Corsair

Murkelmor raised his eyes to meet his horrified gaze, and Geran saw that half his face had been clawed off as well. His eyes were a dead, pupil-less white, and his teeth had grown long and sharp. Black gore crowned him like careless splatters of paint. More of Moonshark’s crew stood in the street behind Murkelmor or stared at Geran through crumbling doorways. They were all dead, with torn, pallid flesh and lifeless eyes.

“Get away from me!” Geran cried. He’d faced ghouls and other such undead before, but never had he seen one he’d known as a living man. It was a peculiarly horrifying experience. Murkelmor bared his fangs and shambled forward a few steps; others of the crew closed in from behind Geran, reaching out with hands whose blood-caked nails had grown into filthy claws.

“Geran Hulmaster, you slew us,” Murkelmor rasped. “You betrayed us, you drove us here, and here we died. A heavy debt you owe us.”

Geran shivered at the idea of what he might owe to Moonshark’s crew. Still, he tried to answer. “You meant to pillage Hulburg, murder its defenders, enslave its women and children,” he said to the gruesome thing that had been Murkelmor. “It was my duty to fight you. I didn’t mean for you to come to Sulasspryn, Murkelmor, and I’m sorry that Moonshark came to a bad end here. But it was not my fault that you chose the course you did.”

Behind him, a tall shape stumbled out of the shadows. Geran swung his sword point to menace the new threat and found himself facing Skamang. The big Northman had been eviscerated, and his ruined face was a mask of gore. Skamang bared his fangs and hissed at him. “Look what you’ve done to us! You must die to set matters right. A heavy debt you owe, Geran Hulmaster!”

The crewmen behind him edged closer. Geran tried to keep them at sword point, hoping to keep the dead pirates from attacking. He was in no condition to fight, and he doubted very much whether he could outrun them. Besides, something did not make sense to him. Murkelmor and Skamang had known him as Aram, a rootless brigand. As far as Geran knew, there was no way either of them-or their undead corpses-should know his true identity. Perhaps the dead saw through such things more easily than the living, or perhaps there was more to this meeting in the shadows of Sulasspryn.

“How do you know my name?” he demanded.

The dwarf snarled in anger and gnashed his long, pointed teeth. For a moment he rocked back and forth, moaning, as if he did not want to answer. But then he let out a thick, bubbling breath from his ruined chest and said, “We’ve been given a message for you.”

“A message? What message? From whom?”

“King Aesperus sends his greetings, Geran Hulmaster,” Skamang said, speaking from behind him. “He bade us tell you that the fates of Hulburg and the family Hulmaster now hang upon your choice. Follow your intended course, and the harmach’s enemies will triumph over Hulburg. Return home, and you can prevent the harmach’s defeat for now-but Grigor will be the last of the Hulmasters to rule, and his enemies will lay the city in ruins before he dies.”

Geran shivered. He’d met Aesperus once, on the slopes of a barrow in the Highfells a few miles outside of Hulburg. The mighty lich-king was master of the undead in these lands, and he’d known Geran for a Hulmaster. He didn’t know why the King in Copper had decided to speak to him through the dead of Moonshark… and he didn’t like the message, either. “Which enemies?” he asked Skamang. “What danger in Hulburg can I avert?”

“An adversary you’ve forgotten threatens the harmach’s seat,” Murkelmor said. “But if you defend Hulburg, the Black Moon escapes. The two you seek’ll be lost t’ you forever, and in time the Black Moon’ll work your ruin. If you pursue the High Captain, you may save the two you seek, but Hulburg is doomed t’ fall under the power of your foe. Others dear t’you will suffer in their stead.”

Geran frowned, puzzling over the lich’s rede. How could defeating his enemies lead to Hulburg’s fall? And who was the forgotten enemy-the Vaasans who had aided the Blood Skulls in their war? Some other tribe of Thar? It would seem that defeating his enemies and protecting the city went hand in hand, yet Aesperus said otherwise. And even if Aesperus was being truthful, which choice was the lich trying to lure him into making? To give himself a moment to think, he looked at Murkelmor and asked, “Did Aesperus make you into what you are?”

“There be other powers beside King Aesperus in dead Sulasspryn,” the dwarf answered. “But none return from th’ grave within the bounds o’ his old kingdom without his knowledge.”

“Why does Aesperus want me to know this fate?”

Skamang laughed softly behind him, a horrible sound. “King Aesperus has no more words for you, Geran Hulmaster. And now that we’ve delivered his message, he no longer has any hold on us. We can do with you as we like.” He lurched forward, reaching out with his clawed hands.

“Reith arroch!” Geran shouted, summoning a sword spell. Instantly his elven blade flashed with a brilliant white light, throwing shadows back against the night. The ghouls that had been the crew of Moonshark shrank from the light, which seared their undead flesh. Geran took a half step toward Skamang and slashed the dead Northman across the face before he could recover. Skamang shrieked and collapsed to the ground, blinded by the searing light.

Geran swung wildly, keeping the dead crewmen at bay. Then he used his teleport spell, choosing a spot on the other side of a large building’s crumbling wall. He appeared in a tangle of underbrush, slipped, and then climbed to his feet. Sheathing his sword and cupping his light closely, he scrambled through the ruins at the best speed he could manage, hoping that he’d given himself the head start he needed to escape from the vengeful crew. He could hear them scrabbling over the rubble and moaning in frustration behind him.

Geran pressed on, ducking through ruined doorways and climbing over decaying walls until he could no longer hear Moonshark’s undead crew behind him. He slowed down, moving more cautiously, and found a street leading downhill-toward the harbor, he guessed. He made his way down through an area of dense overgrowth, fighting his way through thorny thickets, and then emerged on the shore. He couldn’t see if Seadrake was still out in the harbor, but Moonshark’s battered hulk creaked in the gusts somewhere not too far away.

“I hope Hamil and the rest are out there somewhere,” he muttered. He shrugged the satchel off his shoulder, took out the starry compass and tucked it inside his shirt, and put the small stone with its light spell in the satchel. Then he went down to the water’s edge and held the satchel open, facing out toward the harbor. The satchel shielded the stone’s bright glow from anyone in the ruins above and behind him, but allowed the bright blue-white illumination to show toward anyone out at sea.

They might have had to pull off, he told himself. He’d seen a number of gargoyles flying out to attack the ship while the landing party battled the monsters on the shore. For that matter, it was possible that Seadrake’s crew had met the same end as Moonshark’s, torn to pieces to a man. But then, faintly, he saw a yellow light far out on the water shining back at him. It gave two short blinks.

Geran lowered himself to the rocky beach and hunkered under his sodden cloak. He kept a wary eye on the dark bluffs behind him, half expecting the beat of gargoyle wings or a sudden rush from the shadows by his former shipmates. Half an hour later, he heard the muffled clinking of oarlocks and the soft splash of oars in the water.

Geran, is that you? Hamil asked silently.

“I’m here, Hamil!” Geran called. He pushed himself to his feet and limped out to meet Seadrake’s boat. Ten Shieldsworn pulled the oars; Hamil stood in the bow with an arrow on his bowstring, and Sarth scanned the skies nervously from the stern.

The halfling vaulted over the bow and splashed ashore. “Where have you been? What happened? Are you hurt?”

“The curse on these ruins interfered with my divinations,” Sarth added. “In truth, we feared you were dead.”

“Am I hurt? Yes, but nothing fatal. As for the rest, I’ll tell you the tale on the way back to the ship.” Geran could not suppress a shiver. “I found the rest of Moonshark’s crew. They’re all dead … but they don’t rest yet. The King in Copper’s got them.”

“Aesperus?” Hamil frowned and shook his head. “I wouldn’t wish that fate on anyone, not even Skamang. You’re lucky we didn’t leave you here with them; we intended to sail at first light.”