Half of Zarina's would-be assailants perished in the flames. Throwing herself at the survivors, the inquisitor cried out in triumph, her weapon leaving seared flesh and broken bones in its wake. Every time they cornered her, Zarina blinked out and rematerialized behind them to attack anew. The aura of divine energy surrounding her turned their blows and healed her wounds, while her strokes laid slaver after slaver flat out on the burning deck.
Vreva started as the skylight on the quarterdeck popped open, but only smoke billowed forth. She turned back to the battle, but an invisible hand gripped her shoulder, and Snick's voice calmed her hammering heart.
"Drink!" The gnome pressed a bottle into her hand. "Gotta get out of here!"
Vreva downed the sweet elixir, gasping as pins and needles drove the numbness from her legs. She felt her wounds close and struggled to her knees, but blood loss had left her dreadfully weak.
"Come on!" Snick grabbed her arm and pulled her up, dragging her stumbling away. "The whole deck's gonna go up in flames!"
"But Zarina!" Vreva sagged against the rail and looked back. Zarina was hip-deep in blood, steel, and flames. Abadar's power shielded her from the inferno, even as those around her burned.
"Can't help her! Now make yourself invisible before someone shoots you!"
With a choking cry, Vreva realized that Snick was right. There was no way either of them could help Zarina. Her spell came with barely a thought, and she faded from sight.
"Good! Now climb over with me!"
Snick's arm encircled Vreva's blood-soaked waist and helped her over the rail. The gap between the two ships looked wider now. Bloody water churned below, and gray shapes cruised below the surface.
"On three," Snick shouted over the din, gripping her hand. "One, two, three!"
They leapt, but Vreva's strength failed her. Instead of clearing Stargazer's rail, she hit it squarely, knocking the breath out of her lungs and sending a lance of pain through her stomach. A bloody scream escaped her mouth. Snick dragged her over the rail, and they landed in a heap on the deck.
"Here! Last one!" Snick pressed another bottle into Vreva's hand. "You better have it."
The potion washed the blood from her mouth and banished the nauseating pain, but not the anguish that tore at her heart. Crawling to the rail, Vreva pulled herself up.
"Zarina!"
Vreva's shout could never have reached the inquisitor over the clash of battle. Tearfully, she watched Zarina fight on. The inquisitor's once-gleaming chainmail was rent and spattered with gore, yet still her flaming mace battered her foes as they struggled to take her down. Vreva gathered all her strength to scream over the din.
"Zarina! Come with us!" Vreva prayed that she would hear, would give up the hopeless fight and teleport to the deck of the Stargazer ...but she didn't. She continued to fight, Abadar's light a halo around her.
"Zarina!" This time, her lover's face showed a flash of recognition. Zarina smiled for an instant. The flames engulfing her weapon faded, but still the glow of Abadar's divine presence surrounded her. A slaver's boarding axe creased her brow, but the inquisitor battled on, refusing to relent. Flames blew out the quarterdeck windows and billowed into the sky.
"Please!" Vreva screamed, but there was no way Zarina could have heard her. There was too much noise, too much blood, pain, and death between them. Vreva lost sight of her lover in the flames and smoke.
∗ ∗ ∗
The roar of another fireball distracted Torius's opponent for an instant. He took advantage, driving a kick into his opponent's groin and slicing his cutlass across the man's throat. Then something clamped onto Torius's arm and jerked him off his feet. He turned to strike, but Grogul's deafening shout stayed his hand.
"Beware aloft!"
For an instant the battle ceased as every sailor looked up to see what manner of death fell from above. The burning mizzenmast and its long boom fell like a toppling pine, trailing blazing streamers of burning canvas.
"Back!" Grogul hauled Torius toward the rail.
Slavers, Stargazers, and galley slaves alike scrambled away, but even so, many perished when the mast smashed into the deck. Burning debris fell like murderous hail, and screams rose from those caught beneath burning canvas. The falling mizzen boom struck the mainsail and set it afire, too, flames climbing like ravenous beasts. The heat beat on them like a furnace, and burning tar fell like rain from the rigging.
Torius glanced at the corpse-littered deck and knew that it was time to flee. If they could get back to Stargazer and cut her free, Bloody Scourge would burn to the waterline.
"Stargazers, back to the ship!"
"Torius! Look! The quarterdeck!"
He turned at Celeste's call, and beheld a strange sight. Zarina Capoli battled a mob of slavers, and seemed to be winning. Beyond the inquisitor, Vreva struggled to her feet, her gown sodden with blood.
"What the hell happened up there?"
"Do we give a damn right now?" Grogul parried a boarding axe with his chain-wrapped arm and hacked the slaver down with his own. Grabbing Torius's arm again, he propelled him toward Stargazer. "Come on!" They surged for the rail, running for their lives.
The pirates leapt the gap, dragging the galley slaves and their wounded with them. Slavers tried to follow, but the Stargazers would not have it. They met the boarders with pikes and axes, forcing them back or casting them down between the grinding hulls.
Torius glanced up at the sails flapping in the breeze. "Haul sheets and bear away!"
Pirates scrambled to obey. The sails billowed taut, but the two ships remained bound together by the grappling bolts lodged in the hull. Stargazers struggled to cut the lines, but it was dangerous duty. Anyone caught between the hulls would be crushed. Sailors fended off the galley with boarding pikes, straining to widen the gap enough for others to reach down to hack. Their efforts were hampered by the frantic attempts of the surviving slavers to win aboard their ship.
"We've got to cut her free!" Thillion called, skewering a determined slaver through the eye.
Torius agreed. There were still enough slavers to overwhelm the Stargazers if they got aboard, and the sparks were flying too close to his sails for comfort.
With a desperate thought, Torius raced forward along the deck, cutlass in hand. The gap between the ships was wider where Stargazer's hull curved. He grasped a topsail halyard and cut the rope free in passing. His momentum carried him up off the deck, and he twisted at the apex of his swing. His return swing would take him down between the ships. Stargazer's sails were straining to pull them away from Bloody Scourge. If he could just cut free a few of the lines holding them together, her bow would bear away, widening the gap and giving them a chance to sever the rest.
But the slavers had other ideas.
As Torius swept down, they reached out for him with cutlass, pike, and axe. Arrows, bolts, motes of magical energy, and even a length of chain flew from Stargazer to beat the slavers back.
Torius slashed the first line, and hemp exploded with the tension of the diverging ships. The next one parted with a report louder than a ballista shot. A third and a fourth snapped before his blade even touched them, and the gap between the hulls widened. The strain on the next rope was so great that the ballista bolt ripped free before he reached it.
It's working!
But the arc of his swing would soon rise, lifting him out of reach of the lines. Torius loosened his grip to allow the rope burn through his palm. The tip of his cutlass snicked the next line, and the rope spun, unraveled, then parted. Stargazer heeled with the strain on her sails, bringing the next line up a trifle, and he slashed it. The gap widened, the strain on the lines increasing.
One more!
Torius again let his grip slip until barely a foot of the fraying rope remained below his hand. Straining down, he slashed out with his cutlass.
A blade flashed over his head from Bloody Scourge. It missed his clenched hand by a finger's breadth, but the rope parted, and he was falli
ng. Just before the sea engulfed him, he heard Celeste scream his name, and glimpsed the two hulls coming together. Like wringers in a laundry ready to crush him, the hulls loomed out of the soot- and blood-clouded water.
Down! Got to go down!
Torius upended himself and kicked hard, letting the weight of his boots, armor, and weapons bear him down. Overhead, the hulls ground together. Barnacle-crusted planks raked his shoulder, and he knew he couldn't swim down fast enough. Desperately, he thrust out to fend off the two hulls. The guard of his cutlass clashed against Stargazer, but as he pushed off with his other hand, barnacles scraped the flesh from his rope-burned palm. More blood clouded the water, but he managed not to waste breath on a scream.
Light brightened over his head as the ships separated, and a thunderous crack rattled his eardrums as the final line parted. Stargazer's rudder passed as she won free. With her sails drawing, she would quickly leave him behind. Torius kicked off his boots, dropped his long-treasured cutlass, and struggled for the surface, the weight of his chainmail dragging him down.
A long gray shape passed close by, toothy maw agape. The shark turned toward him, but before he could even react, something splashed right down atop it, engulfing the predator in a cascade of bubbles. The water roiled, turning red, and Torius reached for a dagger. Something flashed out of the bloody cloud of bubbles to grab his arm, but fingers rather than teeth latched on tight. The gillman, Kalli, emerged from the bubbles, and the huge shark swam away trailing a streamer of blood and viscera where her blade had gutted it. She wrapped one arm around him and tugged on the line that trailed out behind her. Torius grabbed onto her as the line jerked taut and hauled them to the surface. Strong hands pulled them over the transom, and he sprawled on the deck, coughing and sputtering.
"That was the most foolish, reckless thing you've ever done, Torius Vin!" Celeste sounded both livid and elated.
"Aye, but it worked!" Grogul hauled Torius to his feet and clapped him on the back hard enough to expel half an ocean while Stargazers helped Kalli, lauding her with praise for her daring rescue.
"And it certainly was a surprise!" Snick, blood-streaked and sooty but grinning, held up a familiar blade. "You lost your cutlass, but I brought you this! Nekhtal didn't need it anymore, with all the bolts shot into him."
"So Vreva killed him?" Torius coughed again as he accepted his reclaimed scimitar.
"Don't think so." She lowered her voice and jerked a thumb toward the rail, where Vreva sat gazing at the burning galley. "I'm not sure what happened between her and Capoli, but it didn't look like they were trying to kill each other."
They all turned toward Bloody Scourge. A few figures were still visible on the galley's blazing deck, but Zarina Capoli was nowhere to be seen.
"Orders, Captain?" Thillion stood beside the helm. Windy Kate gripped the wheel, though her left wrist now ended in a scarred stump.
Torius looked at the burning galley and shook his head. He'd told his crew that all of the slavers would die, and that was one promise he meant to keep.
"Steer north, and have Fenric get some topmen aloft to straighten out that rat's nest."
"Fenric ...didn't make it, Captain," Thillion said quietly.
Torius cringed. He wondered how many they had left on the galley's burning deck. The answer was simple: too many. "Grogul, if you're able, I could use a bosun."
"Able and ready, Captain." Grogul saluted and stomped off, shouting orders.
"Snick, potions for anyone seriously wounded, including the galley slaves."
"Aye, aye, sir!" She skipped down the steps to the main deck, slapping Grogul's ass as she passed. He cursed, but she just laughed shrilly and called out to him, "Missed you, too, buddy!"
"Do you have orders for me, my captain?" Celeste leaned against him, wrapping her tail around his leg and looking him over. "Your hand's bleeding."
"Just a scrape." He ran his good hand over her scales, carefully avoiding her many injuries. "Have Snick treat that bite, and tell her I'll take a potion if there are any left. And, yes, there is something I'd like you to do." He nodded toward Vreva. The courtesan sat and stared at the burning galley, tears running in rivulets down her cheeks. He had no idea what happened on the quarterdeck of Bloody Scourge, but Vreva wasn't acting like she'd fulfilled her vow of revenge. "See what you can do for her, will you? I think she needs a friend."
"But—" Celeste stopped, then nodded. "Yes. Yes, I'll do what I can for her."
"Thank you for that." He brushed a hand through her hair and smiled. "And thank you for not getting killed today."
"And I thank you for not getting killed, though you seemed to be trying awfully hard." Celeste leaned in and kissed him. "Now go see to your ship, my captain."
"Yes, my dear." Torius gave her his best rakish grin and went to stand by the helm. The master of Stargazer gazed out over the deck of his ship—soaked, battered, and bloody, but alive, free, and beholden to none.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Freedom's Privateer
Almas glittered like a dragon's hoard as Stargazer sailed into the wide harbor. Torius felt like he'd arrived at a party underdressed; his ship and crew looked like they'd been in the fight of their lives—which, of course, they had. Before they could even drop anchor, a pilot boat raced out to meet them.
"What now? Another tribunal?" To Torius's surprise, however, the wide-eyed lieutenant hastily directed them to the naval shipyard for repairs.
The offer of help was welcome, even if the young officer's exclamation of, "Before she sinks!" was not.
"You bug-eyed, addle-brained excuse for a fancy jacket!" Snick leapt to the rail and glared at the launch. "I'll sink you, you—"
"As you were, Snick!" While Torius shared her sentiment, he didn't need Snick ruffling any feathers.
"But, sir! We're nowhere near sinking! Haven't been for ...well, at least a day!"
"Thanks to your tireless efforts. Now stand down!"
Truth be told, it had been touch and go. The battered brigantine had shipped more than six feet of water during a squall west of Kortos. Snick had braced wads of oakum in the ruptured seam from inside, while Kalli dove overboard to hammer caulk into the open fissure.
The gillman had taken on Fenric's position as bosun's mate, sharing the duty with a now-one-eyed Dukkol. Her brother had been killed during the battle, and the responsibility seemed to help her depression. In fact, the mood of the entire crew had changed. Having lost so many mates, they all seemed a bit grimmer, less apt to smile or joke. In time, Torius knew, they would heal.
If only it was that easy for Vreva.
Despite Celeste's best efforts, the courtesan had not left the guest cabin for the first two days after the battle, even for meals. Finally, Torius had put his foot down.
"You told me you wouldn't waste your life, Vreva. You can't live like this!"
That evening she had emerged on deck and stood silently at the rail. Torius had been worried that she might throw herself overboard, but she started taking meals and talking when people addressed her. She still tended to simply stare at nothing, but it was happening less often now. She had told no one what had happened on Bloody Scourge's quarterdeck.
When they had docked the ship and arranged for repairs with the dockmaster, a messenger handed Torius a note from Admiral Weathers. She wanted to see him at his first convenience—in other words, right away. Torius bristled at being summoned like an errant schoolboy, but forced himself to relax.
Best get this over with quickly. "Thillion, the ship is yours. Grogul, you're with me."
Two hours later, Torius left the Office of Privateering Actions in a considerably better mood than when he'd arrived. Damn, but it's hard to be mad at someone who gives you exactly what you want before you even ask for it! He had to resist patting the coat pocket where he'd tucked the bank draft she had presented to him. He descended the steps of the building's ornate foyer with a spring in his step and a whistle on his lips. The money wouldn't pay fo
r lost friends, but it would help. Especially since Celeste and Snick had spent almost his entire fortune.
Grogul fell into step beside him. "Everything all right, Captain?"
"Everything's fine, Grogul, just fine."
Rounding a corner on the bustling street, a dark man bumped into him. Torius reached reflexively for his money pouch, and found it right where it should be.
"Pardon me, Captain!"
How does he know I'm a captain? Torius wore no insignia, and stood out no more than dozens of other sailors. Before he could open his mouth to ask that very question, he felt a piece of paper being pressed into his palm. The man tipped his hat and moved on, but not before Torius caught a flash of a smile and recognized his previous Twilight Talon contact.
"No problem, citizen." Torius tipped his tricorne, pocketed the note, and strode on without looking back. A half-hour later, waiting in line at Goldfield's Bank, he read the note.
You have reservations for two tonight at The Aerie. Eight o'clock. Dress appropriately.
For two. It didn't take an oracle to figure out who would be accompanying him, or why they were being summoned. The bank line moved forward, and he moved with it, feeling like a pawn on a chessboard.
∗ ∗ ∗
Vreva examined herself in the mirror: the carefully applied makeup, elegant coif, and beautiful dress of a courtesan. All a lie. She brushed the smooth skin of her forehead. The scar—Zarina's gift—was gone, finally banished by a cleric.
Spy ...It was only the truth. She peered at herself again. Who am I really?
Vreva had been assuming false identities for so long that she found it difficult to remember who she had once been. When she did, she also remembered why her old self was best forgotten. She reached up to touch the pendant dangling on a gold chain around her neck, and felt her heart beating beneath it. Snick had tucked it into her hand just that afternoon.
"Just a bit of leftover stuff I had to get rid of," the gnome had claimed, but Vreva could tell that it had taken many hours to create the intricate mosaic of twisted golden wire and cut gems. Three tiny daggers pointed outward from a central key, Calistria's and Abadar's symbols entwined in gold.
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