first?”
“Of the two of us, you are the stronger.”
“Where’s Yvka?”
The two companions looked at the rope line that now stretched between the two vessels. Yvka was walking across, hands held out to her sides for balance.
“She’s a juggler and acrobat, remember?” Diran said.
“I’ve been thinking of her as a spy for so long, I’d almost forgotten.”
Hinto’s head poked up over the edge of the Pelican’s bow. “Be careful,” the halfling said. “It’s been awhile since It ate the last of my friends, and it’s bound to be awfully hungry by now.”
Yvka didn’t respond to Hinto’s warning, and she didn’t look down at the surface of the Mire as she carefully made her way along the rope.
Diran and Ghaji, however, did look down, and they didn’t like what they saw. Four holes opened in the thick seaweed, and from each a sinuous gray creature slithered. The serpent-like things had no features, save for openings on their rounded ends that resembled puckered mouths. The mouths gaped open to reveal circular rows of tiny sharp teeth.
“Watch out, Yvka!” Ghaji warned, then to Diran he said, “What are those things? Some kind of eel?”
“Eels can’t raise up out the water like that, and their mouths look more like those of lampreys.”
The four creatures, whatever they were, possessed no obvious sensory organs, but the lack didn’t seem to impair them as they lunged toward Yvka, ringed mouths opening even wider. Diran reached for a pair of daggers, but fast as he was, the lamprey-like things were faster.
Just as they were about to fasten their hungry mouths on Yvka’s legs, the elf-woman crouched down, bent her knees, and launched herself into the air in a forward roll. She tucked her chin to her chest and kept her arms held out straight as she spun around and landed lightly on her feet. The rope bowed beneath her weight and shimmied from side to side, but Yvka managed to keep from falling off.
The lamprey-things waved about in confusion at the sudden relocation of their prey, but Diran knew it wouldn’t take long for them to attack again. He had only seconds to take advantage of their confusion. He drew two daggers and hurled them at a pair of the creatures, and before those daggers had time to strike their targets, he drew and released two more. All four daggers found their marks, but the rubbery gray hides of the creatures were so thick that the needle-sharp tips of the knives barely penetrated the flesh. The lamprey-things shook the daggers off, and the blades fell to the seaweed-covered surface of the water. Three of the four daggers landed on their side, but one fell point-first and embedded itself in the thick layer of plant material. The seaweed, dense as it was, wasn’t as resilient as the lamprey-things’ hides, and the blade sank up to the hilt. The seaweed surrounding the blade shuddered and the dagger popped upward, as if violently thrust by something below. The knife landed on its side this time, and its steel surface was coated with a viscous dark-green slime.
“Did you see that?” Ghaji asked.
“I did,” Diran replied, but he had no time to consider the implications. He’d managed to distract the lamprey- things long enough for Yvka to keep walking across the rope, and she’d nearly reached the Proud Pelican. The creatures, as if sensing their meal was close to escaping them, turned in Yvka’s direction and stretched for her.
Diran reached into his cloak for another pair of daggers, but these weren’t like the others he’d tried-these had been specially prepared. The blades struck their targets with the same result as before, sinking into the creatures’ hides only an inch of so, and just as they had before, the lamprey-things paused to shake off the blades before resuming their attack. This time instead of lunging toward Yvka again, they stiffened, the tiny wounds made by Diran’s daggers rapidly swelling and turning an ugly black. Thick grayish-green ooze began bubbling out of the creatures’ tooth-ringed maws, and their snake-like bodies shrank in on themselves as their hides grew wrinkled, dry, and leathery. Twitching feebly, the four desiccated creatures withdrew back into the holes they’d emerged from, and the seaweed filled in after them.
Yvka made it the rest of the way to the Pelican and crouched upon its upturned bow. Once more, Hinto was nowhere in sight.
“Hinto?” she called. “Are you hurt?”
At first there was no reply, and Diran feared that the halfling had been taken by other lamprey-things while hidden from view. Then Hinto called out, “I’m fine,” and crawled into view.
Diran looked down at the surface of the Mire and saw that, while all four of the special daggers he’d thrown had landed on their sides, the seaweed around them had turned black.
“Interesting…”
Ghaji groaned. “I hate it when you say that. It often means we’re in worse trouble than we thought.”
Diran turned to his friend and smiled. “Aren’t we usually?”
The half-orc smiled back. “I guess. Why should this situation be any different, eh?”
Diran glanced once more at the black patches of seaweed and noted they were slowly widening. He wasn’t sure, but he thought the greenery surrounding the black patches was quivering, as if in pain.
Diran’s smile fell away. “I’m afraid things are different this time… and if what I suspect is true, the situation is far deadlier than anything we’ve ever faced before.”
“Worse than-”
“Yes.”
“How about-”
“Not even close.”
Ghaji looked over at the Pelican and sighed. “Now I really wish Yvka hadn’t been meditating when I went into her cabin.”
CHAPTER
“Poison?” Hinto said. “I’ve never heard of such a thing. What kind of priest uses poison?”
“The kind that helped get you off that death-trap of a ship,” Ghaji said.
Hinto looked at the half-orc as if he expected the big man to try to take a bite out of him. “Not that I’m ungrateful,” he said to Diran. “Just surprised is all.”
The four of them sat on the deck of the Zephyr, eating hardtack and drinking fresh water from Yvka’s supplies. It wasn’t the most satisfying meal Ghaji ever had, but he’d choked down worse during his years as a soldier. After Diran had used his poison-coated daggers to stop the lamprey-things, Yvka and Hinto had managed to cross back over to the Zephyr without incident. Ghaji figured that the poison had killed the creatures that had attacked Yvka and perhaps their deaths had frightened any others away, but when he’d said as much to Diran, the priest had merely grunted, and Ghaji hadn’t pressed his further. He knew that Diran would share his thoughts with the rest of them when he was ready and not before.
“What can you tell us about the Pelicans demise?” Diran asked Hinto.
The halfling bit off a chunk of hardtack and chewed as he spoke. “We set sail from Tantamar, carrying a hold full of spices and silks, bound for Port Krez. Well, that’s a long voyage, and the captain and crew of the Pelican like… liked their drink, and it wasn’t long before our supply of spirits began to dwindle, so when we spied another two-master on the horizon, we changed flags and set off after her.”
“Changed flags?” Ghaji said.
“Life’s hard in the Principalities,” Diran explained. “Lhazaarites do what they must to survive. One day a ship might fly a merchant’s flag, the next a pirate’s. It’s a matter of pragmatism.”
Ghaji sniffed.
“I didn’t say I approve,” Diran added, “but that’s the way it is.”
“True enough,” Hinto said. “A man has to live by his wits on the sea. Now, if I can get on with my story?”
Ghaji gritted his teeth. One moment the halfling acted terrified of him, then the next he was insulting. Another sign of the man’s mental instability, Ghaji decided, but that didn’t mean he had to like it.
