Richard Byers - The Reaver

“But you’re needed here,” Ashenford said, and in his voice, Shinthala heard the fear of losing someone who’d been a friend and sometimes more for over a hundred tumultuous years.

But she couldn’t speak to that now, only to their duties and the choices they entailed. “Even without me, the Emerald Enclave’s magic will be at least as strong as it was before Stedd Whitehorn came to us. The restorations of the island and-forgive my bluntness, my friend-of Silvermoon’s sanity ensure that.”

Ashenford shook his head. “Still-”

“There is no ‘still,’ ” Shinthala said. “The more I thought about it, the more I realized Anton Marivaldi was right. We do need to fight these waveservants and pirates, and we won’t be able to lure them into the forests. So we’ll just have to meet them on the water.”

Shadowmoon smiled a sad little smile. “Of the three of us, sister, you were always the one who relished a battle.”

“Then let me have one,” Shinthala said. “Why not? If I die, how much has the Emerald Enclave truly lost? I don’t have elf blood in my veins, and the Treefather’s gift of long life is running out in me.”

“We’ll do everything we can,” said Shadowmoon, “to send you power and luck from here.”

“I know,” Shinthala said. “But do me one more favor. Bring Stedd to the circle.”

The elf cocked her head. “If you think there’s a point.”

“There might be. My judgment tells me we who serve Silvanus should help fight this war. But in the deepest sense, it’s Lathander’s struggle, and perhaps if his Chosen is present when you’re casting magic to oppose Evendur Highcastle, that will finally rouse the boy.” Shinthala smiled at Ashenford. “Or perhaps he’ll simply respond to the sound of your harping. I always did.”

“The boy will be there,” Shadowmoon said. “May the Forest Father keep you.” She waved a tiny copper-skinned hand, and she and Ashenford vanished, just as Shinthala was about to take what might well prove to be a fond last look at them.

With a snort, the white-haired druidess returned to playing lookout. She fancied her sight was still keen despite her advancing years, but even so, a young man in the fighting top partway up the foremast spotted the enemy’s sails before she did. “Pirates off the bow!” he shouted, his voice breaking. Just audible despite the distance and the rain, a sailor aboard the nearest caravel to starboard shouted the same thing.

It had seemed to Shinthala that Delise’s Needle , the ship she’d chosen to ride, had made extensive preparations for battle before ever leaving the harbor. Still, the lookout’s warning triggered bursts of activity both on deck and aloft. Some of it, like the artillerymen fussing over ballistae and catapults, was comprehensible even to a landlubber. Other procedures were not.

But in all cases, the haste seemed to reflect taut nerves rather than necessity. The Umberlant fleet was still far away. Refusing to succumb to her own anxiety, Shinthala watched its upper sails, then the lower ones, and finally the hulls of the vessels appear above the waves before she fetched her cloak and whirled it around her shoulders.

Perhaps that momentary respite from standing and staring did her good. For when she looked out over the rail again, she noticed gray shadows gliding beneath the waves in advance of the Umberlant ships. One raced straight at Delise’s Needle .

Muttering a charm of seeing, she studied the oncoming form, and then she perceived it as clearly as if she were swimming alongside it. It was a long, slender fin whale, gray-brown on top and paler on the belly, and magic crawled in its head like worms. No doubt that was the source of the rage or compulsion driving it toward the warship.

Fortunately, a whale was an animal, and in theory, druids had power over all beasts, even those of the sea. Shinthala held out her hand and called her sickle with her thoughts, and it leaped into her grip all the way from her personal quarters in the Elder Spires. She whirled the bronze blade in ritual cuts as she rattled off words of command. Holly-ghostly to others, she knew, but real to her-flowered around her and filled the air with its scent.

She felt her spell start to close around the whale’s mind like a hand, then something-the original enchantment impelling the animal, no doubt-slapped that notional hand away hard enough to break its fingers. The resistance spiked pain between her eyes. She was still reeling from it when the finback rammed the ship.

The jolt hurled her sideways, and for a panicked instant, she imagined she was about to tumble into the sea. Then the rail caught her.

She took a ragged breath and looked around. Clutching crossbows and javelins, sailors peered over the sides waiting for the whale to make another pass at the ship.

Maybe Shinthala should let them try to kill it, blameless though it was. But if she did mean to try again to calm the finback with magic, it would be counterproductive for her allies to cause it pain.

She cast about and her eyes fell on Thieron Astorio, the other druid onboard, a small barefoot man whose armor of dyed leather scales was fashioned to make it look like he was wearing a coat of leaves. His staff in one hand, Thieron clung to a forestay with the other, an indication that he hadn’t found his sea legs any better than she had.

Still, he looked calm and was an initiate of the Circle of Air, far advanced in the mysteries, and that helped Shinthala make her decision.

“Don’t attack the whale!” she bellowed to the crew at large. “Give me another chance to send it away!” She looked at Thieron. “Druid! I need you!”

Weaving a little, he ran to her.

“We’re going to control the whale together,” Shinthala told him. “I’ll destroy the magic that’s making it attack us. When you sense that giving way, cast a spell of friendship.”

“I understand,” Thieron replied.

They peered at the sea but for a moment couldn’t find the whale. Then, perhaps realizing they’d lost track of the finback, a sailor shouted, “It’s to starboard!”

Dodging around a ballista and the artilleryman waiting to shoot it, the two druids hurried to that side of the bow. The fin whale was turning for another run at the caravel. This time, it meant to ram her amidships.

Shinthala shouted words of negation and swept her sickle back and forth while once again, holly grew around her. She imagined the cruel power driving the whale to batter the ship without regard for its own well-being as a chain. Her counterspell was rust, pitting the links and crumbling them away.

This time, she was ready for the waveservants’ magic to fight back. Still, it nearly slapped her away. But then she felt the power of Ashenford, Shadowmoon, and the other druids in the House of Silvanus streaming like a river in the sky. She seized it, melded it with her own, and stabbed with the result.

The magic slithering inside the whale’s head withered away. And, as Shinthala briefly sensed, somewhere aboard one of the pirate ships, a priest of Umberlee screamed in pain and blood gushed from his nostrils.

But despite its liberation, the finback, likely angry and confused, was still coming. Thieron recited the spell of friendship, and it emerged as a nasal moan unlike anything Shinthala had ever heard.

But strange as it sounded to her, the finback understood it. Instead of ramming the caravel, the animal dived and passed underneath.

Sailors cheered, and Shinthala was happy enough to contribute to their morale. But she suspected they might not be so exuberant if they realized just how difficult it had been for two allegedly mighty druids to counter Umberlant magic here at sea with the will of the Bitch Queen’s Chosen reinforcing it.