Mel Odom - Rising Tide

"After you've gone and bled all over the place?" the woman taunted. She shook her head. "No, I'll not have him mutilated. The old woman who raised him will be allowed to bury all of him."

"Maybe that's not your choice," the big man grated. "It was me that got hurt. I'll do as I damn well please."

"Try, and he won't be the only one who dies here tonight," the woman promised.

Silence filled the court for a moment, then Jherek heard the big man limp away. His hearing dwindled, making it impossible for him to hear anything else that might have been said. His vision blurred, then finally turned dark. He felt stilled, buried in the icy core of his own shadow, wearing it like a shroud.

Through it all, even though the fear and anger burned through him, he wondered where the voice was. Why wasn't it commanding him again, telling him to live so that he could serve?

The darkness crept in and stole even his thoughts away.

3 °Ches, the Year of the Gauntlet

Laaqueel paused at the top of the wooden steps leading up to Fishgut Court. The battle taking place out in the harbor was drawing all of Waterdeep's attention. More sailors and shopkeepers ran toward the harbor. Several of them brushed past Iakhovas and his wererat group, letting her know his spell still masked them. She studied the harbor, amazed that the attack had made it this far. Even when Iakhovas had made his plans, she'd had her doubts.

Another fiery salvo came from Waterdeep Castle's catapults, painting flaming lines through the dark sky for a moment, then splashing down in the water in a violent flash of sparks and hisses that overrode even the screaming fear and rage and disbelief coming from the surface dwellers. Fingers of oily fire splayed out over the waves stirred up by Iakhovas's wizard's storm. The waves crashed ten feet high now, slopping over the sides of many vessels at anchor and shoving them into each other.

A Waterdhavian Watch wizard rode a flying carpet out over the harbor toward a floundering raker besieged by sahuagin boarding from the water. The malenti watched the wizard start his gestures to unleash a spell. Her instinctive fear was of fire, knowing how quickly her people perished when fought with that element. She said a quick prayer to Sekolah to spare the sahuagin warriors because the dead could not fight and she knew the Great Shark would understand that. The sahuagin didn't see him, and she wished she could call out a warning.

Despite the howling winds being stirred up by the storm, the flying carpet held steady. It even held steady when the brine dragon's head erupted from the uneven water. The dragon was nearly thirty feet in length and had a triangular, wedge-shaped head filled with sharp teeth. Covered with ridged and craggy scales that didn't fit well together, the creature was a virulent green. Yellow tufts ridged its head, running from between its eyes and becoming standing scales as they went on down its back. It had flippers instead of claws. Snapping its wide mouth open, it clamped down over the wizard, swallowing him and the carpet whole. The dragon disappeared below the surface again just as quickly.

"Laaqueel," Iakhovas called in a harsh voice.

She turned to face him.

"We're not here to win, little malenti," the wizard told her. Lightning suddenly savaged the skies, a forked white-hot sword that sheathed itself in purple umber, then winked out. In the brief, eye-stinging flash of light, Iakhovas's tattoos stood out harshly against his skin. "But neither then shall your people lose more than the surface dwellers."

Knowing it was the best she was going to get, she nodded. As she turned to take another look at the action in the harbor, a dragon turtle surfaced. It stretched his ponderous head out, unveiling the scaled armor protecting its neck, and breathed a cloud of scalding steam over sailors manning a nearby cargo ship. The men died instantly, their corpses throwing off gray smoke as they cooled in the night. Maybe the sahuagin wouldn't win this battle, but the malenti knew that this night would never be forgotten in the history of the City of Splendors.

"Haste, little malenti," Iakhovas told her. "Even now, with all the strength I've gathered, I'm not without limits. Should I not get what I've come for this night, the sahuagin sacrifices will indeed be for naught. I am their savior whether you wish it so or not."

Laaqueel tightened her grip on her sword. Was he lying, or was he telling the truth about his limitation? She didn't know. She gazed into his black eye, knowing the patch over his other eye was a silent promise that he wasn't infallible, unless it was a sacrifice he'd willingly made at some time in exchange for something he wanted more.

She also knew that he wouldn't tolerate her questioning him. She hurried up the steps after him, moving around the sign at the top of the stairs that advertised Fishgut Court's attractions and businesses.

Iakhovas moved with confidence, working his way through the maze of streets that had Laaqueel lost almost immediately. In the sea, she'd always been able to get a perspective on the sahuagin communities by simply swimming above them. Here on land she was locked in with only two dimensions open to her. Despite her limited familiarity with coastal towns, she didn't feel comfortable straying out of sight of the sea.

They left sight of the harbor almost immediately, though, and she tried to remember the streets as she saw the signs. Adder Lane came first, clearly marked. Ahead and on the left, a number of lanterns with different colored glass illuminated the full-sized carved creature out in front of an inn called the Rearing Hippocampus. Bouncers stood watch over the doors, their hands never far from their swords.

As Laaqueel passed them, a small group of sailors ran toward the inn, bellowing about the attack in the harbor, Iakhovas led his group down Adder Lane onto Gut Alley, cutting across to Snail Street, then turning left there. When they reached an intersection with Shesstra's Street, Iakhovas turned right onto Book Street.

An older man with two young women stepped from a small shop. The painted letters across the boarded over bay window declared the place to be an herbalist's. The business looked like it had fallen on hard times. The man and women were dressed in ill-fitting clothes that had seen better times.

Without warning, one of the young women screamed and grabbed the older man's arm, pointing at Iakhovas and the wererat group.

Iakhovas's attention swiveled onto her at once. "Execute the woman!" he ordered. "Damn her and the rudimentary skill she has for the true seeing. Humans should never have been allowed magic!"

His words hammered into Laaqueel. For the woman to have seen through the illusion Iakhovas wove with his magic, she had to have used magic of her own, but what magic was that?

What did she see when she saw Iakhovas as he really was?

The wererats broke ranks quickly, giving chase at once. Laaqueel pushed herself, feeling incredibly sluggish on the surface, but letting her desire to know more about her master push her to greater speed.

Obviously knowing that they weren't going to be able to outrun their pursuers, the man barked orders to the screaming women to keep running, then turned to face the first of the wererats. He slipped a long, slim club from his belt and called out in a harsh voice.

The lead wererat grinned in anticipation. As he moved to the attack, Laaqueel watched the creature's human features drop away, becoming increasingly ratlike.

The shopkeeper swung his club with precision and skill, slipping past the wererat's sword. When the club reached the wererat's skull, it crashed through bone and brain, killing the creature at once.

From her studies, Laaqueel knew the wererats could only be harmed in any form other than their human ones by silver or enchanted weapons. The club represented a definite threat. She pulled up a step, allowing the pack of wererats to overtake her.