The Halfling’s Gem (22 page)

“I see no flag,” one of the sailors near the bridge called to the captain.

Drizzt pointed to the merchant ship ahead. “Are they the target?”

Deudermont nodded grimly. “So it would seem,” he said again.

“Then let us close up with them,” the drow said. “Two against two seems a fairer fight.”

Deudermont stared into Drizzt’s lavender eyes and was almost stunned by their sudden gleam. How could the captain hope to make this honorable warrior understand their place in the scenario? The
Sea Sprite
flew Calimport’s flag, the other ship, Murann’s. The two were hardly allies.

“The encounter may not come to blows,” he told Drizzt. “The Murann vessel would be wise to surrender peacefully.”

Drizzt began to see the reasoning. “So flying Calimport’s flag holds responsibilities as well as benefits?”

Deudermont shrugged helplessly “Think of the thieves’ guilds in the cities you have known,” he explained. “Pirates are much the same—an unavoidable nuisance. If we sail in to fight, we would dispel any self-restraint the pirates hold upon themselves, most probably bringing more trouble than need be.”

“And we would mark every ship under Calimport’s flag sailing the Channel,” Drizzt added, no longer looking at the captain, but watching the spectacle unfold before him. The light dropped from his eyes.

Deudermont, inspired by Drizzt’s grasp of principles—a grip that would not allow such acceptance of rogues—put a hand on the elf’s shoulder. “If the encounter comes to blows,” the captain said, drawing Drizzt’s gaze back to his own, “the
Sea Sprite
will join the battle.”

Drizzt turned back to the horizon and clapped Deudermont’s hand with his own. The eager fire returned to his eyes as Deudermont ordered the crew to stand ready.

The captain really didn’t expect a fight. He had seen dozens of engagements such as this, and normally when the pirates outnumbered their intended victim, the looting was accomplished without bloodshed. But Deudermont, with so many years of
experience on the sea, soon realized that something was strange this time. The pirate ships kept their course wide, passing too far abreast of the Murann ship to board it. At first, Deudermont thought the pirates meant to launch a distance strike—one of the pirate vessels had a catapult mounted to its afterdeck—to cripple their victim, though the act seemed unnecessary.

Then the captain understood the truth. The pirates had no interest in the Murann ship. The
Sea Sprite
was their target.

From his high perch, Wulfgar, too, realized that the pirates were sailing right by the lead ship. “Take up arms!” he cried to the crew. “They aim for us!”

“You may indeed get your fight,” Deudermont said to Drizzt. “It seems that Calimport’s flag will not protect us this time.”

To Drizzt’s nightattuned eyes, the distant ships appeared as no more than tiny black dots in the glare of the shining water, but the drow could make out what was happening well enough. He couldn’t understand the logic of the pirates’ choice, though, and he had a strange feeling that he and Wulfgar might be somehow connected to the unfolding events. “Why us?” he asked Deudermont.

The captain shrugged. “Perhaps they have heard a rumor that one of Calimport’s ships will be laden with a valuable cargo.”

The image of the fireballs exploding in the night sky over Baldur’s Gate flashed in Drizz’s mind. A signal? he wondered again. He couldn’t yet put all of the pieces together, but his suspicions led him invariably to the theory that he and Wulfgar were somehow involved in the pirates’ choice of ships.

“Do we fight?” he started to ask Deudermont, but he saw that the captain was already laying the plans.

“Starboard!” Deudermont told the helmsman. “Put us west to the Pirate Isles. Let us see if these dogs have a belly for the reefs!” He motioned another man to the crow’s nest, wanting
Wulfgar’s strength for the more important duties on the deck.

The
Sea Sprite
bit into the waves and bowed low in a sharp right turn. The pirate vessel on the east, now the farthest away, cut its angle to pursue directly while the other, the bulkier of the two, kept its course straight, each second bringing the
Sea Sprite
closer for a shot of its catapult.

Deudermont pointed to the largest of the few islands visible in the west. “Skim her close,” he told the helmsman, “but ware the single reef. Tide’s low, and she should be visible.”

Wulfgar dropped to the deck beside the captain.

“On that line,” Deudermont ordered him. “You’ve the mainmast. If I bid you to pull, then heave for all your strength! We shan’t get a second chance.”

Wulfgar took up the heavy rope with a grunt of determination, wrapping it tightly around his wrists and hands.

“Fire in the sky!” one of the crewmen yelled, pointing back to the south, toward the bulky pirate ship. A ball of flaming pitch soared through the air, splashing harmlessly into the ocean with a hiss of protest, many yards short of the
Sea Sprite
.

“A tracing shot,” Deudermont explained, “to give them our range.”

Deudermont estimated the distance and figured how much closer the pirates would get before the
Sea Sprite
put the island between them.

“We’ll slip them if we make the channel between the reef and the island,” he told Drizzt, nodding to indicate that he thought the prospects promising.

But even as the drow and the captain began to comfort themselves with thoughts of escape, the masts of a third vessel loomed before them in the west, slipping out of the very channel that Deudermont had hoped to enter. This ship had its sails furled and was prepared for boarding.

Deudermont’s jaw dropped open. “They were lying for us,” he said to Drizzt. He turned to the elf helplessly. “They were lying for us.”

“But we’ve no cargo of particular value,” the captain continued trying to reason through the unusual turn of events. “Why would pirates run three vessels in a strike against a single ship?”

Drizzt knew the answer.

The ride was easier for Bruenor and Catti-brie now. The dwarf had settled comfortably at the reins of the fiery chariot, and the morning haze had burned away. They cruised down the Sword Coast, amused by the ships they passed over and the astonished expressions of every sailor who turned his eyes heavenward.

Soon after, they crossed the entrance to the River Chionthar, the gateway to Baldur’s Gate. Bruenor paused a moment to consider a sudden impulse, then veered the chariot away from the coast.

“The lady bid us to stay to the coast,” said Catti-brie as soon as she realized the shift in course

Bruenor grabbed Alustriel’s magical locket, which he had strung around his neck, and shrugged his shoulders. “It’s tellin’ me different,” he replied.

A second load of burning pitch hit the water, this time dangerously close to the
Sea Sprite
.

“We can run by her,” Drizzt said to Deudermont, for the third ship still had not raised its sails.

The experienced captain recognized the flaw in the reasoning. The primary purpose of the ship coming out from the island was to block the channel’s entrance. The
Sea Sprite
could indeed sail past that ship, but Deudermont would have to take his ship outside the dangerous reef and back into open water. And by then, they would be well within the catapult’s range.

Deudermont looked over his shoulder. The remaining pirate ship, the one farthest to the east, had its sails full of wind and was cutting the water even more swiftly than the
Sea Sprite
. If a ball of pitch came in on the mark and the
Sea Sprite
took any damage at all to its sails, it would be quickly overtaken.

And then a second problem dramatically grabbed the captain’s attention. A bolt of lightning blasted across the
Sea Sprite’s
deck, severing some lines and splintering off pieces of the mainmast. The structure leaned and groaned against the strain of the full sails. Wulfgar found a foothold and tugged against the pull with all his strength.

“Hold her!” Deudermont cheered him. “Keep us straight and strong!”

“They’ve a wizard,” Drizzt remarked, realizing that the blast had come from the ship ahead of them.

“I feared as much,” Deudermont replied grimly.

The seething fire in Drizzt’s eyes told Deudermont that the elf had already decided upon his first task in the fight. Even in their obvious disadvantage, the captain felt a tug of pity for the wizard.

A sly expression came over Deudermont’s face as the sight of Drizzt inspired a desperate plan of action. “Take us right up on her port,” he told the helmsman. “Close enough to spit on them!”

“But, Captain,” the sailor protested, “that’d put us in line for the reef!”

“Just what the dogs had hoped,” Deudermont came back. “Let them think that we do not know these waters; let them think that the rocks will do their business for them!”

Drizzt felt comfortable with the security in the captain’s tone. The wily old sailor had something in mind.

“Steady?” Deudermont called to Wulfgar.

The barbarian nodded.

“When I call for you, pull, man, as if your life depends on it!” Deudermont told him.

Next to the captain, Drizzt made a quiet observation. “It does.”

From the bridge of his flagship, the fast-flying vessel on the east, Pinochet the pirate watched the maneuvering of the
Sea Sprite
with concern. He knew Deudermont’s reputation well enough to know that the captain would not be so foolish as to put his ship onto a reef under a bright midday sun at low tide. Deudermont meant to fight.

Pinochet looked to the bulky ship and measured the angle to the
Sea Sprite
. The catapult would get two more shots, maybe three, before their target ran alongside the blocking ship in the channel. Pinochet’s own ship was still many minutes behind the action, and the pirate captain wondered how much damage Deudermont would inflict before he could aid his allies.

But Pinochet quickly put thoughts of the cost of this mission out of his mind. He was doing a personal favor for the guildmaster of the largest gang of thieves in all of Calimport. Whatever the price, Pasha Pook’s payment would surely outweigh it!