Mel Odom - Rising Tide

"Prepare that oil and heave it when I tell you."

"Aye, sir."

Pacys watched the silvery shimmer of the steel net as it rose up under the sahuagin manta. The craft was one of the large ones, fully seventy-five feet wide and two hundred feet long. The net couldn't get around all of it, but it settled around two-thirds of it.

The net seized the manta and brought it the rest of the way to the surface. Sahuagin clung to it, looking like crayfish babies that clung to the mother's tail, so thick on it they were crowded in on each other. There were more than he expected.

"Tymora stay with us," one of the sailors cried out. "There must be four, five hundred sahuagin on that craft!"

The galleys each normally carried a crew of a hundred and fifty, but almost twice that number were on them now as the fighting men of Waterdeep took the battle to their enemy. The numbers between sahuagin and Waterdhavian forces were roughly equal, Pacys guessed, but the sea devils pound for pound were the fiercest fighters.

Knowing their craft was tied up in the net, the sahuagin started swarming up the net toward the crews. Tridents flashed in their hands, and several of them loosened the throwing nets they carried. They navigated the steel net easily, their wide feet allowing them to climb with no threat of slipping through.

One of them stopped, hands raised in a beseeching posture. Pacys studied the shells and skulls the sahuagin wore on chains around her body and knew from stories that she must be a priestess. The bard turned to the captain.

"She's preparing a spell," he warned.

"Nonsense," the old man yelled back gruffly. "Damned sea devils don't believe in-"

"She's a priestess," Pacys said. "That kind of magic they understand just fine."

"Galm," the captain called, looking troubled.

One of the guardsmen turned.

"Put a shaft through that one," the captain instructed. "Man here says she could be calling something nasty up our way."

The guard nodded and pulled his bow back. Before he could fire, light around the ship suddenly extinguished, and the night's full darkness descended again, no longer held back by the galley's lanterns. The captain cursed loudly and ordered his men to the railing.

Pacys stared hard into the gloom, unable to detect more than a slither of occasional movement. The vibration of the sahuagin warriors clambering along the steel net lashed through the galley. A slaughter was coming, the bard knew, and the defenders aboard the ship would be fighting among themselves before it ended.

"Hold them back, boys!" the captain bellowed. "You may not be able to see them, but you can by the gods smell them when they come aboard."

Pacys steadied his staff, leaving the hidden blades in place so he couldn't offer too much threat to his companions. His stomach heaved in fear and his hands slid on the staff.

Without warning, the lights of the ship became visible again while the sahuagin were only yards away, scrambling up the net as quickly as they could. Glancing skyward, Pacys spotted a flying carpet above them.

"Maskar Wands," the captain called up, "thank you for your help. Hail and well met."

"Hail and well met," the wizard called down, then he gestured again and a great font of flames speared from his fingers and rained down over the sahuagin on the net. Most of them died in that instant, but a wave crawled up over the galley's railing.

Like the other men, Pacys was forced back by the desperate sahuagin. He wielded the staff with grim certainty, breaking open heads and tangling the sahuagins' legs where he could. A trident laid his arm open during the battle, but he kept fighting. Men died around him, but sahuagin died in greater numbers.

Incredibly, the sahuagin faltered in their charge and were driven back. Only a few escaped back into the harbor.

Breathing hard, his limbs shaking with effort, Pacys gazed out at the harbor. Only a few skirmishes remained within the breakwater walls, and the guard was making short work of them. He drew in the air deeply, smelling the salt and not knowing if it was from the sea or from the blood, his or someone else's, that covered him.

The torches at the guard stations along the breakwater blazed more brightly, probably magically enhanced. They threw light over the harbor, driving back the darkness that had tried to consume the city.

The bard turned and looked back at Waterdeep, listening to the splashes made as the galley's crew threw the dead sahuagin over the side. Mount Waterdeep soared above the harbor, standing tall and majestically proud.

The melody that had haunted Pacys for the last fourteen years rose inside his head again. He listened to it, not surprised to find that it was still incomplete. If this battle were to be granted to him as his song, his legacy to leave the world, none of the other bards would have been witness to it. He believed now, more strongly than he'd ever believed, that he was meant to make an enduring song with his craft, a song that would fire the hearts and stir the souls of men. It was his destiny, and his life had been spared tonight because of it.

This was only the opening movement, though. There had to be much more to come. Somewhere, the malign being that had put the invasion together was planning and plotting. Oghma granted Pacys the intelligence to know that, just as he was sure the rest of Waterdeep's leaders must be thinking the same thing: what had been gained here tonight? The city had stood.

He shook his head, knowing he wasn't going to understand everything yet. He trusted that he'd be guided further.

Looking around, he saw the faces of the men as they gave aid to the wounded, gave comfort to the dying, and made peace with the dead. It was hard, harsh work, and would leave more scars than physical wounds ever would.

Pacys wished he had his yarting, but it was back at the Font of Knowledge. Still, he didn't let the lack of an instrument stop him. He sang a cappella, his voice sweet and true as it flowed over the galley's deck and out into the harbor. The song was an original of his that he called "Bind My Wounds and Fill My Heart." It had been written on a battlefield, conceived in the heat of war, and nurtured to fruition that same night as so many fought their final battle with death and lost.

As he sang he found that the song gave him strength and relief as well. A few of the men even knew the song and joined him on the chorus.

There was nothing, he knew, that would ever take away the losses that Waterdeep had suffered tonight.

15 Mirtul, the Year of the Gauntlet

"You don't have to do that."

Jherek looked up and spotted Breezerunner's ship's mage looking down at him. He hung down the side of the ship from two ropes, trussed up in a leather harness, using a barnacle spade to work on the ship's hull. "I like working with my hands," he told her.

"I couldn't think of much harder work." She waved at the hot sun blazing down over the becalmed water and added, "Or much harsher conditions."

She wore her copper colored hair short, hardly any longer than his. Her skin was browned from the sea and sun, but freckles stippled the bridge of her short nose. Her eyes were reddish brown, wide and full. She seemed friendly and liked to smile. Her mouth was generous and full-lipped, and he'd yet to see a displeased look on her face. From her position in the crew, he guessed that she was a few years older than he was. In the three days he'd been aboard Breezerunner, he'd never talked to her.

Jherek nodded. He couldn't think of much harder work either, which was why he'd chosen it. Perspiration covered him and the leather straps chaffed at him. He'd stripped down to knee-length breeches and a short-sleeved blouse. Both were drenched from the slight sea spray and sweat. Neither improved the way he smelled. "I'm not used to being a passenger."