by Tim Waggoner
“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 about 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.
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 s
hifting 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 weapons 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.
“Hinto … Onu …?”
Hinto grinned. “That’s right, Leontis! It’s us!”
The wolfshark’s arm was completely healed now, and he rose to his feet. Hinto almost stepped forward to help Leontis up, but he restrained himself. Just because the priest recognized them didn’t mean he was no longer dangerous.
Now that the weresharks had been deal with, they should go help Diran and the others. But before Hinto could broach the subject, he felt a chill breeze against the back of his neck. The cold seeped into his skin, penetrated his bones, and seemed to permeate his very soul. Coils of greenish mist slithered across the deck of the galleon, moving as if they were somehow alive, vaporous serpents probing, exploring, seeking something, though Hinto couldn’t have said what. The halfling turned toward the ship’s railing and there, out in the bay, he spied a dark vessel that every sailor who plied the waters of the Lhazaar Sea feared and prayed never to set eyes upon.
The Ship of Bones.
Nathifa felt the artificer’s lifeforce draining into her body, and she welcomed it. Not only because it weakened one of her enemies, but because it helped restore a small portion of the power she’d lost on Trebaz Sinara by sacrificing her arm and her eye.
The old man was clever; she had to give him that. His mastery of mystic arts couldn’t begin to approach hers, but he’d created a device that allowed him not only to take hold of the dragonwand while it was in use without being damaged, but also to dampen the Amahau’s energy output. If he were allowed to continue, he might well be able to stop the Summoning and regain possession of the dragonwand. But he would be dead long before that came to pass.
A cold breeze wafted in from the sea, bringing with it tendrils of greenish mist, and Nathifa’s feelings of triumph gave way to fear and despair. She looked out across the bay, knowing what she would see upon its waters. The Ship of Bones. Prince Moren had come to collect the debt she owned him.
The lich cast her thoughts out toward the dark vessel.
Not yet! I’m not ready!
She wasn’t surprised when she received no answer.
Ghaji—singed and smarting from the burns he’d taken from leaping through the wall of fire—ran to the end of the dock, elemental axe held tight, flames trailing behind him. There were only three weresharks between the half-orc and his destination, but that was three too many as far as Ghaji was concerned. He whirled the axe over his head, bared his teeth, and roared as he came, trying to make himself into what he hoped was a fearsome apparition. He had no illusions that he’d frighten the weresharks off, but he hoped that his ferocity and the flames generated by his axe might give them enough pause so that he could get the first strike in as he attacked.
But the weresharks didn’t appear intimidated in the slightest, and they matched Ghaji’s display of ferocity with their own, showing their teeth, raising their claws, and bellowing a challenge. But then they stopped and as one turned to look toward the bay. A green mist that seemed almost to glow with a sickly illumination covered the surface of the water, and there was a sudden drop in air temperature. A moment later the trio of weresharks leaped off the dock, transforming into full shark form before they plunged into the water.
Ghaji kept running, but out of the corner of his eye he saw the sharks swim away, their dorsal fins cutting through the layer of green mist that hung over the water. He had no idea what the mist was or why it should frighten the weresharks so much, but he was too grateful to question it.
As the half-orc approached the end of the dock, he saw that his friends had already engaged Nathifa and her servants in battle. Solus gripped the head of the statue of Nerthatch, Diran was struggling with Makala, and Tresslar was trying to wrest the dragonwand from the lich who, in turn, had wrapped tendrils of darkness around the artificer’s arm. Ghaji had faced enough liches alongside Diran to know that Nathifa was draining Tresslar’s lifeforce. He knew what he had to do.
He raced toward Nathifa and Tresslar, raised his flaming axe, and brought it down upon the ebon tendrils protruding from the lich’s body. The blade sliced through the shadowy substance of the sorceress’s cloak, making the lich hiss in pain. The black coils around Tresslar’s arm relaxed and fell to the dock, and the artificer gasped with relief. But he did not release his grip on the dragonwand. Ghaji knew they had only seconds before Nathifa unfurled more tendrils and renewed her attack, so the half-orc did the only logical thing: he swung his axe at the sorceress’s wrist.
The flaming blade cut through Nathifa’s undead flesh as if it were dry kindling, and Tresslar yanked the dragonwand away from her, the lich’
s hand still holding tight to the other end. The shaft of necromantic energy emanating from the mouth of the Amahau winked out the instant Nathifa’s hand was severed from her body, and the lich shrieked in rage. Tresslar shoved the end of the dragonwand into the flames of Ghaji’s axe, and the hand was instantly charred black. The fingers released their grip, and the blackened hand fell to the dock. Nathifa lurched forward, as if intending to retrieve her hand, but Tresslar kicked it out of her reach. The lich’s hand flew into the water with a small splash and sank from sight.
Nathifa, her bleached-white features twisted into a mask of sheer hatred, lunged at Tresslar, but Ghaji stepped in front of her and barred her way with his flaming axe. The lich shrank back with an angry hiss, and Tresslar pointed the dragonwand at the statue of Nerthatch. Streams of black energy began to flow from the statue’s stone surface and drift into the mouth of the golden dragonhead, almost as if the mystical device was devouring them. Ghaji understood what was happening: Tresslar was draining the magical power from the statue of Nerthatch.
“No!” Nathifa cried out.
Ghaji grinned. “Oh, yes.”
Makala’s body writhed as the burning light of the Silver Flame poured from the holy symbol pressed to her forehead. The Flame blazed through her being. She tried to dislodge Diran, but her strength had deserted her. She felt weak as a newborn kitten, and she feared the power of the Flame was going to consume her. She squeezed her eyes shut, and deep inside the inner recesses of her mind, Makala saw herself standing on Regalport’s dock, but she wasn’t standing alone. Before her stood an old man in a fur cloak with roiling pools of shadow where his eyes should be.