Don Bassingthwaite

The Yellow silk

PROLOGUE

Month of Marpenoth, Year of the Tankard (1370 DR)

Timbers groaned and Lady Swan, a caravel out of the port of Telflamm in Thesk, lurched again. Fa Pan lurched with it, slamming hard into a rough wall. Wood scraped the flesh of his arm. He thrust himself back to his feet with the butt of his spear and staggered on along the narrow passage. Sounds echoed down from the deck above. Shouts and screams: the brave sailors of their ship, the foul pirates of the black-sailed hulk thai had loomed up out of the cool autumn night. It was impossible to tell who was doing the screaming and who the shouting; the echoing sounds carried only chaos and death.

He knew-the captain knew, all of Lady Swan's crew knew-what the pirates were after. Down in the hold were bales of fine silk and eastern spices, the wealth of a trading expedition. How the pirates had known about the cargo and what route Lady Swan would take across the Sea of Fallen Stars was another question. The grim set of the captain's mouth had said much. There was a traitor among his crew.

Fa Pan ran. He had been permitted to stay above when the pirate ship was first sighted because of his fighting skill, but his companions, nothing more than merchants, would still be huddled in the cabin where the captain had ordered them to take refuge. If they remained there, they would only be trapped when the pirates came. Better they faced the foul outlaws bravely!

A hatch opened somewhere. Air came rushing through the passage. Another night it might have brought a welcome breath of fresh air. Tonight it brought the smell of death, a worse reek than the usual stifling stench of the ship's bowels. It was cold, too. A sorceress led the pirates, her spells calling down sleet to sweep the ship's decks and waves of ice to make wood hard and brittle. The fighting above was treacherous, as bad as anything Fa Pan had ever seen in years as a soldier. The pirates barely seemed to notice, but just threw themselves into the struggle in a slipping, sliding frenzy.

They were madmen. Fa Pan didn't know where he and his companions could go to escape them, but fighting had to be preferable to huddling in the dark. "Jen! Wei! Те Chien! Yu Mao!" he yelled ahead down the shadowed pas-sage. "Open the door! We need to help! Nung-"

His voice died on his lips. Fa Pan came to a stop so sharp that he nearly tripped over his own feet. There was a dim light ahead, splashing out from around a cabin door that stood ajar. The captain had ordered his companions to keep their refuge dark and their door closed tight. They would not have disobeyed. Fa Pan's stomach rose. He stepped forward silently. Spear ready to thrust, he pushed against the cabin door with one booted foot.

It swung open to carnage as bad or worse than that on deck.

The glow of a tiny, magical crystal that Wei prized turned the cabin into a wash of nightmare images. Fallen bodies cast horrid shadows. Blood mingled with the darkness to draw those shadows out into unnatural, oozing, weeping shapes. Almond eyes that had gazed on the splendors of the Great Empire of Shou Lung and the wonders of the Golden Way stared blankly at the rude wood of barbaric Faerun, far from their home. Fa Pan clenched his jaw. The pirates had already come for the merchants of Shou.

But how? He had passed no one in the passage. Breath hissed between his teeth. The traitor among Lady Swan's crew. Someone could have hidden down here before the attack with the intention of eliminating any resistance from below deck. But if that was the case, then the traitor might A foot scraped on the floor behind him.

Reflexes trained in the army of the Emperor sent him diving forward, twisting as he fell to bring his spear up across his body. The weapon jammed in the narrow confines of the doorway, but it was enough. A heavy blade bit into the spear shaft instead of him. Fa Pan kicked out blindly. His foot met flesh and produced a grunt of pain in the shadows. A second lashing kick, though, found only air as his attacker whirled away down the corridor. Fa Pan pulled himself to his feet using his own jammed spear as leverage, wrenched the weapon free, and ran after him. "You!" he shouted. "Stop and face me, murderer!"

He couldn't have said what language he spoke. His mind was clouded by rage. Ahead of him, the killer of his companions thundered down the passage, a vague form just out of spear's reach in the shadows. Fa Pan could see that he was a muscular man, though, a wicked blade clenched tight in each hand. He tried to remember who among Lady Swan's crew might fit that description, but his thoughts could only focus on one thing. Revenge. The big man must have realized that as well; even when the rocking of the ship sent him staggering from side to side, he didn't slow down.

Neither did Fa Pan. As his attacker leaped for the short, steep ladder that led to the deck above, the Shou lunged and thrust. His attacker kicked up, getting out of the way of the spear's sharp point just in time. The move sent him sprawling gracelessly through the hatch, however. Fa Pan snatched back his spear and swarmed up the ladder before his enemy could recover enough to launch a counterstrike. His attacker was rolling over onto his back. Fa Pan stabbed his spear down. "Die, treacherous-"

His spear froze in midthrust. There was light above deck, magic conjured by the pirate sorceress to illuminate the struggle. The radiance was broken by the chaotic, shifting shadows of sailors and pirates, but for the first time, Fa Pan saw the face of his attacker-smooth, noble, almond-eyed. Shou. And familiar.

Fa Pan gaped. "Yu Mao?" he breathed. His colleague, a man he had traveled with for the months it took to journey from east to west, looked up at him. He was smeared with blood: clothing, arms, hands, weapons-a pair of wide-bladed butterfly swords. Shou weapons. Fa Pan had seen him practicing with them almost every morning! Knotted around his thick neck was a black scarf. Black like the sails of the pirate ship. The traitor hadn't been among the crew of Lady Swan at all.

Fa Pan hesitated.

Yu Mao didn't. Big hands opened, dropping his swords, and reached up to seize the shaft of Fa Pan's spear just behind the head. Shoulders as wide as a westerner's tensed and heaved to the side. Fa Pan's feet slid on a deck still icy from the pirate sorceress's spells even as Yu Mao used the momentum to pull himself up and around. His leg snapped up into Fa Pan's belly from beneath. Air ex ploded out of Fa Pan's lungs. Gasping, he stumbled back and felt the shaft of his spear slide from his grasp. Yu Mao shouted something in a western tongue. All around them, pirates looked up then jumped back. A tiny child like figure-one of Faerun's halflings, though surely the wickedest Fa Pan had ever seen, with one eye covered by a leather patch-called something out in return, but all Fa Pan could understand was Yu Mao's answer.

"He's mine."

His gut twisted. The shaft of his captured spear thrust at him, but Fa Pan managed to dodge back. Yu Mao thrust again. And again, forcing him back across the icy deck. From the corners of his eyes, Fa Pan could see that the battle was almost over. There were more pirates standing than there were sailors. Pockets of combat were dying out; some of the surviving sailors were even starting to throw down their weapons in surrender. They might hope for mercy from the pirates, but Fa Pan couldn't see any hope of mercy from Yu Mao. The other Shou's eyes held the mad glint of bloodlust. Fa Pan gulped air and gasped, "Yu Mao-why?"

His feet hit something soft and heavy. A fallen body. He staggered, tried to recover.

The spear shaft cracked against his side then snapped up against the underside of his arm. Numbing pain washed through him. It was all he could do to stay upright and stumble back a few more slippery paces. His attacker stalked after him, spinning the spear around sharply and reversing it in his grasp. Before Fa Pan could dodge, Yu Mao lunged. Fire lanced through Fa Pan's shoulder. The force of the blow knocked him back; he slammed into the ship's rail then jerked forward a step as Yu Mao ripped the spear back out of his flesh.