Under Fallen Stars (12 page)

During his time in Velen, Jherek had only seen a few weapons like the one Sonshal carried. It was an arquebus, a weapon as rare as the most arcane magic that took advantage of the explosive nature of the smoke powder made by the Lantans. The arquebus fired round bullets much like those a sling threw, but with far more destruction than either a sling or a bow. Also, the bullets weren’t as easy for a healer to take out as an arrow or quarrel.

The dim glow of a slow match burned orange across Sonshal’s face. “I’m on my way to help. I only just woke.”

“Pulled yerself out of yer cups, ye mean.”

Consternation covered Sonshal’s face. “Do I know you?”

“Khlinat Ironeater. Aye, ye know me. From a time or two a round was bought at the Blushing Mermaid or the Three Old Kegs. Stories was swapped and lies was told, but I’ve never done business with ye. That blasted smoke powder ye sell is much too uncertain for a one-legged dwarf who’s learned the value of the surefooted path.”

“Then what are you doing here?” Sonshal demanded. “Unless you’re beating on doors and raising help.”

“More than that,” Khlinat roared. “That harbor yonder’s filled with all manner of foul beasties, including no few sea devils. I’ve got me a plan, desperate, aye, and mayhap a trifle foolhardy, but Marthammor Duin keeps foolish wanderers ever in his blessed sight.”

“Get to the point.”

“Ye sell smoke powder,” Khlinat said.

“I sell fireworks,” Sonshal argued. “And torches, lanterns, and beacon pots. Things a man determined to go adventuring needs.”

“Aye,” the dwarf agreed, “and ye stock smoke powder that the Lantans make. The reason the four Grand Dukes don’t run ye out of business here is because yer choosy about who ye sell to, and the fact that yer a rich man in these parts. Makes ye a good taxpayer, I’m told.”

“What do you want? Do you figure an arquebus is going to serve you better than those hand axes you carry?”

Jherek listened politely to the conversation, staying out of it because he trusted the dwarf, but every instinct in the young sailor cried out to him to be at the harbor, helping where he could. Fighting men died while they stood there.

“No,” Khlinat said. “I need that smoke powder ye have put away in the warehouse.” He glanced at Jherek. “Steady, swabbie.”

Jherek gave him a tight nod. Glancing at the harbor, he saw flaming catapult loads streak through the sky.

“I don’t sell smoke powder to just anyone,” Sonshal stated. “If you’ve heard anything, I know you’ve heard that about me.”

“I wasn’t intending to buy it,” Khlinat said. “Just use it.”

“For what?” Sonshal asked.

A broad grin split the dwarfs face. “Goin’ fishing.”

VI

Laaqueel crouched lower on the invisible floating disc as Iakhovas guided her around a crowd of battling sahuagin and Flaming Fist mercenaries. Incredibly, the mercenaries were holding their own against the sahuagin, starting to push them back into the harbor in some areas. The sheer ferocity of the humans surprised her, and made her respect them as well.

Out in the harbor proper, ships burned. Three of them listed heavily in the water, burning down close to the waterline. Others were in the beginning stages of the same fate despite the efforts of dockworkers and sailors to halt it with water brigades.

The invisible disc stopped smoothly in front of a warehouse, Iakhovas alighted gracefully, pulling his cloak more securely around him. He drew his sword, revealing the runes carved into the shining blade. It was the first time Laaqueel had seen the weapon, making her realize the agents he had working around Faerun to recover objects he claimed were his were still bringing things to him.

He grinned at her, his scarred features and eyepatch highlighted by a flaming catapult load that streaked through the night sky. “Come, little malenti. We have only a short time remaining that we may complete the assignations I’ve planned for our evening.”

She didn’t argue and she didn’t point out that the sahuagin were dying behind them, shedding their blood for Iakhovas’s machinations. Instead, she told herself that those were also Sekolah’s machinations and followed Iakhovas to the warehouse.

The structure stood bleak and weathered, tortured by time, the elements, and ill use. The doors, leached gray by the sun working through the constant layer of moisture that hung over Baldur’s Gate, stood only for a moment against Iakhovas’s gesture. A thin green ray stabbed from his finger and caused the doors to glow briefly, then disintegrate into a whirling mass of fine dust.

Iakhovas strode into the warehouse. Laaqueel followed at his heels, marveling at the amount of magic he seemed capable of unleashing. She felt in her heart that he had Sekolah to thank for that. No matter what Iakhovas believed, she knew the Shark God’s influence had put him back into the world and made him as powerful as he was.

“Hold!” someone shouted. “What in the Nine Hells do you think you’re doing?”

Turning, Laaqueel gazed at the dozen agitated surface dwellers that came at them with swords bared. She saw them for only an instant, then Iakhovas stepped to her side and brushed her back protectively. He leaned forward, put a small bullhorn to his lips, and shouted with a deafening fury.

The shout drove the men back five paces, turning them like sediment stirred up from the ocean bottom. All of them survived, but they were injured and screamed in pain, clapping their hands to their bleeding ears.

“Hurry,” Iakhovas said. He led her to the back of the warehouse, through stacked crates and shrouded items of all sizes and shapes. At the back wall he stepped into a small alcove and touched a panel. With a muffled creak, a section of the wall opened, revealing a long tunnel filled with shadows beyond.

Laaqueel held her trident ready, smelling old pain and death clinging to the tunnel. Iakhovas reached into his cloak and took out an amulet cut from a huge, flawless jacinth into a lens shape, six inches in diameter. The device was set in platinum with a dozen diamonds on the left and a rune across the top. Holding it in his hand, Iakhovas spoke arcane words Laaqueel couldn’t understand.

The gem’s face glowed with lambent blue light. Instantly a map with a compass rose appeared. Gazing at it, Laaqueel recognized the warehouse, and the entrance to the tunnel they now stood before.

“A moment, little malenti,” Iakhovas said softly, “while I orient myself.”

The soft blue glow died, collapsing in on itself. He put the amulet back in one of the cloak’s hiding places, then took out a jade-colored globe that looked almost black in the pale light streaming in from the warehouse. He spoke another word. The globe lifted from his open palm and floated into place behind his left shoulder. It glowed pale jade, illuminating the tunnel.

Laaqueel blinked against the sudden light even though it was soft.

“Now,” Iakhovas said, “let’s reap the rewards of the bold move I’ve made.” He started down the tunnel so rapidly his black cloak shimmered like a waterfall behind him.

Having no other choice, and always curious as to his real purpose and the events he orchestrated, Laaqueel followed.

“You’re crazy, dwarf.”

If Khlinat harbored any ill feelings toward Sonshal for his pronouncement, Jherek didn’t see it. They worked hurriedly inside the warehouse Sonshal had allowed them to enter after Khlinat explained his plan. “Hitch up them horses, swabbie,” the little man said, “afore I have a chance to rethink much of what we’re going to do.”

Jherek brought the horses to the front of the wagon Sonshal had let them have as well. His hands worked quickly, buckling the traces into place. Khlinat continued rolling barrels of smoke powder into the wagon.

“You’re going to blow yourself up is what you’re going to do,” Sonshal said, but helped the dwarf with the barrels. “That stuffs damned unstable if you don’t treat it right.”

“It’s got me respect,” Khlinat said dourly. “If I could think of some other way to handle this, I would. I’m only praying this works.”

Finished with the horses, Jherek vaulted over the wagon’s side and shoved the fifty-pound barrels up behind the seat. He handled them gingerly. Only three years ago in Velen, a local farmer had used smoke powder to clear stumps from some land he wanted to plow. Even Malorrie had been impressed by the carnage only a little of the smoke powder had done.

Khlinat shoved the last barrel into place.

“That’s all of it,” Sonshal said, twisting his mustache with one hand.

“Then I’ll be off,” Khlinat said, “and thank ye for yer kind donations.” He offered his arm..

Sonshal took the arm, then shook his head. “Mighty Tempus watch over a thrice-blasted village idiot in the making, I can’t let you go it alone, dwarf. If you’ve an extra seat, I’ll be glad to accompany you. I may know more about fuse-cutting than you do.”

Khlinat smiled broadly. “Aye, friend Sonshal, as long as ye keep in mind that one way or another, this is apt to be a oneway trip.”

“I’ll likely not forget.” Sonshal took up a roll of fuse and a torch from the nearby stores.

Khlinat moved to the wagon’s seat and grabbed the reins. “Have a ready hand there, swabbie,” he said to Jherek. “Them sea devils see us coming, they ain’t going to be very friendly about it. We start acting brave, they’ve to start asking themselves why.”

Nervous about what the dwarf planned to do, Jherek sat on the bench seat beside him. Ever since he’d left Velen, his life had been turned constantly topsy-turvy, with certain death in every corner. The fear numbed him a little as he reflected on how he seemed to get caught up in the events spreading around Faerun. All he could guess was that it was the ill luck of his birthright. He kept the sword and the hook naked in his hands.

The warehouse doors were open, revealing the confusion roiling out in the street as more mercenaries arrived and had to fight their way through the fearful crowds fleeing their homes. Lightning speared the sky, but there wasn’t a storm cloud to be seen.

“These barrels get wet,” Sonshal called out as he clambered into the back and sat, “all we’re going to be doing is riding to our deaths. They get hit by that damned lightning those wizards are throwing around, and we’ll go even quicker.”

“I hear ye.” Khlinat laid the reins across the backs of the horses in a practiced snap. The team hit the end of their traces at once, starting the wagon off quickly.

Sonshal cursed, warning about the barrels.

“Gangway!” Khlinat called at the top of his voice. The horses’ hooves struck sparks from the cobblestones and the thunder of their passage cannonaded between the tall buildings on either side of Bindle Street. “Wild horses! Clear the street!”

People dived to the sides of the street, some of them just ahead of being trampled. Khlinat handled the horses expertly, slapping the reins and urging them to greater speed. The ironbound wheels whirred against the cobblestones.

Jherek braced himself, holding fast to his weapons and praying to Ilmater that their headlong rush hurt no one, and that they arrived in time to save something of Baldur’s Gate.

Pacys’s fingers twitched for the strings of the yarting. The music crescendoed in the old bard’s head. He mapped the words and the rhythms, finding maddening pieces and partials of the lyrics that formed the song. The oppression and the sound of the battle didn’t daunt his spirits or send fear into him at all. He felt more alive than he had in decades. His soul thirsted for the knowledge and the answers that he was certain lurked around the next comer.

He held his staff in both hands as he ran through the crowd in the street. He felt their pain of loss, their uncertainty of fear, and he worked it into the lyrics running through his mind as surely and skillfully as a silversmith working an intricate inlay assignation.

The music changed pitch, becoming the champion’s song again when he heard the rough voice farther down the street.

“Clear the damned street, ye deaf lummoxes!”

The sea of people and mercenaries before Pacys parted. The music paralyzed him, stronger than he’d ever heard it before. He spotted the dwarf over the horses’ laid-back ears as they pulled the wagon. Then his eyes rested on the young man beside the diminutive teamster.

Pacys knew he’d never seen the young man before in his life, but he felt he knew him with greater certainty than he’d experienced at any time in his long life. This was the one Narros had spoken of, the one who would challenge the Taker that brought death and destruction from the sea.

“Get out of the way, old man!” the dwarf roared, slapping the rumps of the horses yet again.

Getting his wits back about him, Pacys dived to the side, rolling to get more distance. The wagon thundered past him, and he memorized the cadence of the ironbound wheels across the cobblestones, figuring out how he could bring that sound to life with his fingertips against the yarting’s bowl while strumming the strings with his thumb.

The wagon took the next corner and drove toward the harbor.

Pacys pushed himself up, watching as the wagon disappeared. Without a second thought, he pursued, running as fast as he could. When he turned the corner, he came face-to-face with the first of the sahuagin who’d battled their way farther into the city.

The bunyip roared out in the harbor as the lead sahuagin ripped trident tines toward Pacys’s face.

Laaqueel followed Iakhovas through the darkness, the sounds of the battle out in the harbor far behind them now. She’d lost track of how many twists and turns they’d taken, how many other passageways they’d passed by, how many corpses they’d climbed over. She hated the enclosed atmosphere of the tunnels, especially the way she had to remain partially slumped over now that they’d wended their way more deeply into the undercity.

“Hold up,” he ordered.

She froze in place, a prayer to Sekolah on her lips as she held ready the gifts the Shark God had given her as his priestess.

The globe floating behind Iakhovas’s left shoulder pushed a dim jade glow across the distance, becoming brighter. At first Laaqueel didn’t see the big man at the other end of the tunnel, then the glow crept over him.