The Sea Devil's Eye - Mel Odom [107]
Below, the pirates spread out and drew their weapons, crying out to their gods and cursing. Vurgrom bellowed and pulled up his battle-axe, but whatever he was trying to say was lost in the tremendous cra-ack! that suddenly filled the cavern.
A chasm opened in the floor, spreading quickly from a hand's-span to several feet. Stalactites fell from the ceiling, one of them crashing through a pirate's shoulder and driving him to the ground. Blood pooled around the man as he quivered and died.
Iakhovas strode through the falling debris untouched, keeping his feet with apparent ease even though the earth shifted dramatically under him. The elf who had arrived with him didn't fare so well. She fell and rolled toward the chasm's edge. Moving with inhuman speed, Iakhovas reached down and caught the elf woman, lifting her effortlessly.
At that moment, Azla released the bowstring.
* * * * *
Kellym Drayspout walked his rounds through Agenais's docks out of habit. He carried a heavy crossbow at full cock in his scarred and gnarled hand. The chain mail he wore had seen better days but remained serviceable. He was a stout man with a bigger belly than he cared to admit, and gray hair that showed how many years had passed him, but he was a warrior few would want to confront. His lined and scarred face threw fear into most folks he had stern words with.
The docks seemed less well lighted than he'd ever seen them, but he didn't pay it any real mind. Quiet was a good thing. The carousing and drinking that went on more nights than not meant a long shift.
More ships than ever anchored in the shallows around the port. Almost all were shattered and broken husks, some of which would never move again, just be plucked apart to salvage other ships.
Drayspout's feet thumped against the creaking wooden dock as he made the corner that led down to Verdi's Tavern. He'd stood in at the tavern enough that the locals, and the sailors that had been in Agenais any length of time, knew better than to cause any problems on his shift. Verril proved generous with the tapped ale kegs in return. It had proven a good arrangement.
The still, black water in the harbor was as smooth as polished glass. Ships' rigging slapped against masts. Over all of it he heard a melodic tune almost hypnotic in its intensity. The tune was enough, he'd discovered, to raise the hackles at the back of his neck.
Instead of merely trusting the way tonight, he'd found himself raising his lantern on more than a few occasions to strip away the shadows and make sure some foul thing wasn't crouched there waiting for him. His nervousness made him angry.
Being a guard wasn't a new job for Drayspout. He'd been a mercenary along the Dragon Coast for Lady Nettel Thalavar of the Thalavar trading family in Westgate for twenty years, until a bandit's blade had nearly found his heart a few years ago. He wasn't quite as quick as he had been, and he figured he'd had enough of it.
He'd been too well known on the Dragon Coast to retire there. Bandits he'd slain often had kin who didn't believe in forgiveness. In fact, some of the rogues' bands had even put a price on his head.
So he'd come to the Whamite Isles to spend his last years. He'd even met a widow who owned a bakery and had three teenaged children he could almost tolerate. He'd surprised himself by settling so easily into the sort of domestic life he'd never expected to have.
That life meant yelling at those damned kids every day, occasionally helping out in the bakery, and a few free pints of an evening down at Verril's between rattling merchants' doors and seeing to it nobody broke into a warehouse or shop too easily. The ships provided their own security.
Come early morning, he could count on snuggling for a little while with that widow before they started the sweetbreads and cakes she sold for morningfeast.
He cursed the damnable haunting