Richard Byers - The Reaver

There was barely time to note the courses of the island’s three rivers, peer down into its forests, or note the locations of Sapra and the half circle of farmland that supported it as he flashed along. Then he was hurtling over the sea.

He had the notion he ought to be afraid, but his flight was too exhilarating, and now that he was in the midst of it, he could feel the river of emerald light bearing him up. It was as real, as mighty and trustworthy, as anything in the world.

At least until it started to thin.

He noticed the change first as a slowing down. The current wasn’t pushing him along as forcefully as before. Then he realized the storm clouds above and the waves below didn’t look as green, which meant the verdant haze surrounding him wasn’t tinting them to the same degree. After that came a sense of giving way that made him think of plants withering, or the bottom tearing out of an overstuffed sack.

Maybe the problem was that, distracted by the thrill of flying, he wasn’t concentrating hard enough anymore. Once again, he fixed his mind on Anton’s face.

Unfortunately, it didn’t make any difference. He kept on slowing down, and the trace of green that was left continued fading.

Apparently, his loss of focus wasn’t the problem. Rather, something was interfering with the flow of the Emerald Enclave’s power.

And Stedd couldn’t do anything about that. He didn’t have the ability to channel the Treefather’s magic; he was just riding it. Nor did he have any idea how to use Lathander’s gifts to achieve a comparable effect.

Drifting like thistledown on the faintest of breezes, his heart hammering, Stedd peered at the sea far below. It seemed that even though Evendur Highcastle and all his waveservants and pirates had failed to catch him, Umberlee was going to get him after all.

Umara rattled off words of power, whipped her hand like she was throwing an ordinary knife, and a blade made of flame streaked from her fingertips. Without even breaking stride, Evendur blocked it with a twitch of his axe.

Two Thayan marines scrambled to flank the undead pirate. As Evendur split the skull of the one on his right, the one on the left drove a boarding pike into his torso, but that didn’t even make him flinch. Using his off hand, he grabbed the pikeman by the throat, jerked him off the deck, and gave him a single brutal shake. When he opened his fingers, the unfortunate mariner dropped with a broken neck, whereupon Umara decided she liked being cornered in the forecastle of the caravel about as little as she’d ever liked anything in her life.

Not that she’d seen much choice but to jump aboard the Turmishan vessel. Assuming it wasn’t already too late for them, she’d needed to distract Evendur from the stricken Anton and Shinthala. And the Thayan men-at-arms had required a leader’s display of boldness to keep from losing heart.

That didn’t alter the fact that she’d just broken one of the fundamental rules of combat wizardry: stay well clear of the melee. Worse, she’d done it while battling the most formidable foe she’d never faced.

With the overcast blocking the sun, shadows barely existed. Still, she found the vague gray streak below a yard. Hissing and snarling words of command in one of the languages of Thanatos, she turned it black and brought it writhing up from the deck in the form of a tentacle.

The shadow whipped at Evendur to coil around him and bind him in place. But before it could, a wave leaped up and crashed across the deck. It didn’t even make the Chosen stumble, but it washed away every trace of the tentacle as though it had been made of ink.

Evendur continued his advance. A few more strides would bring him to the forecastle.

There were two companionways connecting that elevated position to the main deck. Perhaps Umara could dart down one while the dead man was climbing the other. But by itself, that elementary trick would only keep him away for a few extra breaths at most.

She rattled off a different incantation and swept her hand in a horizontal arc at the end of it. A half dozen duplicates of herself, each mimicking her stance and movements perfectly, appeared around her.

Evendur glared up at her. “Oh, that spell,” he sneered. He brandished his axe, and another tower of water heaved up from the waves. Umara realized he intended it to smash across the forecastle, obliterate all her decoys, and bash her in the process.

But it didn’t. Instead, it lost coherence and poured back down to merge with the rest of the sea.

The attack had failed because Evendur had for the moment exhausted his ability to channel Umberlee’s might. Somewhat encouraged, Umara hurled another burning knife at him.

Raising his axe, he blocked that missile, too. Clearly, his physical prowess was a different thing than his ability to work miracles, and despite the gashes and burns various foes had inflicted on him, he still possessed it in full measure.

Evendur started scrambling up the companionway to starboard, and Umara and her illusory twins scurried down the steep little flight of steps to port. He whirled, sprang back onto the deck, rushed her, and closed to striking distance a mere heartbeat after she finished her descent.

Caught by surprise, she hesitated, and the boarding axe flashed out. Fortunately, it struck one of the phantom Umaras. The illusion winked out of sight like a bursting bubble.

Retreating, the Red Wizard spoke words that shot a pang of pain through the core of her. She was transforming a bit of her own vitality into a force that was anathema to the undead.

She thrust out her hand, and white light flashed from it. Bits of Evendur’s flesh charred and sizzled, but he didn’t even appear to notice. The axe swung, and this time, it chopped at the right target. Umara snatched her hand back lest the weapon clip it off.

Still backing away, she conjured flares of flame and lightning, a lance of ice, and then, in increasing desperation, wrapped herself in a veil meant to befuddle Evendur by making it seem that she too was undead. He just kept coming, the axe popping her duplicates one by one. It was pure luck that it hadn’t cleaved real flesh as of yet.

Umara refused to acknowledge the truth for as long as she could. But when she found herself down to her last decoy and had all but exhausted her own power, it became inescapable. It didn’t matter that Evendur was presently unable to draw down his deity’s magic. She still couldn’t stop him.

The blast of magical cold had chilled Shinthala to the bone. The frost encrusting the left size of her body was freezing her still, and she suspected she had frostbite underneath it.

Yet even so, the cold scarcely mattered. The squeezing in the left side of the chest, the pain jabbing through her left arm, and the grinding aches in her neck and jaw hurt worse and alarmed her more. Being a healer, she understood what they meant. The shock of the initial chill had sent an artery into spasms and made it impossible for her heart to do its work.

Ashenford and Shadowmoon were right, she thought. None of us should have come here. All I’ve done is throw away my last few years and whatever good I could have accomplished with them.

And then, as if to validate her despair, she felt the torrent of magic that the druids in the House of Silvanus sent through her attenuate. In a few moments, it dwindled from a river to a trickle.

She knew it was her fault. Her participation was necessary to draw Silvanus’s magic here, where it was needed, and her stuttering heart had disrupted that process as summarily as it had ended her efforts to destroy Evendur Highcastle.

Paradoxically, though, the realization that her failure was even more complete than she’d first imagined replaced her despair with resolve. Because she wasn’t the only one who’d depended on the power coursing down from the Elder Spires. The druids aboard dozens of ships, faithful servants of Silvanus who’d trusted an elder of the Enclave to lead them, were relying on it, too, and by the First Oak, they were going to have it for as long as she lasted, even if that was only a breath or two.