heart and lungs.
Some time after that, her fury abated sufficiently for her to comprehend it was impossible to hurt him any further. She looked around for Anton and Chadrezzan then froze in dismay.
The spy and the wizard, his corona of flame now extinguished, lay tangled together on the ground. Neither was moving, and it was impossible to tell if either was alive.
She tried to stand. The world seemed to tilt, and she flopped back down. She was on the verge of passing out and would have to help herself before she could aid another.
She chanted, and vigor surged through her limbs. It wasn’t enough to silence all her pains, but that could wait. She rose and hurried to Anton.
He was still breathing. Indeed, except for the contusions where the butt of the iron staff had caught him, he was unmarked. Yet even so, his skin was icy and his pulse raced, making it plain he was sorely wounded. Chadrezzan’s wand was surely as lethal a weapon as any crossbow or trident, despite the fact that its shadowy discharge didn’t break the skin.
Gripping the bony symbol of Umberlee’s power, Tu’ala’keth declaimed the most potent charm of healing at her disposal. Anton thrashed, and his eyes flew open. He coughed hard several times as if he had a bone caught in his throat.
When the fit passed, he wiped his teary eyes and said, “Why is it that whenever you heal me, it hurts? The priests of Ilmater are gentle as doves.”
Ilmater, martyr god of the weak and helplessshe sneered at the mention of his name.
“Never mind,” Anton continued. “I’m grateful anyway.”
“What now?”
“It’s convenient that we made for the edge of town. If we can just drag the corpses on into the hills a little ways, we’ll come to a cliff where we can dump them into the sea.”
“As an offering to Umberlee?”
“If you like. But mainly to make life easier for me. People will assume I killed the Talassans, and I want them to. It will help convince the other factions I’d make a valuable recruit. But I don’t want Shandri Clayhill to try to punish me for slaughtering members of her crew. Without any dead bodies to prove Chadrezzan and Kassur didn’t just run off, she probably won’t make an issue of it.”
“What of the woman on whom we intruded? She witnessed what happened, or enough of it.”
“Good point. I’ll threaten her again, and give her some Thayan gold, too. I imagine the combination will keep her mouth shut.” ondering how best to broach the matter at hand, Tu’ala’keth shadowed Captain Clayhill through the benighted house. Long skirt whispering against the floor, jaw clenched, and body stiff, the human strode rapidly, oblivious to the fact that someone was trailing along behind her.
The pirate’s path ended in the deserted, moonlit courtyard, where she took up a boarding pike with a blunted point and edge and squared off against a straw practice dummy. Slashing and stabbing furiously, she grunted and snarled. Her jewelry lashed and clattered about her body, and the muscles in her bare, tattooed arms and shoulders bunched and flexed.
Tu’ala’keth watched from the verandah for a time then asked, “What troubles you, Captain?”
Shandri Clayhill jerked around. “Waveservant. I didn’t know you were there. Nothing’s wrong. I’m just practicing.”
Tu’ala’keth descended the steps into the yard. “You cannot deceive me. I am your shadow. Your destiny, by Umberlee’s command.”
“Well…” The human wiped sweat from her eyes. More of it plastered her bronze-colored hair to her brow. “It galls me to lose Kassur and Chadrezzan.”
“We will have better fortune with Shark’s Bliss, and all who sail aboard her, devoted solely to Umberlee.”
“So you say, but their magic served us well in the fights with the Thayans. It will vex me if we lose Anton, too. It’s his right to seek a place on another ship, but you’re supposed to be his comrade. Can’t you convince him to stay?”
“Perhaps I can. Perhaps I will. But why are you, to whom the Queen of the Depths has given her favor, so concerned? Can you not see that you are the luck and strength of Shark’s Bliss?”
The human’s mouth twisted. “That has a brave sound to it, but I can’t take prizes without good men at my back.”
“You will find many reavers eager to sail with a captain who bested Red Wizards, and were you not distraught, you would know it. Let us speak, then, of that which oppresses you and clouds your visions: of the man you dream of killing when you batter this mannequin. It is plain you have just come from his chamber. I smell him on you.”
Shandri Clayhill glared, and for a moment, Tu’ala’keth wondered if the human would tell her to mind her own affairs. But then she sighed and said, “I thought that after Saerloon, things would be different.”
“Yet Vurgrom still treats you as his harlot.” “Maybe I should have expected it. The Lord of
Shadows knows, I’m not his only woman, but for the past couple years, I’ve been his favorite.” “As you sought to be.”
“I don’t deny it! I meant to use him, and it got me what I wanted. But I didn’t know what I was getting into. He’s fat, getting old, and drinks too much. He’s grown jaded bedding hundreds of women and even females of other races. He often needs… perversity to stir his desire.”
“Daughter, you need feel no shame. You stalked and claimed a victim to satisfy your wants. That is the dance of predator and prey, blessed in the sight of Umberlee, though in this guise a far lesser thing than the bloodshed and slaughter for which she intends you. But if you continue to humble yourself when it is no longer necessary, when your fate beckons you onward, then you truly will be at fault.”
“Can I refuse him when he’s still the chief of our faction? When he could demand that I give back Shark’s Bliss?”
“Yes! Because he lusts for the plunder you will bring him more than he aches for your flesh. Because he knows that if you forsake him, some rival faction will be overjoyed to recruit such a successful captain. You have power now, the power to command respect. You simply have to muster the courage to use it.”
Shandri Clayhill drew a deep breath, as if preparing for some great exertion. “You’re right.”
CHAPTER 6
Vurgrom and Shandri whirled to the rhythm of the reel, while the yarting, longhorn, and songhorn wailed, the double-headed hand drum clattered, and the spectators clapped and stamped out the beat. He tried to press against her as he was accustomed to. She shoved him away, maintaining a bit of space between them.
At the end of the dance, he sought to cling to her for another. But she’d fulfilled the requirements of courtesy, done what was required to maintain the impression that she and her superior were on amiable terms, and she twisted away from him and snatched hold of Durth’s hand. She and the grinning, gray-skinned ore pranced away, stepping high and kicking on the final beat of every other measure.
Sweaty, breathing heavilywhen had he grown so old and fat that a single dance winded him? Vurgrom turned and headed for his customary seat overlooking the torch-lit courtyard. One of the serving wenches gave him a lascivious smile as if offering herself in Shandri’s place. But he’d had the girlhe’d had them alland as he dimly recalled, she was nothing special. He sneered, and she hastily lowered her eyes.
He lumbered up onto the verandah and flopped down in his chair, which creaked under his weight. He picked up the wineskin he’d left beside his battle-axe and squeezed a spray of a tart Sembian white into his mouth.
“Captain Clayhill,” murmured a contralto voice, “is disrespectful.”
Vurgrom turned. It was Tu’ala’keth who’d crept up behind him. But she looked differenteven stranger and less human, maybe, because of her spindly frame, dorsal fin, and lustrous black eyes.
Vurgrom realized he was staring and shifted his gaze a little. “It’s good for morale,” he said, “when the captain celebrates with the crew. Shandri’s shrewd to dance with the ore.”
The shalarin smiled. “You are generous, and she is ungrateful.”
