Chapter 9

Above decks, it was as if Chaos himself bad returned.Brinestrider’s crew ran everywhere, securing everything that wasn’t already firmly tied down. Captain Ar-Tam and the helmsman, a young Solamnian lad, were both hauling on the wheel with all their might, muscles standing out on their necks as they fought to bring the broad, ungainly ship about. Brinestrider leaned over farther and farther as she came about.

“Mind your heads!” Kael roared.

Riverwind ducked as he emerged from the hold, and the beam swung wildly overhead, barely a hand’s-breadth above him. The ship’s blue sails fluttered for a moment, then snapped suddenly as the wind filled them. With a groan of straining timbers, Brinestrider lurched forward, running back the way it had come. Slowly, as if weary from the effort, it began to right itself.

As soon as the ship finished tacking, Captain Ar-Tam let go of the wheel and started forward from the helm. He glanced at the sails, swore viciously, then pointed at Swiftraven, who had come up the ladder with Brightdawn. “You, boy! Go help my men let out the mainsail! We need all the wind we can catch!”

Swiftraven took a step toward the sailors, then stopped and looked at Riverwind, his eyes questioning.

“Go,” Riverwind commanded, waving his hand. As Swiftraven ran to help the crew haul on the halyards, Riverwind turned to Kael. “What are you carrying that would interest a pirate ship?” he asked.

The captain shoved past him, snarling a curse, but Riverwind followed him toward the ship’s prow. Spray washed over the bow as Brinestrider leapt across the choppy waves.

“What’s your cargo?” Riverwind repeated.

Kael glared at him. “What business is that of your’n?”

“If there are pirates after us, I want to know why.” The old Plainsman caught Kael’s arm as the captain tried to walk away. “You need my people’s swords. Tell me what we’re defending.”

“Grain!” Kael snapped. “I’m not carrying silver or spices, Plainsman—just crates of grain and a few tuns of wine. The Reaver’s dogs might take the drink, but if they open those crates below and see nothing but bloody barley, they won’t be pleased. They’ll want something for their trouble, and they ain’t above taking a few prisoners to sell at the slave markets in Sanction. They’ll get a good price for my crew and the boy—but the real prize will be your daughter there.” He nodded toward Brightdawn, who had joined Swiftraven at his rope. “A lass as fair as her will fetch a pretty price on the block… provided the pirates don’t use her up first themselves, of course.”

Riverwind glowered at the captain, then turned away and hurried aftward. The man who had gone below to fetch weapons came up through the hatch and began to pass out blades and clubs to his mates; many of the sailors also seized belaying pins and gaff hooks from racks on the masts and gunwales, looping them into their belts and muttering angry oaths.

From the stern Riverwind saw Red Reaver not far off. She was a tall, fast warship with deep crimson sails. Atop her mainmast, he could make out a black flag emblazoned with a white scythe. Though Brinestrider was running hard, moving faster with every heartbeat, the Reaver was gaining on them steadily, cuffing through the water like an arrow. Dark shapes swarmed over her decks and crowded against the rails, waving wicked swords in the air. The pirates’ war cries were faint, but they grew louder every moment.

“She’s gaining on us,” Brightdawn noted, joining her father at the rail. She rubbed her hands, which were red with rope burn. “I doubt we can outrun them.”

“Bloody right we can’t,” snapped the helmsman, glancing nervously at the Reaver. “Brinestrider’s a stout one, but we ain’t meant to move so quick. She’ll be on us right soon—Cap’n only brought us about to buy us time.” He spat vehemently on the deck. “You’d better be good with that sword there, old man.”

With all the cutlasses handed out, the sailor who’d brought them up from the hold ran to the hatch and slid down the ladder again, disappearing from sight. Less than a minute later, he scrambled back up, carrying crossbows and quivers of bolts. He handed the weapons to four sailors, who ran to the stern and began to cock the heavy weapons. As they fitted quarrels in place, Captain Ar-Tam hauled on Swiftraven’s arm, dragging him toward the stern.

“String up your bow, lad,” Kael ordered, shoving the young warrior into line with the crossbowmen. He turned to Riverwind. “You, too, old man. Let’s put a few of the bastards down before they get too dose.”

As Swiftraven and Riverwind bent their bows and nocked arrows onto the strings, Brightdawn continued to peer at their pursuers. “How many of them are there?” she asked.

Kael squinted at the Reaver, then shook his head. “Dunno. Two, maybe three dozen.”

“Three dozen!” Swiftraven exclaimed, shocked.

“Against how many?” Brightdawn asked.

“We got twenty crew, countin’ meself,” the captain answered. “Plus the three o’ ye, an’ the two kender.”

“The kender!” Brightdawn yelped. She cast about, looking up the deck toward the ship’s leaping prow. “Where did Kronn and Catt go?”

“I didn’t see them come up with us,” Swiftraven said, his eyes fast on the onrushing Reaver. He gauged the distance and the wind, waiting for the ship to get into range. “I think they stayed below.”

“Bloody cowards, is what they are!” snapped Kael.

“Mind your tongue,” Riverwind warned. “Kender can be many things, but they’re not cowards. They don’t know fear.”

“Well, if they’re so fearless then why in the Abyss aren’t they up here?” the captain shot back.

Riverwind glanced at the hatch, his brow furrowing, but said nothing.

Just then, one of the crossbowmen, overeager to draw first blood, raised his weapon and fired. His quarrel soared high, its steel head shining in the sunlight, but it fell quickly, splashing down into the water a hundred yards in front of the Reaver. Mocking laughter rang out from the pirate ship.

“Hold your fire, lackwit!” Kael snarled. “If ye put another bolt in the water, ye’re goin’ in after it! Watch the Plainsmen, if you ain’t got the sense to figure out when the Reaver’s in range. They know what they’re doing.”

“Swiftraven’s the best archer in Qué-Teh,” Brightdawn declared proudly.

“Hush, Brightdawn,” the young warrior muttered.

“What for?” She turned to Kael. “He can shoot a sparrow out of the air at two hundred paces.”

“The wind’s against us here,” Swiftraven returned, “and sparrows don’t shoot back.” He nodded toward the Reaver. Several crossbowmen stood ready at her bow.

“Get some men back here with shields, Captain,” Riverwind said. “We’ll need the cover, and so will your helmsman.”

Kael hesitated, regarding the Reaver with a worried eye, then stomped up the deck, shouting to his crew. Within a minute, half a dozen sailors crowded the stern, holding up crude, wooden shields.

The Reaver glided closer. “Wait,” Swiftraven muttered, his forehead creased with concentration. “Wait…

“Come on,” Kael grumbled, paling at how close the pirate ship was.

“Be still!” Riverwind snapped, his grip tightening on his bowstring.

“Wait,” Swiftraven repeated. “Wait… now.” He raised his bow, pulled the string back to his cheek, and loosed his arrow. Riverwind fired a heartbeat later.

The two arrows dropped into the midst of the pirates, and a grunt of pain sounded across the water as a man fell. The crew of Brinestrider cheered, and Swiftraven grinned as he fired his second shot. Riverwind followed suit; then the crossbowmen joined in, peppering the Reaver’s deck with quarrels. Three more pirates went down, their bodies feathered.

Then the pirates returned fire.

“Shields!” Riverwind yelled as the snap of crossbow strings sounded from Red Reaver. A volley of bolts soared from the pirate ship, and the sailors raised their shields to block them. Even so, one of Brinestrider’s crossbowmen cried out as a bolt pierced him, punching into his chest below his collarbone. He dropped his crossbow and slumped to his knees, staring dumbly at the shaft that quivered in his body. A moment later, he fell face forward and lay still, blood pooling around him.

A second bolt struck the deck next to Brightdawn, burying itself an inch deep in the wooden planks. She cried out in alarm, and Riverwind’s next shot flew wide of the Reaver as he twisted to look at his daughter. “Move forward!” he shouted. “You’ll only draw their fire back here. You too, Captain!”

“This is my ship!” Kael yelled back, furious. “I’m the one who gives the orders here—”

He gasped suddenly, seeing a glint of metal above him. He jumped aside as a bolt came down; it grazed his shoulder, drawing blood, then struck the deck where he had been standing.

“Move forward,” he muttered, then glanced irritably at Brightdawn, who hadn’t budged from where she stood. “You too!” he snapped, grabbing her arm and hauling her away from the stem.

The pirates scattered on Red Reaver’s deck, shouting curses as Riverwind, Swiftraven, and the crossbowmen continued to rain shafts down on them, but the ship did not veer from its course. She continued to slice through the waves, now a hundred yards off Brinestrider’s stem, now eighty now fifty Swiftraven and Riverwind fired shot after shot, but the pirates had shield men, too. Even so, by the time the Plainsmen were on their last arrows—and the Reaver was only twenty yards away—nine pirates lay dead, and an equal number were wounded. Riverwind loosed his final shaft, but it missed its mark, sticking in the Reaver’s railing. Swiftraven’s last arrow flew true, though, and hit one of the injured pirates in the eye. The man stumbled like a drunk for a moment, then pitched overboard and vanished into the churning sea.

Another one of Brinestrider’s crossbowmen fell, a quarrel lodged in his throat. Elsewhere on the ship, two of the shield men and three other sailors lay dead; another bolt knocked a man out of the rigging. He fell into the water and disappeared.

Red Reaver was only ten yards away. The sailors and pirates exchanged one more pair of volleys—one man on either side fell—then dropped their crossbows.

“Well shot,” Riverwind told Swiftraven.

Swiftraven tossed his bow aside and jerked his sabre from its scabbard. “Not well enough,” he grumbled in disgust.

Riverwind drew his own sword as he watched the distance between the ships dwindle to nothing. Red Reaver missed ramming Brinestrider by an arm’s length, slipping up alongside her.

“Everyone to starboard!” Captain Ar-Tam yelled, running to the rail. “Prepare to be boarded! Get down from the rigging, you fools, and grab a blade!”

Her face pale, Brightdawn watched as the sailors rallied to Kael’s call. She reached for her mace, but Riverwind caught her arm.

“I want you to go below,” he said.

Stubbornly, she shook her head. “No. I’m staying up here.”

Riverwind looked at her, his eyes pleading, but she refused to relent.

“Let her fight,” Kael growled. “We need every arm we’ve got.”

Riverwind slumped, defeated. He glared sourly at the captain, then grabbed Swiftraven and shoved him toward Brightdawn. “Watch her,” he said. “Remember your Courting Quest.”

Captain Ar-Tam waved toward the helmsman, who was still standing at the wheel, gripping it firmly with his right hand. The man’s left arm hung limply, a crossbow bolt stuck in the shoulder. “Move away from there, you idiot!” Kael shouted. “Lash the damned wheel and get over here!”

The helmsman obeyed, looping a leather thong over one of the wheel’s handles and fixing it in place. He pulled a belaying pin from his belt with his good hand and rushed forward, joining the mob of sailors who stood ready, glaring at the pirates scarcely five yards away.

“Too far to jump,” Swiftraven noted. “How will they come across?”

“Boarding planks,” Riverwind answered, pointing with the blade of his sabre. Several pirates stood at Red Reaver’s railing, holding broad wooden planks with iron spikes driven into either end.

The Plainsmen watched as the pirates raised the planks high into the air, then brought them down with a shout, slamming them into Brinestrider’s gunwale. The spikes drove deep into the ship’s hull, bridging the gap between the ships. Several sailors hewed at the planks with their cutlasses, but the wood was tough, and they didn’t have time to do more than carve off a few splinters before the pirates began to charge across.

The dwarf first mate was the first to die, his skull crushed by a boarder’s cudgel. As he fell, he drove his blade through his attacker’s thigh. The pirate staggered with a shout, and another sailor cut his throat. Two more men fell on either side as the pirates pressed forward, weapons glinting in the sunlight. Captain Ar-Tam slashed open a pirate’s belly with his cutlass, dancing aside as the dying man made a last, feeble attempt to run him through.

Riverwind waded into the fray, sabre flashing. He traded blows with a pirate, their blades clashing against each other. Brightdawn followed him, but Swiftraven leapt in front of her, trying to keep her out of danger. His whirling sabre kept the pirates at bay.

For a minute or more, it seemed the sailors might hold the pirates off. Riverwind stabbed one raider through the heart. Swiftraven raked his blade across the stomach of a second. Kael cut off yet another pirate’s sword hand, then cracked his cutlass’s basket-hilt across his face. For every pirate who fell, however, another stepped forward to take his place, and Brinestrider’s crew began to falter. The wounded helmsman died, a bloody hole in his chest. Another sailor took a belaying pin across the side of his head and slumped senseless to the deck. A third crashed back, clutching at a deep wound in the base of his neck.

Captain Ar-Tam and Riverwind fought on, even as men fell all around them. Again and again, Brightdawn swung her mace, trying to join the battle, but every time Swiftraven interposed, shoving aside the pirate she had meant to attack.

“Let me fight!” she snarled.

Swiftraven shook his head stubbornly. Sweat poured down his face, mixing with blood from a gash a pirate’s sword had opened on his cheek. He fought like a madman, facing two or more pirates at a time, always keeping himself between his love and those who would hurt her.

Then, at last, the sailors’ flank collapsed, and the pirates surged over the ship’s deck. In moments, the Plainsfolk and the surviving sailors found themselves encircled by their attackers, trapped in a ring of steel.

“Where in the Abyss are Kronn and Catt when all this is going on?” Swiftraven growled, batting aside a pirate’s blade with his sabre.

“Bastards,” Captain Ar-Tam snarled at the pirates. He had lost his cutlass, but held a dagger in each hand, poised and ready. “I swear, I’ll die rather than—”

“That will be your choice.”

The voice, low and coarse, belonged to a man who could be no one but the pirates’ leader. He was enormous, standing taller even than Riverwind, with a chest as broad as two men standing side by side. His skin had a yellowish cast, and his face’s flat, ugly features spoke of ogrish blood in his ancestry He was clad in leather armor, and a heavy war hammer hung at his hip. He stood between the two ships, atop the boarding planks, his feet planted wide apart and his muscular arms folded across his chest. To either side of him stood a pirate with a loaded crossbow.

“You’ve put up a good fight, all of you,” he said. “But the time for fighting has ended. I’d rather not have to kill the lot of you here and now. Surrender.”

“And what?” Kael challenged. “Let you put us on the block in Sanction?”

“Perhaps.” The half-ogre smiled, revealing a mouthful of brown, rotten teeth. “You’re beaten, Captain. Half your crew are dead. Even with those barbarians’ help, you can’t win this fight. I’m offering you a chance.”

“How merciful,” Swiftraven snarled.

The half-ogre fixed the young warrior with a cold stare. “That one,” he said. “The young barbarian. Shoot him.”

Before anyone could move, one of the crossbowmen beside the half-ogre raised his weapon and fired. The bolt struck Swiftraven’s shoulder, spun him around, and knocked him to the deck.

“No!” Brightdawn cried. Dropping her mace, she threw herself on top of Swiftraven. He moaned in pain, writhing on the deck and clutching at the shaft lodged in his arm. Acting quickly, she tore a strip off his tunic and pressed it to the bloody wound. Riverwind looked on, helpless.

“There, you see?” the half-ogre declared. “I am merciful. Now, if I have to command my other man to shoot anyone,”—he gestured at the second crossbowman, who still stood with his weapon ready—“he will shoot to kill. Then my men will slaughter the rest of you—except the woman, of course. We’ll keep her alive … for a while, at least. Now, I will say it one last time.” The half-ogre’s voice was thick with menace. “Throw down your weapons and surrender.”

Stricken, Riverwind looked at his daughter and Swiftraven, then at the pirates who encircled them. He dropped his sword. It clattered loudly on the deck.

One by one, the surviving sailors—there were only six of them still standing, though some of the fallen were unconscious rather than dead—laid down their arms. Last of all, Kael Ar-Tam tossed his daggers aside.

The half-ogre smiled mirthlessly. “Good,” he hissed.

At that, the pirates stepped forward, grabbing the sailors and binding their hands. As they wrenched his arms behind his back and wound strong jute cord around his wrists, Riverwind glanced at his daughter. Still kneeling over Swiftraven, she glanced back at him, her eyes filled with fear.

Desperately the old Plainsman looked about the deck. Where indeed were the kender to whom he had given his trust?

“Sounds like the fighting’s stopped up there,” Kronn said. He fingered his chapak’s axe-blade, his eyes fixed on the ladder leading above decks.

“You don’t suppose things worked out all right, do you?” Catt asked. She crouched beside him, in the shadows cast by a large stack of crates. “That they killed all the pirates, and don’t need our help after all? That would be disappointing.”

Kronn listened, then shook his head. “Too quiet up there.”

Catt nodded. “So what’s our plan?”

“Plan?” said Kronn. “The plan is to rescue them.”

Catt made a face. “And how do you think we’re going to manage that?”

“I’m working on that part.”