After arriving at the village, they disembarked and hired Welby's Pride to take them the rest of the way. It was common for independent fishing boats to bring their catch in to either Kolbyr or Perhata, depending on which was closer and which happened to be paying more for fish at any given time. It was true that Diran, Ghaji, and the others didn't much resemble local fisherfolk, but then even in this less-than-cosmopolitan backwater of the Principalities, it wasn't unknown to see groups of odd strangers, and while some eyebrows might get raised, few questions would be asked.
"It seems like we've been sailing for days," Ghaji complained. "At this pace, we may not reach Kolbyr until summer."
"We wouldn't have to use this leaky wreck at all if we still had the Zephyr," Yvka said. "In the time it's taken us to get this far, we could've already reached Kolbyr, lifted the curse, and be halfway back to Perhata."
Tresslar frowned. "You're not the only one who's lost something, you know."
The artificer had been in a foul mood for the last several days, ever since his dragonwand had been stolen at Mount Luster by the barghest. The elderly artificer had searched for the device night and day, forgoing both sleep and meals in his obsessive quest to regain the dragonwand. Diran couldn't blame the old man. The golden dragonhead affixed to the tip of the wand was a magical artifact of great power, enabling its user to drain mystical energy from enchanted objects and rechannel it to create whatever effects the user desired. Tresslar had possessed the dragonwand for forty years, ever since he'd sailed with the legendary explorer Erdis Cai in his youth. Tresslar was determined not to give up the dragonwand easily, but so far all his attempts to locate the artifact had met with failure.
Yvka's face reddened with anger at Tresslar's comment, and Ghaji-as he so often did-stepped in to lighten the mood. "I think you've been spoiled by your elemental sloop, Yvka. Now you're frustrated because you have to travel as slowly as the rest of us ordinary mortals."
But Ghaji's words had the opposite effect. Yvka's face turned a deeper red, and her delicate elvish brow furrowed into a scowl. "It's not a joking matter."
Her voice had a sternness to it that Diran had seldom heard before, like she was an adult lecturing a small child, and an annoying one at that. Yvka was an elf, and therefore older than Ghaji, perhaps quite a bit older. Diran forgot that sometimes.
Ghaji's jaws muscles tensed, and Diran knew his friend was fighting to keep from becoming defensive.
"I'm sure Ghaji didn't mean to make light of your loss," Diran said.
Yvka smiled and reached out to pat Ghaji's hand. "I know. It's just that the Zephyr doesn't belong to me. It's a loan from my associates."
The elf-woman had never directly admitted to any of them-not even Ghaji-that she worked for the Shadow Network, had in fact never acknowledged that the secret organization of spies and assassins even existed. But it was an open secret among the companions, though they avoided speaking of it out of respect for their friend.
The crew hauled another net full of fish out of the water and dumped the catch onto the deck. The fish, still alive and flopping, were mostly cod, Diran noted, and good-sized ones at that, each nearly the length of a man's arm. The fish would bring in good money once the crew put in to Kolbyr, Diran thought, and he found himself thinking of the path his life might have taken if his parents hadn't been killed, if he'd grown to adulthood fishing the waters of the Lhazaar. Certainly it would have been a simpler path than the one he now trod-he glanced at his companions and smiled-but a far less rewarding one.
Several of the crystals on Solus's forehead began to glow, and though the psiforged didn't possess the physiognomy to frown, the tone of his voice conveyed his concern.
"Something is wrong."
Before Diran could ask Solus to clarify, a chorus of shrill cries cut through the air, and a white mass descended upon Welby's Pride. The gulls, excited by the cod flopping on the deck, had abandoned making individual sorties to snatch fish in favor of a group assault. The crew yelled and cursed, flailed their arms, punched, kicked, even drew knives and struck out at the birds. But instead of frightening off the gulls, the crew's actions only served to further embolden the raucous scavengers. At first it proved to be an almost comical sight: grown men and women, toughened sea-hands all, battling birds that were little more than flying feathered rats for possession of a pile of flopping codfish. But then the gulls became more aggressive, forgetting the cod and turning their attention toward the crew. The birds pecked at every hand that came near them, flew past heads and dug their beaks into scalps. At first the crew merely yelped and swore, the injuries inflicted by the gulls little more than annoyances. But then the birds began to strike harder, sharp beaks drawing blood, and the crew's shouts of anger became cries of pain.
At first the gulls ignored Diran and his companions, presumably because none of them were standing near the fish, but that didn't last long. A single gull broke away from the flock and came flapping toward them, beady black eyes glittering with almost human hatred. The bird made straight for Asenka, clearly aiming for the woman's eyes, but before it could reach her, the commander of the Sea Scorpions drew her long sword, swung, and the gull's body fell to one portion of the deck while its head landed on another.
More gulls broke off their assault on the crew and came flying at the companions, harsh cries full of rage, as if they intended to avenge their flock-mate's death. Without a word, Diran and the others turned around, remaining in a circle but facing outward to meet the gulls' attack. Ghaji activated his elemental axe, and mystic fire burst forth from the metal. The half-orc warrior swung the enchanted weapon in wide, sweeping arcs, flames trailing from the axe head as he cut down one bird after another. Asenka continued striking out with her long sword, while Hinto did the same with his long knife. Yvka reached into the leather pouch that hung from her belt and withdrew a slender steel spike upon which three white acorns had been skewered. With a graceful flick of her wrist, she flipped the object-a product of the ever-inventive and always-devious artificers of the Shadow Network-toward the attacking gulls. The steel spike disintegrated in mid-air, and the acorns became ivory streaks as they shot off in three separate directions to bore large, bloody holes in the chests of three different gulls.
Tresslar appeared to do nothing but stand and watch the others fight, his brow slightly furrowed. But a moment later the warming gem he'd created floated out of the circle and toward a concentrated mass of gulls, the mystical object glowing more brightly with each passing second. When the light given off by the gem became too intense to look at directly-and when it was far enough away from any of the companions, the crew, and the ship's rigging-it exploded, killing at least a dozen birds. Like Tresslar, Solus seemed to be doing nothing more than observing the battle taking place around him, but the crystals covering his face and hands were flashing rapidly on and off in an intricate pattern, and Diran felt the psiforged was doing something, though the priest had no idea what.
Diran had drawn a pair of razor-edged steel daggers from the sheaths sewn into the inner lining of his cloak. His hands were blurs as he swept the blades through the air, slicing the wings of gulls as they swooped in to attack, cutting through feather and flesh, the birds falling to the deck, unable to remain aloft. Diran had no compunction about killing the gulls if it became necessary. He had served as an assassin during the Last War before forsaking that path to become one of the Purified. But as a worshipper of the Silver Flame, he held all life sacred and would only kill to defend the lives of the innocent, and even then only when he could find no other way to protect them.