Ed Greenwood: The Mercenaries

It quivered for a moment in his unharmed fingertips, drawing gasps from Ingrar and Sharessa, and a choked-out oath from Rings. And then, swift and sure, Belmer gave it back to its owner.

Kurthe's neck grew a sudden steel protruberance. The big Konigheimer choked, turned to his comrades with an imploring look in his eyes, clutched vainly at his throat, and then toppled to the decks with a crash. He rolled back and forth, twisting his body in agony, gave a last, desperate gurgle around the deeply-planted dagger, and fell still.

Belmer stepped around the spreading pool of blood and strode toward the remaining Sharkers, the sword in his hand glistening with Kurthe's blood.

"Are you still with me?" he asked them calmly. "Or am I going to have to-" he glanced back at the dead man "-cancel a few more contracts?"

Five of the Sharkers looked uneasily at each other, and then back at Belmer, their hands on the hilts of their weapons.

The sixth, Sharessa, collected their gazes almost fiercely with her own dark eyes, turned deliberately to face the man who'd hired them, and said firmly,

"We're with you."

As Rings and Ingrar nodded slowly, she added crisply, "Landfall in Doegan, and a lady to find, was it not?"

A sudden smile broke across Belmer's face, and he bowed to her as one might to a court noble. "Lady, it was," he said.

Back in the rigging again.

The man who was no longer fat hong in his favorite spot in the shrouds and smiled at that thought as he watched the moonlight turn Sharessa's bared shoulders to pearly marble below him.

Her dark hair was a swirl of wet black flame in the waters of the deck-tub he'd pumped full earlier, as she bathed unconcernedly, ignoring him. Belmer kept as still as a stone, his eyes moving from her to the endless dark waves and back again. As alert as he always was… and always must be.

The magic his patron had given him for this task was almost all gone now. He'd had to use the prayer-token of Umberlee from Doegan that had cost him so much in Tharkar, and the box of mists. Kurthe's desperate blade had smashed two of his precious vials, but he still had the long waxed climbing-cord bound about his waist, and the boot-heel daggers under his feet. Yet, as usual, his wits would have to be his first and best weapon in the days ahead, as he hunted down this Eidola, who must die. Who would die.

The six surviving pirates led by the lonely woman below were his second weapon in that hunt. He hoped the task wouldn't take all their lives-he hated waste-but after all, as the ballad said, all true pirates found their deaths through fire, sea, or sword.

As he'd had to slay the Konigheimer. Belmer sighed, stirred like a silent shadow, and slipped away aloft, climbing along the rigging like a surefooted cat.

In the tub below, Sharessa watched the mysterious man move away: Kurthe's killer, and the man who was all too likely to lead them all to their deaths-and shrugged away a stray tear. The gods can take us all, at any time. Why not go down fighting?

As the catlike form moved away from above her, one by one, from behind him the stars came out again.