Rising Tide

I

The Sea of Swords 9 Mirtul, the Year of the Gauntlet (1369 DR)

"How much for a few hours of your time, boy?" Jherek stopped coiling the thin rope he was going to use to repair the ship's rigging and looked at the young Amnian woman who'd stopped in front of him. His heart seemed to hang in his throat. He'd watched her during the voyage, never dreaming such a wealthy and pretty woman would ever notice him, much less speak to him. Barely over nineteen, he stood nearly six feet tall and his lean frame was corded with muscle from the hard work he'd done since he'd been a boy. His light brown hair was threaded through with sun-bleached highlights from constant exposure to the salt and sun. He wore only an abbreviated leather ship's apron that hung to his mid-thighs and held numerous pockets for the tools he needed and a short-sleeved shirt. The sun had burned his skin a dark bronze and made the pale gray ice of his eyes stand out even more. He went shaven, not liking the facial hair worn by most of the other sailors. Gold hoop earrings hung from both ears.

"Lady," he said formally, after giving careful consideration to his words, "if there is anything you need, Captain Finaren and his first mate will see that you have it. You and your party have hired the best-"

"We've hired the best sea captain in all of the Duchy of Cape Velen. Yes, we've all been told that." The woman waved his words away, rolling her dark eyes skyward as if bored.

Jherek felt embarrassed and awkward, partly that she'd turned his words and made them sound small in that Amnian accent of hers, and because she was so incredibly beautiful.

He figured she wasn't much older than he was, surely no more than five years his senior. She wore a turban as was the custom of the Amnian wealthy, festooned with gold and silver coins and small jewels to further show her ranking even among the merchant class. Her hair was pulled up under the turban, leaving her delicate face uncovered. Her eyes were big dark moons of liquid fire and she had a nose that some might consider too short but that Jherek found attractive. Her red silk cape fluttered around her, caught by the soft southerly breeze coming across the Sea of Swords. Bracelets sewn into the cape kept it around her, but it didn't conceal her slender, womanly figure. Even that was barely restrained in a beaded bodice and gauze pantaloons over a matching girdle. Delicate slippers encased her feet.

"If I'd thought your precious Captain Finaren could have given me what I needed," the Amnian woman said, "I'd have gone straight to him."

She took a step closer to him and traced a line with her forefinger down from his lower lip, across his chin, and down to his chest, toying briefly with the ceramic teardrop as big as her thumb that hung from a leather thong around his neck. Her hand continued dropping to the flat planes of his stomach.

Jherek stepped back before she could go any further. He was suddenly acutely aware of the other ship's mates halting their work to watch. Even the other Amnians aboard paused in their endless conversations of money and exchange rates to watch him.

"Instead," the Amnian woman said, "I came to you. You should be flattered."

"Lady," Jherek said helplessly. He felt certain that he was the brunt of some joke he didn't understand, but he had no idea what to do about it.

"I am called Yeill," she said. "I am the favorite daughter of Merchant Lelayn." She raised an arched eyebrow. "You are familiar with Merchant Lelayn, aren't you?"

"Aye," Jherek replied. "Of course." Merchant Lelayn had hired Finaren's Butterfly to take the Amnian party to Baldur's Gate for trading, then bring their cargo back home to Athkatla, also known as the City of Coin, in Amn. He wished he'd been quicker with the ropes and had gone back up into the rigging before the woman had caught him, but he had no one to blame but himself. Over the last few days of the trip she must have seen him gazing at her.

"Good," Yeill stated. "I thought there might be some brains inside that pretty head of yours, though they aren't all that necessary for what I have in mind." She placed a hand on his bicep, squeezing the muscles there. "You are in very good shape."

Jherek flushed red, feeling the burn across his cheeks, like he'd faced the wind for an entire shift at the tiller. He gazed past her, noting a small group of white heggrims flying low around the cog. The birds kept pace with the ship, waiting for any garbage that might be thrown overboard.

Finaren's Butterfly skimmed smoothly across the water, rocking back and forth across the swells. The ship's colorful sails gave her her name and the few remaining that weren't damaged from the recent storm belled out, catching the wind. Other hands hung in the rigging, repairing the storm damage.

"So how much for a few hours of your time, boy?" she asked again. "I'm willing to pay you, though after the way I've seen you mooning after me, I know I wouldn't have to."

It was his fault. Jherek dropped his eyes from hers, no longer able to look at her even out of politeness. She had caught him gazing at her. It was his ill luck that had followed him all of his life showing itself again. There was never a day that he wasn't forced to remember that it dogged his every step. His tongue felt thick, and no words came to it.

"I have heard you called Jherek," she said. "Is that your name?"

"Aye, lady." Jherek struggled to get the words through his tight throat. "If I've offered you any affront, I apologize. The captain would have the skin from my back for such a thing."

She smiled. "I've no doubt that he would. Your Captain Finaren seems a man the Amnian can easily understand. His life revolves around his bottom line, and how well he can line his pockets, but you've offered me no affront."

Jherek felt relieved, only wanting to scurry up the rigging and get away from the woman's gaze. He'd fought pirates and sea creatures for the future of Finaren's Butterfly, but he felt naked and outmatched talking to the woman.

"Thank you, lady."

"Yet," she added, lifting both brows again. Curious lights, like embers, flew through her dark eyes. "Would you deny me the pleasure of your company then, young Jherek?"

"Lady, I have no way with social graces, and I lack in my education," Jherek said honestly. He knew he was lying, though. Madame litaar and Malorrie had seen to his education since he was twelve, and they had both been demanding taskmasters.

"I'm not looking for a gifted conversationalist, Jherek."

Yeill swirled her cape around herself, revealing the lean body cloaked beneath. "My father has done well with his trading in Baldur's Gate. I can afford to be generous."

"There are many other crewmen," Jherek said.

"You are by far the most handsome."

Jherek flushed again. Never had a woman been so shameless in her pursuit. Even the scullery maids of the Figureheadless Tavern along the eastern dock walk in Velen were not so forceful.

"Perhaps you've not seen me in good light, lady," he said.

"Can it be?" she asked with obvious delight. "Handsome and modest?" She wrinkled her brow, then a smile dawned on her crimson lips. "Or is there more to it?"

Jherek shouldered the rope. "I have to get back to work, otherwise it will be the barnacle detail for a month for me if the captain finds me dallying."

Yeill's voice sharpened. "You'll stay here till I say you can go, boy."

Part of the old resentment at being unfairly commanded and ordered welled up in Jherek, and it almost loosened his tongue before he seized control of it. "Aye, lady."

"My father hired this ship and all the men aboard it to see to our needs during our voyage," the Amnian woman stated. "That work won't be shirked."

Jherek bowed his head, using the motion to break the eye contact. "Aye, lady."

"How old are you, boy?"

"Nineteen."

"Yet you are only a deckhand, not a mate."

"I've not had the promise of potential."

"Then your captain lacks ability in picking his men. When the storm wracked this ship yesterday morn, you were the first to climb up into the rigging and cut the ropes to save at least some of the sails."

"I don't think I was the first." Jherek knew that he was, though. The rigging held no fears for him, even in the worst of storms.

She ran her eyes over him again, lingering on the apron across his narrow hips. "Tell me, boy, have you never been with a woman before?"

Jherek steeled himself and faced her. His answers had to be his own and truthful, and she was demanding them. "No."

She stroked his face with the back of her hand. "With your looks, that has to be by choice."

Jherek reached up and captured her hand in his, then slowly removed it from his face. "Aye."

"You do like women?"

"Not all of those I've met," Jherek told her, skating the thin line of insubordination, "but in the way you mean, aye."

"Do you find me unattractive then?"

"I think you're a very beautiful woman."

"So you're content to merely look at me?" Her gaze mocked him.

"I don't know you," Jherek said, "nor do you know me."

"I'm willing to get to know you," Yeill stated forcefully, "and pay you for the opportunity."

"I'm not for sale. Not that way." Jherek released her hand and took a step back, just out of her reach. Nausea touched his stomach in response to her offer.

"Ridiculous," the Amman woman snapped. "Everyone is for sale."

"Not me," Jherek said.

She raked him with her fiery eyes. "You tread in dangerous waters, boy. Maybe you don't remember who you're dealing with."

"I remember."

"Do you realize the insult you offer me, boy?"

"There's no insult intended. You asked for something that I'm not prepared to sell."

"You think so much of it, then?"

Jherek wished he could have said more. She would have understood had she been where he'd been, had lived on as little as he'd been given in his early life. There was so little left that was truly his.

"What you ask for can't be bought, lady, only given."

"You speak of hearts, boy."

"I speak of love."

She laughed at him derisively and asked, "You believe such a thing exists?"

"I want to believe," Jherek said. In truth, he didn't know, but he wasn't prepared to settle for anything less than the true love Malorrie's tales had told of.

"A fool believes in love."

He let some of the anger out then, in his own defense. "You would trouble yourself over a fool, lady?"

She smiled at him, prettily, but her eyes were hard and cutting as barnacles. "If he had a handsome face and a soft touch," she answered, "and I had the price. Trust me, boy, I do have your price."

Jherek settled the ropes more securely about his shoulder. "Lady, I mean no offense, but I must get to work." Behind her, he saw Captain Finaren step onto the main deck, leaning on the railing and looking down at him.

"You're a foolish boy," Yeill stated. "You'll regret this." Without warning, she slapped him.

Jherek saw the blow coming and chose not to dodge it entirely. Malorrie's martial training included close-in fighting as well as the blade. Her open hand collided with his cheek and he felt one of her rings cut his face. Blood trickled down his cheek and he tasted it inside his mouth as well. She'd hit harder than he'd expected.

"Tell your fellow sailors that you made an improper advance toward me," the Amnian woman whispered roughly. "If you don't, trust me when I say that you'll regret it."

He met her gaze. "If you think that I would choose to dishonor you," he told her in an equally low voice, "you still show your ignorance of the kind of man I choose to be."

"You're no man," she said. "A man would have come to me himself, days ago." She turned sharply and walked away from him.

Jherek stood there, his face burning crimson, and listened to the jeering catcalls of the other sailors. Shaking a little with the anger and fear that nearly consumed him, he walked to the nearest rigging and leaped up into the ropes. He climbed swiftly, edging out to the area that he'd been assigned to repair.

When he showed no sign of responding to the catcalls and off-color comments, the other sailors gave up baiting him. High above the deck, feeling the morning sun soak into him, he let go of the emotions, pushing them out of his body. Madame litaar had been the first to get him past the fear that had become his birthright. She had taught him to trust himself, and gradually a handful of others, but he was at his best when he was alone.

His fingers worked cleverly, almost without him thinking about it. He braided the new rope in with the old rigging, then cut away the frayed pieces. The cries of the heggrims, following after Finaran's Butterfly for the garbage that was dumped every morning and after every meal, soothed him. He chose a new piece of rope and paused long enough to gaze out across the water.

The ocean spread rolling and green. He loved the sea, loved the sailor's life, loved the autonomy of living aboard ship. Those things took him away from large groups of people. Interacting with others, especially when they didn't make sense, drained him and often left him dispirited.

He breathed in the salt air and felt invigorated. The Amnians would be gone soon, and they'd be home in Velen for a few days. He found he was looking forward to it more than usual.

"What happened betwixt you and that girl, lad?" Jherek sat in the rigging, tied in now as he worked the more narrow and more tricky spots on the mast. The storm yesterday morning had been unforgiving, ripping across the cog's decks and doing exterior damage that would be repaired at a later time.

"What's she saying?" Jherek asked carefully.

Captain Virne Finaren stood on the nearby mast arm, a short burly man of sixty and more years who hadn't given up any aspect of his duties to his ship. The captain still hand-trained the more capable of his crew. He'd taught Jherek the few things the boy hadn't known about ships.

"She's saying that you made improper advances toward her," Finaren said.

He wore a full beard the yellow color of Calim Desert sand, spotted now with winter silver. The sun had tightened his eyes, making them slits across copper pupils. His face was seamed from exposure to the elements and a dagger thrust had left a harsh scar above his right eyebrow. He wore a doublet, breeches, and boots. A red kerchief kept his long hair from his eyes.

Jherek didn't say anything, keeping his hands busy.

"I'm caught in a bit of a muddle," the captain admitted as he went on.

"Why?" Jherek asked.

"A crewman of mine making advances against a woman on my ship, he's a crewman going to get a taste of the cat."

Jherek knew Finaren was referring to the cat-o'-ninetails he kept for ship's discipline. "Very well," he said.

"Very well?" Finaren repeated after a moment.

"Aye," Jherek said.

"You'd let me take the hide from your back, and we both knowing that pretty little tramp is lying like a rug?"

"I didn't say she was lying," Jherek pointed out.

"Lad," Finaren said, "we both know she's lying. You've never offered any man or woman-or beast, that I know of-anything in the way of an insult. Even them that you've killed in a fight you've never slurred before, during, or after."

Jherek said nothing, feeling bad that his ill luck was affecting Finaren as well. "I was looking at her," he admitted. "Maybe if I hadn't been doing that, she wouldn't have embarrassed herself."

"Valkur's brass buttons, boy!" Finaren exploded. "You're a seaman. You spend a netful of your life away from kith and kin, and the sight of a good woman. Even a sailor clinging to a sinking spar would gaze on Umberlee with favor, and her the cold bitch goddess she is that spares no man venturing out on the ocean. When we go out on the salt as a way of life, we know what we're giving up."

"I'm sorry," Jherek said.

A lump swelled in his throat as the confusion touched him. In every situation he truly believed there was a right thing to do, a fair thing. But for the life of him, he couldn't see what it was in this instance.

"Every manjack on this ship has been looking at them women," Finaren growled, "including meself. A fiery little wench like that, she gets a man's blood up. Trouble is, she knows it too, the little tart. She could've had any man on this cog, yet she went out of her way to reach for you."

"Captain, I didn't mean for any of this to happen," Jherek said. "I've tried to stay away from the Amnians as you suggested."

It had been easy, in fact, since the merchants had partied constantly since being aboard ship and Jherek had never liked being around loud, raucous people. Drinking seemed to blur the lines of polite society, and take away even the rules a lot of good people stood by when they were sober.

"I know, lad. We've just got a wicket of trouble to deal with. The girl's father is demanding some kind of recompense."

"I could offer him an apology."

"That's good of you, but he's looking for something more along the monetary lines. I'm loath to give it to him. I can be a tight-fisted old miser meself, and I believe he knows what really happened betwixt you and that little tramp. He also knows I daren't tell him off without proof of it." He looked away, turning his attention back to the ship he'd spent so much of his life on.

Below, two members of the ship's crew sat in chairs mounted on the aft deck. Most of Butterfly's supply of fresh fish was taken up in nets, but swordfish had been spotted running on the salt earlier. The meat was a delicacy, but the swordfish had a habit of tearing up nets. The sailors sat in the chairs and fished with hooks. It was a lot of work, but it saved the nets. The fishing had also become something of a pastime aboard ship, and men gambled over who would be the first to land a catch.

"Well, lad," Finaren said after a short time, "it's my problem to think on. I just wanted to get the right of it from you."

Jherek nodded, understanding full well the predicament the captain was in. "If there's anything I can do, let me know. I'll gladly do it."

Finaren looked at him with fondness, then dropped a heavy hand on Jherek's shoulder. "Aye, lad, I know that you would. You've been more honest with me than any man I've ever sailed with." He shook his head. "You've enough weight to bear, young Jherek, without dealing with the bilge offered by a selfish and conceited twit of a girl. No, I'll stand up and take care of this. Nobody's going to ramrod this ship but me. You just steer clear of any further encounters with those Amnians. I'll not have you spilling some young fop's guts and garters across my deck because he's trying to show out for Merchant Lelayn."

"Aye, captain."

"Have you had anything to eat, lad?"

"Not since morningfeast."

"The mid-day meal was an hour ago, lad."

"I didn't want to come down."

Finaren nodded. "I know. You stand steady up here. I know you like the solitude anyway. I'll have Cook put together a kit and have it sent up."

"Thank you."

"Faugh. It's nothing, lad. Not many men would have let that girl slap them and walk off the way you did. Nor would they have kept a civil tongue in their heads."

Jherek also knew of no other sailors who carried the dark secret he did. If that secret were to get out, it would see him clear of sailing-if it didn't get him killed outright. Captain Finaren had hired him on in spite of knowing the truth.

Yeill was wrong, Jherek knew, love did exist. He knew that because he loved the old sea captain for the way he accepted him in spite of the birthright that marked him. He watched Finaren nimbly descend to the lower decks, bellowing out orders to the ship's crew at once.

Some of the tense knot gripping Jherek's stomach released. He took a moment to himself and said a small prayer to Ilmater, the Crying God, asking for the strength to go on, then he returned to his work on the rigging.

By late afternoon, only an hour or so short of eveningfeast, the winds deserted Finaran's Butterfly. She slowed to the point of becalming, which was bad enough, but then the Amnians started drinking and partying again, deciding they were bored.

Jherek sat in the crow's nest, curled up with a novel of chivalric romance Malorrie had suggested. He'd also brought a treatise on civil disobedience that he fully intended to discuss with Malorrie when he reached Velen. The whole thought of civil disobedience, for the right reasons and under auspicious circumstances, was confusing. Jherek had read it twice during the voyage, and it still didn't set any easier on his mind. Right was right, and to suggest that it might not be right at times was too much for him to think on.

Taking a pause in the book, holding his place with a finger, he leaned over the edge of the crow's nest and looked down at the cheering and screaming Amnians thronging the ship's stern. His reading was getting increasingly harder as the roil of dark clouds coming in from the west took away his light. He wondered if they were in for another storm.

"Umberlee take the lot of them," Hagagne grumbled, climbing up the rigging to reach Jherek.

Hagagne was in his late thirties, a sallow man with loose skin that never seemed to quite brown enough and left him constantly reddened and peeling. He was bald on top and had an unruly fringe of hair around his head.

"What's going on?" Jherek asked the sailor.

"They've decided to fish," Hagagne answered, perching on the edge of the crow's nest as Jherek made room.

Jherek watched as deckhands brought the two fishing chairs out and set them up. Yeill and one of the Amnian young men sat in the chairs and belted themselves in with the leather restraint straps.

"They saw Marcle and Dawdre fishing earlier," Hagagne said, "and decided it would be great sport."

Jherek knew Marcle and Dawdre had done all right for themselves, bringing in ulauf and whitefish on the long poles as well as the swordfish. A lot of meat had been salted and put back in the ship's larder.

"They've even got a wager going on," Hagagne said with a harsh laugh.

Jherek looked the question at him.

"If the young bitch-"

"Please don't call her that," Jherek said, but his voice carried sheathed steel.

Hagagne shrugged, taking no offense. "If the young lady," the older sailor amended, "wins, she gets one of the dandy's breeding stallions, something he seems to be particularly proud of. If he wins, he gets to spend the night in her silks."

A cold depression settled over Jherek's shoulders.

"You liked her, didn't you lad?" Hagagne asked. "Even after that bit she done for you?"

"I don't even know her." Jherek watched the young woman with a heavy heart, knowing his words were more true than he'd thought earlier.

"You've a tender heart, Jherek. All you young brooding ones do." Hagagne pulled a pouch from his work apron and took out a pipe carved in the likeness of a sea horse. The sea horse's curled tail created the bowl. He filled it with pipeweed, lit up, and said, "Lucky for you it'll pass, and glad you'll be of it."

Once Yeill and her competitor were lashed in, the long fishing poles were attached to the chairs and locked in. As the hooks were baited, the gathered Amnians cheered again and passed around several bottles of the wine they'd been drinking since they boarded in Athkatla.

"Her father knows of the wager?" Jherek asked.

"Aye, and he was one of the first to encourage the competition. To hear him tell it, his daughter's luck is phenomenal." Hagagne grinned evilly. "Only we know about the one that got away, don't we, lad?"

Seeing no humor in the remark, Jherek refrained from responding.

Deckhands threw the baited hooks into the slight wake behind the cog. Yeill and her competitor worked the reels at once, letting more fishing line out. Another deckhand poured out a bucket of chum from the big barrel kept in the stern.

"What about the situation with the Amnians?" Jherek asked.

"You mean about the girl's da breathing down the cap'n's neck?"

"Aye."

"They reached an agreement."

Jherek felt even lower, wondering how much profit Finaren had lost because of him. Even volunteering to give up his wages for the trip wouldn't cover the loss, he was sure. "Do you know what it was?"

"Aye." Hagagne relit his pipe and smiled broadly. "The cap'n said he thought that Merchant Lelayn would hate to try to make a raft of his precious cargo and float it back to Athkatla from the Sea of Swords. The Amman merchant, why, he agreed that was truly so."

"Why did he do that?"

"I got this story only secondhand, you understand," Hagagne said, "so I might not have the right of it, but I do know what was basically said."

Jherek waited impatiently. Hagagne was one to draw on his stories.

"Cap'n told Merchant Lelayn that he had him a crewman willing to take lashes from the cat over what that little bit-that daughter of his had done," Hagagne said. "Cap'n told him that he couldn't do no less than stand by his crewman, and he'd be damned if anybody was going to skipper this ship other than him. Also told Merchant Lelayn that he couldn't do any less than pay for ship's passage ahead of time now, what with all the confusion his daughter had caused."

"The fee was paid?" Jherek asked in disbelief.

Hagagne nodded, puffing on his pipe contentedly. "In gold. Neghram seen it himself."

Before Jherek knew it, a smile lifted his lips. Maybe his luck was finally changing.

"Not many cap'ns would have done what the cap'n done," Hagagne stated. His head was wreathed in pipe-weed smoke. "I might not have believed it myself if I hadn't been on the ship that done it."

"Still," Jherek said, not able to fully shake the doubt that had lived within him all his life, "standing up for me might not have been the best thing to do. The Amnians will get word of what Captain Finaren has done and Butterfly will be on their black lists."

"Kind of thought the same thing, lad. Seems Merchant Lelayn mentioned that to the cap'n. Said he didn't care to do business with a man who didn't keep his mind on business. Then the cap'n, he told the Amnian that an honest man was worth his weight in gold to a man in business for himself, and the passage to and from Baldur's Gate aboard this ship didn't come close to that amount. Said him not standing up for you might mean losing you, and that was his bottom line."

Jherek knew that wasn't true. Getting a berth on a ship's crew had been hard, even in Velen. If it hadn't been for Madame litaar and his experience working in Shipwright Makim's yard, Captain Finaren wouldn't have given him a second glance. If not for Butterfly, he didn't know what ship he would have crewed aboard. There were too many experienced sailors in the Duchy of Cape Velen, and none of those bore his sins.

"In the end," Hagagne went on, "Merchant Lelayn agreed that the cap'n standing up for you was good business. Said when he got back to Athkatla, he'd put another cargo together and ship with Butterfly again."

"That is good news," Jherek said.

"Aye. With the cap'n and Butterfly, we'll do all right. Not many got the rep of either of those."

It was something to take pride in and Jherek did, even though the edicts of Ilmater preached against such feelings. He glanced back at the Amnians below. "I'll wish them good luck in their fishing."

"From up here," Hagagne suggested.

"Aye."

Hagagne gave him a side-long glance. "And hope that the lady wins so that she doesn't have to live up to her end of the wager?"

Jherek's face burned. Thoughts of the young woman sharing her bed silks with anyone didn't set easy with him even though she wasn't what he'd thought she was.

"Don't be so embarrassed, lad. Your heart's full of love at your age, and there's nothing wrong with it, but you could do with a little seasoning, if you'd allow yourself. I know some of the tavern wenches who wouldn't mind a tumble if you'd only ask."

Ignoring the comment, Jherek gazed up at the darkening clouds. The storm seemed more threatening than ever. The shadows had chased the green from the Sea of Swords, turning even the water dark. Off in the distance, pale flickering lightning knifed through the sky.

"You reading again?" Hagagne asked, picking up the book.

"Aye."

"Never found a knack for reading meself," the crewman said, "but I like being read to well enough. What's this book about?"

"A liege's man," Jherek said. "He joined the king's army to fight against the goblin hordes threatening the kingdom, only to find that he's falling in love with his liege's lady."

"Does she know?"

Jherek nodded. "The lady's marriage was an arranged one. She doesn't love her liege. She loves the warrior."

"Perhaps when you have time, you'd read this one to me." Hagagne picked up the thick volume. "I'd predict a short, unhappy ending, but I tell by the heft of this book that's not the case."

"No." Jherek loved the intricacies of the plot, loved the way the liege's man was at war with his own feelings and the rules he'd laid down for himself. He still didn't know how the story would end. "Aye, I’ll read it to you if you'd like."

Hagagne clapped him on the back. "Now there's a good lad. I shall look forward to it."

Jherek replaced the volume in his kit, brought to him earlier by a crewman the captain had sent up. His eye wandered back to the cog's wake to study the fishing lines. He and Hagagne watched in silence for a few moments, then watched Yeill's line suddenly draw taut.

A cheer rose from the throats of the Amnians, showing the effects of the wine they'd been drinking. It died away when the shark's dorsal fin broke the water.

The triangle of cartilaginous flesh looked impossibly large. The brute's gray mottled head broke water next, the fishing line trapped in its snarl of teeth.

The cheers turned to a panicked chorus of fear.

Jherek rose to his feet, yelling down from the crow's nest. "Cut the line! Cut the line!"

The line was stout, unbreakable. Butterfly had a large crew and she had to feed them. The Sea of Swords held big fish, and the captain wanted none of them to get away once they were hooked. The enchantment on the lines he'd paid for kept them from breaking, though they could be cut. Still, two men had been pulled from Butterfly's deck before.

Captain Finaren himself moved first, shoving his way through the ring of Amnian wealthy. He drew his cutlass and pulled it back to swing.

Timbers groaned and screeched as Yeill's fishing chair yanked free of the deck and tore through the railing. She was gone in an instant, pulled under by the big shark she'd hooked.

Jherek stood in the crow's nest and drew his seaman's knife from his leg sheath. The knife blade was a foot long, thick and heavy, with a saw-toothed back for cutting through bone. The small handle barely filled his fist.

"Sea devils!" someone shouted.

Glancing to his left, Jherek saw a sahuagin manta surface on Butterfly's port side. The oblong barge used by the sahuagin to travel above or below water was much smaller than most of its kind that the young sailor had heard described. Like all of its kind that he'd heard about, the manta had been cobbled together from ships wrecked at sea or scavenged from shorelines. The boards were stained green with undersea scud from being submerged for so long, but fitted neatly into a wedge shape that made it very maneuverable. It rode low in the water, but the finned shapes of the sahuagin could be seen hunkered down on the benches. They paddled furiously, moving in response to a measured cadence, totally focused on their prey.

Jherek had heard stories about mantas that crewed as many as six hundred sahuagin, but firsthand stories were few and far between. Most men who saw them perished in the sea devils' attack. From his initial estimate, he guessed that there were forty or fifty sahuagin aboard, easily twice the number of crew aboard Butterfly.

Captain Finaren bawled out orders at once, calling his crew into action.

Jherek looked at the water where Yeill had gone under. He couldn't see her.

"Lad," Hagagne called from the ship's rigging, already moving down to the deck himself. He stopped when he realized what Jherek was about to attempt. "Leave her. She's probably already in that shark's belly by now and not worth your life even if she isn't."

"I can't."

Hagagne reached back for the young sailor, but Jherek avoided the other man's grasp. Without another word, he dived from the crow's nest, plummeting toward the dark water.