Starlight Enclave

by R. A. Salvatore

  But Deudermont’s Revenge came on, her crack crew reacting as Jarlaxle demanded, as Captain Bonnie Charlee had trained them.

  Now a volley of fireballs responded from the prow of Revenge, crashing against similar defenses from Pelican.

  Back and forth it went, and what became quite clear to all was that Pelican had no chance of outrunning the magnificent schooner. Deudermont’s Revenge had been built according to the secret plans of Sea Sprite, the legendary Sword Coast pirate hunter captained by the famous Deudermont. No ship along the Sword Coast could outmaneuver Sea Sprite in her day, and the same was true of Deudermont’s namesake, especially with such an excellent crew.

  And her excellent captain, Jarlaxle was beginning to understand, to his great satisfaction.

  More shudders rocked Pelican, both from the firing catapult and from some hits scored by Revenge’s many wizards.

  Lightning bolts replaced fireballs as Revenge came up fast on Pelican’s stern, and predictably, Pelican began a hard port turn, wanting to give her archers and spellcasters a proper bow rake.

  “Hold fast,” Jarlaxle warned, and almost as soon as he issued the words, Pelican shuddered and lurched violently.

  “Ice storm,” Entreri quietly explained to Zak and Dab’nay. Revenge’s main wizards had waited for the turn, then had sent a torrent of ice and cones of magical freezing into the water before her left-sliding, turning prow. The jolt and the grind hadn’t stopped the turn, of course, but it had sent a shock of force creaking through Pelican’s decks. More than one pirate had gone flying into the water on the port side, the four could hear, and by the time Pelican had recovered from the shock and surprise, Revenge was too close and was herself turning too hard for the bow rake to prove of any consequence.

  “Count,” Jarlaxle told his friends, and Dab’nay began casting her spell, lifting one hand to offer a countdown to the others.

  “Five,” Jarlaxle said quietly, and he pulled a circular piece of cloth from inside the crown of his great hat.

  “Four,” he said, and he whispered and threw the cloth out, spinning fast.

  “Three, two,” he said quickly, catching up to Dab’nay’s count as his magical cloth, a portable hole, struck the Pelican’s hull, opening a wide passage into the ship’s lower deck.

  Before he even finished the count, Artemis Entreri dove through the portable hole, Zaknafein right behind. A scream greeted them, but one cut very short as Dab’nay cast her magical silence into the hold.

  Jarlaxle rolled in through the hole, coming to his feet gracefully to stand at the ready. He called to the bracer on his right wrist, creating another dagger in his hand, bringing it back behind his shoulder, ready to throw.

  The sight gave him pause, for across this long and narrow room were prisoners, battered, emaciated, chained by shackles affixed to the ceiling. Men and women, children, even, hanging by bloody wrists, most slumped. A couple of the poor group somehow maintained an upright posture on their tiptoes, but the children and the shorter adults simply dangled in the air, swinging about with every sway of the ship.

  Only when Zaknafein rushed across from left to right did Jarlaxle spot a pirate, a hulking gnoll, who met Zak’s charge with a sweeping strike of its spiked club.

  How clumsy and slow it appeared against the enraged weapon master, whose blades worked in perfect coordination to tap and redirect the club, once and again. Zak’s left hand stabbed out with blinding speed right behind the sweep, aimed true for the gnoll’s gripping hands.

  The ensuing yelp went unheard in the magical silence, but Jarlaxle understood the agony behind it well as he watched several gnoll fingers go spinning down to the floor.

  Zaknafein quick-stepped straight ahead, stabbing left, right, left in rapid succession, filling the pirate with deep wounds and sending it crashing back to the floor and wall.

  Zak took one step in apparent pursuit, but broke away suddenly to his right, back toward Jarlaxle and Dab’nay, who was crawling in. He threw himself into a roll, sword coming up at the last moment to knock aside a hurled axe.

  Jarlaxle leaped ahead and let fly his dagger, then a second almost as soon as the first had left his hand. Then a third and a fourth, all in the air even as the first struck that second pirate, a human this time, plunging into her upraised hand. Then the chest, the shoulder, and the throat met the other three.

  Both drow fighters were moving then, side by side, and both skidded to an abrupt stop as they noted the third and fourth pirate guards, both gnolls, both with long knives against the throats of hanging prisoners, warding back the attackers.

  Jarlaxle let his dagger fall and lifted his empty hands high.

  Zaknafein hesitated, looking to his companion with surprise. Jarlaxle’s grin reassured him that all was under control.

  A red blade flashed.

  A wall of ash hung in the air.

  A severed gnoll head went spinning into the air.

  And the second pirate gnoll got pushed out to the side, all strength leaving its knife arm, as the sword of Artemis Entreri sprouted through its shoulder, armpit to collar.

  “Impressive,” Zaknafein said, though his voice could not be heard.

  Jarlaxle understood anyway, for the salute was shared. Entreri had somehow navigated the narrow chamber to get behind those two without being noticed, and his horizontal swing had turned fast into a dipping blade even as its dipping and turning wielder put himself into the second uppercut strike. It was executed as perfectly as any master of Melee-Magthere could teach, and better than most drow could possibly learn.

  It was a move worthy of Zaknafein, worthy of Drizzt.

  Jarlaxle set his gaze on Zak and was pleased by the expression he saw there. It was good that Zak’s first real introduction to Artemis Entreri the fighter had happened in this manner.

  Respect was important between these two—

  The thought was interrupted when all four went flying as the ships collided, Deudermont’s Revenge slamming and sliding hard against Pelican’s side. The prisoners swung wildly out and back as Jarlaxle’s team quickly recovered. He noted how strange it was to see the mouths opened in shocked screams, to see barrels and crates flying and smashing, to feel the tremendous impact, the ceiling beams cracking, almost collapsing, as the boom from Pelican’s mainmast fell free.

  And all of it without a whisper of sound.

  Bonnie Charlee understood the strength of her ship. Revenge had been built with redundancy, designed to take a beating and keep on sailing. Her hull was magically sealed and would not split apart under a collision or a barrage of catapult or ballistae, her planking magically warded from fire, where even the scorch of a lightning bolt would leave no more than a black scar. Her sails, too, were magically protected from fire. They might catch in the flames of a fireball, but they wouldn’t burn long or fully.

  And Deudermont’s Revenge’s mainmast was designed to break free in a collision, and not just fall, but fall in a controlled manner that would turn the boom into a plank onto the deck of the enemy ship when she came in hard broadside.

  The captain didn’t hesitate when the ice storm and freezing cones solidified the water before Pelican’s turn. She signaled the pilot and the strong giantess leaned hard into Revenge’s wheel, putting the ship into a hard port turn.

  “Drop ’em!” Bonnie Charlee roared when they had just enough momentum and the proper angle for the strike, and her crew let free the sails. They fell with a great whomping sound, furling perfectly to smother the remaining wisps of fires.

  “Brace!”

  She didn’t need to yell that, for this crew knew well enough what was to come and where to grab a handhold.

  The two ships came together side-to-side with cracking beams and smashing timbers, shuddering and screeching. Down fell the main boom, perfectly as designed, tangling in the rigging of Pelican and driving it crashing down as well. The ice slamming Pelican’s hull had abruptly halted her turn, giving Revenge the initiative here, and Bonnie Charlee
wasn’t about to let that advantage pass.

  The battle heated before the ships had even settled, archers and crossbowmen letting fly—and mostly missing wildly under the shaking and rocking. Pelican’s wizards waved their arms to hurl fire and lightning, but they had to start over, for the crashing ice had interrupted all of their castings. Revenge’s wizards slowed them more, disrupting their somatic movements by throwing a unified and mighty gust of wind, blowing about anything loose on Pelican’s deck, including the pirates themselves.

  The greater advantage came next, with a score of Bregan D’aerthe drow reaching into their innate magics to cover Pelican’s deck in magical darkness.

  The ships settled together. The pirates of the Pelican shot blind as her priests and wizards frantically tried to counter the unexpected, impenetrable shadows. Whenever a lightning bolt came forth from that blackness, a dozen handcrossbow bolts traced it back to its source, and the lightning became no more.

  Determined that the fight would be on Pelican’s decks alone, the attackers flung their grapnels high to tangle in Pelican’s remaining rigging, and warriors—led by Bonnie Charlee and the drow—leaped onto those ropes and swung across, while more ran across along the dropped beam, and others set boarding planks. By the time Pelican’s spellcasters had much of the darkness dispelled, they found Revenge’s fighters massing all about them.

  Archers became swordsmen, priests on both sides turned to healing their comrades, and Pelican’s wizards spent more time hiding and casting defensive spells than throwing forth punishing evocations. Wizards were truly deadly in the early moments of ship-to-ship combat, but now with swords crossing all along Pelican’s deck, her lightly armored mages were out of their element.

  Bonnie Charlee found herself in a fight even before the darkness was gone, a gnoll leaping from the gloom to meet her charge. She truly appreciated the strength of the magical sword Jarlaxle had given her, for her parry of the truncheon swinging her way did more than deflect the club, it sheared it in half. A twist of her wrist and a swift thrust sent the gnoll yelping back into the darkness.

  Except now the darkness was no more, and all around Bonnie Charlee, the fighting began in earnest.

  She had executed the first phases of the attack perfectly. They had crippled Pelican’s rigging and masts, had prevented any serious range assault from her before they could get up close, and had scored heavy gains against her fighting force in the beginning moments. But the veteran sailor held no illusions that this would be an easy victory.

  Pelican had become notorious up and down the Sword Coast because Pelican was capable, her crew seasoned and brutal, her combat tactics practiced and effective.

  Still, she realized as the fight ensued and the enemy ranks quickly thinned, the crew of Pelican had never faced the warriors of Bregan D’aerthe.

  Jarlaxle caught a poor woman swinging wildly at the end of her shackles. He signaled to Dab’nay and she ended her magical silence. Immediately came the sounds of terror from the prisoners, as well as the noises of fighting on the deck, the shouting and the scraping of metal against metal, sometimes punctuated by the thundering boom of a lightning bolt.

  From the side, Entreri threw a ring of keys to Jarlaxle, who redirected them more than caught them, launching them at Dab’nay. “Tend to them,” Jarlaxle told the priestess. He looked into the wide-eyed stare on the face of the woman he had steadied, and told her, “We’ve come to get you out of here and to safety.”

  She screamed, her face a mask of horror as she stared at the drow. Jarlaxle sighed and shrugged and moved for the stairs that led to the hatch, Entreri and Zaknafein coming up on either side of him. They even started past him, but he held out his arms to impede them. “Captain Bonnie knows the plan,” he explained. “Let her execute her part.”

  “They’d have an easier time of it with the three of us up there fighting with them,” Zaknafein said, though he had to shout to be heard as the clomping of boots sounded right above them.

  Jarlaxle nodded, but said, “A bit longer. Let it settle and let Captain Arrongo be isolated.”

  “I’ll wade through his whole crew to get to him,” Zak replied. “Unless, of course, you still think my two sticks would be no match for his grand sword.”

  “They’re not, but I trust you’ll make up the disadvantage, and if not, I still have Artemis Entreri here.”

  Entreri snorted, and then again even louder when Zak scowled.

  “You could have at least given me that whip,” Zak said.

  “It is being studied by someone important,” Jarlaxle answered.

  He held up his hands and paused, tilting his head to better hear. The fighting seemed less intense in that moment, or perhaps the skirmish had simply moved aside.

  “We go,” Jarlaxle decided, but he still held back his companions.

  “After you, then,” Entreri said, but Jarlaxle shook his head.

  He plucked the feather from his hat and threw it to the deck before him, where it transformed almost immediately into a giant flightless bird, one with thick legs and huge claws that could rake a man into four parts with one well-aimed strike.

  “After him,” Jarlaxle corrected, and he ordered the diatryma forward. It went up the stairs in one stride and blew out the bulkhead with a powerful peck of its deadly beak. Small wings flapping wildly to help boost it, the bird rushed up and out onto the deck.

  “How will it know friend from foe?” Zak asked.

  “Oh, good point,” said Jarlaxle, and he rushed up the stairs to direct his monster.

  “Has he always been this insufferable?” Entreri asked Zak as they ascended the stairs side by side.

  “You’ve known him as long as I, from what I can tell,” Zak answered.

  “Then yes, he has,” said Entreri, and Jarlaxle’s champions leaped out onto the deck and immediately into the fray.

  Jarlaxle stopped at the top of the stairs, directing his bird, which was doing more chasing than fighting, as none of the pirates, not even the vicious gnolls, wanted anything to do with it. Of course, that might have been due to the fact that it had come up onto the deck right into a pirate and was still carrying half of that victim’s body around on one of its great talons, blood flying with every running stomp. Whatever the reason, more than the bird demanded the mercenary’s attention, as he watched Zaknafein and Entreri roll immediately into their deadly dance. Not two dances, but one, the expert warriors finding harmony before they had taken their third step into the tumult.

  Jarlaxle had fought beside both. Both had fought beside Drizzt. And it seemed as if that was all they needed to fight side by side now.

  He had never doubted that together they would be beautiful to watch, working around each other, swapping targets seamlessly. Yet this was something even he had to admire. Entreri spun the brilliant red blade of Charon’s Claw before his every turn, his left hand clutching the dagger Jarlaxle had given him to replace the infamous weapon he had once carried. Zaknafein worked a pair of swords as fluidly as he might his own hands, always holding them ready to block, to parry, to thrust, to sweep—whatever situation arose.

  At one point, Zak fled a pair of gnolls, both chasing right behind. Up the mast he ran, inverting as he caught his footholds, throwing himself backward in a reverse somersault—and parrying the swords of the pursuing gnolls once, twice, a dozen times, it seemed, as he turned upside down above them.

  The gnolls managed to stay alive, and Zak was left vulnerable on the descent, as he certainly had known he would be.

  But he wasn’t in any danger, and he hadn’t expected to be, because he already had come to trust Artemis Entreri in combat.

  A red blade flashed between the gnolls and the falling Zak as Entreri sprinted through, using Charon’s Claw’s magic to trail an opaque barrier of ash.

  As the human ran by, immediately falling into a fight with another pirate, the gnolls stabbed their swords ahead through the wall of floating ash, too slow to hit Entreri, too blindly to come near
to Zaknafein.

  And through that wall came Zak, touching down, dropping low, rolling through the magical cloud beneath the stabs, then coming up too fast for a counter, blades angled perfectly to get under the dog-faced demon creatures’ ribs and slide up into their lungs.

  They tried to fight on, gasping and spewing blood, but Zaknafein had no more interest in the dying things, and spun away to rejoin his partner.

  “A thing of beauty,” Jarlaxle whispered.

  Even before Zak, Entreri, and the diatryma had entered the fighting, Revenge’s crew had gained most of Pelican’s deck, pushing the majority of the remaining pirates to the higher ground of the sizable poop deck. Magical darkness engulfed the stairs and the front of that upper level, effectively sealing those pirates from the main fighting. Occasionally a stray arrow or even a lightning bolt flashed out of the veritable wall of lightlessness, but fired blindly and usually ineffectively.

  Jarlaxle nodded his approval to Bonnie Charlee as the fighting thinned and she cleverly arranged a battery of archers and wizards, ready to blast clear the poop deck if the pirates countered the magical darkness. Bonnie Charlee returned the nod as she batted aside a saber and countered with a quick overhand chop against the man’s forearm. His sword went flying and he dropped to his knees, begging for mercy.

  The captain looked to Jarlaxle, who shrugged, giving her the choice. With another nod, Bonnie Charlee walked around the kneeling pirate and kicked him flat to the deck, standing over him, ready to finish him if he made a threatening move.

  Some other pirates—human, elf, and dwarf—similarly surrendered, and following Bonnie Charlee’s example, those Revenge fighters secured them with less than lethal force.

  No such quarter was offered to any gnolls, however, with every one taken down or, if caught alone, quickly swarmed and overwhelmed and thrown into the shark-filled sea.

  The deck quieted in short order, save for the chanting of Revenge’s priests’ healing spells and the heavy steps of Jarlaxle’s diatryma as he launched it for the captain’s door, which was still visible between the globes of darkness that hid the stairs to the poop deck. The avian beast hardly slowed, plowing through the portal, then rushing about inside.