Corsair

raced to battle the flames spreading across Kraken Queen in a desperate effort to save her. He smiled in cold satisfaction. “I have your ship, Geran!” he shouted toward the wharf. “Enjoy your stay here, Cousin!”

A small figure in scarlet robes appeared on the battlements above the gatehouse. Sergen frowned as he recognized the sorcerer Sarth. The tiefling gestured, his mouth moving as he snarled the words of a spell Sergen could not hear. Golden fire gathered around his rune-carved scepter, taking on an arrowlike shape-and then with a flick of his hand, Sarth sent the quarrel hurling up at him. Sergen swore and threw himself flat as the fiery bolt blasted through the spot at the rail where he’d been standing.

The Turmishan pirate at the helm gave a strangled cry, and suddenly the bow of the ship began to droop. Sergen glanced back to the wheel and saw the man standing there with a charred, smoking hole burned through the base of his throat. He looked at Sergen, his eyes startlingly wide and white in his dark face, and tried to say something, but blood pooled from his mouth and dribbled down his chin. He leaned on the wheel, his hands knotted on the spokes, and as he slumped to the deck, the helm spun wildly in his dying grip. Seadrake lurched to the side, and one of Sergen’s bodyguards scrambling aloft in the mainmast lost his grip. The man tumbled from his precarious perch and fell past the rolling deck, splashing into the lake below.

Sergen realized he was the only person anywhere near the wheel. He threw himself forward and seized the helm, trying to right the ship’s careening course. The ship was heavy beneath the wheel, and he struggled to steady her. The vessel picked up speed on the fresh breeze as Sergen fought with the helm. He finally managed to level the deck again, just in time to see the scarlet foliage of a forested hillside looming just ahead. “Up! Up!” he screamed at the helm … but it was too late. Even as the bow began to rise sharply, the wind carried Seadrake into the great trees mantling the hillside. Branches cracked or whipped across the deck like scythes, hurling loose gear into the jungle below, and the ship came to a halt canted steeply to one side, snagged among the branches.

“Damn it all!” Sergen snarled. He clawed his way to the rail and looked back at the keep. They’d come a mile or more in their brief flight, and it was clear that Kraken Queen wouldn’t be coming after them any time soon … but Seadrake was snagged in plain sight on the hillside. The Hulburgans could give chase on foot. Maybe it would take them half an hour to get to Seadrake in its precarious perch, or maybe it would take them less than that.

He hurried down from the quarterdeck to his sadly diminished crew, most of whom were picking themselves up off the deck or looking around with stunned expressions on their faces. “Don’t just stand there!” he shouted. “Cut us free! Cut us free!”

I can still escape, Sergen told himself. A few minutes’ hard work with axe and knife, and Seadrake would be free to carry him to safety. He hurried to the rail and looked back toward the keep, where smoke billowed from the burning ship, and watched anxiously for any signs of pursuit.

TWENTY-EIGHT

17 Marpenoth, the Year of the Ageless One (1479 DR)

The strange old ruins proved more extensive than Geran would have guessed from the vantage of the hilltop. Walls and plazas, tumbled towers and rambling palaces ran for hundreds of yards beneath the dense canopy of Neshuldaar’s strange, mist-wreathed jungle. Below the crown of the hill, the ruins took on the character of a strange, walled maze-an old stronghold, monastery, or fortified town of some sort, but not one raised by human hands. The doorways stood only four feet tall, there were no windows to speak of, and the cell-like buildings were piled up on top of each other, linked by what Geran guessed had once been trap doors in ceilings and floors. Large standing stelae marked the small plazas, each covered in carvings of grotesque, monstrous creatures. There were very few streets, and the whole place had an almost warrenlike feel to it even without the overgrowth of trees and vines.

Geran, Mirya, and Hamil picked their way carefully through the ruins, descending deeper into the forest. From time to time they called out for Selsha, but the moon’s strange mists grew thicker as the trees closed in around them. Their shouts didn’t seem to carry very far, and Geran began to wonder if Selsha would hear them even if they happened to come close to wherever she was hiding. The idea of combing the ruins for hours was not particularly appealing.

Hamil led the way, with Mirya close behind him. She carried Hamil’s bow and quiver. Geran knew her for a fair shot with the bow; at least, she’d been pretty good in the days when she’d tagged after her brother Jarad and him on their forays into the Highfells. She might not shoot with Hamil’s speed or accuracy, but he felt better having her armed. Geran brought up the rear, keeping a wary eye over his shoulder for any more jungle monsters. He tried to ignore the graceful curve of Mirya’s hip beneath the borrowed cloak and the thin silk robe and was not entirely successful. It wasn’t that hard to see the girl he’d loved ten years past in the strong stride and carriage of the woman walking before him. Somehow he doubted that his lost love, Alliere, would have shown Mirya’s strength and resourcefulness in similar circumstances. Strange to compare a common woman from rustic Hulburg to a highborn lady of an elf noble family and find the princess of the Tel’Quessir wanting, he reflected.

After they’d wandered through the ruins for a half hour or so, Mirya glanced over her shoulder and caught him as he happened to be admiring her. Geran quickly raised his eyes to meet hers; she gave him a stern look, but the ghost of a smile crossed her lips before she spoke. “I’d like to know how you found this place,” she said. “We’re a far way from Hulburg, and there’s no doubt of it.”

“We followed you, of course,” he answered. “We found that you’d been carried off only an hour or two after the Black Moon raid on Hulburg. I set out after you as quickly as I could. We chased Kamoth and Kraken Queen halfway across the Moonsea-”

“And then Kamoth took to the skies,” Hamil interjected. “We had no idea that he was using magic like that to come and go from the Moonsea.”

“We had to locate an enchanted compass of our own to sail the Sea of Night. As soon as we did, we fitted it to Seadrake and followed Kamoth here,” Geran continued. He smiled grimly. “We’ve been searching for the Black Moon’s hidden lair for tendays now, but we never imagined that it wasn’t anywhere in the Moonsea-or Toril, even. In any event, we’ve taken Kraken Queen and the pirate keep. The Black Moon Brotherhood is finished. As soon as we find Selsha, we can all be quit of this place forever.”

“How bad was the Black Moon raid?”

“Not as bad as it might have been,” he told her. “Sarth, Hamil, and I were disguised aboard Moonshark, one of the pirate ships. Sarth managed to carry a warning to the harmach just before the Black Moon ships sailed into the harbor. We took our ship in after them-we had command of Moonshark by then-and helped to sink two other ships before our crew chased us over the side.” He paused, thinking about the events of the night. “We only stayed in Hulburg a few hours before we set out again in Seadrake, so I know only what I saw with my own eyes. Parts of the harbor district were burned, and many people were killed. But the Shieldsworn, the Spearmeet, and the merchant company armsmen threw back the attack after an hour or two of hard fighting. I did see that Erstenwold’s seemed mostly undamaged.”

“I’m glad of that, but Hulburg should have been ready. With more warning-”

“I did the best I could, Mirya,” Geran said. “The weather that night was terrible, and we made the best speed we could for Hulburg. It was all we could do to give the harmach any warning at all.”

“No, it’s not that, Geran,” Mirya said. She halted and turned to look at him. “I knew the raid was coming. I spied on the leader of the Cinderfists and overheard him conspiring with the Master Mage, days before the Black Moon attacked. I thought I’d gotten away with it, and I meant to tell the harmach first thing the next morning. But they came to my house and caught Selsha and me both.” She looked down at the ground. “The gods alone know how many folk died because I didn’t go up to Griffonwatch straightaway.”

“The Master Mage?” Hamil asked. “Marstel’s House wizard?”

“Lastannor, aye. He brought word of the attack to the Cinderfist leader. That one’s a priest of Cyric named