Rising Tide (13 page)

“I don’t know,” Jherek whispered. Even then, it hurt to get the words out.

“You aren’t just a boy who escaped impressment,” Finaren stated. “You’re Bloody Falkane the Wolf’s son!” He paused and made a brief luck sign in Selune’s name. “There are those who’d kill you hoping to get back at that man.”

Jherek leaned back in his chair, defeated. He looked at the table, suddenly realizing what it meant: one man giving and one man taking. Only there were no deals he could make and he knew it.

“You hate me, don’t you, lad?” Finaren asked gruffly.

“No,” Jherek answered honestly.

Finaren looked away for a time, then gradually met his eyes again. “I hope you mean that, lad. It’d break me heart if you did.”

Jherek tried to get around the hurt and loss that filled him. During the last few years, other captains had offered him employment after learning how good he was aboard ship and how skilled he was with marine craft as well as weapons. He’d turned them all down, even the offers that came with more wages attached. For a moment he resented the fact that he hadn’t accepted them, hadn’t left Finaren and gone his own way, but he knew if another captain had discovered the truth about his birth, he’d have been hung from a yardarm if he hadn’t had his throat slit first.

“Maybe I can get a ship somewhere else,” he said.

Finaren nodded. “Aye, there’s a thought, but try somewhere far from the Sword Coast where the flaming skull tattoo won’t be as heatedly remembered.”

“Could you give me a letter of recommendation?”

“Aye, that I could, lad, but are you sure you want to ask me for one? Someone asks around down here, they’re going to find out about this. By morning, this whole town will know and tongues will still be wagging.”

Jherek knew he was right.

“Maybe the Sea of Fallen Stars,” Finaren suggested. “You find a captain, tell him your da was a fisherman, that you learned the trade from him. They see what you can do, you’ll move up smart enough.”

Shaking his head, Jherek said, “I can’t lie. I didn’t lie to you, and I’m not going to lie to someone else. There’ll be another captain out there willing to take a chance on me.”

Finaren hesitated for a moment, then shook his head sorrowfully. “I hope you’re right, lad, but you’re going to be looking for one few and far between. You’re no stripling boy now. You’re almost a man full-grown. Most men will look on you as more of a threat. Valkur’s brass buttons, Jherek, how many of them sahuagin did you kill in that battle? How many pirates and other creatures before that?”

“I couldn’t tell you.”

“Look for a way to get rid of that tattoo,” the captain advised. “That’d be the first thing to work on.”

“Madame litaar couldn’t get rid of it.”

“Meaning no disrespect whatsoever, lad, but your ma don’t know everything that’s under the sun. Mayhap you’ll find a mage in one of them countries around the Inner Sea who’ll know just what to do.”

Jherek nodded, not knowing what he was going to do. The only true home he’d ever known was here in Velen. Leaving it while on a ship, knowing he was going to return, was one thing. Moving was an entirely different matter.

“I do know one thing, though, lad,” Finaren stated. “Traveling around and hiring mages, that’s going to cost some money.”

Jherek nodded. That was another problem that he was going to have to think on.

“There,” Finaren said with a small smile, “I can help.” He took a leather bag from under his blouse and pushed it across the table.

Jherek hefted it, surprised at how heavy it was.

“Go on,” Finaren said, “take a look.”

Untying the strings, Jherek peered in surprised to see a collection of gold pieces and gems. He looked up at the captain. “What’s this? If this is charity-“

Finaren held up an authoritative hand and interrupted, “Hold your water, lad. Charitable I may be, foolish I am not. What you’ve got there you’ve rightly earned. When I hire a man onto my ship, I set aside a bit of the wages I pay him that he don’t know about. Bonuses, you might call them, for every voyage we take together. I know men living on ships don’t always put back for them rainy days. So when I got a man laid up by illness or injury, or I got a man don’t come back to his family, I can see to it he don’t go hungry or homeless. Or unburied if it comes to that. That there’s the coin I’ve been putting aside for you, and I managed to scrape together a little over two thousand gold pieces worth of gems to pay for them healing potions you got from the Amnians. Unless you’d rather have the draughts and try to sell them yourself.”

“No. I know you’ve been generous.” Jherek also recalled that the ship didn’t have any healing potions aboard, and for every one he tried to sell, he’d be forced to think about Yeill again. He didn’t want that either.

“You might be able to double your money on those potions,” Finaren pointed out.

“One of the things you always taught me was to take the money up front if I wasn’t sure where I’d be the next day.”

“Good lad,” the old captain congratulated. “I kept the crew aboard Butterfly till just before I came to meet you here, but they’ll be telling tales up and down the docks tonight. You might warn your ma that some angry people could show up at her house.”

For the first time, the cold realization that he might not have a choice about staying in Velen struck Jherek. The town had been Madame litaar’s home for dozens of years. She’d buried a husband there, and other family as well. Malorrie had been buried there himself. Neither of them might be willing to move.

Finaren read the look on his face. “You hadn’t thought about that, had you, lad? About the fact that once this is out in this town, you might be forced to move?”

“No,” Jherek replied honestly. He looked out the dirty window and tried to imagine living anywhere else. He couldn’t. The only life he’d known before Velen was his father’s ship.

“Even if someone here don’t try to kill you,” Finaren warned, “didn’t you say Falkane might come looking if he knew where you were?”

The possibility seemed small now, but Jherek remembered how much it had frightened him when he was younger. “I don’t know.”

“Get out of town, lad,” Finaren said. “That’s my advice. For what it’s worth.”

“I’ll think about it.” The stubborn streak that had helped Jherek survive the hardships he’d experienced up to now surfaced.

Finaren started to argue. Jherek could tell by the way the captain’s lips jerked and his eyes narrow. Then the older man shrugged. “As you think, lad.” He stoppered his bottle. “As for me, I’ve got to go so you can be going.”

Jherek nodded, not wanting the man to walk away from him, but knowing there was no way to hold him.

“You put that purse away and keep it safe,” Finaren ordered as he rose from his chair.

“Thank you.”

“Know something else, Jherek: if there’s ever a time I can be of help to you-in any way-you don’t hesitate to come to me. Right now, I’ve done all I can.”

“I know.”

“Come here, lad, that I can say a proper goodbye.”

Jherek stood, hugging the old man back as fiercely as Finaren hugged him. He didn’t know if it was Finaren’s tight hold or his throat swelling with emotion that shut off his wind.

Finaren cuffed him on the back of the head and stepped back. Tears gleamed in the old man’s eyes and ran down unashamedly into the rough crags of his weathered face. “I want you to know something else, lad,” he said in a thick, hoarse voice. “If me wee boy that Umberlee had taken from me so long ago had turned out to be anything like the kind of man you are, there wouldn’t have been a prouder da in all of Faerun.”

“Thank you,” Jherek said with difficulty. His heart felt like lead in his chest, stillborn and heavy. He hadn’t even known Finaren had lost a son or even been married. He watched helplessly as the captain grabbed his bottle from the table and turned around. He walked away, his legs still bent from all the days at sea.

Jherek tucked the purse inside his shirt and left a couple silvers on the table for the serving girl. He wiped his face and walked outside. The smell of the sea hit him more strongly when he walked outside. Full dark had descended on Velen while he’d been waiting in the tavern. Several ships occupied the small port, their rigging beating rhythmically against the masts in the strong breeze.

His steps turned automatically toward the alleys he’d often traveled to the docks from Madame litaar’s house. When he’d worked for Shipwright Makim, he’d spent most of his evenings watching the ships put out to sea. When he’d gone to Madame litaar’s to live after being hired to repair her roof, he’d often stolen away when she wasn’t looking to spend time at the docks. When he’d put together enough money to buy a small skiff, he’d sailed it every evening and every free day he had.

He paused on a familiar promontory on a hillock in back of Hient’s Glass Shop. The breeze cut across from the east, coming in over the Drake Gate that lead overland out of the city. He thought about traveling through the forest, knowing he might not be safe on any ship. He disliked the idea immediately. The sea was his life. It had birthed him and held an attraction he couldn’t shake.

A woman’s scream cut through the night from the east. He turned at once, tracking the scream as the echoes died around him. With all the noise coming from the docks, he doubted anyone else heard. He moved through the alleys, unable to ignore the plea for help, dreading the place he was sure it was taking him to.

VI

Laaqueel felt grateful as the salty sea closed over her when she dived into the ocean through the hole in bottom of Drifting Eel. She didn’t even mind the terrific cold. She took a deep draught in through her mouth and blew the excess out through her gills, soaking them. Sahuagin warriors filled the water around her.

She swam toward Smuggler’s Bane Tower quickly, following the retreating line of chain nets. The nets left streamers of bubbles in the water that helped mask her approach. She took what cover she could, knowing the glamour Iakhovas had over the ship wouldn’t extend much past the hull of the pentekonter.

The next few minutes would tell the success of the invasion or the death of thousands of sahuagin. The malenti thought it would be worth it if Iakhovas’s own death could be guaranteed. The ebony quill near her heart quivered, as if the sorcerer was letting her know he could sense her traitorous intentions. She regretted the thought immediately. Sekolah had never indicated that Iakhovas’s quest in any way went against the desires of the Great Shark.

When she reached the sandy beach on the inside of the great harbor, she unfurled one of the hook-filled nets from her side and shook it out. She raced up onto the beach without breaking stride. The harsh clanking of the steel nets filled the air.

Five men wearing the uniform of the Waterdhavian Guard lounged at an open area talking and filling pipes. A small lantern hung from a pole overhead, providing them a small light to congregate by. One of them spotted the malenti as she ran up onto the beach. He started to yell a warning to his companions.

Still in motion, Laaqueel moved smoothly, drawing her trident back and letting fly. She was as skilled with the weapon above water as she was below. Her weapons masters had seen to that.

A heartbeat after leaving her hand, the trident slammed into the guard’s chest and drove him backward against the stone wall.

Trained and efficient, the guard members went into action at once. Having both hands free, Laaqueel whirled her net over her head and threw it. The net splayed out, the lantern light reflecting from the dozens of sharp barbs tied in the mesh. It hit the man in front, then the weighted ends swung around the man nearest him, trapping them together. Both men went down screaming as the other’s struggles only set the hooks more deeply.

A sahuagin spear took a fourth man high in the chest, entering from the side and ripping through his lungs. He didn’t have enough breath left to scream in pain.

The fifth man made it up the short flight of steps carved into the stone at the base of the Smuggler’s Bane Tower. A quarrel fletched his back as he dashed through the doorway at the top of the steps. His yells for help were audible even above the clanking retreat of the nets.

The door slammed shut as Laaqueel freed her short sword and started up the stone steps. She turned to Bounndaar, raising her voice so she could be clearly heard. “Get crossbowmen along the shoreline. Those men in the tower are going to know about us in a moment.”

“At once, most favored one.” Bounndaar turned and yelled orders to his men.

Laaqueel faced the door, standing on the small porch area before it. The windlass controls to raise and lower the nets occupied the lower section of the tower. Two narrow, winding staircases led to the floors above. Saying a quick prayer and calling on Sekolah to allow her power to be strong, she threw her open hand against the iron-bound wooden door blocking entrance to the tower.

She felt the magical wards protecting the door resist her spell, then felt them collapse on themselves. Immediately, the door warped, sprung out of its hinges by her magic. She said another prayer when she took up a small hammer from her harness, using up another of her spells. Concentrating hard, not as familiar with this spell because she seldom used it, ignoring the bustle of activity on the other side of the door, she imagined the glowing force around the hammer, making herself see it in her mind.

Bracing herself, she swung the hammer wrapped in magical force against the warped door. The door tore free of its moorings at once, exploding back into the foyer beyond and striking down half a dozen human guardsmen.

Laaqueel, her strike force gathering behind her, stepped through the door, her sword naked in her fist. “Bouundaar,” she croaked in a dry voice. The effort necessitated by maintaining the hammer of magical force gave her a headache, knotting muscles through her shoulders and back. The headache was made worse by the lanterns clinging to the walls. She slitted her eyes against the brightness as she sought targets for the hammer.

She struck without mercy, knowing the Great Shark would approve. Every time the hammer landed, guards died and their blood spattered over her. She spared none of them. Bouundaar, seeing that she was weakened by her efforts, placed himself directly in front of her and ordered two sahuagin warriors into place on either side of her. They kept the humans back with tridents and spears.