Corsair (43 page)

“I think I’d like to go back to the keep and fight pirates now,” I lamil said in a low voice. He laid an arrow across his short bow.

Geran allowed himself a grim smile and tightened his grip on his blade. He heard the monsters moving through the ruins close by—the soft padding of pale, taloned feet on old stone, the maddening notes as the creatures called to each other. He drew his sword back, ready for a lethal thrust through the center of the archway at the first creature to appear … but none of the monsters appeared. The calls continued, but started to move off again. He risked a peek out the doorway and glimpsed one of the monsters bounding past, already by them. It vanished into the ruins.

Did they miss us? Hamil asked.

“I don’t see how they could have.” Geran peered down the alleyway. The moon-creatures hadn’t had any trouble finding them before. Maybe they were on the scent of some other prey … “Bloody hell. They’re after Mirya and Selsha!”

Before he could second-guess himself, he hurried back out into the narrow street and ran after the moon-creatures, following their calls as best he could. Hamil shot him a stern look, but raced after him. They fumbled their way through the maze, now dropping steeply down the shadowed hillside. He bounded around a corner and found himself in a smaller plaza, this one surrounded by leaning five-sided towers whose tops were broken rubble. Trapped in a shallow alleyway between two of the towers, a woman in a thin gown of red silk stood with her back to the wall, fending off several of the eye-creatures with thrown rocks. “Mirya!” Geran shouted.

She glanced up, looking over the pale monsters closing in, and their eyes met across the small courtyard. “Geran?” she said in amazement. She brushed her hair from her eyes.

The moon-creatures wheeled to confront Geran and Hamil. The halfling raised his bow, took aim, and loosed his arrow in the space of a heartbeat. The nearest of the eye-monsters shrieked and leaped into air before flopping to the ground, an arrow buried in its ribs. The others glared at the alleyway and charged across the small plaza; Hamil ducked back out of sight, but Geran fixed his eyes on a spot of ground by another of the creatures and summoned the words for his teleport spell. In an instant he stood beside the thing, sword at the ready. The monster leaped for him, talons outstretched; Geran crouched and drove his elven blade straight into its foul

heart, shouldering the stumbling corpse aside as it staggered past him and fell. He rose and shook the ichor from his sword.

Two of the monsters hissed and fixed their terrible gazes on him. He felt his flesh searing under their eyes and stumbled blindly toward the next of the monsters—but Hamil shot again and blinded one of the creatures, and a fist-sized rock sailed out of the alleyway to knock the other one to all fours. With a yip of pain, it scrambled up and bounded off into the ruins; the rest of the pack scattered just behind it. Geran slowly straightened up, searching for any more of the monsters, but they vanished as quickly as they had appeared.

Mirya Erstenwold picked her way out of the blind alley, holding another rock in one hand. Geran blinked in surprise; the red silken robe she wore was hardly decent at all, leaving her long legs and slender arms bare and showing an impressive deVolletage. “Geran Hulmaster,” she said, lowering her rock. “You’re a sight for sore eyes! What in the world are you doing in this strange place?”

“I’m looking for you, of course.” Geran sheathed his sword and hurried up to catch her in a quick, fierce embrace. For a moment he allowed himself to forget everything that stood between them, and drank in the sweet relief of finding her alive and unharmed. Whatever else might happen on Neshuldaar this day, at least he’d accomplished that much. “Thank the gods you’re safe!”

“Aye, for the moment.” She closed her eyes and sighed in relief. He couldn’t imagine what she’d been through in the last few days, but Mirya was made of stern stuff; she allowed herself only a moment before she disentangled herself from his arms. A worried frown creased her brow. “Have you seen Selsha anywhere?” she asked.

Hamil looked around the ruins looming over them. “She isn’t with you?”

“No. She’s still lost out here somewhere.” Mirya wrapped her arms around her shoulders and shuddered. “We escaped from our cell in the pirate keep, but we were parted. She fled out the side gate. I heard her shouting and followed her all the way up to this awful place, but then those … things … found me.” She nodded at the dead monsters by Geran’s feet. “They chased me all through these terrible old ruins. Where Selsha is now, I’ve no idea.”

Geran winced at the bitter irony. Mirya had managed ro escape from her captors only an hour or two before her rescuers arrived … and now Selsha

was lost and alone in this terrible dark forest. If only they’d stayed where they were, they might both be safe now—or at least as safe as Geran and Hamil could keep them. But then again, if they’d stayed where Kamoth and Sergen had left them, the lords of the Black Moon might have done something horrible with their captives once they realized the keep was lost. Either way, it was done now; there was no point in fretting over might-have-beens.

“We’ll find her, Mirya,” he said gently. He took his cloak from around his shoulders and offered it to her; her robe was hardly decent at all, not by Hulburg’s standards. “If she found her way from the moon-keep up to these ruins, there’s no reason she wouldn’t be hiding close by.”

“I know it, Geran.” Mirya drew his cloak around her shoulders with a grateful smile, and composed herself.

“Where was the last place you saw her?” Hamil asked.

“I didn’t see her, but I heard her calling for me from the top of the hill, there,” Mirya said, pointing. “I came down this way after her, and then I met the eye-monsters.”

“So she’s likely somewhere in these ruins,” Geran said. “We won’t leave without her, that I promise you.” He turned to study the ruins nearby and drew in a deep breath. “Selsha!” he called, as loudly as he could, monsters or no monsters. It might take hours to find one small girl hiding in the maze of old buildings and shadowed trees. With luck, they’d find her before the eye-creatures regrouped for another attack … or so he hoped.

I don’t care for the idea ofshouting out our location for every hungry moon-monster within earshot, Hamil told him silently. But he shouted, “Selsha! We’re here!” a moment after Geran. Mirya joined them, calling for her daughter with her clear, high voice.

Together, they followed the narrow alleyway deeper into the ruins.

17 Marpenoth, The Year of the Ageless One (1479 DR)

The sounds of combat grew steadily louder as Sergen peered from the window of his suite high in the keep’s central tower. From his vantage he could see that the surviving Black Moon pirates had abandoned the gatehouse battlements. The fighting on the quay and the decks of Kraken Queen was over; the dead and dying littered the decks and sprawled across the wharf. He glowered at the Hulburgan caravel lying alongside the Black Moon flagship, fuming at the turn events had taken in the last hour. Only this morning he’d had his breakfast on the balcony of his room, sipping from a goblet of chilled white wine as he contemplated his return to Melvaunt and the best use he could make of Mirya and her daughter against his accursed cousin, Geran, and the rest of his accursed stepfamily. Well, it seemed that Geran—it had to be Geran, who else?—had followed him all the way to the hitherto hidden refuge in the Sea of Night, determined to once more foil his carefully laid plans. It was beyond infuriating.

“My lord, we are ready,” his armsman Kerth said. Kerth and the five magically tattooed warriors in his detail had spent the last quarter hour stripping the suite of everything that might be of use, including a small fortune in gemstones and gold. If Sergen had had all of his armsmen present, he might have tried to influence the course of the battle by throwing his soldiers alongside his father’s pirates … but most of his personal guards were still in Melvaunt, watching over his interests there. The armsman glanced out the window and asked, “What are your orders?”

“The keep is lost,” Sergen replied. “But it seems to me that the Hulburgan ship is lightly guarded. With a little luck, I think we may be

able to make our escape on Seadrake. But I’d like some insurance in the event that proves impractical.”

“We could slip into the forest and hide, my lord. The Hulburgans would never find us.” That was his magical conditioning speaking, of course; Kerth had to think first and foremost of Sergen’s personal safety.

“I don’t care to be marooned here, Kerth. Now come with me, and stay close.” Sergen glanced around the chamber one more time and then strode out into the corridor beyond. Kerth and three of his soldiers followed closely after him, swords bared in their hands; the remaining two struggled to keep up, carrying a heavy chest full of Sergen’s treasure between them. He wondered briefly where his father was, and whether he still defended any part of the keep, but then he put Kamoth out of his mind. If the pirates were still fighting somewhere in the fortress, it would serve as an excellent distraction for what Sergen intended to do. I lis father would understand.

He led his guards to one of the servants’ stairs in the center of the tower and quickly clattered down the steps. At each floor he paused and listened carefully, but fortune favored him; the squads of Hulburgan soldiers and mercenaries roving the keep’s lower floors didn’t chance to cross his path. He detoured carefully around the great hall on the keep’s main floor, slipping through the kitchens—as he’d guessed, the servants who worked there were no longer at their places—and then used a freight ramp that led from the back of the kitchen to descend to the granaries and cellars below. Two more turns and a narrow stairway later, and he emerged in one of the gated corridors on the second level of the dungeons.

There he found seven of Kraken Queen’s crewmen gathered around the gate of one of the treasure vaults. “Here, now,” Sergen said. “What’s this about?”

The pirates exchanged looks, but none of them spoke. Sergen smiled to himself. “Allow me to make a guess, then. You all thought you’d fill your pockets with Black Moon loot before taking your chances in the jungle. Am I right?”

A bald Turmishan with a square beard of tight black coils straightened up and looked Sergen in the eye. “What other chance have we got? The harmach’s soldiers hold the keep. When the ship founders, it’s every man for himself.”

“Can you eat your gold?” Sergen asked. “Do you think you can bribe the nothics and chuuls and tall mouthers out in the forest with a few pretty

coins? No, you’ll be dead within a day if you run off into the jungle. It seems to me that’s not much of a chance at all.”

“Then we’ll die with our pockets full of gold,” the man snarled. “What else can we do?”

Sergen’s lips twitched toward a smile at the irony. He was not far off from that very situation, but at least he had his armsmen to carry his gold for him. With more boldness than circumstances warranted, he met the Turmishan’s eyes and answered. “Follow me,” he said. “I’m going to make a try for Seadrake. Most of the harmach’s soldiers are searching the keep. With you seven and my armsmen, we’d have about as many crew as they’ve got guarding the ship. I tell you frankly that it’ll be a hard fight at best— but at least it’s a chance. Are you willing to try it?”

The bald Turmishan thought about it for a moment, and then he nodded. “Aye, I’m with you. It’s better than anything we had in mind.” The other men looked at each other and then nodded at Sergen or spoke up with an “I, too!” for him.

“Good,” Sergen said. “Leave off there, and come with us, then.” The pirates joined his band, and he set off again, striding along at a quick pace but careful not to run. If he wanted to keep the Black Moon pirates with him, it would be best to affect a calm, deliberate confidence. The last thing he wanted to do was appear desperate, and he did in fact desperately need those pirates. Assuming that he succeeded in taking one of the two ships lying alongside the keep, he’d need at least a few experienced deckhands to help him get home. He knew very little about sailing himself, and his personal armsmen were likely not much better.

They passed through one of the gates—standing open, its guards nowhere in sight—and turned down another passageway. Sergen allowed himself a smile of relief. They’d reached the Erstenwolds without a fight, and that meant he now had hostages he could use if he couldn’t seize the ship he needed by force. He approached the cell where Mirya Erstenwold and her daughter were being held, and his confident footsteps faltered.

The cell was empty. A set of manacles hung around the bars, showing where they’d been pulled apart with a thick wooden lever thrust through the chains.

“The Erstenwolds escaped,” Kerth said—a statement of the obvious if ever Sergen had heard one.

“Clearly,” Sergen snapped. He stared at the empty cell for a long

moment, thinking hard. Obviously none of the Black Moon corsairs were responsible. They would have fetched the keys from the master-at-arms in charge of this level instead of bending bars to get her out. Either the Hulburgans had already found her and set the Erstenwolds free, or Mirya had managed her own escape. Either way, he was sorely displeased to discover that he did not have the hostages he feared he might need.

He took a breath and then set aside his frustration. The mark of a man’s ability to deal with a crisis was his willingness to make use of the facts as they were, not as he wished for them to be. “Clearly,” he repeated. “Very well, then. If we run into Mistress Erstenwold and her daughter again, we’ll take them with us, but we don’t have the time to search for them now. To the postern, then.”

Sergen led his band of bodyguards and corsairs down through the deserted hallways toward the keep’s side gate. He managed to pick up two more Black Moons along the way, although both were so badly wounded that he doubted they’d be any use to him. Then they reached the dimly lit halls where the keep’s neogi lurked, and turned toward the gate leading toward the dark forest outside. In the mustering hall just inside the gate, they found five of the spiderlike neogi arguing with each other, accompanied by their umber hulk slaves. Four of the hulks were laden with even more treasure than Sergen had seen fit to carry away, and several others watched over a chain coffle with a dozen vacant-eyed captives waiting to be marched away.