Crusade - James Lowder [52]
The king burst into the great cabin, cold and shivering. "We've offended Umberlee," he shouted. "No one offered her tribute before we left Suzail."
Vangerdahast cursed loudly. Thom Reaverson said a quick, silent prayer to Lord Oghma, the patron god of bards, asking for his protection from the storm.
Barring that, Thom prayed that a suitably glorious tale would be written about them. Brunthar Elventree, on the other hand, whispered something to Mielikki, the Lady of the Forest, asking that he be allowed to see the trees in Battledale again.
Lord Harcourt leaned forward in his chair and steepled his fingers. "We need something of great value right away," he noted stoically. A wave crashed against the stern, shattering a pane of leaded glass. "We lost a flagship this way, back in the Year of the Dragon. Nasty business." He tugged at the corner of his mustache and frowned. "It's our responsibility as flagship to make the proper sacrifice. If she's not happy with the offering, Umberlee will take the flagship instead. Oh, anyone in her way will be sunk, but she'll head straight for us…"
Azoun pulled open a chest and uncovered a few brilliant, multifaceted gems. Brunthar emptied a dozen gold pieces from a leather bag at his belt and dumped them on the table. Vangerdahast and Thom did the same. Lord Harcourt stood and walked to the center of the room.
He glanced at the gathered wealth and shook his head. "Umberlee wants something we value. Something important to us. We must-"
The sound of splintering wood and tearing canvas stopped the cavalry commander from continuing. Farl Bloodaxe's voice carried over the chaos on deck, and the men in the great cabin could hear his commands over the storm. From what Farl was telling the crew to do, Azoun concluded that one of the masts was breaking.
After running a hand through his wet, tangled hair, Azoun reached up and steadied the swaying lantern. He paused in that position to think. Across the table from the king, the royal magician and the dalesman pelted Lord Harcourt with questions. Some of their queries were drowned out by the wind and water whistling in through the broken window.
Like Azoun, Thom Reaverson stood silently in thought. He braced himself against the cabin wall and listened to the thud of waves crashing against the hull and washing over the deck. A hundred stories of misadventures at sea filled the bard's head, and he briefly reviewed each one for something that might help. Then an idea came to him, not part of a particular story, but related to all of them. He walked to the cabinet, opened it, and took out the finely carved wooden box containing his pen set and the completed pages of the crusade's annals.
As the bard left the cabin, Azoun turned to follow; Lord Harcourt, Vangerdahast, and Brunthar Elventree were too caught up in their argument to notice. The king found Thom Reaverson tossing page after finely lettered page into the sea. Rain slashed the sheets and the wind whipped the waterladen parchment, then dashed each page into the waves.
"Thom, wait!" Azoun cried as the bard tossed the last page over the side and lifted the finely carved box above his head. Another flash of lightning zigzagged a wild path across the sky, and the king saw sailors lining the rails to either side of the bard, tossing coins into the water.
In the instant of absolute blackness that followed the lightning strike, Thom hurled the case. The king reached the bard's side in time to see another fork of lightning split the night and strike a nearby cog. The bolt splintered one of the smaller ship's two square-rigged masts and set its canvas ablaze. It was the first time Azoun had realized that the storm had tossed them so close to other ships in the armada. Flames eagerly licked the cog's second mast, and soon it was burning brightly.
The eerie red glow from the burning cog cut through the night and the