by Mel Odom
Wrath of the Blue Lady
( The Wilds - 4 )
Mel Odom
Mel Odom
Wrath of the Blue Lady
CHAPTER ONE
North of Cedarspoke, Turmish
Sea of Fallen Stars
Year of the Fallen Friends (1399 DR)
The woman’s voice haunted Bayel Droust’s dreams as it had for weeks. Images of nightmarish creatures scurrying across the ocean floor moved to the sound of her words. Dangerous, merciless monstrosities twice as big as the ship he sailed on. The dead the sea had taken walked through a graveyard of sunken ships and prowled watches they’d walked above the surface on her orders. Other things, small and furtive, darted through trees and brush the likes of which Droust had never before seen.
The woman’s voice resonated in his mind. He still didn’t know what tongue she spoke, and Droust was conversational in five Inner Sea dialects, three human, one Dwarvish, and one Elvish. He could make his way through a dozen more, but not hers. Over the last few tendays, she had learned his language at an unbelievable speed
But her own inability to learn more than one at a time frustrated her. During those times, while kneeling before her and praying that she didn’t take his life, he had grown afraid of her anger. When the dream ended and he woke once more each day, he felt as though a death sentence had lifted.
That night, though, the woman’s words were sharper and more intense, like an awl digging into his brain. Something bad was about to happen.
Droust moaned as he listened to the woman. He was almost awake. He knelt there in that strange, undersea forest, the skeletons of dead sailors scattered on the ocean floor in front of him, and felt himself slipping away from her.
Wake, he told himself. Just wake up. She isn’t real. But Droust was all too afraid that she was.
When she noticed him slipping from her, she turned to him, her face frozen in fury. You can’t escape me, Bayel Droust.
Droust held his hands out in supplication even as he prayed for wakefulness. “Why do you desire me, lady? I am nothing. A poor sage who’s been assigned a tiresome task.”
You have skills I need, human. Knowledge that I require. Be glad that I let you live and don’t merely pluck it from your corpse.
Rough hands closed upon Droust and wrenched him from his restless slumber full-awake into the dark cabin. At first he thought one of the woman’s guards had seized him. He fought against his captors but it was no use. Strong, callused hands managed him as if he were a child. His knees cracked painfully as they forced him to the floor of the ship’s cabin.
“Bind his hands behind him.” The voice was rough, but it was human. Droust considered that a blessing under the circumstances, but he was still confused. Had pirates taken the ship?
“He’s not a mage. He’s just a scribe.”
“He’s called up all this ill luck that’s followed us. Do you want to take the chance that he doesn’t have a spell or two up his sleeve?”
Droust whipped his head around in disbelief. He was being taken captive by the ship’s crew, the same sailors that had sworn to protect him.
Someone yanked Droust’s arms behind his back. Coarse rope bit into his wrists. He howled in pain but they ignored him.
“Why are you doing this?” Droust struggled against them but it was no use.
“Gag him.”
An odorous rag slammed against Droust’s lips hard enough to burst them. He tasted the salt of his blood but the pain felt distant and removed.
The woman’s cries echoed within Droust’s skull. He didn’t recognize the words, but he knew the tone. They were commands, but he didn’t know if they were to him or to something else. The pain in his head almost blinded him. He blinked at the massive figure that stepped through the crewmen.
“Belay that.” Captain Porgad’s rough voice rang above the rough crew manning the ship. He was a huge man with a fierce beard. He wore leather armor and protective fish-shaped charms around his neck. “He’s no mage. Cursed is what he is. Don’t gag him. We’ll want to hear what he has to say.”
Droust struggled and tried to break free. A handful of years past fifty, he still possessed his strength. But it was panic, not bravery, that drove him. He hadn’t spent all his years as a scribe chained to a desk working on manuscripts and letters for the council to end up like this. He wasn’t supposed to be at sea. He’d had no choice about his assignment, though.
Despite his best efforts, his captors held him. Someone struck him in the back of the head and told him to stop struggling. For a brief moment, the woman’s voice went away, but it resumed only a few heartbeats later. Cutting agony followed her incomprehensible words. But she sounded stronger, closer.
Do not let them kill you, Bayel Droust, she said. Do not dare let them kill you before I get there.
Someone lit a lantern. Soft golden light filled the small cabin and gleamed against the lacquered wooden walls. Captain Porgad ran a tight ship. That was why the Grand Council at Impiltur had hired the captain and his vessel when they’d assigned Droust to his present mission.
What would those lords and ladies think of this ship and her captain now? Fear coiled more deeply within Droust when he realized that the Grand Council would doubtless never learn of his harsh treatment. These days, the Sea of Fallen Stars was an unstable and dangerous place. All of Faerun was.
Droust found his voice, though he didn’t recognize it when he spoke. “Why are you doing this?”
Captain Porgad grabbed the lantern and held it close to Droust’s face. “What is it the Grand Council has you doing out here, scholar?”
The bright light forced Droust to slit his eyes. The captain and his crew stood as dim shadows in the lantern’s glare. They swayed gently as Grayling rolled on treacherous waves.
“I’m researching the waters.” Droust hated the desperation he heard in his voice, but he couldn’t hide it. “Since the Spellplague, the Sea of Fallen Stars hasn’t been properly charted. The Grand Council told you; they want to know what dangers lurk in the waters.” He said the council’s name as a cleric might call on a deity. Surely they would know they couldn’t hope to go against the council’s wishes.
“Lies.” Captain Porgad backhanded Droust to the floor.
“No.” Sickness swirled in Droust’s stomach as the pain in his face warred with the pain in his head. From the moment he’d stepped aboard Grayling he’d known he was among rough, superstitious men. They feared the stories of the lady, and the foul storm they’d blamed on him had blown them directly into her waters.
“We’ve seen the signs and portents, scribe. Did you think we’d stay blind to the danger we’re in?”
“What?” Droust’s heart nearly exploded in his chest.
“Who?”
“The monsters and beasties the sea sends up.” One of the sailors waved a sharp knife under Droust’s chin. “The bad weather that follows us wherever we go of late.” The speaker spat to ward off bad luck, but Droust knew that was a futile gesture. The lady was coming, and she was coming for him.
Droust had seen the monsters, sketched them in his journal, and written about them and the storms. He had checked the books he’d copied while readying himself for the voyage. Similar storms and creatures had been mentioned in those pages. Similar, but not identical.
Those pages had spoken of the horrendous monsters that Droust had seen in his dreams, with their illustrations of tentacled things and huge fish with more teeth than sharks. Through it all, though, the lady had remained beauteous. None of them had drawn her as Droust had seen her, though, which led him to believe that none of the authors of those books had actually dreamed of her. So why had he? What had he done that was so bad?
>
Reading by lantern light after the dreams of the lady had first started, Droust had become frightened. But he hadn’t been so frightened that he told the ship’s captain and crew of his fears. At best they would have turned around and abandoned the mission. At worst, they would have killed him and abandoned the mission.
You are lucky, manling. I will suffer you to live. As long as you have knowledge that I need. She sounded closer than ever. His head felt near to splitting.
Droust closed his eyes at that cruel promise. It would be better if he were to throw himself onto the knife the man held at his throat. At least then he would die and be done with whatever evil the lady had in store for him.
“It’s the Spellplague.” Droust knew he should tell them she was coming, but he couldn’t. They would kill him outright. “It isn’t me.”
“The Spellplague was fourteen years ago.” Captain Porgad slapped him again. “I saw it happen with my own eyes.” He shoved his broad, ugly face into Droust’s. “But in all that time I’ve been out here, before and after the Spellplague, I’ve never had such ill luck.”
There it was then: luck. The one thing that all sailors insisted must be on their side. They made donations to all the gods and goddesses that kept watch over sailors and the sea while in port. On the ship, they offered food and prayer to Umberlee, the Bitch Queen who didn’t care for the lives of humans but sometimes spared them all the same. She commanded the wind and the waves, and she could remove them from the storms and give them safe passage. If she could be wooed. If they were lucky.
Droust had come between Captain Porgad and his crew and their luck.
“I’ve sailed Grayling for seventeen years without such ill fortune.” The captain’s bloodshot eyes narrowed. “Most of this crew has been with me nearly as long.”
“You are the only new thing on this vessel.” Porgad grabbed Droust’s shirt and shoved him backward.
“That and the ill luck he brought.” Someone slapped Droust’s head.
In the dark, with his arms held behind his back, Droust trembled. “What are you going to do to me?”
“We gotta get rid of the bad luck.” Captain Porgad pulled back into the darkness, somehow more frightening when Droust couldn’t see him. “Gotta keelhaul you. We’ll ask Umberlee to spare your soul and wash you of whatever curse has rooted within you.”
Keelhauled. The thought of being dragged under the ship from stern to prow caused a sour bubble to burst in the back of Droust’s throat. He’d never seen anyone subjected to that, but he’d read about it. And he was sure he’d drown before he was brought back up. Most victims-and that’s what they were because no one suffered that harsh challenge willingly-drowned.
The storm he heard raging outside would make keelhauling him even more difficult. He wasn’t going to be given a cleansing. He was going to be executed.
“Bring him.” Captain Porgad stepped away. “Let’s get accounts settled before this blasted storm wreaks havoc with Grayling.” He turned and headed for the door.
If you let them kill you, manling, I will bring you back from death itself and torture you in ways you’ve never dreamed of.
Droust braced himself and fought against the crewmen trying to drag him from the cabin. The ship heeled sharply to port. Droust lost his footing and slammed against the bulkhead. The sailors tumbled against it as well. In the confusion of tangled arms and legs, Droust threw elbows and knees into his captors. They tried to fight back and maintain their holds on him, but the dark and the heaving ship confused them.
Despite the bad luck the sailors accused him of, luck was with Droust now. He swept aside arms that grabbed at him, ducked under others, and walked on anyone in his path. When he reached the cabin door, he opened it and hurled himself through.
Heavy rain drummed into him hard enough to sting his skin. He blinked against the storm’s fury as he tried to get his bearings. The strong downpour dimmed the lanterns that marked Grayling’s prow.
Lightning blazed across the sky and made the billowing canvas strung through the rigging stand out the color of yellowed corpse bone. The sails strained at their moorings and timbers creaked as they held tight. Water cascaded across the deck and splashed across Droust’s bare ankles. In just that short time, rain drenched his light sleeping robe, turning the material heavy and cold.
“Get him!” Lightning blazed and lit Captain Porgad standing in the open cabin doorway.
Frenzied by the command, Droust ran forward.
Grayling lurched again, caught up in the power of the storm that buffeted her. Incongruously, a line of poetry from a book Droust had read while studying in Candlekeep wound through his frightened thoughts: And lo, as the ship struggled in the sea’s embrace, she gave in and allowed the vessel to win her over with hard driving need. Tonight the sea would not be seduced and was as savage and as furious as a spurned paramour.
Another lurch steered Droust toward the mainmast. He tried to shift direction, but his bare feet slid across the slippery deck. His face collided with the rough wood. Pain filled his cheekbone and nose as splinters gouged his flesh. He staggered and went down to one knee as another lightning bolt seared his gaze.
The woman screamed at him so loudly her voice rang inside his head and made his teeth ache. Dazed and dizzy, he forced himself up. Before he regained his footing, two sailors crashed into him and drove him against the mainmast. The impact almost robbed him of his senses.
Thunder rolled over the deck and vibrated within Droust’s body.
BAYEL DROUST!
The woman’s voice cut through the scholar’s frightened thoughts even as the sailors spun him around and looped rope around his wrists. They tied his hands together this time. His fingers went numb almost at once.
“Bring him!” Captain Porgad stood in the ship’s stern. Lightning flared along his bared cutlass. “Bring him now before this storm takes us down!” He started up the sterncastle steps.
The crewmen dragged Droust. He fought them, kicking and elbowing, but his efforts failed and he got battered for his trouble.
The storm continued to rage. One of the sails ripped free of the yards and tumbled to the deck. Grayling foundered and lost control.
Captain Porgad lunged over the stern railing. “Tie that down! Save that sail!”
Black clouds swirled down from the sky and formed an inky cloud over the ship. The lanterns at Grayling’s prow vanished, lost in the darkness or doused by the cresting waves. Crewmen shouted at each other, but the sudden rolling thunder swallowed the words.
Live, manling. Live that I may have you.
Unashamed and fearful of his life, Droust pleaded for his life. “Captain Porgad! Please! I’ve done you no wrong! None of this is any doing of mine! You’re making a mistake! Don’t kill me!”
Rain sluiced down the captain’s craggy face. “I pray that you’re right, scholar, for I’ve come to taking a liking to you.” He turned his gaze toward the swirling blackness that surrounded him and obscured view of half his ship. “But your life is in Umberlee’s hands now.” He looked back at Droust. “This is the only way I’ve ever seen to break bad luck.”
Crewmen held Droust’s legs while another tied a length of rope around his ankles.
Droust wanted to ask if anyone had ever survived keelhauling, but he was afraid of the answer. He tried asking for Umberlee’s mercy, if she wasn’t the Blue Lady herself, but the woman shouted inside his skull again. The pain of her voice drove him to his knees.
“Be strong.” Captain Porgad clapped Droust on the shoulder. “One way or the other, this will soon be over.”
White-capped waves slammed into Grayling. The ship shuddered like an animal in its death throes. The howling of the storm and the hammering of the ocean near deafened Droust.
One of the crewmen threw lengths of rope over the side as he raced forward. Three others followed him. All of them dived to the ship’s deck as lightning touched the mizzenmast. Flames twisted up around the wet wood and stabbed
into the angry sky like a torch. Even the downpour couldn’t quench the fire.
Grayling twisted and heaved like boar fighting wolves. The crewmen holding Droust banged into each other, but they managed to keep hold.
“Throw him over.” Captain Porgad held fiercely to the creaking railing.
The crewmen swept a thrashing Droust up from the deck and lifted him high enough to put him over the railing headfirst. He screamed until his throat tore. Black water surged at Grayling’s stern. The obsidian clouds twisted and turned as they rushed forward and overtook the ship.
“No!” Droust kicked and fought to no avail. There were too many of them to resist. They were going to put him over. “Please!”
The woman screamed again, only this time the crewmen heard it as well. Her howl of unrestrained fury pierced even the storm’s thunderous boom’s like an unholy crescendo. Instinctively, they ducked. Droust’s head thudded against the railing. For a moment he thought he imagined what happened next.
A feminine face appeared in the swirling black clouds. She was beautiful, but her gaze held a shark’s merciless fierceness. Feral wildness clung to her and lent her regal bearing. She was tall and thin, long limbed. Her pointed ears stood revealed beneath her flowing mane.
She shouted, but her words were carried off by the wind. She pointed at Droust.
“She wants the scholar.” One of the crewmen holding Droust drove a fist into his side and knocked the air from his lungs.
“Then give him to her!” The second man shoved Droust toward the railing.
The crewmen redoubled their efforts to heave Droust over the side. The woman closed the distance, her eyes focused on Droust. Then a spear and a long, lissome arm appeared out of the black clouds.
With unerring accuracy, the thrown spear plunged through the heart of the crewman to Droust’s left and through the chest of the man behind him. Their hot blood splashed the scholar and brought momentary and grotesque warmth against the storm’s chill bite.