Hero Page 4

  “If we’re sinking …” Regis started.

  “I’ll throw the crew over, one by one, until I’ve got few as I need to get my goods to the east,” Captain Mallabie interrupted. “And might that I’ll start with you.”

  Regis’s green face drained to white and Mallabie turned just enough to offer a playful wink at Wulfgar, who couldn’t help but grin.

  “She was joking, right?” Regis asked as he followed Wulfgar astern, hustling after Bricker.

  “Why would you care?” Wulfgar asked. “I thought you were full of genasi blood and could swim the length of the sea if needed.”

  Regis shrugged. “Well, there are other things in there, you know. Big things … hungry things …”

  “Bah, but you’d not be much of a meal, so fear not!” Wulfgar replied.

  They worked through the night, with Wulfgar following the directions of Bricker and Regis to properly angle the ship for each incoming wave. Mercifully, those waves began to diminish in size, and above them the clouds broke apart and the stars shone down upon them.

  The deck bustled with a line of crewmen hauling buckets, a cadence offered by the rapping of mallets down below as the ship’s carpenters tried to brace and secure the mast and get some tar and wood over the cracks.

  Still some hours before dawn, the crew slowed and Wulfgar’s work was all but finished. With the sea calm once more, he and Regis tied the tiller down. After helping Bricker reattach the wheel, they slumped beside it, all three trying to find some sleep.

  “No time for that!” came Captain Mallabie’s voice soon after—so soon that Regis wasn’t really sure if he’d fallen asleep or not. He looked up into the bright sky with bleary eyes, and it was wonderfully bright, the sun shining. Wulfgar yawned and Bricker jumped to his feet.

  “Back to buckets,” Mallabie explained.

  “I thought her patched,” said Bricker.

  “A bit, aye, but the damage is under, by the keel. We’ll slow it. Might be enough, might not.” She shook her head and none of the three were given a sense of confidence.

  Wulfgar climbed to his feet, and Mallabie looked him over carefully as he rose.

  “You a swimmer?” she asked.

  The big man shrugged.

  “Ye’re thinking o’ putting boys under Puddy’s Skipper?” Bricker asked with a gasp.

  Again Mallabie shrugged. “Might.”

  “Why not?” Wulfgar asked Bricker. Puddy’s Skipper wasn’t that large a craft, after all, and he was pretty certain he could get to the keel.

  “One up, one down, back down, back up,” Bricker explained. “Ye’d not be down there long enough to get anything done. Not down there in the dark. Not nothing worth doing! Ye’d have to whittle the pegs and all, not just slap a board atop it and hope!”

  “Better than nothing,” Captain Mallabie said.

  “Ye can’t tar it,” Bricker replied.

  “And I can’t dry dock her out in the middle of the damned sea, now can I?” the captain retorted, her tone reminding Bricker of the order of things out here on the water.

  “Beggin’ yer pardon,” the man said respectfully, and he slunk back.

  “It may take many dives,” Mallabie said to Wulfgar. “But I might need you to try.”

  “So, he’d have to go down there and shape pegs to set them in the cracks?” Regis asked.

  Mallabie shrugged again. “There’s no easy answer, and no certain fix,” she admitted. “But anything we can do to slow the leak will help to get us to shore …”

  She stopped because Regis was already stripping off his vest and shirt. He removed his rapier, too, but kept the dagger. With a nod, he dropped his fabulous blue beret atop the pile then hopped up on the rail and dropped from sight.

  “Look for him!” a shocked Captain Mallabie ordered, rushing to the rail.

  “You’ll be waiting for a long time,” Wulfgar said, and when the other two glanced back at him, they saw a knowing grin.

  REGIS KNEW, OF course, that he should be afraid. He was underwater in the open sea, the Sea of Fallen Stars, a place known for monsters and sea devils—all sorts of dangerous creatures. In this very sea, the halfling had found the most terrifying moment of his life—either of his lives!—when he had opened the coffin of Ebonsoul and faced the specter in the watery depths.

  And still he was not afraid. There was something freeing about being in the water, something natural and wholesome, something calling him back to his ancestors, to the very inception of life that led to his own.

  Even though it was mid-Eleint, the ninth month, with summer still holding on along the Dragon Coast and Gulthander and the other southern reaches of the sea, autumn was fast approaching. Cold wind was beginning to blow down from the Bloodstone Lands, and so the water out here was not so warm. But it didn’t matter. One of the benefits of his distant genasi heritage was that the chilly water didn’t really bother Regis, not as it would have in his previous life. He remembered the time he had slipped and fallen into Maer Dualdon in Icewind Dale, around this same time of the year. Had a fisherman not caught him in a net, he would have quietly and helplessly surrendered to death. The water up there was much colder than here, of course, but Regis understood that he could swim that Icewind Dale lake now. The cold water wouldn’t bite at him as it had before his renewal, wouldn’t take his life heat from his small body and slow him, slow him, until he expired.

  He had been given a great gift through the bloodlines of his mother.

  And so he was not afraid.

  His body moved instinctively, every sway, every limb working in harmony to propel him along. In his previous existence, he had been able to swim, of course—when he had to—but not like this. Now he was more akin to a true creature of the sea, graceful in his movements, swift in his underwater flight.

  Even his eyesight was stronger in the water now. Perhaps it was because of the many hours of his childhood he had spent far below the surface in the oyster beds, but Regis believed that his halfling lowlight vision was a bit different now, more accommodating and useful under the water.

  He didn’t understand the specifics of it, though, and he didn’t need to. He only needed to use those eyes and those wonderful lungs, and his fingers, so sensitive to currents, as he came up on the keel and inspected the hull beneath the mainmast.

  In short order he found the seam that was letting in the water. He could hear the song of the rushing water and so feel the flow of the sea reaching up into the boat.

  He came up for breath amidships, to find Wulfgar and Captain Mallabie staring down at him from the rail. From Mallabie’s relieved expression and Wulfgar’s grin, he could fathom the conversation they had shared during his too-long absence under the water.

  “A rope!” Mallabie called behind her, but Wulfgar grabbed her by the shoulder and shook his head, turning her back to regard the halfling.

  Spider Parrafin didn’t need any ropes. He scrambled easily up the side of the Puddy’s Skipper.

  “You were down there—”

  “Too long. Yes, I know,” Regis interrupted.

  “You are a priest, then, with magic to breathe underwater.”

  “No,” Wulfgar said, at the same time as Regis answered, “Something like that.”

  Captain Mallabie looked from one to the other, and both laughed.

  “I found the crease in your hull and believe I can do some good,” Regis explained. “A wedge, more a shim, this long.” He held his hands up, about a forearm’s length apart. “And a mallet. Then I’ll come back for a ball of tar.”

  Mallabie looked at him doubtfully.

  “A cooled ball,” Regis said. “I’ll just pound it in about the shim.” He shrugged. “Every bit of a plug I can get in there will help, I expect.”

  Captain Mallabie seemed out of questions, or perhaps she just recognized that this whole sequence of unexpected and apparently inexplicable events was better left unanswered at that particular time, and so she nodded and moved off to fetch the mal
let and shim.

  “You are a shipbuilder now?” Wulfgar asked when he was alone with the halfling.

  “I have no idea,” Regis answered with an honest and helpless shrug. “I’m just going to stuff as much as I can up into the seam and hope it slows the leak.”

  “And if it doesn’t?”

  “It will. The water will instruct me.”

  Wulfgar stared at him skeptically. “And if the water lies to you?”

  “Then I’ll swim,” Regis answered. “And I’ll give you a rope and tow you to shore.”

  Wulfgar grinned, but Regis, who had felt the strength of the flow into that crack firsthand, wasn’t smiling. He understood enough about the open waters to realize that Puddy’s Skipper was in dire trouble, that the wound under the ship was profound, and that the force of the water would only pry apart that seam more as time went on. The crew could never bail enough to keep the boat moving all the way to Delthuntle. They had barely passed the city of Urmlaspyr, with three-quarters of their journey still ahead of them, and in far more difficult seas than the protected stretch that ran from Suzail to this point.

  And probably with pirates yet ahead of them.

  Captain Mallabie anchored Puddy’s Skipper and Regis spent the rest of the day trying to hammer the shim into the seam he had found. He worked until the daylight began to fade, then went back to it the next morning. By midday, he had the shim hammered in, and a block of tar pressed in beside it.

  As soon as the halfling was aboard to report, Mallabie raised anchor and ordered the sails trimmed. Puddy’s Skipper once more glided across the waves, her sails full of wind.

  By the next morning, though, they had sailed out beyond the protective stretch and into more open waters, and the wind shifted to the northeast. For all their tacking and pulling, Puddy’s Skipper crawled along.

  “Too early in the season for this shift in the wind,” Captain Mallabie said to Wulfgar and Regis. She shook her head and blew a long sigh. “The gales of Uktar are a month too soon.”

  Wulfgar and Regis exchanged concerned looks. They didn’t need to know the specifics to understand Mallabie’s tone.

  “But that’s sometimes the way of it,” Mallabie explained. “Were that it wasn’t this trip, with the sea scratching hard to get in our hold, eh?”

  The statement was true enough, a point accentuated by a crewman crawling out of the hold and hauling a bucket of water up beside him. He looked to the captain resignedly, then tossed a slight scowl the halfling’s way.

  “I did as much as I could,” Regis heard himself whispering.

  “No one’s blaming you,” Captain Mallabie said. “But we’re needing a dry dock. I thought we could run it, but not in these headwinds and with the currents turning. We’ll be a month to Delthuntle, and we’ve not a month left afloat.”

  “We can’t,” said Bricker, coming up to join the three. “Water’s coming in faster. We’ll be low in the water and crawlin’ at best when we cross Pirate Isle, and there’s none there we’ll be outrunning.”

  “Where, then?” Wulfgar asked, holding his hand out to keep his clearly excited little friend in check.

  Mallabie shook her head, but glanced back to the northwest, the southern coast of Sembia. Two cities, Urmlaspyr and Saerloon, with dry docks and shipyards lay behind them. If they turned back that way, back to the west, with the wind filling her jib, Puddy’s Skipper could make either of them within two days.

  That wasn’t the problem, though, for those cities didn’t have extensive yards, and the waiting list would be long—months or even a year.

  Almost directly north of their current position lay Selgaunt, the capital of Sembia, with more extensive shipyards and perhaps a quicker access to a dry dock for repair.

  “Selgaunt’d be quickest in and out,” Bricker offered, following the same line of thought.

  “Aye, but then we’d be running the Sembian Straights, and we might not find ourselves alone, eh?”

  Bricker nodded.

  “Back to Urmlaspyr would be our safest route,” Captain Mallabie explained.

  “Day and more o’ sailing, straight back from where we come,” said Bricker, and Mallabie nodded. “And they’ll have no docks for us before next summer, to be sure.”

  “If then,” said Mallabie. “And sure that it will take every piece of gold we have.”

  “How long will we be in Selgaunt, then?” Regis asked, his voice growing desperate, and he surely wasn’t fond of where this conversation was going. If Uktar’s gales were already blowing, he feared that even if they could find an available dry dock, he would find himself stuck across the sea from Aglarond until the spring. He was acquainted enough with the trade routes and the merchant runs to understand that few tried the waters of the Sea of Fallen Stars in winter.

  “Better part of a tenday if we get right into a dock for repair,” said Bricker. “Likely, more like a pair o’ tendays.”

  “Then we’re into Marpenoth,” said Wulfgar.

  “With the cold winds of Uktar ready to bite us,” Bricker agreed.

  Captain Mallabie took it all in and nodded, her expression showing that she was beginning to sort things out. “You said you’d prove your worth if we found pirates,” she reminded the pair of passengers, and both Regis and Wulfgar nodded. “Or, should I say, if they found us. And they might well do just that in the straights.”

  “Selgaunt, then,” Regis reasoned, but Mallabie shook her head.

  “If we’re to run the straights, then we’re straight for Prespur Isle,” she decided, turning her gaze right back to the east. “She’s under the command of Cormyr, and I’ve a friend in the city of Palaggar who’s owing me a favor.”

  “Aye, Palaggar’s got the shipyard …” Bricker began.

  “And a garrison to protect it,” Mallabie reminded.

  “Fifty miles o’ open water,” Bricker warned. “Full o’ sharks, for they’re knowing that the pirates’re more than ready to feed ’em, eh?”

  “Prespur,” Mallabie said evenly. “And the town of Palaggar, and let’s hope that we can get Skipper sealed and seaworthy before the gales of Uktar come calling.”

  “And if not?” Regis dared to ask.

  “We’ll find you work in the town through the winter,” Mallabie explained, “and you’ll step into Delthuntle by the end of Ches.”

  Regis sucked in his breath and tried not to cry out in dismay. Captain Mallabie was talking about a delay of more than half a year! The Halfling didn’t think he could survive another six months without holding Donnola in his arms …

  But he couldn’t argue. He knew enough of the sea to understand that the dark waters didn’t much care for the schedules of humans or halflings or any other race, and those who disagreed and tried to force their timetables on the Sea of Fallen Stars were likely still here, forever far, far below.

  REGIS PULLED HIS furry cloak tighter across his shoulders and ducked his head under the side of his cowl, protecting himself from the cold northern wind as he paced the battlements at the top of the lone tower that stood on the highest point of the northern stretch of the island of Prespur. Snowflakes spun and danced in the crosswinds, and the halfling kept muttering his hopes that this wasn’t the beginning of another large storm—the last one had filled the bowl between this small mountain and the rest of the island, effectively cutting off the few inhabitants of the Tower of Stars from the town of Palaggar for nearly a tenday.

  He was lonely and miserable enough out here without losing the ruckus of the two taverns of Palaggar!

  “You’ll not find any attackers hiding under your cowl,” came Wulfgar’s voice behind him.

  Regis turned and peeked out from under the hood to see his huge friend’s approach. Wulfgar wore his typical garb: a cloak of winter fox hide and no more than a small helm upon his head. His arms were bare and often exposed, but if the cold wind bothered him at all, the Icewind Dale barbarian didn’t show it.

  “You’ve been too long away from the cold
winds off the Sea of Moving Ice,” Wulfgar remarked, coming up beside Regis and leaning on the parapet, looking out over the dark land and the sea beyond, facing right into the wind and caring not at all.

  “Too long in the warm halls of King Bruenor,” Regis replied, and walked up beside his friend to similarly look out across the dark winter night.

  Wulfgar looked at him. “Do you miss them?” he asked, and Regis nodded.

  “More than I thought I would. I’ve always loved them—all of them—but I knew my heart to be across this sea, out in the east and Aglarond.”

  Wulfgar nodded and patted Regis on the shoulder, reassuring him, “We’ll see them again.”

  “I do not regret coming,” the halfling replied, “though I didn’t expect to still be out here, in the middle of the Sea of Fallen Stars, with less than two tendays to the turn of the year.” He gave a little resigned laugh, again reminding himself that the timetable of the sea overruled the desires of wise men and rudely thwarted the desires of fools.

  “The diversion has shown us a new land and given us a season of peace. That is not a bad thing,” said Wulfgar.

  “I’ve been here before,” Regis replied. “Past this place, at least, on my journey west to meet upon Kelvin’s Cairn. It’s different now, though, I admit. When last I passed this way, Prespur was two islands. The water has receded greatly since the Sundering, joining the main island with this long rock we’re standing on. Traitor Isle, this one was called, if my memory is correct, and none lived here, though the tower was, of course, in place.” He blew a forlorn whistle into the wind. “So much has changed.”

  “Donnola Topolino is still there,” Wulfgar replied, obviously realizing the source of the halfling’s lament. “And the month of Ches is not so far away.”

  Regis grinned and nodded for the support.

  He looked past Wulfgar to the south and saw a line of torches coming their way. With a chuckle, he pointed, turning the barbarian around.

  “Captain Mallabie coming to your bed?” Regis asked.