Corsair (27 page)

“You rammed Daring on purpose! And you meant to ram Kraken Queen too!”

“It would’ve been hard to manage it all by mistake,” Hamil told him.

“I’d like to know how Sarth fared,” Geran said. He shivered in the cool night air. He’d lost his boots and his cloak in the swim. For that matter, he was unarmed as well. Still, he sighed and straightened up. “Come on. We might as well go see who’s in charge of the town’s defense and whether we can lend a hand.”

Hamil nodded wearily and climbed to his feet again. They set off along the shore toward Bay Street. This corner of Hulburg’s waterfront was still covered in the ruins of the older city that had preceded the town, and they stayed by the water in order to avoid the old rubble. Suddenly Hamil reached out and caught Geran’s sleeve, pointing seaward again. “Geran, look! There’s Seadrake!”

Standing into the harbor under oar and sail, Seadrake gracefully swept past the city’s Arches, making for the wharves in the center of town. Her white sails glowed a dull red in the reflected firelight. In the distance Geran heard the ship’s bells of the Black Moon vessels begin to ring in alarm. Ashore, the fighting began to slacken as bands of pirates broke off their battle against Hulburg’s defenders, beginning to retreat to their surviving ships. “By Tymora, but Kara’s got good timing!” Geran said with a grin. “That’ll be a hundred more swords on our side. With a little luck, we might catch all of them now!”

The two companions hurried to Bay Street, with Tao Zhe tagging along after them. After being briefly confused for pirates due to their dress, they fell in with a band of Spearmeet who were pressing westward from the Lower Bridge, sweeping the street clear. By the time they reached the foot of the wharf where Kraken Queen had been tied up, the pirate flagship was already rowing her way clear of Hulburg’s docks. Geran grimaced. He should have guessed that Kamoth would flee once a warship appeared to threaten his ability to escape. All they could do was stand on the wharf and watch the chase develop across the harbor.

“It looks like Murkelmor’s thought better of landing now,” Hamil observed.

Geran followed his gaze and glimpsed Moonshark reversing course to slip back out to sea, evading Seadrake. “I’m not surprised. He’s not the type to throw in with a losing cause.” He found he was a little relieved that the ship would get away for now. Skamang and his lot Geran had no use for, but Murkelmor and a few of the others were decent fellows after their own fashion. He hoped he wouldn’t have to cross swords with them.

Seadrake tried to close with Kraken Queen, but Kamoth proved an elusive foe. The pirate flagship was handier under oars than Seadrake, and Kamoth demonstrated it by backing one side and stroking ahead with the other, spinning the ship on a copper piece and then darting away before Seadrake could turn around. The two vessels exchanged a few volleys of catapult fire and plenty of arrows during their close pass, to no great effect. For a brief moment, Geran feared that Seadrake would miss all the pirate ships, but then she turned and bore down on the last one—Wyvern, he guessed—catching her before she got more than a bowshot from the wharf. The fighting was over quickly; Geran couldn’t see well from the dock, but he could hear the angry shouts and fierce battle cries of the Hulburgans aboard their warship as they threw themselves against the pirates who’d attacked their town.

As the fighting between Seadrake and Wyvern died down and the remaining two Black Moon vessels disappeared into the blackness of the Moonsea night, Geran caught sight of a tall man with skin of brick red and a prominent pair of horns sweeping back from his forehead. He stood at the waterside watching the pirate vessels attempt their escape. After a tenday of seeing Sarth every day in a human guise, it took Geran a moment to recognize his friend. “Sarth! You’re here!” he said.

The tiefling turned at Geran’s call and gave him an uneven smile. “You sent me, in case it slipped your mind.” He looked at Geran’s sodden clothes and bare feet. “Might I guess that you are no longer captain of Moonshark? And Hamil is no longer first mate?”

“The crew was sorely disappointed by Geran’s decisions during the attack,” Hamil said. “It became clear to us that our presence was no longer required. Regrettably, we parted ways with Moonshark in the middle of the harbor.”

“Did you get here before the Black Moon?” Geran asked.

Sarth nodded. “Yes, but not by very much. I became lost in those hills east of town and missed the coastal track. By the time I found the path I feared that I would be too late and pressed on with all the speed I could muster. When I arrived at Griffonwatch, no one recognized me until I resumed my normal appearance. That finally impressed upon the Shieldsworn the earnestness of my mission. They sent runners to muster the rmeet companies and summon the merchant company armsmen, but the town’s defenders were still massing when the Black Moon ships appeared. If I’d been delayed by even half an hour more, the attack would have been much worse.”

Geran reached out to grip Sarth by the shoulder. “Thank you, Sarth,” he said. “You saved scores of lives tonight, perhaps hundreds. I won’t forget it.”

The sorcerer inclined his head. “I only did what I could.”

Hamil looked around at the waterfront and sighed. “It looks like the Red Sail’s tradeyard was hit hard,” he said. “We’ll have plenty of cleaning up to do.”

Geran gazed out to sea after the fleeing Black Moon flagship. He had unfinished business with Kamoth and Sergen, and he meant to take it up again soon.

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

Sunrise was still an hour away as Geran made his way from the harbor districts toward the castle of Griffonwatch. More than a little fatigued by two sleepless nights and the bonechilling cold of his swim in the harbor, he’d left Hulburg’s defenders to round up the last of the Black Moon corsairs stranded ashore. The swordmage resigned himself to a long, cold walk through the chaotic streets, and started up the hilly, cobblestone-paved path of Plank Street. He meant to speak with the harmach before he allowed himself to fall into bed.

He passed by Erstenwolds and noted that the store seemed mostly undamaged, although several of the windows were broken and a black smudge along one wall showed where some pirate had tried to set it afire. Mirya was not there, which didn’t surprise him; her house was on the landward side of Hulburg. Given the late hour of the pirate raid, she wouldn’t have been anywhere near the harbor district. He climbed up the steps to the storefront and peered into the darkened windows to reassure himself that nothing was out of place inside.

“Hey, what’re you up to?” Several Hulburgans in the motley arms of the Spearmeet watched Geran warily from the street. The militiamen approached with their spears leveled, led by a strapping young man with a brown beard. “Get away from there!” he shouted at Geran.

Geran turned and raised his hand in a placating gesture. “It’s me—Geran Hulmaster. You can point your spear away from me, Brun Osting.”

Brun took a step forward and studied Geran with a suspicious look before recognition dawned in his face. He quickly pointed his spear skyward. “Begging your pardon, Lord Geran. I didn’t make you out in those

clothes. You look just like one o’ those sea reavers we’ve been chasing after all night.”

“No fault of yours, Brun. I’ve spent the last tenday passing myself off as a pirate.” Geran came back out into the street. “I’m glad to see that you’re well. From what I could tell, the Spearmeet was in the thick of things.”

The young brewer smiled grimly. “Aye, we had our share of fighting. We made sure that plenty of reavers who left their ships never made it back to ‘em. But now that we’ve handled the pirates, the thrice-damned Cinderfists are out looking for trouble. There’s all kinds of fighting over in the Tailings and down along the poorer parts of Easthead. We were just heading that way to lend a hand.” He glanced over Geran’s shoulder at the signboard for Erstenwold Provisioners, and suddenly he fell silent. His face fell, and he looked at the ground.

“What?” Geran asked. “What is it, Brun?”

“It’s Mistress Erstenwold, Lord Geran,” the brewer said. “You couldn’t have heard if you’ve been away from Hulburg, but she’s gone missing.”

“Missing?” Cold dread squeezed Geran’s heart. Mirya missing? If she was not in Hulburg, there was no place she would have gone of her own free will. His weariness vanished in sudden alarm. “What happened? Tell me!”

“It was two nights past. One of her neighbors heard a ruckus at her house and found the place all tore up—the front door wrenched off the hinges, furniture overturned, and all that. No one’s seen her or her little girl since.” Brun set his knuckle to his forehead. “Every man who calls himself loyal to Hulburg’s been looking for them.”

Geran took a step back, as if he’d been physically struck. Someone had attacked Mirya’s house? He started to ask himself why, but halted in midthought. It didn’t matter. He’d been away from Hulburg, unable to protect them. That was most likely the why of it; the only real questions were where the two of them were now, and whether they were beyond his help or not. The thought of some harm coming to Mirya or her daughter made him dizzy with dread. “Who? Who did it?” he asked.

Brun and his men exchanged looks with one another. “No one knows, Lord Geran,” the brewer said. “The harmach himself’s taken it up.”

“Lord Geran?” one of the men with Brun added. “I might’ve heard something new on it. My cousin serves in Tresterfin’s company. He told me he saw something peculiar in the middle of the fighting down by the

wharves tonight—a big fellow, an ogre maybe, carrying a couple of people like the evening’s shopping down High Street toward the harbor. There was a thin man in a brown cowl with the big one. My cousin only saw the pair of’em at a distance, but he told me that he would’ve sworn that it was Mirya Erstenwold the big fellow carried, all trussed up like a prisoner.” The militiaman shrugged awkwardly. “Mistress Erstenwolds been on all our minds, I guess. He might’ve been seeing things as weren’t what he thought. But I thought you ought to know.”

An ogre and a man in a cowl? Geran could make no sense of that. There was no point in running off to comb the waterfront himself; if Brun was right, the Moonshields had already turned the town upside down, and the militiaman’s story might have nothing to it. But he knew who might be able to help. “My thanks, Brun,” he said. Then he climbed back up the steps to the store, let himself in by unlocking the door through its broken window, and hurried inside the darkened building.

A moment later he found what he was looking for and returned to the street with a well-worn white shawl clutched in his hand. Brun looked at him as if he’d lost his mind, but Geran showed him the shawl. “It might help,” he said. “If anyone asks about me, tell them I’ll be up to Griffonwatch as soon as I can.”

“Aye, Lord Geran,” Brun answered.

Geran nodded his thanks and rushed off down the street. He feared that he knew where Mirya was, but he had to make sure of it. He wound his way through the smoldering town, past bands of militia and soldiers searching for any pirates still hiding in the town, and hurried to Sarth’s home on the seaward slopes of the Easthead. The tiefling lived in a modest house attached to a small round tower rebuilt from the ruins of an older watchpost. Sarth was a man of means in Hulburg and could afford to live well.

Geran found a heavy bell by the front door and pulled it urgently. “Sarth!” he called. “I need your help!” He rang the bell again.

The door opened, revealing a stout, balding halfling of middle years with a small oil lamp in his hand—Sarth’s valet. The servant looked up at Geran and blinked sleepily. “Ah, Lord Geran! I’m afraid Master Sarth has retired for the evening,” he said. “Can you return in the morning?”

“I fear this can’t wait,” Geran answered. “Wake him, please. It’ll be on my head.”

The valet sighed. “Very well, then. Please wait in the foyer. Master Sarth will be down directly.” He retreated into the darkened house. Geran stepped inside and closed the door. Sarth’s home was plainly furnished in the simple, rough-hewn style most Hulburgans favored, although the decor included several fine Turmishan weavings. He paced anxiously across the flagstones of the foyer, trying to fight down the sick dread in his stomach.

Sarth and his servant appeared at the top of the staircase. The tiefling belted a light robe around his waist and descended. “What is it, Geran? What’s wrong?”

“Mirya Erstenwold and her daughter are missing. I fear they may have been carried off in the Black Moon raid. Can you find her?”

The sorcerer grimaced. “I am sorry, my friend. Of course I will do what I can. Do you have something of hers?”

Geran produced the shawl he’d picked up in Mirya’s store. “Here.”

Sarth took the shawl and nodded. “This should do. Come, let’s go to my workshop.” He led the way to the round room formed by the old tower adjoining the house. It was surprisingly uncluttered; in Geran’s experience most conjuries and laboratories were hopelessly messy, but Sarth hadn’t been in Hulburg long enough to accumulate the knickknacks, mementos, and curios that most sorcerers acquired over time. Over the last few months the tiefling had simply shrugged any time Geran asked him whether he was staying or not; Geran suspected that Sarth still entertained notions of recovering the magical tome known as the Infiernadex from the lich-king Aesperus, and spent his spare time investigating ways to do so.

“I hope you’ll forgive me for waking you up,” Geran said.

Sarth sighed. “I spent the last tenday unable to sleep a wink on that accursed ship. I think I managed half an hour before you woke me, but I am glad you did. Time may be of the essence.” He went to a cluttered bookshelf, considered the tomes crowded together there, then selected one to carry over to a reading stand in the center of the room. A circle of intricate runes and sigils was painted on the floor around the stand, and Sarth was careful to step over them as he entered. He opened the book, flipped through the pages, and found the spell he was looking for. “There, this should do. Stand over there, if you please, and keep still. I must concentrate.”