Rising Tide

by Mel Odom

  “They’ll be replaced,” Hroman stated. “Oghma willing, and if the need for whatever’s been lost is strong enough.”

  “I’m not talking about city things.” The old bard offered the small cup of cherry tomatoes that had been packed in the basket. They were exotic, grown in Maztica, and proof that the most exclusive of larders had opened to feed the people who worked in the city. Hroman took a couple with a nod of thanks. “I’m talking about the song. We don’t know who arranged the attack on Waterdeep, or why.”

  “It was the sahuagin,” Hroman pointed out. “We all saw them. As to why, the sahuagin have never gotten along with people living on the surface.”

  “The sahuagin don’t use magic,” Pacys pointed out. “They don’t like it, and they don’t trust it. That night, of all things that can be said about it, was filled with magic. It’s more than the sahuagin. There’s an enemy out there who has aligned himself against Waterdeep … maybe more than just Waterdeep.”

  “I can only pray that you’re wrong,” the priest said.

  Pacys nodded. “I pray that as well, but in my heart I know I’m right. This song is far bigger than any I’ve ever done. When I finish, we’ll have to know who has commanded this thing and why.”

  “Not all songs are as neatly sewn,” Hroman objected. “In ‘Pemdarc’s Folly’ the hero is kept constantly in the dark as to who’s controlling the events in his life, as is the audience. Likewise with ‘Lillinin’ and ‘The Calling of Three Shadows.’ There are dozens of songs that don’t fit the criteria you’re saying exists.”

  “Not epic songs,” Pacys objected in a soft voice. He popped one of the cherry tomatoes into his mouth and chewed. The fruit was pulpy and delicious. “Those all have the same ingredients.”

  Hroman was silent for a moment, as if hesitant. “Not all of those songs are finished, old friend. ‘Cask of Torguein’ remains incomplete to this day because the bard who wrote it—”

  “Tweul Silverstrings,” Pacys said automatically. A bard was trained to give every master his due. Otherwise, how would a true bard worthy of the mantle gain fame?

  “—had his heart ripped out by a peryton up in the Cloud Peaks. ‘Onyx Eyes’ is unfinished because the bard—”

  “Lohyis Tautsham,” Pacys supplied.

  “—was found drained of blood in a spider’s web in Undermountain. ‘Sandcastle Kings In Flight’ is only a fragment left by the composer—”

  “Harbier Funnelmouth.”

  “—who hasn’t been seen in one hundred and twenty years.” Hroman frowned. “I could go on.”

  “Because your father, Oghma rest his soul,” Pacys said, “saw to it you had a good education without being cloistered away in priest’s vestments.”

  Hroman took another bite of his sandwich. “All I’m saying is that we were fortunate to live through the bloodletting the other night, and there are enough people jumping at shadows in this city.”

  Pacys knew that was true. In response to the attack, all the land-based entrances into Waterdeep had been battened down with a siege mentality. The guard’s rakers patrolled well past the harbor. There would be no more surprises.

  Yet with all the might and ferocity that earmarked the attack, Pacys knew that whatever enemy the city faced didn’t have to depend on surprise. The sahuagin could only come from the sea, but there were no guarantees that the sea devils hadn’t aligned themselves with the orcs or goblin hordes that occupied the hill country and forests beyond Waterdeep.

  Carefully, Pacys steered the conversation onto safer ground, discussing the events and people of the last few days that weighed heavily on Hroman. Several of the junior priests leaned on him for guidance. Few had experienced such a vicious attack before and it left many with their faith shaken.

  During the talk, the bard sliced up the small loaf of sweetbread he’d been given in the basket and added grapes and chunks of apple to the repast. His wineskin, thankfully, was plentiful. When the meal and the conversation was completed, Hroman excused himself, nearly asleep as he sat there.

  Pacys bade his friend good-bye and took up the yarting again. He decided to allow himself only the small luxury of a few more minutes of playing before he returned to the work he’d volunteered for.

  As he walked out to the splintered end of the dock, he noticed a small skiff putting in at Arnagus’s. The crowd awaiting news of their loved ones hurried down to meet the skiff’s crew, and the wailing and weeping of the grief stricken ones who learned the final fate of family members and friends rolled over the bard. Their sadness and despondency struck a chord in him. Effortlessly, his fingers plucked the strings, finding the resonance in himself that matched their grief. He wasn’t surprised when new notes and chords emerged, tying in with those that had already come to him.

  He sat on the end of the dock and gave himself over to the music, building what he’d already figured out to the new sections. Words came to tongue quickly, and he sang of the trouble Waterdeep faced, of the fears and the uncertainties that lie ahead.

  His mind searched ahead as his eyes roved over the harbor. He’d been speaking truly to Hroman: things were missing. The song was epic in scope, but it wouldn’t be complete without all the ingredients. To be epic, the song had to have the touch of darkness, the schemer who’d designed the raid and marshaled the magic against Waterdeep had to be known. But where did this darkness lie?

  There had to be a hero, someone who took the fight to that encroaching darkness. Waterdeep, he knew, was filled with heroes of every stripe; adventurers and warriors who dared and risked their lives countless times. It was those people who were even now rebuilding all that had been lost, promising that the city would flourish again. Still, as his fingers massaged the yarting’s strings, none of their names rang true. He felt certain it would be someone no one had heard of, but where was this person?

  His shook his head in an effort to clear it. His heart felt leaden. He’d spent fourteen years of his life chasing this song, yet it seemed destined to remain just out of his touch.

  “Tale-spinner.”

  The voice was so soft that Pacys at first didn’t realize it had been spoken. He quieted the yarting with a palm pressed against the strings, then approached the dock’s edge.

  A merman swam in the water in the shallows. His upper body was well developed, broad from swimming beneath the waters and from the hard life such a being lived, but his waist and below belonged to a fish. Faded pink scars striped his torso, cutting through the tan skin of his upper body and leading down to the silver scales that covered his lower half. He flicked his tail casually, keeping his head and shoulders above the waterline. Dark brown hair trailed wetly down his back, matched by a full beard. A necklace of coral and shells matched the ones wrapping his wrists, each piece carefully selected to match elegantly. He carried a trident in one hand.

  “You know me,” the merman said, sweeping his tail with just enough energy to remain atop the water, “from a night fourteen years gone.”

  “Yes,” Pacys replied. It wasn’t hard to remember the merman. Pacys had helped save his life when the mermen came into the harbor fleeing some great evil that had pursued them from the Sea of Swords. “I’d thought you were going to die back then.”

  The merman nodded, a grim smile on his face. “I almost did, and I had the chance again only a few nights ago.”

  “All of us did.”

  “I recognized you from your song,” the merman said.

  The old bard knew the mermen treasured songs as part of their culture. He’d borrowed some of their music and tales for his own over the years and was no stranger to their race.

  “You played some of that song the night we arrived,” the merman said.

  Pacys was genuinely surprised the merman remembered. He’d sat quietly on the shore those many years ago, watching as the injured mermen were pulled from the water for treatment, asking for asylum from whatever had pursued them. He’d discovered the first of the song then.

  �
��Yes,” the old bard said. “You’ve a good ear for music.”

  “You are part of this,” the merman said.

  Pacys didn’t deny the charge.

  “I am shaman to my people,” the merman said. “I’m called Narros.”

  Pacys gave his own name, then sat at the edge of the dock so they could be closer. None of the sailors around them paid any special attention to their conversation, but they remained wary. Over the last few days, the sailors in the harbor had accidentally attacked the mermen and other underwater denizens living in the shallows, fearing them to be returning sahuagin. So far there’d been no deaths on either side, but tensions and suspicions were running high.

  “It won’t end with the attack of a few days ago,” Narros said.

  “I know,” the old bard replied. “Many of these people think it will. The rest all hope so.”

  The merman shook his head, flicking water from his hair. “It’s already escalating. My people have been foraging along the Sea of Swords, seeking out information as Lord Piergeiron requested. More and more ships are being taken at sea.”

  “By the sahuagin?”

  “And other things,” Narros answered. He hesitated for a moment. “There are few survivors.”

  Pacys waited impatiently, wondering what had brought the merman to him. Usually they didn’t have much to do with humans or other surface dwellers past whatever trade they needed to do.

  “The evil reaching out now,” Narros said, “was prophesied by my people. We knew when it rose against us fourteen years ago, despite the warding we created, that it had arrived. Now it has grown even stronger.”

  Intrigued, Pacys focused on the man. “Could I hear that prophecy?”

  “Yes,” Narros replied. “You have to. In my prayers of late I’ve discovered that you are part of it.”

  XXVII

  17 Mirtul, the Year of the Gauntlet

  Jherek watched Aysel draw the double-bitted battle-axe back with both hands. Blood still poured down the sailor’s chin from his split lips.

  The floor around the fight cleared immediately. Even Aysel’s cronies must not have trusted their companion’s anger or aim. They released Jherek even as he worked one of his hands free.

  He pushed himself back, narrowly avoiding the battle-axe slashing horizontally across his chest. The spiked tip of the axe head cut through his shirt and striped him with sudden, burning pain. Warm blood spilled down his chest. His anger melted somewhat then as he gave himself over to survival.

  Still off-balance from his release from the men who’d been holding him, and from the effort at escaping the first axe blow, Jherek couldn’t move quickly enough to attempt closing with Aysel. The big sailor moved at him immediately, drawing the axe back again.

  Grasping a wooden chair, Jherek heaved it up in time to intercept the axe coming down at his head. The axe blow shattered the chair to splinters in the young sailor’s hands, but it gave him time to spin away. The axe thudded home in the tavern’s wooden floor, sending up a spray of sawdust.

  “Get him!” Aysel bawled, yanking the axe from the floor. “Hold him and I’ll have the head from his shoulders!”

  A man leaped on Jherek from behind, forcing him forward over a nearby table. The side of the young sailor’s head slammed against the tabletop and scattered tankards in all directions.

  “Get him now!” the man shrilled in Jherek’s ear.

  By the time Jherek got his legs under him properly, the axe was already whistling toward his head. He pulled back with all his strength, slipping under the man’s weight.

  The axe thudded into the table only inches in front of Jherek’s eyes. There was enough power in the blow to split the tabletop, and splinters dug into the young sailor’s cheek.

  Hooking a foot behind the leg of the man holding him, Jherek pulled and lunged back at the same time. He went down backward on top of the man in a tangle of arms and legs. Already in motion, he came to his feet in a smooth roll. One of Aysel’s companions reached for him, whipping a dagger forward.

  Jherek raised an arm and blocked the dagger thrust, catching the man’s wrist on his forearm with enough force to crack the small wrist bones. Even as the man cried out in pain, the young sailor grabbed a metal serving pitcher from another table and slammed it against his attacker’s head with a deep bong. The man’s knees buckled and he went down screaming.

  “Are you still willing to die for Sabyna’s honor now, boy?” Aysel didn’t waste any time stepping across the man’s unconscious body and unloading with the axe again.

  Jherek shifted, shuffling to the side, feeling the wall behind him come into contact with him unexpectedly. He dropped into a crouch with his back to the wall. The axe thudded into the hard wood, wedging in tight.

  Aysel tugged on the haft, struggling to free his weapon. It came loose, ripping wood from the wall in long splinters.

  “Not die,” Jherek replied hotly, “but I’ll stand for her.”

  “Because she’s shared her body with you?” Aysel taunted. “Is that anything to die for?”

  Jherek felt the anger in him turn to ice, and he knew that emotion peaked higher in him than he’d ever thought it could. Even with everything that had happened to him in his life, he’d never felt that way, not at his father, nor at fate, both of which had conspired against him since he’d been born. He ripped the cutlass free of his waist sash, pushing himself up and away from the bigger man.

  With a final yank, Aysel pulled the axe from the wall. He saw the cutlass in Jherek’s hand, then spread his own hands along the four foot haft of the battle-axe. He grinned wolfishly, full of confidence.

  “I’ve chopped up bigger men than you, boy, and them better armed and armored.”

  A small movement at Jherek’s side alerted him to the man slipping up on him. He whirled and kicked, blocking the man’s sword swing with a booted foot and whipping the cutlass’s pommel into the man’s forehead, stunning him. Even as the man fell away from him, Jherek continued his spin, raising the cutlass blade to block Aysel’s axe blow, sliding it over him, then past.

  Sweat, blood, and sawdust covered him as he set himself more properly behind his sword. His lungs labored from his exertion and the emotion that filled him.

  Aysel drew back, setting himself with his weapon as well. The axe danced in his hands. The fact that he was missing two fingers on his left hand didn’t seem to bother him at all. The battle-axe twirled end over end, creating what seemed to be a constant barrier in front of the big sailor.

  “I wasn’t always a sailor, boy. I’ve been fighting men longer than I’ve been at sea.”

  “I’m not surprised,” Jherek said. “Only two things draw a man to the sea and a sailor’s life. The love for the sea itself, or crimes committed on dry land so bad that staying there is no longer an option.”

  Without warning, the battle-axe twisted in Aysel’s hands, the blade licking out at Jherek’s throat.

  Jherek batted the axe head aside with the flat of his cutlass. Metal rang out in the tavern. Seeking to enlarge on the opening he thought he’d created, Jherek stepped forward. In the close confines, the four foot axe haft could be unwieldy in the hands of most.

  Aysel was fully aware of his weapon’s strengths and weaknesses, though, and the big sailor didn’t try to strike with the axe head again. Instead, he hammered the haft into Jherek’s face.

  Jherek had only enough time to turn his head and pull his chin down. The heavy wooden haft, sheathed in steel, connected with his forehead and the ridge of bone over his right eye instead of his nose. Pain thundered into his head, and his vision went white for a moment. His jaw snapped shut.

  “Foolish move, boy, trying to take a seasoned axe man like that,” Aysel crowed with sadistic delight. The axe spun in his hands again as he readied himself to take advantage of his success.

  Jherek stepped back, quickly and automatically raising the cutlass to cover his retreat, and stepping so that his good eye was turned more toward his opponen
t. However, the stance also left him with a shorter sword reach. He blinked hurriedly, guarding against the pain that assailed him and trying to clear his vision. Doubled images of Aysel drawing the axe back for another swing moved before him.

  Jherek moved the way Malorrie had taught him, reading the big man’s body movements rather than trying to keep track of the axe. He leaped up, pulling his legs high to avoid the sweeping axe blow aimed to cut his ankles from under him. When he landed on the floor again, he launched a back-handed slash with the cutlass, aiming it at Aysel’s face, guessing the man would step backward to avoid it.

  Instead, Aysel lifted the end of the axe haft and blocked the cutlass. Sparks flew from the steel sheath, and the hard wooden shaft held. The big man flicked the sword away, then stepped in and buried the axe haft in Jherek’s stomach.

  Bright comets of pain ignited in the young sailor’s skull as his breath fled his lungs. He was certain the blow broke ribs, and he remained on his feet out of sheer defiance. Aysel closed again, stumbling, surprised maybe that Jherek hadn’t fallen. His breath burned hotly on the young sailor’s neck.

  “Had enough, boy?” Aysel snarled.

  Twisting, keeping his body contact against the bigger man to keep him off-balance so he couldn’t bring either end of the battle-axe back into play, Jherek balled up his left fist and smashed it into Aysel’s throat.

  The big sailor stumbled backward, grabbing for his injured throat with one hand. His breath came in harsh gasps.

  “No,” Jherek grated out. “You’re still standing.”

  He wiped at his injured eye with his free hand, finding some of the blurred vision was caused by blood. He wiped his eye clear on a shirt sleeve, aware that the swelling had already half closed it. Still, he could see better. He lifted the cutlass and slashed.

  Aysel grabbed the axe with both hands again and blocked the blow.

  Warming to the task, pushing the pain away, Jherek moved the cutlass confidently. He remained on the attack, deliberately aiming blows that he knew Aysel could block and had no choice but to do so, beating back any opportunity for offense. The big man held his ground for a moment, wavering, but in the end he was forced back.