by Tim Waggoner
Diran couldn't believe what he was seeing, had never read about such a thing happening, hadn't believed it was even possible. But there was no denying the evidence of his eyes. During Leontis's battle with Haaken on Trebaz Sinara, the priest must have been bitten by the wereshark, and the infection contained in Haaken's body had been passed onto Leontis. The twin infections now raging within the priest had merged somehow, making him into a creature that was half werewolf, half wereshark.
Leontis let out a cry that was part howl, part roar, and raced toward the weresharks. The three lycanthropes didn't react at first, seeming almost as startled by Leontis's strange new form as Diran was. But then the weresharks roared and ran forward to meet the wolfshark's attack.
Diran, Tresslar, Hinto, and Onu moved well away from where the four lycanthropes fought. Diran then tossed his silver dagger to Hinto, drew another, and handed it to Onu. "Use these if Leontis can't keep the weresharks busy. If more of the creatures swarm onto the ship than you can handle, make sure you and the crew take shelter below. Hopefully, once Tresslar, Solus, and I attack Nathifa, the weresharks will lose interest in the Turnabout and you'll be safe."
Hinto frowned. "Do you have any more silver daggers, Diran?"
The priest held up his holy symbol and smiled. "I have this." He glanced toward the central dock and the statue of Nerthatch-or more accurately, at the hilt of the dagger protruding from the statue's stone chest. "And I know where there's another I can get hold of." Before the halfling could question him further, Diran turned to Solus. "Do you still have enough power to levitate the three of us onto the dock near Nathifa?"
"There is much ambient psionic energy to draw on in a city this large," the psiforged said. "Now that we are this close to Regalport, my crystals are growing strong once more."
"I'll take that as a yes," Diran said. "Let's go."
Diran stood on Solus's right, Tresslar on the psiforged's left. They each put a hand on one of the construct's shoulders, and Solus's psionic crystals glowed with power. The three companions rose into the air and soared toward the central dock.
Ghaji was considerably less enthused than Yvka to be flying through the air, though flying wasn't exactly the right word for the sensation they experienced. It felt more like they were in the grip of a giant invisible hand that was carrying them swiftly from the now lopsided deck of the Turnabout to the far end of the central dock.
As they descended to the wooden planks of the central dock, Ghaji did a quick estimate of the number of weresharks in their landing zone. Four. All of them big, overly muscled, and exceptionally ugly. But if Yvka and he could deal with them, or at least make it past them, they stood a good chance of reaching House Thuranni. He didn't know how long Nathifa had been summoning weresharks, but unless the streets were chock-full of the damned things, they could fight their way through. And if the streets were thick with the monsters, it wouldn't matter if they reached House Thuranni or not. Regalport-and likely the entire Principalities-would be lost.
Suddenly Ghaji and Yvka were falling. He removed his arm from Yvka's waist. Yvka would be far safer landing on her own that she would if held by him. He pulled his elemental axe from its belt sheath, willed it to burst into flame and fixed his gaze on the wereshark closest to where he was going to land, one with copper-colored hide. Ghaji wished he was going to hit Copper-Skin directly in order for his landing to do the maximum amount of damage, but he was going to come down two feet to the creature's left. Still well within striking distance of his axe, though, and that was all that mattered.
Ghaji bellowed a war cry at the last instant to get Copper-Skin to turn its face. The creature whirled and looked up, giving Ghaji a clear view of two curved sharkskin-covered mounds protruding from the wereshark's chest. Definitely a her, Ghaji thought, and swung his flame-wreathed axe blade at Copper-Skin's snout, directly between her nostrils. Blood sprayed, Copper-Skin shrieked, and the shock of impact jarred up Ghaji's arm, ran through his shoulder, and rattled his teeth. The half-orc held tight to his axe as he hit the dock, and as the blade was still embedded in Copper-Skin's snout, she was pulled down with him. The wereshark continued shrieking in pain and clawed at her snout, which was fast becoming a blazing inferno of its own.
Ghaji rose to a crouching position, ignoring the protests of various joints and muscles that weren't happy at how they'd just been treated. He was pleased at the effect of his axe on Copper-Skin. Lycanthropes couldn't be killed by fire, as Leontis proved in the forest of the shadowclaws on Trebaz Sinara, but they could still be injured by it, enough so that it took them a while to heal. He'd hoped that since weresharks were aquatic monsters, they'd suffer even more from being set aflame, and it appeared his hope had been born out. Ghaji smiled in grim satisfaction as he yanked the axe free from Copper-Skin's flaming face and stood, spinning around as he did so, ready to meet the next attack that was sure to be coming his way.
Another wereshark lunged at him, this one with hide colored bluish-black on the back and pinkish on the underbelly. Ghaji hit this beast with an upward swing that laid open his abdomen, causing wet loops of intestine to spill out onto the dock. Ghaji brought his axe down in a return strike and set fire to Pink-Belly's exposed innards. Pink-Belly staggered backward, his screams of agony added to those of Copper-Skin, and he threw himself off the dock and into the water. The flames generated from Ghaji's elemental axe were mystical in origin, and though water would extinguish them, it would take a few moments for it to do.
Ghaji turned to see how Yvka was faring. He hadn't seen her land, but she stood nearby in a fighting stance, and he knew she'd completed their descent without injury, just as he'd expected. She faced two weresharks-both possessing sharply pointed snouts and mouthfuls of long, sharp projecting teeth. Both of the creatures were hissing in pain and rubbing their eyes. Their heads were covered with fine yellowish powder, and though Ghaji didn't know precisely what substance Yvka had used to bedevil the monsters, he was grateful for the distraction. It was going to make his job much easier.
Ghaji dashed forward, swung his axe several times, and stinging eyes suddenly became the least of the weresharks' problems. Like Copper-Skin, these two fell to the dock, slashed, mutilated, and on fire. The flames from all three weresharks lying on the dock spread rapidly, merging to create a solid wall of fire. Good. Hopefully, the flame barrier would at least slow the procession of weresharks into the city. Ghaji ran forward and grabbed Yvka's hand.
"Come on!" he shouted, but the elf planted her feet and refused to budge.
"Wait! I want to try something." Yvka rolled back her left sleeve to expose her dragonmark. She closed her eyes and as she concentrated, the mark grew black and seemed to spread down her fingers and up along her arm. The darkness moved swiftly over her body, and within seconds she was completely enveloped in shadow.
She spread arms black as night. "Well? What do you think?"
Ghaji was impressed. Even with his night vision, he had a difficult time seeing her.
"I wasn't sure it was going to work, or else I might've asked Solus to transport me here alone," she said. "Then again, I couldn't have taken care of four weresharks by myself." He couldn't see her smile, but he heard it in the tone of her voice. "Cloaked in shadow like this, I'll be able to sneak past any weresharks without difficulty. I can make it to House Thuranni on my own, and you can go back to help the others."
"I'm not sure this is a good idea," Ghaji said. "You have no experience with this new shadow magic of yours. What if it fails and you can be seen again?"
"Then I'd better get moving, eh?" She came forward, moving with such silent elven grace that she really did seem to be nothing more than a shadow. But when she put her ebon arms around Ghaji's waist, they felt real enough. "I'll be all right. Trust me… please."
And that's what it came down to, didn't it? Did he trust her? Could he? He thought of Kirai. He'd gotten to know her well during their time together on the Talenta Plains. In many ways he had known so much more ab
out her-her past, her likes and dislikes. Where Yvka was secretive and reluctant to share information about herself and her work, Kirai had been an open book. But he knew how Kirai had made him feel about himself, and it couldn't compare to the way Yvka made him feel.
Ghaji wanted to hug Yvka, but he was afraid of disrupting the shadow-spell that concealed her. Instead, he smiled and said, "Good luck to you, my love."
"And to you." She leaned forward, rose on her tip-toes and gave Ghaji a quick kiss on the lips. And then she pulled away, turned, and melded with the darkness.
Ghaji said a quick silent prayer for Yvka's safety-not that he'd ever admit it to anyone-before turning seaward once more, only to find himself facing the rising wall of flame that he'd created.
He sighed. Wielding an elemental weapon had its drawbacks sometimes.
He took a deep breath, held it, and ran toward the flames.
CHAPTER TWENTY THREE
Diran, Tresslar, and Solus came to rest on the dock directly in front of the statue of Nerthatch. It appeared to Diran that Nathifa and Haaken had become integral parts of the enchantment the lich was casting, and neither would be able to move without disrupting the spell. At least, he hoped that would prove to be the case. All the trio needed was a few moments in which to act.
Coils of mist drifted in from the sea and wrapped themselves around Diran's body, and the priest knew he was under attack by Makala.
"Tresslar, Solus, forget about me! Go and-" Diran's words were cut off, and he found himself unable to breathe. He understood what was happening. Makala had filled his lungs with her vaporous substance, preventing him from breathing. Could she transform while within him, take on human form, and tear him apart from the inside out? He was unfamiliar with any vampire lore that spoke of such a capability, but if it was possible, he certainly didn't want to learn about it firsthand. He opened his mouth and pressed his silver arrowhead against his lips. White light shone forth from the holy symbol, pouring into his body, filling him with its warmth.
Diran sensed more than heard a scream from somewhere inside him, and then tendrils of mist raced out of his mouth and nose. His lungs began to work again, and he drew in a gasping breath as Makala's form solidified in front of him. The vampire hunched over on the dock, flesh smoking from dozens of burns.
Diran knew it would take Makala a moment to recover, and he took the opportunity to glance over to see how Tresslar and Hinto were doing. The psiforged had stepped in front of the statue of Nerthatch and now placed his three-fingered hands on the sides of the stone head. As soon as contact was made, the psionic crystals covering Solus's body began to flicker erratically, and he threw back his head and screamed. Diran wasn't certain what the psiforged was trying to accomplish. How could one create a psionic link with the petrified body of a long-dead priest? But whatever Solus was attempting, it was clearly causing him great agony.
Tresslar had reached into his backpack and removed a glove made of wire mesh. He slipped it over his right hand, stepped toward Nathifa, and grabbed hold of the dragonwand. Sparks of necromantic energy flew off the mystic artifact, and the shaft of dark power lancing forth from the mouth of the golden dragonhead began to shrink, as if it were a stream of black water that was slowly being cut off at its source. Nathifa turned to Tresslar and glared at him with her sole remaining eye. She couldn't use magic against the artificer, for her power was bound up in maintaining control of the Amahau, and she couldn't strike Tresslar as she only had one arm and couldn't spare it at the moment. But the lich had other ways of attacking. Ebon tendrils of shadow emerged from the black substance that served as her cloak and shot toward Tresslar fast as striking snakes. The tendrils coiled tight around his arm, and the artificer cried out in pain. Diran had fought enough liches in his time to know what was happening: Nathifa was draining Tresslar's lifeforce. The artificer was in good health, but he wasn't a young man and wouldn't be able to withstand Nathifa's assault for long.
Diran started to go to Tresslar's aid, but before he could do more than take a single step, Makala leaped upon him with the speed and grace of a jungle cat. She knocked him down to the dock, rolled him onto his back, straddled him, and with inhuman strength pressed his shoulders against the wooden planks, pinning him in place.
Makala grinned. "Tell you what, lover. How about I let you live long enough to watch your friends die?"
"How about I tell you a secret first?"
Makala frowned. "What?"
"During the voyage from Trebaz Sinara I sharpened the edges of my arrowhead." Diran still held his holy symbol in his right hand, and he had just enough range of movement left to raise the silver object and ram its razor-sharp tip into the vampire's leg.
Makala screamed and rolled off Diran. The priest maintained his grip on the arrowhead, and it tore free of the vampire's leg in a gout of foul-smelling black fluid. Makala tried to scuttle away, but before she could escape, Diran jumped on top of her and pressed the holy symbol to her forehead. Makala's scream rose in volume and pitch until it no longer had anything even remotely in common with a sound produced by a human throat. Then in a loud, commanding voice, Diran spoke three words.
"Begone, foul spirit!"
Hinto was both impressed and terrified at the savagery with which Leontis fought. Though he faced three weresharks, the priest was more than holding his own. The new transformation Leontis had undergone seemed to have made him stronger, as if he now possessed the combined strength of both a werewolf and a wereshark. Leontis bled from dozens of wounds, but they were little more than scratches. The three weresharks weren't so lucky, however. They were covered with deep slash marks thanks to Leontis' powerful claws. Hinto was beginning to think that the priest would be able to handle the weresharks on his own when the largest of the creatures managed to clamp its jaws down on Leontis's left arm. The wolfshark howled in pain and clawed furiously at the white shark's snout with his free hand, cutting long bloody furrows in the creature's flesh. But no matter how fiercely Leontis fought, the white shark refused to let go.
Hinto was about to race forward and attack with the silver dagger Diran had given him when he saw that Onu had shucked off his crimson captain's jacket. The changeling then tore off the white shirt he was wearing and dropped it to the deck. He gave Hinto a wink and then started toward Leontis and the wereshark, his body shifting and reforming with each step until Onu resembled a smaller version of the wereshark. The changeling walked straight up to the wereshark, silver dagger held down at his side. The wereshark didn't let go of Leontis's arm as Onu approached, but his gaze shifted to take in the newcomer. When the wereshark saw that the creature that approached was apparently of the same species, its mouth widened into a grin, and it looked away.
That's when Onu plunged the dagger blade into one of the wereshark's dead-black eyes.
The wereshark roared, let go of Leontis's arm and staggered backward, blood gushing from his eye socket. He reached up in an attempt to pull out the dagger, but silver was as poison to lycanthropes, and the wereshark was already too weak to do more than claw feebly at the dagger's hilt. The creature fell and hit the deck with a loud thump that shook the planks beneath Hinto's feet. The wereshark was dead.
Snarling, Leontis took a step back and cradled his wounded arm. The other two weresharks-the hammerhead and the blue-hesitated, unsure what had just happened and what, if anything they should do about it. Hinto saw his chance. He dashed toward the hammerhead, the bigger and more deadly of the two, and rammed his dagger into the monster's chest. The monster screamed once, stiffened, and then fell to the deck.
The blue shark looked back and forth between Onu, Hinto, and Leontis. The lycanthropic priest stepped toward the surviving wereshark, growling low in his throat. The blue might have looked like a mindless animal, but he was anything but. He knew bad odds when he saw them. He turned, ran toward the railing, leaped over, and plunged into the water below.
Hinto didn't know whether lycanthropes would heal if the silver weapo
ns that slew them were removed, so he left the dagger buried in the wereshark's chest and walked over to Onu. The changeling was in the process of transforming back into his human guise of Captain Onu, and the metamorphosis was complete by the time Hinto reached him.
"Not bad, eh, lad?" Onu said, grinning. "But then the beastly things should've known better than to go up against a couple of hardy old salts like us!" The changeling clapped Hinto on the back hard enough to nearly knock the halfling off his feet. Hinto was about to congratulate Onu on the success of his ploy when he realized that Leontis was growling at them.
The wolfshark's arm had almost healed. While the flesh was still ragged in places, the wounds no longer dripped blood. Leontis's eyes-large fish-like orbs that shone lupine yellow-were fixed on them with murderous fury. Hinto feared that there was nothing of the priest left inside that monstrous body, and the evil thing he'd become would, lacking any other prey, now attack them.
Hinto glanced sideways at the dead body of the wereshark, gauging his chances of reaching the corpse and pulling the silver dagger out of its chest before Leontis could leap forward. He decided they weren't good.
Hinto stepped in front of Onu. Perhaps the changeling had become the true captain of the Turnabout by an accident of fate, but he was the captain, and it was Hinto's duty as acting first mate to protect him.
Onu attempted to push the halfling out of the way. "Lad, I appreciate the gesture, but there's no need."
Before the changeling could say anything more, Leontis stopped growling. His prominent brow furrowed, and a look of confusion came into his eyes. Then he spoke, his voice a gravely rumbling that was difficult to make out, but not impossible.