Richard Byers - The Reaver

Time to take bigger chances, then. He extended the cutlass and hurled himself forward.

The all-out running attack might well be his last if the sahuagin he’d targeted-the lamed one-simply shifted its longer weapon into line to spit him. But it reacted a hair too slowly, and the cutlass punched into its throat and half ripped its head off as he sprinted by.

Grinning, he wrenched himself around. Then his momentary elation gave way to dismay.

One sea devil broke away and started toward Stedd. Sidestepping, its fellow positioned itself and leveled its trident to keep Anton from rushing in pursuit.

Anton stepped into the distance, inviting an attack, and drew one in the form of a stab to the belly. He parried with all his strength, and that was forceful enough not merely to deflect the trident but to make the sahuagin fumble its grip on it. He lunged, cut, and the creature reeled. He charged around it.

By then, the sea devil that was after Stedd had backed him up against a wall. Either the idiot boy hadn’t had sense enough to run out of the village or else the shacks and ring of spectators had hemmed him in.

Anton cut into the sahuagin’s spine with its spiny, scalloped fin. The shark man stumbled, shuddered, then fell down into a puddle.

The resulting splash almost covered the sound of footsteps charging up behind Anton as he’d rushed behind the creature he’d just dispatched. Almost, but fortunately, not quite. Realizing that, despite the wound he’d given it the sahuagin that had attempted to bar his path was still on its feet, he whirled to face it.

Sure enough, here it came, with blood pouring down from the gash on the top of its head. Hoping the flow was getting in its yellow eyes and blinding it, he decided to feint high and cut low. But then a strangling pain erupted in his chest, and he doubled over retching brine.

Well behind the creature, the waveservant grinned and brandished his trident over his head. In his struggle to best the shark men, Anton had all but forgotten the foe who’d whisked them to the battlefield, but now he realized Umberlee’s servant had cast a spell on him.

The sahuagin poised its trident for a thrust. Anton feebly waved his cutlass but could do nothing more. Until he finished expelling the conjured seawater from his airways, he’d be as incapable of self-defense as any other drowning man.

Then a high voice screamed, and a different trident pierced the sea devil’s flank at the spot where a human carried his kidney. His face contorted, Stedd worked to shove the heavy, triple-pointed spear deeper into the sahuagin’s flesh. The creature hissed and swung its own weapon high for a counterthrust down at its assailant.

Anton’s chest and throat still burned, and he couldn’t stop gasping. But gasping was breathing, and if he could breathe, he could fight. He hacked the sahuagin’s leg out from under it and finished the job of splitting its skull when it fell.

Then he straightened, smiled at the waveservant, and took satisfaction in the flicker of alarm in the other man’s expression. “What’s the matter,” he rasped, “all out of summoning spells?”

The waveservant looked to his parishioners. “Kill him!” he cried. “While he’s still weak!”

After a moment, three of the rougher-looking villagers started forward. But with a theatrical flourish, Anton slowly swept the cutlass, now gory from point to guard, in their direction. They balked.

“For your own sakes,” said Anton, “don’t. Leave the priest and me to settle this between ourselves.” He strode forward, and the rustics scurried to clear his path.

For a moment, the waveservant looked like he was considering turning tail. Then his square face twisted. He hissed words that sounded less like human language than breakers curling and foaming toward a shore, and on the final syllable, jabbed his trident in the direction of his oncoming foe.

Nothing seemed to happen. But intuition prompted Anton to glance back. Streaming up into the air from a puddle, rippling water gathered itself into the shape of a floating trident. If he hadn’t turned, it would have struck him down by surprise. As it might spear him yet, for as he knew from past experience, he couldn’t destroy such a manifestation of magic by any means at his disposal.

He ducked its first thrust, whirled, and ran, zigzagging to throw off its aim. The trick enabled him to reach the waveservant unscathed.

That accomplishment meant he’d now have to contend with two stabbing tridents instead of one, but he didn’t care. All that mattered was that at long last, his true foe was finally within reach.

Anton cut at the waveservant’s head, and the priest blocked the stroke with his trident. The pirate then sprang to the side and discovered an instant later that he’d timed the trick properly. The flying trident streaked through the space he’d just vacated toward its creator.

Unfortunately, though, the three tines splashed harmlessly against the waveservant’s chest. Then the scattered droplets flew back together to reform them as the trident spun itself around. Evidently, the magic couldn’t harm the man who’d worked the spell. But at least for the moment, both tridents, the one of steel and ash and its counterpart of solidified water, were in front of Anton. That was better than having to worry about a stab in the back.

He beat the mundane trident hard enough to loosen the Umberlant’s grip on it. As he’d known it would, the action opened him to a thrust from the flying weapon, but he pivoted back in time to defend with an equally forceful parry. The trident splashed apart, then flew back together as it had before.

But before it could finish reforming, Anton rushed the waveservant. Scrambling backward, the priest dropped the trident and opened his mouth, no doubt to attempt more magic. Happily, to no avail. The cutlass slashed his face and then pierced his heart before he could even start the prayer.

As the waveservant collapsed, Anton spun back around to face the trident of water. He had to dodge one more thrust, and then the weapon fell apart and splashed back onto the ground.

Anton was panting, and his blade shook in his hand. But he couldn’t relax yet. He had, after all, just killed the village priest, and although he’d intimidated the locals previously, they might yet find the nerve to try to avenge one of their own.

He turned around to find them gawking at him. He couldn’t tell how they felt about what had just happened. Maybe they were still deciding.

Then Stedd walked forward several paces, perhaps so everyone in the crowd could see him clearly. “I’m sorry for this,” he said. “We didn’t come here to hurt anybody. But the priest brought it on himself. He wanted to prove Lathander couldn’t help me, and he paid for his disbelief.

“That means,” the boy continued, “he gave his life to teach you all a lesson, but the lesson wasn’t what he expected. Will you learn it? Will you choose a different path than the one he was pushing you down? This is the time to decide!”

A big, middle-aged man with shrewd, deep-set eyes squared his shoulders. He looked like the sort of fellow who might have been a village elder or even mayor before hard times and the desperation they engendered allowed the waveservant to usurp everyone else’s authority.

“Let Aggie go,” the big man said, “and put her things back where they belong.”

His body slumping, Anton let the cutlass drop to his side.

At some point, a sailor, likely at the displaced captain’s command, had rigged a little awning stitched from sailcloth to project out from the edge of the quarterdeck over a bit of the main deck. The cover provided some shelter, and Umara had taken refuge beneath it to eat her biscuit and mug of fish stew out of the rain.