Free Rising Tide by Mel Odom Page A

Butterfly this evening?” He meant it to come out harder, but he really wasn’t sure. There were a lot of sahuagin out there.
    “Not my ship,” Finaren answered. “Leastways, not while I’m able to draw a breath. Now be a good lad and put a shaft through that croaking monstrosity in the prow. They have us on speed, but they’re a brute while Butterfly’s a lady who knows how to dance. Still, they’re going to run us down if we let them. Even this puny wind won’t always be in our favor as we move around.”
    Jherek concentrated on his shot and loosed the fletchings. The arrow caught the sahuagin in the thigh, causing it to bark in pain. Still, it snapped the arrow off and went back to croaking cadence. The young sailor drew another shaft, watching the manta draw nearer. When the craft was less than thirty paces away, he released the second arrow.
    The fletching suddenly appeared in the sahuagin’s thickly muscled neck and the croaking halted immediately. It toppled over the side, clawing at its neck as it tried to dislodge the arrow.
    “Hard to starboard!” Finaren shouted.
    The boatswain yelled the order back and the ship’s crew and helmsman made the adjustment. Butterfly came about regretfully, losing the wind and slowing immediately.
    Jherek fired four more arrows, hitting targets scattered across the manta. The thick sahuagin hide turned two of his arrows as surely as chain mail when they didn’t hit flush. At the distance, it was almost impossible to avoid hitting something.
    Finaren held onto the railing as the ship crested a wave that slammed into her side. Quarrels from the sahuagin crossbows stuttered into Butterfly’s side and ripped through her sails. A man screamed only a few feet from Jherek, clutching the quarrel that suddenly appeared in his chest.
    “It burns!” he screamed, falling to his knees. “Selune watch over me.” He lasted only a moment, praying fervently to his goddess before he passed out.
    “Poison,” Finaren noted. “Umberlee take them deep what use such things.”
    Jherek fired another pair of arrows before the manta closed on Butterfly. For a moment, he thought the sahuagin craft was going to strike the cog, then the manta cleared Butterfly’s stern by inches, charging past. The sahuagin hurled spears and tridents as they went by, croaking angrily.
    The cog’s crew started to cross over to the port side.
    “Stay, you dogs,” Finaran shouted. “Helmsman, bring us around harder to starboard. I want a hundred and eighty degree turn.”
    “Aye, cap’n,” the helmsman called back.
    Butterfly came about. Sailcloth cracked overhead as the crew flipped the booms around. She caught the full breeze again in heartbeats. The spinnaker blossomed like a night rose in full passion and pulled the ship forward.
    “Crafty though them creatures may be,” Finaren said, “they still don’t understand the wind and what a kind mistress she might be.”
    Jherek watched as the sahuagin struggled to bring their craft under control. Finaran was right about the speed the sea devils had, and they would have outrun Butterfly had the attack led into a race.
    “Bring her around, helmsman, toward them sea devils,” Finaran commanded. “I want to shear her oars off on the port side. In another minute we’re going to wake them up to what a war at sea is all about.”
    The manta almost stalled in the water as the sahuagin struggled to regain control of their craft. They floundered, struggling to turn the manta around.
    “They got no draw on that boat,” Finaren said. “It sits flat on the water, and once they get it started in a direction, they can make it go fast, but maneuverability becomes an issue. Hawlyng …”
    “Aye, cap’n?”
    “That fire projector, Hawlyng, are you ready with it?”
    “Aye, sir.”
    Jherek glanced over his shoulder and saw the fire projector mounted on pivots come around to point at the stalled manta. The projector’s maximum range was forty yards. At the