Richard Byers - The Reaver

The one cause for hope was that the Red Wizard appeared intent on her chosen opponent. Mourmyd surveyed the battle as a whole and found a path through the various knots of combatants that would enable him to circle around behind her. He started forward.

Then a familiar voice said, “Now, now. Let the mages have their fun, and you and I will have ours.” Mourmyd pivoted to see Anton Marivaldi advancing on him with a bloody saber in his left hand and a cutlass in his right.

Mourmyd had to swallow away a sudden thickness in his throat. Generally speaking, he had faith in his own prowess and had vindicated that confidence in battle after battle. Yet he realized he didn’t want to cross swords with Anton. Not on a calamitous night like this, when Tymora had so manifestly turned her back on him.

But maybe he wouldn’t have to. Borthog, a boarding axe he must have taken from a fallen Thayan in his hands, crept up behind the Turmishan. Mourmyd need only keep Anton from discerning the half-orc’s approach and the other captain would cease to be a problem.

Retreating, Mourmyd snarled, “You’re a traitor! To your fellow pirates and our faith!”

Anton grinned. “Let’s not belabor the obvious.”

“I mean it!” Mourmyd said, still giving ground. “You’ve thrown everything away!” Meanwhile, Borthog slipped into striking distance.

But as the half-orc raised the boarding axe, Anton whirled. Either he’d known Borthog was there all along or had somehow sensed it just in time. Reflecting the rainbow luminescence of the mages’ duel, his saber sliced into his would-be assailant’s neck. Borthog collapsed with blood spurting from the gash and his tusked head flopping backward like it was on hinges.

But now Anton had his back to Mourmyd. Mourmyd charged.

Anton spun as he had before, sweeping the saber in a horizontal arc. Mourmyd parried and kept driving in. He thrust his cutlass at Anton’s torso.

With his own cutlass, Anton shoved the attack out of line then, in a continuation of the same action, slid the weapon up Mourmyd’s forearm, slicing it from wrist to elbow. Blood welled forth.

Mourmyd blundered on past his foe and wrenched himself around. He nearly dropped his cutlass in the process, then almost lost it again when switching it to his left hand.

Even the uninjured arm had trouble holding the blade steady, and that, combined with a sick, lightheaded feeling, told him his wound was bad. He was afraid to look to see how bad.

Even if it wasn’t as serious as it might be, he had little hope of outfighting Anton Marivaldi with his off hand. Signaling his willingness to drop his cutlass, he held it out to the side and wheezed, “I surrender.”

Anton hesitated. “Well, it is the way of Lathander to give even knaves like you and me a second chance. The boy would want me to show mercy.”

“Yes,” Mourmyd said.

“So I’m glad he isn’t watching.” Saber high and cutlass low, the Turmishan advanced.

By the time Anton brought Stedd from his hiding place to the anchorage, both the column of smoke and the yellow light Umara had created to counterfeit fire had disappeared. But the Thayans had kindled storm lanterns aboard the Octopus , and even in the rainy, overcast night, their glow sufficed to reveal not only the shape of the vessel but the bustle of activity onboard.

Anton paused on the shore to take in the sight. He felt himself smile.

Stedd peered up at him. “Having a ship again makes you happy,” he said.

Anton snorted. “It ought to make you happy, too.”

“It does.” Stedd glanced to where a squatting sailor was sewing bodies into shrouds of sailcloth. “But I wish there’d been another way to get it. You and the Thayans, you hardly talk about it when one of us dies.”

Anton shrugged. “Talking doesn’t bring people back to life.”

“I know, but …” Stedd shook his head.

“Warriors feel something when a comrade falls.” Or at least, some did. Anton realized that prior to meeting Stedd, he hadn’t experienced that emotion in quite a while. “But it’s a bad idea to wallow in it. That goes for you, too. Either Lathander’s cause is worth us risking our lives or it isn’t. If it is, say goodbye to the dead and sail on.”

“I guess.”

“Speaking of sailing on, it shouldn’t take long to ready the ship to head for the sea.”

Stedd frowned. “I have to go into Morningstar Hollows first.”

“Now, how did I know you were going to say that? Maybe Umara will want to tag along. She might as well. Now that the fighting’s over, a lubber’s of no use here.”

The wizard did choose to accompany them, and as they hiked through the woods together, Anton realized that this time, the aftermath of battle had left him feeling peaceful, not restless and morose. With a scowl, he pushed the realization aside lest even thinking of the absent bleakness bring it surging back.

In the settlement, a motley combination of new or refurbished huts and decaying, uninhabited wrecks, a woman’s corpse dangled from a sycamore maple, where she’d been hanging long enough for birds to make a meal of her features. Anton assumed Mourmyd had strung her up and left her as a warning to any villager who might be contemplating defiance.

There were also living townsfolk gathered on the common. Perhaps they’d heard the sounds of battle and were waiting to see who had won.

Umara waved two men-brothers, by the look of them, with the same shape to their broad noses and bony brows-forward. They peered warily back at her.

The Red Wizard gestured to the corpse. “I need you to catch her when I bring her down. Unless you don’t care if she just crashes to the ground.”

The brothers exchanged glances, then positioned themselves beneath the body’s feet. Umara whispered to herself and crooked and uncrooked the fingers of her left hand. The rope supporting the dead woman unknotted itself, and she dropped into her neighbors’ waiting hands.

“You can bury her in the morning,” Anton said. “Her killers won’t interfere for the excellent reason that they’re dead now, too.”

A couple villagers smiled. Others closed their eyes and sighed in a sort of private rapture of relief.

“Did the Assembly send you?” asked the taller of the brothers.

“No,” said Stedd, “Lathander did.”

Anton put his hand on Stedd’s shoulder. “The boy here is the prophet who’s been proclaiming the rebirth of the Morninglord. Perhaps you’ve heard something about that even here on the edge of the wilderness.”

“Can he truly work magic?” asked a woman clad in dark, ragged mourning. “Can he create food?”

“Is that what the village needs?” Stedd replied.

“It’s what everybody needs,” the bereaved woman said. “The crops have failed. All Turmish is starving.”

Uurmishan gentlemen wore brimless drum-shaped hats and loose robes woven in bright patterns, and when Umara asked, one of the grateful folk of Morningstar Hollows had rooted around in a trunk, produced such a citified outfit, and presented it to Anton. The clothes felt strange after years away, but they ought to help him blend in, just as his beardless chin should keep him from looking too much like Anton Marivaldi the young naval officer, customs official, and despicable traitor.

It was his good fortune that in recent years, certain stylish fellows had taken to shaving, and the famous Turmishan square-cut beard wasn’t quite as ubiquitous as it used to be. Traditionalists might frown at Anton in disapproval, but the mere lack of such a feature wouldn’t make him seem peculiar and accordingly suspect.

Some gray pigment in his black hair and a hairline and eyebrows subtly reshaped with a razor completed his disguise. It didn’t seem like much of a transformation to him, but Umara and Stedd both insisted he looked different. With Sapra growing ever larger in front of the Octopus , he supposed he was on the verge of finding out.