Churchstone wheeled suddenly and lifted his sword. 'Now!' he shouted.
Jherek only caught the flash of movement overhead, then a huge cargo net dropped down, snaring the sahuagin. Several of them dropped to the warehouse floor, hammered by the great weight of the thick hawser ropes. The sea devils struggled to get up. A few of them sawed at the ropes with bone knives fashioned with chipped edges. The ropes slid away greasily, twisting from the sahuagin's grip as well as against the knife edges.
Then a pair of flaming torches dropped from the overhead floor as well. From the way the cargo netting caught fire, running in rivulets as it greedily consumed everything it touched, Jherek knew it had been soaked in oil. The sahuagin whistled shrilly in pain.
It was a hard way to die, Jherek knew, and he felt bad for the creatures. It wasn't a way he'd have killed them. Malorrie had trained him to be a warrior, to fight the right fights for the right reasons. This was more like extermination. He felt the warmth of the flames against his cheeks as the men around him hooted in triumph and pleasure.
Jherek glanced away, catching Khlinat's eye.
'A bad bit of business,' the dwarf commented. 'But 'twixt a rock and a hard place, a wise man makes do and lives for the morrow.'
'I know,' Jherek replied.
Khlinat slapped him on the shoulder. 'Buck up, swabbie, we've a city yet to save should the gods prove willing.'
Out in the harbor, the bunyip roar pealed again.
The chill of dread raced through Jherek when he heard the sound. Resolutely, he steeled himself. Come what may, he knew he had unfinished business with his father. He followed the dwarf, skirting around the dead and dying among the sahuagin as they cooked. Archers on the floor above feathered any that appeared on the verge of escaping.
Out in the fresh air and clear of the smoke trapped inside the warehouse, Jherek stared across Baldur's Gate harbor. The battle ravaged the city along the docks. Flames twisted up through the roofs of buildings that would be nothing but ash by morning.
His destiny, he thought grimly, was supposed to be found somewhere in the chaotic debris, but he had no idea how he was going to find it.
'Pacys! It's happening-Baldur's Gate is under attack!'
Snarled in the layers of bedding, Pacys strove to come awake. As always, the bard reached first for his yarting. It lay on the floor beside the bed, barely fitting the hollow between the furniture and the wall in the small room. Until late, the yarting was the only thing of real value he'd carried in years. His fingers slid over the strings and the smooth wood out of habit, then he opened his eyes.
'What?' he croaked.
'We're being attacked by the sahuagin.' Delahnane Kubha stood on the other side of the small bedroom and peered out the single open window. The flimsy pale green drapes blew over her naked body, illuminated by the lone taper on the small nearby table.
She was forty and still lushly curved, bursting with womanly charms that had warmed the old bard's bed for nearly a tenday. Her blond hair had strands of gray in it now, but her confidence in herself kept her from coloring it. She worked as a serving wench in the Blushing Mermaid tavern only a few streets back of the room she kept here. Pacys had enjoyed a friendship that was more than friendship with her the last twenty years whenever he was in the city.
Holding onto the yarting, not bothering to cover his nakedness, Pacys rushed to the window. His hard life was mapped across his lean body in scars and wrinkles, creating highlights on his nut-brown skin. He kept his head shaved, and went whiskerless as well. Jutting silver eyebrows arched over his light hazel eyes. He was thin, his long bones overlaid with stringy muscle.
Pacys had been in Baldur's Gate almost two tendays since arriving by ship. After the attack on Waterdeep and his talk with the merman Narros, he'd come to the city hoping to find more mention of the prophecy he'd been told of, more of the song he was chasing.
Since arriving in Baldur's Gate, he'd only experienced a few times when the song he searched so desperately for- had been promised-had come to him. They'd been troubling pieces, crammed with trepidation and the iron smell of blood.
Now, as he gazed out over the battling groups below and out in the harbor, the song filled his head. It was an extension of the piece he'd unconsciously played in Narros's home after having been invited to the merman shaman's dwelling. Pacys knew it was the piece concerning the hero of the tale.
The music was strong, vibrant, but there was a trilling uncertainty about it, a tremor that didn't ring quite true. Relieved and excited, he fit his hands to the yarting, then guided his callused thumb across the strings. The resonance between what he heard in his mind and what he produced on the yarting was perfect. The sleep fog that clung to him from too many late nights and too much wine lifted instantly.
'He's here,' Pacys declared, smiling. The music filled the tiny room.
Delahnane glanced at him, light glinting in her eyes. 'The hero you've been charged with seeking?' She wasn't as happy about the situation as the old bard was. There was every chance that someone she knew from the tavern, perhaps even someone she called a friend, would be dead before morning.
'Yes.' The certainty that rilled him surprised Pacys. At his age, there seemed to be so many doubtful things. He'd seen seventy-six years come and go, and had learned much in his unceasing travels across Faerun as a wandering bard, not all of it good, but it all had fed his talent in one way or another. Every emotion he'd ever experienced had burned through his mind and into his fingers in thousands of bars, taverns, inns, and castles across Faerun.
He closed his eyes, concentrating on the music. His fingers moved fluidly across the strings, seeking the notes now without hesitation. He added to the small store he'd brought with him from Waterdeep. No matter what song he'd played or how long it had been since he'd last played it, the old bard had never forgotten a tune he'd written or borrowed.
He gave voice to the song, his smooth baritone filling the room.
'He stood with the men of Baldur's Gate,
'This boy not yet become a man.
'He followed his heart, not knowing the plan,
'Of his destiny to stand before the Taker's hate.
'With naked sword steel tight in his hand,
'And fear filling his belly as he eyed
'The black-hearted sahuagin warrior pride,
'The Champion fought to keep the defenses manned.
'Steel rang and sparked as blood ran from wounds untended,
'As the Taker took up the malevolent war that had not ended.'
The words stopped coming, but the music didn't. It became repetitive. Unable to stand idly by while the city fought back against the invaders, or to miss the chance to meet the young man Narros had said it was his destiny to find, the old bard hurried back to the bed.
He pulled his plain brown breeches from the chest where Delahnane kept her personal things and quickly stepped into them. As a raconteur of duels, battles, and wars, he'd learned to keep clothing close to hand and to dress in a hurry. During a war, the battle lines moved even while men slept.
'What are you doing?' Delahnane turned from the window and faced him.
'Only what needs be done, fair lady,' Pacys replied. 'I'm no man to lay abed when there's fighting to be done.' He pulled on the faded green doublet, then stepped into his boots. His feet slid into them comfortably. He hung the yarting by its strap over his back and picked up the wooden staff he'd carried with him almost as long as the instrument.
'You're going out there?'
'I have no choice.'
'Men are dying out there,' Delahnane said.
