Bear glanced around the deck. Massive hands flexed in anticipation as he spoke. His voice seemed to rumble from deep within as he said, “You know what I’m after; everything else is yours for the taking!”
Knute leaped from the raider’s craft to stand at Bear’s side. “We hit ‘em hard, so you don’t have much time!” he shouted to the crew. As Knute had hoped, Bear’s men rushed to kill the Ishapian sailors, while Knute signaled to the handful from his old crew, who headed toward the hatches and the cargo nets.
An Ishapian monk, climbing up the aft companionway to answer the alarm, saw the pirates spreading out in a half-circle around him. His brothers followed after. For a moment, both sides stood motionless, as they measured one another.
Bear stepped forward and in a voice like grinding stones said to the first monk, “You there! Bring me the Tear and I’ll kill you quickly.”
The monk’s hands came up and moved rapidly in a mystic pattern while enchanting a prayer to summon magic. The other monks took up fighting stances behind him.
A bolt of white energy flashed at Bear, but vanished harmlessly just inches before him as the ship heeled over and started to dip at the bow. With a scornful laugh, Bear said, “Your magic means nothing to me!”
With surprising speed for a man his size, Bear lashed out with his sword. The monk, still recovering from the shock of his magic’s impotence, stood helpless as Bear ran him through as if cutting a melon with a kitchen knife. The pirates let loose a roar of triumph and fell upon the other monks.
The monks, though empty-handed and outnumbered, were all trained in the art of open-handed fighting. In the end they could not stand up to pole weapons and swords, knives and crossbows, but they delayed the pirates long enough that the forecastle was already underwater before Bear could reach the companionway leading below decks.
Like a rat through a sewer grating, Knute was past Bear and down the companionway. Bear came second, the others behind.
“We’ve got no time!” shouted Knute, looking around the aft crew quarters; from the abundant religious items in view, he judged this area had been given over to the monks for their personal use. Knute could hear water rushing into the hole below the forecastle. Knute knew ships; eventually a bulkhead between the forecastle and the main cargo hold would give way and then the ship would go down like a rock.
A small wooden chest sitting in the corner caught his eye and he made straight for it, while Bear moved to a large door that led back to the captain’s cabin. Movement was becoming more difficult as the deck was now tilting, and walking up its slick surface was tricky. More than one pirate fell, landing hard upon the wooden planks.
Knute opened the small chest, revealing enough gems to keep him in luxury for the rest of his life. Like moths to a flame, several raiders turned toward the booty. Knute motioned to two other pirates close by and said, “If you want a copper for all this slaughter, get up on deck, help open the hatch, and lower the cargo net!”
Both men hesitated, then looked to where Bear struggled to open the door. They glanced at one another, then did as Knute instructed. Knute knew they would find two of his men already at the hatch and would fall in to help. If Knute’s plan were to work, everyone would have to do his part without realizing that the order of things on the ship had changed.
Knute unlatched a trapdoor in the middle of the deck, and let it swing open, revealing the companionway leading down into the cargo hold. As he stepped through the opening toward the treasure below, the ship started to take on water, and he knew she was fated to go down quickly by the bow. He and his men would have to move fast.
Bear was smashing himself uphill against a door that obviously had some sort of mystic lock upon it, for it hardly moved under his tremendous bulk. Knute cast a quick glance backward and saw the wood near the hinges splintering. As he lowered himself into the hold, Knute looked down. He knew that there was enough treasure below to make every man aboard a king, for the odd man named Sidi who had told Bear about this ship had said that ten years’ worth of Temple wealth from the Far Coast and Free Cities would accompany the magic item Bear was to bring him.
Knute regretted having met Sidi; when he had first met him, he had no idea the so-called trader trafficked in the magic arts. Once he had discovered the truth, it was too late. And Knute was certain there was far more to Sidi than was obvious; Sidi had given Bear his magic amulet, the one that he refused to remove, day or night. Knute had always stayed away from magic, temple, wizard, or witch. He had a nose for it and it made him fearful, and no man in his experience reeked of it like Sidi, and there was nothing tender about that reek.
The cargo hatch above moved, and a voice shouted downward, “Knute?”