He turned to glance at Sabyna but found the ship's mage was already climbing rapidly down the rigging. The young sailor's heart hurt as he watched her go.
He grabbed the book Glawinn had loaned him and quickly shoved it into the leather pouch where he stowed his gear. He left the pouch tied to the rigging, hoping it would be there when he got back. Out of habit he took the bow and quiver of arrows he'd brought up with him.
Glancing back at the approaching ship, the young sailor noted that it had gained considerably, pulling to within eight hundred yards and still closing. Black Champion held a south-southwesterly course, headed for the coast of Turmish. The slaver ship drew on due east, running straight ahead of the breeze as it swooped upon them.
'Bring her about!' Azla thundered. 'Take up a heading due east. She's got our scent, boys, but let's see if the bitch can run!'
Black Champion came about smartly, taking up the easterly course. Deck crews sprang into action, bringing around the sails and running up new canvas. The caravel jumped in response to the wind, diving forward through the rolling brine hills. She dived into a wave, miring down, sliding back and forth like a hound trying to run up a muddy incline, then-when she broke through-she surged forward, her prow coming out of the water.
Jherek abandoned his place. Azla already had a man up in the crow's nest acting as a spotter. He pulled the bow and quiver over his shoulder, then ran through the rigging toward the bowline that ran from the mainmast to the prow.
He crossed the rigging without a misstep, pulling his cutlass free of the sash around his waist. He paused long enough to hang his hook from one boot, making sure it was secure, then he unknotted the sash. Shaking out the sash's length, he steadied himself on the rigging, then used the tautness of the ropes to spring up high. With the way Black Champion fought her way through the sea, the move was risky, but he trusted himself.
Holding the cutlass in one hand, he flipped one end of the sash over the bowline, then caught it in his fingers while holding the other. Squeezing both ends of the sash tightly, he hung from the bowline for just an instant, then began the long slide down to the prow. The sash sang across the twisted hemp. He lifted his feet to clear the canvas belled out from the forward mast.
Sliding across the bowline, Jherek glanced at Black Champions, decks and watched the pirates taking their battle stations. They brought the prow and stern heavy ballistae around and fitted them with the ten-foot-long bolts. Two men began winding the winch that drew the great bowstring back.
The bowline was tied off at the end of the bowsprit sticking out from Black Champions prow. Judging the distance and the caravel's pitch, Jherek released one end of the sash. It unfurled from the bowline, and he fell to the prow castle, landing only a few feet from the forward ballista crew.
The young sailor rolled to his feet gracefully. He looped the sash back around his hips and slid the cutlass home, adding the hook from his boot a moment later. Taking the bow from his shoulder, he placed one end against his boot, took the greased string from his pocket, and strung it quickly. He unbound the strap that kept the arrows tight in the quiver and slid four shafts free. He nocked one to the string, then held the other three clasped in his left hand on the bow.
Azla stood at the prow railing, her scimitar naked in her fist. The wind tangled her dark hair. She took her chain mail shirt from a crewman and quickly pulled it on. The ringing chains on leather barely sounded over the crack of the canvas and the smashing waves.
'Who is she?' Jherek asked.
'I don't know the ship,' Azla answered, 'but I know the flag.'
Jherek concentrated on the flag atop the approaching ship's mainmast. A feathered snake curled across a field of quartered black and red, mouth open and fangs exposed.
'They're of the Blood Tide,' Azla said, 'a loose network of slavers who work for the Night Masks in Westgate.'
The slaver vessel was within four hundred yards, its advance slowing as Black Champion seized the wind. Jherek rode out the rise and fall of the ship, his free hand resting on the railing while the other held the nocked bow.
'Unfurl the spinnaker!' Azla shouted.
Crewmen rushed to the ship's prow. An instant later, the white sail billowed out, blotting the sky from forward view.
'Cap'n!' a mate squalled from the crow's nest. 'Something just leaped off from that ship's rigging, and it ain't falling. Some kind of bird.'
Jherek peered into the cloudy blue sky. The sun setting behind them turned the cloud banks blood-mist red, but he could make out half a dozen black shapes boiling out from the ship's lanyards.
The creatures swiftly overtook Black Champion, cutting through the air. The bat-winged humanoids had wedge-shaped faces and fangs that ran nearly to their lower jaws. A single horn sprouted from their narrow foreheads, curling back slightly. Grayish-white skin looked like marble in the sunlight, glowing with a rosy hue from the setting sun. Besides the arms and crooked legs, the creatures had long, spiked tails.
'Gargoyles,' Azla breathed.
The gargoyles screamed, a raucous noise that filled Black Champion's deck. They attacked the two men in the crow's nest first, swooping in to rip bloody furrows across the sailors' faces, chests, and backs with curved talons. Their blows also splintered the wooden cupola.
Tracking the nearest gargoyle, Jherek drew the arrow's feathers back to his cheek, led the creature a little, then released. The arrow jumped from the bow and struck the creature in the thigh.
The gargoyle screamed in pain, breaking the rapid beat of its wings for just an instant. It unfurled its wings and stopped its downward momentum less than ten feet above the main deck.
Horrid red eyes burned with rage as it spied Jherek. Screeching again, the gargoyle flapped its wings and gained height, streaking for the prow castle.
Standing his ground, Jherek fitted another arrow to the string. The other gargoyles in the rigging slashed the sails and smashed smaller lanyard supports.
'Kill those things!' Azla ordered at Jherek's side.
The young sailor released the bowstring when the gargoyle cleared the prow castle railing before him, less than twenty feet away now. Even with the uncertain pitch and roll of the caravel, his arrow splintered the gargoyle's head.
Jherek sidestepped the flying corpse and watched the gargoyle smash into the bow railing, shattering some of the thinner decorative spindles. He already had another arrow nocked, searching for a target.
Pirates scampered through the rigging with swords in their fists to take on the gargoyles rending the sails. One of the creatures clung to the side of the forward mast with both legs, tail, and one hand. It struck out with the other, cleaving a pirate's face from his skull. Shrieking, the pirate fell from the rigging and smashed into the deck below. The screams stopped abruptly.
Releasing the bowstring, Jherek watched his arrow go wide of the mark, catching the canvas beside the gargoyle and sinking to the fletching. The young sailor nocked another arrow and let fly again.
The arrow sank into the gargoyle's thin chest, driving it back and nailing it to the mast it clung to. The wings fluttered as it struggled to get away. Before it could, three more arrows from the deck crew feathered it. The ship pitched across a breaker and snapped Jherek's shaft. The gargoyle dropped, missing the deck and falling over the side.
Jherek took four more arrows from his quiver, nocked one and locked the other three in his fist. He searched for other targets, missing twice as the gargoyles scampered and glided among the sails..
The mainsail came loose in a rush, snapping and fluttering as it dropped to the deck where it covered a dozen pirates. The loss of the sail had an immediate effect on Black Champion as the wind blew through her instead of against her.
Sunlight gleamed against copper-colored armor, drawing Jherek's eye. He put another arrow to his string as he watched Glawinn stride on deck, his long sword in one hand and his shield on his other arm.
The temptation proved too much for the gargoyles. Two of them swooped down from the rigging, flying directly toward the paladin. Pirates on the deck around Glawinn scattered, running for cover.
Pride swelled in Jherek's heart even as he drew back the bowstring. Glawinn's stance never faltered.
'For Lathander!' the paladin roared in challenge.
