An Opportunity for Profit

Chapter Three

"Backs to center," commanded Belmer. His voice was quiet but clear. "Belgin, Ingrar, eyes up. The rest of you, watch the forest." The Sharkers obeyed without hesitation.

"Stay," he said. Then he slipped away from the clearing. Sharessa watched him disappear. She couldn't hear his passage over the gentle susurrus of the wind in the trees. The last of the twilight had died, and the moon had not risen high enough to compensate. She turned her eyes to the task of watching for the approach of… she didn't know what. Whatever had eviscerated the sailor so quickly and silently.

"I don't see anything," whispered Belgin. "It's gone."

"The branches are moving!" said Ingrar. His voice cracked, and he bumped into Belgin as he stepped back.

"It's only the wind," said Anvil. "Keep watching."

They were silent for painful seconds. Sharessa wanted Belmer to return, but he did not. The minutes devoured the seconds. Sharessa heard them screaming in her mind.

"It's gone," said Brindra. "Whatever it was, it's gone." Shar could hear the uncertain hope in the big woman's voice. She knew that Brindra didn't really believe that the thing was gone.

"Let's go back to shore," suggested Ingrar. "We can see anything coming out of the forest from there."

"Yes," agreed Brindra fervently. "Let's get out of these woods."

"Right," agreed Anvil's rumble and Ingrar's tremulous voice. Rings began to nod but stopped after the first electrum jingle of his earand noserings.

"No," said Shar. "Belmer said to stay. We wait."

"To hell with Belm-" snapped Brindra. She cut herself off and grimaced into the black woods. "We need light."

"We'll wait a few more minutes," said Shar in compromise. "If he's not back, then we'll go back to the shore."

Brindra didn't respond, but Anvil grunted an affirmative for himself and the others. They waited, staring into the growing darkness with eyes wide to catch the faintest movement. Echoes of starlight floated down through the leaves, and the faint kiss of the moon glimmered on the high clouds. Sharessa strained to gather every faint of light with her dark eyes, but all she could see were vague gray shapes.

As the long moments passed in a funereal march, even Sharessa began to wonder whether Belmer had abandoned them. Then she tensed to strike at a figure that appeared before her. A split second and she realized it was only a shadow cast by the man who stood just within the moonlight. Her body hard coiled before her mind comprehended what she had seen. Belmer's hand was already on her sword arm. He was inhumanly fast. Sharessa was too relieved to be annoyed.

"Nothing," Belmer said. "I couldn't tell which way it went. It must have fled through the tree-tops."

"I don't think this thing flees from anything," suggested Belgin. Sharessa imagined him stroking his pale chin, though she could no longer make out his face in the darkness.

"Back to shore," said Belmer. This time it was the Sharkers who moved with uncanny speed. "Stay together," he added.

They hurried back toward the forest's edge, but it was too late. Three lanterns bobbed in the darkness.

"Cover those lights!" called Belmer.

"What?" called Turbalt. Sharessa heard Belmer's intake of breath as he prepared to shout, but it was too late. One of the lights suddenly leaped up toward the dark boughs.

Then the screams began.

Sharessa saw the lantern that had risen into the branches whirl so quickly in a circle that her persistence of vision created a floating ring of golden light in the darkness. Then the ring disintegrated into a dangling light again, jerking up and down briefly before falling with a tinkling crash. A weak, guttering fire spread where the lantern shattered.

The entire spectacle lasted no longer than three seconds. The crewmen below the ring had not moved, but the Sharkers had already spread out and stalked forward quickly and quietly.

"Jan! Jan!" cried one of the sailors below. Sharessa supposed that was the name of the missing sailor. She never had learned all their names, despite days at sea with them. Though they were Mar rather than Ffolk, the division between the castes broke down at sea, but even that took more time than the Sharkers had spent with the men of the Morning Bird.

Sharessa listened carefully for Belmer's commands, but her eyes were on the trees above the panicked sailors. All she could hear were their babbling cries for help or light or "Jan!" as they began to flee or draw their swords.

Sharessa saw nothing in the darkness above them, so she looked among the sailors as she came closer to them. One of the remaining lanterns had vanished, while the other danced frantically among the paralyzed or confused men who stood their ground. Turbalt's high-pitched wail made an almost visible wake as the shipless captain once more proved his mettle before his crew. He was halfway back toward the shore.

The dancing lantern suddenly stopped, and Sharessa saw Anvil's huge form looming over the small sailor whose wrist he had grasped. In his other hand, the big man gripped his cutlass. Taking the lantern from the frightened sailor, Anvil raised it high, pointing his sword out beside the light. He scanned the branches above as the sailor stepped away, putting his back against a tree and drawing his own weapon.

Rings and Brindra emerged from the darkness. The dwarf clutched his axe in both hands. His mouth was a thin black line, but his eyes sparkled in the lamplight as they darted from shadow to shadow, seeking whatever had snatched up the sailor. Brindra stayed near Rings's side, covering him with her own keen blade.

The others were nowhere to be seen, so Sharessa crept up to the edge of the lantern light but did not yet enter. She kept her eyes on the trees above and strained to see through the darkness.

"Quiet!" called Belmer from the shadows on the other side of the lamplight. He was obeyed.

Sharessa heard the gentle shaking of the leaves, the panting of the sailors. The rest of the world held its breath, and then she heard a wet tearing sound in the trees above Anvil's lantern. She started to cry out to him, but it was too late. A dark, ragged mass fell upon him with a sickening smack.

Anvil shouted in surprise and fear, but he held onto the lantern. Even as she darted forward, Shar knew she was too late to help. She watched as Anvil thrashed against his flailing attacker, trying to free his cutlass from the entangling limbs without dropping the lantern.

Shar was still ten steps away when the silhouette of a long, thin blade pierced the attacker's odd, barely human body. It vanished and appeared again, this time at another angle. The weird figure fell to the ground before Sharessa had closed.

By the time she reached them, Sharessa saw Anvil's bloody figure crouched protectively around the lantern. The light spilled out to show Belmer, standing beside Anvil with his rapier and dagger poised to strike again, his own hands and face spattered with gore. They all looked down at the creature.

At first they couldn't tell what it was. Slick, gory flesh glistened in the yellow lamplight. Flaccid tentacles emerged from its torso, and… no, those weren't tentacles at all. The dead figure had been savaged beyond recognition.

They stared at the ruined body of another sailor.

"How could it do… that to him?" asked Ingrar in disbelief. "And so fast!" The Sharkers and the surviving sailors from the Morning Bird crouched on the sand around the two remaining lanterns. Turbalt hadn't spoken since Anvil and Ingrar caught up with him near the shore. Even the eight remaining sailors ignored Turbalt now, looking to Belmer and the Sharkers for direction.

"I don't know," said Sharessa. "I don't know."

"It's a fiend," offered one of the sailors. "Definitely a fiend. Definitely."

"No argument about that," said Rings. "Let's just hope it's had its fill."

"Definitely a fiend," continued the babbling sailor.

"They don't get full," said Belgin. "They don't hunt to feed. They kill because they like it. It's what they're made for."

"How do you know?" asked Brindra. "How does anyone know what a fiend wants?"

"Definitely. Definitely a fiend."

"Somebody shut him up," grumbled Rings and Brindra together. Sharessa almost smiled at their chorus, but the amusement drowned in the rising fear that had surrounded them.

"You're right," said Belgin. "No one really knows what they want. We just hear about what they do."

"It's gone now," said Belmer, across the lanterns. "But if what you say is true, we can't just stay here and wait for it to return."

"We can't go deeper into the forest," said Ingrar. "It can pick us off one at a time in there."

"We can't stay here," returned Belmer. "There could be more of them, too. The longer we wait here, the greater the chance they'll gather and find us."

"Good point," said Anvil. Sharessa nodded. She knew she didn't want to be outside anywhere in Doegan. The stories she had heard convinced her that there were more fiends than ever in these lands.

"Let's at least wait until dawn," said a sailor.

"Aye," agreed one of his mates. "The thing didn't attack until night."

Sharessa turned to see what Belmer's answer would be. He didn't speak at first, only reaching up to stroke his chin. Across the lanterns, Belgin was making exactly the same gesture. Despite the nearly tangible fear among the Sharkers and the sailors, a few smiles appeared, yellow crescents on the shadowed faces.

Belgin mocked his own signature gesture by turning left and touching his chin with his right hand, exaggerating his nervous expression. Then he turned right and took his chin in his left hand, adding a fair imitation of Belmer's serious expression. Rings chuckled, and a nervous laughter eddied around the group for a moment. Even Belmer smiled briefly.

The laughter died after a moment. In the silence, all eyes rested on Belmer. His serious, commanding expression had returned.

"We'll wait until dawn," he announced. A few of the sailor's heads bobbed in eager agreement, and Sharessa heard Ingrains sigh of relief beside her.

"First we close these lanterns," continued Belmer. "Then well move about a mile along…"

A low moaning interrupted Belmer's orders. Sharessa looked around to see which of the sailors had made the sound, but then it came again. It was from the trees.

"Close the lanterns!" hissed Belmer. "Spread out. When we move, it's north along the beach."

Everyone obeyed, except Turbalt. The captain of The Morning Bird knelt in the sand, clutching one of the lanterns. "No," he said in his quavering voice. No no no no no no…"

Belmer lashed out, quick as a cobra, slapping the bubbering Turbalt hard across the face. As the man's hands released the lantern, Belmer hooked it with one toe and kicked it away, toward the forest. Turbalt fell to the sand, his arms raised to ward off more blows. None came, as Belmer whipped away to join the line of Sharkers and sailors who stood matching the lantern and the forest.

The beach was bone pale in the moonlight. From he black tree line came the moaning. It grew louder as the lantern tumbled across the sand, miraculously, the lamp did not break. It lay tilted against a stone near the forest's edge, casting its yellow light against the nearest trees, and then upon what emerged from them.

Ghosts, thought Sharessa. The first looked like one of the great bloated dead of the sea. Huge and pale, with thick wallows of fat rolling down from its hairless head, it shambled toward the light. More emerged from behind it, their skin twisted and grotesque as if ravaged by disease. On some Sharessa could see patches of bone where the flesh had flowed away like lava from a dying volcano. In other places the flesh had run together and hardened in ugly knots.

From their hands twitched long, hard claws. Shadows spidered across their naked skin, and the lamplight trembled at their approach. Where their feet fell, twigs cracked and stones groaned. All the while, the monsters moaned in discontent, wiggling their long, clawed fingers.

Three, Sharessa counted, then five, then eight, and more kept coming. With them came a ghastly wind. Sharessa couldn't feel it on her face, but it blew through her bones, leaving them brittle and fragile. She had seen the restless dead clack across her ship's deck on bony feet, and with Belmer and the other Sharkers she had fought them. Even the grave could not ooze this fearsome atmosphere. These were horrors from a farther shore, blown into the world by the icy breath of hell.

Sharessa wanted to look for Belmer, but she couldn't take her eyes away, lest upon turning back she find one of the fiends standing beside her, reaching out with those hard, sharp fingers.

"Go!" hissed Belmer.

Turbalt shrieked, and Shar looked to see him kneeling on the sand, alone. His men had already heeded Belmer's order or their own terror. They ran with frightened speed, the Sharkers not far behind. "Go!" repeated Belmer. "Now!" Shar paused for less than a second, then spun on her heel and ran north, leaving the blubbering Turbalt behind. Anvil ran before her, purposefully slow to let Sharessa and Belmer catch up. Sharessa could feel Belmer beside her, but all she could hear was the pulse of blood in her ears.

Turbalt screamed louder than ever, and Shar turned back, slowing to a jog.

The shuffling fiends had reached the lamp. A few milled around it, muttering in confusion or fascination. The rest shambled past, toward the sound of rurbalt's panic. The ship captain screamed, stumbling backward toward the surf despite the wide es-: ape route to the north.

"Damn!" cursed Anvil, glancing over his shoulder. He slowed his pace.

"Keep going," said Belmer. His voice was calm and even, despite his own running.

Anvil said nothing. He turned and ran back toward Turbalt.

Sharessa stopped running. She wanted nothing more than to get away from the things that had come out of the forest, but she couldn't leave Anvil alone to face them. Belmer stopped a few yards farther on, apparently interested enough in Anvil's late to watch, if not to run back to help him. Two of the things had almost reached Turbalt, and more emerged from the forest. There were dozens of them, and Turbalt stared and screamed as he walked stiffly backward. His terrified wailing rose above both the rolling surf and the low, anxious moaning of the creatures. He backed into the water and fell with a splash. Pale claws reached for him.

Anvil's blade seemed to pass through the flabbj monster that towered over Turbalt. The ship captain cried out as if he had been struck, but the fiend only stared at Anvil. Then a thick, black line oi ichor formed in the sword's path, and the fiend's head and shoulder slid from its body, into the surf.

The big man did not hesitate. He slashed at the second in a slow, two-handed attack that any opponent should have avoided. The fiend's eyes rolled left as its black guts spilled into the water, followed by the rest of the deformed monster's body. By now, a half-dozen fiends were closing with Anvil. Instead of attacking, he grabbed the screaming Turbalt by the shirtfront and pulled him out of the water.

Terrified beyond reason, Turbalt flailed and twisted in Anvil's grasp. His violent thrashing slowed Anvil as the Sharker staggered out of the surf. The fiends were slow, but Turbalt would doom them both in his panic. Sharessa could wait no longer. She ran forward, despite Belmer's order.

Before Sharessa could reach him, Anvil had lost his patience with the struggling Turbalt. With the bell guard of his sabre, he struck the man hard in the belly. Sharessa could hear the whoosh of air from Turbalt's lungs, and all the fight left him. Anvil hefted the limp form onto his shoulder and began to run.

Sharessa fell in beside him to fend off any fiends who proved faster than the others. She was surprised to see Belmer on Anvil's other side, doing the same. His face was grim, and Sharessa feared for Anvil after their escape.

Soon they had outdistanced the fiends. The moon had risen higher, and its reflection in the sea cast blanched light all the way to the forest's edge. The Sharkers and the sailors of the Morning Bird had stopped less than a half mile along the shore. Before reaching the group, Belmer raised a hand, signaling Anvil and Sharessa to stop. Anvil shrugged Turbalt off his shoulders, and the smaller man grunted as he hit the sand. He kept his gaze down, hiding his face from the others. In a second he scrambled up and walked quickly away, toward the larger group, indignant or ashamed.

Belmer ignored the ship captain and turned to Anvil. Sharessa braced herself to defend her comrade with an argument.

"Very impressive," said Belmer. Sharessa saw the surprise on Anvil's face and imagined it looked much the same as hers. Perhaps Belmer had come around. He began walking after Turbalt. Anvil and Sharessa followed. Belmer put a friendly hand on Anvil's big arm.

"Disobey me again, and it won't be the fiends that kill you." His voice was anything but friendly.

"Here they come," announced Brindra. "Dozens of them. Hundreds, maybe." The heavy woman was almost out of breath. Running was not easy for her, though she could fight as long and hard as any of the Sharkers.

"How far?" asked Belmer. The others crowded around to hear the news.

"A little over a mile," she answered. "Probably not much less than that now. The things are damned slow."

"Lucky for us," said Belgin Dree with some irony.

"The ones behind us are closer," said one of the Morning Bird sailors. "There's more of them, too."

"They're herding us," said Ingrar. He had been a shepherd before leaving the Web mountains to find his fortune. While he still had much to learn about sailing and pirating, Sharessa supposed he knew plenty about herding. She didn't like the thought that this time they were the sheep.

Sharessa suddenly wished Ingrar had stayed at his home, never to join the Sharkers or find himself stalked by fiends in the wilds of Doegan. She looked at his face. He looked older in the moonlight, and some of his fear had left. The Sharkers had learned to depend on his courage in a fray, but something about the fiends in the woods unnerved him. If the truth were told, Sharessa thought, the fiends unnerved them all. Impulsively, she leaned toward him and brushed his cheek with her lips. He straightened his shoulders and gave her a half-smile. She turned and found herself staring into Belmer's cold eyes.

"Herding us is right," said Rings. "But where?"

"Into the woods," said Belmer, still holding Sharessa in his gaze. The dark-tressed pirate knew he was right.

"But why?" asked Ingrar. Sharessa thought she knew the answer to this, too.

"You saw how slow those things are," she said. "Whatever killed Elsger and Jan is wickedly fast. Maybe it controls the slow ones. Maybe it sent them out to push us back in."

"And maybe that one can't leave the woods," suggested Ingrar, hopefully.

"I don't think so," said Belmer. "I think it wants to play."

"What?" said Brindra.

"It could have killed more of us," said Belgin. "Plenty more." He had taken a pair of dice from his vest pocket and was rolling them around in his palm. Each revolution made another tiny click.

Belmer nodded. "It doesn't just want to kill us."

"It wants to terrify us," finished Belgin. Click. Click.

"What do we do?" said Ingrar. His voice was calmer than Sharessa would have expected, but not resigned.

"We could take our chances in the woods," offered Sharessa. "If we stay together, it can't get us all. If we don't carry a lantern and.." Everyone was looking at her as if she were insane. Even Belgin's dice-clicking had stopped.

"Never mind."

"We can't fight our way thought the melty ones," said Ingrar.

"Mm," agreed Rings. "Too many."

"We could swim around a group of the slow ones," suggested Brindra. Sharessa almost groaned at that idea. The Sharkers had spent far too much of their time swimming away from burning or sinking ships. Still, the fiends might not follow them there, and they could all swim faster than those lumbering, half-melted fiends.

Belmer nodded at Brindra's suggestion. "We could go deep enough that the slow fiends couldn't wade out after us."

"Uh," rasped Anvil. His voice was raspier than usual. "I didn't say anything earlier, since we were close to shore and didn't really have a choice, but — "

"Let me guess," said Belmer. "There are fiends in the waters of Doegan, too."

Anvil just nodded. "Gigantic ones."

"Joy."

"I didn't put them there," grumbled Anvil.

"Well, you were right about fiends in the woods," said Belmer. "I'll take your word on the ones in the water."

"So what do we do?" asked Ingrar. They all looked at Belmer, and he turned to look back at the woods.

"Oh, no," said Brindra-and Ingrar, and about half of the sailors. "Oh, yes."

They crept into the forest slowly, Belmer and Sharessa in the lead. The others followed as reluctantly as skinny-dippers in winter, but the forest was warm and still. The farther they moved away from the sea breeze, the warmer it grew. Sharessa felt her clothes beginning to cling to her damp flesh. She loosened the strings of her shirt and shook the fabric briskly.

With the heat came renewed fear, and the Mar sailors became clumsy in the stifling darkness.

"Ow!"

"Watch where ye're going." "I can't see a-" "Shh!"

"Slowly," said Belmer. "And quietly."

They moved along, trying to obey. Even Turbalt was uncharacteristically quiet. The shipless captain hadn't said a word since Anvil had saved him from his own cowardice.

Sharessa felt Belmer's hand upon her arm. It was cool and dry in the moist heat of the forest. His whisper was so quiet that she had to strain to hear it.

"Stay," he said. Then he was gone, and Sharessa waited until the sailor behind her came close before putting her hand on his arm and a whisper in his ear. He did the same, and so on down the line with one or two startled yelps. Then Belmer returned and led Sharessa to a new path in the darkness. They continued this way for more than an hour, stopping four more times, more quietly than before.

Finally, when Belmer returned from the darkness, they gathered close to talk again.

"Over the hills to the city, right?"

"Right," whispered one of the sailors.

"That's right," said Anvil. Though he had spent most of his adult life at sea, the big pirate had been born in Doegan.

"There's a river canyon in the way," pointed out Belmer. "About fifty yards north."

"Shouldn't be," said one of the sailors uncertainly. Sharessa imagined a withering stare from Belmer, but she couldn't even see the glimmer of his eyes in the darkness. The heavy canopy of trees obscured all the moonlight here.

"There was a footbridge, once," said Anvil. "I think."

"Right," sighed Belmer. "I don't suppose anyone remembers where that is."

"It was a long time ago," said Anvil. "I think it's farther inland, but I'm not sure." None of the sailors had anything to say.

"Good. It'll be an adventure." Belmer's voice was more sarcastic than Shar had ever heard it. Unlike the others, who seemed tense and frightened by the fiends, Belmer seemed increasingly annoyed.

"We'll move along the ravine's edge," he decided. "We'll travel inland and take the first crossing we can manage."

They formed their snaking line again and followed Belmer through the darkness.