driving stone splinters into Jherek's face and left shoulder.
Lining up behind his blade. Jherek gave himself over to it, relishing the feel and movement. He whipped it forward, forcing Vurgrora into a defensive posture. The bigger man managed to block the sword strikes, but only just.
Another pirate stepped from hiding at Jherek's side, coming too quickly for the young sailor to bring the cutlass around. Jherek dropped, falling backward, watching the pirate's sword flash by only inches from his face. The young sailor kicked upward, rolling on his back and right shoulder to get the necessary height, aware that Vurgrom was renewing his attack.
Jherek's foot connected with the pirate's sword arm elbow hard enough to crack bone. He continued the roll to escape Vurgrom's battle-axe. More stone splinters sprayed against his back, then he was on his feet in a squatting position, ready to spring upward.
Vurgrom already had the battle-axe back and was swinging the blade at him, intending to cleave him between wind and water. Staying low, Jherek drove forward, firing off his bent legs and planting his left shoulder and neck at knee level.
Vurgrom squalled in surprise and toppled.
As the big man fell, Jherek rose to his knees and struck again, snaring the battle-axe's haft with the hook. He brought the cutlass down hard and sheared the head from the haft. A small blue light flared as the weapon came apart.
Vurgrom raised the haft in defense as Jherek stood and swung again. The cutlass blade sliced through the thick axe haft as if it were made of paper. With uncanny precision, somehow knowing he could trust the sword, the young sailor brought it to a stop less than two inches from Vurgrom's face.
'Surrender,' Jherek told him, 'and I'll not kill you.'
'You broke my axe,' Vurgrom said in disbelief. That axe was enchanted. It's never been broken before-never failed me.
Jherek twisted the tip of the cutlass, emphasizing his point.
'Fight me hand-to-hand,' Vurgrom roared. 'Give me a true man's challenge.'
Breathing hard, perspiration and blood covering him, Jherek replied, 'If there were time, and if there were honor in it, I would, but there's no time, and the only honor at risk would be my own.'
Jherek glanced at the mage, already willing the bracer into a shield again.
'Pray to your gods, whelp,' Iakhovas said in a cold, hard voice, 'that you never meet me again.'
Jherek wasn't planning on it, but he didn't say anything. He also didn't break eye contact. If any of his friends had been hurt, it would have been a different matter.
Iakhovas turned, gestured, then walked into what appeared to be a solid wall, the elf woman at his heels.
When the mage had gone, Jherek left Vurgrom with one of Tarnar's men holding a sword to his throat. Tarnar's sailors flooded into the cave. Their captain cowed, the surviving members of Vurgrom's pirates surrendered easily enough.
Jherek sprinted to the pool where koalinth battled his friends, Tarnar at his heels. Two of the creatures lay dead, silent testimony to Glawinn's skill. The paladin was on the floor, his sword locked against a koalinth's spear and his shield holding the creature's savage jaws from his face.
Changing the shield back to a hook, Jherek hooked the koalinth's shoulder from behind and yanked the monster off the paladin. The young sailor kicked the sea hobgoblin in the face, driving it back into the pool. He offered the paladin a hand up.
'Hail and well met, young warrior,' Glawinn greeted him in a strained voice.
'Hail and well met,' Jherek replied.
'The helping hand was appreciated,' the paladin said with a crooked smile, 'but I'd just gotten him where I wanted him.'
Glawinn's sword flashed, engaging another koalinth's trident. He shoved the tines aside, then slid back through and slashed across the creature's stomach, mortally wounding it.
Jherek shifted the hook back to a bracer and swung his arm out to slap aside another koalinth's spear. The young sailor chopped the cutlass into the koalinth's neck, nearly beheading it. He stepped around the falling corpse, moving toward Sabyna.
When he saw hen the copper tresses framing her face, Jherek felt as though he'd been hit in the heart with Vurgrom's great hammer. Eighty-three days they'd been apart, and not one of them had passed that he didn't think of her with both longing and trepidation.
Now she was there before him, bent over in a knife-fighters stance, a blade in each hand, battling for her life against a koalinth. The creature struck with its spear but Sabyna turned it to one side and darted in to score a wound on her attacker's arm. The wound wasn't life threatening, but it bled heavily.
The koalinth howled in pain, then shoved its head open, the massive jaws aiming to bite her head.
Jherek thrust the cutlass forward, not willing to attack the creature from behind. The blade settled between the creature's jaws and it snapped its fangs on steel instead of flesh.
'Lady,' Jherek said softly as the koalinth withdrew, 'I am here.'
Sabyna glanced at him and said, 'You're alive.'
'Aye.'
Jherek stepped between her and the koalinth as another joined it. Despite the stench of wet leather, the closed-in stink of the cave, and the smell of blood, he caught the scent of the lilac fragrance she wore. Just one breath steeled his arm in spite of the beating he'd taken and the fatigue of racing across five miles of rugged terrain to reach the cave. He felt calm and centered.
'I thought you were dead,' Sabyna said.
Jherek batted away a spear thrust, riposting and slicing the koalinth on the forehead so that blood ran down into its eyes.
'As I feared you might be before I returned,' he told her.
'I wasn't sure you cared about that-even cared enough to come back from wherever you'd gone.'
Her words hurt Jherek more grievously than any wound he'd received. He grabbed the next spear thrust in his free hand, held the haft, and stepped forward to pierce the koalinth's breast with the cutlass.
He yanked his blade free and turned to her, full of anger and pain. He kept his words as calm as he could, not understanding how she could doubt him.
'Please, lady,' he said, 'I have told you I would lay my life down for you. I would never desert you in troubled waters without seeing you home.'
'You've told me that,' Sabyna agreed, 'but there's much you haven't told me.'
Jherek gratefully turned back to face the koalinth he'd wounded.
'Perhaps we could talk about this another time,' he said.
He parried a spear, knocking sparks from the weapon.
'Do you swear?' Sabyna pressed, stepping up beside him to engage another koalinth.
Her knives flashed as she blocked the spear thrust, then one of the blades flew from her hand, burying itself in her opponent's throat. Crimson sprayed over her and Jherek.
Jherek hesitated, blocking the spear twice more, then stepping in as he formed the bracer into a dagger and punched it through the wounded koalinth's heart. Even if the creature fell, another shouldered up to take its place.
'Promise me,' Sabyna said.
'Lady, please.'
Jherek tried to turn the koalinth's attack, but it was too savage, too fierce. It drove him back as he tried to find an opening.
'I will not be denied, Jherek,' Sabyna said.
'Now,' the young sailor said, thrusting and breaking his opponent's attack, 'is not the time.'
'Your secret, whatever it is,' Sabyna said, 'is holding both of us back. Neither of us can be happy until we know where we stand.'
'Lady, I care deeply for you.'
The conversation and the emotion that went with it distracted Jherek. He missed a parry and watched as the
