The Sentinels

  Tonnid tumbled over backward, landing heavily, but on a bunk. Not that the ship’s bunks were particularly soft, but anything was better than the hard wooden deck.

  I went to the fallen man. He was still breathing, but out cold. His face was twisted somewhere between a grimace and a smile. I could see that his injury was superficial—I wasn’t even certain if I had truly knocked him unconscious.

  I grabbed the key ring hanging from his belt. Half a dozen keys of various shapes and sizes jangled on a large iron ring.

  “Probably should have asked you which one it was,” I lamented. I checked one last time to make sure he wasn’t seriously hurt, then I sprinted off to the brig.

  Two sailors guarded the prisoners. I knew neither of them particularly well, but they hardly looked surprised to see me.

  “Captain wants me to relieve you,” I said, facing the taller of the two, a man named Wart.

  “No, he doesn’t,” Wart replied.

  “He said we hold the brig till he comes himself,” said the other, a toad-faced man called Vil.

  “Which means, he didn’t send you,” said Wart.

  “And that means you shouldn’t be here.”

  “So why don’t you just turn ’round and go away?”

  Each followed the other’s thoughts easily. They were friends and had probably fought together as effectively as they conversed.

  But I had no choice.

  The two flanked a wooden door beyond which was a small antechamber with the iron-barred cell that held the pirates—and Joen.

  I rushed to my right, toward Vil, trying to snap my sword from its sheath as I went. But I was unaccustomed to the longer blade of my saber. It wasn’t all the way out of its sheath when I reached the sailor, so I settled for throwing my shoulder into him, hoping to shove him aside in a moment of surprise.

  But he was much stronger than I, and even with my momentum I barely moved him.

  I fell back a step as Wart approached. He and his companion drew cutlasses. I finally got my saber free, and fell into a defensive stance. Two against one, and they were both bigger, stronger, and probably better trained than I.

  But I had to get through that door.

  I skipped away from Vil, closing the distance to Wart in a single stride, and lashed out with my blade. One, two, three times my sword cut through the air, but each time Wart’s cutlass parried cleanly. He made no attempt to retaliate, but neither did he give ground. He was waiting for his friend to engage.

  I darted back a step, pivoted, and brought by sword around in a wicked cut aimed for Vil’s head. He had followed, as I figured, and my aim was true. But like his friend he was ready for the attack, and his sword stopped my own.

  My attack had left my back exposed, an opportunity Wart didn’t ignore. He stepped up, chopping his sword down at my head. I dived aside to my left, barely missing the blade. My own sword came up just in time to pick off Vil’s attack, a horizontal slice from his right—directly against the momentum of my dodge.

  By sheer luck, my blade stopped his, but the force of the blow made my arm tingle.

  I had no time to recover as Wart cut in, his blade swinging at my shoulder. I couldn’t bring my sword around fast enough to stop it, so I brought my empty hand up instead, hoping somehow to deflect the attack.

  But my hand wasn’t empty. It held Tonnid’s key ring, gripped firmly in my fist, the iron circle across my knuckles.

  The sword bit deep into the iron, nearly cutting through, but the ring held. I slid back a step, and the two sailors followed. I slid another step, and they paced me. Then I dropped my right foot behind me, as if I were going to step back again, and they moved forward once more, swords at the ready.

  But instead of stepping back, I dived forward. They weren’t expecting that, and each brought his sword in close, defensively. But my target was not either of them. Instead I aimed for the space between.

  I went into a diving roll right between the startled sailors. I came to my feet a stride past them and let my momentum carry me forward beyond the reach of their swords, right into the wooden door.

  I put my shoulder down and slammed into the door, hoping it wasn’t locked.

  Luck was with me. The door was locked, but the jam was a bit warped, having been damaged in the wreck. My shoulder stung from the impact and I couldn’t keep my balance, but I slammed right through the door, bursting into the antechamber of the brig. I stumbled forward and fell unceremoniously on the floor.

  The pirates, thirty strong, burst out in laughter.

  I held up my hand, showing them the key ring.

  The laughter stopped.

  “You kill none of Sea Sprite’s crew!” I demanded.

  No one answered.

  “Promise! All of you!”

  A chorus of “aye” came back at me, and figuring I didn’t have time to poll them all, I knew it would have to do. A thin but strong hand reached out from the cage, near the door. I tossed the key to Joen and spun around, sword at the ready, preparing to defend myself once more.

  But Wart and Vil had stopped in their tracks, just on the far side of the door. Their eyes were wide, their faces pale. I took a step toward them, and they turned and ran.

  Behind me, the metal door swung open with a creak, and a stampede of unwashed bodies swept over me, pushed me aside and to the ground, very nearly trampling me.

  It seemed like a long time—too long—before the crowd passed, though it was likely just a few heartbeats. And once they had gone, that same strong, thin hand grasped my shoulder and pulled me to my feet.

  “I didn’t betray you,” I said to her.

  “Oi, never said ye did,” Joen replied, and her smile was genuine.

  Before I could say anything else, she’d turned to run, and I followed her to the ladder.

  By the time we reached the deck, the ruckus was in full swing. The pirates, though unarmed, had apparently caught the crew by surprise, and they’d pushed all the way to the gangplanks. They weren’t trying to fight, after all, but were simply trying to get off the ship and out along the docks. The sailors had regrouped around them and were forcing the pirates toward the planks, out onto the long wharf. But the ship wasn’t fully tied off, and the rocking of the deck made the crossing difficult. For each pirate who made it to the dock, another fell into the icy water below.

  But I had a different plan, a different destination. I took Joen’s hand and steered her to the captain’s quarters.

  “Try and find—,” I started.

  “The captain’s key?” she finished, holding up the key ring, an ornate brass key singled out from the others. “This one looks to be the fanciest. Ye think it’s the one?”

  “Good a guess as any.”

  We reached the door apparently unnoticed, and Joen inserted the key. But it didn’t turn.

  “Guess that ain’t it, eh?” she said, pulling up another key.

  “Come on,” I said. “If anyone notices us, we’re dead.”

  “Nah, if we get caught, we’re fighting,” she said, discarding her second attempt and pulling up a third. “We ain’t dead till we get killed, you know? And we ain’t nothing if we ain’t tough to kill.”

  The third key turned with a click, and we pushed through into the outer room of the captain’s cabin. The room was, as I’d hoped, occupied. Valuable commodities were safest in the only locked room on the ship, and a magical horse was valuable indeed.

  Haze lifted her beautiful head, shaking out her white mane. She peered at me with recognition. I imagined she was smiling.

  “So that’s the big plan, eh?” Joen asked.

  “Good one, isn’t it?” I said, moving to untie the mare.

  “I don’t see her saddle.”

  “She doesn’t need one. Trust me.”

  “I do.”

  I stopped and looked at her, hoping to catch her gaze, wanting to ask what she meant, wanting to ask so many questions. She had been so cold to me since we left the isle where our two sh
ips had crashed—no, since Jaide had arrived on the ship—but here she was, saying she trusted me.

  Well, I guess I had just broken her out of the brig and was saving her from a noose or a dungeon cell in Waterdeep.

  “I trust you too,” I said.

  She gave a little laugh. “I know,” she said.

  She was staring right at me, so close, just as we’d been in the crow’s nest a tenday earlier—just as we’d been when she’d kissed me.

  I wasn’t sure of much at that moment, but I was sure I wanted to kiss her again. I gathered my courage, took a deep breath, and leaned in.

  But she pulled back and shook her head.

  “No?” I asked past the sudden clench in my gut.

  She shook her head again. “Just friends,” she said. “We gotta be just friends.”

  “But, in the crow’s nest …”

  She took a long pause, searching for an answer. “We’d just got off the island, you know? With the demon and the dragon and the druids and all that. I was just, you know, happy to be alive.”

  “So you’re saying it was a mistake?”

  “It wasn’t a mistake. It was … ooh.”

  “ ‘Ooh’?”

  But she didn’t answer—she wasn’t looking at me. She was staring at an ornate oak chest bound in brass and trimmed in silver and gold.

  “Leave it,” I said.

  “Can’t do that. Get Haze untied.”

  “It’s probably locked, anyway,” I warned her.

  She held up the brass key that had failed to open the captain’s door. “Oi, I’d expect so,” she said with a laugh.

  I dropped what I was doing and sprinted across the room. But Joen had already put the key in the lock and turned it before I could stop her.

  The top of the chest popped open. A modest sum of gold stared back at us, as well as a few sparkling gems, some pieces of parchment, and a belt with two ornate, jewel-hilted daggers.

  “We can’t steal from Captain Deudermont,” I said.

  “Oi, why not? He wanted to kill me.”

  I stumbled for an answer but could find none. But to my relief, Joen grabbed her daggers and nothing more.

  “These are mine anyway, eh? So I ain’t technically stealing. All right?”

  “All right.” I turned back to Haze.

  “And I’m taking one of these shines,” Joen said, snatching a small blue gem from the chest. “For the ring that wizard stole.”

  I let out a long sigh. It wasn’t worth an argument.

  I untied Haze then poked my head out onto the deck, looking for some sign of pursuit. But no one seemed to notice me. They were all preoccupied with the melee raging across the deck. I took Haze by the mane and led her out onto the deck, Joen at her heels.

  “Maimun!” a stern voice roared across the deck at me.

  The hair on the back of my neck stood up and my knees actually started shaking. It was Captain Deudermont.

  “Just get on!” Joen said, her voice cracking a little.

  “Maimun!” Deudermont shouted again. “Hold right there, boy! Is this your d—”

  Whumph!

  Now I had to turn and look at him. The captain had been knocked on his rump by one of the pirates, and though the captain was red faced with anger and embarrassment, he was unhurt. The pirate who’d knocked him down got one of the captain’s boots between his legs, a boot that lifted him right up and over the rail.

  The situation wasn’t much better for the rest of the pirate crew. As Joen tried to pull me up onto Haze’s back, I watched the last group turn and try to cross the gangplank. But as soon as the last of them set foot on it, the whole thing simply vanished into thin air, and the pirates plummeted out of sight. I looked up to the sterncastle, directly above me, where Robillard stood laughing. He looked down, reached out, and helped the blustering captain to his feet.

  I looked back at the gangplank and saw a magical net—woven strands of blue energy—rising of its own accord up over the rail and onto the deck. Nearly a score of pirates was tangled among the web.

  The remaining dozen were on the long wharf, but the end was sealed off by armed and armored Waterdhavian guards. They had no place left to run.

  “Oi, you have a plan, yeah?” Joen said. “Cuz if ye don’t, we’re next.”

  As if on cue, I heard Captain Deudermont say, “Robillard, the boy!”

  “Of course,” I replied, and hopped up on Haze’s back, behind Joen.

  I reached my arms around her and grasped Haze’s mane. The horse apparently didn’t need my guidance. She saw her escape route as clearly as I did.

  In three strides, she was at full speed. In four, she was at the starboard rail—the seaward rail. Then she was airborne, Joen and I clinging for our lives. Something bright and cold and made of greenish-yellow light flashed just over our heads—something conjured by the wizard Robillard.

  Haze fell below the arc of the wizard’s spell but didn’t splash into the water below. She landed with a jolt that almost knocked Joen and me off her back, but her hooves barely left an impression on the water. As the magical creature ran out a few yards then turned left toward the eastern edges of Waterdeep Harbor, I heard Captain Deudermont call my name one more time, but no more spells were cast our way.

  I glanced back at Sea Sprite, the ship that had been the nearest thing to a home for me for the past months. Some of the crew lined the rail and I imagined they were bidding me a fond farewell—and maybe a few of them were—but in all likelihood, most of them were cursing me and all the trouble I’d brought.

  I could hardly fault them for that.

  And standing tall above them, his fine hat clinging to his head despite the wind, stood the captain. He didn’t look as angry as I’d expected. From a distance, I couldn’t see any rage in his burning eyes.

  Only disappointment.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  A few long months ago—an eternity ago—Haze had run two days straight, full gallop, without a rest. There seemed something eternal about the horse, magical and beyond the limitations of the flesh, or so I had thought.

  But as we rode toward the imposing structure of East Torch Tower at the far southeast corner of the sprawling city, she could barely hold her gallop. By the time we rounded the sea wall and made landfall south of the city limits, she refused to run, and she was breathing hard.

  Joen and I dismounted and did our best to examine the horse, but other than her obvious fatigue, Haze seemed fine. We both wondered if Robillard’s spell had come closer to the animal than we’d thought. Neither of us could dismiss that the wizard might have worked some debilitating magic on the regal creature, but if that was the case, all either of us could do was hope it eventually wore off.

  In some ways, though, her fatigue kept our pace slow, appearing casual to the many people who wandered the snow-lined roads on the outskirts of the great city. No one gave us a second look.

  We had no provisions and traveled as quickly as we could manage. Haze needed to rest often, and we took that time to forage what bits of food we might find—berries, roots, and such, but it was always too little.

  “Maybe she needs more food,” Joen wondered, patting the horse’s mane as we rode along a narrow dirt track.

  I shrugged and replied, “Maybe. Sea Sprite didn’t have much in her stores to offer a horse, and the grass here is still dead and frozen.”

  In some ways hoping we were right, in other ways fearing the beautiful horse was starving to death, we avoided the subject like we avoided the main road. But by the third long, cold, hungry day, our stomachs were rumbling loudly, and it became obvious that we needed to find a town—or at least a homestead—soon, or we’d all perish.

  An early spring storm came up, cold rain blowing hard. I wrapped my formerly magical cloak as tightly as I could around the two of us. Before it had lost its magic, the cloak would have expanded to easily cover us both, but now each gust of wind pulled up its edges, threatening to throw our meager cover off entirely
.

  Despite her continued exhaustion, Haze trotted down the muddy road with barely a bump, every movement fluid. The same magic that allowed her to run across open water kept her from digging in too deeply in the mud. I wrapped my arms around Joen and grasped Haze’s mane tightly. I ducked my head beneath the cowl of my cloak and closed my eyes.

  Haze will keep the road, I trusted. She’s smart.

  A sharp elbow to the chest jarred me.

  “What was that for?” I asked.

  “Gotta stay awake, eh?” Joen said.

  “No, I don’t gotta,” I answered.

  “It’s how you freeze, y’know? You fall asleep and then you don’t wake up.”

  “I’m not about to freeze to death.”

  “How do I know that, eh?” Joen turned in her seat to look at me, her eyes full of concern.

  “I just told you.”

  “Oi, but ain’t that exactly what someone would say if they were freezing?” She smiled and laughed.

  Smiled and laughed—out here in the increasingly wild North, in the freezing cold, starving and miserable. I looked at her, searching for some sign that she was just putting on a brave face to keep my spirits up, but her mood appeared genuine.

  Another gust of wind blew in, lifting the cloak and tossing Joen’s blonde locks in front of her face. Her hair was shorter than it had been when I’d first met her. Then, her wheat-colored tresses had reached most of the way down her back, but now the jagged edges where she’d taken dagger to lock barely touched her shoulders.

  But the look certainly suited her, and I wanted to tell her that but I couldn’t find the words.

  She turned away from me, pulled the hair back from her face, and shook her head vigorously. If I weren’t already soaked to the bone, the sudden wave of water her hair threw into my face might have startled me.

  I retrieved the corners of my cloak, fluttering around us in the breeze, and pulled them forward, once again wrapping the tattered thing around myself and Joen. I dropped my head to her shoulder, planning to ignore her warning and take a nap.