Robert Salvatore: The Pirate King

Across the way, beyond the wall, Arklem Greeth cackled with delight, and in looking at the wall, Robillard understood that the worst was yet to come. For Greeth had offset it on the floor and had lined it along with the length and not the breadth of the ship, but he had not anchored it!

So as Sea Sprite listed under the great weight, so too leaned the wall, and it was beginning to tip.

Robillard realized that he couldn’t stop it, so he found a moment of intense concentration instead and focused on his most-hated enemy. The wall fell, clearing the ground between the wizards, and Robillard let fly another devastating lightning blast.

So intent was he on his stone wall tumbling into Sea Sprite ’s side planking, crashing through the wood, that Arklem Greeth never saw the bolt coming. He flew backward under the power of the stroke and hit the wall even as the side of the hull broke open and Luskan Harbor rushed in.

Robillard beat the rush of water, launching himself upon Arklem Greeth. Energy crackled through his hands, one electrical discharge after another.

Arklem Greeth fought back physically, tearing at Robillard with undead hands.

They held their death grip on each other as the sea turned Sea Sprite farther on her side, taking her down into the harbor. Spell after spell leaped from Robillard’s fingers into the lich, blasting away at his magical defenses, and when those were finally beaten, as was his very life-force, still Arklem Greeth merely held on.

The lich didn’t need to breathe, but Robillard surely did.

The pitch of the sinking ship sent them out through the hole in the hull, tumbling amidst the debris, rocks, and weeds of Luskan Harbor.

Robillard felt his ears pop under the pressure and knew his lungs wouldn’t be far behind. But he held on, determined to end the struggle at whatever cost. The sight of Sea Sprite, the wreckage of his beloved Sea Sprite, spurred him on and he resisted the urge to break free of Arklem Greeth and focused instead on continuing his electrical barrage on the lich—even though every powerful discharge stung him as well in the conducting water.

It seemed like a dozen, dozen spells. It seemed like his lungs would surely burst. It seemed like Arklem Greeth was mocking him.

But the lich simply let go, and the face the surprised Robillard looked into was dead, not undead.

Robillard shoved away and kicked off the bottom, determined not to die in the arms of the hideous Arklem Greeth. Instinctively he clawed for the surface, and saw the water growing lighter above him.

But he knew he wouldn’t make it.

“Sea Sprite!” more than one sailor of Thrice Lucky, and of every other ship moored in the area, cried out in astonishment. To those men and women, friend and enemy of Deudermont’s ship alike, the sight before them seemed impossible.

The waves took Sea Sprite and smashed her up on a line of rocks, just one rail of her glorious hull and her three distinctive masts protruding from the dark waters of Luskan Harbor.

It could not be. In the minds of those who knew the ship as friend or foe, the loss of Sea Sprite proved no less traumatic than the disintegration of the Hosttower of the Arcane, a sudden and unimaginable change in the landscape that had shaped their lives.

“Sea Sprite!” they cried as one, pointing and jumping.

Morik the Rogue and Bellany rushed to Thrice Lucky ’s rail to take in the awful scene.

“What are we to do?” Morik asked incredulously. “Where is Maimun?” He knew the answer, and so did many others echoing that very sentiment, for their captain had gone ashore less than an hour earlier.

Some crewmen called for lifelines, to weigh anchor to rush to the aid of the crew in the water. Bellany did likewise and started for a lifeboat, but Morik grabbed her by the shoulder and spun her to face him.

“Make me fly!” he bade her, and she looked at him curiously.

“Give me flight!” he screamed. “You’ve done it before!”

“Flight?”

“Do it!”

Bellany rubbed her hands together and tried to focus, tried to remember the words as the insanity around her only multiplied. She reached out and touched Morik on the shoulder and the man leaped up to the rail and out from the ship.

He didn’t fall into the water, though, but flew out across the bay. He scanned, trying to figure out where he was most needed, then cut across for the downed vessel herself, fearing that some of the crew might be trapped aboard her.

Then he crossed over a form in the water, just under the surface but sinking fast, and willed himself to stop. He slapped his hand down, plunging it through the waves, and grabbed hard on the fine fabric of a wizard’s robes.

“Ah, the glorious pain,” Kensidan taunted. Deudermont again tried to pull himself up and the Crow pecked him hard on the forehead, slamming him back to the floor.

The room’s door banged open. “No!” cried a voice familiar to both men. “Let him go!”

“Are you mad, young pirate?” the Crow cackled as he turned to regard Maimun. He spun back and slammed Deudermont hard again, smashing him flat to the floor.

Maimun responded with a sudden and brutal charge, flashing sword leading the way. Kensidan beat his wings and tried to extricate himself from the close quarters, but Maimun’s fury was too great and his advantage too sudden and complete. The wings battered around the perimeter of the fight, but Maimun’s sword cut a narrower and more direct line.

In the span of a few heartbeats, Maimun had Kensidan pinned at the end of his blade, and when Kensidan tried to turn the sword with his beak, Maimun got the blade inside the Crow’s mouth.

Given that awkward and devastating clutch, Kensidan could offer no further resistance.

Maimun, breathing hard, clearly outraged, held the pose and the pin for a long breath. “I give you your life,” he said finally, easing the blade just a bit. “You have the city—there will be no challenge. I will go, and I’m taking Captain Deudermont with me.”

Kensidan looked over at the battered and bloody form of Deudermont and started to cackle, but Maimun stopped that with a prod of his well-placed blade.

“You will allow us clear passage to our ships, and for our ships out of Luskan Harbor.”

“He is already dead, fool, or soon enough to be!” the Crow argued, slurring every word, as he spouted them around the hard steel of a fine blade.

The words nearly buckled Maimun’s knees. His thoughts swirled back in time to his first meeting with the captain. He had stowed away on Sea Sprite, fleeing a demon intent on his destruction. Deudermont had allowed him to stay. Sea Sprite ’s crew, generous to a fault, had not abandoned him when they’d learned the truth of his ordeal, even when they discerned that having Maimun aboard made them targets of the powerful demon and its many deadly allies.

Captain Deudermont had saved young Maimun, without a doubt, and had taken him under his wing and trained him in the ways of the sea.

And Maimun had betrayed him. Though he had never expected it to come to so tragic an end, the young pirate captain could not deny the truth. Paid by Kensidan, Maimun had sailed Arabeth to Quelch’s Folly. Maimun had played a role in the catastrophe that had befallen Luskan, and in the catastrophe that had lain Captain Deudermont low before him.

Maimun turned back sharply on Kensidan and pressed the sword in tighter. “I will have your word, Crow, that I will be allowed free passage, with Deudermont and Sea Sprite beside me.”

Kensidan stared at him hatefully with those black crow eyes. “Do you understand who I am now, young pirate?” he replied slowly, and as evenly as the prodding blade allowed. “Luskan is mine. I am the Pirate King.”