An Opportunity for Profit

Chapter Seven

Doubt drew the moment thin and tight as a bowstring. Sharessa felt a nauseous, uncertain quivering in her stomach as she strained to hear the sound that had alerted Belmer. Distance shushed the echoes of something coming through the forest above.

When Sharessa saw torchlight reflected on the far cliff, she felt her own smile and rose to her feet to call out, but Belmer squeezed her left hand to stop her. He put his lips near her ear and whispered, "Wait."

They listened carefully, almost painfully. Sharessa heard the faint sound of voices far above.

"It's them," she whispered to Belmer.

He hesitated a moment longer. "This fiend has tricked us with illusions before."

Sharessa nodded and drew Brindra's sword from her belt. "Here," she said, offering it to Belmer. This time he did not protest.

"Call out. I'll climb, in case it's another of the fiend's tricks." He faded into the shadows before Sharessa could reply.

"Rings!" called Sharessa. "Anvil! Belmer! I'm down here!"

"Shar!" came the dwarf's reply. Then they all called out questions for a moment before falling suddenly silent again. Sharessa was sure it was really them; they'd remembered the fiend might hear them. Soon they lowered the rope that they had salvaged from the Morning Bird.

"My arm's hurt," called Sharessa from the bottom of the cliff. She hoped her voice was loud enough for them to hear, but not so loud that it carried down the ravine. "You'll have to pull me up."

She looped the rope around herself and secured it as best she could with one arm. She tugged once, hard.

"Belmer?" she whispered. But he did not answer. She wondered whether he was already climbing. The rope pulled taut, and she felt herself rise. She used her feet to guide her ascent, careful of her wounded arm. When she came to the top, eager hands pulled her into quick embraces and patted her on the back, careful of her arm.

"Brindra's dead," said Sharessa. She could see by their faces that they already knew it.

"At least you made it," said Belgin. His chubby face was lucent with moonlight. "We saw you fall."

"The water knocked me senseless, but Belmer found me before I drowned."

"Belmer made it, too?" Rings sounded half disappointed, half astonished. "The fiend threw him like a doll."

"He's not human," interjected Turbalt. Sharessa marvelled that he still lived, while better fighters had already fallen to the fiend tonight. "He's a fiend himself! We should get out of here before he finds us again."

"Silence," said Belgin.

"I have a right to speak my mind," bleated Turbalt. "It was my ship you sank. They were my men you've let die — "

"Shut up, you fool!" This time it was one of his own crewmen who spoke. Turbalt didn't even pause.

"And I haven't been paid yet! By Umberlee, I'll have…"

"You'll have what?" Belmer's voice came smooth as a sharp knife from the shadows.

Turbalt's flabby face blanched, and his jowls shook as he jabbered his mouth silently. He didn't turn around to face the voice but shuffled back into the shadows. Belmer walked into the light, ignoring the frightened ship captain.

"Kill those torches, and hood the lamp. If the fiend doesn't know that you've found us, we may have an advantage we can use."

"What d'ye have in mind?" asked Rings. He stubbed out the torch he carried before Belmer could answer. One of the sailors did the same with the other, and Anvil shuttered the lantern. The scant light spilling through its covers cast tiny yellow stars on the faces of the company. "Listen carefully," said Belmer.

Rings and Anvil took the lead, each carrying a freshly lighted torch. Rings held his plain axe in his other hand, while Anvil clutched the unlighted lantern. Its hood was missing, and the remaining oil sloshed gently as they walked.

Sharessa knew that Anvil hadn't liked relinquishing his stewardship of the blinded Ingrar, but after exacting a promise from Belgin that the round-faced gambler wouldn't stray from the young pirate, he had relented.

The three survivors of the Morning Bird took up the rear this time. Turbalt kept pushing ahead of the other two, trying desperately to keep himself in the middle. The crewmen glared at the back of their former captain's head. They obviously despised him more than the Sharkers ever could. It was bad to be a weak and cowardly man, but it was far worse to be so when commanding the lives of others. They would never forgive him for that.

"He's using us as bait," whimpered Turbalt. His earlier histrionics had reduced his voice to a strangled mewling. "Belmer's sacrificing us to the fiend to save himself!"

Belgin reached out and slapped Turbalt in the back of the head with a quick hand. The fat ship captain stumbled to one knee. He rose, indignant and persistent.

"You know it's-" The heavy slap whipped his face around, harder than before. Belgin didn't speak a word. When Turbalt opened his mouth again, he just struck him again, harder still, spinning the fat man to the ground.

"That's enough," said Belgin softly. With the faintest of whimpers, Turbalt crawled to his feet and followed, this time taking up the rear.

Sharessa watched it all from the darkness. Her clothes remained damp from her plunge into the river, but the sultry night was uncomfortable. On this side of the river, the ground was soft and moist. The tall trees had shrunk and withered, their gnarled limbs painful in the shifting torchlight.

The breezes had fled, and in their wake had risen a miasma of insects. Where they stung, Sharessa felt her flesh contract and burn. She dare not slap at them as she shadowed the others, staying always just outside the torchlight, but not too far away. Instead, she squeezed the handle of Rings's everbright axe.

Somewhere on the other side of the torchlight was Belmer, his path mirroring Sharessa's. He bore Brindra's enchanted sword. Together they waited for the fiend to attack the others. They couldn't defend themselves without these two weapons, so Turbalt's words were true. Belmer had called it a lure, but the careless passage made them nothing more than bait. Sharessa and Belmer were the hooks.

The heat grew more intense, the insects ever fiercer. Sharessa wiped at her sweaty neck, and her hand came away a battlefield of bloody mosquito bodies. Another legion took their place, their buzzing growing louder in her ears.

Back in the torchlight, Turbalt and the sailors slapped at their faces and arms, cursing, then peering into the darkness to see if their noises had at tracted attention. Sharessa could see by their halting gaits that they expected the attack at any moment. She knew how they felt. Her own muscles were sore from stopping at the crack of a twig, from twisting suddenly at the supernatural chill that passed like a winter cloud across the back of her neck.

Maybe the fiend never crossed the river, she half-hoped. She banished the thought as soon as it formed. That's what the thing would want them to think. They had to believe it would attack again, or else it would catch them by surprise yet again.

Something trembled the brush ahead of Sharessa. She stopped. Her blood turned to ice, and the mosquito bites spread like fire across her skin. She watched the spot carefully but saw nothing. The others hadn't heard the sound. They continued their journey.

The sound came again, this time behind the travelers. They spun around, the sudden movement of the torches creating a vertiginous whirl of shadows. Rings and Anvil brandished the torches like swords, holding their weapons like mere shields. Belgin swept Ingrar behind the warriors, and the sailors followed, forming a defensive square around the blind boy and the gambler.

Turbalt screamed and ran blindly into the woods- straight toward Sharessa. The rustling darkness followed him.

Sharessa slipped sideways, smooth as a serpent. The bumbling Turbalt crashed past her. Something hotter and darker than the night followed upon his heels. Sharessa raised the axe in both hands and struck.

The impact was tremendous; it evoked a squealing hiss and a blast of putrid breath. The axe re bounded, spinning Sharessa backward. She barely kept her double grip upon the dwarven weapon. She struck again before recovering her balance. Again her blade struck hard, but she felt the same unyielding impact, closer this time. The thing closed with her.

Sharessa threw herself backward, but one foot caught in the undergrowth. She felt a searing slash across her hip. Before another came, she thrust away. Dead roots twisted hard at her feet. She tore away, wrenching an ankle. As she stood, pain exploded in the twisted joint. She hopped to the side, but then an avalanche fell upon her.

Sharessa felt ragged fingers reach into her hair, pulling her head back. A bony knee pressed hard into her spine. She opened her mouth to scream, but her lungs were already squeezed empty. It was breaking her in half.

The fiend squealed again, this time in pain and rage. When it released Sharessa, the pirate rolled weakly to the side. She saw Belmer's lithe form in silhouette against the torchlight. He stood before the fiend, Brindra's sword pointed at its face. The torches came closer as Anvil and Rings charged forward.

Even crouched, the fiend towered over Belmer. Its arms and legs were long, with hard muscles knotted together in grotesque clusters. Claws whipped toward Belmer, blossoming like bony flowers. Brindra's sword licked out, and the fiend drew back its wounded hands. It held them to its mouth, and Sharessa heard a horrid sucking sound.

Belmer didn't give the fiend a chance to lick its wounds. He darted in, stabbing at its leg. Blood sprayed like a string of black pearls, glimmering briefly before splattering on the ground.

The fiend struck back with a scythelike motion. Belmer's parry materialized before the attack, but it was only a feint. The heavy tail crashed into the ground where Belmer had stood, but the little man leapt above it, slashing at the fiend's face. The creature was too fast, slipping back just out of range of the sword.

It didn't hear the others until they were nearly upon it.

A burly sailor threw his shoulder into the back of the fiend's leg. The monster stumbled backward, turning to reach its attacker with its teeth and claws. The man had time for a single dying scream.

A torch smashed against its head, casting a halo of sparks about its skull. A second sailor backpedaled to escape, but he was too slow. The fiend's tail arched down, piercing the man's throat with its sharp barb. A dark spurt of blood crossed the sailor's face. He reached up with clumsy hands to staunch the flow, but his movements were weak and jerky. He sank to the ground.

A big shadow rose behind the fiend as it descended upon the fallen sailor. Anvil smashed the open lantern against the monster's back. The blow itself would have stunned or killed a man, but it merely surprised the creature, splashing it with lamp oil. Rather than press the attack, Anvil threw himself to the side, narrowly avoiding the fiend's powerful tail.

Rings was already on the fiend's other side. He smashed his flaming brand against the fiend's back. The oil ignited immediately, spreading across the monster's decaying flesh in a blue-white wave. The fiend raised its arms high above its head and shrieked, shaking its ragged claws at the sky.

Anvil and Rings backed up, watching the monster burn but ready for it to lash out. Belmer remained in his fencer's stance, ready for anything. Sharessa hobbled to a tree and held herself up, watching. The fiend kept on burning and screaming, but it did nothing to escape the flames. Then she realized that it wasn't howling in pain.

"It's laughing at us!" she cried out.

It turned toward her then, its lipless grin nearly splitting its fleshless face. The fiend took two slow steps toward her, and then Belmer flashed toward it, sword arm straight as a lance, lunging for the thing's chest.

The little man flew straight through the fiend. Despite his surprise, he recovered with a graceful roll that left him crouched and facing the opposite direction. It had simply vanished, leaving only its fiery corona and a stench of sulfur.

The Sharkers needed no order to regroup, backs to center, swords out and up. Sharessa was last to join them, hindered by her injured ankle. The last living sailor joined them, his face grim with the acceptance of his fate. Sharessa knew how he must feel.

"So much for our advantage," grumbled Anvil. "Now we're back where we started."

"No," said Belmer. "It's hurt, worse than before. If we're lucky, it's angry."

"If we're lucky?" said Rings, incredulous.

Ingrar's scream was a bolt of lightning, galvanizing them all. Anvil was moving even before Belmer. They rushed toward the sound.

The fiend had Belgin by the throat, pressing the round-faced gambler into a tree. At the monster's feet curled Ingrar, seemingly uninjured, but paralyzed with terror. The fiend dropped Belgin as soon as they approached. It had used them as its own lure. Now it turned toward Belmer. It wanted revenge.

Belmer rushed toward the fiend, feinting at the last moment. This time the fiend wasn't surprised, and it sidestepped in the other direction, wagging its long finger at Belmer in a mockery of human admonishment. The slender man attacked again, this time in earnest. The fiend hopped backward and landed in a low, four-limbed stance, crawling sideways like the scorpion it resembled.

"Surround it," snapped Sharessa. She lagged behind the others but kept coming. "Help him!"

Rings, Anvil, and the sailor spread out. Only Rings still had a torch, and he waved it to attract the fiend's notice.

"Here, you great stinking spider!" he called. The fiend grinned and turned toward the dwarf. Belmer lunged, but the fiend had faked its distraction. It deflected Belmer's thrust with one arm. Brindra's sword cut a deep line into the gray flesh, but the fiend's other hand was a blur, clamping down on Belmer's wrist. The swordsman snapped a punch at the fiend's chin, but the monster only smiled. Then it clutched Belmer's arm in both hands and twisted.

"Ah!" Belmer didn't quite scream, but his eyes opened wide in the pain. The sword fell from his hands, and the fiend stepped on it. Then it lifted the squirming Belmer up toward its face, jaws wide.

Anvil and the sailor hit the fiend's legs together. They tumbled together, grasping and punching ineffectually, trying to wrestle with the thing. The fiend rose in the struggling mass, lifting Belmer by his arm. It threw him to the ground with bone-crunching force, reaching down to peel its attackers from its legs. Rings rolled away nimbly, but the monster's long fingers found the sailor.

Sharessa looked for Brindra's sword. She saw where it had fallen, but Rings's torch was moving, shaking the shadows. She went down on all fours to crawl, hoping the thing wouldn't see her before she reached the weapon.

Rings waved his torch like a flag, trying to distract the fiend from its prey. The captured sailor turned toward the dwarf, shaking his head to warn him away. Then the big tail swept out, more powerful than a loose boom in a storm. Sharessa heard the solid blow and saw her friend fall limp as an empty sack. His torch sputtered on the wet ground and died beside him.

She heard her own gasp and stopped. The fiend hesitated, too, looking around slowly. Its face looked even more like a skull where it stood bathed in a shaft of moonlight. Its eyes moved toward where she crept in the darkness. Then the sailor spat a curse as foul as the fiend's breath and lashed out in futile struggle.

"Go ahead, you bastard! Do it! Do it!"

The man was brave. Sharessa saw his fingers seek the fiend's throat, even as the monster's claws scrabbled across his stubbly face. Then the curved claws found the man's eyes and thrust deeply. There wasn't enough time for a scream, only the fiend's howling laughter.

Sharessa scrambled for the sword, abandoning silence. All she could think about was the fiend's hot breath in her own face, its claws scratching upon her skin before tearing in and breaking her open. She grabbed at the ground, her hands feeling stones and soil and branches. She heard the frantic drum of her heart, the rush of blood throbbing in her ears. Her hands kept moving, rocks scraping her fingers, vines entangling them. Then she felt a light touch upon her shoulder. She smelled decaying flesh and brimstone.

But she also felt Brindra's sword beneath her knee.

Sharessa turned slowly and smoothly, her back upon the ground. The fiend straddled her, one hand on either side. It barely allowed its own body to brush against her, bearing down as gently as a lover.

Sharessa pressed herself against the ground, shrinking almost demurely. The fiend cooed and mewled, its arms curling around her from either side, almost tender in its mockery of seduction. Sharessa's hand extended slowly beside her thigh, reaching. She gagged from the stench, closing her eyes lest the moonlight reveal its face and she scream.

Her fingers reached the sword just as the fiend's arms closed tightly around her. She felt its jagged teeth on her cheek. She drew back her arm and pressed the point of the blade against its belly.

"Back to hell," she said, shoving Brindra's sword deep into the monster. The fiend bucked and shrieked, and Sharessa felt its steaming ichor wash over her arms. She thrust again, pulling up to find the monster's heart. Its claws savaged her back, raking deep wounds, but still she held tight, forcing the blade deeper still.

Then the screaming stopped. The fiend's grip evaporated, and the creature crashed to the ground like a rotten tree.