Spirit of the Wind

“Well, if they’re so fearless then why in the Abyss aren’t they up here?” the captain shot back.

Riverwind glanced at the hatch, his brow furrowing, but said nothing.

Just then, one of the crossbowmen, overeager to draw first blood, raised his weapon and fired. His quarrel soared high, its steel head shining in the sunlight, but it fell quickly, splashing down into the water a hundred yards in front of the Reaver. Mocking laughter rang out from the pirate ship.

“Hold your fire, lackwit!” Kael snarled. “If ye put another bolt in the water, ye’re goin’ in after it! Watch the Plainsmen, if you ain’t got the sense to figure out when the Reaver’s in range. They know what they’re doing.”

“Swiftraven’s the best archer in Que-Teh,” Brightdawn declared proudly.

“Hush, Brightdawn,” the young warrior muttered.

“What for?” She turned to Kael. “He can shoot a sparrow out of the air at two hundred paces.”

“The wind’s against us here,” Swiftraven returned, “and sparrows don’t shoot back.” He nodded toward the Reaver. Several crossbowmen stood ready at her bow.

“Get some men back here with shields, Captain,” Riverwind said. “We’ll need the cover, and so will your helmsman.”

Kael hesitated, regarding the Reaver with a worried eye, then stomped up the deck, shouting to his crew. Within a minute, half a dozen sailors crowded the stern, holding up crude, wooden shields.

The Reaver glided closer. “Wait,” Swiftraven muttered, his forehead creased with concentration. “Wait…

“Come on,” Kael grumbled, paling at how close the pirate ship was.

“Be still!” Riverwind snapped, his grip tightening on his bowstring.

“Wait,” Swiftraven repeated. “Wait… now.” He raised his bow, pulled the string back to his cheek, and loosed his arrow. Riverwind fired a heartbeat later.

The two arrows dropped into the midst of the pirates, and a grunt of pain sounded across the water as a man fell. The crew of Brinestrider cheered, and Swiftraven grinned as he fired his second shot. Riverwind followed suit; then the crossbowmen joined in, peppering the Reaver’s deck with quarrels. Three more pirates went down, their bodies feathered.

Then the pirates returned fire.

“Shields!” Riverwind yelled as the snap of crossbow strings sounded from Red Reaver. A volley of bolts soared from the pirate ship, and the sailors raised their shields to block them. Even so, one of Brinestrider’s crossbowmen cried out as a bolt pierced him, punching into his chest below his collarbone. He dropped his crossbow and slumped to his knees, staring dumbly at the shaft that quivered in his body. A moment later, he fell face forward and lay still, blood pooling around him.

A second bolt struck the deck next to Brightdawn, burying itself an inch deep in the wooden planks. She cried out in alarm, and Riverwind’s next shot flew wide of the Reaver as he twisted to look at his daughter. “Move forward!” he shouted. “You’ll only draw their fire back here. You too, Captain!”

“This is my ship!” Kael yelled back, furious. “I’m the one who gives the orders here-”

He gasped suddenly, seeing a glint of metal above him. He jumped aside as a bolt came down; it grazed his shoulder, drawing blood, then struck the deck where he had been standing.

“Move forward,” he muttered, then glanced irritably at Brightdawn, who hadn’t budged from where she stood. “You too!” he snapped, grabbing her arm and hauling her away from the stem.

The pirates scattered on Red Reaver’s deck, shouting curses as Riverwind, Swiftraven, and the crossbowmen continued to rain shafts down on them, but the ship did not veer from its course. She continued to slice through the waves, now a hundred yards off Brinestrider’s stem, now eighty now fifty Swiftraven and Riverwind fired shot after shot, but the pirates had shield men, too. Even so, by the time the Plainsmen were on their last arrows-and the Reaver was only twenty yards away-nine pirates lay dead, and an equal number were wounded. Riverwind loosed his final shaft, but it missed its mark, sticking in the Reaver’s railing. Swiftraven’s last arrow flew true, though, and hit one of the injured pirates in the eye. The man stumbled like a drunk for a moment, then pitched overboard and vanished into the churning sea.

Another one of Brinestrider’s crossbowmen fell, a quarrel lodged in his throat. Elsewhere on the ship, two of the shield men and three other sailors lay dead; another bolt knocked a man out of the rigging. He fell into the water and disappeared.

Red Reaver was only ten yards away. The sailors and pirates exchanged one more pair of volleys-one man on either side fell-then dropped their crossbows.

“Well shot,” Riverwind told Swiftraven.

Swiftraven tossed his bow aside and jerked his sabre from its scabbard. “Not well enough,” he grumbled in disgust.

Riverwind drew his own sword as he watched the distance between the ships dwindle to nothing. Red Reaver missed ramming Brinestrider by an arm’s length, slipping up alongside her.

“Everyone to starboard!” Captain Ar-Tam yelled, running to the rail. “Prepare to be boarded! Get down from the rigging, you fools, and grab a blade!”

Her face pale, Brightdawn watched as the sailors rallied to Kael’s call. She reached for her mace, but Riverwind caught her arm.

“I want you to go below,” he said.

Stubbornly, she shook her head. “No. I’m staying up here.”

Riverwind looked at her, his eyes pleading, but she refused to relent.

“Let her fight,” Kael growled. “We need every arm we’ve got.”

Riverwind slumped, defeated. He glared sourly at the captain, then grabbed Swiftraven and shoved him toward Brightdawn. “Watch her,” he said. “Remember your Courting Quest.”

Captain Ar-Tam waved toward the helmsman, who was still standing at the wheel, gripping it firmly with his right hand. The man’s left arm hung limply, a crossbow bolt stuck in the shoulder. “Move away from there, you idiot!” Kael shouted. “Lash the damned wheel and get over here!”

The helmsman obeyed, looping a leather thong over one of the wheel’s handles and fixing it in place. He pulled a belaying pin from his belt with his good hand and rushed forward, joining the mob of sailors who stood ready, glaring at the pirates scarcely five yards away.

“Too far to jump,” Swiftraven noted. “How will they come across?”

“Boarding planks,” Riverwind answered, pointing with the blade of his sabre. Several pirates stood at Red Reaver’s railing, holding broad wooden planks with iron spikes driven into either end.

The Plainsmen watched as the pirates raised the planks high into the air, then brought them down with a shout, slamming them into Brinestrider’s gunwale. The spikes drove deep into the ship’s hull, bridging the gap between the ships. Several sailors hewed at the planks with their cutlasses, but the wood was tough, and they didn’t have time to do more than carve off a few splinters before the pirates began to charge across.

The dwarf first mate was the first to die, his skull crushed by a boarder’s cudgel. As he fell, he drove his blade through his attacker’s thigh. The pirate staggered with a shout, and another sailor cut his throat. Two more men fell on either side as the pirates pressed forward, weapons glinting in the sunlight. Captain Ar-Tam slashed open a pirate’s belly with his cutlass, dancing aside as the dying man made a last, feeble attempt to run him through.

Riverwind waded into the fray, sabre flashing. He traded blows with a pirate, their blades clashing against each other. Brightdawn followed him, but Swiftraven leapt in front of her, trying to keep her out of danger. His whirling sabre kept the pirates at bay.

For a minute or more, it seemed the sailors might hold the pirates off. Riverwind stabbed one raider through the heart. Swiftraven raked his blade across the stomach of a second. Kael cut off yet another pirate’s sword hand, then cracked his cutlass’s basket-hilt across his face. For every pirate who fell, however, another stepped forward to take his place, and Brinestrider’s crew began to falter. The wounded helmsman died, a