Rising Tide (8 page)

A sahuagin drummer stood in the prow, croaking out a rhythm. Jherek recognized it as serving the same purpose as a drum beater on a trireme. Flaming arrows from Butterfly’s crew fell into the water and occasionally sunk home in the manta, creating bright spots of yellow flame against the darkness as they flew. When they hit the sahuagin craft, the oarsmen pulled back from the fires, but one of them would always fin a wave of water over it and put it out.

“You get that girl back?” Finaren asked.

“Aye.” Jherek smoothed his wet hair back from his face, getting the measure of Butterfly’s lunges across the uneven ocean. They were rising and falling little over fifty paces opposite each other, but at the distance, that fifty paces stretched out even further, making shots difficult.

“Good,” the captain growled, “but that was a damn fool thing you did.”

“I couldn’t let her drown or get eaten by a shark.”

“You ever stop and think you ain’t got much choice in some of those matters, lad?” Finaren sounded angry, hotter than Jherek had ever heard him.

Irritation and insecurity stung the young sailor at the same time. “You mean you think it’s possible the sahuagin out there are going to take Butterfly this evening?” He meant it to come out harder, but he really wasn’t sure. There were a lot of sahuagin out there.

“Not my ship,” Finaren answered. “Leastways, not while I’m able to draw a breath. Now be a good lad and put a shaft through that croaking monstrosity in the prow. They have us on speed, but they’re a brute while Butterfly’s a lady who knows how to dance. Still, they’re going to run us down if we let them. Even this puny wind won’t always be in our favor as we move around.”

Jherek concentrated on his shot and loosed the fletchings. The arrow caught the sahuagin in the thigh, causing it to bark in pain. Still, it snapped the arrow off and went back to croaking cadence. The young sailor drew another shaft, watching the manta draw nearer. When the craft was less than thirty paces away, he released the second arrow.

The fletching suddenly appeared in the sahuagin’s thickly muscled neck and the croaking halted immediately. It toppled over the side, clawing at its neck as it tried to dislodge the arrow.

“Hard to starboard!” Finaren shouted.

The boatswain yelled the order back and the ship’s crew and helmsman made the adjustment. Butterfly came about regretfully, losing the wind and slowing immediately.

Jherek fired four more arrows, hitting targets scattered across the manta. The thick sahuagin hide turned two of his arrows as surely as chain mail when they didn’t hit flush. At the distance, it was almost impossible to avoid hitting something.

Finaren held onto the railing as the ship crested a wave that slammed into her side. Quarrels from the sahuagin crossbows stuttered into Butterfly’s side and ripped through her sails. A man screamed only a few feet from Jherek, clutching the quarrel that suddenly appeared in his chest.

“It burns!” he screamed, falling to his knees. “Selune watch over me.” He lasted only a moment, praying fervently to his goddess before he passed out.

“Poison,” Finaren noted. “Umberlee take them deep what use such things.”

Jherek fired another pair of arrows before the manta closed on Butterfly. For a moment, he thought the sahuagin craft was going to strike the cog, then the manta cleared Butterfly’s stern by inches, charging past. The sahuagin hurled spears and tridents as they went by, croaking angrily.

The cog’s crew started to cross over to the port side.

“Stay, you dogs,” Finaran shouted. “Helmsman, bring us around harder to starboard. I want a hundred and eighty degree turn.”

“Aye, cap’n,” the helmsman called back.

Butterfly came about. Sailcloth cracked overhead as the crew flipped the booms around. She caught the full breeze again in heartbeats. The spinnaker blossomed like a night rose in full passion and pulled the ship forward.

“Crafty though them creatures may be,” Finaren said, “they still don’t understand the wind and what a kind mistress she might be.”

Jherek watched as the sahuagin struggled to bring their craft under control. Finaran was right about the speed the sea devils had, and they would have outrun Butterfly had the attack led into a race.

“Bring her around, helmsman, toward them sea devils,” Finaran commanded. “I want to shear her oars off on the port side. In another minute we’re going to wake them up to what a war at sea is all about.”

The manta almost stalled in the water as the sahuagin struggled to regain control of their craft. They floundered, struggling to turn the manta around.

“They got no draw on that boat,” Finaren said. “It sits flat on the water, and once they get it started in a direction, they can make it go fast, but maneuverability becomes an issue. Hawlyng …”

“Aye, cap’n?”

“That fire projector, Hawlyng, are you ready with it?”

“Aye, sir.”

Jherek glanced over his shoulder and saw the fire projector mounted on pivots come around to point at the stalled manta. The projector’s maximum range was forty yards. At the moment, the manta was out of range, but the young sailor didn’t doubt that it would come in again.

“Helmsman,” the captain called out, “shear them oars. The rest of you dogs hold onto to whatever you got, and Umberlee take them beasties what’s come upon us!”

III

Butterfly bore down on the manta, speeding closer. The sahuagin stared at her, their silvery eyes picking up light from the oil lamps swinging crazily from the railing. A renewed flurry of spears and quarrels thudded against the cog, finding few targets. A sailor went down with a trident through his guts, squalling in fear and pain.

Jherek held himself steady, an arrow pulled back. When Butterfly came down again, her prow nosing toward the manta, he fired arrows as quickly as he could draw the string. Even under Malorrie’s tutelage, he didn’t come close to the skills of an elf bowman in terms of speed, but he was deadly accurate at this range. He aimed at the sahuagin on the port side of the manta, driving them back into their shipmates when they fell.

A string of sharp thundering cracks followed Butterfly as she sheared through the sahuagin oars on the manta’s port side, her prow cracking the paddles like kindling. When they finished the pass, Jherek saw that nearly every oar on that side of the sea devils’ craft had been splintered and rendered useless.

A ragged cheer ripped free of the throats of Butterfly’s crew.

“Hawlyng,” Finaren bawled.

“Aye, Cap’n.”

“Have you got that thrice-damned craft of fishy black-hearts in your sights?”

“Aye, Cap’n.”

“Fire away and send ‘em back to Umberlee’s caresses.”

The fire projector belched a thin stream of flaming, explosive liquid that served immediately to drown the cheers of the cog’s crew. Most sailors didn’t like the weapons. They sat like waiting death on a ship’s deck, as able to work against a crew as for one. Jherek had seen them explode on ships’ decks during battle before, ruptured by a catapult shot. Twice, damaged fire projectors had sent both ships to the ocean floor before any real salvage could be made.

Against the sahuagin, it was the most frightful weapon for the sea devils outside of magic.

The launched flames showered down over the manta, catching even the wet wood and the sahuagin unlucky enough to be standing there on fire. Sahuagin worked immediately to put the fire out, but oil-based as it was, they only spread it for the moment and made it burn hotter.

In the stern, Hawlyng shouted curses at the sahuagin from beside the fire projector. He didn’t see the first of the sea devils climbing over the railing of the cog’s squared stern castle. Before anyone could shout a warning, the sahuagin threw a spear that caught the mate in the side, pinning him to the stern castle walls.

“Clear that stern, you flea-bitten rum dogs, and Umberlee take any that lags behind!” Finaren shouted.

Jherek tossed the bow aside and slid the cutlass and hook free. He ran for the stern, charging up the starboard side steps that led into the stern castle with the other sailors. The lead sahuagin thrust out with its trident, intending to impale Hawlyng again.

Swinging the hook, Jherek caught the tines of the trident and yanked them aside. They buried in the wooden deck. Before the sahuagin could recover, the young sailor thrust the point of his cutlass between the creature’s open jaws. Fangs snapped off at the impact, and the sword slid through the back of the sahuagin’s neck. Jherek twisted the blade savagely, making sure to cut the sea devil’s spine. Even if it didn’t die right away, it was paralyzed.

Butterfly’s crew crowded onto the stern castle, and the sounds of battle swamped over Jherek. The young sailor pulled his cutlass free with effort, then kicked the sahuagin backward as Malorrie had taught him. The creature’s dead weight slammed into two of his fellows and drove them all backward into the ocean again.

“Die humaan!” a sahuagin snarled in the common tongue as it stabbed at Jherek with a trident. Its voice out of the water, wrapping around unaccustomed words, sounded flat and out of breath, a nightmarish gasp of rage and hate.

The young sailor turned the trident with the cutlass, losing the sword’s use for a moment while it was trapped in the tines. The sahuagin swiped at him with its free hand, the talons black and sharp as razors.

Unflinching, Jherek took the attack to the sahuagin rather than retreating. All the fear inside him was concentrated on survival, and Malorrie’s training made sure each move he made was smooth as Dalelands spider silk. He swept the hook up, catching the sahuagin’s hand and driving the curved point through the creature’s palm, stopping it only inches from his face. Before the sahuagin could react either to the counterblow or the pain, Jherek headbutted it in the face.

Off-balance, the sahuagin stumbled backward. Still holding the impaled hand on the hook, Jherek slid back and freed the cutlass with a slither of metal on metal that threw off sparks. He swung with all his might at the sahuagin’s corded neck. The heavy blade bit deeply into his opponent’s flesh, almost cutting through. It dropped with a harsh gargling croak, then died.

Jherek freed his weapons, watching as Finaren swung an oil lantern into the face of another boarding sahuagin. The lantern shattered and oil covered the creature’s head, wreathing it in flames. It screamed horribly, clawing at its face, then toppled back into the dark water. The scent of burned flesh clung to the stern castle, overwhelming even the fishy musk from the sahuagin.

“Hold us steady, helmsman,” Finaren commanded. “Keep us into the wind and let’s put this place behind us.”

Jherek fought on, slashing at his opponents. Two sailors went down around him, both with grievous wounds. He kept himself poised, riding out the pitch and yaw of Butterfly as she sailed across the ocean. He cut and thrust, blocking a dagger thrust with the cutlass, then ripping a sahuagin’s throat out with the hook.

One of the passengers at the top of the port stairs threw out his hands, thumbs touching. Jherek caught the movement from the corner of his eye. Flames shot from the passenger’s fingers, arcing across the stern castle and splashing across three sahuagin. All three sea devils released their holds on the stern railing and dropped into the ocean.

Catching a trident thrust by another sahuagin with the hook, Jherek turned it aside and kicked the sea devil in the face. He followed with a thrust through the creature’s heart. Thrusting the hook through the sahuagin’s harness, he dragged the body to the railing to clear it from the stern deck. He sheathed the cutlass and grabbed one of the corpse’s legs and levered the body over the railing.

A sahuagin net spun up at him from a sea devil clinging to the ship’s stern. It settled over the young sailor before he had a chance to move. Cruel fish hooks woven into the net bit into his flesh. Blood flowed from a dozen small injuries as the net drew tight.

Jherek screamed in pain, instinctively pulling back against the net in an attempt to escape. The effort only drove the hooks more deeply into his flesh. Luckily, there was no burn of sahuagin poison, but the weight and the strength of the sahuagin at the other end pulled him forward. He caught the edge of the railing in one hand and with the hook, watching as the hooked bits of his skin stood out. The pain ripped another scream from his throat.

A cold voice entered his mind. Live, that you may serve.

Fire leaped from one of the burning sahuagin still on deck onto the net. The strands parted like hairs over an open flame.

Jherek stumbled back onto the deck. The pain from the hooks was sharp and tearing, almost blinding in its intensity, but he saw that the sailors had successfully broken the sahuagin attack. The manta still burned in the distance, looking like a single torch in the night. Sea devil corpses littered Butterfly’s wake, catching the pallor of the lightning flashing through the wine-dark clouds overhead.

Claustrophobia tightened over Jherek more tightly than the net. He didn’t like closed in places. Hooking his fingers in the net, he started pulling, hoping to dislodge some of the hooks.

“Stand easy, lad,” Finaren ordered, striding close. “Damned nets are hard to get away from. Lucky that this one got burned the way it did.”

Jherek took a deep breath and relaxed the way Malorrie had taught him. He distanced the fear, giving himself over to the peaceful pitch and yaw of Butterfly’s rolling deck. Finaren hadn’t seen the way the net had parted.

“Carthos, Himtap,” Finaren called out, “get some snips and get the lad free of that net.” The captain regarded Jherek. “You stay here, lad. I got the rest of me crew to look in on, and some of them need burying. I got to save them what I can.”

“Aye, sir.” Jherek started to nod, then stopped when the hooks pulled at his flesh. One of them had embedded in the back of his head.

Finaren walked away.

Jherek crouched and slid his knife free of the shin sheath. Hagagne joined him, working gently to cut away the strands of the net. The first thing to do was cut sections of it away, then go after the individual hooks.