“Arvan sannoghan!” Geran shouted. The mystic words evoked a sheath of brilliant flame along his blade. He hurled himself against the pirates, great arcs of razor-sharp fire trailing from his sword strokes. He slashed down one man with a searing cut from shoulder to hip, took the head off a goblin creeping up on his right flank, and drove another pirate to the deck with his assault before finishing the man with a thrust to the midsection. Hamil fought beside him, a dagger in each hand, guarding Geran’s back or darting out to hamstring an unwary foe. By Kraken Queen’s mainmast, Sarth burned pirates down with fiery blasts from his rune-carved scepter or blasted them overboard with words of arcane power.
“We’ve got them!” Hamil cried.
“I think you’re right!” Geran shouted in reply. Seadrake’s sudden appearance had indeed caught the pirates off-guard; many of the corsairs were off inside the keep, leaving only half a crew on the pirate flagship. Those pirates who were on hand to defend their ship were disorganized and poorly armed. They wore leather jerkins or no armor at all, and many fought with boarding axes, belaying pins, or daggers. Against them the Shieldsworn and the merchant armsmen were fitted out in mail, with swords and shields. More to the point, the Hulburgans were spoiling for a fight. With Sarth’s destructive spells and Geran’s swordmagic to lead them, their disciplined ranks swept across Kraken Queen, cutting the pirates on board to pieces.
Geran found that no enemies were within sword’s reach and paused to take stock of the battle. Seadrake warriors held Kraken Queen … for the moment. But more pirates streamed out of the keep’s gate, hurrying to join the fight. And others took up positions on the battlements overlooking the docks, sniping at the invaders with crossbow fire. A Jannarsk armsman near him shrieked in pain and fell to the deck, hands cupped around a bolt quivering in his face, and a Shieldsworn grunted and staggered back when a quarrel punched through his shield and transfixed his arm underneath. Then the pirates from the keep stormed aboard Kraken Queen from the wharf.
“I spoke too soon-here they come!” Hamil said. He crouched down behind the gunwale, sheathed his daggers, and shrugged his shortbow from his shoulder. Then he popped up to send an arrow winging up to the battlement overlooking the wharf. A Black Moon archer cried out and tumbled from the rampart.
“They would’ve been wiser to turtle up inside their keep,” Geran said. He ducked down by the gunwale, trying to gauge how much the pirate reinforcements had changed the course of the battle. So far, the Hulburgans were standing their ground. “We don’t have any siege gear!”
“They can’t afford to let us take this ship. It’s their only way back to Faerun.”
Geran realized that Hamil was right; the pirates had to retake their ship, or else the Hulburgans could simply sail it off and strand them in their moon-keep. A sudden inspiration struck him, and he looked around the pirate vessel’s quarterdeck. Kraken Queen’s starry compass sat in a hooded binnacle just in front of the helm. It looked much like the one from Moonshark, although its color was more of a rich violet hue. He picked up a boarding axe from a dead pirate’s hand and wrecked the device’s frame with several hard strokes. Then he picked the orb out of the ruined frame. “There, that should do it. Kraken Queen’s going nowhere for now.”
Hamil raised an eyebrow. “Stealing Kamoth’s magic compass?”
“I don’t see why he should have one. If the fight turns against us, we can retreat, and he’ll be stranded here forever.” The starry compass would also make for a very valuable bargaining chip if Kamoth put a knife to Mirya’s throat. He couldn’t be sure, but he had to believe that the pirate lord would part with his hostages in order to get the device back. Geran handed the orb to Hamil. “Here, take this back to Seadrake, and put it someplace safe. It might prove very useful. I’m going to see what I can do about breaking this stalemate.”
“Done,” Hamil said. He tucked it under his arm and hurried forward, looking for a good place to cross back to the Hulburgan warship.
Geran turned his attention back to the fight. A crossbow quarrel ricocheted from the unseen wardings that protected him, spinning away through the air. The fight had grown more heated while he sabotaged the ship’s magical compass; scores of pirates in a howling, reckless mob fought to win back their ship. Kraken Queen was in Hulburgan hands, but the fighting had moved down to the wharf between the keep and the moored ship. Here Seadrake’s assault had momentarily stalled. For the moment, the numbers on each side seemed close, and if the Hulburgans had the advantages of armor and discipline, the pirates had the raking fire from the keep and fierce desperation on their side. Then he spotted a figure at the head of the pirate counterattack, a bearded man who wore scarlet armor worked in the shape of fishlike scales. Behind him, the Black Moon pirates hurled themselves into the battle with fresh zeal.
“Kamoth,” Geran breathed. He vaulted down from the quarterdeck to the wharf and threaded his way through knots of battling soldiers and corsairs. He parried or dodged several blows aimed at him as he darted forward to confront the pirate lord.
Kamoth led the way with a cutlass in one hand and a hatchet in the other as the pirates fought their way back toward their flagship. He cut down a pair of Hulburgan sailors who stood against him then whirled to face Geran’s attack. Their swords flashed and rang together in the furious melee at the foot of the gangplank. Geran attacked with a high slash at Kamoth’s face, but the pirate lord blocked it and countered with a vicious cut of his left-hand axe. He pushed forward, pressing Geran closely, keeping their blades locked as he tried to get Geran in reach of the hatchet. Geran gave almost ten feet of ground across the blood-slicked wharf before he freed his blade and opened the distance again. The two men circled each other warily while the battle raged all around them.
“I know you, Geran!” the pirate lord said with a fierce laugh. “But I remember you as a lad of fifteen or so. You’ve learned to be handy with a blade, I see.”
“I studied four years in Myth Drannor.” Geran was careful to keep up his guard. “This blade I won in the Coronal’s Guard.”
“Well done, my boy!” Kamoth said. He wore the same fierce grin Geran remembered from years ago, as if all that stood between them even now were a few boyish pranks he’d been caught at and hoped to laugh away. “I never had the benefit of much formal study in sword play. I had to pick it up as I went along.” He attacked suddenly with a furious onslaught. He was quick, and Geran saw where Sergen had gotten his speed from. His style was just as unschooled and unorthodox as he claimed. When Geran parried Kamoth’s thrust, the pirate lord hooked the curving blade of his hatchet over Geran’s sword, trapping their blades together, and nearly wrenched Geran’s sword from his hand. Geran twisted his blade sideways and pulled it free and then ducked under a wild swing at his head as they spun past each other and separated again.
“That’s Seadrake there, isn’t it?” Kamoth asked, breathing hard. “How’d you manage to follow me here, my boy?”
“I’ve got Moonshark’s starry compass,” Geran answered. He circled warily, looking for an opening. “And Narsk’s letters led me here.”
“Damn it all!” the pirate lord snarled. “It was you at Moonshark’s helm in Hulburg harbor, wasn’t it? You cost me three ships in a single night!”