Kleef turned away. “Joelle’s not moving,” he said, continuing to row in the same direction. “We’ll save her first.”
“Malik has the Eye!” Arietta objected. “We need to get him first.”
“He’s doing fine,” Kleef said. They were only ten paces from Joelle, and now he could see something dark and sinuous circling her in the water. “At least he’s still swimming.”
“Damn it, Kleef!” Arietta yelled. “If that thing gets Malik, Shar wins.”
Before Kleef could look back toward Malik, a splash sounded. He spun around and saw Arietta in the water, head down, legs kicking, and sword in hand as she swam toward the little man. Behind her, a serpentine shadow turned in her pursuit, its body a tiny mimic of the great leviathan that had taken the Lonely Roamer.
Cursing the stubbornness of the nobility, Kleef grabbed Watcher and leaned over the side of skiff, slashing it down across the phantom’s back. The thing came apart in a cloud of inky darkness that quickly sank out of sight.
“Arietta!” Kleef yelled.
Whether Arietta had heard him or not was impossible to say, but she continued to swim. Kleef glanced back and saw that he had drifted to within five paces of Joelle. He didn’t know whether his judgment had been clouded by the heartwarder’s charm or his dislike of Malik, but it was clear that Arietta had been right about going after Malik first-and it was just as clear that it was too late to undo his mistake.
Kleef swung the skiff in behind Joelle. Now that he was so close, he could see that she was holding her sword in one hand, her head moving ever so slightly as she watched a sinuous shape circling her. He grabbed his sword again and swung into the water.
The serpent sensed the attack coming and twirled away in a flash-straight onto the tip of Joelle’s outstretched sword. It writhed on the blade, whipping its tail around to slash her legs. The water went instantly red and cloudy, and she answered with a quick wrist flick that opened up six inches of flank. The serpent seemed to explode, its insides bursting out through the wound to engulf it in a churning ball of shadow.
Kleef slipped his free hand under Joelle’s arm and lifted her into the skiff. Blood oozed from a finger-length gash on her lower thigh, but with Arietta and Malik in the water, there was no time to worry. He lowered her into the stern of the skiff, then set Watcher aside and took the oars again.
Joelle clamped a hand over the wound to stop the bleeding and drew her legs up, then looked around the boat and frowned.
“Where’s Malik?”
Kleef nodded toward where Arietta had her sword arm wrapped around Malik, pulling him back to the boat. The little man was thrashing his sword into the water and kicking so hard that Arietta could barely hold onto him.
“And you came after me first?” Joelle asked. “That’s sweet, but Malik is the Eye-bearer.”
“Yeah, that’s what Arietta said.” Kleef was rowing hard, looking back over his shoulder and trying not to feel guilty. “But I don’t see why Malik is the bearer. He’s a bungler-and not to be trusted, I have a feeling.”
Joelle gave him a benevolent smile. “That’s the whole point, Kleef,” she replied. “Anybody else, the Eye would corrupt. But Malik? He already stands on that side of the temple.”
Arietta suddenly let go of Malik and slipped beneath the water. Kleef feared that one of the serpents had dragged her under, but a moment later, she came up with the thing writhing on her sword.
Malik screamed and began to slash at it so wildly that Arietta had to hold it at arm’s length-and even then, he came closer to hitting her arm than the creature.
Kleef steered the skiff around behind the little man and released the oars, then caught the wrist of Malik’s sword hand and squeezed hard.
“Be … still.”
Once Malik stopped flailing, Kleef hauled him from the water and dropped him into the bow of the skiff, then turned to see Joelle taking Arietta’s sword from her. He leaned down to pull her into the boat-only to have her knock his arm away.
“I’ll do it myself.”
She grabbed the skiff and seemed to rise out of the water like a breaching swordfish, then threw a leg over the side and rolled into the boat. Kleef was relieved to see that she did not leave any blood in the water behind her.
“Get us out of here!” she ordered. “Before Yder realizes they jumped.”
Kleef nodded and grabbed the oars-then felt something heavy clinging to the one on the port. He grabbed Watcher in one hand and used the other to push down on the oar handle, levering the blade out of the water.
Clinging to the end was a sodden gnome with an angry gleam in his eyes. “You owe me a ship,” he growled. “A good one.”
“You can have the Wave Wyvern,” Arietta said. “All you have to do is find her.”
Greatorm’s expression brightened. “You’re serious?”
Arietta nodded. “I’ll give you a letter of transfer,” she said. “My mother has family in Westgate, so I imagine the Wyvern will head for there-assuming Jang can keep her away from the Shadovar, of course.”
“In that case, start rowing.” Greatorm crawled up the oar and tumbled into the skiff, then pointed over Kleef’s right shoulder. “Shore’s that way.”
Kleef started to row, but looked to Arietta. “What about survivors?”
“Survivors?” Greatorm scoffed. “Do you hear anyone screaming out there? The fry got ’em all.”
Joelle nodded. “He’s right,” she said. “Go on.”
Kleef continued to look at Arietta. As a noble of Cormyr, she was the closest thing he had to a commander right now.
She cocked her head, either listening or thinking, then finally nodded. “Keep rowing, Kleef,” she said. “Even if there were survivors, our first duty is to the mission.”
CHAPTER 9
The canebrake lay strewn in a tangle of leafy stems and sand-filled root balls that formed a sort of nest around the abandoned skiff. Yder could see that at one time, the little boat had been hidden beneath a mound of woven cane. But someone had come along and torn the camouflage apart in a rage. The skiff itself had been flipped onto its hull and bashed into uselessness by what appeared to be clubs and dull blades. The ground-where it was visible-had been churned into a lumpy mess by stiff-soled boots, and a broad swath of trampled cane meandered inland from the moonlit beach.
Yder turned to his most recent second-in-command, a square-jawed shade who had replaced the three who had already fallen to Kleef Kenric and his companions. “It seems we are no longer the only ones chasing the Eye, Ajloon.”
“That would be hard to deny, High One.” Ajloon pointed a wispy finger toward the meandering swath of trampled cane. “But how could a band of orcs know to look for it here, when we wasted two days searching at sea?”
The scouts had yet to confirm that it had been orcs who smashed the skiff, but Yder had no doubt that Ajloon’s conclusion would prove correct. As the god of savagery, Gruumsh was the most revered deity of orc tribes everywhere, and word of the theft from Big Bone Deep had no doubt spread quickly. By now, there would be orcish spies posted outside every city, along every road and coast, watching for any hint of the thieves who had taken their god’s eye.
And two days ago, they would have felt the same thing Yder had.
“The orcs knew to come here because Gruumsh guided them,” Yder said finally. “They felt the Savage One look at them-just as we did.”
“Before the Wave Wyvern ran aground?”
“Indeed,” Yder replied.
His new second-in-command had wisely avoided pointing out that the mistake had been Yder’s, but the memory caused angry wisps of shadow to seep from the prince’s body. In his eagerness to believe he had won Kleef Kenric for Shar, he had ignored the possibility of a trick-and now a band of orcs was closer to success than he was.