Richard Byers - The Reaver

“I’m first,” Anton said. He took hold of the coarse hemp line and climbed hand over hand.

When his head reached the level of the deck above, the clamor of the battle washed over him. As he’d expected, the enemy had left half a dozen men on the starboard side to shoot crossbows bolts and fling javelins into the melee below as targets presented themselves, and, more importantly, to keep any Turmishans from clambering aboard the galleon and causing trouble.

But, Anton thought, that effort had failed. Because he was a Turmishan, and he was about to make a lot of trouble.

He drew his saber and cutlass and skulked closer to the third man in line. Meanwhile, Umara clambered up the rope and over the rail. He winced when her foot bumped audibly against the gunwale, but none of the Umberlant warriors noticed.

A moment later, though, the first man in line, the one in the galleon’s forecastle, turned his head, perhaps to call something to his comrades. When he did, he must have glimpsed Anton or Umara at the periphery of his vision, because he jerked around to goggle at them.

The man bellowed, “ ’Ware-” then collapsed as Umara rattled off a spell of slumber.

Unfortunately, even an unfinished warning sufficed to make the other crewmen turn around. Anton rushed the nearest, beat the javelin in his hand out of line, and sliced him across the belly. The Umberlant warrior fell.

At the same moment, something, pure instinct, perhaps, told Anton to duck. He did, and a quarrel whizzed over his head. The next man forward had shot a crossbow at him.

Anton looked around, found a crate of javelins, grabbed one, and threw it. It caught the crossbowman in the chest, and he toppled backward.

Anton spun back around to see how Umara was faring. She gestured to indicate the men who’d made up the aft portion of the line. All three lay motionless, slain or rendered helpless by her wizardry. He flashed her a grin and pivoted to starboard to look out over the battle below.

As best he could tell, nobody had noticed the skirmish aboard the galleon, and small wonder. Locked in the jostling press of a shipboard melee, the combatants below were far too busy with their own killing and dying.

Evendur was easy to spot. Hulking and hideous, he was fighting on a less crowded patch of deck-less crowded, perhaps, because he’d experienced so little difficulty slaughtering most of those who dared to face him. A white-haired woman with a scimitar in one hand and a bronze sickle in the other fought him with a nimbleness that put many a youthful man-at-arms to shame, but even so, the relentless sweeps of his glowing axe were pushing back into shrouds, halyards, and sheets that threatened to entangle her like a net. The moment they did, the wavelord would chop her to pieces.

Anton couldn’t allow that, because the old woman was Shinthala. His final conversation with the Elder Circle had led him to assume none of them would sail with the Turmishan fleet. But plainly, one had, and she might well be its best hope for victory if she could escape the present onslaught and get back to casting spells.

An attack of some sort had littered the galleon’s deck with stones and lengths of snapped cordage that had previously secured and controlled the yards on the mizzenmast. Anton ran, leaped, and caught a dangling rope.

His weight rotated the yard to which it was attached, and even when the spar jerked to a halt, he kept swinging out over the deck of the Turmishan caravel like a pendulum on a string. When he judged the moment was right, he released his grip.

He thumped down hard, but that was all right. He hadn’t broken or sprained anything, and he’d come down more or less where he’d intended.

Evendur jerked around to face him. If possible, the dead man’s features were even mushier and seemingly incapable of human expression than during their previous encounter, but the way he faltered conveyed surprise even so.

Anton grinned and drew his saber and cutlass. “Well,” he said, “here we are again.”

Stedd didn’t mind that someone had carried him to the circle of stones in the center of the House of Silvanus. He’d been too hot, and the cold rain felt good on his upturned face.

But he did mind the chanting. It made it hard to doze. And the force that throbbed in the ground in time with the words was even more disturbing. It struck echoes in the core of him and reminded him that he too could channel power.

He flinched from thinking about such things because the last time had hurt him so badly. He shifted on the wet grass, trying to squirm his way into sleep, and then a radiant figure appeared, more vivid than any sight had ever been before, even though Stedd’s eyes were shut.

He opened them in surprise and the newcomer remained as before, a smiling, handsome, youthful-looking man, with blond hair, golden skin, and the trim, long-legged build of a runner clad in princely robes of crimson and blue. Strangely, none of the druids, not even Ashenford and Shadowmoon, seemed to notice the interloper standing the middle of their ritual.

Trembling with a joy so keen it almost felt like terror, Stedd took a long breath. “You never showed yourself to me before.”

Lathander smiled, and somehow, that simple change of expression communicated his message as clearly as words: You weren’t ready to see me before. Now, you are.

The Morninglord then waved his hand, and a golden shimmer trailed from his fingers. Stedd gasped as strength and well-being surged through him. Suddenly feeling too exhilarated to keep lying down, he scrambled up, and none of the druids noticed that, either.

For a moment, grinning, he imagined Lathander had accelerated his recovery purely out of kindness. Then visions poured into his head, first a panorama of battling warships and sea creatures seen from high above, and then a closer view of three particular vessels locked together. Anton, Umara, and Shinthala were in that fight. So was Evendur Highcastle.

Stedd sighed. “I was supposed to beat Umberlee by ending the famine. But the fight’s not over, is it? Because she and her Chosen haven’t quit.”

Lathander inclined his head.

“All right.” Stedd swallowed. “I want to help. But how can I?”

Lathander proffered a golden mace. Stedd was certain the god hadn’t been holding anything a moment before. But he was now, and surely, it was Dawnbringer, the weapon he’d wielded in all his great battles against the lords of darkness.

Stedd hesitated. Chosen or not, he felt unworthy to touch such a holy thing. He was also afraid it would be too heavy for him, and he’d drop it in the mud.

But since Lathander wanted him to take it, that was what he did, and without any fumbling. Dawnbringer was light as a stick in his hands.

“All right,” Stedd said, “I’ve got it. What am I supposed to do with it?”

Another image of Anton flowered before his inner eye.

Though his face was slime and tatters, Evendur somehow managed a recognizable sneer. “You’re nothing,” he growled. He flicked the boarding axe, its edge glowing a poisonous green as it had aboard the Iron Jest , like he was brushing away a fly.

The gesture made water explode from empty air. The stinging blast splashed Anton and knocked him backward onto his rump. A warrior of Umberlee’s temple rushed him to spear him with a boarding pike.

Anton blocked with the saber, hamstrung his attacker with the cutlass, and leaped to his feet as the other man went down. It only took a moment, but, left unhindered, Evendur might have only needed a moment to dispose of Shinthala.

Fortunately, Umara had seen fit to hinder him. She’d cast her spell of the five colored orbs at him, and the discharges of fire, acid, and other destructive forces made him recoil.