The Reaver

CHAPTER TWELVE

Dwelling in the house of Silvanus, preoccupied with Shadowmoon’s mental deterioration and other threats to the wild lands that a blade couldn’t answer, Shinthala had in recent years seldom worn her scimitar. But the weight still felt comfortable riding on her hip.

She still felt at ease in her old war cloak, too, but had taken it off for the moment. The enchantment it bore made her appear a half step away from her actual location, an advantage when enemies were trying to aim blows or missiles at her but inconvenient on the rolling deck of a warship with crewmen scurrying back and forth. Even in the bow and the stern, there was nowhere to stand that was truly out of the way, and the poor fellows kept jostling her, then cringing and stammering apologies as if they expected her to strike them dead or turn them into frogs.

She’d retrieve the cloak when the enemy armada appeared. Hoping to catch a first glimpse of it, she squinted out over the waves.

But it was Shadowmoon and Ashenford who wavered into view before her. It was like she was looking through a hole in the air and the House of Silvanus was on the far side, except that the opening didn’t have clearly defined edges. Rather, the shadowy space around the other elders blurred by degrees until it was indistinguishable from the backdrop of gray cloud and falling rain.

Shinthala sighed. “I suppose it was too much to hope the two of you would believe I was off meditating.”

“This is unnecessary,” Shadowmoon said. “We arranged for druids to sail aboard every ship.”

“And if we were going to send our followers to fight the Chosen of Umberlee,” Shinthala replied, “on the open sea, no less, it was only right for one of the Elder Circle to share the danger.”

“But you’re needed here,” Ashenford said, and in his voice, Shinthala heard the fear of losing someone who’d been a friend and sometimes more for over a hundred tumultuous years.

But she couldn’t speak to that now, only to their duties and the choices they entailed. “Even without me, the Emerald Enclave’s magic will be at least as strong as it was before Stedd Whitehorn came to us. The restorations of the island and-forgive my bluntness, my friend-of Silvermoon’s sanity ensure that.”

Ashenford shook his head. “Still-”

“There is no ‘still,’ ” Shinthala said. “The more I thought about it, the more I realized Anton Marivaldi was right. We do need to fight these waveservants and pirates, and we won’t be able to lure them into the forests. So we’ll just have to meet them on the water.”

Shadowmoon smiled a sad little smile. “Of the three of us, sister, you were always the one who relished a battle.”

“Then let me have one,” Shinthala said. “Why not? If I die, how much has the Emerald Enclave truly lost? I don’t have elf blood in my veins, and the Treefather’s gift of long life is running out in me.”

“We’ll do everything we can,” said Shadowmoon, “to send you power and luck from here.”

“I know,” Shinthala said. “But do me one more favor. Bring Stedd to the circle.”

The elf cocked her head. “If you think there’s a point.”

“There might be. My judgment tells me we who serve Silvanus should help fight this war. But in the deepest sense, it’s Lathander’s struggle, and perhaps if his Chosen is present when you’re casting magic to oppose Evendur Highcastle, that will finally rouse the boy.” Shinthala smiled at Ashenford. “Or perhaps he’ll simply respond to the sound of your harping. I always did.”

“The boy will be there,” Shadowmoon said. “May the Forest Father keep you.” She waved a tiny copper-skinned hand, and she and Ashenford vanished, just as Shinthala was about to take what might well prove to be a fond last look at them.

With a snort, the white-haired druidess returned to playing lookout. She fancied her sight was still keen despite her advancing years, but even so, a young man in the fighting top partway up the foremast spotted the enemy’s sails before she did. “Pirates off the bow!” he shouted, his voice breaking. Just audible despite the distance and the rain, a sailor aboard the nearest caravel to starboard shouted the same thing.

It had seemed to Shinthala that Delise’s Needle, the ship she’d chosen to ride, had made extensive preparations for battle before ever leaving the harbor. Still, the lookout’s warning triggered bursts of activity both on deck and aloft. Some of it, like the artillerymen fussing over ballistae and catapults, was comprehensible even to a landlubber. Other procedures were not.

But in all cases, the haste seemed to reflect taut nerves rather than necessity. The Umberlant fleet was still far away. Refusing to succumb to her own anxiety, Shinthala watched its upper sails, then the lower ones, and finally the hulls of the vessels appear above the waves before she fetched her cloak and whirled it around her shoulders.

Perhaps that momentary respite from standing and staring did her good. For when she looked out over the rail again, she noticed gray shadows gliding beneath the waves in advance of the Umberlant ships. One raced straight at Delise’s Needle.

Muttering a charm of seeing, she studied the oncoming form, and then she perceived it as clearly as if she were swimming alongside it. It was a long, slender fin whale, gray-brown on top and paler on the belly, and magic crawled in its head like worms. No doubt that was the source of the rage or compulsion driving it toward the warship.

Fortunately, a whale was an animal, and in theory, druids had power over all beasts, even those of the sea. Shinthala held out her hand and called her sickle with her thoughts, and it leaped into her grip all the way from her personal quarters in the Elder Spires. She whirled the bronze blade in ritual cuts as she rattled off words of command. Holly-ghostly to others, she knew, but real to her-flowered around her and filled the air with its scent.

She felt her spell start to close around the whale’s mind like a hand, then something-the original enchantment impelling the animal, no doubt-slapped that notional hand away hard enough to break its fingers. The resistance spiked pain between her eyes. She was still reeling from it when the finback rammed the ship.

The jolt hurled her sideways, and for a panicked instant, she imagined she was about to tumble into the sea. Then the rail caught her.

She took a ragged breath and looked around. Clutching crossbows and javelins, sailors peered over the sides waiting for the whale to make another pass at the ship.

Maybe Shinthala should let them try to kill it, blameless though it was. But if she did mean to try again to calm the finback with magic, it would be counterproductive for her allies to cause it pain.

She cast about and her eyes fell on Thieron Astorio, the other druid onboard, a small barefoot man whose armor of dyed leather scales was fashioned to make it look like he was wearing a coat of leaves. His staff in one hand, Thieron clung to a forestay with the other, an indication that he hadn’t found his sea legs any better than she had.

Still, he looked calm and was an initiate of the Circle of Air, far advanced in the mysteries, and that helped Shinthala make her decision.

“Don’t attack the whale!” she bellowed to the crew at large. “Give me another chance to send it away!” She looked at Thieron. “Druid! I need you!”

Weaving a little, he ran to her.

“We’re going to control the whale together,” Shinthala told him. “I’ll destroy the magic that’s making it attack us. When you sense that giving way, cast a spell of friendship.”

“I understand,” Thieron replied.

They peered at the sea but for a moment couldn’t find the whale. Then, perhaps realizing they’d lost track of the finback, a sailor shouted, “It’s to starboard!”

Dodging around a ballista and the artilleryman waiting to shoot it, the two druids hurried to that side of the bow. The fin whale was turning for another run at the caravel. This time, it meant to ram her amidships.

Shinthala shouted words of negation and swept her sickle back and forth while once again, holly grew around her. She imagined the cruel power driving the whale to batter the ship without regard for its own well-being as a chain. Her counterspell was rust, pitting the links and crumbling them away.

This time, she was ready for the waveservants’ magic to fight back. Still, it nearly slapped her away. But then she felt the power of Ashenford, Shadowmoon, and the other druids in the House of Silvanus streaming like a river in the sky. She seized it, melded it with her own, and stabbed with the result.

The magic slithering inside the whale’s head withered away. And, as Shinthala briefly sensed, somewhere aboard one of the pirate ships, a priest of Umberlee screamed in pain and blood gushed from his nostrils.

But despite its liberation, the finback, likely angry and confused, was still coming. Thieron recited the spell of friendship, and it emerged as a nasal moan unlike anything Shinthala had ever heard.

But strange as it sounded to her, the finback understood it. Instead of ramming the caravel, the animal dived and passed underneath.

Sailors cheered, and Shinthala was happy enough to contribute to their morale. But she suspected they might not be so exuberant if they realized just how difficult it had been for two allegedly mighty druids to counter Umberlant magic here at sea with the will of the Bitch Queen’s Chosen reinforcing it.

This whale had been Evendur Highcastle’s opening move, a way to soften up the Turmishan fleet before it and his own armada even came together. He likely had worse in store. But Shinthala could only counter threats and smite targets as they presented themselves. She looked around and spied a ship to port under attack by some sort of marine hydra swimming alongside it. Half a dozen heads atop serpentine necks struck at the men on deck with a motion that reminded her of hands picking berries.

She tried to free it of the coercion that controlled it. Another man died while she chanted, and this time, the Umberlant enchantment proved too strong to break.

She needed to try something else, quickly, while there were still living crewmen left aboard the beleaguered ship. She thought of using her affinity with lightning, but she’d already decided to hold that power in reserve. Instead, with a single murmured word, she invoked another of the Oakfather’s gifts, a bond as close as kinship with the elemental spirits.

Flapping the sails behind her, a whirlwind howled into existence above the sea. A water spirit might have served her needs even better, but she feared the Chosen of Umberlee could turn such an entity against her.

The living whirlwind rushed at the hydra, buffeting but not quite capsizing the ship it was attacking in the process. The wind engulfed the beast in its murky spin and lifted it out of the water. The reptile roared and thrashed for a moment, and then the forces at work in the vortex tore it apart and flung the heads and other pieces in all directions.

Shinthala grinned and looked around to determine where to send the spirit next.

Cursing, Anton peered at the ships around him. Even for a veteran sea warrior like himself it was difficult to locate his quarry amid the chaos of an engagement being fought over miles of water in the gloom of the overcast and the rain.

He could see a great deal. In some places, whales, sea serpents, and krakens still assailed the Turmishan fleet. In others, Turmishan and Umberlant vessels hurled flaming catapult shot, volleys of crossbow bolts, and shimmering bursts of magic at one another. Two ships had already come together, the deck of one of them packed with combatants. Every few moments, a body fell over the side.

But Anton couldn’t figure out which ship Evendur was aboard, and hadn’t been able to determine the Chosen’s location previously because the Octopus had only joined the pirate armada at the start of the day.

As far as he’d been able to tell, none of the reavers had regarded the ship’s tardy arrival as cause for concern. Why should they? They recognized Mourmyd Jacerryl’s vessel as one of their own, and they knew contrary winds and other hindrances could prolong any journey over water.

Anton hoped the familiar sight of the ship would fool Evendur just as effectively, and that would allow those aboard the Octopus to attack him by surprise. Because that was the only way to sneak up on him. Umara’s wizardry couldn’t veil something as big as a caravel.

Nor, Anton reflected, did it seem to be good for much else at the moment, even though she muttered and gestured away, her index finger writing runes in crimson glow on the air, her telltale red garb put aside for nondescript mannish garments of brown and gray. “Anything?” he asked.

She shook her head. “Not yet.”

“If anyone had told me that a Red Wizard of Thay couldn’t locate something as stuffed full of magic as the Chosen of a god …”

“The problem,” Umara growled, “is too much magic. Druids or waveservants on every ship, all praying at once … I’m doing the best I can.”

Anton found a smile for her. “I know. Sorry.”

“Turmishan galley off the port bow!” a man in the rigging bellowed.

Anton pivoted in that direction and saw that, indeed, a ship much like the one the Thayans had abandoned off Gulthandor was heading toward them. Worse, the oars were speeding it along fast enough that the Octopus couldn’t evade it. The wind had been blowing erratically as spellcasters on both sides struggled to bend it to their purposes, and at the moment, only a feeble breeze pushed at the caravel’s sails.

Anton didn’t want to fight Turmishans but had no way of convincing them that the crew aboard the Octopus was anything other than the motley band of corsairs they appeared to be. He turned to Umara. “Can you hold them back without hurting them?” he asked.

“Perhaps.” She pulled the rust-colored wand from her belt and swept it back and forth as she chanted rhyming couplets. Anton had the feverish feeling that he could almost see what the tip of the rod was sketching on the air. His vision seemed to splinter around each stroke.

Still, he didn’t know what she was conjuring until the long crimson creature with its piscine tail and body and horned, half-human face surfaced midway between the Octopus and the galley. Even then, he didn’t know exactly what it was, an accurate representation of some huge demon fish that swam the seas of the netherworld or simply a product of Umara’s imagination.

Whatever it was supposed to be, the phantom swam at the galley as fast as the Turmishan ship’s oarsmen pulled it through the waves. The creature’s fangs gnashed as though it couldn’t wait to start chewing through the hull.

Men on the galley cried out in alarm. An officer shouted commands. Anton grinned. But then another voice-a druid’s, mostly likely-shouted, “Ignore the beast! It isn’t real!” And with that, the huge fish with the demon face started to flicker, present one instant, absent the next.

Umara whispered words that made Anton feel as though he were choking. Her fingers clenched on the wand, and blood trickled down her wrist as if she were gripping a blade.

The flickering stopped. The demon fish veered left an instant before it would have collided with the galley’s ram and sped on down the vessel’s starboard side. The gnashing fangs, its momentum, or a combination of the two, snapped off one oar after another.

The creature hadn’t quite finished when the druid bellowed words that made it vanish and stay vanished. But by then, the galley was crippled. Anton judged that even a puny breeze would enable the Octopus to leave her behind before the Turmishans collected their wits and ran out replacement oars.

He turned to Umara and asked, “But it was an illusion?”

Breathing hard, she smiled. “Some illusions are more illusory than others.”

“Evidently. Nice work.” As the Octopus left the galley in its wake, he resumed his peering. And then he spotted a ship, small in the distance but still impressive to knowledgeable eyes, to the northeast.

She was impressive because she was a galleon. The large ships with their long beaks and lateen-rigged mizzenmasts were rare on the Sea of Fallen Stars, and no captain from Pirate Isle commanded one. Some coastal lord-an Impilturian, judging from the lines of the vessel-especially eager to curry favor with the church of Umberlee must have sent her when the waveservants put out the call for reinforcements.

Anton pointed. “That’s Evendur.”

“How can you tell?” Umara replied.

“You met the arrogant son of a hag. Can you imagine him commanding anything other than the biggest, grandest ship in his fleet?”

The wizard smiled. “When you put it that way, no.”

“Neither can I.” Anton raised his voice. “We’re going after the galleon off the port bow!”

A sailor frowned. “With the wind the way it is, it could take all day to catch her if we can do it at all.”

“I’m a pirate,” Anton replied. “Catching other ships is my trade. You Thayans just do what I tell you.” He ran toward the stern to take the helm.

Evendur Highcastle grinned as he watched a Turmishan caravel whose masts and sails were masses of fire. Some artilleryman shooting burning shot or bowmen loosing flaming arrows had managed to set them ablaze despite the rain, and now the ship was doomed.

Or so he assumed. But then he felt magic stirring on the caravel as some druid completed a spell, and all that flame rose higher into the air, clear of the rigging, and flowed into the form of a gigantic yellow hawk. The elemental spirit looked around, and then, with a beat of its wings, hurtled not at the pirate ship that had set the caravel on fire-that vessel had evidently moved on to seek another fight-but at Evendur’s own galleon the Fury. Crewmen cried out in alarm.

Evendur spoke to the sea and told it to manifest a spirit of its own. Gray-green water heaved and became a colossal squid, which then snatched for the hawk with whipping tentacles.

Steam burst into being as water and fire came together. The burning spirit ripped with its beak and claws. But still, the squid dragged it out of the sky and then beneath the waves. Clinging to life, the hawk continued glowing for a breath or two, and then the light went out.

That left the spellcaster who’d dared to send the fire elemental against Evendur’s own vessel. The undead pirate focused his will on the portion of the sea under the caravel and raised it up like a hill. The Turmishan ship slid down the swell and capsized.

And just for an instant, Evendur felt lightheaded. He gripped the rail to steady himself, and the pressure made liquescence slough away from the firmer flesh underneath.

That instant of shakiness was a reminder that he’d been using his magic freely, and even the might of a Chosen had limits. Now that it was too late, he realized he could probably have killed the druid on the caravel with more finesse. As opposed to squandering the power necessary to destroy an entire crippled ship that, except for the spellcaster onboard, was unlikely to play any further role in the battle.

But Evendur had been annoyed. Because, while he had no doubt he’d win the conflict in the end, nothing was happening as he expected.

For starters, he hadn’t anticipated fighting this fight at all. The Turmishans weren’t supposed to know he was coming. Still, it hadn’t dismayed him to watch them sailing and rowing out of the east, because his fleet was bigger.

Unfortunately, that wasn’t proving to be an insurmountable advantage because some of the ships under his command had proved reluctant to engage the enemy. Pirates liked to think of themselves as fearless masters of the sea, but in fact, they commonly survived by attacking vulnerable targets and avoiding dangerous foes like the Turmishan navy, and maybe some were still operating according to the same principle. And perhaps the sailors from Westgate, Lyrabar, and the other coastal ports resented being ordered to fight on the side of the same corsairs they’d always considered murdering scum. Maybe, unlike the nobles who’d sent them, some had heard the Lathanderian message and doubted Umberlee’s supremacy.

The situation wasn’t as bad as it could be. As far as Evendur could tell, none of his ships had fled or surrendered. Even the reluctant ones fought when a Turmishan vessel forced the issue. But a number seemed to be hanging back in the hope that Umberlant magic would carry the day.

Evendur despised them for their lack of zeal. But he had to admit theirs was a reasonable expectation. The waveservants, after all, were fighting at sea and in their goddess’s holy cause. What else should they need to make them invincible?

But even that wasn’t playing out in the straightforward manner it should. The druids’ control of natural forces allowed them to resist the magic of the sea, and the Emerald Enclave was a notoriously warlike religious order, constantly taking up arms against loggers, settlers, and other despoilers of their sacred forests. Whereas some of Umberlee’s clergy were battle-seasoned, but others were not.

Evendur’s own mystical strength would still have tipped the scales, except that the Turmishans had brought a Chosen of their own. He could feel the presence of his counterpart like the idea of a mighty oak, rooted and massive, looming somewhere ahead.

He needed to kill Silvanus’s Chosen, and then, surely, the Turmishan defense would crumble. Striving for a more precise awareness of the elder druid’s location, he concentrated, and some burgeoning faculty inside him pointed like the needle of a compass.

He ordered the Fury onto the proper heading, and, barking a word of command, jerked the wind back into her sails when some other spellcaster sought to redirect it for his own purposes. A Turmishan ship changed course to intercept the galleon, but fortunately, he had sahuagin swimming around her like outriders, and when he spoke to them in their own snarling, burbling tongue, magic carried the sound to their ears.

The shark men converged on the enemy vessel and, dropping the tridents that would otherwise have hindered their climbing, swarmed up the sides to attack with fang and claw. It was a suicidal assault, but it kept the Turmishans busy while the Fury passed by, and shortly afterward, the ship of the Treefather’s Chosen emerged from the grayness and the rain.

Unlike Evendur’s vessel, she wasn’t a galleon or a grand galley, either, just a caravel. Still, she was plainly a formidable warship, not that it would help her now.

For now was the time for all the brutal, sudden, overwhelming strength that Evendur could muster. He roared a word of power and shook his boarding axe at the caravel. A wave reared up behind her, taller than her mainmast, then crashed down on top of her. The water felt like his own prodigious hand, first trying to swat the ship to splinters, then to grab whatever was left, roll it over, and drag it to the bottom.

But to his irritation, the magic of the enemy Chosen opposed him. He hadn’t caught his foe by surprise. Druidic power attenuated the force of his blow and weakened his grip. When the attack ended, the caravel was still floating upright.

He knew why. For an instant, he’d sensed two additional Chosen of Silvanus. They were ashore somewhere but still lending power to their ally.

Yet even so, that first attack had nearly succeeded, and he saw no reason to allow his foe time to recover the strength to withstand another. Seeking the Treefather’s Chosen, he studied the enemy ship.

The small man in armor that looked like a coat of leaves was almost certainly an accomplished druid. But it was the woman beside him, white-haired but still straight-backed and sturdy-looking, who was plainly Chosen; Evendur could feel the spark of divine power smoldering inside her. Glaring at her, hissing a curse in one of the secret tongues of Umberlee’s worshipers, he willed her lungs to fill with water. Nearly invisible in the rain, a streak of shimmer stabbed at her.

But the magic missed by a finger length. It was like the druidess wasn’t truly standing where she appeared to be. If so, a spell of clear sight might wipe away the deception.

But before Evendur could start casting one, she raised a bronze sickle over her head, and ghostly red flowers bloomed around her like a picture frame. She slashed the curved blade down and bellowed, “Oakfather!” Somehow, the shout was also an ear-splitting thunderclap, and at the same instant that she roared it, the world blazed white, and the undead pirate shuddered in burning agony.

Silvanus’s Chosen had struck him with lightning! He recognized the pain and spastic paralysis from when the two Red Wizards had used the same force against him, but their efforts had been puny compared to what the white-haired druidess had called down from the sky.

When the pain released him, he found himself sprawled on broken planking, in some danger of dropping through into the hold beneath. His ears rang, and patches of his putrid flesh were burned black and smoking. His high-collared sea-green cape was on fire.

Clambering to his feet, he stripped the burning garment off his shoulders and waved it like a flag for the druidess to see. Because he suspected her mastery of lightning was her deity’s special gift to her and her greatest weapon. And he wanted her to know right away that it wasn’t enough to stop him.

Meanwhile, catapults arced projectiles back and forth, some ablaze, some balls of cold stone and iron. Ballistae and springalds shot their darts, archers their shafts, and crossbowmen their bolts.

Some missiles found their marks. Wood crunched, and men fell thrashing and screaming. But many missed. The rain had soaked hemp and flax strings and sinew cords to the detriment of both range and accuracy.

Evendur realized he didn’t mind. As magic hadn’t decided the fight and artillery and bows weren’t getting the job done, either, he’d just have to do it by leading a boarding party onto the enemy ship and hacking down its defenders with axe and cutlass. And why not? That was the pirate way.

He bellowed his orders, and other voices relayed them the length of the galleon, to the mix of reavers, soldiers of the church, and Impilturian sailors who now made up the crew. The helmsman adjusted the ship’s course.

Boulders fell like the rain, ripping sails, cracking into spars, breaking cordage, and crashing onto the deck, a few smashing men to pulp and spatters in the course of their descents. The conjured barrage was another worthy effort on the part of the druids, but once again, not devastating enough to arrest the Fury’s forward progress, especially when Evendur didn’t really even need the rigging. If necessary, the sea alone would sweep the ships together.

Still, he hated having bits of his splendid new vessel battered into kindling, and he retaliated by bellowing Umberlee’s name and spinning his boarding axe in a circle. The water under the caravel copied the motion, churning into a whirlpool that spun the Turmishan vessel and shook a crewman and a catapult over the side.

As Evendur would have wagered, the druids managed to quell the maelstrom before it capsized the caravel or dragged it under. But the quelling took time, and when they finished, their ship no longer had any hope of keeping away from its foe. The crew scrambled madly to prepare to repel boarders; the whirlpool had shaken and tumbled any previous arrangements into disarray.

The Fury’s archers and crossbowmen obliged them to do it under a hail of shafts and quarrels. And as the two vessels came side-by-side, other pirates threw grappling hooks then hauled on the lines that now bound the ships together.

Because the galleon stood higher that the caravel, some boarders would slide down those ropes. Evendur, however, simply leaped before the corsairs pulling on the ropes had even finished their task.

His strength carried him across the gap, and he thumped down on the caravel’s quarterdeck. For this moment, he was alone, every one of his followers left behind on the galleon, and his enemies would never have a better chance to attack him. But, goggle-eyed, the closest Turmishans froze.

No doubt someone had warned them what to expect, but even so, Evendur’s appearance-hulking, slimy-rotten, the lightning burns surely only adding to the horror of it-had balked them. Laughing, reveling anew in the gifts the Queen of the Depths had given him, he struck left and right, cleaving the skulls of two dark-skinned mariners with square-cut black beards.

That jolted the remaining Turmishans on the quarterdeck into motion. But at the same instant, timbers groaned as the two hulls bumped and ground together, and the first of Evendur’s crew jumped and swarmed after him.

He let the newcomers handle the Turmishans left in the stern. He had a white-haired old woman to kill, and he gazed out over the main deck to determine her current location.

Once Anton managed to maneuver the Octopus squarely astern of the galleon, the same strong, steady wind that Evendur had likely called up to speed his own vessel aided the one behind her as well. The reaver called the Thayan helmsman back to his post and trotted to rejoin Umara in the bow. She scowled at the ship ahead.

“Ready?” he asked.

She snorted. “Are you? Back in Sapra, the fact that neither of us has ever managed to hurt Evendur Highcastle very badly failed to persuade me that we should stay well away from him henceforth. Now, however … well, let’s just say I’m still game, but I see both sides of the argument.”

Anton grinned. “I’m sure you’ve devoted some thought to the question of how to hurt him worse.”

The tattooed wizard nodded. “I have one or two ideas. They involve other spellcasters wearing him down as much as they do some cunning masterstroke on my part, so let’s hope the druids have been fighting fiercely. What about you?”

“When we fought before, I sliced him up a little, but I never cut his hand off his wrist, a leg out from under him, or the head off his shoulders. This time, I’m going to work on the assumption that dismemberment will stop pretty much anything, even an undead Chosen.”

“When I was a mage in training, I had to accompany a band of troll hunters into a swamp. The creature killed two of them after it had already lost an arm and a leg. Then it grew the arm back.”

Anton laughed. “Thank you. What a perfect thing to say to bolster my morale. Remind me, why are we doing this?”

Umara smiled. “I thought you knew.”

Peering through the rain, Anton studied the galleon. As far as he could tell, no one aboard the larger ship was alarmed at the Octopus’s approach. If Evendur’s men had even noticed, they must believe that Mourmyd Jacerryl and his cutthroats were coming to lend them a hand.

In time, Umara said, “They’re in range for a blast of fire if you want one.”

“Tempting,” Anton replied, “but it wouldn’t be like my incendiaries all detonating at once in the bowels of the Jest. It’s unlikely that one attack would sink her. So let’s creep at least a little …” Squinting, he leaned forward.

“What’s wrong?” Umara asked.

“I know you can’t see much of what’s happening aboard the galleon from here, but try.”

Gripping the rail, she leaned out over it like he had. “I see … scurrying.”

“That’s one word for it. We knew Evendur was chasing another ship. He caught her. Now his men-or most of them-are boarding her.”

“Then we can’t set the galleon on fire lest the blaze spread to the Turmishan ship as well.”

Anton nodded. “Exactly. What we are going to do is lead a boarding party of our own.”

The galleon held the captured Turmishan warship on its starboard side, so the Octopus steered for the port side. As Anton and his comrades made their approach, his nerves felt taut as the string of any cocked crossbow or ballista, and he studied the larger vessel for a sign that he was sailing into a trap.

But there was none. There was only the rattle of the rain and shouts, screams, and the clanking of blade on blade, the latter sounds muffled by the galleon’s bulk.

When the Octopus reached the proper position, Thayan marines lifted grappling hooks, but Umara raised a hand to tell them not to throw. She then murmured a spell, and the end of a coiled rope on deck reared like a serpent. It rose up and up until it was as high as the galleon’s railing, then looped around it and tied itself off, without the telltale thud a grapnel would have made.

“I’m first,” Anton said. He took hold of the coarse hemp line and climbed hand over hand.

When his head reached the level of the deck above, the clamor of the battle washed over him. As he’d expected, the enemy had left half a dozen men on the starboard side to shoot crossbows bolts and fling javelins into the melee below as targets presented themselves, and, more importantly, to keep any Turmishans from clambering aboard the galleon and causing trouble.

But, Anton thought, that effort had failed. Because he was a Turmishan, and he was about to make a lot of trouble.

He drew his saber and cutlass and skulked closer to the third man in line. Meanwhile, Umara clambered up the rope and over the rail. He winced when her foot bumped audibly against the gunwale, but none of the Umberlant warriors noticed.

A moment later, though, the first man in line, the one in the galleon’s forecastle, turned his head, perhaps to call something to his comrades. When he did, he must have glimpsed Anton or Umara at the periphery of his vision, because he jerked around to goggle at them.

The man bellowed, “ ’Ware-” then collapsed as Umara rattled off a spell of slumber.

Unfortunately, even an unfinished warning sufficed to make the other crewmen turn around. Anton rushed the nearest, beat the javelin in his hand out of line, and sliced him across the belly. The Umberlant warrior fell.

At the same moment, something, pure instinct, perhaps, told Anton to duck. He did, and a quarrel whizzed over his head. The next man forward had shot a crossbow at him.

Anton looked around, found a crate of javelins, grabbed one, and threw it. It caught the crossbowman in the chest, and he toppled backward.

Anton spun back around to see how Umara was faring. She gestured to indicate the men who’d made up the aft portion of the line. All three lay motionless, slain or rendered helpless by her wizardry. He flashed her a grin and pivoted to starboard to look out over the battle below.

As best he could tell, nobody had noticed the skirmish aboard the galleon, and small wonder. Locked in the jostling press of a shipboard melee, the combatants below were far too busy with their own killing and dying.

Evendur was easy to spot. Hulking and hideous, he was fighting on a less crowded patch of deck-less crowded, perhaps, because he’d experienced so little difficulty slaughtering most of those who dared to face him. A white-haired woman with a scimitar in one hand and a bronze sickle in the other fought him with a nimbleness that put many a youthful man-at-arms to shame, but even so, the relentless sweeps of his glowing axe were pushing back into shrouds, halyards, and sheets that threatened to entangle her like a net. The moment they did, the wavelord would chop her to pieces.

Anton couldn’t allow that, because the old woman was Shinthala. His final conversation with the Elder Circle had led him to assume none of them would sail with the Turmishan fleet. But plainly, one had, and she might well be its best hope for victory if she could escape the present onslaught and get back to casting spells.

An attack of some sort had littered the galleon’s deck with stones and lengths of snapped cordage that had previously secured and controlled the yards on the mizzenmast. Anton ran, leaped, and caught a dangling rope.

His weight rotated the yard to which it was attached, and even when the spar jerked to a halt, he kept swinging out over the deck of the Turmishan caravel like a pendulum on a string. When he judged the moment was right, he released his grip.

He thumped down hard, but that was all right. He hadn’t broken or sprained anything, and he’d come down more or less where he’d intended.

Evendur jerked around to face him. If possible, the dead man’s features were even mushier and seemingly incapable of human expression than during their previous encounter, but the way he faltered conveyed surprise even so.

Anton grinned and drew his saber and cutlass. “Well,” he said, “here we are again.”

Stedd didn’t mind that someone had carried him to the circle of stones in the center of the House of Silvanus. He’d been too hot, and the cold rain felt good on his upturned face.

But he did mind the chanting. It made it hard to doze. And the force that throbbed in the ground in time with the words was even more disturbing. It struck echoes in the core of him and reminded him that he too could channel power.

He flinched from thinking about such things because the last time had hurt him so badly. He shifted on the wet grass, trying to squirm his way into sleep, and then a radiant figure appeared, more vivid than any sight had ever been before, even though Stedd’s eyes were shut.

He opened them in surprise and the newcomer remained as before, a smiling, handsome, youthful-looking man, with blond hair, golden skin, and the trim, long-legged build of a runner clad in princely robes of crimson and blue. Strangely, none of the druids, not even Ashenford and Shadowmoon, seemed to notice the interloper standing the middle of their ritual.

Trembling with a joy so keen it almost felt like terror, Stedd took a long breath. “You never showed yourself to me before.”

Lathander smiled, and somehow, that simple change of expression communicated his message as clearly as words: You weren’t ready to see me before. Now, you are.

The Morninglord then waved his hand, and a golden shimmer trailed from his fingers. Stedd gasped as strength and well-being surged through him. Suddenly feeling too exhilarated to keep lying down, he scrambled up, and none of the druids noticed that, either.

For a moment, grinning, he imagined Lathander had accelerated his recovery purely out of kindness. Then visions poured into his head, first a panorama of battling warships and sea creatures seen from high above, and then a closer view of three particular vessels locked together. Anton, Umara, and Shinthala were in that fight. So was Evendur Highcastle.

Stedd sighed. “I was supposed to beat Umberlee by ending the famine. But the fight’s not over, is it? Because she and her Chosen haven’t quit.”

Lathander inclined his head.

“All right.” Stedd swallowed. “I want to help. But how can I?”

Lathander proffered a golden mace. Stedd was certain the god hadn’t been holding anything a moment before. But he was now, and surely, it was Dawnbringer, the weapon he’d wielded in all his great battles against the lords of darkness.

Stedd hesitated. Chosen or not, he felt unworthy to touch such a holy thing. He was also afraid it would be too heavy for him, and he’d drop it in the mud.

But since Lathander wanted him to take it, that was what he did, and without any fumbling. Dawnbringer was light as a stick in his hands.

“All right,” Stedd said, “I’ve got it. What am I supposed to do with it?”

Another image of Anton flowered before his inner eye.

Though his face was slime and tatters, Evendur somehow managed a recognizable sneer. “You’re nothing,” he growled. He flicked the boarding axe, its edge glowing a poisonous green as it had aboard the Iron Jest, like he was brushing away a fly.

The gesture made water explode from empty air. The stinging blast splashed Anton and knocked him backward onto his rump. A warrior of Umberlee’s temple rushed him to spear him with a boarding pike.

Anton blocked with the saber, hamstrung his attacker with the cutlass, and leaped to his feet as the other man went down. It only took a moment, but, left unhindered, Evendur might have only needed a moment to dispose of Shinthala.

Fortunately, Umara had seen fit to hinder him. She’d cast her spell of the five colored orbs at him, and the discharges of fire, acid, and other destructive forces made him recoil.

That gave Shinthala the chance to take note of her surroundings. Instead of blundering back into the running rigging, she slipped nimbly through and put the lines between Evendur and herself.

Anton charged before the spheres of light even finished flashing out of existence. As a result, a screech stabbed pain into his ears and made his teeth clench, but he reached the Chosen of Umberlee in time to slash at his knee from behind.

The saber cut deep enough to shear through muscles and tendons and cripple any living man. But it didn’t cut through bone to take the swollen, oozing limb completely off, and Evendur didn’t fall. Rather, he whirled and cut. Anton jumped back barely in time to keep the boarding axe from smashing in his ribs.

The dead man pursued him with the luminous axe poised for a strike to the head. For three steps, Anton retreated on a straight line, then pivoted on the diagonal. The shift caught Evendur by surprise, and he failed to defend as the saber bit into his extended arm.

Once again, the blade sliced deeply. Anton felt it scrape bone, but it didn’t cut through. Evendur didn’t even fumble his grip on the axe, just snapped it out in a short, vicious cut of his own.

Anton parried with the cutlass. The clanging impact tossed him backward, and his back foot came down in water or blood. He slipped and floundered off balance.

Evendur stepped in, then stiffened as darts of blue light pierced him from overhead. He glanced up at Umara, who still stood at the railing of the galleon, and growled, “Drown.” The wizard reeled backward out of sight.

Hoping to take advantage of the undead pirate’s distraction, Anton lunged and tried a head cut. But Evendur hadn’t lost track of him, and his axe blocked the saber. Anton shoved closer and stabbed with the cutlass for the other corsair’s glazed, sunken eye.

Evendur jerked his head down, and instead of catching him in the orbit, the cutlass sliced a flap of slimy flesh from his brow. The injury intensified the putrid stench that emanated from him even in the rain, but it didn’t make him falter. He pushed with the axe even though it was still hooked on the saber blade, trying to shove through Anton’s guard and bring the glowing edge to his face through pure brute force.

Reflex made Anton push back. It only took an instant to feel it was the wrong choice. He couldn’t match Evendur’s strength. But before he could spring backward or twist aside, the axe pressed into the side of his face from jaw to temple, then hitched upward to split the skin.

The gash itself was a superficial wound. Anton had suffered worse in the midst of battle and kept on fighting. But the luminous poison in the axe head filled his lungs with what felt like frigid brine. He fell down retching.

Evendur raised the axe, and a small man in armor that looked like a coat of leaves shouted words that made thorny vines grow from the deck and try to coil around the living corpse. Evendur spat black sludge, the briars vanished, and a huge hand made of water rose from the sea, snatched the little druid, and yanked him over the side.

Meanwhile, Anton struggled to stand. He made it to his knees, but he still couldn’t breathe, and another spasm of coughing wracked him. The convulsions spattered the deck with blood from the gash on his face.

“Fight me!” Shinthala called. Evendur pivoted to face her, then stiffened.

The druidess’s eyes shone like lightning. Phantom serpents crawled through the ghostly holly that surrounded her, and streaks of a different grayness shot through Evendur’s body.

Anton just had time to realize the undead pirate was turning to stone before he wasn’t anymore. His inherent mystical strength had resisted the petrification. He snarled and brandished his axe, and a ball of silvery phosphorescence flew from the head of the weapon.

It missed Shinthala by a hair but discharged its magic when it was right next to her. The blast of pale light froze puddles on the deck and plummeting raindrops, and painted the left side of her body with frost. The holly and snakes vanished, and she toppled. The newly-made hailstones clattered around her.

Black spots dancing at the edges of his vision, Anton struggled again to rise. But something went wrong and he flopped back down on his belly instead.

As he did, Evendur stumbled slightly and gripped a tack. He only held on for an instant, though. Then his unsteadiness, if that was what it had been, passed, and he appeared as formidable as ever.

Certainly, he must seem so to the Thayan mariners. As Anton had intended, they’d followed him and Umara onto the galleon and then started jumping and sliding down onto the Turmishan warship in an onslaught that, in any normal battle, would quickly have turned the tide against the enemy. But now, with no spellcasters left to oppose the Chosen of Umberlee and Anton likewise helpless if not dying, the men still peering down from Evendur’s magnificent ship hesitated.

Then someone rasped, “Keep going! Kill the scum!” The voice was so hoarse that it took Anton an instant to recognize it as Umara’s. She’d somehow managed to free herself of the drowning curse, but not before coughing her throat raw.

Evendur looked up at her. “Your men have better sense than you,” he said.

Umara sneered back at him. “They’ll follow where a Red Wizard leads.” She stepped back, spoke a word of power, ran at the rail, and leaped.

Magic made her jump like a grasshopper; she cleared the obstruction and landed forward of Evendur in the caravel’s forecastle. Encouraged by her example, her countrymen resumed their attack.

But Evendur laughed. He ripped the dangling flap of flesh loose from his forehead, exposing a patch of bare skull, and started toward her.

Stedd now understood what Lathander wanted him to do-or at least he hoped so-but not how to do it. The fight was out to sea, and he was here.

Then the god gestured to draw his attention to the chanting celebrants inside their circle of stones. A column of hazy green light rose into the air above them. When it was taller than the tallest tree, it started turning west and ultimately became a verdant thread winding across the slate-gray vault of the sky. Thanks to the Morninglord’s unspoken guidance, Stedd realized it was like a river of power the druids here were sending to their counterparts in the battle. And a person could swim down a river.

Stedd squared his shoulders. It was something he’d seen Anton and the Thayan fighting men do when they were about to start some hard or dangerous task. Then he moved to the center of the circle, still without any of the druids noticing him. He settled himself, stared up at green phosphorescence, and wished himself to the middle of what he imagined to be a tangled mass of dozens of warships attacking one another on the Sea of Fallen Stars.

Nothing happened.

So then he pictured Anton and Umara. They were his friends, and he wanted to be with them.

That made something happen. The emerald luminescence suddenly felt different, almost as if Stedd were above it instead of the other way around. It was like the pond back on the farm, daring him to jump from the high overhanging willow branch, or like a steep, snowy hillside challenging him to make a running start with his toboggan pressed to his chest.

Shadowmoon turned in his direction, and the slanted eyes in her delicate face widened in surprise. “Stedd!” she said.

He thought about pausing to explain what was happening. But now that he could feel the green current, he felt an urgency, too, as if he were running out of time to do whatever it was he needed to. Hoping the elf would understand, he gave himself over to the power.

He shot up faster than an arrow, faster than he’d ever imagined anything could fly. In a heartbeat, the druids were tiny as bugs below him. The moment after that, he’d left them, the House of Silvanus, and the whole flat mountaintop behind.

There was barely time to note the courses of the island’s three rivers, peer down into its forests, or note the locations of Sapra and the half circle of farmland that supported it as he flashed along. Then he was hurtling over the sea.

He had the notion he ought to be afraid, but his flight was too exhilarating, and now that he was in the midst of it, he could feel the river of emerald light bearing him up. It was as real, as mighty and trustworthy, as anything in the world.

At least until it started to thin.

He noticed the change first as a slowing down. The current wasn’t pushing him along as forcefully as before. Then he realized the storm clouds above and the waves below didn’t look as green, which meant the verdant haze surrounding him wasn’t tinting them to the same degree. After that came a sense of giving way that made him think of plants withering, or the bottom tearing out of an overstuffed sack.

Maybe the problem was that, distracted by the thrill of flying, he wasn’t concentrating hard enough anymore. Once again, he fixed his mind on Anton’s face.

Unfortunately, it didn’t make any difference. He kept on slowing down, and the trace of green that was left continued fading.

Apparently, his loss of focus wasn’t the problem. Rather, something was interfering with the flow of the Emerald Enclave’s power.

And Stedd couldn’t do anything about that. He didn’t have the ability to channel the Treefather’s magic; he was just riding it. Nor did he have any idea how to use Lathander’s gifts to achieve a comparable effect.

Drifting like thistledown on the faintest of breezes, his heart hammering, Stedd peered at the sea far below. It seemed that even though Evendur Highcastle and all his waveservants and pirates had failed to catch him, Umberlee was going to get him after all.

Umara rattled off words of power, whipped her hand like she was throwing an ordinary knife, and a blade made of flame streaked from her fingertips. Without even breaking stride, Evendur blocked it with a twitch of his axe.

Two Thayan marines scrambled to flank the undead pirate. As Evendur split the skull of the one on his right, the one on the left drove a boarding pike into his torso, but that didn’t even make him flinch. Using his off hand, he grabbed the pikeman by the throat, jerked him off the deck, and gave him a single brutal shake. When he opened his fingers, the unfortunate mariner dropped with a broken neck, whereupon Umara decided she liked being cornered in the forecastle of the caravel about as little as she’d ever liked anything in her life.

Not that she’d seen much choice but to jump aboard the Turmishan vessel. Assuming it wasn’t already too late for them, she’d needed to distract Evendur from the stricken Anton and Shinthala. And the Thayan men-at-arms had required a leader’s display of boldness to keep from losing heart.

That didn’t alter the fact that she’d just broken one of the fundamental rules of combat wizardry: stay well clear of the melee. Worse, she’d done it while battling the most formidable foe she’d never faced.

With the overcast blocking the sun, shadows barely existed. Still, she found the vague gray streak below a yard. Hissing and snarling words of command in one of the languages of Thanatos, she turned it black and brought it writhing up from the deck in the form of a tentacle.

The shadow whipped at Evendur to coil around him and bind him in place. But before it could, a wave leaped up and crashed across the deck. It didn’t even make the Chosen stumble, but it washed away every trace of the tentacle as though it had been made of ink.

Evendur continued his advance. A few more strides would bring him to the forecastle.

There were two companionways connecting that elevated position to the main deck. Perhaps Umara could dart down one while the dead man was climbing the other. But by itself, that elementary trick would only keep him away for a few extra breaths at most.

She rattled off a different incantation and swept her hand in a horizontal arc at the end of it. A half dozen duplicates of herself, each mimicking her stance and movements perfectly, appeared around her.

Evendur glared up at her. “Oh, that spell,” he sneered. He brandished his axe, and another tower of water heaved up from the waves. Umara realized he intended it to smash across the forecastle, obliterate all her decoys, and bash her in the process.

But it didn’t. Instead, it lost coherence and poured back down to merge with the rest of the sea.

The attack had failed because Evendur had for the moment exhausted his ability to channel Umberlee’s might. Somewhat encouraged, Umara hurled another burning knife at him.

Raising his axe, he blocked that missile, too. Clearly, his physical prowess was a different thing than his ability to work miracles, and despite the gashes and burns various foes had inflicted on him, he still possessed it in full measure.

Evendur started scrambling up the companionway to starboard, and Umara and her illusory twins scurried down the steep little flight of steps to port. He whirled, sprang back onto the deck, rushed her, and closed to striking distance a mere heartbeat after she finished her descent.

Caught by surprise, she hesitated, and the boarding axe flashed out. Fortunately, it struck one of the phantom Umaras. The illusion winked out of sight like a bursting bubble.

Retreating, the Red Wizard spoke words that shot a pang of pain through the core of her. She was transforming a bit of her own vitality into a force that was anathema to the undead.

She thrust out her hand, and white light flashed from it. Bits of Evendur’s flesh charred and sizzled, but he didn’t even appear to notice. The axe swung, and this time, it chopped at the right target. Umara snatched her hand back lest the weapon clip it off.

Still backing away, she conjured flares of flame and lightning, a lance of ice, and then, in increasing desperation, wrapped herself in a veil meant to befuddle Evendur by making it seem that she too was undead. He just kept coming, the axe popping her duplicates one by one. It was pure luck that it hadn’t cleaved real flesh as of yet.

Umara refused to acknowledge the truth for as long as she could. But when she found herself down to her last decoy and had all but exhausted her own power, it became inescapable. It didn’t matter that Evendur was presently unable to draw down his deity’s magic. She still couldn’t stop him.

The blast of magical cold had chilled Shinthala to the bone. The frost encrusting the left size of her body was freezing her still, and she suspected she had frostbite underneath it.

Yet even so, the cold scarcely mattered. The squeezing in the left side of the chest, the pain jabbing through her left arm, and the grinding aches in her neck and jaw hurt worse and alarmed her more. Being a healer, she understood what they meant. The shock of the initial chill had sent an artery into spasms and made it impossible for her heart to do its work.

Ashenford and Shadowmoon were right, she thought. None of us should have come here. All I’ve done is throw away my last few years and whatever good I could have accomplished with them.

And then, as if to validate her despair, she felt the torrent of magic that the druids in the House of Silvanus sent through her attenuate. In a few moments, it dwindled from a river to a trickle.

She knew it was her fault. Her participation was necessary to draw Silvanus’s magic here, where it was needed, and her stuttering heart had disrupted that process as summarily as it had ended her efforts to destroy Evendur Highcastle.

Paradoxically, though, the realization that her failure was even more complete than she’d first imagined replaced her despair with resolve. Because she wasn’t the only one who’d depended on the power coursing down from the Elder Spires. The druids aboard dozens of ships, faithful servants of Silvanus who’d trusted an elder of the Enclave to lead them, were relying on it, too, and by the First Oak, they were going to have it for as long as she lasted, even if that was only a breath or two.

She wheezed a prayer to Silvanus. Perhaps it helped a little, but her debility made a shambles of the precise pronunciation and cadence spellcasting generally required. It was mostly by pure stubborn will that she reached into the eastern sky, gathered the power diffusing there, and drew it pouring down like a waterfall once more.

Something else poured down with it. Through dimming eyes, she saw a blond-haired little boy appear before her. Stedd Whitehorn looked as surprised as she was.

Stedd had done enough healing to sense that Shinthala was in a bad way, and that even if he saved her life, she likely wouldn’t be able to fight anymore today.

The thought flashed through his mind that with the battle still to win, that might be a reason not to spend any of his power helping her. It was a coldblooded choice he could imagine Anton or Umara making.

But he wasn’t them. He squatted down beside the old woman, put a luminous hand on her shoulder, and murmured, “Lathander.”

Warmth flowed from his flesh into hers, and her clenched jaw relaxed. That would have to do for now. He took his hand away, straightened up, took a first good look around, and gasped.

He’d seen a lot of fighting since the start of his travels but never before dozens of men locked in hand-to-hand combat aboard a ship. It was so crowded! He was lucky Shinthala had fallen amid ropes connecting a mast and its sails to the deck. They made a little clear spot amid the clanking, grunting press that had likely kept him from being knocked down and trampled the moment he arrived.

At first, the frenzied hacking and stabbing confused him, and though he peered around desperately, he couldn’t spot Anton. But then a pirate pushed his opponent backward, momentarily opening a gap in the tangle of fighters and revealing his friend sprawled on his face beside the starboard rail, where the side of a bigger ship loomed over the one they were aboard.

Clutching Dawnbringer, dodging this way and that, Stedd darted through the mass of combatants. A blade glanced off a shield and he had to jerk to a stop to keep it from hitting him in the face. A heartbeat later, he sidestepped to avoid the jabbing point of a poorly aimed pike. Then a retreating Turmishan sailor bumped into him and knocked him staggering.

But his smallness let him slip through narrow gaps as they opened up. It also likely kept warriors busy fighting foes their own size from paying him any mind. Certainly, none of Evendur’s followers seemed to notice that here was the very boy for whom the church of Umberlee had offered a huge bounty, in easy reach at last.

When Stedd finally reached Anton, he saw that his friend’s head lay in a pool of blood flowing out faster than the rain could wash it away. The pirate wasn’t moving and maybe not even breathing. The boy flung himself to his knees beside him, put his hands on Anton’s back, and sent light, warmth, and vitality streaming across the points of contact.

For a moment-long enough for Stedd to feel a pang of alarm-nothing happened. Then Anton jerked and gasped in a breath. That started him coughing, but when the fit ended, he raised his head without difficulty.

“Stedd,” he rasped. “First, I couldn’t catch you. Now, I can’t get rid of you.”

“Lathander sent me.”

Anton swiped blood from his face. The cut underneath looked as if it had been healing for a tenday. “I guess he wants you in at the finish.”

“He wants me to give you the power to kill Evendur.” Stedd held out Dawnbringer only to see it vanish from his grasp. He gasped in dismay.

But then he realized it was all right; the mace hadn’t entirely disappeared. Rather, it had melted into a red-gold light that settled into the reaver’s saber and cutlass and set them aglow.

Something about the process drained what was left of Stedd’s own mystical strength, and when it was done, he slumped down panting. “Are you all right?” Anton asked.

“Yes.”

“Then keep yourself that way.” The pirate sprang to his feet, looked around, and started pushing toward the bow.

Having spotted Evendur, Anton would have liked nothing better than to charge and attack him instantly, but with the deck crammed with combatants lurching unpredictably back and forth, it wasn’t that easy. He had to weave, backtrack, and periodically kill someone to make his way toward Umberlee’s Chosen.

A waveservant pivoted toward him and thrust with a trident whose tines seethed with some malignant blue-green glow. Anton parried with the saber, stepped in, and drove the cutlass into the sea priest’s guts. Shortly thereafter, a pirate who’d sailed aboard the Iron Jest two or three years back bellowed, “Traitor!” and sprang at him with a falchion. Anton cut first and sent his former crewman reeling backward with a face split down the middle.

At least such hindrances gave him a chance to test his weapons now that Stedd had blessed them. The differences he discovered had more to do with the way he perceived and reacted than the simple heft of the blades. At certain moments, the men around him almost seemed to move sluggishly because he was so keenly aware of every tiny preparatory motion and the attack that was likely to develop from it. He felt fresh, strong, and clearheaded.

Clearheaded enough, certainly, that he hoped to deny a monstrosity like Evendur Highcastle any semblance of a fair fight. He pushed his way far enough forward that he could come at the dead man from behind.

As he did, he belatedly discerned that it was Umara Evendur was trying to kill with sweep after sweep of his axe. Glaring defiance, an oval shield of reddish glow floating in front of her, the slender wizard struck back with darts of blue light, but Anton’s instincts told him she couldn’t withstand her attacker for much longer.

It’s all right, he silently promised her. You kept him occupied long enough. He charged with the saber poised for a stroke to the neck.

Unfortunately, despite the muddled cacophony of the battle and the rattle of the rain, Evendur heard-or in some other fashion, sensed-his would-be slayer’s approach. He spun around, parried with his boarding axe, and the two glowing weapons rang together. The dead man then started to riposte, and Anton took a retreat.

Evendur, however, didn’t follow through. Instead, he hesitated to peer at the rose and gold gleaming in Anton’s blades.

Anton grinned. “Do you like it? It’s a gift to you from Stedd.”

Though he scarcely had a face left, just eyes sunk in pulp and oozing rags, Evendur managed a recognizable sneer. “That little turd-smear of sunlight’s not enough, Marivaldi. How could it be? My deity rules these waters, and yours is just a sad little memory.”

“I don’t think so,” Anton replied, “but either way, it doesn’t matter. Because the gods aren’t standing on this deck, we are, and I was always ten times the fighter you were. Now that I finally have blades that can kill you, I recommend you jump overboard and swim away like the ridiculous fish the Bitch Queen has made of you.”

Evendur bellowed, sprang, and chopped so explosively that even though Anton had been trying to provoke him, and had the sacred light pent in the swords to sharpen his reflexes, he nearly failed to respond in time. But only nearly. He hitched backward, and the axe with its glowing green edge whizzed past short of his chest.

Before the Chosen could ready the weapon for another blow, Anton slashed low. The saber, its blade more scarlet than gold at this particular instant, sliced the side of his opponent’s knee.

To Anton’s disappointment, the weapon still didn’t take the limb off or even drop Evendur to the deck. But it made him flail and stagger, and, hoping to score again while the dead man was off balance, the Turmishan spun the saber up for a head cut.

The Chosen somehow whipped the axe high in time to block. Metal clanged, and the sword glanced away.

Evendur then took a retreat to steady himself and reestablish his guard. It seemed to Anton that he limped just a little.

The Turmishan grinned. “Fighting’s isn’t as entertaining when the other man can hurt you back, is it? At least, not as entertaining to cowards.”

“I just wanted this,” the wavelord replied. He stooped, used his off hand to snatch a cutlass from a corpse’s flaccid grip, and then advanced. The boarding axe shifted back and forth and high and low, threatening the same sort of attack it had made before. He held the short, curved blade well back as though he only expected to use it in the clinches.

But Anton read a certain coiled readiness in the hand that gripped the sword. Or perhaps it was simply because he himself customarily fought with two weapons that he sensed Evendur’s true intent. Either way, he was willing to gamble that when the dead man next attacked in earnest, the axe would feint to draw a parry, and then the cutlass would flash out to deliver the killing stroke.

Though retreating, Anton allowed his adversary to take longer steps and steal distance. Then the axe whirled at his head.

For safety’s sake, he took one more half step backward. But he didn’t block, and, not waiting to see if he would or not, Evendur charged with the cutlass extended.

Anton dropped to one knee and the attack passed over him. As Evendur was now too close for the saber to strike to best effect, the Turmishan used his own cutlass to make another cut at the dead man’s leg. The attack landed where the first one had, slicing the initial wound deeper and grating on bone.

An instant later, Evendur slammed into him. The impact jolted Anton, but the Chosen tripped right over him.

Anton whirled to find that, as he’d hoped, the wavelord lay sprawled on his belly. The Turmishan leaped to his feet and cut.

He managed four slashes before Evendur wrenched himself around and struck back with the axe. It was a clumsy blow, but one that still would have taken Anton’s leg off if he hadn’t hopped backward.

Evendur heaved himself to his feet, plainly favoring the damaged leg. Anton circled, obliging the dead man to pivot on it, feinted low, then cut to the forearm. The saber scored, but when he tried to pull it back, it stuck in the wound.

He started to pull harder, but at the same moment, Evendur dropped his cutlass. Apparently unafraid of any resulting harm to his fingers, he grabbed hold of the saber blade and jerked Anton closer. The boarding axe spun at Anton’s ribs.

Anton couldn’t parry. One sword was immobilized and the other was on the wrong side of his body. He let go of the saber hilt and dropped to the deck. The axe streaked over him then looped up for a chop straight down.

Anton rolled and fetched up against somebody’s legs. The axe crunched down beside him. He scrambled and grabbed the haft before Evendur could jerk the weapon free. Then he drove the point of his cutlass into the crook of the dead man’s elbow.

Still clutching the axe, Anton tried to drag himself closer for a cut to the groin. But with a snarl, Evendur heaved the weapon up and away, breaking his enemy’s grip, and staggered backward.

That at least gave Anton the chance to spring back to his feet. Meanwhile, Evendur dropped the saber and shifted the boarding axe to his off hand, evidence that the stab to the elbow had done some good.

Anton shouted and sprang, and the Chosen reflexively retreated away from his adversary’s fallen sword. Anton hooked it with his toe, kicked it into the air, and caught it.

He shot Evendur a grin. “That’s better.” Then he attacked in earnest, and his foe did something he’d never seen him do before, either before the end of his natural life or after. Umberlee’s Chosen gave ground steadily, one hobbling retreat and then another, fighting defensively because his wounds and Anton’s aggression left him no choice.

Perhaps recognizing that his master was losing the duel, a waveservant lunged in on Anton’s flank. The reaver twisted out of the way of a trident stab and slashed, shearing into the sea priest’s side. The waveservant’s knees buckled, and his weapon slipped from his fingers.

Unfortunately, even though the exchange had only required an instant, the need to dispose of the cleric perforce relieved the pressure on Evendur and gave him a chance to come back on the attack. As Anton pivoted back toward his true foe, he was ready to defend and accordingly surprised to find that the undead pirate had kept on retreating, opening up the distance between them.

“I win!” Evendur spat, and with that, the sea roared. A wall of water reared up over the port side, and the caravel listed to starboard.

Anton realized it no longer mattered that he’d been prevailing in the clash of blades. The dead man had lasted long enough for his magic to renew itself and was now about to capsize the ship. Evidently, he had no compunction about drowning his own followers if it would kill Anton and his allies as well.

Anton charged. The deck kept on tilting beneath him, nearly costing him his balance. Other warriors reeled in front of him, and he had to dodge around them. Meanwhile, Evendur kept backing away, although his crippled leg prevented him from moving as fast as his pursuer.

Anton staggered into what he hoped was striking distance. Only just, but the deck was slanting so steeply that in another heartbeat, he wouldn’t be able to advance at all. He took a final bounding stride.

The mass of water to port crashed across the caravel, battering and blinding him, hiding his foe in a blast of stinging gray. He cut at the spot where Evendur’s neck had been an instant before.

He thought he felt the saber connect with something. Then the wave tumbled him off his feet and wrapped him around the pulley at the foot of a line.

For a moment, he thought that was where he was gong to die. Then he had air to breathe, the deck was tilting back to port, and, gasping, he realized the ship hadn’t quite reached the tipping point after all. Perhaps being grappled to the galleon, which in turn was bound to the Octopus, had slowed the process. There had been no way for Evendur to capsize one ship without channeling sufficient power to overturn all three.

Anton looked to see what had become of Umberlee’s Chosen but could only find part of him. It wasn’t immediately apparent where the severed head had rolled or washed to. Fortunately, the motionless body showed no signs of imitating the dismembered but still spry troll of Umara’s recollections.

The wave had staggered everyone, but the Turmishans and Thayans recovered first, or maybe Evendur’s demise robbed his followers of their fighting spirit. In any case, a couple more Umberlant warriors fell to their opponents, and then the rest threw down their weapons and cried for quarter.

Stedd and Umara headed for Anton, the blond boy running, the slender, shaven-headed woman pacing with the deliberate dignity of a Red Wizard, even though her soaked, slapping garments made the affectation vaguely comical. “Did we win?” asked the boy.

Breathing hard, Anton waved his saber-the dawn light in the steel now fading-to indicate other ships still fighting in the distance. “The Turmishan fleet still has to deal with all those other enemy vessels. But even so, yes. We just won the battle.” He grinned. “Well, I did, mainly. But I’m generous enough to share the credit.”