Anton sprang forward to take advantage of Kymas’s incapacity. But, unaffected by its creator’s distress, the tentacle snake whipped itself into the way and struck. Anton knocked the gnashing jaws to the side and swung the saber at the writhing arm behind them. The stroke sliced off the eyeless head, and both it and the member to which it had been attached melted away.
The demise of the tentacle serpent constituted progress of a sort, but by the time Anton followed up with a flank cut, Kymas had recovered from the shock of the unexpected assault from behind. Once again wielding the staff one-handed, the Red Wizard parried, and at the same moment, the dark orb reappeared in his off hand. Snarling a word of command, he threw it down on the deck.
The globe shattered, and a dozen misty, elongated figures rose from the shards. Moaning, half the phantoms flew at Umara. The rest swarmed on the unseen thing she’d evoked to rip at Kymas; they evidently perceived it without difficulty.
They kept it away from their master, too, and, freed of the danger it posed, he drove Anton backward again until the pirate had the jagged hole in the planking on his left and the sea just a step or two behind him.
Anton hitched to the right, and Kymas whirled the staff in a murderous horizontal arc. He’d been waiting for the Turmishan to dodge in that direction, for after all, where else was there to go?
But the blow didn’t connect. After that initial feinting shift, Anton actually leaped left, over the hole. At last he could see his adversary’s back-bare, burned, and shredded thanks to Umara’s lightning and her invisible minion-and he slashed it as he fell.
He couldn’t focus on making that clumsy stroke count and land gracefully, too, so he crashed down on a miscellany of hard objects. The impact knocked the wind out of him, but he made himself flop over onto his back.
Rain stung his upturned face. At some point during the fight, it had started coming down harder, and he’d been too preoccupied to notice. Squinting against it, he peered upward and rather to his surprise saw only cloud beyond the splintered hole, not Kymas jumping after him or throwing a spell at him. That last saber cut must have finally slowed the undead wizard down.
But it surely hadn’t destroyed him, and left to his own devices, he’d quickly shed his wounds and be as strong as ever. Anton sucked in a breath, jumped up, and scrambled out of the cabin and up the surviving companionway.
On what remained of the quarterdeck, Umara was alive and armored in crimson light. Unfortunately, she was also still busy contending with the apparitions from the broken orb.
Kymas was likewise still on his feet, but it was no longer just his fangs that looked bestial. His ears were pointed, and his eyes, red. He’d dropped the staff to seize the rudder man-the poor wretch must have been cowering up here the whole time-in clawed hands, yank him close, and bite his throat out.
Yet despite his newly demonic appearance, Kymas retained the ability to speak. He proved it by bellowing, “Kill the pirate! Umara, too!”
“Yes, lord!” called Captain Sepandem from somewhere to the fore. “Get them, men!”
That was an unfortunate development, but Kymas was still the primary threat. Anton rushed him.
His mouth and chin smeared with gore, Kymas dropped the dying crewman, hissed a word of power, and thrust out his hand. A bolt of ragged darkness flared from his claws. Anton twisted, and the power missed him by a hair.
But as he dodged, he inadvertently met the vampire’s crimson gaze. His thoughts dissolved into confusion. Uncertain why he was running, he broke stride. Kymas lunged at him, grabbed him by the shoulders, and opened his gory mouth wide.
Perhaps it was the suddenness of Kymas’s action, or the threat implicit in it, that jolted Anton out of his daze. The Red Wizard was too close for him to easily use the saber, but he managed to jam the cutlass between their bodies and rip his assailant’s belly open.
Kymas shoved Anton away and staggered backward. His body steamed as it started melting into mist. So he could slip away and hide.
“No,” Anton gasped. He darted forward and swung the saber. Kymas’s head flew from his shoulders and tumbled into the sea. His body rotted even as it fell.
Anton turned, but nothing else required his immediate attention. With a shouted word and a clap of her hands, Umara destroyed the last of the phantoms. It unraveled into nothingness in a way that reminded him of his mother pulling apart an unsatisfactory bit of knitting. And while some of the marines and sailors had armed themselves, they were no longer advancing on the quarterdeck.
Panting, Anton grinned at Umara. “What was that you said about no fighting?”
“Well,” she said, “maybe just enough to make it interesting.”
CHAPTER EIGHT
The galley listed to port a bowshot offshore where it had run aground. Men and zombies waded from the ship to the beach with bundles slung on their backs.
Sheltering beneath the branches of an oak that did a fair job of keeping off the rain, Umara watched the unloading alongside Anton and Ehmed. A short distance away, Stedd stood out in the open with his face upturned. Dawn had come and gone, and as usual, the sun was hidden behind the clouds, but it didn’t matter. After his captivity in the bowels of the ship, the boy was hungry for the open sky.
But if Stedd was elated in a quiet, mystical sort of way, Ehmed’s expression was glummer than usual. Presumably, the death of his vessel was to blame.
“You were as good as your word,” Umara told him. “You got us ashore.”
The captain sighed. “Yes, Lady Sir.”
“I also appreciate it that none of your men quite managed to intervene in my fight with Kymas before the whole thing was over.”
For a moment, Ehmed’s lips quirked upward. “Well, you know sailors, Lady Sir. Useless and undependable. Lord Kymas told me so on more than one occasion, when he wasn’t driving the rowers of the upper tier like they were slaves.” He turned his head in Stedd’s direction. “I didn’t take any pleasure in seeing a child treated the way we treated that one. But no guard nor any sort of restraints? He could run off.”
Umara took a breath. “He won’t because he’s no longer our prisoner. The notion that he ought to be was at the heart of Kymas’s treachery. Our purpose now is to take Stedd to Sapra. By so doing, we’ll cement an alliance that will serve Thay well in days to come.”
Ehmed frowned as though he would have liked to ask the questions her unexpected assertions evoked. But after a moment’s hesitation, all he said was, “Yes, Lady Sir. I’d better go check what’s come off the ship and what still needs to.”
As the captain strode toward the waterline, Anton murmured, “Eventually, you’ll have to tell him that none of you can go home.”
Umara shook her head. “I told you, I’m a loyal Thayan. I have no intention of spending the rest of my life in exile. Besides, Stedd says I’m supposed to go back.”
“Stedd says a lot of things. But I haven’t heard him explain how to justify your failure to carry out your orders.”
Orders handed down from Szass Tam himself. Umara imagined standing before that legendary terror and felt a pang of dread.
“I’ll figure out something,” she said.
“If they understood the actual situation, Ehmed and the others might not care to gamble their lives on your glibness.”
Anxiety gave way to irritation. Scowling, she said, “I’m not Kymas. I have a reasonable amount of concern for my underlings, and I hope that if worst comes to worst, my superiors will only punish me. But I’m entitled to the crew’s service by virtue of who and what I am, even if they come to grief because of it.”
Anton smiled. “Spoken like a true Red Wizard.”
Still vexed, although she wasn’t entirely certain why, she said, “Anyway, who are you to say these things to me? When did you ever hesitate to lie or put other folk in harm’s way to accomplish your ends?”