Finder's Bane - Kate Novak [8]
"Lord Bane conies. Fear him always. To defy him is to die. Lord Bane comes. Fear him always. To defy him is to die."
Joel buried his head in his arms and worked hard to stifle his laughter. It was a group of Banites, still worshiping their dead god. Their capacity for self-deceit was unbelievable. The black lord of hatred and tyrann had perished nearly a decade ago, yet he still had worshipers who refused to accept the fact. With their god's death, even Bane's priests were magically impotent, yd here they were, parading about and declaring their god's power.
It was then that Joel noticed the ground was rumbling. He peered down the road, guessing the rumbling might be caused by elephants, or perhaps a captured dragon.
It was no living thing that shook the earth, however, but something far more diabolical. Floating along the trail, its keel hovering inches from the ground, was the strangest-looking ship Joel had ever seen. The hull was fashioned of gigantic tree trunks, bound together with iron bands. Engraved in the iron bands was a script Joel was sure did not originate in the Realms. The hull was nearly a hundred feet long, with a fifteen-foot beam. Charred bits of wood on the lower deck led Joel to guess the upper decks had been destroyed by fire. Three of the bound tree trunks thrust outward from the lower deck, entwined together to form a three-pronged ram. ship's broken rudder plowed through the earth, creating a great furrow in the trail and making the ground shake.
Bound to the ship's bow, looking as if it were standing on the ram, was a giant ebon figurehead of a creature Joel had never seen before. It looked like a great pig or a small elephant with a mushed-in snout, only it stood upright like a human. Its arms were bound to either side of the bow. The statue wore no clothing, and its black skin had a sheen as if it were highly polished.
Behind the figurehead, on the lower deck, stood a small, slender woman in black plate armor, with a black cape. She held a silver goad, its spiked point honed to a needlelike sharpness. Her long, silky black hair was fastened in a single plait that reached her waist. It was her face, though, that captured Joel's attention. On her cheeks and her chin were diamond-shaped tattoos the color of fresh blood, and set into her forehead was a huge ruby, worth a king's ransom-the telltale markings of one of Bane's chosen priests. Her features might have been attractive, but now they were frozen into a stern, bored expression. She looked no older than Joel, but the bard knew such priests often used their powers to appear youthful.
For a moment the priestess seemed to look right at the spot where Joel hid in the grass. Her lips curled into the slightest hint of a smile. Joel could have sworn he'd been detected, that in the next minute she'd order her minions to flush him out like a bird. Then the bow of the boat reached the trail just in front of where he lay in hiding, and the bard lost sight of the priestess. The boat rumbled past and continued on. A few more peasants straggled behind the floating ship, but they did not stop.
Joel rolled on his back and breathed a sigh of relief. She hadn't seen him. If she hadn't seen him, though, why had she smiled? the bard asked himself. Perhaps she had seen him, but in her pride, she had ignored him, smiling at the way he cowered. Joel felt annoyance churn in his gut. As priestess to a dead god, she was unable to cast even a simple healing spell, yet there she stood, proud of her power and position, and here he lay, priest to a living god, lying low like a snake in the grass.
Healing. He'd forgotten about that. He was so self-conscious about revealing