The Shadowmask Page 11

  The raven disappeared from sight for a minute, then circled back in, landing again in the same spot. It let out a caw and took off again, repeating the circle.

  I peered off after it, trying to track its flight, trying to see what the bird so obviously wanted to show me. But I saw nothing but swirling sleet and darkness.

  Darkness …

  “Land ahead!” I screamed as loudly as I could. But my words were lost in the storm. I waved my arms, trying to signal the captain, or Robillard, or anyone below, but I was invisible in the blizzard.

  I scurried to the mast, shimmying along the rigging. I had to climb down and warn Deudermont.

  But I was not fast enough.

  With a tremendous crash, Sea Sprite slammed into the beach.

  I grasped with frozen hands for a rope, a beam, anything. The grinding noise of wood splintering on rock echoed even above the wind. My hands tangled in a pair of lines, and I regained my balance. I withdrew my hand to find blood on my forearm. The rope had cut me, but thankfully it was not deep.

  Then Lady Luck hit us. The jarring impact sent me spinning over the rigging and down toward the choppy sea.

  But as before, I drifted downward—like a feather on a light breeze. I wafted clear of the wreckage, until I landed with a roll on the beach.

  The sand was soaked, but no snow had accumulated. Numerous jagged rocks lined the shore. Sea Sprite had run aground against several of the rocks, I saw, but she had mostly hit sand and plowed forward. Half her hull was beyond the water line.

  Lady Luck had not been so fortunate. As far as I could tell, she had crashed against Sea Sprite, then bounced off some rocks. The waves were pulling her back out to sea, dragging Sea Sprite along with her, where they would both surely sink.

  I stumbled to my feet, dizzy but unhurt, just as the exodus began. Men on Sea Sprite threw down lines and climbed onto the beach. Those on Lady Luck simply jumped into the icy water and swam.

  Lady Luck’s hull breach had grown, and apparently had torn open the brig, for the pirate crew were among those swimming most desperately—battling waves and narrowly avoiding the rocks.

  I saw Lucky and Captain Deudermont walking down the beach. I breathed a sigh of relief. Tonnid was climbing down a line from Sea Sprite.

  But there was one person missing. Apparently Sea Sprite’s jail had not broken, and no one had thought to open it.

  I ran to the ship. Sea Sprite listed badly to port as she slid backward into the open sea. Tonnid was just dropping off the line as I started to climb up. He mumbled something at me as I approached. But I did not reply. I simply clambered right past him and pulled myself up onto the deck.

  The mainmast was leaning dangerously, ripping up planks from the deck. It looked as if it could fall into the water at any moment. The deck was slick with sleet. I ran as fast as I could manage, slipping often but always bouncing right back up to my feet.

  I reached the hatch that led below and threw it open. I raced down the ladder, through the hold, fighting against the ship’s list, feeling the slide, knowing I was nearly out of time.

  Joen sat patiently, calmly, on the brig floor. Her legs were crossed, her head rested on her hand, her elbow on her knee. She was the only person in the brig.

  “You came back for me,” she said quietly when I skidded to a halt at the iron-barred door of the cell. She made no attempt to rise though.

  “Of course I did.”

  She offered the slightest smile and rose slowly to her feet. “Took you long enough, eh?”

  “Well, you know, it’s kind of a long walk from the beach,” I said, scanning the wall where the cell keys would normally hang. The pegs were all empty. “We ran aground, didn’t you notice?”

  “Not much of a view from here,” she said. “So you got off the ship, then got back on? Not very efficient, are you?”

  “I got thrown off the ship, actually,” I said. I dropped to my knees and scrabbled around on the ground, looking for where the keys might have rolled.

  “What, your captain kicked you off? Oi, what did you do to him, then?” she said laughing, and she leaned against the bars. I could feel her watching my increasingly desperate movements.

  “No, I mean, literally thrown off the ship. When we ran aground.” There was no sign of the keys. A few crates were piled against the port wall; by their haphazard arrangement I could see that they had fallen there in the crash.

  “So how’re you alive, then? Seems that’d be a long way to fall.”

  “There’s a lot about me you don’t know,” I said. “I have powers you can’t even fathom.”

  She laughed. “More likely you landed in the mud, eh? I bet you sank in good and deep, and they had to pull you out by the hair!”

  “Then I’d be covered in mud, wouldn’t I?” I snapped, and she fell silent. I reached behind the crates, hoping the keys had tumbled there—and I found open air and cold, blowing wind. I pulled back, startled.

  “Something wrong?” Joen asked. For the first time there was a note of trepidation in her voice.

  I couldn’t answer. I just pushed against the crates, shoving them roughly out of the way and revealing a small but not insignificant hole in the wall, leading directly out into the storm.

  I turned back to Joen. Her face was ashen, her eyes wide. Without a word, she sat back down, put one elbow on one knee and dropped her head onto her hand.

  The ship continued to list, but I hardly felt it. I lost my balance and slipped to the floor, but I made no effort to right myself. My mind whirled, searching for an answer, for a way to open the cell without the key. But the brig was built solidly, and there was no way we could pry open the door. I didn’t know how to pick a lock, and I did not have the necessary tools anyway.

  The keys had fallen through the hole in the wall, I was sure of it. But there was no similar hole on the other side, within the prison, through which Joen could escape.

  I looked back at Joen. I wanted to say something, but the words sounded hollow in my head before they ever reached my mouth.

  With a jerk, Sea Sprite slid further backward, and I could feel the deck beneath my feet heaving in the high surf. Soon we would be out on the open sea. Lady Luck would not stay afloat much longer, and we would go down with her.

  Joen didn’t say anything, she just stared, her emerald eyes piercing the dim light. I thought she would be angry with me, thought she deserved to be angry with me. We had parted in anger, and I had done nothing to apologize.

  But there was no anger in her eyes. “Leave me,” she said, “before it’s too late.”

  I rose unsteadily. Could I abandon her to a watery fate? Could I leave her to die?

  I looked at her again, long and hard, and sat back down.

  Behind me, the door crashed open. I leaped to my feet and turned to see the most beautiful sight imaginable.

  “What’re ye doin’, Maimun?” said Tonnid. “Ship’s gotta be abandoned, ye know?”

  My mouth hung open, as dry as the Calim desert. So instead I pointed at Joen who had once again lifted her head from her hand and was slowly rising to her feet.

  “Oh, uh,” Tonnid stammered. “Well, that ain’t good, is it?”

  I started to answer, but Joen spoke first. “That’d depend on your perspective, eh?” There was a sharpness, a bitterness, in her voice.

  “Who’d think it good ye’re stuck in the cage?” Tonnid asked, patting himself all over with his hands. I thought he looked like he was trying to pat out some invisible flames, like Joen’s words had somehow burned him.

  “Oh, I don’t know, maybe the one who put me here, eh?” Joen said.

  “How can you say that!” I yelled. “I was following orders! I didn’t want to lock you up!”

  Joen turned to look at me, as if for the first time. “Oi, I wasn’t talking about you, then. I meant your bloody captain, eh? I done nothing wrong, and he throws me in here like, like a …”

  “Like a pirate,” all three of us said at the same
time.

  “Look, maybe—” I began.

  Tonnid gave a sudden shout. He was striding to the door, his hand held aloft, holding something small. Holding a key.

  “Where did you get that, Tin?” I asked, my voice barely a whisper.

  “Always have a a backup plan, ye know? Captain said I’d be the one he could trust with the spare, ye get it? In case something happens to the key.”

  Joen said what we both were thinking. “In case what happened, exactly?”

  “Oh, I dunno, in case th’ ship gets damaged, and the key falls out a hole in the wall, or something like that,” he answered sarcastically. The cleverness of his joke astounded me; the one we called Tin-head had always been thought of as a decent man, and a good sailor, but never a particularly sharp thinker.

  Of course, I could hardly make comparisons between me, the kid who had tried to free someone from the brig without a plan at all, and Tonnid, the man who had thought to bring a key.

  The key clicked in the lock. The door fell open into the cage with a loud bang. The ship gave a mighty lurch.

  And we three sailors ran for the deck.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  Joen, Tonnid, and I cleared the hatch not a moment too soon.

  Sea Sprite’s teetering mast gave a final creak and ripped from the deck. Lines snapped as the towering pillar toppled sidelong into the water. The deck gave a mighty buck, the force that had held it at such a deep list being relieved. Like a pendulum it rocked back and forth, back and forth, all the while drifting out on the waves with the outgoing tide. And bringing us with it.

  I ran across the deck, trying hard to keep my balance on the slick wood. Joen and Tonnid shambled along behind me. After many stumbles I reached the rail.

  Lady Luck had sunk almost fully beneath the waves beside us. Only her sterncastle and her masts poked above the water, the fouled rigging still pulling Sea Sprite out to sea. Our own ship had not completely cleared the beach, but it would not be long. The lines which had been dropped to the beach dangled in the water.

  I grasped one and swung a leg over the rail, but stopped halfway, stunned by the scene below.

  On the beach, the crews of the two ships had divided and were facing each other, their weapons drawn. On one side, the crew of Sea Sprite stood in a fighting formation, their swords raised. On the other side, the crew of Lady Luck, sodden from their swim, held rocks, broken planks of wood, and whatever other makeshift weapons they had picked up on the beach. They stood clumped together, shivering, with no sort of battle formation and no captain to guide their battle. What appeared to be an attempt to create a campfire sat in front of them. But it remained unlit.

  The crew of Sea Sprite advanced slowly, deliberately. I heard Captain Deudermont’s voice. I could not hear the words, but I knew it would be a call to battle. It was with some surprise that I noted Lady Luck’s sailors bristling, moving forward, their primitive clubs at the ready.

  “Why do they not throw down arms?” I asked Joen as she joined me at the rail.

  She paused to take in the scene, then snarled an unintelligible answer and went over the side, landing with a splash.

  “Wait!” I cried, leaping over the rail after her. I slipped off the rope but landed smoothly in the water, thanks to Perrault’s ring.

  Tonnid splashed down beside me. I rose, soaked, sympathizing with the crew of Lady Luck. But only for a moment.

  Then I saw Joen sprinting off to join the pirates, scooping up a couple of rocks as she went.

  I had nearly left her for dead in Sea Sprite’s brig just minutes before. I had nearly failed to save her. That would not happen again.

  “Wait!” I called, running to the battle lines. “Captain, wait!”

  I rushed forward, yelling all the way. Slowly, the sailors on each side saw me, and to a one they stopped in their tracks.

  By the time I reached the center of the field, directly in front of Captain Deudermont, over a hundred people—every one of them older than I was, every one of them a more experienced sailor—were staring at me.

  But would they listen?

  Captain Deudermont’s eyes were slit like daggers. “What is it?” he asked, his voice low.

  “You have to stop this, Captain,” I said.

  Captain Deudermont looked very un-captainly in that moment. His clothes were torn and soaked. His face was drawn into a tight scowl, accentuated by a bloody cut on his left cheek. I had seen him angry before, but not such a rage, pure and simple.

  “Once again, you dare question my orders,” he spat.

  I swallowed hard. “I’m sorry, sir, but you cannot do this,” I said quietly. “This battle, it’s wrong.”

  His eyes widened. “Wrong?” he said, his voice rising. “This crew destroyed my ship, killed my men, and we are the ones who are wrong? They deserve death, to a one.”

  The crew around him bristled, but only for a moment. Across the beach, Lady Luck’s crew advanced a few menacing steps, brandishing their weapons.

  I waved frantically at them to stop. The last thing I wanted was a battle, and I knew one was coming if I did not quickly make my case. I grasped around in my thoughts, searching for a reason Deudermont should not kill all these people.

  For a reason Joen should not die.

  Joen should not have been among those pirates at all, I knew. She was not like them. And I could not allow her to be killed because of them. But there was no way I could bargain for her life and not the others, not after she had run to them though the battle lines were so clearly drawn.

  “We fought them before, and you ordered them captured, not killed.” I said at last, trying to keep my voice calm and reasonable. “What’s changed?”

  “They sank my ship!” Deudermont roared, and the crew of Sea Sprite cheered. A great crunch echoed in off the water as if to accentuate his point, as Sea Sprite collided with Lady Luck once more.

  “We sank theirs first,” I said, and the pirate crew roared in approval. I shot them a glare to silence them, but they paid me no heed.

  “They sail out, pirates looking for plunder, and they attack us and they sink my ship. And we’re in the wrong? You’re a foolish child, foolish indeed, and I should never have let you on my crew! You’re no better than they are, no better than a pirate yourself!”

  “Lady Luck wasn’t a pirate ship. She was a treasure hunter,” I said. I felt bolstered by my own words, sure the captain would see my logic. “She was hunting a treasure that belongs to me. And I say we forgive her.”

  “Not a pirate ship?” Deudermont snarled. “You yourself named their captain as a pirate.”

  I pointed to the clump of pirates. “But the captain is not among them now.”

  Deudermont stepped toward me. “I don’t care where their captain is. When he ordered the attack on us, his crew became our enemy. Every one of them.”

  Including Joen. I felt myself deflate, felt my argument falling apart.

  Captain Deudermont glared at me. “I will not tolerate any more of this insubordination from you, Mister Maimun.” He motioned to the crew assembled beside him, and the one across the beach. “Choose your side.”

  I stared down at the sand. If only Joen hadn’t run from me. We could have stayed out of the fight. No one would have faulted us. Surely Captain Deudermont would have spared Joen’s life then.

  But she had chosen to side with the pirates to the death. And I was powerless to stop it.

  I felt a hand on my shoulder, and at first I thought I was imagining it. I turned to face Joen, standing beside me before the captain.

  “Our captain did not order an attack on your ship, sir,” she said. Her voice was quiet. “You fired first.”

  “She’s right!” I stared up at him. “The first shot was from our catapult!”

  “A warning shot,” he replied. “Which your captain did not heed. Your wizard attacked us from your deck. Or did he not count because he isn’t here either?” Deudermont was taunting me. I felt my face flush red
with hot anger.

  “Look, sir,” said Joen quite calmly. “I know you’re angry. You want revenge. But what good is revenge now? This storm’s sunk both our ships.”

  As she said that, a great form darkened the seaward sky. The hull of our ship, with its mast ripped up and laying on deck, slid ashore with surprisingly little noise.

  “Well, it sunk one ship then, eh? The other it just broke and beached.” Joen chuckled. She always managed to find the humor in the darkest of situations.

  “There’s no way your crew could repair your ship after fighting the rest of us,” Joen went on. “You’ve not enough men. And your crew’s already injured as it is.”

  The storm seemed to feel the mood changing. The wind howled a little less loudly; the sleet slowed to an icy drizzle. The dark sky on the edge of the horizon revealed a lighter patch where the sun was trying to poke its light through.

  “What are you proposing?” Deudermont asked. The rage had not entirely left his voice, but it had surely lessened. Slowly, his sword arm fell to his side.

  “We help you repair your ship, you give us a ride back to Waterdeep, eh?” Joen stepped closer to Deudermont. “No charges, no trial, nothing. We want to go home.”

  Deudermont was shaking his head. The idea of letting the pirates go surely did not settle well with him. But he could not argue with Joen’s logic. He needed every man on the beach. If he did not accept their help, we were all doomed.

  The clouds blew off the western horizon just enough to reveal a sliver of golden light. Black forms danced about in the setting sun, birds flying up in the light, near the top of the short hill that formed the center of the island.

  With a start, I realized they were ravens. They turned and flew closer, until they landed all as one, on the sand.

  My blood ran cold as they formed a circle, their wings touching. All nine stared up at me, directly at me, only at me.

  And then they were not ravens.

  Where the birds had stood were nine people, each wearing billowing black robes, their faces obscured by shadowmasks.