Chapter 7

The night watch firmly believed that the mysterious Artemis Entreri never slept. In all the watches he'd ever kept on the ship, the swordmaster had slipped out of the shadows at least once during every one of them to take a turn about the deck, sometimes to stand at the rail and watch the stars or the sunrise, before heading back down below.

This night was no exception. They were only a few days out of port, the weather was calm, sails were running light. The helmsman was nearly asleep on his feet with boredom and the watch was fast following when Entreri suddenly appeared beside the wheel. It was almost as if he'd slipped out of the shadows themselves, so unexpected was his arrival on deck.

The helmsman jerked himself back to wakefulness and adjusted their course a touch, more to prove he'd been on duty than to truly correct their heading. Up ahead on the forecastle deck, the watch also caught sight of the helmsman's movement and held the spyglass up to his eye to scan the empty horizon to the north and west, then to scan back over the dim line of ships to the east, their little lights blinking in the distance.

The watch first only did so to prove to himself and to the demanding swordmaster that he was alert at his post, but saw something as he scanned that gave him pause. "Mr. Entreri, sir," he called to the man walking the deck. "Will you come look at this, sir, and tell me what you think it is?"

With a few quick strides, Entreri had crossed the deck and up the short flight of stairs. Taking the spyglass from the watch, he scanned in the direction the man pointed. A small dim glow dotted the horizon to the east with another just ahead of it. Then another appeared just behind.

Fire.

Those were ships on fire.

The fleet was under attack.

"We're under attack," Entreri declared firmly. "Raise the alarm."

The blood ran out of the watch's face as he ran to the ship's bell and rang with all his might shouting, "All hands! All hands! The fleet is under attack! All hands!"

Entreri dashed back down the deck and into his stateroom. Within a few seconds, his heavy leather vest lay buckled across his chest and Charon's Claw hung at his hip. He brought his spare sword out with him and tossed it at the first unarmed sailor he saw.

Then he went after Mellisandra. Her cabin door was locked, but he picked it without thought, knowing already that she'd not bothered to set any other enchantments. Sure enough, the wizard lay asleep in her bunk, not a bit bothered by the sound of the ringing alarm bell.

"Get up, Mellisandra!" he called to her sternly. "We're under attack."

"What?" she asked stupidly.

"We're under attack. The ships to the east are burning. Get up and get out there and keep us from burning too!" he snapped at her. He could only hope she'd taken the precaution of setting up a good arsenal of spellwork.

He ran onto the deck in time to see Cullon and Ballantin take the deck, swords drawn at the ready. "What do we do, sir?" Cullon called.

"We wait," Entreri replied firmly.

Jarrol ran onto the deck, sword in hand as well. "What is it?" he asked Entreri.

"The ships to the east are on fire," Entreri replied. "Beyond that, I do not know." Then he looked around. "Where is Emory?"

"I told him to stay below," Jarrol answered.

"Good."

Mellisandra appeared on deck, her hair swirled over her head to one side from the pillow. She sorted through an assortment of spell components and wands at her disposal, all the time talking to herself.

"What is the matter?" Entreri asked.

"I don't know what I'll need," she answered angrily. "Until we find out just what weapons they have, what spells they are using, I just don't know what I'll need."

Entreri had to walk away from her. The last thing he needed was to hear that their wizard was not ready. How many times had he drilled her? How many times had he asked her if she was ready for anything? How many smart replies had he endured?

Behind them, Devil Ray had turned to intercept whatever was wreaking such havoc on the ships to the east. It was not five hundred yards away from them when it suddenly burst into a flaming fireball. Men fell overboard in the blast, but began to scream in the water. Then they heard screams coming from the deck of the pirate hunter and could see shadowy forms crawling out of the water and up the sides.

"Lacedons," Jarrol whispered in horror. "I've got to get Emory away from the windows." Then as he ran to his stateroom for his son he called out the warning, "Lacedons! Don't let them scratch you or bite you! Kill them!"

"Lacedons," Mellisandra echoed, her voice horrified. "I don't have anything prepared for the undead! I was told to expect pirates, not water ghouls!"

A sudden impact on the bottom of the ship's hull echoed up through the timbers and into their feet. Then it impacted again like a giant's war hammer from the deep.

"Keep us afloat, Mellisandra!" Entreri instructed sharply. "I'll deal with the lacedons. You just keep this ship afloat!"

The ship rang again with the heavy blow from below, but the hull with the additional enchantments held true. That was one good thing, Entreri thought grimly as he pulled his blades from his belt and prepared to fight.

But as the lacedons came out of the water, their ghoulish faces half rotted and diseased, their gray-green fingers with cracked, savagely sharp talons effortlessly clawing their way up the boards of the ship, the stench rolling off them enough to cause more than one man to vomit uncontrollably, Entreri knew as they watched that staying afloat was only a portion of their worries.

Even as the undead monsters began to crawl over the rail, the men began to fight them off. But as fast as one fell from the side, two more came to take its place. Entreri knew that within moments they would be overrun. There was nothing to do but fight, so he threw himself into the fray with a vengeance.

The entire ship shivered again with the force of yet another blow from underneath, the deck boards creaking ominously with the strain, and Mellisandra went below to be certain the hull was still holding. She staggered down the steps, blasting a lacedon with a lightning bolt, making sure the shot counted before she took it. She only had a limited supply of assaults that would work against these monsters.

Her feet tangled in her robes as she hurried down the ladders to the deepest part of the ship. The hold appeared to be intact at least, she thought. Then another blow from the deep slammed into the boards at her feet, sending her stumbling with the force of it.

Spell components fell from her sash pockets as she hit the floor. What was out there? A kraken? She reached into her sash and pulled out a tiny piece of dried flesh. Then she breathed on it and spoke a soft word to complete the spell. In her hand, the dry thing suddenly began to glisten and shine all silvery-gray. Then it panted a little and began to flop in her hand.

"I'll miss you," Mellisandra whispered with regret, then pulled a wand from her sash and teleported the little sardine out into the big ocean outside the ship. She closed her eyes and watched through the little fish's eyes as it circled beneath the boat.

Lacedons swirled past it through the water, a seemingly endless stream of them. Mellisandra's breath caught in her throat as she realized that no matter what happened to the boat, the men above her were doomed.

All her combat spells were aimed at humans. She could stun them by the dozens. She could confound them by the score. By principle, she was a non-lethal wizard as much as possible, specializing in immobilizing or confusing the enemy rather than killing him.

But she had not prepared anything that would be of much use against the undead. Entreri would be furious with her. He'd ranted and raved at her repeatedly about every possible contingency—to the point that she'd begun to tune him out the minute he started lecturing.

Her artifact arsenal was also practically useless. She clenched her only wand of teleportation in her hand tightly, aware that she'd spent the last of its teleportation charges on sending her little spy outside the boat. She couldn't even bring it back, much less send all fifteen doomed sailors home with it.

Damn Fortescue. Why couldn't he have come to her at least part of the time? If she'd had only half the uses back that she'd spent sending herself back and forth to his cabin on the Devil Ray, she'd be able to send all of them home, safe and sound.

As it was, all she had hanging for casting was one teleportation spell for herself. If she could link up with a couple of the men, she could take them back with her, she supposed. Perhaps they all didn't have to die here.

Then as the little fish swam swiftly underneath the ship, it encountered the incredible force that pounded relentlessly at the hull of the boat. She recognized him at once.

Arklem Geeth. The lich of the Hosttower.

Her start of fear was so powerful that even her spy felt it, darting off in terror away from the hollow, red eyes of the lich.

Mellisandra tried to bring it back under control, but its limited intelligence and the increasing distance between them made it hard to reason with. Then she realized that it was heading directly for the hull of the Devil Ray, which listed heavily in the water.

It swam up, its fear evaporating with its short attention span, and began to cruise the hull. Through its eyes, Mellisandra could see that the hull looked rotted, half dissolved in places. The fish darted through a jagged hole and she could see the blast marks of a huge fireball on the walls around her.

Then something soft billowed into view and the fish went up to investigate.

Fortescue.

Her lover floated in the water that flooded the hull of the ship, his eyes vacant, a hole blasted through his chest. His short brown hair waved idly in the motion of the current around his head.

The little fish darted forward to his face, then back, Mellisandra watching through his eyes, numbed with shock and grief.

Then the sardine darted down to the torn flesh of his chest and began to nibble away a bite of breakfast.

Mellisandra tore her attention away with a sob of horror and found herself back in the hull of the Bonfire, retching uncontrollably. The hull shivered around her again and echoed with the awful noise of Arklem Geeth's magical assault on the boat. Leaks had begun to spring around her, shooting fine streams of water across the cabin.

The lich wouldn't stop until he felt sure the boat was doomed, she knew that. The lacedons wouldn't stop coming until they were all dead, she knew that.

Fortescue.

A sob caught again in her throat.

The linchpin word of her teleportation spell sprang to her lips, but she didn't speak it. Before she left them, she'd do all she could to help. She was their ship's wizard. It was the least she could do.

On the deck, Entreri faced the never-ending stream of undead with calm detachment. No lacedon could stand before him for long before finding itself beheaded or cleaved apart. However, he kept his movements easy and deliberate, conserving his energy for what he knew would be a long fight ahead of them.

He shouted as much to Cullon and Ballantin, calming them enough to slow their breathing and keep their strikes controlled. On the foredeck, Jarrol fought off the ones who were foolish enough to get close to the alcove beneath the forecastle where Emory crouched, his blade drawn at the ready, even though his father had no intention of allowing any lacedon close enough to his son to fight.

A pile of undead bodies had already begun to mount before the captain and the valiant crewmembers as they methodically hacked and slashed and pierced their opponents.

Then the lacedons began to climb the rigging and masts, tearing at the sails and lines with their inhumanly sharp nails and teeth. They fell on to the sailors from above, knocking the cook off the side of the boat into the waves below where waiting lacedons ripped him apart screaming.

Without warning, a blast shook the boat with the creak and pop of breaking timber and the boat began to list to the larboard side, rolling over in the water a good fifteen degrees and throwing the men and the lacedons off their feet. Air bubbles began to surface from the breach in the hull.

Entreri kept his footing and used the movement to place himself in the path of several of the monsters, neatly taking advantage of their momentary imbalance to shear their heads and limbs from their bodies.

However, he watched as Ballantin took a savage clawing down the leg by one of the creatures as it slid past him. The young man immediately began to stagger and limp, his leg quickly paralyzed by the venom in its nails. Cullon moved to his weak side then and made up for his partner's immobility by taking the burden of defense from that angle.

Captain Jarrol had also been knocked from his feet by a tumbling monster, coming to stand again several feet from his previous position. Emory was now open to attack. But Entreri could see the flash of the young man's blade out of the corner of his eye as Emory met the challenge steadily.

Judging from the noise and the sudden roll of the boat, Entreri truly expected to begin sinking at any moment. However, the deck steadied beneath their feet as the battle continued. To his relief, the horrible pounding on the hull did not continue.

He kept himself fully exposed on the open quarterdeck at the stern of the boat where he would have access to the largest number of combatants as possible. The angle of the deck made it easier to dispose of the carcasses of the defeated as well, he noted. They tended to just roll away in pieces from his blade, leaving the way clear for the next round of attackers.

The other sailors were either dead already or had found ways to limit the number that might meet them by standing in corners or with their backs to the walls of the forecastle and quarterdeck. Cullon and Ballantin still fought back to back, their blades flashing tirelessly in the moonlight.

Jarrol, however, was in the open alone and not faring as well as Entreri would like. He bore clear signs of gashes on his arms and face, and the effort of fighting the poison was slowing him. The best way to his aid was not through the press of monsters on the deck, but through the shadows. Unfortunately, travel in shadow onboard ship, he'd learned, was not an exact science.

There was indeed a ship on the shadowplane, a ship that mimicked Bonfire in many ways, right down to the shadowy versions of her crew. However, the placement of the ship on the water was never exactly duplicated in shadow and could be anything from several inches to several hundred yards off the material plane.

Seeing Jarrol drop to one knee, however, made up Entreri's mind and he slipped into the shadow of the rail.

On the positive side, he did not find himself in the ocean. He did find himself on a completely different part of the shadow ship, however, and to his surprise, still surrounded by lacedons. Apparently whatever force had called them on the material was strong enough to summon them across shadow as well.

The men aboard the shadow ship also fought the monsters, their blades dark in the non-light of the moon above. Entreri lent his blade to the task there as well, easily cutting through the press of creatures. The shadow stones also began to hum against his side there in his pocket, and he became aware that the stones were calling the monsters to them in a sort of passive attraction.

Could they be used to dispel as well? he wondered.

There in shadow, the stones were easy to work and he found himself driving the monsters back with their power. He knew it would require much more concentration to do it on the material plane, but it could be done.

He cut through the path of shadowy undead like a flame in the darkness, the color of his blade and his clothing a stark contrast to the grays of the ship and crew around him. When he reached his desired place of return, hopefully at Jarrol's side and not in the surrounding water, he gave a nod to the nearest confused crewman and began to step back out.

But there was no way out. All the shadows on the material plane, the only exits from this world back into his own, were gone.

He was trapped.