’re talking about you.”

“Alas, we are. In time, Turmish went to war with Akanul. It was a squabble over tariffs and a scrap of border territory that wasn’t good for anything anyway, but at the time, I believed my countrymen were fighting for the noblest cause in the history of Faerun. That made me even more frantic to serve, and the sharpest spur of all was the example of my elder brother Rimardo. He was already first mate aboard a caravel and had acquitted himself gallantly in several actions at sea.”

“And so you envied him.”

Anton snorted. “Bitterly. When he came home on leave, I couldn’t get enough of his stories, and yet, it maddened me that he was living that life and I wasn’t. I may even have hated him a little.”

“But your time must have arrived eventually.”

“That depends on how you look at it. When I was old enough to enlist, I did. But by then, the petty war was ending as leaders on both sides realized it had never been worth fighting in the first place.”

“Still, you were where you wanted to be.”

Anton smiled. “As I said, only in a sense. I told you it’s wealthy merchants who generally win election to the Assembly of Stars, and they keep a tight grip on Turmish’s purse strings. Once we made peace with the genasi, the assemblymen decided the navy didn’t need as many warships patrolling the sea. The country could save coin by putting some in dry dock.”

Umara frowned. “Leaving you a sailor with nothing to sail?”

“Yes. For want of anything better to do with me, the navy made me a customs officer. It was a tedious life largely made up of the same sort of tallying and recordkeeping that filled me with loathing as a boy. And while I tramped around the docks with my chalk, slate, and abacus, I had to watch the warships that weren’t in dry dock come and go with lucky wretches like Rimardo aboard.”

“That would have galled me, too,” Umara said. She ran her fingertips over her scalp as though the feel of the stubble annoyed her. “Still, if Turmish is anything like Thay, a new war is always on the way.”

Anton sighed. “I actually did possess just enough sense to realize I should simply bide my time. But that time was so dull! To pass it, I drank, gambled, and frequented the festhalls. As you can likely guess, I often found myself in need of coin, and although my father had plenty, I felt increasingly awkward asking him to toss some my way. He disapproved of wastrels, and my every wheedling visit made it clearer that was what I’d become.”

“So you found a different source of gold?”

“Close, but actually, it found me. It turns out that smugglers study customs officials to discover who might be susceptible to bribery. In retrospect, my reaction was ludicrous, but at the time, I was astonished to learn that I looked corrupt, or at least, corruptible.”

“But not so astonished you didn’t agree to collaborate.”

“Understand, my responsibilities seemed so petty, and so far removed from the heroic career I’d imagined for myself, that looking away while a few scoundrels moved contraband didn’t feel like a true betrayal of anything. What did it matter if a few amphorae of Chessentan olive oil …” He sneered. “Listen to me blather. Next, I’ll be making excuses for all the rapine and slaughter in all the years since.”

“Just tell the story,” Umara said. There was a hint of gentleness in her voice that he could only recall hearing when she was speaking to Stedd, and then, infrequently.

“Very well. At first, I allowed wine, copper ingots, lumber, and spices to come ashore untaxed. Eventually, though, I noticed stranger cargo. Boxes with peculiar symbols carved on the lids and something rustling inside despite a lack of air holes. Weirdly shaped objects that, wrapped like mummies, glowed a little even through the cloth. A moldy book with an iron stake sticking through the front cover and out the back.”

Umara frowned. “I know that book.”

“I thought you might. I didn’t, but I was canny enough to recognize unsavory mystical artifacts when I saw them, and by chance, I learned they all were bound for a single buyer.”

“Did that worry you?”

“It should have. But looking away was a habit by then. One piece of contraband was like another, so long as it dropped coin in my hand on its way to its destination.”

“So in the end, what happened? Something obviously did.”

“Indeed, and I suspect you heard something about the incident even in far-off Thay. It was quite spectacular, and a balor-I learned later that’s what they’re called-leading a pack of lesser demons seems like the sort of thing that would interest your folk.”

Umara stared at him. “By the seven fallen stars! You were implicated in that?”

“Well, fortunately, not at first, not to anybody’s knowledge. What with fiends laying waste to the city and striving to destroy the Elder Circle of the Emerald Enclave, who were paying one of their rare visits, we were all too busy fighting back to try to figure out what it all meant. This will make you laugh: Even I had no idea. As I stood with everyone else who could hold a spear or a sword, it never occurred to me that I was anything other than a loyal Turmishan officer seizing the chance to prove his mettle at last.”

Anton sighed. “But afterward, when scores of folk lay dead, my poor, brave brother among them, and much of Sapra had burned to black sticks and ash, people wanted to know why. And the demons hadn’t been subtle. It was no great trick to follow their trail back to the mansion of the assemblyman who’d called them forth from the Abyss.”

“Why did he do it?”

“It was a coup, or the start of one. He wanted to do away with the republic and make himself king, but he knew the high druids wouldn’t stand for it. So he tried to assassinate them with supernatural power that rivaled even theirs.”

“Unless he was a master wizard, it was a fool’s play. Even if it had worked, the balor would likely have ended up as the real king, and he, its plaything.”

“It’s a pity you weren’t around to advise him. Anyway, it turned out he had a fussy habit of making notes on even the sort of deeds and plans that one should never write about. The notes pointed to the smugglers who brought him the items required for the summoning.”

“And under duress, the smugglers pointed to you.”

“Turmishan interrogators aren’t as fond of ‘duress’ as Thayans, but the knaves certainly would have given me up before they were through with them. Fortunately, I was Diero Marivaldi’s son and an officer who’d fought well in the recent crisis. Folk in authority trusted me and spoke freely when I was around. Thus, I happened to learn the smugglers were about to be arrested just as the navy and the watch moved to round them up.”

“And you fled.”

“It was that or kneel at the headsman’s block. I was as guilty as anyone for what had befallen Sapra. If I hadn’t betrayed my office, it could never have happened. And once I was away, well, I was already on the outlaw’s path. I figured I might as well keep walking it.”

“Until it led you into piracy.”

“Yes. I’ve heard that meanwhile, denied the satisfaction of seeing my head roll, Sapra turned its scorn on my father. His lifetime of honorable dealings counted for nothing against my crime, and he found it impossible either to trade or hold government office. He withdrew from public life and died not long after.”

Umara stood quietly for a moment. Then she said, “Hm.”

“I see my tale of woe affected you deeply.”

“If I’d responded with a gush of commiseration-not that I’m suggesting I was inclined to-you would only have jeered at it.”

Anton realized she was right. “Be that as it may, now you understand why I can’t return to Sapra.”

“No, I see I was right from the start. If people want to kill you everywhere, that’s no reason to stay away from Turmish. You’ll actually be safer there. Your brown skin won’t stand out.”

“My traitor’s face will.”

“Was it wearing the usual ridiculous Turmishan beard the last time anyone in Sapra saw it?”

He hesitated. “Yes.”

“And that was years ago, in addition to which, I know a bit about disguise. It’s part of the illusionist’s art.”

“Thank you, but it would still be too risky. I won’t be responsible for the failure of Stedd’s errand, whatever mooncalf thing it turns out to be.”

“Stedd wants you with him, and not just because Lathander and Nobanion think it’s a good idea. He had to forsake his family, too. They’re back on the farm thousands of miles to the west where he’ll never see them again. He needs someone to stand by him, and little though we deserve his trust, he’s fastened on you and me.”

“The more fool him, then.”

Umara scowled. “If you don’t want to return to Turmish, then don’t. But at least be honest about the reason. It’s not fear of the headsman’s axe. It’s shame.”

To his own surprise, Anton nearly flinched. He forced a laugh instead. “You should ask the folk I’ve robbed and the widows and orphans of those I’ve killed if I seem like a man susceptible to shame.”

“You may not feel it over anything Anton Marivaldi the pirate has done. But Anton Marivaldi the youthful customs officer is a different matter.”

“How in the name of the Abyss would you know? Who ever heard of a Red Wizard suffering shame over anything?”

Umara scowled. “I’m tired of arguing. If you want to go, go.” She pulled her hood up and headed into the beeches.

Anton told himself he was glad she’d given up. But he stood and watched her go, and when she was about to disappear into the trees and the darkness, he blurted, “Wait.”

A while back, the travelers had started seeing axe-chopped tree stumps and other signs of human activity in the forest. Now, keeping low, Anton, Umara, and Stedd skulked from one bit of cover to the next. As far as Stedd was aware, there was no particular reason to make sure they got a look at Morningstar Hollows before anyone in the village sighted them. But after all the dangers he and his friends had passed through, he supposed caution was a good idea.

They reached a spot where the trees thinned out. Some distance beyond them, farmers were working bedraggled, rain-lashed fields.

Everything looked all right to Stedd. He started to straighten up, and Anton put his hand on his shoulder. “I wouldn’t,” the pirate said.

“Why not?” Umara asked.

Anton smiled. “If you squint, you might make out a couple white faces among the brown ones. And while Turmish doesn’t forbid outlanders to immigrate, I don’t see why they’d bother just to settle in a backwater like this. The village has failed and been abandoned so many times, it’s a wonder even Turmishans keep rebuilding it.”

“You think Evendur sent a force here to intercept us,” the wizard said.

“It’s a logical move,” Anton replied. “I wish we could get a better look at the white men. But maybe we don’t need one. If those are pirates over there, their ship can’t be too far off. Come on.”

They headed back into the forest, collected the Thayan sailors and marines who were waiting for them there, and then they all marched north, keeping to the fringe of the forest the while. After a time, they reached a spot where the rain-fed waters of the Inner Sea had advanced up a valley. There, a caravel floated with sails furled and several ropes mooring it to tree trunks.

Anton grinned. “Hello again, Mourmyd. My compliments on the skill required to bring the Octopus so far south on an uncharted and uncertain waterway, over submerged trees and who knows what else. My friends and I are in your debt.”

“What are you thinking?” Umara asked.

“We steal the ship. Mourmyd surely didn’t leave her unattended, but just as surely, he and most of his crew are lurking in Morningstar Hollows waiting for us to turn up there. We shouldn’t have much trouble wresting Octopus away from whoever’s still aboard, and afterward, if any more of Evendur’s hunters spot us on our voyage east, they’ll mistake us for some of their own.”

The Red Wizard smiled. “That is a good plan. I like it.”

Stedd peered up at the two adults. “But what about Morningstar Hollows?”

Umara shrugged. “What about it?”

“If Mourmyd’s pirates are there, doesn’t that mean they took it over? Aren’t they doing bad things to the people who live there?”

Anton sighed. “Now that you mention it, I’m sure they are.”

“Then we can’t just steal the ship and sail away. We have to help them!”

Umara frowned. “Your mission is our concern. We shouldn’t risk it and you in a battle we can avoid.”

“Helping people is my mission.”

Anton turned to Umara. “You aren’t going to talk him out of it. And why else are we here but to back his play, however feckless it turns out be?”

Umara glowered. “I didn’t know when I was well rid of you.”

Mourmyd Jacerryl was full. He made himself eat the last piece of roast chicken anyway, because the village woman who’d cooked it for him was watching.

Slender and long-legged, comely in the swarthy way of her people, the village woman didn’t appear to be enjoying the spectacle, although she had the sense to try to hide her resentment. He wondered what bothered her more, that he’d ordered every one of Morningstar Hollows’s few remaining farm animals butchered to feed his crew, or that he was gorging while her belly was empty. Probably the latter, he decided, with the food disappearing down his gullet right in front of her and the aroma of it hanging in the air.

He swallowed the last bite of meat, belched, and tossed the leg bone on the floor. “Well, that was rank,” he said. “Filthy peasant food.”

It had actually been quite tasty, and the woman likely knew it and took pride in her cooking. Still, she really had no choice but to mumble, “I’m sorry.”

Mourmyd grinned. “Well, perhaps you can make it up to me. Take off your clothes.”

The villager’s dark eyes popped open wide, and then she shook her head. “No. Please, no.”

“Do it.”

“Please, no,” she repeated.

She actually sounded like it would take more than simple verbal intimidation to coerce her, so Mourmyd considered his options. Straightforward rape was the obvious one, but in the wake of his meal, he wasn’t feeling especially energetic. He turned to Gimur and said, “Help me convince her.”

The pudgy sorcerer reached for a little jade carving of a nude and headless woman, one of dozens of talismans pinned or tied to his long gingery braids. It was the one he used to subvert a female victim’s will.

The effects of such magic varied. Some women turned into docile sleepwalkers. Others grew timid, and the fear made them compliant. A few even became lustful.

Whatever the precise effect, the experience left the target feeling complicit in her own violation and filled with self-disgust. It was a subtle refinement to the basic torment, and Mourmyd liked to think he could be subtle when the spirit moved him.

Gimur spoke the first words of the spell. The fire in the hearth leaped higher, and a filthy smell filled the hovel. The village woman cried out and swayed, but Mourmyd knew she couldn’t bolt. The magic already had her in its grip.

Then the shack’s door banged open, and the Octopus’s boatswain, a hulking, olive-skinned half-orc named Borthog, burst in. Rain blew in along with him.

Something was clearly happening, and Mourmyd jumped up from the table. “Has the boy preacher come?”

“No.” Borthog shoved the villager out of his way. “But there’s fire to the north!”

“What?” North was where they’d moored the Octopus!

Mourmyd hurried out of the thatch-roofed cottage with Gimur and Borthog scurrying behind him. Other folk stood in the rain, looking northward where a column of smoke rose, stained yellow by the blaze that was its source. Unfortunately, Mourmyd couldn’t see the fire itself or what was fueling it. Too many trees were in the way. But it certainly looked like the flames could be either burning the Octopus or at least dangerously close to it.

The loss of the ship would have been catastrophic under any circumstances. If it left Mourmyd stranded in a realm that had long since put a hefty price on his head, and where he’d spent the last few days committing new outrages, he was unlikely to survive it.

Turning to Gimur, he asked, “What can you see?”

The chubby sorcerer hesitated. His powers notwithstanding, he was leery of giving answers that failed to satisfy his captain. “No more than you. I’m not a seer.”

“Then what in the Bitch’s name are you good for?” Mourmyd pivoted to Borthog. “Turn out the villagers to fight the fire. Tell them that if Octopus burns, they will, too.”

Like Gimur, Borthog hesitated. It gave Mourmyd the infuriating feeling that everything including his own crew was conspiring against him. He felt a momentary urge to draw his cutlass and start cutting.

Then Borthog said, “If you think it best. But it will take time to get the peasants moving. And if we don’t have time …”

Curse him, the boatswain was right. “Then get the crew moving!” Mourmyd snarled. “I want them standing in front of me with buckets in their hands before I finish counting to twenty!”

It didn’t happen quite that quickly, but once their officers started shouting orders, the pirates scurried to obey. Everyone understood the potential consequences of losing the caravel.

And while they all rushed through the woods, tripping over fallen branches, scratching and snagging themselves on brambles, and even bumping into tree trunks in the dark, Mourmyd prayed,

Please, he thought, great Queen of the Depths, let Octopus be all right! I came to this pesthole on your business because your high priest-curse him! — made me. Don’t let me suffer because of it!

As the pirates approached the anchorage, wavering yellow light shined through the trees ahead. Heat warmed Mourmyd’s face, and smoke stung his nostrils and set a man on his left to coughing. Near panic, the captain ran even faster, and his men did the same. Then they all faltered in confusion as they reached the strip of mud and weeds at the water’s edge.

The first thing Mourmyd noticed was that the ship was all right, and the realization brought a surge of relief. But the feeling only lasted an instant, because the vista before him was uncanny.

The pillar of smoke he’d observed from the village still billowed above the treetops. But there were no flames underneath it, just a sourceless radiance that gilded the surface of the water. The odd thought came to him that the missing fire was like a detail a lazy artist might omit from a mural when he realized the layout of the hall would keep anyone from looking closely at that end of the painting.

Except that in this case, it was a detail nobody would miss until it was too late, and illusion had already lured Mourmyd and his men into an ambush.

He bellowed, “Trap!” But at the same moment, figures popped up from behind the gunwales along the length of the Octopus to shoot crossbows at the befuddled men on land.

Other quarrels streaked out of the darkness on the pirates’ flanks. Someone screamed as he staggered with a bolt jutting from his face. Then, as soon as the barrage ceased, shadowy figures burst from cover to charge Mourmyd’s crew with pike, axe, and sword.

Honed in many a fight, Mourmyd’s instincts told him he and his crew had the ambushers outnumbered. But that changed almost instantly as his corsairs started to drop with their pails still in their hands and their blades still in their scabbards.

Mourmyd realized that even he was still gawking like a halfwit with a bucket in his grasp. He cast about, discovered Gimur in a similar stupefied condition, and lashed the pail into the sorcerer’s ribs. Gimur yelped and lurched around.

“Do something!” Mourmyd screamed.

Gimur gave a jerky nod and gripped a talisman in the shape of a curved iron glaur horn. He howled and ripped the plait to which the arcane ornament was clipped right out of his scalp.

The sorcerer’s scream became an ear-splitting blare like a call from a giant’s trumpet. The ground shuddered under Mourmyd’s feet but the shaking was even stronger where foes rushed in on the crew’s left flank. There, trees swayed and rustled, and the oncoming attackers reeled and fell.

That gave the men of the Octopus a last chance to prepare themselves for battle if the brainless scum would only take advantage of it. Mourmyd cast aside the bucket, drew his cutlass, and ran into the middle of them roaring, “Fight, drown you, fight!”

At least some of the reavers snapped out of their daze and reached for their own blades. Then a foe armed with a boarding pike rushed Mourmyd. Clad in the soaked, filthy uniform of a Thayan marine, the man knew how to handle his weapon, and for the next several breaths, Mourmyd had to devote his full attention to dueling him.

Finally, the pirate captain slipped past the jabbing, rust-speckled point of the pike and slashed the Thayan across the belly. The marine dropped the pike and, reeling, clutched at the wound to keep his guts from sliding out. Mourmyd pivoted away from him and looked around.

What he saw was cause for desperation. His crew were fighting back, but, taken by surprise, were doing so with just the side arms they wore habitually, not the full range of lethal gear they customarily carried into battle. Some only had daggers to pit against pikes and axes. It was rapidly proving to be a fatal disadvantage.

It might not be as disastrous if they had more sorcery strengthening them and blasting their enemies. Alas, Gimur was busy looking after himself. Jabbering incantations, he stood facing a tall, slender woman in a red hooded cloak across a distance of several yards. Her lips were moving, too, and she flourished a wand in broad, lazy sweeps above her head.

Orbs of phosphorescence appeared around the two spellcasters, bobbed and drifted sluggishly for a few heartbeats, and then dissolved. Streaks of light shot back and forth. Sometimes, they bent away from their targets, or simply stopped short. At other moments, radiant disks like shields flared into existence to block them.

In the flashing, flickering play of all that glow, hints of figures and faces appeared, vanished, and reappeared. A phantom lion sprang at a ghostly serpent, and a hovering expressionless mask of a countenance divided down the middle, flowed apart, and became two such objects.

Mourmyd lacked the esoteric knowledge that would have enabled him to comprehend much of what he was seeing. Still, it was clear Gimur was losing the arcane duel. His adversary appeared calm and confident, whereas he’d already yanked out several braids from his bloody scalp. That was a trick he only used when he needed to cast a spell more quickly and forcefully than normal.

The one cause for hope was that the Red Wizard appeared intent on her chosen opponent. Mourmyd surveyed the battle as a whole and found a path through the various knots of combatants that would enable him to circle around behind her. He started forward.

Then a familiar voice said, “Now, now. Let the mages have their fun, and you and I will have ours.” Mourmyd pivoted to see Anton Marivaldi advancing on him with a bloody saber in his left hand and a cutlass in his right.

Mourmyd had to swallow away a sudden thickness in his throat. Generally speaking, he had faith in his own prowess and had vindicated that confidence in battle after battle. Yet he realized he didn’t want to cross swords with Anton. Not on a calamitous night like this, when Tymora had so manifestly turned her back on him.

But maybe he wouldn’t have to. Borthog, a boarding axe he must have taken from a fallen Thayan in his hands, crept up behind the Turmishan. Mourmyd need only keep Anton from discerning the half-orc’s approach and the other captain would cease to be a problem.

Retreating, Mourmyd snarled, “You’re a traitor! To your fellow pirates and our faith!”

Anton grinned. “Let’s not belabor the obvious.”

“I mean it!” Mourmyd said, still giving ground. “You’ve thrown everything away!” Meanwhile, Borthog slipped into striking distance.

But as the half-orc raised the boarding axe, Anton whirled. Either he’d known Borthog was there all along or had somehow sensed it just in time. Reflecting the rainbow luminescence of the mages’ duel, his saber sliced into his would-be assailant’s neck. Borthog collapsed with blood spurting from the gash and his tusked head flopping backward like it was on hinges.

But now Anton had his back to Mourmyd. Mourmyd charged.

Anton spun as he had before, sweeping the saber in a horizontal arc. Mourmyd parried and kept driving in. He thrust his cutlass at Anton’s torso.

With his own cutlass, Anton shoved the attack out of line then, in a continuation of the same action, slid the weapon up Mourmyd’s forearm, slicing it from wrist to elbow. Blood welled forth.

Mourmyd blundered on past his foe and wrenched himself around. He nearly dropped his cutlass in the process, then almost lost it again when switching it to his left hand.

Even the uninjured arm had trouble holding the blade steady, and that, combined with a sick, lightheaded feeling, told him his wound was bad. He was afraid to look to see how bad.

Even if it wasn’t as serious as it might be, he had little hope of outfighting Anton Marivaldi with his off hand. Signaling his willingness to drop his cutlass, he held it out to the side and wheezed, “I surrender.”

Anton hesitated. “Well, it is the way of Lathander to give even knaves like you and me a second chance. The boy would want me to show mercy.”

“Yes,” Mourmyd said.

“So I’m glad he isn’t watching.” Saber high and cutlass low, the Turmishan advanced.

By the time Anton brought Stedd from his hiding place to the anchorage, both the column of smoke and the yellow light Umara had created to counterfeit fire had disappeared. But the Thayans had kindled storm lanterns aboard the Octopus, and even in the rainy, overcast night, their glow sufficed to reveal not only the shape of the vessel but the bustle of activity onboard.

Anton paused on the shore to take in the sight. He felt himself smile.

Stedd peered up at him. “Having a ship again makes you happy,” he said.

Anton snorted. “It ought to make you happy, too.”

“It does.” Stedd glanced to where a squatting sailor was sewing bodies into shrouds of sailcloth. “But I wish there’d been another way to get it. You and the Thayans, you hardly talk about it when one of us dies.”

Anton shrugged. “Talking doesn’t bring people back to life.”

“I know, but …” Stedd shook his head.

“Warriors feel something when a comrade falls.” Or at least, some did. Anton realized that prior to meeting Stedd, he hadn’t experienced that emotion in quite a while. “But it’s a bad idea to wallow in it. That goes for you, too. Either Lathander’s cause is worth us risking our lives or it isn’t. If it is, say goodbye to the dead and sail on.”

“I guess.”

“Speaking of sailing on, it shouldn’t take long to ready the ship to head for the sea.”

Stedd frowned. “I have to go into Morningstar Hollows first.”

“Now, how did I know you were going to say that? Maybe Umara will want to tag along. She might as well. Now that the fighting’s over, a lubber’s of no use here.”

The wizard did choose to accompany them, and as they hiked through the woods together, Anton realized that this time, the aftermath of battle had left him feeling peaceful, not restless and morose. With a scowl, he pushed the realization aside lest even thinking of the absent bleakness bring it surging back.

In the settlement, a motley combination of new or refurbished huts and decaying, uninhabited wrecks, a woman’s corpse dangled from a sycamore maple, where she’d been hanging long enough for birds to make a meal of her features. Anton assumed Mourmyd had strung her up and left her as a warning to any villager who might be contemplating defiance.

There were also living townsfolk gathered on the common. Perhaps they’d heard the sounds of battle and were waiting to see who had won.

Umara waved two men-brothers, by the look of them, with the same shape to their broad noses and bony brows-forward. They peered warily back at her.

The Red Wizard gestured to the corpse. “I need you to catch her when I bring her down. Unless you don’t care if she just crashes to the ground.”

The brothers exchanged glances, then positioned themselves beneath the body’s feet. Umara whispered to herself and crooked and uncrooked the fingers of her left hand. The rope supporting the dead woman unknotted itself, and she dropped into her neighbors’ waiting hands.

“You can bury her in the morning,” Anton said. “Her killers won’t interfere for the excellent reason that they’re dead now, too.”

A couple villagers smiled. Others closed their eyes and sighed in a sort of private rapture of relief.

“Did the Assembly send you?” asked the taller of the brothers.

“No,” said Stedd, “Lathander did.”

Anton put his hand on Stedd’s shoulder. “The boy here is the prophet who’s been proclaiming the rebirth of the Morninglord. Perhaps you’ve heard something about that even here on the edge of the wilderness.”

“Can he truly work magic?” asked a woman clad in dark, ragged mourning. “Can he create food?”

“Is that what the village needs?” Stedd replied.

“It’s what everybody needs,” the bereaved woman said. “The crops have failed. All Turmish is starving.”