Corsair

TWENTY-SIX

17 Marpenoth, the Year of the Ageless One (1479 DR)

The alien jungle of the black moonlet crowded menacingly against the walls of the pirate keep. Its fronds and grasses, its brush and its trees grew in a riot of fantastic colors unlike anything Geran had ever seen before. A dozen strange, sweet scents hung heavily in the air, and he could hear the chirps and croaks of small creatures-birds, frogs, or something like them-echoing in the dim light. The air was damp and cool, with a faint white mist clinging to the ground. More than a few of the plants had a distinctly unwholesome look to them, and he wondered if any of them were carnivorous.

“Out of the frying pan and into the fire,” Hamil said softly. “I don’t like the looks of this place. I hope Mirya stayed on the trail.”

“So do I. Even Kara couldn’t track her through this.” Geran looked around the stone steps leading down from the keep’s postern gate. There was a small clearing right by the gate, with overgrown paths leading in either direction immediately below the walls. In theory, the postern allowed the keep’s defenders to send out parties of raiders to counterattack an enemy concentrating on the front gate. He saw no sign that Mirya or Selsha had circled the keep at the foot of the wall, though. If they’d fled the keep, they wouldn’t want to skulk around by the base of the wall; they’d want to get as far from the place as they could, and would hope to outrun or evade any pursuers out in the jungle.

Across the clearing, a single footpath led off into the jungle. Geran headed for it while still watching for any tracks along the trail. If he had to guess, he’d say that the path saw infrequent use at best; it was mostly overgrown, but a strip of bare dirt in its center suggested that people came this way from time to time. Fifty yards from the gate, the trail met the edge of the moonlet’s dark forest … and here Geran found something more familiar. He stopped and kneeled in the violet grass by the trailside. The impression of a small, bare foot lay in the center of the path. “Look here,” he said to Hamil.

The halfling kneeled beside him. “Selsha?”

“I think the size is about right. And I don’t think it’s more than a few hours old. It’s hard to tell, since I have no idea what sort of weather this place gets, but look-the grass that’s bent under the heel, there, it’s still damp and the same color as the rest.”

Hamil stood up and circled around the area, looking down. “Over here,” he said. “I think this may be Mirya.”

Geran moved over to look at Hamil’s find. This print was a smooth slipper of some kind, with a pointed toe, but the size was about right. It could have been any of the women enslaved by the pirates, of course, but he didn’t see any reason why serving women would leave the keep by this door, at least not in shoes such as those. “I don’t think those are Mirya’s shoes,” he said. “But then Olana said she brought Mirya a change of clothes. Maybe she brought slippers too.”

They set off again, following the footpath as it wound through the forest. After a few hundred yards, it emerged briefly along the lakeshore; they could look back and see the keep atop its hill, and the two ships grappled alongside the dock. A few thin streamers of smoke rose up into the dark sky, but no other signs of strife were evident from their distance. Several other footpaths-or gametrails, possibly-met by the shore. They searched the ground for any signs of which way the Erstenwolds might have gone, and Geran spotted something on the bole of a tree near the path they’d just emerged from. He took a closer look and found the tree’s fleshy bark scored in two rough horizontal lines. Beads of dark sap welled up from the marks.

“I think Mirya might have marked this tree,” he told Hamil.

“But that’s the way we just came. Why would she mark the trail leading back to the place she was escaping from?”

Geran frowned, thinking for a moment. It could have been simple caution; Mirya might have decided that she wanted to know how to get back to her captors if the wilderness outside the keep proved too dangerous. None of the other pathways had such a mark, so she clearly wasn’t trying to leave signs showing which way she’d gone. But studying the ground, he saw that Mirya-if the slippered footprints were in fact hers-had looked at each of the trails branching away from the lakeshore before finally choosing one. “We’ll ask her when we find her,” he told Hamil. “Come on, let’s keep going.”

They jogged along the new path. This time they went a mile or more before coming to an intersecting trail. Once again they found the trail leading back the way they’d come marked with a fresh blaze. “Mirya!” Geran called. “Mirya!”

There was no answer. With a grimace of frustration, he searched until he found the path whose prints seemed most like the ones he’d been following, and started off again. But something else on the ground caught his eye. Quite near to Mirya’s step-overlapping it, in fact-was the mark of a taloned foot as big as Geran’s own. It had two large toes and a third, smaller one back toward the instep. As he moved along the trail, he found more of the creature’s marks, paralleling Mirya’s. He was fairly certain that he hadn’t seen those prints back by the lakeshore; something had dropped out of the jungle and taken up the Erstenwolds’ trail, or so he guessed. He picked up his speed, now loping along at an easy run. Hamil kept up without complaint, sensing his increasing urgency.

They splashed across a rock-strewn stream and found on the farther shore that the old footpath led into the ruins of an ancient road of glossy black stone. Hexagonal blocks fitted together untold years ago marked the old highway, although scarlet grass pushed up in the gaps between the pavers, and vines hung down over the path. Geran halted in confusion, staring at the ground. The hard stone held no impression that he could make out. “Damn the luck,” he muttered. Somewhere in the forest nearby, an animal gave voice to a strange hooting cry. “Hamil, I’ve lost the trail.”

The halfling looked up and down the path and frowned. “Left or right?”

“Kara could tell us, if she were here.” Geran kicked at the ground in frustration. He’d exhausted what small store of woodcraft he possessed, but he kneeled and began to examine the stones more closely, hoping for a sign he’d missed. Hamil did the same.

“This stonework’s much older than the Black Moon keep,” the halfling said. “I wonder who put a road here?”

“It might lead to those ruins you saw as we descended. They’d be uphill from here, I think.” Geran peered up the overgrown road, searching for a glimpse of old towers and walls in that direction, or at least some sign that Mirya and her daughter might have gone that way. Then he looked down the road, which followed the stream back toward the lake. Another unseen animal on the other side of the stream hooted back at the first one. “Which way would Mirya and Selsha turn?”

Hamil shook his head. “Mirya would be looking for a place to hide, wouldn’t she? If she saw those ruins from the air, she might have decided to head for them. They’d be clear of the forest, anyway.” He waved his arm at the downstream direction. “That probably takes you back toward the lake, and then who knows where?”

“We could split up and cover both possibilities,” Geran said slowly.

“Not a chance. The last thing I want to have to do is go looking for you after I find Mirya and Selsha. In fact-” Hamil started to say something more, but he was interrupted by another of the hooting cries. His eyes narrowed, and he turned slowly, his head cocked to one side as he laid an arrow across his bowstring. In fact, we’re about to be attacked, he finished silently. Whatever they are, there are three or four of them closing in on us from the forest.

Hamil had an uncanny sense for trouble, and Geran trusted it. He eased his sword from the sheath and moved to put his back to Hamil’s. “Never mind about the splitting up idea,” he said softly. More of the cries sounded in the forest, now closer and around them on all sides. The swordmage stared into the gloom of the forest floor, straining for some glimpse of the creatures stalking them-and then the monsters attacked.

They hurled down from the treetops, leaping in great froglike bounds. Geran glimpsed mottled greenish white bodies and great yellow-orange eyes, a single orb that formed almost the entire head of each of the creatures. Behind him Hamil’s bowstring thrummed, and an uncanny screech split the air. Then the first of the things was on the swordmage. Its talons raked at him, scoring the flesh of his shoulders. He slashed furiously at it and felt his steel bite into its warty hide; dark ichor splattered the ground, and the thing bounded away again.

He wheeled to face the next of the monsters and saw it crouching in the fork of a moss-covered tree, staring at him. The creature was the size of a grown man, but it had a hunched, stooped posture, with long arms and knees bent into an awkward crouch. Its single great eye was almost the size of a human head and glittered with a bright golden malice. Beneath it a tiny mouth filled with needle-sharp teeth opened to hiss at him. The eye focused on him, and a sudden wave of lightheadedness and nausea swept over him. His face felt hot and flushed and began to itch furiously. He tore his eyes away from the monster’s gaze and raised his left arm to guard his face; to his horror he saw the skin growing dark, dry, and hot in front of him, until small cracks appeared and fluid began to seep out.

“Ilmater’s holy wounds!” he cried out in horror. “Hamil, don’t let them look at you! Their gaze sears flesh!”

A strangled cry behind him warned that Hamil had discovered that for himself. In pure desperation, Geran turned away from the monster staring at him and did his best to hide inside his own cloak, averting his gaze. The suppuration of his left arm ended abruptly; he bounded past Hamil, charging at a monster that squatted on a boulder by the stream, transfixing the halfling with its horrid gaze. The creature hissed in anger as Geran broke its hold on Hamil, and shifted its gaze to the swordmage-but now Geran was within sword’s reach. He lashed out with a wild slash at the thing’s face and caught it across its great foul eye. The orb burst open in a gush of dark liquid, and the creature screeched horribly. It fell to the ground, its limbs jerking and flailing, and he finished it with a thrust through the center of its narrow chest.

Geran turned back to the one he’d left behind him. The creature was bounding closer, charging at the two companions while neither was looking at it. This time he shielded his eyes with his hand, keeping his gaze at the middle of its chest and guarding himself with his cloak as he moved forward to meet it. Swinging his sword wildly, he forced the monster to break off its rush. Talons raked at him, but Geran leveled his sword and thrust straight ahead, where he guessed the middle of its body to be. Steel bit into flesh, and his adversary hissed and jumped away; when he cautiously raised his eyes to find where it had gone, he glimpsed only a flash of pale hide disappearing back into the jungle.

“I definitely don’t like the jungle,” Hamil muttered. He held his bow with blistered hands, peering into the trees. “Did that last one get away?”

“I wounded it, possibly mortally. But it’s gone now. So is the first one I cut.”

“Well, these two here are certainly dead.” Hamil moved over to kick at the body of the one he’d shot through with his arrow. “What in the world are these things?”

“Nothing in the world, and that’s the problem. We’re a long way from Faerun.” Geran glanced at the ancient roadway winding through the forest and grimaced. If more creatures like the eye-monsters haunted the black moon’s jungle, Mirya and her daughter were in terrible danger. He could only pray that the Erstenwolds hadn’t run across any of these creatures, or worse.

Somewhere close at hand in the forest shadows, the hooting cry went up again. It was answered by another off in the distance. Hamil swore and looked up at Geran. “They’re talking to each other, damn it! I don’t think they’re done with us yet.”

“Then we’d better move on, and quickly. No sense waiting for more of them to get here.” The swordmage chose to head uphill, following the road as it climbed toward the hilltops ringing the lake, and set off at a trot. He wanted to cover ground, but he had to make sure he didn’t miss any trail signs or run headlong into some other jungle monster. The thought of Mirya and Selsha wandering in this dreadful place chilled him to the marrow.

He knew he should be careful of getting too far away from Seadrake and the pirate keep-after all, there was always the possibility that the battle had turned against the Hulburgans again, and he and Hamil might be desperately needed to finish the Black Moon Brotherhood. But he couldn’t bring himself to even consider turning back. In the two years since he’d last walked under Myth Drannor’s golden leaves, the days he’d spent with Mirya and her daughter had been the only ones when he’d been able to truly forget the loss and loneliness of his exile. He couldn’t leave this place until he knew that she was safe. If he had to, he’d send Seadrake back home and stay to search the worldlet from one end to the other himself.

The road climbed steeply upward through the shadows of the forest in a set of moss-covered steps and then broke out of the foliage high on a hillside. The sapphire lake glittered below, stretching for several miles through the jungle-covered hills. Ruined walls of glossy black stone tumbled around them, marking out the overgrown outline of some ancient temple or palace. Geran looked back the way they’d come; he guessed they stood nearly two miles from the keep now. Kraken Queen and Seadrake still lay side by side at the wharf, so he supposed that the fighting hadn’t yet taken any truly disastrous turn. It was cool and still in the open air atop the hill.

“Mirya!” Geran called. “Selsha! Are you here?” No one answered. He jogged across the old plaza to the far corner and shouted again. “Mirya! Selsha!”

The ruins remained silent. Dark archways and scarlet creepers brooded under the heavy black stones of the walls. In growing desperation, Geran ran from side to side, looking frantically into old doorways and around corners. Hamil followed, keeping an arrow on his string, watching Geran’s back. With a cry of pure frustration, Geran turned back toward the lake view. “They’re not here!” he said. “We should have followed the road down instead of up-assuming we didn’t lose the trail somewhere before that. Come on, Hamil.”

“Wait a moment. Let’s be sure before we give up on this choice.” Hamil scrambled to the top of a low wall, followed it to the place where it met a building facade, and then scaled the crumbling roofline. From his vantage he took a long moment to study their surroundings. Geran glanced up at the sky and saw that bright glimmers of pale violet were beginning to streak the absolute blackness overhead. There was a bright gleam on the trailing limb of the moon; dawn, such as it was in this place, was not far off. Then from somewhere close by in the ruins, a chorus of hooting calls and brash yips erupted, echoing loudly in the ancient stone walls.

Hamil winced and crouched low to the roofline. More of the eye-creatures, he observed. They’re almost on top of us!

“Of course they are,” Geran growled. He glanced around and spied a narrow street of sorts that led down off the hilltop. High stone walls offered some hope of concealment, and would keep monsters from surrounding them. “Quickly, this way!”

He darted for the alleyway, listening to the creatures calling to each other in the ruins. Hamil slid down from his perch, alighted on his feet, and raced after him. The alleyway wound past the shells of several old buildings on the hilltop before descending sharply on the other side. The old walls pressed in closely around them, and thick clumps of blue-glowing fungi gathered along the worn stone steps. Geran found a low doorway to one side and ducked inside. The building was open to the sky, its roof long since vanished, but the high walls and narrow doorway offered a defensible retreat. He drew his sword and waited by the opening; Hamil readied his bow and stepped back to watch the walltop in case the moon-monsters scrambled over.

“I think I’d like to go back to the keep and fight pirates now,” Hamil said in a low voice. He laid an arrow across his short bow.

Geran allowed himself a grim smile and tightened his grip on his blade. He heard the monsters moving through the ruins close by-the soft padding of pale, taloned feet on old stone, the maddening notes as the creatures called to each other. He drew his sword back, ready for a lethal thrust through the center of the archway at the first creature to appear … but none of the monsters appeared. The calls continued, but started to move off again. He risked a peek out the doorway and glimpsed one of the monsters bounding past, already by them. It vanished into the ruins.

Did they miss us? Hamil asked.

“I don’t see how they could have.” Geran peered down the alleyway. The moon-creatures hadn’t had any trouble finding them before. Maybe they were on the scent of some other prey … “Bloody hell. They’re after Mirya and Selsha!”

Before he could second-guess himself, he hurried back out into the narrow street and ran after the moon-creatures, following their calls as best he could. Hamil shot him a stern look, but raced after him. They fumbled their way through the maze, now dropping steeply down the shadowed hillside. He bounded around a corner and found himself in a smaller plaza, this one surrounded by leaning five-sided towers whose tops were broken rubble. Trapped in a shallow alleyway between two of the towers, a woman in a thin gown of red silk stood with her back to the wall, fending off several of the eye-creatures with thrown rocks. “Mirya!” Geran shouted.

She glanced up, looking over the pale monsters closing in, and their eyes met across the small courtyard. “Geran?” she said in amazement. She brushed her hair from her eyes.

The moon-creatures wheeled to confront Geran and Hamil. The halfling raised his bow, took aim, and loosed his arrow in the space of a heartbeat. The nearest of the eye-monsters shrieked and leaped into air before flopping to the ground, an arrow buried in its ribs. The others glared at the alleyway and charged across the small plaza; Hamil ducked back out of sight, but Geran fixed his eyes on a spot of ground by another of the creatures and summoned the words for his teleport spell. In an instant he stood beside the thing, sword at the ready. The monster leaped for him, talons outstretched; Geran crouched and drove his elven blade straight into its foul heart, shouldering the stumbling corpse aside as it staggered past him and fell. He rose and shook the ichor from his sword.

Two of the monsters hissed and fixed their terrible gazes on him. He felt his flesh searing under their eyes and stumbled blindly toward the next of the monsters-but Hamil shot again and blinded one of the creatures, and a fist-sized rock sailed out of the alleyway to knock the other one to all fours. With a yip of pain, it scrambled up and bounded off into the ruins; the rest of the pack scattered just behind it. Geran slowly straightened up, searching for any more of the monsters, but they vanished as quickly as they had appeared.

Mirya Erstenwold picked her way out of the blind alley, holding another rock in one hand. Geran blinked in surprise; the red silken robe she wore was hardly decent at all, leaving her long legs and slender arms bare and showing an impressive decolletage. “Geran Hulmaster,” she said, lowering her rock. “You’re a sight for sore eyes! What in the world are you doing in this strange place?”

“I’m looking for you, of course.” Geran sheathed his sword and hurried up to catch her in a quick, fierce embrace. For a moment he allowed himself to forget everything that stood between them, and drank in the sweet relief of finding her alive and unharmed. Whatever else might happen on Neshuldaar this day, at least he’d accomplished that much. “Thank the gods you’re safe!”

“Aye, for the moment.” She closed her eyes and sighed in relief. He couldn’t imagine what she’d been through in the last few days, but Mirya was made of stern stuff; she allowed herself only a moment before she disentangled herself from his arms. A worried frown creased her brow. “Have you seen Selsha anywhere?” she asked.

Hamil looked around the ruins looming over them. “She isn’t with you?”

“No. She’s still lost out here somewhere.” Mirya wrapped her arms around her shoulders and shuddered. “We escaped from our cell in the pirate keep, but we were parted. She fled out the side gate. I heard her shouting and followed her all the way up to this awful place, but then those … things … found me.” She nodded at the dead monsters by Geran’s feet. “They chased me all through these terrible old ruins. Where Selsha is now, I’ve no idea.”

Geran winced at the bitter irony. Mirya had managed to escape from her captors only an hour or two before her rescuers arrived … and now Selsha was lost and alone in this terrible dark forest. If only they’d stayed where they were, they might both be safe now-or at least as safe as Geran and Hamil could keep them. But then again, if they’d stayed where Kamoth and Sergen had left them, the lords of the Black Moon might have done something horrible with their captives once they realized the keep was lost. Either way, it was done now; there was no point in fretting over might-have-beens.

“We’ll find her, Mirya,” he said gently. He took his cloak from around his shoulders and offered it to her; her robe was hardly decent at all, not by Hulburg’s standards. “If she found her way from the moon-keep up to these ruins, there’s no reason she wouldn’t be hiding close by.”

“I know it, Geran.” Mirya drew his cloak around her shoulders with a grateful smile, and composed herself.

“Where was the last place you saw her?” Hamil asked.

“I didn’t see her, but I heard her calling for me from the top of the hill, there,” Mirya said, pointing. “I came down this way after her, and then I met the eye-monsters.”

“So she’s likely somewhere in these ruins,” Geran said. “We won’t leave without her, that I promise you.” He turned to study the ruins nearby and drew in a deep breath. “Selsha!” he called, as loudly as he could, monsters or no monsters. It might take hours to find one small girl hiding in the maze of old buildings and shadowed trees. With luck, they’d find her before the eye-creatures regrouped for another attack … or so he hoped.

I don’t care for the idea of shouting out our location for every hungry moon-monster within earshot, Hamil told him silently. But he shouted, “Selsha! We’re here!” a moment after Geran. Mirya joined them, calling for her daughter with her clear, high voice.

Together, they followed the narrow alleyway deeper into the ruins.