“With luck, we’ll return with your father,” Robyn said to her younger daughter. “If the worst happens, you will be the next queen of the Ffolk.”
Deirdre looked at her mother closely, her expression unreadable. Abruptly she reached out and embraced the queen, a hug that Robyn returned with full strength and held for long moments. When the two women stood apart again, their eyes were red with unshed tears.
“I still protest!” grumbled Randolph as the queen gave him a farewell embrace. “You’ll need me!”
“I know,” replied Robyn truthfully. “But Corwell needs a lord, and until our return, that’s a job that’s too important to entrust to anyone else.”
Lord Randolph, as Earl of Corwell, would resume his normal duties. Deirdre would return to Callidyrr to oversee that large and populous realm.
The others filed across the boarding plank while the queen waved to the Ffolk who had lined the dock to cheer and wish them success. Alicia carried her changestaff and wore her sword. Her armor, like Brigit’s and Hanrald’s, was wrapped in oilskin and carefully stowed.
“Until our return!” pledged Robyn boldly, waving as she, too, crossed the gangplank. At the same moment, ropes were tossed free from fore and aft, and a light wind filled the Princess of Moonshae’s quickly bulging sail.
Brandon’s crew of sixty handpicked northmen included his old mentor, Knaff the Elder, at the helm, and the gigantic Wultha. The group was the minimum needed to man the large longship, but that was all they had room for, since they had brought so many additional passengers on board as well.
Besides Alicia and Robyn, Hanrald, Keane, Tavish, Brigit, and twelve Corwellian longbowmen formed the ship’s complement. The latter wielded bows that could shoot twice as far as any northman’s bow, and their presence greatly enhanced the ship’s defensive punch.
Yet even with nearly eighty voyagers aboard, the Princess of Moonshae seemed uncrowded. The vessel’s smooth hull rested in the water, completely at home, rocking only slightly as men took their stations at rowing benches, mast, and helm. Ready hands pushed the bow away from the dock, and a few strokes of the oars brought the elegant prow with its graceful female figurehead around to the gap in the harbor breakwater. The wind remained light, yet it propelled the sleek vessel at an easy glide onto the placid waters of Corwell Firth, where they headed west under full sail, trailing a sharp, clean wake.
For all that afternoon and the first night, the coastlines of the firth slowly separated to the port and starboard. At dawn, the bracketing shores remained visible, but only as faint lines of green and brown along the distant horizon. By midmorning, the firth had widened such that they couldn’t see land to either side, though it would be another day before they actually left the protection of Gwynneth’s enclosing penninsulas and truly set a course upon the Trackless Sea.
“What heading will you sail, once we pass Moray?” inquired Brigit, as she, Robyn, and Alicia were joined by the captain in the vessel’s prow.
“West by north,” he said without hesitation. “We’ll pass to the north of the Gullrocks and then swing to the west. That’s where I’ve always pictured the elvenhome, anyway. If you know better, tell me now!”
The sister knight shook her head. “Actually, none of us Llewyrr—even Erashanoor!—are terribly clear on exactly where the island lies on an actual map of the Realms. We’ve always used the Fey-Alamtine rather than mundane transportation to reach the island.”
“As to where it is,” Robyn announced, “I think I can help us there. The goddess will certainly help me identify the presence of a large land mass before us if we can get anywhere in the vicinity.”
“Well, all I can do is sail toward water that every sensible sailor avoids—avoids because that’s where Evermeet is supposed to lie!” Brandon announced with forced heartiness.
A feeling of menace remained with Alicia, a dark sense of foreboding that had lingered since before the start of the voyage. It seemed incongruous now as she looked at the smooth water, sparkling in the light of a beaming sun.
Yet the feeling wouldn’t go away.
* * * * *
Luge lay awake, trembling, disturbed by some terrifying knowledge within him, knowledge that he didn’t grasp or understand, yet somehow knew. The stocky crewman, who had spent the last night of his shore leave in the company of the man called Malawar, had no memory of that encounter.
Now Luge continued to suffer his hangover, thirty-six hours after that portentous evening. He didn’t recall the specifics of his own stark terror, but he knew that dark hole in his memory was the cause of his current unease.
In the morning, he had recalled nothing of the experience save for a lingering sense that his sleep had not been pleasant. The discovery of his friend’s body had pounded his brain with shock, and since then he had passed through his duties in a haze. Roloff had been a lifelong companion, and his death—which Luge could’t even remember!—tore at the sailor’s conscience like a festering wound.
Nevertheless, it was that experience, a potent spell cast by the mysterious stranger, that now compelled him to stir.
His shadowy figure moved from the rowing bench, toward the gunwale of the Princess of Moonshae. All around, northmen and Ffolk slumbered, while the keen-eyed helmsman—currently Knaff the Elder—studied the starlit horizon and the smooth surface of the sea with cautious diligence.
Crouching, Luge moved low between the benches until he reached the rail behind the shelter of several water barrels. Here he raised his head, peering cautiously over the gunwale of the speeding longship.
Huddled in the shadows of the casks, blacker even than the dim starlight above, Luge reached into a concealed pouch—a flap that had been sewn into the lining of his sea cloak. His eyes widened in surprise—until that moment he had not recalled the pouch’s existence, though he had been present when Malawar attached it.
Within, he felt several tiny metallic pebbles. He selected one with his blunt thumb and forefinger and withdrew his hand. A tiny tinkle sounded in the night, too faint to carry even to the ears of the nearby northmen but enough to identify the object as a small bell.
Still wondering why he was doing it, Luge dropped the bell over the side. It splashed into the waters squarely at the mouth of Corwell Firth.
In the water, the bell continued to ring … but now its sound was magnified a thousand-, a millionfold. The tinkle became a pounding dirge, and its weight carried it through the sea for dozens and scores and ultimately hundreds of miles.
* * * * *
Along the vast, kelp-lined ridges and plains of the Coral Kingdom, the tiny bell ringing four hundred miles to the north sounded a call to war. Huge sahuagin armies, camped for weeks along coral reefs, mustered forth, swarming up from the sea bottom, driving themselves northward. The fishmen swam with strong kicks, their companies spreading through the depths, some swimming high, breaking the surface occasionally to observe the surrounding sea, while others swam at different levels, with the deepest swimming more an a thousand feet below.
The huge scrags, long teeth gleaming even in the dingy waters of the kingdom’s Deepvale, formed columns, twelve scrags per column, each column more than a match for any merchant crew of humankind. Hulking beasts nearly twice as large as the fishmen, the sea trolls propelled their sleek bodies through the sea with powerful legs and thick, webbed feet. Hair, like loose strands of seaweed, trailed back from round, scale-coated skulls. The columns of the scrags swam in the center of the army, leaving the lesser creatures to scout.
Some of the aquatic warriors bore weapons—silver-tipped spears or curved, shell-studded scimitars—but most relied on their multitudinous teeth and sharp, curving claws. Others trailed nets, hopeful of seizing captives, and a few were armed with bows and arrows, though these weapons would only be useful in the air or at extremely short range when submerged.
A hundred such columns and companies gathered around the palaces of the Coral Kingdom, swarming upward, through waters that passed
from purple to blue to aqua and then to the pale green of the surface. The sahuagin veered to the sides when the scrag columns swam, the fishmen cowering away from the mighty and infinitely evil sea trolls.
Other creatures, too, emerged from the depths to swell the ranks of the undersea army. Schools of sharks and sinuous formations of eels took position on the flanks of the force. The sharks were particularly useful, for they ravaged with sudden and bloody attacks any unfortunate dolphins or whales that stumbled into the path of the great army. In this way, the movement could be kept secret from the merfolk and titans, the two implacable enemies of the scrags and their allies.
To the north they swam, faster by far than any human army could march overland, riding a graceful northerly current to increase their pace still more. The army’s master was Coss-Axell-Sinioth, swimming among them in the body of the monstrous squid, propelling himself fester even than the sleekest scrag could swim. The minion of Talos relished his new command and knew that the bell signaled a forthcoming opportunity to blood his troops.
As they moved, the leaders—Sythissal of the sahuagin and Krell-Bane, king of the sea trolls—knew that their speed would not in itself be sufficient to catch the human ship if it continued its course away from them. But that fact did not worry them. It was for this very reason, they reminded themselves, that Sythissal had built and placed the Mantas.
For several days the army swam northward, and in that time it reached the first bell dropped by the agent of Sinioth. By then, three more bells had been dropped, one during each night of the longship’s steady journey to the northwest.
Yet the fact that the humans had three days’ lead on the army still didn’t concern the aquatic generals, for here, at the mouth of Corwell Firth, the strongest swimmers among them would mount the Mantas.
After that, the seizing of the vessel was a matter of near certainty.
* * * * *
After seven days at sea, Alicia began to wonder if she would ever see land again. They had passed to the south of Moray near dawn on their third day out, and later that day the surf breaking against the Gullrocks had been visible to port. Since then there had been no sign of anything except water and sky.
Alicia found herself enjoying the sights and the sounds of the longship. Watching the way Brandon thrilled to the wind in his face and to the pitching of the deck beneath his feet, she began to appreciate the fundamental differences between his people and hers. All the northmen thrived thus, while many of the Ffolk spent as much time at the gunwale as in their seats, especially during the first few days of travel on the open sea.
“Imagine if we’d met foul weather,” the princess said to her mother as the longship glided easily forward, propelled by the same southerly breeze that had escorted them placidly for the entire voyage. “I think half the bowmen would have jumped overboard!”
“They were a sick-looking lot a few days ago,” Robyn agreed. “But we seem to be getting our sea legs now.”
“True,” replied the princess with a nod. “If only the sea were the greatest challenge we have to face!”
“Have faith, Daughter,” said the queen, placing a gentle hand on Alicia’s shoulder. The princess stared at the blue-green water swirling past the hull and nodded.
She thought of her father and of all the obstacles that still lay in their path. A now-familiar wave of despair threatened to sweep her hopes away at the sight of the implacable sea. How could they hope to enter that alien realm? And if they did, what dangers would they face? How would they find the king?
“Faith,” Robyn repeated, squeezing her hand with firm pressure.
“I’ll try,” Alicia pledged.
Robyn moved on to talk to Tavish, and Alicia remained at the rail, her mind drifting as she watched the limitless expanse of waves. She was soon joined by Brigit, who had spent a good deal of time with the princess on the voyage. Though the two were centuries apart in age, Alicia had found herself developing a bond with the elfwoman that transcended such trivial concerns.
“And how are you ladies passing this lovely afternoon?” inquired Hanrald. The earl, who had grown increasingly restless during the voyage, ambled over to the rail.
“Fox hunting,” the princess deadpanned. She smiled at Hanrald, but she was surprised to see his eyes pass over hers and come to light on Brigit. Nonplussed, Alicia turned away from the earl, wondering at his odd reaction.
She stood on the port side of the Princess of Moonshae, near the stern. Feeling a vague sense of worry, she cast her eyes across the water, looking for something—anything—out of the ordinary.
Because of this musing, she was the first one to see the disturbance.
“Look!” the princess cried, observing a mass of bubbles erupt from the water’s surface less than a mile away. “What’s that?”
White froth broke from the water, tossing a large, oval patch of sea into a foam-streaked torrent. Pressure bulged upward, forming a maelstrom larger than the Princess of Moonshae was long, completely obscured by the turbulence across its surface. The water rose into the air and then began to flow away, pouring off a massive shape that still lay concealed by the foaming brine.
“It came from beneath the water!” shouted the princess, as others witnessed the sudden appearance. Men cursed, shouting to their gods for aid. Bowmen nocked missiles into their strings, while Brandon’s northmen stood to their oars and their weapons, waiting for the prince’s command.
“What’s that?” Alicia asked as numerous small objects came into view atop the huge platform. They wiggled and moved like living things.
“Barnacles?” inquired Keane, without much hope.
“Sahuagin—fishmen!” Tavish announced, squinting. Obviously the bard’s eyes didn’t suffer any from her age. Soon the others could make out the scaly humanoids swarming all over the thing that now began to look like an oval platform of some kind.
“You are only partly right,” added Brandon, his tone grim. “Look more closely. You’ll see that the little ones are sahuagin, but …”
“By the goddess!” gasped Alicia. “What are the others, then?”
“Scrags—sea trolls, by the look of them.” Several dozen hulking shapes, nearly twice as large as the human-sized sahuagin scattered across the broad deck, moved among the smaller beasts with an unmistakable air of command.
“Have you seen them—these sea trolls—before?” Unconsciously Alicia gripped the hilt of her sword, drawing it several inches from her scabbard before tensely slamming it home again.
“Never. Few have, who’ve lived to tell the tale,” announced the Prince of Gnarhelm, not very reassuringly. “Full sail!” he shouted next, turning to the sailors nearest the mast. “Starboard rudder!”
The Princess lurched as the surface of the sail was turned to catch the maximum force of the wind. The longship reeled around to the north, but none of them questioned the involuntary course change in light of the circumstances.
“They can’t move that thing through the water, can they?” inquired Alicia as the changing course of the longship carried the strange apparatus around to the stern.
As if to challenge her statement, the princess soon saw numerous long-handled paddles appear in the hands of the sahuagin who were clustered on top of the great, raftlike craft. She saw several long poles running the length of the hull, each straddled by dozens of the scaly humanoids. Below each pole, a narrow gap lay open to the sea, allowing the creatures to paddle not only from the edges but also right through the raft’s hull. All along the vessel’s stern edge and sides, the waters churned as scrags kicked with their powerful legs and webbed feet.
“It not only moves,” observed Brandon. “It goes damned fast!”
Indeed, the ungainly-appearing object raced toward them with surprising swiftness, trailing a foaming wake. A white wave split before the thing’s bow, but the flat shape seemed to ride higher and higher out of the water as it continued to pick up speed.
“Can they catch us?” asked th
e princess, staring at the huge craft, trying to analyze whether it closed the gap between the two ships. It didn’t, as far as she could tell—but neither did it get any farther away.
“If the wind holds,” the prince announced between clenched teeth, “then we might be able to make it. If not …”
“What is that thing?” demanded Alicia, determined to find some means of dealing with this challenge.
“It seems to be nothing more than a flat platform, probably with a neutral buoyancy—it neither sinks nor floats on its own.” Keane had obviously been thinking about the object, for he answered without hesitation.
“Why would they use it? Why not just swim?” persisted the princess.
“Look.” The mage pointed. The broad raft skimmed across the surface of the water, bouncing through the swells in clouds of spray, breaking a broad, foaming wave to either side of the blunt prow. “I think it lets them travel faster on the surface than they could otherwise swim. See? A number of them can rest, while the craft still makes good time.”
“Excellent time,” noted the northman captain grimly. More than two hundred sahuagin manned the great paddles, while an unseen number of scrags propelled the craft by musclepower. More than a hundred additional scaly monsters of the deep sat patiently in the midst of the wide platform, bearing weapons and ready—and rested—for battle.
“Dead ahead—another raft of the critters!” The cry from the bow, by the barrel-chested Wultha, paralyzed Alicia for one terrorized moment, but in that space of time, the Prince of Gnarhelm had leaped down the center of the longship’s hull and was scrambling up the neck of the proud figurehead, the princess racing to join him.
“By the hundred curses of Tempus!” snarled Brand, and in another moment, Alicia saw the cause of his distress.
She recognized the pattern of bubbles, saw the swells of the Trackless Sea mound upward as they had when the other raft had broken the surface. But this time, the obstacle lay directly in the Princess of Moonshae’s path!
“Hard port—emergency helm!” shouted the prince. Even before the order was completed, the vessel heeled violently as Knaff the Elder pulled the rudder to port. Alicia lost her footing and tumbled to the deck, felling heavily as the longship crunched into the broad raft of the sea creatures with a timber-straining collision.
The Coral Kingdom Page 15