Richard Byers - Queen of the Depths

“Are you scared?” Anton asked him.

“If so,” said Tu’ala’keth, “how dare you wear the Destroyer’s vestments? Does he not command his followers to be fierce and bold?”

Kassur hesitated. He evidently hadn’t expected anyone to accuse him of being lax in the observance of his own savage creed. Perceiving that he didn’t know how to respond, the pirates muttered to one another.

“Talos doesn’t command us to seek our own destruction!” Kassur managed at last. “He tells us to destroy our enemies!”

“Then let’s destroy them,” Anton said.

Tu’ala’keth turned to the aft castle, where Captain Clayhill had positioned herself to watch the sacrifice and supervise the ongoing repairs. Some of her jewelry still glittered dazzling bright in the sunlight. Other pieces were dull with spatters of Thayan gore.

“You began this voyage with courage and faith,” said Tu’ala’keth. “I urge you to continue in the same spirit.”

“If you want to come home with as grand a haul as any pirate’s ever stolen,” Anton said, “and a tale people will tell not just for a tenday or two, but for the rest of our lives.”

Harl laughed. “That sounds good to me, Captain. Especially the part about the loot.”

Shandri Clayhill drew a deep breath then gave a nod. “So be it. We sail to Saerloon, and may the gods pity any Thayan bastard who wanders within reach of our blades.”

The reavers cheered. Kassur and Chadrezzan glared at Anton and Tu’ala’keth with balked, bitter anger in their eyes.

Even late at night, Saerloon was a bustling port, and the land adjacent to the water was accordingly too valuable for any of it to go waste. Still, as Anton surveyed the Thayan compound at the northern end of the harbor, it seemed to him that it stood a little apart from its neighbors, as if shunned. Maybe it was just his imagination.

Or maybe it wasn’t. Everybody hated Thayans, and rightfully so. The whoresons wanted to conquer all of Faerun. People being people, though, they tolerated the Red Wizards and their minions because they sold magic cheaply. They bought it even though the coin went back to Thay to finance the zulkirs’ schemes to undermine and ultimately subjugate their neighbors.

But the coin these particular Thayans were sitting on would not be going back to Thay. If Anton had his way, it was bound for Dragon Isle.

The scarlet caravel glided toward to the dock. Clad in the armor and clothing of the former crew, most of the pirates were aboard. They’d left a few hands on Shark’s Bliss, the minimum required to see her safely home.

Harl turned the helm a notch. “If we haven’t fooled them,” he said, “I guess we’ll find out when the thunderbolts start flying.”

“We flashed the proper signal with the lantern,” Anton said. Of course, that was only if the Thayans hadn’t changed the code and if the information he’d picked up in a thieves’ den in Selgaunt had been accurate to begin with. “This is the caravel they’re expecting. The dark should keep them from seeing the ship is crawling with ores.” He shrugged. “I’m optimistic.”

Harl snorted. “‘Crawling with ores.’ Nice talk.” A breeze wafted the stink of a great city in their direction, a smell compounded of garbage and smoke.

The caravel glided closer to the dock, where a pair of bald, robed Red Wizards and their bodyguards waited to greet her, and workers scurried about lighting torches to facilitate the process of mooring and unloading her. The flickering yellow illumination revealed the hulking statue at the water’s edge. Twice as tall as a man, it was nearly as wide as it was high, with enormous clenched fists and a face that was all snarling mouth and a single glaring eye.

Anton studied the Thayans. As best he could judgethe night hampered his vision, toonone of them looked alarmed or even particularly wary. It wasn’t until the pirates started tossing lines to the dockhands that one of the latter abruptly goggled in shock. Maybe he’d noticed the flat-nosed countenance of an ore or Tu’ala’keth’s narrow inhuman features and black dorsal fin.

Given a chance, the dockhand surely would have cried a warning. But Tu’ala’keth, in the stern castle, and Kassur, in the forward one, each cast the same spell, and all the ambient soundsthe creak of ropes and timbers, the splash and hiss of the water, the conversation on the dock, and the muddled drone of the city beyondcut off abruptly, supplanted by utter silence.

Weapons in hand, the first pirates sprang from the caravel to the dock like a wave sweeping onto the shore. In so doing, they slammed some of the Thayans off the platform into the water, and perhaps those were the lucky ones. They might survive if they could swim away.

A warrior thrust his spear at Anton. The spy parriedthanks to the magic bound in the massive cutlass, the quick, precise defensive action was easy enoughand hacked open the Thayan’s belly. The soldier reeled and toppled off the pier.

Anton pivoted, seeking the Red Wizards. He had no doubt the magicians were still dangerous, even bereft of the ability to recite incantations. Some spells, and a good many sorcerous weapons, didn’t require the wielder to jabber words of power.

At first he couldn’t tell anything. The pier was too narrow. The combatants were jammed together, obscuring the view. Then he caught a glimpse of a Red Wizard leveling a wand. Captain Clayhill slashed his neck with a boarding pike. Half severed, his head flopped back on his shoulders, blood spurted, and the arcane weapon dropped from his twitching fingers.

Good, one down, but where was the other? There! Anton pushed toward him. Before he could reach him, though, the Red Wizard brushed back his voluminous sleeve and ran his fingertip down the curved length of a tattooed sigil. He vanished in a flash of light and reappeared beside the monstrous statue. His mouth worked as he screamed the command that would bring it to life then snarled in frustration as he realized the zone of silence enshrouded the image, too.

He still needed killing, however, as soon as possible. Anton looked for a way past the frenzied fighters blocking his path, but it was hopeless. He snatched a sling from his belt, loaded it with a lead bulletand the Red Wizard stroked his tattooed forearm. Once again, he disappeared.

His departure left Anton with nothing to do but slaughter his share of the remaining Thayans as rapidly as he could. To his relief, he and his comrades needed only a few more heartbeats to clear the pier. Afterward, he grabbed Captain Clayhill by the arm and dragged her onto dry land, beyond the statue. The hum of the city popped back into his ears.

“One of the Red Wizards got away,” Anton panted. “He’ll warn the others. We have to keep moving.” Every moment they delayed gave warriors time to wake, grab their weapons, assemble into squads, and take up defensive positions. Every second was another chance for a wizard or priest to weave a spell.

“I know,” the captain said. She beckoned urgently, yelling curses even though she must have known her crew couldn’t hear her, and the pirates came scrambling onto the shore. She barked a few orders, and they charged up the slope toward the buildings ahead, dividing into teams as they went to envelop the entire complex quickly.

Anton and his companions smashed open doors and killed whomever they found beyond. Some of the pirates tried to linger and search for loot, but he bellowed at them to stay with the squad.

In the center of a small garden with gravel paths, a marble fountain abruptly emitted an eye-watering stink. “Run!” he cried, an instant before the marble basin spewed acid like a geyser. Most of the freebooters reacted quickly enough to avoid all but the diffuse, merely blistering fringe of the discharge. But one man toppled, clothing and skin dissolving. His body was covered in bubbling, sizzling burns, and his eyes melted in their sockets.