Under Fallen Stars (14 page)

“How do you know this?”

“I found two of your murderers,” Iakhovas said. “I took the time to question them, and I made certain of the veracity of their stories as I stripped their lives from them one layer at a time. Both stories, in the end, were screamed out and agreed on the fact that the killers hadn’t seen the bottled ship.”

“You know the mystery of the bottle?” the dead thing asked, picking at the lime-encrusted shreds of flesh hanging off it. “Though I tried any number of ways, I never succeeded in opening it. Even the glass wouldn’t shatter.”

“I know the secret of the bottle,” Iakhovas said. “I petitioned the elemental beings who created it, trading with them for their services.” He narrowed his single eye and deepened his voice. “Now give it to me or I’ll leave you there like that, unable to ever escape the fiery kiss of the lime that ate away your flesh and bones.”

“No!” The dead thing slapped and massaged at itself, still walking, still uncomfortable.

“Then burn.” Iakhovas started to walk away.

“Wait,” the dead thing whined.

Laaqueel watched as the dead thing dug down into the lime ashes and found a small bottle. The dead thing tossed it up to Iakhovas.

Stretching out a hand, Iakhovas said a word. Instantly the lime-encrusted bottle stopped, hovering above and not quite touching his palm. He took out a cloth from his cloak with his other hand, then wrapped it around the bottle and put it away without getting burned.

“I’ve done what you asked of me, wizard,” the dead thing said, wrapping its arms around itself and rocking with the pain. “Where is my release?”

Iakhovas gestured and spoke.

Immediately the dead thing disappeared in a cloud of whirling white lime.

Iakhovas replaced the stone slab that covered the hole. “Come, little malenti,” he growled in anticipation, “we’ve tarried here long enough.” He turned and strode back down the passageway in the direction they’d come, the glowing globe keeping pace with him.

Still unnerved by her experience and not wanting to confront any undead in the tight tunnel by herself, Laaqueel hurried after her master.

As the horses and wagon tumbled the eight or ten feet to the black harbor water, Jherek gathered himself and dived from the horse’s back. He plummeted toward the water and hit it cleanly, going under at once. Kicking out, he swam for the thrashing horses, aware of the sahuagin and the other sea creatures filling the water around him. Some of them changed course and headed for him.

He shoved the hook in the sash around his waist and closed on the horses with his sword. Grabbing the traces, he dragged the heavy sword blade across them, parting the leather in seconds. One of the horses swam away, but the other gave in to the wounds the sahuagin had inflicted on it and went still in the water.

Turning his attention back to the wagon, Jherek gratefully saw that it was tight enough at the sideboards and light enough to float-at least for the moment. Still, if the powder kegs had gotten too wet, Khlinat’s plan wouldn’t work.

The young sailor kicked out and swam to the wagon ahead of a pair of sahuagin. He grabbed the side with his empty hand and expertly pulled his weight aboard without tipping the wagon over. Sonshal worked among the kegs, stuffing fuses into their lids. The slow match coiled over his shoulder glowed orange more brightly when he blew on it to get the coal at its hottest.

Jherek dripped on the wagon. Two inches of water swirled around his boots as the impromptu craft took on water like a sieve. “We don’t have much time,” he told Sonshal.

“I’m aware of that, boy,” the man said, “but if these fuses aren’t measured off properly and cut right, we’re not going to get the effect your friend is wanting.”

Jherek glanced around. “Where is he?” He had to shout over the screams and hoarse yells of sailors and the men on the docks.

“I don’t know.” Sonshal took a brief respite to boot a sahuagin who was trying to climb onto the wagon, knocking the sea devil back into the water. “I lost sight of him when we hit the water and barely managed to stay with the wagon myself.” He poked another fuse into the next barrel.

Concerned, Jherek peered into the water, uncertain if he’d see the dwarf for sure. Too many warring shades of light and darkness overlapped the dark harbor water, turning it alternately into a bright, reflective surface or into a dark and depthless one. Men died quickly out there, on sahuagin claws or tridents, broken and torn apart by the great creatures that had been summoned from the river.

A hand broke the surface only a few feet away.

Jherek reached out and caught the hand, then balanced his weight on the wagon as he took on the dwarfs weight and pulled him from the water. Khlinat’s face was masked with fresh blood mixed with water that ran quickly down his chin and throat. He blew his nose noisily and freed his hand axes. Bellowing curses, the peg-legged dwarf hurled himself at their foes.

Jherek defended the other side, keeping the sea devils from Sonshal’s back and from the wagon. He ignored the fatigue that filled him, and the throbbing pain that came from the laceration by his eye. In his mind, he imagined Malorrie there, guiding his hand by voice control.

“It’s done!” Sonshal roared in warning. “Get overboard!” He dived over himself, setting the example. Khlinat hit the water next.

Jherek took a final glance over his shoulder and watched the smoke streaming from the fuses tucked securely in the powder kegs. He didn’t know if the dwarfs plan was going to work, but he knew nothing else that would either. He said a prayer to Ilmater and leaped as sahuagin pulled themselves up into the wagon where water was already halfway up the barrels.

Jherek went deep, swimming for the bottom of the harbor. Khlinat had said he’d seen men use small amounts of the smoke powder to fish with. With the explosions, the concussive force rippled through the water and overloaded the sensitive lateral lines that ran the length of a fish’s body, stunning the creatures. Since sahuagin were reputed to have lateral lines as well, which made them so deadly in their home territory, the dwarf had hoped the blast would have the same effect.

Traveling through the water, the sound of the detonations came in rapid succession to Jherek’s ears. He held his breath tightly, knowing the blast force would only be a second or two after.

A heartbeat later, it hit him like a brick wall. He struggled to hold onto his consciousness but everything went black.

Pulling back in the alley quickly, Pacys let the sahuagin’s trident rip the air harmlessly in his face. The old bard moved with fluid economy, echoing the triumphant cadence of the song that echoed within his head.

Lifting the staff, he blocked the sea devil’s second slash then slid the weapon to the side and slammed the iron-capped end into his opponent’s face. While the sahuagin remained dazed, Pacys twisted the staff in the middle. Foot-long blades sprang out of either end. He took another step back, set himself, and rammed one blade into the creature’s thorax, penetrating the heart.

Still, the sahuagin remained determined to get to its opponent. It raked the air with its claws as Pacys held it back with the staff. The oily black eyes eventually dimmed and the sahuagin draped over the weapon.

Pacys shoved the corpse to the alley floor, aware that other sahuagin already crowded forward. He used the staff with lethal efficiency, clearing a space around him and winning the respect of his savage adversaries. Still, he burned inside to be moving, to pursue the young man he’d spotted on the wagon.

During a brief lull, he knelt down quickly and pinched up some sand from the cobblestones. “Oghma, grant that my spell be strong.” He flicked the sand out as he said the words. When he finished, he thought he saw a shimmer wash over the combatants in the alley.

In the next instant, nearly two thirds of their number stumbled and fell, asleep by the time they hit the cobblestones. With the way much clearer, Pacys ran toward the docks.

At the end of the alley, the old bard spotted the sahuagin standing at the dock’s edge and peering down, but he didn’t see the wagon with the young man in it. The old bard went forward, drawn by the music that grew still stronger inside his head. Fearful of what might have taken place, he told himself that nothing could have happened to the young man without causing the song in his heart and his head to go away.

As long as the tune lived, so did the young man. He felt that had to be true, but he wasn’t certain. Staying down from the clustered sahuagin, he raced to the edge of the dark quay and peered down into the water as they were doing. With the wavering light from so many of the nearby buildings and ships that had been torched, to say nothing of the docks in places, it took him a moment to spot the wagon.

It floated, although the amount of water it was taking on as its weight dragged it down testified that it wouldn’t float long. The sahuagin jumping after it from the docks made that time even less. The old bard barely made out the gray streamers of smoke curling up from the small barrels in the back.

In the next instant, though, the barrels detonated one by one. The series of explosions threw up geysers of water, smoke, wood chips, and a wave of force that blew Pacys from his feet.

Live, that you may serve.

The cold, powerful voice filled Jherek’s mind, snapping him back from the black void where his senses had fled. He woke in the harbor water, his lungs burning with the need for air and the cold claws of a sahuagin wrapping his neck.

Somehow he’d managed to hang onto his weapons. He let his anger at the disembodied voice that had spoken to him fill his mind. All his life, since he’d been a small boy, that voice had been a part of him. He didn’t know where it came from, or from whom, or what he was supposed to serve.

He’d struggled for years to find out, thinking at first that he’d simply imagined it. But he hadn’t imagined the dolphins that had saved his life that first time, nor the last time aboard Finaren’s Butterfly when the unknown power had set him free from a sahuagin net during battle. Even Madame litaar with her skill at divination and Malorrie with all his book learning and knowledge he’d picked up over the course of his life and death hadn’t been able to tell him what it meant.

But there was no doubt how that voice had influenced and shaped his life.

The echoes of the voice and the command were still in his mind when he moved. Despite the water surrounding him he moved quickly, going through it as if it wasn’t there to block the sahuagin before the creature could scissor the flesh of his throat. The move would have worked above water but shouldn’t have now-only it did, and he guessed that it had to be because the sahuagin was partially stunned by the exploding powder kegs.

Pushing away from his attacker, seeing the evil glint in its oily black eyes, Jlierek shoved his sword into the sahuagin’s throat with a quick flick, then twisted. Blood muddied up from the wound.

Jherek glanced up, aware of a number of sahuagin bodies floating limply in the water all around him. Several of them were slowly surfacing. Fire burned on top of the water where the wagon had been, and a spray of bright colors spread across the dark sky. He kicked past the dying sahuagin and stroked for the surface. Once his face was out of the water, he sucked in great breaths. He whipped the hair from his eyes and stared across the harbor.

The explosive force of the barrels had been considerable, greater than he’d expected, but he knew from Malorrie’s teachings that water was denser and carried sounds more clearly. That was why a man swimming had to assume that anything in the water he tracked already knew he was there. The trick was to appear harmless. There was no slipping and hiding through the water unnoticed by one who lived there.

Sahuagin and sea creature bodies lay stretched across the harbor water, floating in islands of limp flesh. Some of them had been left conscious, though, and the ones on land hadn’t been affected at all. However, those on the land suddenly experienced a lack of reinforcements and the Flaming Fist mercenaries noticed it. A rousing yell broke from the ranks of the citizens and the fighting began again in earnest as they recovered from the blast.

Not all of the concussive force had spread beneath the harbor. Several of the nearby buildings had only remnants of glass shards where windows had once been. Crates lay tumbled and scattered, and small boats used for servicing the cargo ships lay broken, overturned, or tossed out on the docks.

“Damn cure was almost worse than the disease,” Sonshal growled from nearby. He gazed upward where the last of the fireworks spent themselves and winked out. “Couldn’t resist that last touch. I’ve always prided myself on the quality of my fireworks.”

“Where’s Khlinat?” Jherek asked.

Sonshal shook his head. “Don’t know, boy. I wasn’t keeping track of things any too well there for a minute.”

Jherek pushed past the limp body of a ten-foot long snake. He scanned the water hastily.

“Over here, swabbie.” Khlinat sounded weak.

Tracking the voice, Jherek spotted the dwarf treading water with his face barely exposed. He swam to the little man. “What’s wrong?”

“Can’t feel me leg,” Khlinat said hoarsely. “Marthammor Duin protect a silly old dwarf who’s wandered so far from hearth and home to die alone.” He cut his eyes to Jherek. “Swabbie, I think that blast done for me. I can’t feel anything below me waist.”

Jherek looked down at the water. The fires lighting the docks brought out scarlet highlights that floated on the surface. “What happened?”

“Don’t know. Felt a powerful lot of pain after that explosion-then nothing at all.” The dwarf’s eyes rolled feverishly. “Getting awful cold, swabbie.”

Sonshal swam up beside them, “Let’s get him to shore.”

“I’ve got him,” Jherek said. He thrust his sword through the sash at his waist, then hooked an arm under the dwarfs chin from behind and swam for the docks. Khlinat’s ragged pulse beat against his forearm. “Just hold steady, Khlinat. We’re not going to let you go.”

“Ye may not be given a choice,” the dwarf croaked.