Under Fallen Stars - Mel Odom [128]
"Now, priestess," Iakhovas said. "Now it begins!"
She looked forward and saw the trunk of Arnrock Island filling the view before the prow. They were too close now, going too fast to avoid cracking up on the rocks and coral. Only a small twinge of fear twisted through Laaqueel's stomach, but she quickly put her doubt away. The quest they were on was real. Even Sekolah the Uncaring would want his chosen children free as he'd first freed them so long ago.
"There, Laaqueel! Do you see it?" Iakhovas stood at the wheel, the tattoos all over his body lighted by lambent green fires.
A shimmering took place in front of Tarjana just as her prow reached out for the rock. A portal opened in the rock, tall enough and wide enough for the fliers that trailed after them.
"Hold on!" Iakhovas warned. "With all your might, hold on or you'll be forever lost and even I won't be able to protect you!"
Still gaining speed, Tarjana flew into the portal.
* * * * *
"They've raised their sails again," Jherek said as he watched the crews aboard Maelstrom and the other pirate vessels work their rigging with all due speed.
The sailcloth spread along the yardarms, then belled out, greedily catching the wind. Azla gave the order for her own crew to run the sails up. Rigging whined and creaked overhead as they hurried to follow her orders.
"They're doing something else, too," she said. "Can you make out what it is?"
Jherek strained to see through the spyglass, riding out the rise and fall of Black Champion's deck. He spotted the coarse leather tarps the crew was spreading out across the decks.
"Tarps?" Azla repeated, pushing herself to the railing and hanging onto the rigging above. "What in the Nine Hells would they do that for?"
"Look!" Sabyna called from below. She pointed. "Something's happening to the volcano."
Jherek turned his attention to the smoldering tower of rock behind Maelstrom. Thicker and darker smoke, filled with fiery debris that could be seen even at the distance they were at, belched from the Ship of the Gods.
"It's going to blow," Azla stated quietly, and Jherek didn't doubt that for a moment.
T'Kalah, royal guard of Ring Kromes who ruled Aleaxtis, the kingdom of We Who Eat beneath the Alamber Sea, stalked his quarry with a patience born of relish for the kill.
He stood just over nine feet in height and was built broad and strong, a warrior who was feared by his own people as well as the surface dwellers. His scales held a deep emerald green so dark it was almost black. Legend said that was once the color of all sahuagin before they'd been trapped in the Alamber Sea and put in such close proximity to the sea elves of Seros. Those same sea elves were reputed to have been different colors in ages past, but they had passed on their skin changes through the malenti and their proximity to the warriors of Aleaxtis.
Despite his size, T'Kalah slid quietly through the kelp lining the ledges where he'd spotted the sea elf only moments before. He'd been quietly occupying a cave in the area that overlooked Vahaxtyl, the sahuagin capital of Aleaxtis, dreaming of the day when he would be king.
Of course, that wasn't going to happen unless opportunity manifested itself. Still, it was a good ambition, and one that he'd pursued. After all, he'd waited and watched, made blood challenges as they became possible, and killed his way into a position as captain of the royal guard of King Kromes.
Success or failure had been the driving force in his life, the thing that had driven him to live in the hatcheries when so many of his brothers and sisters had been out to eat him. Yet sitting in the cave, thinking of that day, had ignited the black rage that often consumed him because he didn't think of patience as a virtue.
The amputated stub of his lower left arm served to remind him that patience was sometimes best given some degree of heed. But then, he still had three more arms. He'd been marked from birth as a four-arm to follow stronger currents than most of his people could fin. Since losing the arm, he'd worked to make the other three