Rising Tide (25 page)

“I see them, I see them!” a sailor yelled. He grabbed a lantern from a peg on the railing and quickly started up into the rigging. “I’ll signal the warning!”

In response to the first man’s yell, the senior civilar in charge of the group aboard the galley called his men into position. They lined the railing alongside the bard.

Glancing at their faces, knowing the past hour since the battle had begun hadn’t been easy, Pacys saw the pride and the dedication on the faces of the men. He’d heard prayers as they worked, from men calling on their gods to protect not only their families and them, but for protection to be offered to friends and neighbors as well.

A steel fishing net stretched between the galley Pacys was on and the one a hundred feet away. Though the storm had finally started dying down, the waves hammered unmercifully against the ship’s hull. The deck shuffled erratically beneath Pacys’s feet.

The cable supporting the top part of the net remained slack, creating a big U-shape into the harbor. The man in the rigging waved his lantern. A lantern on the other ship waved back in response.

“They see us!” the captain yelled up at his mate. “They have the wind working for them. Tell them to circle around and come into us. We’ll scoop these damned sea devils up before they can run!”

Pacys hung onto the railing, not believing the sahuagin would run. They’d attacked the harbor with the intention of destroying all they could, but there appeared to be no real objective other than destruction. Thinking that way bothered the bard. No military exercise was conducted without some kind of end in mind, and the sahuagin had to have known they couldn’t completely destroy Waterdeep.

The sea creatures had quickly lost interest in the attack during the last several minutes. They’d deserted in earnest, hurried on their way by the Waterdhavian Guard and the wizards and sailors who’d joined their ranks. The huge corpses of dragon turtles, sea snakes, eyes of the deep, sharks, and even a giant jellyfish floated in the harbor and required negotiation by ships. A dead giant squid had even washed up onto Dock Street, taking the defensive line that had been set up there out of the battle until a sufficient number of sturdy draft animals could be used to haul it away.

The other galley’s sails filled with wind and it sped up, cutting a half circle through the water as it surrounded the manta. The huge net slithered into place around the sahuagin craft.

“Pull ‘em up, boys!” the captain bawled. “Kelthar!”

“Aye, sir!” the first mate called back.

“Prepare that oil and heave it when I tell you.”

“Aye, sir.”

Pacys watched the silvery shimmer of the steel net as it rose up under the sahuagin manta. The craft was one of the large ones, fully seventy-five feet wide and two hundred feet long. The net couldn’t get around all of it, but it settled around two-thirds of it.

The net seized the manta and brought it the rest of the way to the surface. Sahuagin clung to it, looking like crayfish babies that clung to the mother’s tail, so thick on it they were crowded in on each other. There were more than he expected.

“Tymora stay with us,” one of the sailors cried out. “There must be four, five hundred sahuagin on that craft!”

The galleys each normally carried a crew of a hundred and fifty, but almost twice that number were on them now as the fighting men of Waterdeep took the battle to their enemy. The numbers between sahuagin and Waterdhavian forces were roughly equal, Pacys guessed, but the sea devils pound for pound were the fiercest fighters.

Knowing their craft was tied up in the net, the sahuagin started swarming up the net toward the crews. Tridents flashed in their hands, and several of them loosened the throwing nets they carried. They navigated the steel net easily, their wide feet allowing them to climb with no threat of slipping through.

One of them stopped, hands raised in a beseeching posture. Pacys studied the shells and skulls the sahuagin wore on chains around her body and knew from stories that she must be a priestess. The bard turned to the captain.

“She’s preparing a spell,” he warned.

“Nonsense,” the old man yelled back gruffly. “Damned sea devils don’t believe in-“

“She’s a priestess,” Pacys said. “That kind of magic they understand just fine.”

“Galm,” the captain called, looking troubled.

One of the guardsmen turned.

“Put a shaft through that one,” the captain instructed. “Man here says she could be calling something nasty up our way.”

The guard nodded and pulled his bow back. Before he could fire, light around the ship suddenly extinguished, and the night’s full darkness descended again, no longer held back by the galley’s lanterns. The captain cursed loudly and ordered his men to the railing.

Pacys stared hard into the gloom, unable to detect more than a slither of occasional movement. The vibration of the sahuagin warriors clambering along the steel net lashed through the galley. A slaughter was coming, the bard knew, and the defenders aboard the ship would be fighting among themselves before it ended.

“Hold them back, boys!” the captain bellowed. “You may not be able to see them, but you can by the gods smell them when they come aboard.”

Pacys steadied his staff, leaving the hidden blades in place so he couldn’t offer too much threat to his companions. His stomach heaved in fear and his hands slid on the staff.

Without warning, the lights of the ship became visible again while the sahuagin were only yards away, scrambling up the net as quickly as they could. Glancing skyward, Pacys spotted a flying carpet above them.

“Maskar Wands,” the captain called up, “thank you for your help. Hail and well met.”

“Hail and well met,” the wizard called down, then he gestured again and a great font of flames speared from his fingers and rained down over the sahuagin on the net. Most of them died in that instant, but a wave crawled up over the galley’s railing.

Like the other men, Pacys was forced back by the desperate sahuagin. He wielded the staff with grim certainty, breaking open heads and tangling the sahuagins’ legs where he could. A trident laid his arm open during the battle, but he kept fighting. Men died around him, but sahuagin died in greater numbers.

Incredibly, the sahuagin faltered in their charge and were driven back. Only a few escaped back into the harbor.

Breathing hard, his limbs shaking with effort, Pacys gazed out at the harbor. Only a few skirmishes remained within the breakwater walls, and the guard was making short work of them. He drew in the air deeply, smelling the salt and not knowing if it was from the sea or from the blood, his or someone else’s, that covered him.

The torches at the guard stations along the breakwater blazed more brightly, probably magically enhanced. They threw light over the harbor, driving back the darkness that had tried to consume the city.

The bard turned and looked back at Waterdeep, listening to the splashes made as the galley’s crew threw the dead sahuagin over the side. Mount Waterdeep soared above the harbor, standing tall and majestically proud.

The melody that had haunted Pacys for the last fourteen years rose inside his head again. He listened to it, not surprised to find that it was still incomplete. If this battle were to be granted to him as his song, his legacy to leave the world, none of the other bards would have been witness to it. He believed now, more strongly than he’d ever believed, that he was meant to make an enduring song with his craft, a song that would fire the hearts and stir the souls of men. It was his destiny, and his life had been spared tonight because of it.

This was only the opening movement, though. There had to be much more to come. Somewhere, the malign being that had put the invasion together was planning and plotting. Oghma granted Pacys the intelligence to know that, just as he was sure the rest of Waterdeep’s leaders must be thinking the same thing: what had been gained here tonight? The city had stood.

He shook his head, knowing he wasn’t going to understand everything yet. He trusted that he’d be guided further.

Looking around, he saw the faces of the men as they gave aid to the wounded, gave comfort to the dying, and made peace with the dead. It was hard, harsh work, and would leave more scars than physical wounds ever would.

Pacys wished he had his yarting, but it was back at the Font of Knowledge. Still, he didn’t let the lack of an instrument stop him. He sang a cappella, his voice sweet and true as it flowed over the galley’s deck and out into the harbor. The song was an original of his that he called “Bind My Wounds and Fill My Heart.” It had been written on a battlefield, conceived in the heat of war, and nurtured to fruition that same night as so many fought their final battle with death and lost.

As he sang he found that the song gave him strength and relief as well. A few of the men even knew the song and joined him on the chorus.

There was nothing, he knew, that would ever take away the losses that Waterdeep had suffered tonight.

XIX

“You don’t have to do that.”

Jherek looked up and spotted Breezerunner’s ship’s mage looking down at him. He hung down the side of the ship from two ropes, trussed up in a leather harness, using a barnacle spade to work on the ship’s hull. “I like working with my hands,” he told her.

“I couldn’t think of much harder work.” She waved at the hot sun blazing down over the becalmed water and added, “Or much harsher conditions.”

She wore her copper colored hair short, hardly any longer than his. Her skin was browned from the sea and sun, but freckles stippled the bridge of her short nose. Her eyes were reddish brown, wide and full. She seemed friendly and liked to smile. Her mouth was generous and full-lipped, and he’d yet to see a displeased look on her face. From her position in the crew, he guessed that she was a few years older than he was. In the three days he’d been aboard Breezerunner, he’d never talked to her.

Jherek nodded. He couldn’t think of much harder work either, which was why he’d chosen it. Perspiration covered him and the leather straps chaffed at him. He’d stripped down to knee-length breeches and a short-sleeved blouse. Both were drenched from the slight sea spray and sweat. Neither improved the way he smelled. “I’m not used to being a passenger.”

“You’re a sailor?” she asked.

“Aye.” He took time to inspect the barnacle spade’s edge again. He’d found that he liked looking at the ship’s mage, but after the experience with the Amnians aboard Butterfly he’d taken pains not to allow himself too many glances in her direction. Still, staying in his cabin hadn’t been an answer he could live with. When he’d seen the ship’s crew ordered to scrape barnacles from the hull that morning he’d gone to the ship’s mate, volunteered, and been grudgingly allowed. The mate had thought him deranged for even asking, even more so when he’d actually shown up for the work detail.

“Where’s your ship?” she asked.

He glanced up at her, shading his eyes with his free hand as the sun came over the bow when Breezerunner dipped into the water, and said, “In Umberlee’s arms.” He hated telling the lie, but there was nothing else to do.

“You crewed aboard Silver Dassel!”

“Aye.” The lie went against Jherek’s nature. It felt like a wedge between them. He’d never forget he’d lied to her. Telling her the truth, though, was out of the question. Silver Dassel had gone down nearly a tenday ago, pulled down by a sahuagin raiding party not far from where Butterfly had been attacked.

“I’m sorry,” she said. “It must have been hard.”

Jherek let his silence be his only answer. Most of Silver Dassel’s crew, including her captain, old Vinagir, hadn’t come back. Many of the rest had scattered, trying to find new ships that would take them.

“I didn’t know you were working on the hull till this afternoon when I did my inspection,” she told him. “When Creil told me you’d volunteered for this and had booked a passage, I had to come see for myself.”

Jherek smiled at her and shrugged. “I’m sure you’ve seen barnacles scraped off a hull before, lady.” He studied the clean wood he’d left behind and said, “Unless I’m doing something wrong.”

“Call me Sabyna. I’m no high-born to be flattered with titles.”

“All right,” he agreed, but the familiarity didn’t feel comfortable to Jherek.

“The job you’re doing,” Sabyna said, “is probably better than any of the crew that Creil put together.” She passed down a capped jar full of water at the end of a net pole.

“Thank you, lady.” He drank the water, tasting the cool clean of it, then sent the jar back up.

She leaned her elbows on the railing and gazed down at him. She wore a long-sleeved dark green blouse tucked into loose-legged white breeches that showed off her womanly figure, and knee-high black leather boots that matched the wide black leather belt that supported a small bag and a brace of throwing knives.

“There’s more work to be done about this ship if you’ve a mind,” she said.

“Aye. I’d like that very much.”

“Captain Tynnel says you’re bound for Baldur’s Gate.”

“Aye.”

“Hoping to find another ship there?”

“If I can.”

She raised an eyebrow. “Impress the captain during the rest of the journey as you already have, maybe you’ll find a berth here by the time you reach Baldur’s Gate.”

Jherek nodded. He didn’t think a berth on Breezerunner had been what Madame litaar had in mind, but he felt stubborn about what he was supposed to do. Live, that you may serve. Perhaps he could do that best aboard Breezerunner. It felt good to think about.

“I’ve been ship’s mage aboard Breezerunner for five years,” she told him. “I’ve got some influence of my own.”

Jherek didn’t know how to respond to that, so he didn’t.

“I’ve also taken the liberty to talk to the captain on your behalf regarding the work you’re doing on Breezerunner. Keep working and you’ll be compensated. It won’t be a full hand’s pay-our budget won’t allow it-but you should see a good return on your booking passage.”

“You don’t have to do that, lady.”

“Sabyna.”