Richard Byers - The Reaver

Evendur Highcastle grinned as he watched a Turmishan caravel whose masts and sails were masses of fire. Some artilleryman shooting burning shot or bowmen loosing flaming arrows had managed to set them ablaze despite the rain, and now the ship was doomed.

Or so he assumed. But then he felt magic stirring on the caravel as some druid completed a spell, and all that flame rose higher into the air, clear of the rigging, and flowed into the form of a gigantic yellow hawk. The elemental spirit looked around, and then, with a beat of its wings, hurtled not at the pirate ship that had set the caravel on fire-that vessel had evidently moved on to seek another fight-but at Evendur’s own galleon the Fury . Crewmen cried out in alarm.

Evendur spoke to the sea and told it to manifest a spirit of its own. Gray-green water heaved and became a colossal squid, which then snatched for the hawk with whipping tentacles.

Steam burst into being as water and fire came together. The burning spirit ripped with its beak and claws. But still, the squid dragged it out of the sky and then beneath the waves. Clinging to life, the hawk continued glowing for a breath or two, and then the light went out.

That left the spellcaster who’d dared to send the fire elemental against Evendur’s own vessel. The undead pirate focused his will on the portion of the sea under the caravel and raised it up like a hill. The Turmishan ship slid down the swell and capsized.

And just for an instant, Evendur felt lightheaded. He gripped the rail to steady himself, and the pressure made liquescence slough away from the firmer flesh underneath.

That instant of shakiness was a reminder that he’d been using his magic freely, and even the might of a Chosen had limits. Now that it was too late, he realized he could probably have killed the druid on the caravel with more finesse. As opposed to squandering the power necessary to destroy an entire crippled ship that, except for the spellcaster onboard, was unlikely to play any further role in the battle.

But Evendur had been annoyed. Because, while he had no doubt he’d win the conflict in the end, nothing was happening as he expected.

For starters, he hadn’t anticipated fighting this fight at all. The Turmishans weren’t supposed to know he was coming. Still, it hadn’t dismayed him to watch them sailing and rowing out of the east, because his fleet was bigger.

Unfortunately, that wasn’t proving to be an insurmountable advantage because some of the ships under his command had proved reluctant to engage the enemy. Pirates liked to think of themselves as fearless masters of the sea, but in fact, they commonly survived by attacking vulnerable targets and avoiding dangerous foes like the Turmishan navy, and maybe some were still operating according to the same principle. And perhaps the sailors from Westgate, Lyrabar, and the other coastal ports resented being ordered to fight on the side of the same corsairs they’d always considered murdering scum. Maybe, unlike the nobles who’d sent them, some had heard the Lathanderian message and doubted Umberlee’s supremacy.

The situation wasn’t as bad as it could be. As far as Evendur could tell, none of his ships had fled or surrendered. Even the reluctant ones fought when a Turmishan vessel forced the issue. But a number seemed to be hanging back in the hope that Umberlant magic would carry the day.

Evendur despised them for their lack of zeal. But he had to admit theirs was a reasonable expectation. The waveservants, after all, were fighting at sea and in their goddess’s holy cause. What else should they need to make them invincible?

But even that wasn’t playing out in the straightforward manner it should. The druids’ control of natural forces allowed them to resist the magic of the sea, and the Emerald Enclave was a notoriously warlike religious order, constantly taking up arms against loggers, settlers, and other despoilers of their sacred forests. Whereas some of Umberlee’s clergy were battle-seasoned, but others were not.

Evendur’s own mystical strength would still have tipped the scales, except that the Turmishans had brought a Chosen of their own. He could feel the presence of his counterpart like the idea of a mighty oak, rooted and massive, looming somewhere ahead.

He needed to kill Silvanus’s Chosen, and then, surely, the Turmishan defense would crumble. Striving for a more precise awareness of the elder druid’s location, he concentrated, and some burgeoning faculty inside him pointed like the needle of a compass.

He ordered the Fury onto the proper heading, and, barking a word of command, jerked the wind back into her sails when some other spellcaster sought to redirect it for his own purposes. A Turmishan ship changed course to intercept the galleon, but fortunately, he had sahuagin swimming around her like outriders, and when he spoke to them in their own snarling, burbling tongue, magic carried the sound to their ears.

The shark men converged on the enemy vessel and, dropping the tridents that would otherwise have hindered their climbing, swarmed up the sides to attack with fang and claw. It was a suicidal assault, but it kept the Turmishans busy while the Fury passed by, and shortly afterward, the ship of the Treefather’s Chosen emerged from the grayness and the rain.

Unlike Evendur’s vessel, she wasn’t a galleon or a grand galley, either, just a caravel. Still, she was plainly a formidable warship, not that it would help her now.

For now was the time for all the brutal, sudden, overwhelming strength that Evendur could muster. He roared a word of power and shook his boarding axe at the caravel. A wave reared up behind her, taller than her mainmast, then crashed down on top of her. The water felt like his own prodigious hand, first trying to swat the ship to splinters, then to grab whatever was left, roll it over, and drag it to the bottom.

But to his irritation, the magic of the enemy Chosen opposed him. He hadn’t caught his foe by surprise. Druidic power attenuated the force of his blow and weakened his grip. When the attack ended, the caravel was still floating upright.

He knew why. For an instant, he’d sensed two additional Chosen of Silvanus. They were ashore somewhere but still lending power to their ally.

Yet even so, that first attack had nearly succeeded, and he saw no reason to allow his foe time to recover the strength to withstand another. Seeking the Treefather’s Chosen, he studied the enemy ship.

The small man in armor that looked like a coat of leaves was almost certainly an accomplished druid. But it was the woman beside him, white-haired but still straight-backed and sturdy-looking, who was plainly Chosen; Evendur could feel the spark of divine power smoldering inside her. Glaring at her, hissing a curse in one of the secret tongues of Umberlee’s worshipers, he willed her lungs to fill with water. Nearly invisible in the rain, a streak of shimmer stabbed at her.

But the magic missed by a finger length. It was like the druidess wasn’t truly standing where she appeared to be. If so, a spell of clear sight might wipe away the deception.

But before Evendur could start casting one, she raised a bronze sickle over her head, and ghostly red flowers bloomed around her like a picture frame. She slashed the curved blade down and bellowed, “Oakfather!” Somehow, the shout was also an ear-splitting thunderclap, and at the same instant that she roared it, the world blazed white, and the undead pirate shuddered in burning agony.

Silvanus’s Chosen had struck him with lightning! He recognized the pain and spastic paralysis from when the two Red Wizards had used the same force against him, but their efforts had been puny compared to what the white-haired druidess had called down from the sky.