Rising tide - Mel Odom [69]
"Aye, ma'am," he gasped.
The pain in his chest had died away to a dull throb, but the increased pressure in his wounded lung was frightening. Even when everything around him had been out of his control, he'd always been able to control himself, his body. Now, not even that existed.
"Before I can give you a healing potion to cure your wounds," Madame litaar said, "I've got to get that quarrel out of you."
"Aye, ma'am."
She touched the feathered shaft carefully. Despite her advanced years, her hands remained steady. "I can't pull that quarrel out."
Jherek tried to talk, but his voice seemed caught for a moment. "I know."
She held his face in her work-roughened hands. "I could give you a sleep draught, Jherek, but I wouldn't be able to rouse you before dawn." She hesitated. "There's a ship you must catch tonight."
Jherek stared into her eyes, not knowing what to say. Madame litaar wasn't just kicking him out of her house, she was banishing him from the city.
"She's called Breezerunner," Madame litaar said. "Do you know her?"
"Aye, ma'am. She runs north, along Sword Coast." Jherek broke into a coughing fit and fresh blood bubbled up from his injured lung.
"She leaves port in only a few hours," the woman said. "I've paid for passage for you under another name. They won't know you. Do you understand?"
"Aye, ma'am."
Questions filled Jherek's mind, pricking at the hurt her words caused him. Before he could utter any of them, Madame litaar shoved an open hand at the quarrel, stopping less than an inch short of actually touching it. The young sailor thought he saw blue sparks flare from her fingertips, but he couldn't be sure because in the next moment pain ripped through his chest. He tried to scream but couldn't.
The arrow jerked inside him as if it had been shot yet again. He felt it pierce his back and come out the other side, propelled by Madame litaar's magic. He jerked, trying to escape the agony, but Madame litaar wrapped her arms around his shoulders and held him to her until it passed. He made himself be still, not wanting to accidentally hurt her. Shudders quivered through his body like he was a tuning fork. Perspiration broke out along his brow and upper lip. Fresh blood spilled down his chest and back.
He tried to speak, but blood gurgled up from the wounded lung, a new torrent unleashed. He started drowning then as the other lung filled as well and couldn't find the heart to break free of Madame litaar's grip. He'd always feared he'd be alone when he died, and no one would care. At least here, in her arms, he could hold onto the illusion of family.
XIV
30 Ches, the Year of the Gauntlet
"Oghma grant us mercy."
Pacys hung onto the wagon seat as Hroman prayed and steered the pulling team along Dock Street beside him. The intersection to Ship Street lay just ahead, but the bard knew there'd be no passing along it. The sahuagin had risen from the waters of the harbor and taken their battle into the Mermaid's Arms festhall and to the shipbuilding shed of Arnagus the Shipwright, filling the streets there. Men ran with torches, but the light from the fires spreading uncontrolled across the harbor lit the area up. The storm out on the water lashed high waves over the docks, well above the normal waterline.
Looking further out into the harbor, Pacys looked across the burning husks of ships in the docks. Sailors ran the decks with buckets of wet sand and water, but Pacys knew it would never be enough to save them all.
Mystical lightning lit up the savage sky, streaking down from on high to targets in the water below. The electrical display looked at home in the whirling storm.
"Oghma damn all sahuagin for their black hearts and insatiable, hellish appetites," Hroman cursed. He pulled his team up short, causing them to whinny in protest. They reared and bucked in their traces, eyes rolling white.
"It isn't only the sahuagin," Pacys said in disbelief. He watched the heads of huge creatures breaking