Chapter 8

Bonfire was awash in light from Mellisandra's spell. Some of the lacedons turned to flee the unreal brightness, but most ignored it and kept up their relentless approach and attack. The wash of light, however, gave heart to the men, as did the wizard's appearance.

She stood at the doorway that led up onto the deck, protected by a bubble of force around her, and shot lightning bolt after lightning bolt at the monsters. When those ran out, she sent fireball after fireball over the waves, incinerating any lacedons foolhardy enough to break the surface.

Unfortunately her fireballs weren't much help to the men on the deck. Despite Entreri's repeated demands for precision, she'd always been a big picture kind of girl, and in close quarters, her fireballs would either consume the men as well as the lacedons or simply burn the ship down around them.

Off to the side, she saw one of the crewmen go down beneath a crush of undead, which began to tear at him with their teeth. She shot the last of her lethal attacks at them in an attempt to rescue the man, but the monsters just kept coming. To her horror, his screams began to echo across the decks as the lacedons consumed him alive.

Feeling completely useless, she finally stunned the man with one of her many, many stunning spells so at least he wouldn't feel any more before the end came.

Her bubble of force began to shrink around her, and her magical light spell began to fade, allowing the return of darkness and shadows to the deck. To her surprise, a very shaken Artemis Entreri stepped out of the shadow of the mast before her, his eyes darting around.

"What did you do?" he asked angrily. "Why weren't there shadows?"

"It was an illumination spell," she explained in confusion.

"Don't do it again," he snapped and turned to where Jarrol had been. The captain was no longer there.

Instead Emory stood in his place, his sword flashing as he stood guard over his father's fallen form in the alcove. The boy fought bravely, but was tiring.

Entreri looked around to see that all that still remained were tiring.

And the lacedons kept coming. He continued to fight them himself, an unending stream of undead creatures--tireless, emotionless, deterred only by the light of the rising sun which was hours away.

They'd never last that long. He looked up to call to Mellisandra, to ask her what else she could do, but even as he looked up at her, she began to vanish. She was teleporting herself to safety.

And the look of apology in her eyes, the sad little shrug she gave him was a mirror of Jarlaxle's in Urshula's cave. She was leaving them to die.

He fought back another round of monsters, anger fueling his blade.

Then he realized that he too could teleport himself away. The ring on his finger would take him to Dwahvel. He'd drop right into his bed in Waterdeep as if the whole thing had been merely a bad dream.

But as soon as he thought it, he knew he couldn't do it. He couldn't leave these men to fight and die that way. Even if he died at their side, he could not abandon them like that. Not like Mellisandra. Or Jarlaxle.

He began to call on the powers of the shadow stone as he did on the shadow plane. Indeed it took much more concentration on the material. So much concentration that some of the creatures actually got past his defenses to land hits on him, their talons ripping through his clothing and into the flesh of his arms and legs.

He pulled back from the stones enough to fight them off again, to fight back the paralysis that began to seep into his bones. Then he heard a high pitched cry. He looked up to see that Emory was almost overcome by lacedons. Cullon and Ballantin still stood, but their arms were exhausted and they were too far away to reach the boy in time.

He tried to slip into shadow to get to him, and nearly fell into the shadow ocean. The ships were no longer close enough. He fought harder, working to reach the boy's side to relieve him, but too many of the tireless undead stood between them. He couldn't cut through them fast enough.

Emory cried out again, and Entreri saw the boy's blue eyes opened wide with pain and terror as he stumbled backwards; he saw his blond head sink beneath the press of ghoulish forms.

Then he began to scream.

Entreri threw down his sword and closed his eyes. He poured himself into the stones with all his might, ignoring the scratches and clawings that assaulted him. A particularly large creature took a bite out of his arm, sending a fiery blast of agony into his flesh through those razor sharp teeth. Then as others took advantage of easy prey, he felt their teeth tearing the flesh from his body as well.

But he ignored the pain and became a pure force of will, as powerful as when he'd mastered Charon's Claw. Time stood still as he emptied himself of all but the will to dispel these things, these undead abberations, these crimes against life.

He poured all his energy and his hatred and his fear into the banishment until a dark wave of power rolled off him, not only dispelling the creatures, but blasting them apart with its fury. Those that could not flee were annihilated in the spellstorm that rolled across the waters.

In only moments it was over.

The sounds of battle stopped abruptly as the lacedons collapsed into gravedust and blew away.

The deck was empty of all but the crew, some living, some dead. Entreri staggered forward, forcing himself to move against the numbness that crept up his limbs and into his back and chest. He ignored the searing pain in his arms and legs where the savage bites bled freely and coursed with ghoulish toxins.

Cullon and Ballantin hung on each other for support in their exhaustion, both bloody and scored by lacedon nails, but otherwise mobile.

Jarrol crawled forward out of the alcove on shaking arms to where Emory lay on the deck, his blue eyes wide in their last terror, his chest and belly a mess of blood and torn flesh where the lacedons had feasted.

"Emory?" Jarrol whispered in a weak, desperate voice as he dragged himself to his son's body. He reached out and pulled the boy against his chest, brushing his hair back from his face. "Emory?" he called again.

Then the captain looked down at the blood that covered the youth, at the gory cavity in his body where the organs had been ripped away. Entreri knelt across from him, stunned by the sight of the empty shell where just moments ago there had been a life, a personality, a future.

They sat in silence. Then Jarrol looked out across the darkness of the water as if searching for something.

"He fought so hard, didn't he?" Jarrol's voice was soft and distant. "He was beautiful to watch."

They sat there a long while longer, no one able to move, to speak.

Then Jarrol looked at Entreri, his eyes haunted, and asked plaintively, "What do I tell his mother, Artemis? What can I tell his mother?"

Entreri could only watch helplessly as the reality of death welled up inside Jarrol, breaching his defenses.

The sky was dark and the ocean was motionless against the ship as its captain bent his head over the body of his son and wept, his shoulders shaking with the sobs, the rest of the men looking on in the quiet of the night.

Over the next hour, the fires on the horizon went out one by one as the ships either sank or burned themselves out to empty hulks. No one was left alive.

In Cullon's opinion, the only reasons they still lived were their position at the farthest edge of the flotilla and the presence of Artemis Entreri on board.

Given time, he fully believed the swordsmaster could have single-handedly slaughtered every lacedon the sea tried to send them. However, he knew that if Entreri hadn't somehow cast a spell to drive them away, he and Ballantin would have been the next to fall.

Of the ships' crew, only seven survived. Three other men had taken refuge in the aft storage room, taking turns guarding the door. Even then one of them had been bitten and all had been scored horribly by the lacedons' claws.

Ballantin dug through the medic's supplies, supposing the medic himself to be in pieces somewhere on deck or in the dark water around the ship, until he found the healing potions that remained. There were enough for them each to take one, and the men's wounds, even the horrible bites taken out of Entreri's body, healed fully.

However, he knew enough ocean lore to realize that for Entreri and Caplin, the other bitten crewmember, the next 24 hours were crucial. Lacedon bites were not only diseased, they were cursed. Bite victims either developed ghoul fever over the next day and lived, or they died. If they died, they'd rise again at midnight as ghouls themselves.

Caplin was only bitten once.

Entreri had been bitten at least three times.

However, the possibility of fever did not deter the swordmaster from taking matters in hand brusquely. He ordered the surviving crew to secure the decks, setting their course for Luskan. Then he had them begin gathering the remains of deceased crewmembers for burial at sea.

Ballantin went to pick up the swordmaster's fallen red sword from the deck, but Entreri stopped him with a sharp word. "Do not touch that sword. Ever." Without another word, Entreri took Charon's Claw and placed it back in his cabin.

When he returned to the deck, the men had begun their grisly task, but Jarrol still sat next to Emory's still form, his face wet with tears, though his eyes were now dry.

"Manfred," Entreri said quietly as he knelt beside him, "we need to get him ready."

"I want to take him home, Artemis," Jarrol stated calmly. "I need to take him back to his mother."

"I wish we could," Entreri replied. "But we do not have any enchantments to allow us to do so."

Jarrol sat for a moment, then looked up at Entreri, his broken heart evident in his eyes. "Will you help me?" he asked.

Entreri nodded and held out his hand to assist the captain to his feet. Together they went to Emory's hammock in Jarrol's quarters and took his blanket.

Then they went back onto the deck where they carefully lifted the boy's body onto it. Entreri was amazed by how light he was. In death he weighed practically nothing. Then they wrapped him securely, sewing the blanket tight.

All around them the surviving crew was doing the same thing, carefully wrapping bodies with calm detachment.

At some time in the next few hours, the sun rose around them, but they failed to notice. At last, the bodies lay in a line together at the rail of the Bonfire and the group stood around at a loss.

No one wanted to take the initiative to begin the process of consigning their fallen crewmates to the deep. Jarrol kept going back to kneel at Emory's head, placing his hand on the soft blue blanket that his wife had sent with her son to keep him warm at night.

The day wore on to noon. Finally, Entreri stepped forward and said, "We have no choice. Does anybody want to say anything?"

No one spoke up. The men just looked at each other. There were no words for this.

One by one, they tossed the bodies overboard, coming last to the youngest of their crew. Jarrol knelt again at his head. "If we could only get him home," he sighed again. "If there was only a way to get him home."

Then he looked up at Entreri, a question in his eyes. Entreri nodded and knelt at the boy's feet. Together they lifted the lifeless form and as one tossed it over the side. Neither man watched it sink. Both turned away.

Jarrol took a few steps, then put his head against the mast and cried. When Cullon placed his hand lightly on the grieving man's arm, Jarrol turned and leaned into him, weeping brokenly onto his shoulder.

"He was a good kid, captain," Cullon said quietly as Jarrol finally stepped away.

"Aye, sir," Ballantin added, stepping forward as he wiped his eyes to give the older man a firm, quick embrace. "He was a fine sailor."

One by one the rest came forward to offer their condolences with a few comforting words, a hug, and a handshake.

Only Entreri hung back, a frown on his face.

Their words were empty platitudes about what a good boy Emory had been. What did that matter now?

What did it matter at all that he'd been good? That he'd possessed all the natural talent to have rivaled the best swordsmen in Faerun? That he had so much potential? That he could have made a difference in the world?

All that potential, all that goodness, all that inquisitiveness, all that desire, all that life, lay wrapped in a blanket at the bottom of the sea with an empty hole where its heart ought to be. Everything that had been Emory Jarrol was gone forever and nothing anyone said or felt or did would bring him back now.

Entreri stood there in a cold sweat as he considered his own life. When he was twelve years old, someone could have slit his throat in any alley in Calimport and no one would have missed him, much less mourned his loss.

He'd had over thirty years since then to use his life however he saw fit and chose to apply himself to taking—taking things, taking secrets, taking lives, taking futures. And in all those years, if anyone had ever slit his throat in an alley in Calimport, no one would have mourned him and many would have celebrated.

He'd had over thirty years to throw away in hatred and anger, while this boy—this good boy with all the potential to be so much more—died horribly before his life ever started.

Entreri looked up at the sun in the sky, now hanging low, and asked how it could look down on a place where evil thrived and good perished. How could it look down at Emory Jarrol's meaningless death, at his father's terrible loss, and do nothing?

Where was justice in this? Where was right that he should continue to draw breath on this earth after all the pointlessly vile things he'd done and this good, innocent boy be cut off?

He knew where the wrong lay. He'd seen enough evil in his day, had done enough evil in his lifetime to understand it intimately. He knew the unthinking evil of the lacedons, he knew the self-absorbed evil of the ones who'd sent them.

For he understood that this was the attack Jarlaxle warned him of. This was the ultimate defeat of the city of Luskan. The caravan was also as good as doomed.

And how many people would lie dead in Luskan as a result? How many good, innocent boys like this one wouldn't get a chance to live because evil wanted a free port to ply its trade?

He didn't notice that Caplin had collapsed just down the deck and that the others had gone to him. He didn't notice that Jarrol spoke to him as he went to help them.

All Artemis Entreri could see was Emory Jarrol's wide blue eyes, looking to him for help. All he could hear was Emory's piercing screams as the lacedons began to feast on him alive.

He blinked, aware that his vision was blurring, only to focus on a shimmer on the deck. A form solidified before him.

Mellisandra.

The wizard had returned.

With an animal snarl, he leaped at her.