scalps. At first the crew merely yelped and swore, the injuries inflicted by the gulls little more than annoyances. But then the birds began to strike harder, sharp beaks drawing blood, and the crew's shouts of anger became cries of pain.
At first the gulls ignored Diran and his companions, presumably because none of them were standing near the fish, but that didn't last long. A single gull broke away from the flock and came flapping toward them, beady black eyes glittering with almost human hatred. The bird made straight for Asenka, clearly aiming for the woman's eyes, but before it could reach her, the commander of the Sea Scorpions drew her long sword, swung, and the gull's body fell to one portion of the deck while its head landed on another.
More gulls broke off their assault on the crew and came flying at the companions, harsh cries full of rage, as if they intended to avenge their flock-mate's death. Without a word, Diran and the others turned around, remaining in a circle but facing outward to meet the gulls' attack. Ghaji activated his elemental axe, and mystic fire burst forth from the metal. The half-orc warrior swung the enchanted weapon in wide, sweeping arcs, flames trailing from the axe head as he cut down one bird after another. Asenka continued striking out with her long sword, while Hinto did the same with his long knife. Yvka reached into the leather pouch that hung from her belt and withdrew a slender steel spike upon which three white acorns had been skewered. With a graceful flick of her wrist, she flipped the object-a product of the ever-inventive and always-devious artificers of the Shadow Network-toward the attacking gulls. The steel spike disintegrated in mid-air, and the acorns became ivory streaks as they shot off in three separate directions to bore large, bloody holes in the chests of three different gulls.
Tresslar appeared to do nothing but stand and watch the others fight, his brow slightly furrowed. But a moment later the warming gem he'd created floated out of the circle and toward a concentrated mass of gulls, the mystical object glowing more brightly with each passing second. When the light given off by the gem became too intense to look at directly-and when it was far enough away from any of the companions, the crew, and the ship's rigging-it exploded, killing at least a dozen birds. Like Tresslar, Solus seemed to be doing nothing more than observing the battle taking place around him, but the crystals covering his face and hands were flashing rapidly on and off in an intricate pattern, and Diran felt the psiforged was doing something, though the priest had no idea what.
Diran had drawn a pair of razor-edged steel daggers from the sheaths sewn into the inner lining of his cloak. His hands were blurs as he swept the blades through the air, slicing the wings of gulls as they swooped in to attack, cutting through feather and flesh, the birds falling to the deck, unable to remain aloft. Diran had no compunction about killing the gulls if it became necessary. He had served as an assassin during the Last War before forsaking that path to become one of the Purified. But as a worshipper of the Silver Flame, he held all life sacred and would only kill to defend the lives of the innocent, and even then only when he could find no other way to protect them.
Diran had no doubt that this attack was the trouble Solus had attempted to warn them of. Such aggressive behavior was unnatural for gulls, but during the Last War, Diran had seen animals ensorcelled and used as weapons to assault an enemy in a fashion similar to this. As one of the Purified, Diran could sense the presence of evil in the flock of mad gulls, but it was a diffuse evil, its nature difficult to grasp. Whatever the source of the malignant power that drove the gulls to attack, it didn't seem to be something Diran could exorcise using his priestly abilities. A notion struck him then: perhaps it wasn't magic at work here, but rather psionics. Diran turned to Solus, but before he could give voice to his question, the psiforged answered it.
'I do not know what is causing the birds to attack, but your technique for dealing with them appears to be sound. If you will allow me to borrow your daggers…'
Before Diran could reply, his blades were yanked from his grasp by an unseen force. They soared through the air, flying through the mass of gulls with blinding speed, cutting through wing after wing and sending birds tumbling to the deck one after another. Within moments, the air was empty of gulls, and Diran's daggers-steel blades smeared with avian blood-floated back into his hands. An instant later, the blood rose from the daggers in crimson beads, joined together to form a round mass of red liquid, then flew over the side of the boat and into the sea. His daggers now clean, Diran returned the knives to their sheaths within his cloak.
'Nicely done, Solus,' Diran said.
'It was your idea,' the psiforged replied. 'I simply expanded on it.'
Though Solus had been brought to life during the Last War, he'd remained in seclusion inside Mount Luster ever since the traumatic event of his creation. Only recently had he ended his isolation to emerge into the outer world, but while the psiforged lacked practical experience of life beyond the walls of Mount Luster, Diran thought the construct was proving to be a fast learner.
'Too bad you couldn't have used your mind tricks to make the gulls docile,' Tresslar said. The artificer nodded at the wounded birds surrounding them. The gulls might not have been able to fly, but the creatures continued to cry shrilly and peck at anything near them that moved, including each other.
'I tried,' Solus said. 'But their minds were too simple, the rage that engulfed them too strong.'
'That's all right,' Hinto said. 'I heard you tell Diran you didn't know what caused the gulls to go crazy. You can't counter magic if you don't know anything about it, right?'
'I said didn't know what power affected the birds, but I do know something about it. I know where it originated from.'
Solus pointed sternward and everyone turned to look in the direction the psiforged indicated.
There, off in distance, lay the harbor of Kolbyr.
CHAPTER THREE
As Welby's Pride headed into port, Diran healed the wounded crew members while Solus used his telekinetic abilities to remove the gulls from the deck. The psiforged placed the birds into the water, where the dead would become food for other scavengers and the wounded would have a chance for survival, slim though it might be.
Once the shallop was settled into a berth and tied down, Asenka paid the captain the rest of his fee, and the companions disembarked. Ghaji found the docks of Kolbyr to be quite a change from those in Perhata. Instead of using wood for pillars and planking, the Kolbyrites had fashioned their docks entirely from gray stone. The surfaces were worn smooth by decades of exposure to the elements as well as by the thousands of feet that had trod upon the docks over the years. Patches of moss clung to the stone everywhere, making the docks look more green than gray, as if they had grown from the sea floor rather than having been constructed with hammer and chisel.
The stink of fish hung heavy on the air here-no doubt due to all the fishing boats berthed at the docks-and Ghaji was grateful that a strong breeze was blowing to cut the stench, though gale-force winds would've been even better. He hadn't said anything to the others, but the smell of fish reminded him far too much of the stink of Karrnathi undead, which in turn reminded him of the months he'd spent serving as a mercenary on the Talenta Plains during the Last War. When he thought of those days, he thought of Kirai, and since those thoughts were too painful to recall, he did his best to cast them out of his mind. Doing so would've been easier if the damned air didn't stink like a horde of Karrnathi zombies, though.
Asenka led the way. Not only was she more familiar with Kolbyr as a citizen of the Gulf of Ingjald, she was also the representative of Baron Mahir, which meant she carried all the bribe money. Diran and Ghaji followed closely behind Asenka, while the others brought up the rear. Ostensibly their mission was a secret one, but Kolbyr had many spies in Perhata, just as Perhata had its own spies here. Often, these spies were one and the same, men and women who worked 'both sides of the gulf,' as the saying went. Thus the chances were excellent that word of their mission had preceded them to Kolbyr, and Asenka was authorized to play the role of official ambassador from Perhata-and spread Mahir's money around as liberally as necessary-should the need arise.
'Do you sense it, Ghaji?' Diran asked, his voice barely above a whisper.
Ghaji glanced sideways at his friend. 'I assume you're not talking about the fish smell.'
'Hardly. I sense the same sort of evil I did aboard the fishing vessel when the gulls attacked. Only it's stronger here, more focused.'
Ghaji had traveled with Diran ever since the two had met when the half-orc had been working as a brothel bouncer in Kartan. Though not a worshipper of the Silver Flame himself, Ghaji had joined Diran's crusade against evil, and he had fought alongside the priest against threats so dire that just to stand in their presence was to risk
