Under Fallen Stars - Mel Odom [138]
Laaqueel gazed at the water, knowing the titanic forces that warred in the ocean were somehow kept separate from them. She started her prayers to Sekolah, asking that their voyage be successful, and that it try the spirits of the sahua-gin so the Shark God's chosen might become even stronger.
It was better, she knew from her experience as a priestess, to pray for the things that were sure to happen. It helped to remind her that those trials weren't unexpected or without reason.
She knew her, people would pay in blood.
XXVIII
2 Flamerule, the Year of the Gauntlet
"Are you sure you want to do that, young warrior?"
Glawinn's quiet words startled Jherek. He hadn't known the paladin was there. Immediately, he felt guilty about what he was doing. He'd thought he was going to be alone long enough to do what he planned.
"Aye," the young sailor replied, his voice thick with his own doubts and fears. "It's what I have to do." He peered at the long black sea stretching out to the east as Black Champion made her way west again.
Vurgrom and his pirates had lost sails during the volcanic eruption stemming from the Ship of the Gods, but they'd brought extra sails. After the turbulence had finally died down in the Alamber Sea, Vurgrom's pirates had simply rehung their rigging with the new sails and continued on with their journey. The pirate captain had paused to throw a few taunts Azla's way first. Azla had ignored him, but in stony fury. The half-elf obviously had a long-standing feud going with the pirate that wasn't going to end until one or the other was dead. Evidently Black Champion's captain and crew were too well respected for the pirates to think they could take them without loss.
In the hours since the eruption, Azla and her crew, with help from Jherek, Sabyna, and Glawinn, had worked to repair the sails,. However, there was no replacing the lost mainmast, not at sea. Jherek had sewn and cut and spliced sailcloth until his hands ached, but he hadn't complained. Neither had he talked with Sabyna. He'd also avoided Glawinn's offer of lessons with the sword, working on the sails until it was well past dark.
"Why do you think you have to do this?" Glawinn asked in a soft voice.
Jherek listened to the man's words but found no challenge in them, nothing he could take offense at and use to leverage an argument that would end the unwanted conversation. "Because I'm tired."
"We're all tired."
"It's not the work," Jherek snapped, his voice almost breaking with the emotion that filled him. With all the rage inside him, he felt like demanding that someone understand what was going through his mind. "It's the hope, Glawinn. I'm tired of all the hope."
"A man can't live without hope."
"Well," the young sailor challenged, "I'm going to have to see about that."
Glawinn stepped closer, coming within Jherek's peripheral vision. The young sailor didn't turn to face him. "You have no thoughts of a future?"
"I have no future," Jherek declared.
"You're not dead."
Jherek clung to the cold rage that had filled him since the voice saved the ship. "I was born dead, and I've died a little more each day, till I owe Cyric at least three or four other lives." A chill touched him when he mentioned the god of death's name. In all his life, he never had.
"You really believe that?"
Turning, Jherek glared at the paladin. "You don't know anything about me."
Glawinn crossed his arms over his chest and drew himself up to his full height. "Such wisdom in one so young, to be knowing all these things that you do."
"You taunt me." Jherek's eyes blazed, but he restrained himself. Glawinn didn't deserve his wrath and he knew it, but that emotion was so ready to be released.
"The opposite," Glawinn disagreed. "I marvel at you."
"This is my decision."
"I've not tried to alter it."
"You asked me if I was sure about doing this."
Glawinn let out a slow breath. "I only thought that someone