Corsair

“I spoke too soon-here they come!” Hamil said. He crouched down behind the gunwale, sheathed his daggers, and shrugged his shortbow from his shoulder. Then he popped up to send an arrow winging up to the battlement overlooking the wharf. A Black Moon archer cried out and tumbled from the rampart.

“They would’ve been wiser to turtle up inside their keep,” Geran said. He ducked down by the gunwale, trying to gauge how much the pirate reinforcements had changed the course of the battle. So far, the Hulburgans were standing their ground. “We don’t have any siege gear!”

“They can’t afford to let us take this ship. It’s their only way back to Faerun.”

Geran realized that Hamil was right; the pirates had to retake their ship, or else the Hulburgans could simply sail it off and strand them in their moon-keep. A sudden inspiration struck him, and he looked around the pirate vessel’s quarterdeck. Kraken Queen’s starry compass sat in a hooded binnacle just in front of the helm. It looked much like the one from Moonshark, although its color was more of a rich violet hue. He picked up a boarding axe from a dead pirate’s hand and wrecked the device’s frame with several hard strokes. Then he picked the orb out of the ruined frame. “There, that should do it. Kraken Queen’s going nowhere for now.”

Hamil raised an eyebrow. “Stealing Kamoth’s magic compass?”

“I don’t see why he should have one. If the fight turns against us, we can retreat, and he’ll be stranded here forever.” The starry compass would also make for a very valuable bargaining chip if Kamoth put a knife to Mirya’s throat. He couldn’t be sure, but he had to believe that the pirate lord would part with his hostages in order to get the device back. Geran handed the orb to Hamil. “Here, take this back to Seadrake, and put it someplace safe. It might prove very useful. I’m going to see what I can do about breaking this stalemate.”

“Done,” Hamil said. He tucked it under his arm and hurried forward, looking for a good place to cross back to the Hulburgan warship.

Geran turned his attention back to the fight. A crossbow quarrel ricocheted from the unseen wardings that protected him, spinning away through the air. The fight had grown more heated while he sabotaged the ship’s magical compass; scores of pirates in a howling, reckless mob fought to win back their ship. Kraken Queen was in Hulburgan hands, but the fighting had moved down to the wharf between the keep and the moored ship. Here Seadrake’s assault had momentarily stalled. For the moment, the numbers on each side seemed close, and if the Hulburgans had the advantages of armor and discipline, the pirates had the raking fire from the keep and fierce desperation on their side. Then he spotted a figure at the head of the pirate counterattack, a bearded man who wore scarlet armor worked in the shape of fishlike scales. Behind him, the Black Moon pirates hurled themselves into the battle with fresh zeal.

“Kamoth,” Geran breathed. He vaulted down from the quarterdeck to the wharf and threaded his way through knots of battling soldiers and corsairs. He parried or dodged several blows aimed at him as he darted forward to confront the pirate lord.

Kamoth led the way with a cutlass in one hand and a hatchet in the other as the pirates fought their way back toward their flagship. He cut down a pair of Hulburgan sailors who stood against him then whirled to face Geran’s attack. Their swords flashed and rang together in the furious melee at the foot of the gangplank. Geran attacked with a high slash at Kamoth’s face, but the pirate lord blocked it and countered with a vicious cut of his left-hand axe. He pushed forward, pressing Geran closely, keeping their blades locked as he tried to get Geran in reach of the hatchet. Geran gave almost ten feet of ground across the blood-slicked wharf before he freed his blade and opened the distance again. The two men circled each other warily while the battle raged all around them.

“I know you, Geran!” the pirate lord said with a fierce laugh. “But I remember you as a lad of fifteen or so. You’ve learned to be handy with a blade, I see.”

“I studied four years in Myth Drannor.” Geran was careful to keep up his guard. “This blade I won in the Coronal’s Guard.”

“Well done, my boy!” Kamoth said. He wore the same fierce grin Geran remembered from years ago, as if all that stood between them even now were a few boyish pranks he’d been caught at and hoped to laugh away. “I never had the benefit of much formal study in sword play. I had to pick it up as I went along.” He attacked suddenly with a furious onslaught. He was quick, and Geran saw where Sergen had gotten his speed from. His style was just as unschooled and unorthodox as he claimed. When Geran parried Kamoth’s thrust, the pirate lord hooked the curving blade of his hatchet over Geran’s sword, trapping their blades together, and nearly wrenched Geran’s sword from his hand. Geran twisted his blade sideways and pulled it free and then ducked under a wild swing at his head as they spun past each other and separated again.

“That’s Seadrake there, isn’t it?” Kamoth asked, breathing hard. “How’d you manage to follow me here, my boy?”

“I’ve got Moonshark’s starry compass,” Geran answered. He circled warily, looking for an opening. “And Narsk’s letters led me here.”

“Damn it all!” the pirate lord snarled. “It was you at Moonshark’s helm in Hulburg harbor, wasn’t it? You cost me three ships in a single night!”

Geran replied with a lunge at Kamoth. The pirate lord parried several quick thrusts, and when Geran repeated the same attack, he tried again to catch Geran’s blade with his own weapons. But Geran was waiting for him. The instant the blades caught, Geran snarled the words of a sword spell: “Ilyeith sannoghan!” Lightning flew from the elven steel, leaped to Kamoth’s cutlass and hatchet, and raced up the pirate lord’s hands. Kamoth howled and dropped his weapons, jolted by the sudden shock. Before he could recover, Geran lashed him across the face with the crackling blade. The pirate lord’s helmet took much of the impact, but the ringing blow sent Kamoth spinning to the wooden boards, streaming blood and wisps of smoke from the rent in the side of his helmet. He stirred feebly and fell still-dead or unconscious, Geran didn’t know.

“The High Captain’s fallen!” one of the pirates nearby cried out. Others took up the cry. Some of the pirates began to retreat; others hurried toward the scene to protect their fallen leader. Several rushed Geran all at once, and for a moment the swordmage was caught up in the middle of the melee again, fighting furiously. The press of the attack carried him back across the wharf again, until Sarth’s sizzling bolts of fire broke the last desperate Black Moon effort to retake their ship. Geran tried to battle his way back to Kamoth again as the Hulburgans rallied and drove the remaining pirates back to the castle gate. He caught a glimpse of several of the corsairs dragging Kamoth back toward the keep as the Black Moon gave up the battle for the dock. The wharf was littered with the dead and dying, most of them Black Moon men; he lowered his sword, panting for breath, and discovered that during the fighting he’d caught a shallow but bloody cut high on his left arm.

Hamil appeared at his side, his daggers bloody and a thin cut across his scalp. Geran hadn’t even realized that his small comrade had returned to the fray. “Mind the sharpshooters!” he said to Geran, pulling him down by a high stack of crates that offered some cover against the fire coming from the ramparts. “Kraken Queen’s compass is locked up in your cabin. Do we try to take the keep, or do we offer terms? The Black Moon men might not have much more fight left in them.”

Geran thought quickly. Mirya and Selsha were somewhere inside; if he didn’t get into the castle quickly, he’d find it barricaded against him. The Hulburgans had Kraken Queen well in hand, and they had control of the docks as well. The Black Moon leaders inside realized that too, and the gates of the keep were beginning to close against the attackers. He stood again and raised his sword over his head. “To the keep!” he shouted. He spotted Sarth near the pirate ship’s forecastle, and waved his arm at the sorcerer. “Sarth! Secure the gates!”

The tiefling glanced back and gave him a quick nod of understanding. He leaped from Kraken Queen’s deck, taking to the air as he did so. With blasts of fire and snapping arcs of lightning, he scoured the battlements overlooking the keep’s gate clear of foes then hurled a glowing orange bead through one of the arrow slits into the gatehouse. An instant later a tremendous burst of flame shot out from each of the gatehouse’s windows, and the tower shook with the force of the explosion. The gates below stopped moving. The sorcerer’s fireball had wrecked the hidden windlasses, and likely had killed the pirates furiously working them. The gates remained half open, and Shieldsworn began pouring through into the keep.

Geran looked around for any of Seadrake’s officers, and found Andurth Galehand manning one of the arbalests on the warship’s quarter rail. “Master Galehand! Keep half your sailors here and guard the ships!”

Seadrake’s sailing master scowled in disappointment. “I’ll do as ye say, Lord Geran,