by Ed Greenwood
He looked around at them all, in the suddenly tense silence that followed, and added, "I've a means of knowing if a person bears an enchantment on their body. None of you, or the Tharkarans, are so afflicted, either yourselves or what you wear and carry. There's little else that we've brought aboard, beyond a little food, and-"
He stopped suddenly, and frowned down at the chest that lay, open and empty, under his boot. Then, slowly, he bent to peer at it.
As the Sharkers watched, Belmer raised one open hand. Anvil knew what that gesture meant, and handed the fat little man a sword.
Their employer ran the blade delicately in under the chest and slowly levered it up, to look at its bottom. It was a stout and well-worn assembly of dirty planks; nothing out of the ordinary.
"Not even a copper piece did Blackfingers leave us," Belmer murmured slowly as he looked at the cabin floor where the chest had rested, ran a hand lightly over its boards, and then gently lowered the chest back down to the floor.
He looked inside again, and then slid his borrowed blade down to touch the inside bottom of the chest, bringing a finger and thumb up to grasp it level with the top of the chest. Drawing the sword out, he laid it against the outside of the chest.
The watching Sharkers nodded; Ingrar gasped. The sword point was a good three fingerwidths from the bottom of the chest. The carrychest bought from the Masques had a false bottom.
The Sharkers drew in closer around the chest, swords and daggers sliding out silently. Belmer held up a warning hand, looked carefully at the bottom of the chest for long, silent moments, and then set his sword tip against the end of a particular board.
He drove down and in, suddenly, levering upwards, his face twisting with the effort. The wood groaned and then sprang up.
A black mist seemed to curl and rise for a moment from the hidden space below-and they all saw something glowing faintly there, once its drifting concealment was gone.
Belmer plunged his hand in and drew it forth: a glowing sphere about the size of his palm, its smooth surface broken by an eye and an ear.
The eye blinked at them, once-before Belmer drove his borrowed blade into and through it. Dark blood spurted in all directions and flared into strange green fire that was gone in a howling instant, leaving the little man holding only a few motes of dry, dark dust.
In a cabin where a red-bearded man stood warily watching in the doorway, a lean man in robes was bent over a glowing bowl that rested on an old and much-scarred table, watching and hstening intently.
A sudden groan, and then a confused rushing noise, erupted from the flickering waters in the bowl.
"The chest has been breached," the robed and cowled man explained, in his high, nasal voice. "It's-"
The bowl flickered, and from its waters burst a ghostly blade-the outline of a sword, slim and deadly, that thrust right up out of the bowl and plunged into the robed man's face.
The top of his cowl grew a momentary spiky protrusion. Then the blade drew back, dark and glistening, into the bowl.
Its radiance died in an instant-followed, half a breath later, by a splash as the robed man's face fell into it. He clawed at the tabletop vainly for a few moments and then lay still. The bearded man made a sound of disgust, turned in the doorway, and strode away.
Behind, in the dark cabin, there were rustlings as the rats came out.
The mists stole across the tireless waves like silver smoke in a hurry to rise and be off elsewhere, and Sharessa arose stiff and aching. When she came out of the scudder hut at the stern, there was freshly warmed lemon-laced water to wash in, and Ingrar had a jack of hot herb root tea ready for her. She thanked him with a smile and a shoulder-squeeze, and warmed her hands on the cup as she went to the rail. The Morning Bird was running easily out to sea under low sail, Turbalt fussing among the rope coils and his weary-looking crew as usual. A rosy row of clouds was parting in the eastern sky, as the sun sent lances of its brightest light after their ship.
A fish jumped out of the waves, catching the sun for a single flashing moment. Sharessa smiled in the salt breeze, and looked back at the distant purple of the mountains. The Free Cities were invisible at this distance, as were the prouder, taller towers of Doegan to the She stiffened, stared, shaded her eyes with a hasty hand, and then flung down her jack unfinished and ran back to the stern. "Hey," Rings grunted, as she rushed past him on his way to the scudder. "Can't ye lasses finish at one go? It's my turn."
Sharessa reached the leeward corner of the deck, caught hold of the mizzen cables, and stared back along their wake into the roiling mists. Then she spat out a curse, spun around, and shouted, "Ship chasing us down! All up!"
Belmer stepped out from behind the mainmast and strode unhurriedly toward her, inclining his head in acknowledgement as calmly as if she'd commented on his hairstyle. The thunder of boots ascending from the tween-cabin echoed around him for a moment, and then Jolloth, Kurthe, and Belgin came on deck, the moon-faced Edenvaler struggling to hold his pants up with his belt, sword belt, and scabbarded blade clutched in an untidily flapping tangle in one hand.
"Who is it?" Kurthe snarled, rubbing eyes that were still heavy with slumber. He was unshaven and tousled, and wore the usual surliness that went with his rising. Sharessa gave him a shrug, and pointed back at the racing silver mists astern.
Her gesture was hardly necessary. The ship behind them was low and dark and larger than their own, its maroon mainsail belled out with the wind. It was overtaking them at a furious rate, shearing through the silver tatters like a wolf ninning down sheep.
Turbalt gave a moan, turned, and ran along his deck, shouting orders to up the Bird's own mainsail, and do it quickly, by all the weeping gods! His fearful rush took him right past Kurthe, who was slumped against the rail in a doze, the first rattle of a snore escaping past the arm he was leaning on.
Belmer sighed. "There's no point in all that, captain," he remarked quietly, his words lost in Turbalt's rush toward the bows. After a glance or two aft, the crew reacted with frenzied fear, for it seemed they recognized the ship as well as Belmer obviously did.
Sharessa and Rings both looked clear questions at the man who'd hired them, as Brindra joined them at the stern. Belmer inclined his head toward the fast-approaching ship and said, "Yonder vessel is The Black Dragon; or 'Blackfinger's Bane,' as I heard them calling it back in Tharkar."
As the lips of the Sharkers tightened into angry lines, he turned away from the stern rail and walked back toward the masts. "Come," he said simply. The mercenaries cast quick looks back at the swiftly coming pirate ship, and then followed, hands checking the readiness of weapons without thought.
Ingrar, for one, half-expected their employer to fling aside a tarp and reveal some sort of magical hurler-of-lightnings or other weapon of doom, but Belmer merely took Kurthe by the elbow as gently as a nursemaid, and guided him, still stumbling in his morning doze, to a halt amidships, standing along the rail on the side where their pursuer would shortly draw past. The rest of the Sharkers gathered in a line along the rail.
"Will they try to board us?" Brindra asked, voice husky with sleep and fear. "Shouldn't we make ready with nets and spears?"
Belmer gestured at the rail. "Stand here, and stay quiet, and watch." Something that might have almost been a smile touched his lips for a moment, and he added softly, "It's amazing how far one can go through life, behaving thus." He turned away, and then added over his shoulder, "Wake him, will you? Gently."
After a startled moment of silence, Jolloth nudged Kurthe and rumbled, "Arise, queen of slumber." He got no more than a murmur in reply and gave Kurthe a harder shove.
The Konigheimer came fully awake, with a rumble and a hard glare. "What're you playing a-"
And then he joined in the general tense silence on the decks of the Morning Bird, as the ship that might well bring their deaths swept down upon them.
The frozen snarl of the carved black drake on the bowsprit grinned at them as it came nearer and nearer,
bobbing slightly with the seas. Along the rail of the low, rakish hull beyond it they saw pirates gathering: a motley crew drawn from the alleys and thieves' dens of half southern Faerun.
There was a gaudy-silked Calishite, one of his arms ending in a three-spiked metal ball instead of a hand; next to him jostled a bare-chested northerner from far Gundarlun, his blond mane longer than many a woman's. Beyond, a pair of moon-faced Bhutanans were shouldered aside by a grim, bristle-browed Tuigan, and at his side strode a bald, brown-skinned man whose forearms were scaled like those of a serpent-the first signs of the "eating disease" that only afflicts those born in the jungles of Chult. Golden earrings and belt buckles gleamed in plenty, and the hilt of a cutlass gleamed at every hip, most of them flanked by several knives. There were razor-edged knuckle rings, too, and many a tanned face or forearm bore old, ragged sword scars. Hard, eager eyes and mouths that smiled without mirth lined up along the rail of the pirate ship as it drew alongside the smaller, slower Morning Bird. A lazy rat sunned itself on one tattooed shoulder, and its old and grizzled owner smiled across the water in a grin that displayed empty gums. The whiplike tail of the spiced snake he'd been chewing on dangled from the corner of his mouth as he tested the notched and scarred edge of his cutlass with one finger, watched blood well up, and nodded in satisfaction.
The seven Sharkers watched death draw closer, and tried to keep their faces impassive-but the hands of every one of them strayed to the hilts of their weapons, knuckles going white.
Chapter 8
A Fair Mornings Work
The strip of roiling water between the two ships grew narrower, as the helmsman of The Black Dragon turned his wheel so as to shear along the side of the Tharkaran vessel somewhere in the waves ahead.
The pirates lined up along the dark ship's rail pointed at Rings and laughed at his height, and whistled at
Sharessa, crooking their fingers as sailors do to summon low-coin girls in taverns late at night.
She ignored them, and the taunts began in earnest. Kurthe shifted uneasily, and Ingrar, glancing sideways, saw the knuckles of the Konigheimer quivering on the hilt of his sword like a row of undead white bones.
And then the pirates suddenly fell silent. In their midst, someone was moving, advancing toward the crowded rail like a small mountain, shouldering aside those sneering, hardened men as if they were awestruck youths. The foremost pair of pirates parted, and those watching from the Morning Bird saw something flare like sudden flame as the bright sunlight shone between them.
A giant of a man lumbered forward to plant one booted foot on the low rail of The Black Dragon. His leather-armored shoulders were as broad as those of two normal men standing together, his arms were as gnarled and stout as old oak trees, and the flame was the sun dancing on his shoulder-length, glossy red hair, and even longer beard. His lazily confident moves and stance left no doubt that he was master of that ship and all aboard it.
"Redbeard!" Kurthe snarled, sudden fire in his eyes.
The fat pirate captain grinned, showing teeth that had been filed into points-teeth that had eaten disobedient crewmen, Coast legends whispered-and ran a lazy hand through his belt-length, fiery flowing beard.
"Aye, Orim Redbeard stands before you, as lovely as ever," the giant said with a rolling laugh, and his eyes moved along their ranks slowly and shrewdly as it died away. "I'd thought," he added casually, when he was done, "that I'd see Ralingor and his navigator Drethil among you this fair morning-are they by any chance below?"
"You see all of us," Belmer replied calmly as he raised something into view and balanced it on his shoulder, pointed at the clouds. It was a ready-loaded crossbow.
"We've no cargo worth dying for, Redbeard," he added as quietly as if he was pointing out trail details on a map. "Sail on, with peace between us… or this quarrel will take you through the guts, whatever befalls us after."
"A challenge, is it?" Redbeard asked jovially. Despite bis easy tone and broad smile, his eyes darkened with anger.
"Call it cordial advice," Belmer told him, his own eyes cold and steady as they held Orim Redbeard's gaze. "We've no quarrel with you
… but we could find one, if you make it so."
The pirate captain spread his hands as the freshening breeze plucked his beard out to stream like a flame-silk banner. "You wrong me," he said grandly, his face a masterpiece of mocking, injured innocence. Around him, his crew chortled. "Orim Redbeard is every man's friend-and every woman's dream!"
Amid the roars of mirth that followed, as Orim leered at them, Sharessa and Brindra raised eloquently and scornfully disbelieving eyebrows, but kept silent. At Sharessa's elbow there was a sudden stir as Kurthe snatched out his steel and mounted the rail of the Morning Bird. It was but a short, easy leap across empty air to the other ship.
There were whoops among Redbeard's pirates, and many enthusiastically went for their blades, but their enraged challenger never landed among them. As their swords and daggers flashed out, they saw Kurthe grunt, stagger-and suddenly fall from view back behind the rail of the Morning Bird, his sword tumbling into the waves.
There was a snap and the angry hum of a quarrel singing sunwards. The watchers on both ships saw Belmer calmly remove the butt of his crossbow from where his sudden sharp swing had brought it hard into the back of Kurthe's head.
Redbeard stared at the imperturbable little man for a moment and then roared out his laughter. After a moment or two more of astonishment, his crew joined him, shouting out their mirth as The Black Dragon slowly slid away, its larger sails catching the rising wind.
"Farewell, little tigers!" the pirate captain bellowed at the mercenaries as the sea took his ship plunging away from them. "I was looking for hardened veterans of the Kissing Shark, but I see only nancy-boys out for a sail! Try to stay clear of ferocious fishermen, now!" His pirates joined him in a thunderous chorus of laughter as the most feared ship on the Utter Coast heeled over under a sudden gust, and then leapt ahead through the waters, racing west with its crew whooping and waving swords that caught the sundaz-zle of the fresh morning.
Their last ragged shouts gave way to a silence on the decks of the Morning Bird as six mercenaries looked down at the sprawled body of their comrade, and then up, hard-eyed, at the lone man with the empty crossbow in his hands. None of them spared a glance for Jander Turbalt, as the captain danced forward in an agony of anxious hand-wringing, looking fearfully from Belmer to the six mercenaries, and then back again.
As more than one of the Sharkers looked down at Kurthe for a second time, where he lay sprawled with his mouth open and his eyes half-shut, rolling slightly on the deck with the movements of the ship, Sharessa put one hand on the hilt of her sword and said grimly to Belmer, "I think it's high time you told us just what our mission is."
Belmer nodded as coolly as if she'd asked him the time of day. "It is indeed," he replied. "I fear I've let events distract me from telling you what you need to know so that we'll reach Eldrinpar as a cohesive team."
"Eldrinpar, is it?" Rings muttered. "Thankee for informing us in so timely a manner, Master."
Belmer nodded at him, ignoring the dwarf's thick sarcasm.
"And in Eldrinpar-?" Brindra rumbled, prompting him.
"You must search for, find, and capture the woman Eidola… without attracting overmuch attention, of course," Belmer told them. "I believe I know where to look for her and can soon show you a portrait of her that I've kept hid-"
The small man moved then, shifting a sudden pace to one side. A dagger, thrown awkwardly and wrong-handed, clattered on the deck boards by Belmer's feet.
Its source glared at Belmer, and staggered to his feet. "Kidnapping wenches be damned!" Kurthe snarled. "Redbeard burns our ship, slaughters our comrades, and then laughs at us! And when I up and go for him, you scramble my skull for me! No man does that and fails to answer for it!"
Belmer lifted an eyebrow in what might have been a mild charade of surprise, as Kurthe spat on the deck in cont
empt. "Damned outlander!" the Konigheimer yelled, voice rising as he shook his head to clear it. He waved a furious finger, and then whirled to snatch one of Anvil's spare blades from the sheaths that crisscrossed the battered veteran's back.
He spun back to face Belmer, pointing with his bor rowed blade. "You don't know how things are done here on the Utter Coast, do you? Well start in on your wench-snatching after we send a certain pirate down below!"
Still raging, Kurthe stumped away down the deck. "Crowd on that sail, curse you!" he roared. "You, Els-ger-and you, whatever your name is! Leap to it, now! We'll catch that ship, or I'll flog you until we do! Jump, you spawn of sleeping weasels!"
The crew gave him startled looks and then glanced at their captain, who was fairly babbling in frightened agitation. Kurthe stormed in among them, snatching sailors' shoulders and shaking them as a dog shakes rats in its teeth. "I'll have this boat running down Redbeard inside four breaths or know the reason why!"
He flung a howling sailor away into the mast. The man struck it with a meaty smack, bounced away, and fell among ropes as limp and senseless as a thing of rags. Kurthe took hold of the next man by the throat, and shouted orders into the man's choking, darkening face. "Crowd on the sail-the hardrunner too! And bring that bloody helm about! Now, or that wheel'll be dark with your heart's blood before I'm finished cursing!"
Tossing the sailor aside, he charged past the reeling man and bore down on the helm. "Are you deaf, man?" he roared, towering up over the sweating Tharkarian.
The steersman looked up fearfully at the raging Konigheimer. "But… but…" he protested. "My orders-"
Kurthe's blade flashed out. Til give you orders!" he snarled as his steel darted down-but the wild thrust was turned aside by a gleaming blade that came out of nowhere, soft and swift, to meet his with deft precision.