Corsair

TWENTY-NINE

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

Geran followed the sound of the axe strokes as he slipped and scrambled over the jungle floor. The path down from the ancient observatory had brought them several hundred yards closer to where he guessed Seadrake was snagged, but it soon became clear that they would have to leave the trail to reach the ship. He chose a place where a small streambed crossed the trail, and he scrambled up the rocky creek, splashing through the cold, clear water. Overhead he could glimpse white canvas through the crimson leaves and make out the voices of sailors shouting and cursing as they hurried to free the vessel from the treetops. Great branches creaked and groaned as the ship’s weight shifted. He climbed up the streambank and found himself standing at the base of a mighty tree whose trunk was easily twenty feet thick. Several other giants stood nearby; Seadrake was caught in their upper branches. He could see the damp curve of the ship’s hull suspended overhead.

“Now that’s something you don’t see everyday,” Hamil said in a low voice. “It takes some seamanship to run your ship aground sixty feet up a tree.”

“They’re freeing her fast enough,” Geran observed. It was hard to tell from the ground exactly what else was holding the ship in place, but based on the number of axe-cut branches and limbs lying near the base of the tree, the crew had already made good progress on their work. He could hear cries of “Hurry, hurry!” and “This one now-all together!” echoing down from above. Then he heard a voice he knew. Somewhere out of sight on the decks above, Sergen Hulmaster called out, “Quickly, now! The harmach’s soldiers could be on us at any moment!”

Hamil glanced at Geran. “I think that was your cousin Sergen.”

“It was,” Geran answered. He stared up at the ship and scowled in anger. He should have known that his venomous serpent of a stepcousin would have found a way to slip away from the destruction of the Black Moon Brotherhood. “I’ll be damned if I’ll let him leave us all stranded here!”

“How many men does he have with him?” Mirya asked.

Geran shrugged. They’d certainly be outnumbered, but with a little luck they’d have the advantage of surprise; the corsairs were busy with their work of cutting Seadrake out of the treetops and likely didn’t expect him and Hamil to be anywhere nearby. He turned his attention to the tree trunk and decided that it was not a difficult climb. The tree forked into thick limbs fairly close to the ground, and thick vines clung to its surface. He could pick out a path that would get them to the windows of the stern cabin or the rail of the quarterdeck with a little effort.

“You’re going up there, aren’t you?” Hamil said.

“We can’t let them have the ship,” Geran replied. “Mirya, it might be best if you and Selsha waited here.”

“I’ll thank you for your concern, but I’ve seen all of this forest I care to,” Mirya said. She held up her bow. “And I may be able to help you.”

“Out of the question. You could be hurt or killed. Sergen and his corsairs won’t be in any mood to take captives if we fail.”

“Better that than the monsters roaming this black forest.”

Geran started to argue the point, but then he thought of the umber hulks and spider-creatures following behind them. The creatures might miss the place where they turned off the trail … or they might not. He wouldn’t want them to come upon Mirya and Selsha here on the forest floor while he and Hamil were on the decks of the ship above. “All right,” he said. “You can come up with us. But you’ll find a safe place to keep out of the way until I call for you.”

“Well enough,” Mirya said. “We’ll follow you.”

Hamil led the way as they scaled the tree. It proved to be an easy climb; the heavy vines helped in the few difficult parts. Geran feared at first that it might be too hard for Selsha, but she scampered up the trunk like a nimble little monkey. Of course, she likely spent more time climbing trees than he did. A few feet below the level of the stern windows, another large fork provided a reasonably comfortable perch that was safely out of sight from the deck above. Geran silently motioned for Mirya and Selsha to wait there, and the two Erstenwolds nodded in acknowledgment. Then he continued up after Hamil.

Better let me have a look first, Hamil said silently. He crept up the last few feet and peeked over the rail, studying the decks above. Seven sailors, three armsmen in mail, your cousin Sergen-and another umber hulk. They’re working up at the bow. It’s driven deep into the trees. No one’s on the quarterdeck.

“An umber hulk too?” The odds were long for Geran’s taste, just with Sergen and his Black Moon allies. He was fairly confident that he could best Sergen-they’d crossed swords before, and he’d had the better of the match-but the presence of ten more enemies and a powerful monster made it simply impossible. Frustration and despair settled over him. Perhaps he could kill Sergen and a pirate or two before he was cut down, but what was the point of that? It wouldn’t keep the rest of the corsairs from sailing off with Seadrake and stranding the Hulburgans in Neshuldaar. He thought hard for a moment, and then he heard another large branch crashing to the forest floor from the ship’s forecastle. If he waited too long, he’d lose his chance altogether. But what chance was there?

Hamil read the despair in his face and grimaced sympathetically. We might be able to stow away, the halfling suggested. Hide somewhere belowdecks until we can thin out their numbers one or two at a time.

A desperate strategy, Geran answered him. And we couldn’t put Mirya and Selsha at such risk. Still, he didn’t see any other possibilities.

A sudden chorus of shouts from the deck above interrupted him. “Stand to your arms! The sorcerer approaches!” the armsmen cried. Footsteps hurried across the deck, and the axe strokes ceased.

“Break out crossbows!” Sergen shouted. “Man the arbalests! He’ll stand off and slay us all with his magic if we can’t drive him off!”

“Sarth?” Geran whispered. He risked a quick scramble up to the rail and peeked over. Sergen and his men scurried all over the deck, seizing weapons and taking cover. A pirate on the quarterdeck hurriedly cranked one of the heavy arbalests mounted at the forward rail. Others crouched by the gunwales, their attention fixed on a distant figure. Streaking over the treetops with his flying magic, Sarth arrowed through the air toward the entangled ship, resplendent in his robes of scarlet and gold. The tiefling aimed his scepter and let loose a searing barrage of bright blue-white sparks. Spitting and crackling, the sparks seared great black marks in the deck; one caught a half-orc pirate who ducked a little too late. The half-orc shrieked and fell smoking to the deck, limbs flailing uncontrollably. Crossbows snapped and hissed in reply, but shields of unseen magic kept the quarrels from finding Sarth’s flesh. Still the deadly bolts forced Sarth to dodge aside. Evidently he didn’t trust his magic to halt a well-aimed quarrel fired at a stationary target.

Hamil grinned. “I think our odds just improved!”

Geran nodded. If the sorcerer’s appearance wasn’t the chance he was looking for, he didn’t know what was. “Quick-tell him we’re here, and get him to move toward the bow!” he said.

The halfling fixed his eyes on Sarth and frowned in concentration. He had to be fairly close to speak into someone’s mind, and the tiefling was hovering a good distance from the side of the ship. But Sarth quickly glanced toward them with a surprised look. The tiefling’s teeth flashed in a fearsome smile, and he swooped off to his left, moving toward the front of the ship. Sergen, his armsmen, and the Black Moon corsairs all turned to follow him.

“Get your bow back from Mirya,” Geran told Hamil. The halfling nodded and slipped back down the trunk. Then Geran cleared his mind to conjure up the best defensive spell he knew-the Scales of the Dragon. “Theillalagh na drendir,” he said. A rippling aura made of violet shards of magical force shimmered into existence around him, flowing over his body like a coat of scales. Hamil returned a moment later with the bow and quiver.

“The umber hulk first,” Geran said softly. “If we can slay it quickly, we’ll have a fighting chance against the rest.”

I doubt I’ll be able to drive an arrow through that monster’s hide, Hamil told Geran.

“Give it a try. If nothing else, you might distract it for me.” He surveyed the deck quickly. Sergen’s small band had worked furiously to clear away the branches that snagged the forward shrouds and stays; the Black Moon deckhands and armsmen now crouched amid the cluttered branches and canvas, snapping off quarrels at Sarth whenever the sorcerer showed himself. Then, before Geran could think better of it, he swarmed up the last few feet of the branch and vaulted over the ship’s rail.

No one noticed his appearance at first. He dashed forward and leaped down the steep steps leading to the main deck. Behind him, Hamil raced up to the forward edge of the quarterdeck and halted at the top of the steps, taking aim. His bow thrummed twice; the first arrow took the pirate by the arbalest in the middle of his back, and the second ruined one of the great insectile eyes of the hulk. The creature screeched in agony, its great claws flailing in the air. Geran immediately attacked the creature’s flank. He stabbed it at the meeting of its leg and torso, and his point sank through the soft chitin of the joint. Dark ichor splattered the deck, and the monster’s leg buckled underneath it, but it responded with a furious rake of one great claw that he barely ducked under.

“Geran!” Sergen snarled. He whipped his rapier from the sheath. “You two, keep working on getting us free,” he snapped at his crew. “The rest of you, to arms! I want Geran Hulmaster dead!” Then Sergen threw himself to the deck as one of Hamil’s arrows sped right through the place where he’d been standing.

Geran backpedaled from another of the enraged umber hulk’s blows and saw a big, mailed armsman closing in behind him. The fellow’s head was shaven, and his face was tattooed with arcane sigils. Leaving the umber hulk to flounder to its feet, Geran wheeled and leaped to meet his new foe. This fellow was a swordsman of some skill, and he parried Geran’s high slash competently before returning a similar stroke. For several heartbeats they dueled fiercely, steel ringing shrilly as blade met blade. Geran gave back a step and suddenly turned his blade to throw his opponent’s edge into the mainmast nearby. The weapon caught for an instant, and Geran leaned close to throw his right elbow into the man’s face. It was nothing that his old teacher, Daried Selsherryn, would have approved of, but it worked; the big man reeled away, blinded by the pain of a flattened nose. Geran would have finished him then, but Sergen rushed him from his other side. The exiled lord attacked with a series of lightning-swift jabs and lunges, using his natural speed and light blade to good advantage.

Again Geran had to give ground, until he found an opportunity to snarl the words of a sword spell. With a cry of “Reith arroch!” he conjured a brilliant white gleam to his edge and launched a flurry of counterattacks. He gave Sergen a shallow slash to the left arm, and Sergen leaped back with a curse. But before Geran could press his stepcousin, the umber hulk hurled itself back into the fray with a roar of anger, splintering the deck with a single pulverizing blow of its massive claws. He managed to slash it once across the mandibles and then had to leap for his life.

“You seem a little overmatched, Geran,” Sergen taunted him. “You would have been wiser to let me go, I think!”

There are too many of them, he realized. As soon as I corner one, the others will have me. He risked a quick glance toward Hamil and saw his small companion fighting against a pair of pirates with his daggers in hand. A brilliant flash of lightning, followed by a great thunderclap, echoed through the treetops as Sarth blasted a small knot of crossbow-armed Black Moons near the ship’s foremast. The ship lurched to one side as one of the branches trapping the bowsprit shattered under the impact of the sorcerer’s spell.

“I think the odds are improving,” Geran replied. All he had to do was avoid getting killed by the umber hulk and keep Sergen and his bodyguard busy a little longer, and Sarth’s magic would eventually sweep the deck clean of pirates.

“Geran!” Mirya scrambled over the rail back by the quarterdeck and then turned to help Selsha make the jump. “The spider-creatures found us! They’re coming up after us!”

Sergen gave a single bark of laughter. “Ha! I see you’ve met the neogi, then. So much for improving the odds, Cousin!”

“By all the screaming Hells,” Geran snarled. He scrambled back from another blow of the umber hulk’s fist, trying to keep the mainmast between the monster and himself. The tattooed swordsman edged closer, and on the opposite side Sergen glided in with a grin of anticipation. He couldn’t afford any more foes, not at the moment. He risked a quick glance forward and saw that the two pirates were still working on cutting the ship free. Another large limb cracked and dropped away, falling to the forest floor far below, and the ship’s deck suddenly canted in the other direction. She’s working loose! he realized.

He looked back to the quarterdeck. “Hamil! Take the wheel and get us away from here!” he shouted.

Hamil nodded. He drove back one of his pirates with a furious frenzy and then turned on the other one and rolled up under the man’s guard to bury a knife in his belly. Before the fellow could even sink to the deck, the halfling dashed across the quarterdeck and seized the wheel. Hamil glanced once at the sails and then turned the wheel to the right and willed the ship’s bow to rise. Seadrake twisted awkwardly where she was snagged, and the deck’s list grew so precarious that Geran feared she might go over on her side and dump everyone on board to the ground. Then, with the splintering of wood and the snap of parting lines, the caravel heaved her bow free and pointed her nose to the sky.

Instantly the deck rolled hard in the opposite direction as the ship leaped skyward. Geran lost his footing and slid to the opposite gunwale, catching himself there. Mirya locked one arm around the sternrail and hugged Selsha tight with the other. The second of Hamil’s pirates was not so lucky and was hurled off his feet when the ship rolled. He toppled over the side with a terrified wail. Sergen and his tattooed swordsman fetched up against the rail, but the two pirates who’d been at the bow working to cut the ship free now tumbled aft, rolling along the deck as the bow shot skyward. The umber hulk seized the mainmast in one claw, and reached out with its other arm to seize Geran. Its talons came up inches short of Geran’s leg, raking the tough old oak of the deck like soft sand as Geran kicked himself out of the way.

“Kerth! Kill the halfling!” Sergen shouted. The tattooed armsman steadied himself against the rail and then climbed back toward the quarterdeck.

The halfling glanced back at Mirya. “Take the wheel! Hold her steady!” he cried. Mirya hurried over to seize the ship’s helm, while Hamil retrieved his daggers and moved to meet the swordsman Kerth in the narrow space at the top of the quarterdeck ladder. But at that moment several arachnid legs appeared over the sternrail, and one of the neogi clambered over the side. It hissed at Mirya and her daughter, and Selsha screamed. The girl backed away from the spiderlike creature, which scuttled after her.

Geran struggled to get to his feet and go to her aid, but the umber hulk released its grip on the mainmast and lunged for him. This time its iron-hard talons ripped across his torso. Only his magical wardings saved his life, but even so the claws tore flesh and bruised bone. He was knocked spinning across the deck by the creature’s incredible strength. It pounced on him with surprising speed for a monster so large. He threw his sword up to fend it off, and then he made the fatal mistake: he looked into its eyes.

Instantly, his thoughts seemed to splinter into vertigo and nonsense. He staggered back, unable to remember where he was or what he was doing. The roaring of wind, the crackle of the tattered sails, the dizzying rush of the forest-covered hillsides spinning away under the rail, and the brilliant stars reeling by in a sky of pure black-all these things crowded in on his senses in a fearsome jumble. Clumsily he threw his sword point out, hoping to fend off the monster looming over him, but the umber hulk batted aside the blade and pounded him into the deck. He groaned and tried to crawl away, but it seized him around the waist and dragged him to its huge mandibles. Its scythelike mouthparts clacked together and scissorred eagerly, anticipating the taste of his flesh.

“Geran!” Mirya shrieked.

He struggled to make sense of what he was seeing, and closed his eyes to shut out all of the things he didn’t understand. His thoughts cleared a little, and he seized with all of his willpower at the fragile promise of calm, even as the hulk’s talons ground into his waist, and the mandibles slipped against his magical scales. The pain jolted him into clarity. In pure desperation he stabbed blindly straight ahead with his sword and caught the monster in its mouth. It roared and let go of him; Geran hit the deck and fell, still helpless from its maddening gaze.

The creature raised both of its huge arms over its head, ready to crush Geran where he writhed. But then a searing jet of fire blasted the umber hulk. Sarth appeared thirty feet from the ship’s rail, hovering in midair as he scoured the creature with his sorcerer’s fire. “Desist, creature!” he shouted between the words of battle spells.

The umber hulk reeled away with a screech of pain, and abruptly Geran’s mind cleared again. The huge monster floundered across the deck, retreating from Sarth’s fire, and fetched up against the opposite rail. Geran picked himself up and charged the monster while it flailed under the sorcerer’s flame. He reversed his grip on his backsword, capped his left hand over the pommel, and then drove the blade up under the hulk’s jaws with all of his strength. The thing shuddered and then toppled over the rail, almost taking his sword with it. He wrenched it out of the carcass as it went over the side, and had to catch himself hastily on the rail. Then Sergen’s sword point sank into the back of his left shoulder, missing his heart only because the umber hulk had dragged him around as it fell. Geran cried out as the sharp steel grated on bone before he twisted away.

“Damn you, Geran!” Sergen hissed. “You have meddled in my affairs for the last time!”

The swordmage clenched his teeth together and pushed the hot agony in his shoulder from his mind. He parried Sergen’s next thrust and risked a quick glance around to make sure his cousin was not about to drive him into some new peril. Sarth burned down the last of the Black Moon men with a jagged lightning bolt that blasted splinters from the battered deck, and then wheeled in midair to trade spells with the spider-creature threatening Mirya and Selsha-the little horror was a sorcerer too, and their magic roared and thundered across the deck. Hamil fought grimly on against the tattooed swordsman, still trying to battle his way to the ship’s helm. Beneath the rolling hull the serrated hills and crimson jungle of the dark moon drifted past, many hundreds of feet under the keel and falling away with every moment.

He returned his full attention to Sergen and adjusted his grip on his elven blade. The mithral rose of its pommel was splattered with blood, but the wire hilt was sure and certain in his hand. Anger, black and pure, swept over him-the same dark, cold loathing that had carried him away from himself in the golden woodlands of Myth Drannor on a fine fall morning two years past. He looked into Sergen’s eyes and saw nothing but duplicity, murderous scheming, and sneering superiority. His blade flowed unconsciously into a high guard position as deadly intent welled up in his heart. “You’re right about that, Sergen,” he heard himself say in a cold voice, not even realizing that he’d intended to speak. “It’s only the two of us. Time to settle scores, cousin.”

Without waiting for a reply, Geran attacked. Sergen was a good fencer, and he had the lighter blade-so Geran started with his edge, an elegant pattern of figure-eight slashes and quick overhand cuts as he advanced boldly. Driving Sergen to the defensive, Geran forced him to parry his heavier backsword. Pass by pass he knocked Sergen’s blade aside, until Sergen’s face whitened and a feral snarl twisted his face. The exiled lord swore viciously and flung himself into a desperate counterattack, but Geran let the wild thrust pass by him and stepped in close to slam his sword’s hilt into Sergen’s face. Sergen staggered back and fell to the deck, spitting blood from his mashed lips.

Geran allowed himself a low laugh at the desperate fury growing in Sergen’s face. “You’re beaten, Sergen,” he said. He held his blade at the ready and silently marked out the next wound he intended to deal his cousin in payment for all the misery and trouble Sergen had caused. His black wrath impelled him-but past the rogue lord’s shoulder, Geran’s eye fell on Mirya, who fearfully watched his duel with his cousin as she struggled to keep the helm steady. He hesitated, struggling to regain mastery over his anger. For a moment he feared that he would fail, but as quickly as the dark rage had come over him, it released him from its grip. For all the harm Sergen had done, for all the lies he’d authored against the Hulmasters, he was still a kinsman of sorts … and there was no doubt that he knew things that might be very useful in unraveling the plots against the harmach.

Geran grimaced, but he withheld his strike and forced himself to speak. “Surrender, Sergen,” he rasped. “I’ll spare your wretched life. You don’t deserve it, but maybe you can put right some of what you’ve done to our family.”

“Surrender? I hardly think so!” Sergen replied with a sneer. “It doesn’t matter if you best me with your blade-I’ve already defeated you, dear cousin. What do you think’s happened in Hulburg while you’ve been chasing after me?”

“What do you mean?” Geran demanded. “Answer me!”

“I think you’ll find an old friend of yours is waiting for you when we get home.” Sergen pushed himself to his feet, eyes narrowed, and settled back into his guard again. Then he attacked, making good use of his natural speed. His rapier point was a blur, darting quicker than a striking snake, but Geran stood his ground and weathered the onslaught. Sergen’s attack slowed, and the momentum of the duel shifted back to Geran again. The swordmage counterattacked with a spinning combination of draw cuts and quick jabs, pressing the exiled lord back against the ship’s rail.

Sergen parried the first two or three, and then he missed. Elven steel sliced through muscle and bone as Geran wheeled past him, laying open a long cut from right hip to left breast. Sergen made a single choking sound and reeled away, his rapier clattering from his fingers. “You … cannot … best me … so easily!” he hissed between his teeth. “I … will be … harmach …” Then he sagged over the rail and disappeared.

Geran rushed to where Sergen had fallen and peered over the side. The scarlet jungle wheeled slowly past far below the keel, and he spotted a tumbling figure in black and gold, cloak fluttering behind him. He watched in silence until Sergen’s body vanished from sight against the moonscape below. “Farewell, Sergen,” he murmured. He reminded himself that scores-perhaps hundreds-of Hulburgans had died in Sergen’s petty schemes for power. But he did not look forward to telling the harmach that Sergen had died under his blade. Grigor Hulmaster had always hoped for the best from his sister’s stepson; it would grieve him sorely that Sergen had died before finding some measure of redemption.

A sharp thunderclap sounded behind him. Geran whirled around just in time to see Sarth blast the last of the neogi from the ship with a crackling stroke of emerald lightning. The creature screeched piercingly as it fell, its legs jerking and kicking. Then a sudden lurch of the ship threw Geran off his feet and nearly pitched him over the side as well. He seized the rail with one hand and looked around for more foes-but there were none. Hamil had defeated his larger opponent, although he held his hat crushed against his left shoulder as an improvised bandage and didn’t seem all too steady on his feet. Geran sheathed his sword and made his way back up to the quarterdeck.

Mirya looked at him, her eyes wide. “I saw Sergen fall,” she said. “Are you all right, Geran?”

“Wounded but well enough,” he answered. Part of him was glad to see Sergen dead, and he wasn’t proud that he felt that way. But when he looked at it rationally, he knew that Sergen had forced his hand-not only in the duel he’d just won, but in all of the troubles over the last few months. He took a deep breath and set aside his tangled emotions. “Sergen chose his path a long time ago. I don’t think there could ever have been peace between us.”

“No, and I believe that’s the truth of it,” Mirya answered.

No one spoke for a moment, and then Hamil cleared his throat. “Well, the ship is ours again,” he said. “Back to the keep?”

Geran nodded and then looked over to Sarth. The sorcerer watched over the ship’s deck with his rune-carved scepter in hand, waiting for any more foes to appear. “I don’t know where you came from, Sarth, but I was glad to see you at the rail.”

“I am sorry I was so late,” the tiefling said. A bloody hole in his sleeve showed where a crossbow’s bolt had marked him, and blackened splatters across his fine robes spoke to the ferocity of the neogi’s spells. “I was in the keep when Sergen made off with Seadrake. I hurried after the ship as quickly as I could, but I had to ready my spell of flying again before I could give chase.”

“Better late than never,” Hamil remarked. “I’m glad you dealt with the spider-creature, though. I certainly didn’t want to get close to it. Never cared much for spiders, especially talking ones that are as big as I am.”

“I am pleased to have been of service,” Sarth said in a dry voice.

Geran smiled. Now that the fighting was done-at least for the moment-he became all too aware of his injuries. He ached in a dozen places from the clawing the umber hulk had given him, the back of his shoulder burned, and he seemed to have a few smaller cuts he hadn’t even noticed during the fray. Well, with any luck, the voyage home would give him plenty of opportunity to rest. “Bring us about, Hamil,” he said. “We’ll pick up the rest of the ship’s company, the captives they’ve freed, and any prisoners they’ve taken. Then we’ll set course for home.”