Читать «THE SEA DEVIL S EYE (зксм-3)» онлайн - страница 80

"Begging the cap'n's pardon," a pirate spoke up, "but we ain't got a name for this ship. Unless you want to keep calling her Swamp Rose."

"Boatswain," Azla barked, "fetch me a bottle of ale."

When the man hurried back, Azla took the bottle. By then the sails on the surviving mast had latched talons into the wind. The riggings creaked steadily in protest as the ship got underway. The half-elf pirate captain climbed to the top of the forecastle stairs and turned toward her crew.

"The brine took Black Champion, but before she went, she helped us win this ship. I'll give this lady a name, but it's up to you to pay the steel and blood it will take to make brave men fear the sound of it, and cowards run from her shadow."

She smashed the bottle against the railing, spewing broken shards and foaming ale over the deck.

"All right," Azla said, "you lump-eared, misbegotten excuses for proper pirates, I give you Azure Dagger. Long may she sail!"

Thunderous approval roared up from amidships. Standing there, Jherek felt proud. He turned his gaze to Azure Dagger's stern and watched as the Cormyrean Freesail skimmed the water like a bird of prey.

*****

"This is taking far too long." Pacys grumbled.

He swam at Taranath Reefglamor's side. The Senior High Mage inspected the caravan that assembled in Sylkiir the day after the Sharksbane Wall fell. Below them, in a small valley behind a sheltering ridge of rock and kelp, the sea elves finished packing supplies onto flat sleds. The sleds were being pulled by narwhals and sea turtles on the journey to Myth Nantar.

The High Mage stopped and floated forty feet above the ocean floor. The incandescence from the sun lit the waters blue.

"Taleweaver," the Senior High Mage stated softly, though not with patience, "this journey will take as long as it will take. If we rush, we risk.''

"Senior, I know. Truly I do." Pacys searched for the words to explain the anxiety that filled him. "The music fills me and drives me on," he said, "and I can't help feeling that we're progressing too slowly."

"And if we should fail after we've been given this chance?" Reefglamor eyed the old bard directly. "Who would be left to take up arms in this pursuit?"

"I don't know," Pacys admitted.

Coronal Semphyr, who commanded Aluwand, and Coronal Cormal Ytham, who commanded Sylkiir, both stood against any involvement in Myth Nantar.

Reefglamor clasped Pacys's shoulder tightly in his grip and said, "To most of my people, Myth Nantar is a corpse, better off left entombed by the mythal that surrounds it."

"But the Taker is headed there," the bard reminded him.

"And if you're wrong?" the sea elf asked. "If I and the other mages have left our cities, our people, undefended against the Taker?"

"If you could but feel the power of the songs that fill my heart near to bursting, you would know that what we do is the right thing."

"My friend," Reefglamor said, "I do believe you. That's the only reason we are here now. But even as I believe in you, you must believe in me. We must not just begin this journey, we must finish it as well."