Chapter 8:
Never Mock a Lich
As the pirate ship came closer a few things became clearer about the situation. First, the pirates were well armed, better armed in fact that Havarian's crew, and second, they were captained by a lich.
"Oh wonderful," Brynn muttered. "A lich! As if I hadn't seen enough of those for one lifetime already.
Beside her Dynaheir wondered aloud, "What is a lich doing on a pirate ship?"
"I don't care, I just kill 'em and make it stick," Brynn replied. She turned to the rest of the Blades. "All right, they've got a lich, but we've got all of you guys and me, so we'll win, of course, it just won't be easy. So this is how we're going to make it easier. Khalid, Minsc and Yoshimo get your bows and stick as many pirates as you can full of arrows. Think 'pirate porcupines.' Nalia, Imoen, Dynaheir and Jan, the lich will undoubtedly be casting spells, see if you can't figure out what they are and counter them so that no one here gets Disintegrated. Haer'Dalis, sing us a song of battle if you will, a little magical inspiration never hurt. On that note, Anomen, Aerie, two words: defensive spells. Then do that holy magic thing and see if you can't put the fear of goodness into that lich. Jaheira, you're on defensive spell duty with Anomen and Aerie, unless you can make some big wave come up and smack that ship apart."
"What will you and Touga be doing?" Jaheira asked.
Brynn frowned sourly. "Well, unless the pirates board, I'd say watch, because we can't exactly slice and dice from way over here."
And so the Blades got to work. As soon as the pirate ship was in range the archers began to 'think porcupine,' and the results were good. Until, that is, the lich in charge of it all saw that many small holes were being put in his fleshy crew, and cast some sort of spell on a few of the more important ones. Yoshimo was the first to find out about that spell when he took aim at one pirate and found his own arrow shooting back at him. It sliced across his left bicep before sticking firmly into the deck behind him.
Minsc's cry of, "Agh! The arrows come back at us Boo!" made it apparent that Yoshimo was not the only one unlucky enough to choose a victim that the lich had cast physical mirror on.
Despite the best of efforts of Saemon and his crew the pirate ship caught up to them. Moving along side, the pirates dropped a boarding plank, and Brynn, who had thus far only been keeping an eye on things and directing the Blades, pulled out her katanas with a grin. "Melee weapons everyone!"
She ran over to where the boarding plank was and stepped in front of the stream of pirates that was coming off the ship. "Okay boys," she said, addressing the hairy, filthy, well armed enemy, "my turn!" Because the boarding plank was just that, a plank, it was only wide enough for two men to cross walking abreast, meaning that Brynn could take on the pirates two at a time.
It wouldn't exactly be fair to say that the pirates never stood a chance; after all, they were better than the average run of the mill pirates. In fact they were very good fighters and had probably been harassing the seas without trouble under the leadership of the lich captain for quite some time. Unfortunately for them, Brynn was a better warrior, and taking on two of the pirates at once was barely enough of a challenge to make her break a sweat.
Realizing that they had bitten off more than they could chew the pirates began to retreat, and Brynn followed them; she couldn't very well leave them to attack more innocent vessels. Behind Brynn the Blades and Saemon's crew swarmed over the pirate ship, turning the pirates' own tactics against them.
Once on board the pirate ship Brynn focused her attention on the lich, who was working his magic from raised aft deck. She cut down the guard that stood by the stairway up to the deck, and slashed one of her blades deep into the lich's black robes. A pair of red, glowing eyes set in deep, black sockets regarded her with extreme distaste.
"Foolish mortal," the lich hissed, its voice like dry leaves being rubbed together. From within its robes the lich drew a small wand, pointed it at Brynn and muttered an arcane phrase all within a matter of moments.
Brynn whirled to one side to avoid the bolt of lightening that shot out of the wand at her, but not fast enough to avoid getting jolted as the lightening passed. She forced her rebellious muscles to obey her and swept the wand out of the lich's bony hand. "I'm foolish?" she asked, crossing both blades in front of her in a defensive stance. "You're the one who turned himself into a walking corpse, mummy breath!"
The lich retreated, and said, "I am immortal, and you are only weak flesh and wet blood." The air around him began to shimmer as a magical shield sprang into being around him. "My magic protects me from your blades. You merely prove your stupidity by provoking my wrath."
Brynn didn't respond except to test out that pretty shimmering shield. It did indeed repel her attack, which left her with a funny feeling of 'uh-oh' that she didn't like. Where was a mage with a good dose of Dispel Magic when you needed one?
She backed up, thinking of making a strategic retreat. Then she noticed a small, metal cylinder on a chain hanging out the lich's robes. That, she decided, must be its phylactery. Most liches kept those precious little boxes with their souls somewhere quite safe. This lich must have been an especially cocky bastard. Well great, now all she had to do was kill the damn thing and break its phylactery and that would be that. It was the killing the lich part that had her stumped for the moment. A quick look around told her that everyone else was busy taking care of pirates, she alone had been brave enough –read: stupid enough- to attack the lich on her own. There were some things even she couldn't handle alone, and this was apparently one of them. She sort of wished she'd have figured it out sooner instead of charging in unprepared.
"All right, I'll cut you a deal," she said. "You and me go our separate ways peacefully."
The lich laughed. "Why should I let you live? You are obviously unable to fight back, I have already won!"
Brynn smiled. "Yeah, so I am. But I've got a whole lot of very, very powerful friends right over there that'll kill you all the way dead if you kill me. Way I see it that isn't very profitable for you, now is it?"
The lich stopped laughing and instead began to chant a spell. Brynn took that moment to jump down off the upper deck. She landed in a crouch, and then fell to her knees as she felt the water in her body being squeezed out.
"Oooh," she groaned, "I hate that spell…"
More chanting and a huge, disembodied hand picked her up of the deck and squeezed. She felt the air being pressed out of her, and she desperately tried to draw a breath. She heard one of her ribs snap and then another, and felt a wave of blinding pain sweep through her chest. Then the hand vanished and she dropped back to the deck and drew a welcome breath of air despite the pain it caused. She heard yet more chanting as she got to her feet, and looked up to see a black blade of pure nothingness appear before the lich.
"Oh shit," she wheezed. She had never seen that spell before, and never heard about it, but in general swords of black nothing were bad news.
"And now, silly mortal, you die," said the lich. The blade descended toward Brynn at blinding speed, but Brynn was able to doge out of the way just in time to avoid being sliced in two. She danced out of the way of the sword's blows, not wanting to risk her katanas in blocking it for fear that the black blade would shear right through them.
"A little help here would be nice!" she shouted, wincing as a wave of pain rushed through her. How many times had she broken her ribs now? Thank the gods for healing magic!
And just then, as if on command, an arrow shot out and struck the lich's magical shield. Energy crackled around the lich, and the shield dropped. Brynn dodged as the black blade sliced at her again, and put the pain in her chest out of her mind as she vaulted back up onto the deck again.
"Not so nasty now, are you lichie?" she said.
The lich said nothing, but Brynn heard an ominous huuuuummm behind her. She waited for a fraction of a second, until she was sure that she could wait no longer, and then ducked and rolled to the left. She looked up in time to see the black blade slice through the lich from skull to hip. The black blade vanished, and the lich fell to the deck in two pieces. Brynn got up and snatched the phylactery from the lich's body, and turned to see how things were going on the other side of the battle.
She was pleased to find that all the pirates were either dead or captured, and in general casualties on her side were limited to a few cuts and bruises.
"To who ever shot that rather well timed arrow of dispelling, I give a great huzzah of thanks. Huzzah!" Brynn called out.
Imoen waved at her, grinning. "That was me," she said.
Brynn gave her a thumbs up and continued. "Now for some phylactery smashing magic and our job here is done."
Unfortunately it wasn't that simple. Because some of the pirates had survived the attack something had to be done with them, and Jaheira's suggestion of feeding them to the fish was not one Brynn wanted to go along with. The problem was that there was no brig to put the prisoners in, and they couldn't very well be left to their own devices on board the ship, nor could they be returned to their own ship with hopes that they would reform their evil ways.
Then there was the issue of what to do with the goods found on board the pirate ship. If the selection of gold, jewelry, fine china, worked silver, weapons and other such items was any indication this group of pirates had been very successful. The captured pirates spoke quite freely –once Minsc had been encouraged to intimidate them- about the fact that what was on board their ship was a mere fraction of the goods they had back at their base, and that made Saemon, as well as several of the Blades, come close to drooling in anticipation.
Jan put it the most succinctly when he said, "Shinies! Ooooh!"
Brynn delayed making any decision for as long as possible, and in the interim had all the treasure moved from the pirate ship to Saemon's ship, where it was counted and stored by Anomen and Touga, the two least likely to covertly make off with any of it. All other useful items, such as food, ropes, extra sails and several barrels of good ale were also carted off the pirate ship, along with the surviving pirate's personal effects and some valuable items snagged off the dead pirates corpses and off the lich as well, before a number of large holes were put in the pirate ship, and it sank to the ocean floor.
Then came the task of deciding what to do with the pirates, their treasure, and the promise of much more treasure back at their base.
"So," Saemon said, starting off the meeting between the Blades and his senior crew in the Captain's dining cabin, "all in favor of making a little detour to put these pirates out of business, and gain a good deal of booty for ourselves in the process, raise your hands.
All of Saemon's crew, plus Jan, Haer'Dalis and Yoshimo put their hands high in the air.
"All opposed?"
The rest of the Blades raised their hands.
The vote was even.
"Well…" Saemon said, "We seem to be at odds here. As Captain of the ship my vote breaks the tie, and I say we go get the treasure."
Brynn glared at him. "As the one paying the Captain of the ship, my vote is your vote, meaning we continue with our mission and then go back and do a little raiding. Waiting a few months won't hurt. If anything there will be more treasure."
Saemon grumbled but found no room to argue.
"Um…" Aerie ventured uncertainly, "shouldn't we find out who these pirates have stolen from and return their things to them?"
"She is correct," Dynaheir agreed.
"My lady, I must too agree," Anomen put in.
"Yes! It would only be the right thing to do!" Minsc said grinning. "Oh the tales they will tell of us!"
"Minsc, they already tell too many tales of us," Brynn said, "and besides which, the odds that we're going to find out who all that stuff belongs to are slim to none. In all likelihood the rightful owners are dead and on the bottom of the sea."
"Which mean that all that is now ours by salvage rights," Saemon added.
"Here, here!" Haer'Dalis exclaimed. He lifted a fine silver goblet that he had captured for himself, full of fine wine, which he had raided from the cabin of the second in command of the pirate ship, and toasted to their success. "Really, my raven, this is a rather profitable venture, and quite exciting."
Brynn resisted the urge to let out a sigh of dismay. "We're not trying to be profitable Haer'Dalis, not this time. We're on a mission of justice." Yoshimo snorted. Brynn elbowed him in the ribs and continued. "I'm all for copious amounts of gold, but it's going to have to wait until after we finish the mission we're already on."
"If you're not going after the pirate treasure would you be ah… displeased if I went after it while you were on your 'mission of justice?'" Saemon inquired.
"Yes. And mind you, Saemon, I have the map," Brynn told him bluntly. "When we're done in Wa we'll look you up before we go after the treasure, I promise." She sat up straighter in her chair and clasped her hands. "Now, as for the prisoners, I'm open to suggestions so long as they don't involve mutilation and death."
"They are pirates Brynn, they have most likely mutilated and killed more than enough people in their lives to warrant death," Anomen pointed out.
"And we can't keep them on board," Saemon added.
Brynn frowned. "How far are we from land?"
Saemon shrugged. "The storm put us a bit off course," he said.
"Well… how about we keep them until we find an island or something, and them put them on a long boat with some provisions, and send them off on their own?" Brynn suggested. "We wouldn't be killing them, they'd have a fair enough chance at survival, but they most likely wouldn't be able to get back to pirating again."
"Or they die a slow, miserable death on a deserted island," Imoen said.
"I'm trying to be positive here, sis," Brynn replied. "Any other issues with the idea?"
"What do we d…do with the pirates until we find land?" Khalid inquired.
"Tie them up in the hold I suppose," Brynn answered. "Unless anyone has a better idea."
A few better ideas were put forth, but they all involved killing the prisoners, and so they were quashed. The meeting broke up, the prisoners were told of their fate, and the ship sailed on.