Ed Greenwood: The Mercenaries

Sharessa and Belgin traded looks, shrugged, and advanced in their turn, leaving only Ingrar, shivering and pale with fear.

Trembling and retching, the lad brought up the rear, more to stay with his comrades than because he'd found any scraps of bravery. When the first of the faceless things found its footing on the decks of the Morning Bird and hacked at Kurthe with dogged, dreamlike slowness, Ingrar moaned aloud.

The Konigheimer laid about himself with almost frenzied strength, roaring his defiance, goaded by fear and-even more-by the chance to finally lash out and hit something.

The end of the stout sailpole splintered under the force of his blows, but the half-pulped zombies staggered on, passing him in a slow, tireless flood.

Anvil muttered a prayer to Tempus and another to Tymora as the first faceless one reached him. Then he swung his sword with all his strength, in a blow that half separated that featureless head from its shoulders.

The undead thing staggered, slid free of his blade, and without pause or any evidence of pain swung around to drive the crumbling fragments of its blade into his ribs. Anvil twisted away to make the blade slice away from bis body-and it did not even manage that, falling away in flakes where a real blade would have sheared into the leather covering Anvil's flank.

The pirate did not wait to give it another chance. He grabbed his foe's sword arm behind the elbow and shoved, turning the thing completely away from him, into the path of the next zombie. The two dripping things bumped and struggled, and then crashed to the deck together as Kurthe smashed them both at neck level, and Anvil ducked in to hamstring them at knee level.

Even as the zombies fell and rolled, still dangerous, others shuffled forward to take their places. Sharessa and Brindra, white to the lips, were hacking and tumbling like women possessed; their usual tactics of fencing or causing pain were useless against these smothering, unfeeling foes. In a moment or two more they'd be overwhelmed and clubbed down.

Rings spat a curse as he ducked away from a vicious hacking blow, slipped, and had to leap for his life. The sight of his closest friend in danger seemed to goad Ingrar out of his fear-daze. With a scream of defiance the pale, sweating youth charged forward, hacking and slashing like a man trying to hew down a tree, driving the zombies back into a huddled mass.

With a wolfish grin, Kurthe swung his sailpole, and battered almost half of the undead into the sea. Packed together, they could do little more than squirm as the Sharkers rose against them in unison, cutting and disabling them, and trying to keep clear of the grabbing, thrusting faceless creatures who'd already been cut down to the deck and were now crawling about underfoot like white, glistening dew worms.

Then a ringing voice made them all turn their heads.

"Great Umberlee, hear me! Great Queen of the Sea, heed this fervent supplication! Too long have we forsaken your true way, in our times far from the sea! Yet we return, and can never forget you! You, who rule all the watery face of Faerfin, and keep more secrets than any other! You, who quell storms and raise them with but a thought! You, whose greatness we cannot hope to comprehend! Yet we cry unto you in our time of need, and make what humble offerings we can! Take, now, all the gold this ship carries, every last piece of it-and all the glistering gems, too! More than the weight of a man-yours, if you but take back your faithful guardians, to rest once more upon the bottom and await other intruders! Hear me, Great Umberlee! Accept now this offering, I pray!"

It was Belmer, splashing himself with seawater all the while he spoke, and waving a green stone hammer whose sculpted head was split into two curling waves. At his final words he brought the hammer down hard on a sea chest, shattering it, and hurled the pieces over the side of the ship. Then he hefted the chest- though it was almost as large as he was-without apparent effort, and hurled it into the sea.

Water fountained up in a mighty crash-more than such a weight should have disturbed-and the Sharkers traded looks. All the gold aboard? Had he emptied their pockets and carry-chests, too?

Well, not their pockets, they soon made sure, slapping at purses and coin belts as they backed away from the suddenly shuddering zombies. The sea had grown suddenly still, and a strange, deep singing was coming from beneath the ship, rising all around them.

Belmer's prayer, it seemed, had been heard. The little man was bent over the rail now, chanting the name of the goddess of the sea over and over, in a ceaseless drone that rose and fell like the passing waves.

Abruptly the zombies turned away from the living pirates and surged back toward their own ship, heedless of how many of them were crowded aside into the sea as they swarmed back up the bowsprit of the ghost ship.

A taut rope hummed and then broke, writhing across the decks of the Morning Bird. The forespar of the dripping ship of the deeps was moving again, backing out of the tangle it had created by ploughing into the rigging. The zombies moved more quickly now, withdrawing with little of the stiffness and awkwardness of their first waterlogged movements. Their eerie ship seemed to draw them with it, receding into the roiling mists.

It was sinking as it went, sliding back into the embrace of the waters that had held it for long years. As the Sharkers watched in awe and grim fear, wild bub-blings began around the vanishing hull, and the drab sponges and waterweeds on its decks submerged again.

"Sweeps!" Belmer snapped, breaking the somber, fascinated mood of the watching pirates. "Sharkers, man the sweeps! I need this ship held back from that wreck! ItH suck as it goes down and could scrape us open! Mover

Kurthe looked sullen, and set down his sailpole slowly, but his companions hastened. The danger was real, and a master was spitting orders.

With an almost human groan, the ghost ship slid entirely under the mist-cloaked water and was gone. Its descent drew the Morning Bird toward it, and the Sharkers put in some anxious, sweating moments of rowing with the giant sweeps to keep clear of the faceless white heads of the last, stolid zombies, and the broken-off mast spars between them.

At the rail Belmer straightened, but it seemed Umberlee was not done with them quite yet. A wave rose from the calm sea with easy grace and swept across the decks like a long tongue reaching in across a sand beach. It washed away every last rust-flaked hilt and zombie finger, leaving behind a single shell as large as a man's fist.

Belmer strode toward this sea prize, but Kurthe, seeing his interest, snatched it up and put it to his ear.

The endless roar and crash of distant waves upon rocks seemed to echo faintly through his head, and then gave birth to a breathy voice. "Trust not what you see," it said, and then fell silent. Kurthe lifted his head to see Belmer standing over him with hand outstretched for the shell. He gave his employer a black look.

"Give," Belmer said simply, his face expressionless.

After a long, silent moment, Kurthe slapped the shell into the little man's palm, rose, and stalked away without looking back.

Belmer swept the shell swiftly to his ear, listened for a long, motionless moment, and then drew the shell slowly down again as he stared at Kurthe's retreating back. "Rings," he asked gently, without turning his head, "would you be so good as to bring Kurthe down to the cabin you share, as soon as it's convenient?"

The dwarf gave their employer a frowning look, and then trundled off in the Konigheimer's wake with a muttered "Aye."

"Is this… going to be a meeting between you two that we should know more about?" Anvil asked casually, his tone not quite menacing.