Whatever drove him from Velen and buried him with the ill luck that pursued him from the time he was born stayed with him. Whatever god, whatever demon, maybe it could make him leave his friends, but it couldn't control him completely.
In Athkatla, he'd given in to that force and to the voice that commanded him and made the trip to Baldur's Gate. After the Ship of the Gods exploded, he gave up. Now, he decided, he would fight that force until he was free of it or it destroyed him.
He surfaced and swam across to Steadfast. When he arrived, he pounded on the hull and called, "I need a ladder."
Captain Tarnar gazed down at him with suspicion. "I don't need to be berthing a curse," he shouted down.
Jherek gazed back up at the man, fanning the hurt and anger inside himself until it glowed white-hot. "If you don't take me aboard," Jherek said, "I'm willing to bet you don't make it out of here."
"We'll see about that."
Before Tarnar's words faded away, the water-figure spun quickly and winds whipped the ship, tearing rigging free.
Jherek pushed away from Steadfast, treading water until the ship settled again. The coiled rope ladder plopped into the water near the young sailor, and he wasted no time clambering up it. He stood on Steadfast deck totally drenched, water cascading around his feet.
"What manner of hell chases you, boy?" Tarnar demanded.
"I don't know," Jherek answered, "but there will be an accounting."
No sooner had the young sailor come aboard than the water-figure sank into the ocean and the wind returned, filling Steadfast's sails and shoving them forward again. Tarnar gazed upward, a wary look on his sun-browned features. "You think you can fight that?"
"Whoever I see at the other end of this trip," Jherek said, "who is in any way responsible for this will regret ever laying eyes on me."
Glawinn and Sabyna stood at the railing, looking out after him. He stared at them even after they were gone from sight, certain he would never see them again.
The wind flowed over him, bringing the sea's chill to his wet clothes. He ignored the cold, focusing on the hate that he'd finally allowed to take root in his heart.
XIV
21 Flamerule, the Year of the Gauntlet
The ixitxachitl swooped through the sea at Laaqueel with a suddenness that belied its great size. It resembled a manta ray, solid black across the top of its thin body and purple-white underneath. The wing membrane was fully eight feet across, not the largest of its kind the malenti priestess had seen, but close.
She kicked her feet, powering through the water and pulling her trident between her breasts. The lateral lines running through her body echoed the disturbance in the ocean around her. Spinning, one hand flaring out and catching the water in the webbing between her fingers, she avoided the demon ray's barbed tail. One of the Serosian ixitxachitls' tactics was to snare an intended victim's neck or torso and hold it captive.
Laaqueel popped her retractable finger claws from hiding, raked them across the ixitxachitl's tail, and lopped off a two-foot section.
Blood streamed from the creature's tail stub as it curled its wing membrane and rolled over with deceptive ease.
"Hateful elf!" it cried in its gravelly voice. It sped at her again.
Leveling her trident, Laaqueel sprang at her opponent. The ixitxachitl's mouth opened, over a foot wide and filled with serrated teeth.
She shoved the trident forward, burying the tines in the hard, rubbery flesh between the ixitxachitl's malevolent eyes. The creature's greater bulk propelled her backward, but she swung at the end of the trident safely out of reach of its hungry jaws.
She popped her toe claws and raked her opponent from just behind its mouth all the way to the bleeding tail stump. The creature's entrails spilled into the water in long ropes. The ixitxachitl screamed as death claimed it.
Laaqueel yanked her trident free and raked the surrounding water with her gaze. War raged around her as the ixitxachitls battled sahuagin from the outer and inner seas. Blood filmed the sea the way a surface dweller's smoke choked an enclosed building.
With their greater speed, the sahuagin were making short work of the demon rays.
It feels good to be back in the fray, doesn't it, little malenti?
Laaqueel listened to Iakhovas's voice inside her skull and answered, Yes.
In truth, all doubt and fear left her for the moment. There was no uncertainty. She was a priestess serving the will of Sekolah to battle and destroy enemies of the sahuagin.
The ixitxachitls had set up their Six Holy Cities in the Xedran Reefs, south of Thuridru. They ran from just off the coast of Alaghon on the Turmish coast to the shallows in the mouth of the Vilhon Reach.
A foraging party from the koalinth tribe called the Sea Hulks had been used as bait for the ixitxachitl military party Iakhovas staked out as a target. When the demon ray group attacked, the koalinth foragers fled east, leading their pursuers between the pincer attack of the combined sahuagin and Sea Hulk groups.
Driven before their ambushers, angered and confused- the Laws of Battle had not been adhered to-the ixitxachitls swam east, desperately trying to outrun the death that chased after them.
Her lateral lines warned Laaqueel of the attack coming from behind her. Praying to Sekolah, praying that her failing belief had not yet caused her powers to leave her, she turned and shoved her hand out.
Bright incandescence shot from her hand, causing steaming bubbles to form and dart rapidly for the surface little more than a hundred feet up. The ixitxachitl caught in the blast of power cooked, great blisters rising in a heartbeat, then bursting. The rancid taste of burned fat tainted the water Laaqueel breathed.
To the left, another sahuagin rode an ixitxachitl's back, holding onto the wing membrane with both fists as it took great bites from the screaming creature's back. Its shouts and prayers to Ilxendren, the Great Ray and god of the ixitxachitls, echoed in Laaqueel's ears.
Laaqueel pulled her weapon free and swam on, giving herself over to the chase. It was the closest she'd felt to normal in days.
The meeting with Vhaemas the Bastard had been five days ago. Now Iakhovas hoped to win the support of the Sea Hulk koalinth tribe south of the Xedran Reefs, completing a union of enemies around the ixitxachitls. The malenti priestess was present at only one of the meetings between Iakhovas and the koalinth chief, though she knew Iakhovas met with Dhunnir more times than that.
The fleeing ixitxachitls flexed their wings and skated only a few feet above the ocean surface, gliding over the clumps of coral that gave the Xedran Reefs its name. Sand ballooned out from under their great wings as they swam. Colorful fish darted from in front of them.
Ilkanar, the town the ixitxachitls were from, lay over a mile to the west. The attack was sprung far enough away from the devil ray city that no reinforcements could arrive quickly even if a messenger did get away.
The ixitxachitls swam through a stand of rocks and coral, hoping to escape their pursuers. Instead, they met Tarjana rising up from the ocean floor over the rise behind which it had been hidden.
The mudship's deck was filled with more sahuagin wielding crossbows. Even as the ixitxachitls turned to avoid slamming into the massive ship, the crossbow quarrels found their marks.
Iakhovas was among them. Laaqueel swam, watching as Iakhovas's arms became hard-edged with bone and dorsal edges that ran the length of the appendages. His finned arms and legs slashed through the ixitxachitls.
In minutes, the last demon ray had been executed. Sahuagin and koalinth alike made a meal out of their conquered enemies. Laaqueel swam above Tarjana's deck and surveyed the battlefield that stretched for almost a quarter mile. Bodies of sahuagin, ixitxachitl, and koalinth alike littered the water, twisted into inelegant poses.