“Anton Fallone.” The spy, who’d warned Tu’ala’keth he meant to give a false name, now turned his gaze on the only female seated among the captains. She was a young human, slim by the standards of her race, with bronze-colored curls. She wore an abundance of glittering, delicate jewelry and a frilly gown that contrasted oddly with her several scars and the dense tattooing crawling on her bare arms, shoulders, and neck. “Captain, I believe you are a person of sense. I see it in your face.”
Now that Anton had spoken to her directly, the Talassan’s features turned blotchy and even redder. “If you have any sense,” he said to the spy, “you and your pet fish won’t annoy a priest of the Destroyer any further than you have already.”
“I doubt,” said Tu’ala’keth, “that anyone here is so foolish as to fear Talos more than Umberlee. It was she who proved her power by smiting these islands only fifteen years ago.”
“All the more reason,” said the human priest, “to honor the god who holds the Bitch’s leash.”
It was an obscene imagethe mistress of the raging sea, destruction incarnate, leashedand even had Tu’ala’keth been willing to let the blasphemy pass, she sensed that if she and Anton did, they’d forfeit all hope of winning the pirates’ respect and places of authority among them.
Accordingly, she brandished her skeletal amulet on the end of its cord and declaimed a prayer. The folk standing between her and the Talassan realized what she intended and scrambled out of the way. The holy words of the incantation sounded hushed and strange enunciated in air instead of water, but she could feel power massing and knew she was performing the conjuration properly. On the final syllable, a harsh noise blared. People cursed and clapped their hands over their ears. The Talassan staggered a step, and blood dripped from his nostrils.
But to her disappointment, the attack didn’t hit hard enough to disrupt his own chanting and gesturing. He thrust out his hand, and a rustling, fan-shaped burst of something yellow and fluid exploded from his fingertips. She tried to jump out of the way, but it brushed her even so, searing her flank despite the silverweave.
She realized the stuff was flame. It was clever of the human priest to strike at her with a force alien to her experience. But she refused to let it spook her or even to take her eyes off him to see if the fire had taken root in her flesh, even though she’d heard it could cling to you and burn and burn and burn.
Meanwhile, another man stepped forth from the crowd. Plainly, he must be the Talassan’s comrade.
Tu’ala’keth hadn’t taken a good look at him before. Her circumstances were too unfamiliar, too many people were milling about, and things were happening too quickly. She beheld a gaunt, wrinkled man with piercing maroon eyes, a lantern jaw, and a long, tangled mane of graying hair. He wore a russet mantle embroidered with black serpents and carried a long staff of rusty iron, with another snake, carved from carnelian, twining around it.
Tu’ala’keth was no wizard, but she’d mastered her own form of magic, and generally recognized power when she saw it. The man was a conjuror of considerable talents. Fortunately, she didn’t have to contend with both him and the Talassan by herself. Cutlass in hand, Anton ran at the warlock, who swept his serpent-girded staff through mystic passes. Strangely, though, he didn’t recite any words of power, any more than he’d taken part in the verbal preliminaries to the fight.
She perceived that much in an instant but didn’t have the luxury of watching any more. She had to stay focused on the Talassan. Hurrying as quickly as she daredit would do no good to botch the incantationshe commenced another spell. Had her opponent done the same, she likely would have finished first, but instead, he resorted to a different form of magic. He simply shook his spear at her, and suddenly he seemed huge, fearsome, more vivid and real than anything else in the world. The sheer, naked force of his anger made her want to turn and flee or grovel and beg for mercy.
She understood what was the matter. Most every priest possessed the ability to affright or command the undead, and some clerics exercised such powers against other sorts of beings as well. The Talassan apparently knew how to chasten creatures of the sea.
But mere comprehension didn’t negate the effect. She had to deny it. Push it out of her head. She snarled, “I am a waveservant!” and felt the compulsion crumble away.
By that time, though, the Talassan had reached the end of another conjuration. Distortion shimmered around his outstretched hand, and a shrill whine cut through the air. He was attempting a sonic attack of his own, but to Tu’ala’keth’s surprise, his effort didn’t hammer and tear at her flesh. Instead, the silverweave shivered on her torso as if trying to shred itself to pieces. Her foe somehow recognized that if he destroyed it, she wouldn’t be able to breathe.
But the coral mesh held together. She chanted a prayer, and the few stray blades of grass pushing up between the flagstones at the human’s feet abruptly multiplied, thickened, and grew tall. For a split second, they undulated like eels then whipped around the human and yanked themselves tight, binding his limbs. They crawled higher still, seeking his head to gag, blind, and smother him.
The Talassan had no choice but to try to dissolve the effect. Otherwise, it would render him helpless. He started jabbering a counterspell, and Tu’ala’keth cried, “Silence!” The charge of magic infusing the word stole his voice only for an instant, but that was enough to spoil the rhythm of his conjuration.
Green strands coiled around his mouth then masked his face completely. He heaved and thrashed, lost his balance, and fell. Tu’ala’keth hefted her trident and ran at him.
“Enough!” Vurgrom bellowed.
Tu’ala’keth felt a pang of frustration and nearly defied the command. But to do so might hinder Umberlee’s cause, so she halted short of her target.
An instant later, the coils of grass burned away in a flash of fire. Even bound as he was, the Talassan had somehow managed to destroy them. He sprang to his feet, raised his spear over his head, and shouted rhyming words.
“I said, enough!” Vurgrom said. “The fight’s over, Kassur. The shalarin beat you, and her friend beat Chadrezzan.” The spectators cheered or groaned and swore, depending on their sympathies.
The man with the eye patch shuddered as if he found the words unbearable, as if the violence of his nature left him no choice but to ignore them. It made Tu’ala’keth feel an odd twinge of sympathy. They might be enemies, but they were also both priests of the Gods of Fury, and understood that by rights, a duel such as theirs should end in death.
But they were also trying to make their way among folk who lacked their sacred insights. So in the end, he broke off his conjuring and gave a curt, grudging nod, and she, too, forbore to strike at him again.
Several paces away, Chadrezzan lay on the ground with blood seeping from a torn lip, while Anton stood over him, cutlass poised to chop. But when the spy saw that the wizard intended to obey Vurgrom’s command, he grinned and reached to help him up. Chadrezzan spat, ignored the proffered hand, and rose on his own, moving in a slow, pained manner that suggested that, at some point during the fracas, Anton had kicked or kneed him in the crotch. The spy shrugged and sauntered back to Tu’ala’keth’s side.
“Good,” Vurgrom said. “Freebooters brawl, if they’re any good at their trade. It’s natural and gives the rest of us something to bet on. But I don’t see any point in letting you butcher one another when you could all be useful to the faction.”
“But in what roles?” asked the tattooed woman, her manner that of a protege seeking guidance of a mentor. “I’d like to bring all four of them aboard Shark’s Bliss, but I can’t lead a company that’s all officers and no common hands.”
The huge man chuckled. “It’s your ship and your decision, honey cake. I can only advise. Though I will say that I would never have taken all the prizes I have, nor won eternal fame, if I hadn’t favored men who’d already proved they knew how to win a fight.”
“Hmm.” “Honey cake” took a second, pretending to deliberate, though it was plain to Tu’ala’keth that Vurgrom’s words had already decided for her. “Waveservant, Anton, my name is Shandri Clayhill. I’d like to bring you aboard Shark’s Bliss as ship’s priest and mage.”
“That’s outrageous!” Kassur exploded. “You already offered the positions to Chadrezzan and me, and he’s a master wizard, able to slay a dozen men or shatter a hull with a single spell. All you’ve seen this impostor do is cast a couple of petty charms.”
“He’s right, of course,” murmured Anton to Tu’ala’keth. “The mute’s a true magician, far more powerful than the likes of me. But I recognized him as an elementalist, and elemental magic isn’t dainty. It takes up space. So I hovered close to the crowd as I advanced on him, and he couldn’t throw his most potent spells at me for fear of hitting them as well. Vurgrom wouldn’t have stood for that.”
Captain Clayhill glanced at Vurgrom, evidently making sure KaBsur’s outburst hadn’t swayed him, then said,
