tatters like a wolf ninning down sheep.
Turbalt gave a moan, turned, and ran along his deck, shouting orders to up the Bird's own mainsail, and do it quickly, by all the weeping gods! His fearful rush took him right past Kurthe, who was slumped against the rail in a doze, the first rattle of a snore escaping past the arm he was leaning on.
Belmer sighed. 'There's no point in all that, captain,' he remarked quietly, his words lost in Turbalt's rush toward the bows. After a glance or two aft, the crew reacted with frenzied fear, for it seemed they recognized the ship as well as Belmer obviously did.
Sharessa and Rings both looked clear questions at the man who'd hired them, as Brindra joined them at the stern. Belmer inclined his head toward the fast-approaching ship and said, 'Yonder vessel is The Black Dragon; or 'Blackfinger's Bane,' as I heard them calling it back in Tharkar.'
As the lips of the Sharkers tightened into angry lines, he turned away from the stern rail and walked back toward the masts. 'Come,' he said simply. The mercenaries cast quick looks back at the swiftly coming pirate ship, and then followed, hands checking the readiness of weapons without thought.
Ingrar, for one, half-expected their employer to fling aside a tarp and reveal some sort of magical hurler-of- lightnings or other weapon of doom, but Belmer merely took Kurthe by the elbow as gently as a nursemaid, and guided him, still stumbling in his morning doze, to a halt amidships, standing along the rail on the side where their pursuer would shortly draw past. The rest of the Sharkers gathered in a line along the rail.
'Will they try to board us?' Brindra asked, voice husky with sleep and fear. 'Shouldn't we make ready with nets and spears?'
Belmer gestured at the rail. 'Stand here, and stay quiet, and watch.' Something that might have almost been a smile touched his lips for a moment, and he added softly, 'It's amazing how far one can go through life, behaving thus.' He turned away, and then added over his shoulder, 'Wake him, will you? Gently.'
After a startled moment of silence, Jolloth nudged Kurthe and rumbled, 'Arise, queen of slumber.' He got no more than a murmur in reply and gave Kurthe a harder shove.
The Konigheimer came fully awake, with a rumble and a hard glare. 'What're you playing a-'
And then he joined in the general tense silence on the decks of the Morning Bird, as the ship that might well bring their deaths swept down upon them.
The frozen snarl of the carved black drake on the bowsprit grinned at them as it came nearer and nearer, bobbing slightly with the seas. Along the rail of the low, rakish hull beyond it they saw pirates gathering: a motley crew drawn from the alleys and thieves' dens of half southern Faerun.
There was a gaudy-silked Calishite, one of his arms ending in a three-spiked metal ball instead of a hand; next to him jostled a bare-chested northerner from far Gundarlun, his blond mane longer than many a woman's. Beyond, a pair of moon-faced Bhutanans were shouldered aside by a grim, bristle-browed Tuigan, and at his side strode a bald, brown-skinned man whose forearms were scaled like those of a serpent-the first signs of the 'eating disease' that only afflicts those born in the jungles of Chult. Golden earrings and belt buckles gleamed in plenty, and the hilt of a cutlass gleamed at every hip, most of them flanked by several knives. There were razor-edged knuckle rings, too, and many a tanned face or forearm bore old, ragged sword scars. Hard, eager eyes and mouths that smiled without mirth lined up along the rail of the pirate ship as it drew alongside the smaller, slower Morning Bird. A lazy rat sunned itself on one tattooed shoulder, and its old and grizzled owner smiled across the water in a grin that displayed empty gums. The whiplike tail of the spiced snake he'd been chewing on dangled from the corner of his mouth as he tested the notched and scarred edge of his cutlass with one finger, watched blood well up, and nodded in satisfaction.
The seven Sharkers watched death draw closer, and tried to keep their faces impassive-but the hands of every one of them strayed to the hilts of their weapons, knuckles going white.
Chapter 8
The strip of roiling water between the two ships grew narrower, as the helmsman of The Black Dragon turned his wheel so as to shear along the side of the Tharkaran vessel somewhere in the waves ahead.
The pirates lined up along the dark ship's rail pointed at Rings and laughed at his height, and whistled at
Sharessa, crooking their fingers as sailors do to summon low-coin girls in taverns late at night.
She ignored them, and the taunts began in earnest. Kurthe shifted uneasily, and Ingrar, glancing sideways, saw the knuckles of the Konigheimer quivering on the hilt of his sword like a row of undead white bones.
And then the pirates suddenly fell silent. In their midst, someone was moving, advancing toward the crowded rail like a small mountain, shouldering aside those sneering, hardened men as if they were awestruck youths. The foremost pair of pirates parted, and those watching from the Morning Bird saw something flare like sudden flame as the bright sunlight shone between them.
A giant of a man lumbered forward to plant one booted foot on the low rail of The Black Dragon. His leather- armored shoulders were as broad as those of two normal men standing together, his arms were as gnarled and stout as old oak trees, and the flame was the sun dancing on his shoulder-length, glossy red hair, and even longer beard. His lazily confident moves and stance left no doubt that he was master of that ship and all aboard it.
'Redbeard!' Kurthe snarled, sudden fire in his eyes.
The fat pirate captain grinned, showing teeth that had been filed into points-teeth that had eaten disobedient crewmen, Coast legends whispered-and ran a lazy hand through his belt-length, fiery flowing beard.
'Aye, Orim Redbeard stands before you, as lovely as ever,' the giant said with a rolling laugh, and his eyes moved along their ranks slowly and shrewdly as it died away. 'I'd thought,' he added casually, when he was done, 'that I'd see Ralingor and his navigator Drethil among you this fair morning-are they by any chance below?'
'You see all of us,' Belmer replied calmly as he raised something into view and balanced it on his shoulder, pointed at the clouds. It was a ready-loaded crossbow.
'We've no cargo worth dying for, Redbeard,' he added as quietly as if he was pointing out trail details on a map. 'Sail on, with peace between us… or this quarrel will take you through the guts, whatever befalls us after.'
'A challenge, is it?' Redbeard asked jovially. Despite bis easy tone and broad smile, his eyes darkened with anger.
'Call it cordial advice,' Belmer told him, his own eyes cold and steady as they held Orim Redbeard's gaze. 'We've no quarrel with you
… but we could find one, if you make it so.'
The pirate captain spread his hands as the freshening breeze plucked his beard out to stream like a flame-silk banner. 'You wrong me,' he said grandly, his face a masterpiece of mocking, injured innocence. Around him, his crew chortled. 'Orim Redbeard is every man's friend-and every woman's dream!'
Amid the roars of mirth that followed, as Orim leered at them, Sharessa and Brindra raised eloquently and scornfully disbelieving eyebrows, but kept silent. At Sharessa's elbow there was a sudden stir as Kurthe snatched out his steel and mounted the rail of the Morning Bird. It was but a short, easy leap across empty air to the other ship.
There were whoops among Redbeard's pirates, and many enthusiastically went for their blades, but their enraged challenger never landed among them. As their swords and daggers flashed out, they saw Kurthe grunt, stagger-and suddenly fall from view back behind the rail of the Morning Bird, his sword tumbling into the waves.
There was a snap and the angry hum of a quarrel singing sunwards. The watchers on both ships saw Belmer calmly remove the butt of his crossbow from where his sudden sharp swing had brought it hard into the back of Kurthe's head.
Redbeard stared at the imperturbable little man for a moment and then roared out his laughter. After a moment or two more of astonishment, his crew joined him, shouting out their mirth as The Black Dragon slowly slid away, its larger sails catching the rising wind.
