The Sea Devil's Eye - Mel Odom [80]
Behind the wave came the death cry of the Great Whale Bard. Hearing it, the old bard knew it belonged to no other. Tears welled in his eyes as he remembered the great creature and the gift it had given so freely while calmly accepting its own fate.
"Taleweaver?" Reefglamor called out, swimming toward him. "What was that?"
"The sahuagin have slain the Great Whale Bard," Pacys replied. "Now there is nothing to hold back the sea devils."
* * * * *
Standing in Steadfast's prow, his cutlass in his hands, Jherek stared at the huge, dark cloud that rode low over the ocean. The ship was ahead of the cloud, only a few miles southwest of Aglarond. The whale song stopped abruptly the day before, but the sense of direction that had dawned in the young sailor's breast remained constant.
He shaded his eyes with his hand. Perspiration cooled him in the sea breeze as his heart resumed a steadier beat. He'd worked himself hard the last hour, concentrating on the cutlass and hook as he went through the exercises Malorrie and Glawinn had shown him. The exertion kept his thoughts reined in, away from the memory of Sabyna and the sweet kiss they'd exchanged.
Tarnar ran up the steps, joining him. "I thought at first it was a cloud," the captain said, "but I'd never seen one settle so close to the sea and be so small. Thought it might be fog, then I thought perhaps it was a sail."
"No," Jherek said, tracking the jerky, fluttering movement visible within the mass now. "Those are birds. Scavengers." Even as he realized it, his stomach lurched and filled with cold acid.
Bringing his spyglass up to his eye, Tarnar swept the sky ahead. "You're right, but I've never seen so many."
Jherek hadn't either. Thousands of seagulls, pelicans, fisherhawks, and smaller birds skirled through the limited air space above the sea, eagerly seeking an opening. During a voyage on Butterfly last year, Finaren had spied a derelict at sea. Upwind of her, Jherek hadn't smelled the carrion stench of the ship until they'd thrown grappling hooks over the railing and prepared to tie on.
Birds had exploded from the decks and broken windows, frightened from the grisly repast they'd helped themselves to. The young sailor had never learned the reason why the crew had killed each other, but there was no doubt that they had. Finaren had guessed that some mage-inspired madness or a curse had overtaken them. No one had lived. For tendays afterward, Jherek remembered the bloated and beak-stripped faces in his nightmares.
"It means there's death waiting up there," the young sailor said hoarsely.
Tarnar didn't bother to disagree.
"Cap'n," the sailor in the crow's nest bellowed. "Got something off the starboard side."
Jherek stepped to the railing, the cutlass still tight in his fist. A sapphire whale, named for the blue flukes it bore, surfaced in the water only a few yards from Steadfast. Twenty feet long and easily eight feet in diameter at its thickest part, the sapphire whale could have been a formidable opponent for the caravel. It glided easily just above the water, making no move toward the ship.
"Lady look over us," the sailor in the crow's nest called out, "there are more of 'em out there, Cap'n."
As though appearing from nowhere, the whales rose to the ocean's surface, quickly flanking Steadfast's port and starboard sides.
"They want us to stop," Jherek said.
"They've given us no choice," Tarnar growled. He turned and shouted orders to the first mate to drop their canvas. "The good thing is, if they wanted to, they could have already reduced Steadfast to so much kindling. I'm taking this as a good sign."
The caravel drifted to a stop, resting easily against the whales' broad backs. Tarnar gave the order to drop anchor. Crewmen spun the anchor chain on the drum, paying out the length.
Jherek peered across the hundred yards that separated the ship from the cloud of scavengers working at the water-line. They looked as though they were settling on a small island barely jutting up from the sea.
Tarnar